Vangarde

On the Need for a Critical Progressive Perspective in the Age of Obama

2008-11-11T09:00:00.016-05:00

As a Québécois of Haitain ancestry, it is quite human of me to be happy that Barack Hussein Obama, a biracial African-American man, has become president of the United States and how his historic election may enable Americans - white and black, Northerner and Southerner - to see and treat themselves differently in ways we cannot yet fully imagine.

However, as both a left-wing progressive and a critical thinker, I've always prefered that Obama be elected without any radical illusions. As Matt Taibbi of RollingStone.com reminded us with a cold shower way back in February 2007, Obama is first and foremost a politician regardless of how good a politician he has proven himself to be. Furthermore, although he will stir the US away from some of the authoritarian policies of the Bush administration, it doesn't change the fact that he, like Bill Clinton, is a "Third Way" centrist Democrat that will most probably govern from the American political center rather than the left.

So in order to be a credible force that can hold Obama to his liberal campaign promises, American progressives (and their allies and sympathizers in other countries such as myself) must resist getting swept up in the "Obamania" spreading all over the globe by remaining informed, engaged, and, most of important of all, critical.

This is why I very much appreciated this excerpt from an AlterNet.org article entitled Why Iraqis, Afghans, Palestinians, and Others Might Be Nervous About President Obama where Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez of Democracy Now! interviewed Australian investigative journalist, bestselling author, and documentary filmmaker John Pilger for his response to the election of Barack Hussein Obama as president of the United States:

John Pilger: Well, my response, Amy, is that really anyone was better than Bush and the Bush administration. Having experienced election night in the United States and then seeing the response here [in Britain], I feel that it's time that analysis and critical thinking took over and that those of us who wish to think that way, who wish to think critically, really should start addressing the -- this rather manipulated emotional response. I don't, in any way, cast doubt on the sincerity of the way people are speaking about the election of Obama around the world [...]. But I do think we have to consider President-elect Obama as a man of the system.

Michael Moore had it right when he said the other day, let's hope that Obama breaks all his election promises, as politicians generally do, because all his election promises, in terms of foreign policy, are a continuation of business as usual. And even if there is a return to what used to be called a multilateral world, I think there has to be critical analysis of the return to the pretensions of America as a peacemaker around the world. We had to endure this, and I mean endure it during the Clinton years, and I don't think that we, in the rest of the world, ought to have to endure it now through the Obama years, so that we have a continuation, if you like, of liberalism as a divisive, almost war-making ideology, being used to destroy liberalism as a reality, because that has gone on under so-called liberal presidents, from Kennedy to Clinton, Democratic presidents. And President-elect Obama suggests to us, in his promises, that he is going to continue that, bombing Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Someone said to me -- in fact, I was talking to my daughter when I got off the plane from Houston this morning, and she said, "What was it like over there?" And we were discussing it, and I said, "Well, it comes down to, I suppose, asking an Afghan child how they feel when their family has been destroyed by a 500-pound bunker-busting bomb dropped by the United States and dropped by President Obama, as he continues that war. I think that's the reality that we really have to begin to discuss now, having celebrated, and rightly celebrated, the ascent of the first African American president of the United States.

JG: And, John Pilger, what sign would you look for in these early days now, as Obama begins to move into a transition period, that would indicate to you that he would be trying to break, in one way or other, from this neoliberalism of the Clinton years?

JP: Well, it's difficult to know. Breaking from the Bush years is going to be the first, and I suppose breaking from the Bush years means actually talking to people and negotiating. I think breaking from, let's say, the Democratic years [...] the Clinton years will mean giving us a sign that the ideological, rapacious, war-making machine that has been built over many years and reinforced, as perhaps never before during the eight years of Bush, that that ideological machine does not transcend a loss of electoral power. You see, that's really the central issue here, that a kind of ideological consensus has been built under Bush. Now, yes, Obama has been voted in, but will that vote, will that -- will a new president transcend this ideological machine?

You know, during the campaign, there was almost nothing between McCain and Obama in foreign policy. Indeed, Obama went further. I mean, he even declared Jerusalem the capital of Israel. He threatened Latin America. He, at times, seemed to be going further than Bush. And, of course, people, realists, the so-called realists, would shake their heads and say, "Well, yes, he has to do that."

Look, in answer to your question, I think he has to -- in order to show that he is in any way different -- he has to start dismantling this machine, for example, going against his promise to continue the embargo on Cuba, to drop that; to reach out to the governments of Venezuela and Bolivia and Ecuador, each of which is under attack, subversive attack by the United States; to face the reality that Afghanistan is a colonial war; and to not let the so-called withdrawal from Iraq be a sham, that it leaves these so-called enduring bases. That, any one of those, any change in one of those, would indicate that Obama is truly different.

Union Leader for Obama Blasts Racism

2008-10-24T09:00:00.000-05:00

On the Ideology of Waste

2008-08-03T09:00:00.000-05:00

An insightful passage from French journalist Hervé Kempf's eco-socialist book Comment les riches détruisent la planète (How the Rich Are Destroying the Planet):

But we cannot understand the concomitance of the ecological and social crises if we do not analyze how they are two facets of the same disaster. The latter is a result of a system directed by a dominant class which todays has no other recourse than greed, no other ideal than conservatism, no other dream than technology.

This predatory oligarchy is the principal agent of the global crisis.

Directly through the decisions it takes. It seeks to maintain the established order, prioritizes the goal of material growth, the only way according to it to make the subordinate classes accept the injustice of its positions. Hence, material growth increases environmental degradation.

The oligarchy also exercises a powerful indirect influence by virtue of the cultural attraction its mode of consumption exercises on the whole of society, and particularly on the middle classes. In the most wealthy countries as in emerging countries, a large part of consumption responds to a desire for ostentation and distinction. People aspire to elevate themselves in the social ladder, which occurs through an imitation of the consumption of the upper class. The latter therefore diffuse in all of society its ideology of waste.

From Fear of Genetics to Genetics of Fear

2008-06-29T09:00:00.005-05:00

In the most sober response to common left-wing fears of reprogenetics, Henry Greely wrote:

When not speculating about future speciation events, Metzl seems most worried about fairness–that genetic enhancement would be a way for the rich and powerful to stay both, and to ensure their children’s wealth and power. This is a real issue, today and tomorrow. Fairness in access to life-enhancing activities like good education, adequate nutrition, safe streets, and decent health care need to be among our primary concerns today. But if, against my own expectation, human genetic enhancement becomes both effective and clinically available, the better policy response would be to assure that it is available to those who want it. This is both more practical and more ethical than trying to ban it. Just because educational opportunities are unequal doesn’t mean we should ban education.

Safety issues can and should be addressed, but as safety issues are for other biomedical technologies. In the United States that largely means through the Food and Drug Administration (though an FDA free from the political and budgetary constraints that have caused it to leave genetic testing, for example, almost totally unregulated). Europe, the United States, and Japan do not have identical safety regimes, but they have proved effective regardless. Why should genetic engineering be any different? And, of course, when coercion is a concern, the regulatory response that deserves primary attention is banning or limiting coercion, not eliminating the object of the coercion.

Some have a deeper concern about human genetic engineering, one Metzl does not expressly name but hints at–and one that is attractive to parts of the left in the United States and elsewhere. It is a concern about the naturalness of genetic engineering, about the need to "preserve" the human genome against its intentional modification by humans (as opposed to its constant and unintentional modification by chance and natural selection). This concern peeks through in Metzl’s apparent but unexplained eagerness to ban human reproductive cloning, even if it were shown to be safe.

But it is neither progressive nor prudent to launch complex crusades without close analysis or to be dazzled into seeing everything new as posing uniquely new problems and requiring dramatic action. Indeed, such arguments, in reproductive cloning and elsewhere, are being made by the "bioconservatives," centered, in the United States, in President Bush’s Council on Bioethics. This branch of the religious and philosophical right is convinced that biotechnology is dangerous because humans should not tamper with their human natures or their human selves, which were, after all, made in God’s image. The chief spokesman for the bioconservatives, Leon Kass, is famous for propounding the "wisdom of repugnance."

The parts of the American left–found in both activist groups like Greenpeace or California’s Center for Genetics and Society, as well as in various corners of academia–drawn to arguments against biotechnology are pulled in, I think, by the lure of naturalness. But we need to worry about what–and whom–an emphasis on "the natural" human may exclude. We cannot let "natural" be an important guide to what is "human," especially when religious fundamentalists and conservative bio-Luddites will be only too eager to provide their definitions of human nature. Progressives must be very wary of allying themselves with a line of argument that was used against freedom for slaves, votes for women, and tolerance for gays and lesbians

You can read the entire response in Democracy: A Journal of Ideas.

''Using Sci-Fi to Change the World''

2008-06-07T09:00:00.005-05:00

In her AlterNet column, Annalee Newitz has touched upon the heart of what I am trying to do with my screenwriting:

WisCon is the United States' only feminist sci-fi convention, but since it was founded more than two decades ago, the event has grown to be much more than that. Feminism is still a strong component of the con, and many panels are devoted to the work of women writers or issues like sexism in comic books. But the con is also devoted to progressive politics, antiracism, and the ways speculative literature can change the future. This year there was a terrific panel about the fake multiculturalism of Star Trek and Heroes, as well as a discussion about geopolitical themes in experimental writer Timmel Duchamp's five-novel, near-future Marq'ssan series [...] Perhaps the best part of WisCon is getting a chance to hang out with thousands of people who believe that writing and reading books can change the world for the better. Luckily, nobody there is humorless enough to forget that sometimes escapist fantasy is just an escape. WisCon attendees simply haven't given up hope that tomorrow might be radically better than today. They are passionate about the idea that science fiction and fantasy are the imaginative wing of progressive politics. In Madison, among groups of dreamers, I was forcefully reminded that before we remake the world, we must first model it in our own minds.

A Progressive Media Action Plan

2008-06-06T09:00:00.001-05:00

Jeffrey Chester writes:

It's time to develop a progressive digital media action plan, creating a system of broadband video networks, mobile social networks, buying-recommendation services and other new media properties committed and managed on behalf of social justice. Some may be for-profit, others a mix of nonprofit and revenue generation. The opportunity to bypass the media gatekeepers is before us, with support from this and future generations of youth accustomed to getting their news and culture online -- not from the media mainstream. An array of local and national Internet TV channels, including those operated by women and people of color, could provide the compelling content that will help drive the political debates (or at least keep them more honest!), and also illustrate the power of the creative imagination when not bound to protecting the status quo.

To do so will require expanding the definition of media reform, moving beyond public policy to engage in market-oriented strategies. Progressives have experienced great success with digital media -- including MoveOn.org's campaign for privacy rights on Facebook and its clever political quiz on the difference between Bush and John Mccain. Another good example is Web-based political organizing around the Jena 6 protests. But the steady consolidation of control online (including the cable and phone broadband access giants), and the growing power of interactive advertising as the Internet's business model, will have a profound impact on the evolution of our media system.

While the Internet and other emerging digital media will remain a source of diverse content, how well they promote the ideas and goals of progressives in the long-term will be greatly influenced by the commercial marketplace. Progressives can claim a great victory in the Net Neutrality debate. But we shouldn't rest on laurels and assume that our ideas and the online audience they can muster today will be there tomorrow.

US media history in the twentieth century illustrated how radio, broadcast television and cable were media with great promise, but once advertising took hold their public interest potential was soon scuttled. A hallmark of our new digital media landscape will be the flourishing of advertising-driven services; now practically everyone can create an ad for online or even for television. But whether this ad-supported system currently focused on generating corporate or individual wealth will help provide the resources to support long-term reform efforts will largely depend on our willingness to be progressive entrepreneurs.

Read the entire article on the AlterNet.

Cyberpunk Disobedience

2008-05-22T09:00:00.008-05:00

Annalee Newitz writes:

[W]e need organized crowds of people systematically and concertedly breaking the tethers on consumer technology. Yes, we need safe spaces like Wikipedia, but we also need to be affirmatively making things uncomfortable for the companies that keep us tethered. We need to build technologies that set Comcast DVRs free, that let people run any applications they want on iPhones, that fool ISPs into running peer-to-peer traffic. We need to hand out easy-to-use tools to everyone so crowds of consumers can control what happens to their technologies. In short, we need to disobey.

Read the entire article on the AlterNet.

''Inverted Totalitarianism: A New Way of Understanding How the U.S. Is Controlled''

2008-05-20T09:00:00.004-05:00

A provocative critique of techno-utopian hedonism can be found in Chalmers Johnson's diagnosis of how the U.S. has succumbed to an unacknowledged totalitarian temptation:

To reduce a complex argument to its bare bones, since the Depression, the twin forces of managed democracy and Superpower have opened the way for something new under the sun: "inverted totalitarianism," a form every bit as totalistic as the classical version but one based on internalized co-optation, the appearance of freedom, political disengagement rather than mass mobilization, and relying more on "private media" than on public agencies to disseminate propaganda that reinforces the official version of events. It is inverted because it does not require the use of coercion, police power and a messianic ideology as in the Nazi, Fascist and Stalinist versions (although note that the United States has the highest percentage of its citizens in prison -- 751 per 100,000 people -- of any nation on Earth). According to Wolin, inverted totalitarianism has "emerged imperceptibly, unpremeditatedly, and in seeming unbroken continuity with the nation's political traditions."

The genius of our inverted totalitarian system "lies in wielding total power without appearing to, without establishing concentration camps, or enforcing ideological uniformity, or forcibly suppressing dissident elements so long as they remain ineffectual. A demotion in the status and stature of the 'sovereign people' to patient subjects is symptomatic of systemic change, from democracy as a method of 'popularizing' power to democracy as a brand name for a product marketable at home and marketable abroad. The new system, inverted totalitarianism, is one that professes the opposite of what, in fact, it is. The United States has become the showcase of how democracy can be managed without appearing to be suppressed."

Among the factors that have promoted inverted totalitarianism are the practice and psychology of advertising and the rule of "market forces" in many other contexts than markets, continuous technological advances that encourage elaborate fantasies (computer games, virtual avatars, space travel), the penetration of mass media communication and propaganda into every household in the country, and the total co-optation of the universities. Among the commonplace fables of our society are hero worship and tales of individual prowess, eternal youthfulness, beauty through surgery, action measured in nanoseconds, and a dream-laden culture of ever-expanding control and possibility, whose adepts are prone to fantasies because the vast majority have imagination but little scientific knowledge. Masters of this world are masters of images and their manipulation.

Read the entire article on the Alternet.

Stop Badware!

2008-05-16T09:00:00.001-05:00

Here is an initiative I enthusiastically support and hope my readers will to. From the About Us page of the StopBadware.ogr website:

StopBadware.org is a "Neighborhood Watch" campaign aimed at fighting badware. We will seek to provide reliable, objective information about downloadable applications in order to help consumers to make better choices about what they download on to their computers. We aim to become a central clearinghouse for research on badware and the bad actors who spread it, and to become a focal point for developing collaborative, community-minded approaches to stopping badware.

Harvard Law School's Berkman Center for Internet & Society and Oxford University's Oxford Internet Institute are leading this initiative with the support of several prominent tech companies, including Google, Lenovo, and Sun Microsystems. Consumer Reports WebWatch is serving as an unpaid special advisor.

John Palfrey, Executive Director of the Berkman Center and Harvard Clinical Professor of Law, and Jonathan Zittrain, Harvard Law Visiting Professor and Professor of Internet Governance and Regulation at Oxford University, are StopBadware.org co-directors. Supporting them are an advisory board and working group made up of some of the top experts in the field, including Internet pioneers Esther Dyson and Vint Cerf.

For more information about the initiative, visit their Frequently Asked Questions.

Matt Bors on Torturers in the White House

2008-04-28T09:00:00.000-05:00

McLuhan Revisited

2008-04-25T09:00:00.009-05:00

The following is an edited version of one of my favorite passages from Arno Ruthofer's 1997 powerful paper Think for Yourself; Question Authority:

Most people in the cyberdelic counterculture of the 90s consider media philosopher Marshall McLuhan to be the grandfather of cyberpunk because as early as 1964 he was talking about a "global village" borne of communication technologies, a concept which evolved, over time, to his vision of the "[p]sychic communal integration of all humankind, made possible at last by the electronic media". Many cyber-philosophers (Leary, McKenna, Rushkoff, etc) were strongly influenced by McLuhan's work. [...] "McLuhan was never the technotopian that contemporary technophiles like to portray," writes Arthur Kroker. "To read McLuhan is to discover a thinker who had a decidedly ambivalent perspective on technoculture. Thus, while McLuhan might be the patron saint of technotopians, his imagination is also the memory that should haunt them."

This chapter, which is based on Kroker's essay "Digital Humanism: The processed world of Marshall McLuhan", offers a new way of understanding McLuhan and is, at the same time, a criticism of [cyberdelic] techno-utopianism. McLuhan's discourse on technology provides a brilliant understanding of the inner functioning of the technological media, which might help us "to break the seduction effect of technology, to disturb the hypnotic spell cast by the dynamism of the technological imperative".

According to McLuhan, the nature of technology is paradoxical: On the one hand, all technologies are extensions of the human being (e.g., the wheel is an extension of the foot); on the other hand, every extension by technology is simultaneously a "self-amputation" of the part of the body that is extended (by using the wheel/car we "self-amputate" our feet because we do not use them to walk any more). This means that we extend ourselves by self-amputation. According to McLuhan, the history of technological innovation can best be understood in terms of experimental medicine. In Understanding Media, he gives much attention to Hans Seleye's work in the field of stress, especially the biological phenomenon that under conditions of deep stress an organism "self-amputates" the organ effected by anesthetizing it in order to protect itself. (For example, when an organ of the body goes out it automatically goes numb. The organism automatically self-amputates it.) In Digital Delirium, Arthur and Marilouise Kroker explain McLuhan's medical approach to technology as follows:

McLuhan's historical account of the evolution of technological media was structured around a (medical) account of the evolution of technological innovation as "counter-irritants" to the "stress of acceleration of pace and increase of load. Just as the body (in Hans Seleye's terms) resorts to an auto-amputative strategy when "the perceptual power cannot locate or avoid the cause of irritation," so (in McLuhan's terms) in the stress of super-stimulation, "the central nervous system acts to protect itself by a strategy of amputation or isolation of the offending organ, sense, or function." Technology is a "counter-irritant" which aids in the "equilibrium of the physical organs which protect the central nervous system." Thus, the wheel (as an extension of the foot) is a counter-irritant against the pressure of "new burdens resulting from the acceleration of exchange by written and monetary media;" "movies and TV complete the cycle of mechanization of the human sensorium;" and computers are ablations or outerings of the human brain itself.

According to the Krokers, it was McLuhan's thesis that the motive-force for technological innovation was always defensive and biological: The nervous system tries to protect itself against sudden changes in the "stimulus" of the external environment by using the physical organs (that is, the technologies which extend these organs as) "buffers." In times of high stress, humans always invent new technologies - that is, they extend, or "outer," individual organs - so the nervous system can protect itself against the stress of acceleration of pace. But each "outering" of individual organs is also an acceleration and intensification of the general environment. So it seems that humans are caught in some kind of vicious circle. (high stress > we invent new technologies to protect the nervous system > acceleration of the environment > high stress...). According to McLuhan, in the electronic age we reached the culmination of this process. The environment changed so fast that "in a desperate [...] autoamputation, as if the central nervous system could no longer depend on the physical organs as buffers against the slings and arrows of outrageous mechanism", the central nervous system itself was outered in the form of electric circuitry (computers, the Internet, etc). In other words, the nervous system has gone numb. According to McLuhan, this outering of the central nervous system induced an unprecedented level of stress on the individual organism. McLuhan argues that the electric age is an age of "anxiety and dread" because we are unable to cope with this new situation; we are unable to understand the subliminal consequences of the fundamental changes in technostructure.

McLuhan tried to make people aware that it is futile to deny that technology exists and that it is actually a part of us. The only way we could really understand technology is to experience it and try to become aware how it changes our perception of the world. If we are to recover a new human possibility it will not be "outside" the technological experience, but must be "inside" the field of technology. According to McLuhan, only a sharpening and refocusing of human perception could provide a way out of the "labyrinth of the technostructure". In Digital Delirium, Arthur Kroker writes that "[McLuhan's] ideal value was that of the 'creative process in art,' so much so in fact that McLuhan insisted that if the master struggle of the twentieth century was between reason and irrationality, then this struggle could be won if individuals learned anew how to make of the simple act of 'ordinary human perception' an opportunity for recovering the creative energies in human experience". According to McLuhan, we will never fully understand the subliminal effects of technology and be able to use technology to increase our intelligence, creativity, and freedom, if we do not first become aware of the "double-effect of the technological experience" - that all technologies are simultaneously extensions and self-amputations of some human mental or physical faculty.

Is Facebook a Tool for Chaos or Social Change?

2008-04-24T09:00:00.001-05:00

Nancy Scola writes:

As an organizing tool, Facebook has had a couple of ugly weeks of late. Students at Michigan State University recently used Facebook to revive Cedar Fest, an old campus tradition that had been outlawed by local officials in the late 1980s after it frequently escalated from a party into something more akin to a riot. This time around, after violence ensued, East Lansing police officials vowed to hold those Facebook users accountable. News headlines ran along the lines of "Facebook: Tool for Chaos?" and the social-networking site was demonized as a means for the rabble to wreak havoc.

But it's only right to hold up the recent commotion in south-central Michigan against other Facebook-fueled collective action. It should be placed in context with how a Canadian university student named Alex Bookbinder has used the site to push back against state-sponsored violence in Burma. It must be judged against the worldwide attention to China's policy on Tibet that activists have used Facebook to generate in recent weeks. And it is only properly understood against the backdrop of those Colombian citizens, sick and tired of the fear that racks their country, who used Facebook to say no mas in more than one hundred cities on the very same day.

Facebook is revolutionizing the way collective political and social actions are organized today, blowing the doors off old models of how volunteer lists are amassed, funds raised, and messages honed and delivered. And no one is more surprised by that than Alex Bookbinder.

After traveling through Burma (also known as Myanmar) before his first year at university, Bookbinder returned home last fall and did something seemingly inconsequential: He initiated a Facebook group called Support the Monks' Protest in Burma to protest the Burmese military junta's harsh crackdown on the nation's religious caste. What's remarkable is that "global group" -- the social-networking site's parlance for designating a group open to all comers -- indeed became a global network of resistance.

Read the entire article on the AlterNet.

A "Marshall Plan For the Climate" To Avoid the Ecological Crash

2008-04-18T09:00:00.006-05:00

In the context of an interview about her new book 2030: The Ecological Crash, French environmentalist Geneviève Ferone said:

Money must absolutely be injected in a unequivocal, willful and, probably, permanent manner during 20 years to develop clean technologies. Clean technologies must not be the apanage of rich industrialized countries. The economic launch of emerging countries must also be with technologies that are clean, therefore ways of life and distribution of wealth that is equitable. If we do not become conscious of this major stake, we will hit a will. I tell myself that the survival instinct will kick in. The question is knowing at what moment. For countries of the South, the survival instinct is getting out of poverty. In developed countries, such as ours, we are realizing that purchasing power is eroding, that growth will slow down, that the cost of basic commodities will become more and more expensive, that the weather is going haywire, that biodiversity is diminishing... Maybe the next step will be to tell ourselves: "Let's put all our political will and all our investments in the economy in a growth that will be a clean growth." That doesn't mean going back to live in grottos and caves, not at all. But I think it really is time to invent a 4th industrial era."

''When Tech Innovation Has a Social Mission''

2008-04-13T09:00:00.002-05:00

John Markoff writes:

Steve Wozniak built the original Apple I to share with his friends at the Homebrew Computer Club, but it was his business partner Steve Jobs who had the insight that there might be a market for such a contraption. Indeed, for decades, Silicon Valley has been defined by the tension between the technologist’s urge to share information and the industrialist’s incentive to profit.

Now a new style of “hybrid” technology organization is emerging that is trying to define a path between the nonprofit world and traditional for-profit ventures.

They’re often referred to as “social enterprises” because they pursue social missions instead of profits. But unlike most nonprofit groups, these organizations generate a sustainable source of revenue and do not rely on philanthropy. Earnings are retained and reinvested rather than being distributed to shareholders.

The new companies, like thousands of Silicon Valley start-ups before them, typically begin as small groups of intensely motivated people dedicated to the goal of building a product or service.

Read the rest of the article in the New York Times online.

This is What a Feminist Looks Like

2008-04-07T09:00:00.000-05:00

''Web Has Unexpected Effect on Journalism''

2008-03-17T09:00:00.005-05:00

In a Wired article, David Bauder writes:

The Internet has profoundly changed journalism, but not necessarily in ways that were predicted even a few years ago, a study on the industry released Sunday found. It was believed at one point that the Net would democratize the media, offering many new voices, stories and perspectives. Yet the news agenda actually seems to be narrowing, with many Web sites primarily packaging news that is produced elsewhere, according to the Project for Excellence in Journalism's annual State of the News Media report.

For the report, go to www.stateofthenewsmedia.org/2008

''Appalling Spread of False Information Requires Stronger Media Accountability''

2008-03-12T09:00:00.002-05:00

Mark Weisbrot writes:

"A free press is supposed to function as our democracy's immune system against ... gross errors of fact and understanding," wrote Al Gore in his book, The Assault on Reason. But it doesn't - as Gore explains -- and that is what makes the mass media one of the most important obstacles to social and economic progress in the 21st century [...] The mass media fails us on many issues other than war and peace. Most Americans under 50 think they are never going to see their Social Security benefits. In fact, the probability that they won't get their Social Security benefits is about the same as the chance that there won't be a U.S. government when they retire - pretty close to zero. The media could correct this widespread false belief by merely inserting a few undisputed facts about Social Security when reporting false statements from politicians and interest groups. For example: "Social Security is more financially sound than it has been throughout most of its 71-year history"; or "Social Security's projected shortfall over the next 75 years is less (as a percent of national income) than what was fixed in each of the following decades: 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s."

Read the entire article on the AlterNet.

We Can Now Map Everything So Where Do We Go From Here?

2008-03-01T09:00:00.002-05:00

Jessica Clark writes:

the democratization of mapping and visualization tools generates possibilities for self-expression and social action. Two decades ago, postmodern theorist Frederic Jameson argued that developing new maps would be central for activists hoping to grapple with the emerging global business and communication systems. "[The] incapacity to map socially is as crippling to political experience as the analogous incapacity to map spatially is for urban experience," he wrote. The tools are now available. The question now: Where do we go from here?

Read the entire article on the AlterNet.

The Awful Truth

2008-02-23T22:07:00.013-05:00

Here are two of the most provocative quotes from controversial American intellectual Noam Chomsky's 2003 book, Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance:

Eliminating social programs has goals that go well beyond concentration of wealth and power. Social Security, public schools, and other such deviations from the “right way” that US military power is to impose on the world, as frankly declared, are based on evil doctrines, among them the pernicious belief that we should care, as a community, whether the disabled widow on the other side of town can make it through the day, or the child next door should have a chance for a decent future. These evil doctrines derive from the principle of sympathy that was taken to be the core of human nature by Adam Smith and David Hume, a principle that must be driven from the mind. Privatization has other benefits. If working people depend on the stock market for their pensions, health care, and other means of survival, they have a stake in undermining their own interests: opposing wage increases, health and safety regulations, and other measures that might cut into profits that flow to the benefactors on whom they must rely, in a manner reminiscent of feudalism...

and

We are instructed daily to be firm believers in neoclassical markets, in which isolated individuals are rational wealth maximizers. If distortions are eliminated, the market should respond perfectly to their ''votes,'' expressed in dollars or some counterpart. The value of a person's interests is measured the same way. In particular, the interests of those with no votes are valued at zero: future generations, for example. It is therefore rational to destroy the possibility for decent survival for our grandchildren, if by so doing we can maximize our own ''wealth'' - which means a particular perception of self-interest constructed by vast industries devoted to implanting and reinforcing it. The threats to survival are currently enhanced by dedicated efforts not only to weaken institutional structures that have developed to mitigate the harsh consequences of market fundamentalism, but also to undermine the culture of sympathy and solidarity that sustains these institutions. All of this is another prescription for disaster, perhaps in the not very distant future. But again, it has a certain rationality within prevailing structures of doctrine and institutions.

''When Change Is Not Enough: Seven Steps to Revolution''

2008-02-22T09:00:00.003-05:00

In light of my last post of 2007 in which I asked how the emerging technoprogressive mainstream can counter these two converging threats of Christian Fascism and fiscal irresponsibility to American democracy, I found Sara Robinson's article on When Change Is Not Enough: Seven Steps to Revolution quite pertinent to say the least:

Recently, I came across a pocket of sociological research that suggested a tantalizing answer to these questions -- and also that America may be far more ready for far more change than anyone really believes is possible at this moment. In fact, according to some sociologists, we've already lined up all the preconditions that have historically set the stage for full-fledged violent revolution.

It turns out that the energy of this moment is not about Hillary or Ron or Barack. It's about who we are, and where we are, and what happens to people's minds when they're left hanging just a little too far past the moment when they're ready for transformative change.

Way back in 1962, Caltech sociologist James C. Davies published an article in the American Sociological Review that summarized the conditions that determine how and when modern political revolutions occur. Intriguingly, Davies cited another scholar, Crane Brinton, who laid out seven "tentative uniformities" that he argued were the common precursors that set the stage for the Puritan, American, French, and Russian revolutions. As I read Davies' argument, it struck me that the same seven stars Brinton named are now precisely lined up at midheaven over America in 2008. Taken together, it's a convergence that creates the perfect social, economic, and political conditions for the biggest revolution since the shot heard 'round the world.

And even more interestingly: in every case, we got here as a direct result of either intended or unintended consequences of the conservatives' war against liberal government, and their attempt to take over our democracy and replace it with a one-party plutocracy. It turns out that, historically, liberal nations make very poor grounds for revolution -- but deeply conservative ones very reliably create the conditions that eventually make violent overthrow necessary. And our own Republicans, it turns out, have done a hell of a job.

Read the entire article on the AlterNet.

''The Tech of Obamamania: Online Phone Banks, Mass Texting and Blogs''

2008-02-17T14:43:00.008-05:00

The use of technology like blogs, mass texting and online phone banks has been key to Sen. Barack Obama's surprise sweep of recent primaries.

The Illinois senator's campaign has been making use of a range of technologies -- from ringtones to SMS -- to inspire Obamamania. And it's working. Obama's recent parade of victories in the primaries has given him a slight lead over Sen. Hillary Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination.

"They've been using [texting] to get out the vote, which is incredibly smart because it gives people a way to take immediate political action," says Julie Germany, director of the Institute for Politics, Democracy and the Internet. "It's just what mobile technology is suited for."

The Illinois senator is not the only candidate whose campaign is using online technology and mobile phones, but his has been one of the most effective in its embrace of new tech strategies.

Read more of Sarah Lai Stirland's Wired article.

Scientists Call on next U.S. President to End Political Interference in Science

2008-02-14T09:00:00.001-05:00

From a press release of the Union of Concerned Scientists:

A group of prominent scientists today called on the next president and Congress to end political interference in science and establish conditions that would allow federal science to flourish. Organized by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), the group released a statement at a press conference during the annual American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) meeting.

"Good federal policy depends upon reliable and robust scientific work," said Francesca Grifo, director of the Scientific Integrity Program at UCS. "When science is falsified, fabricated or censored, Americans' health and safety suffer."

The statement specifically calls for the next administration and Congress to ensure that federal scientists have the freedom to publicly communicate their findings; publish their work; disclose misrepresentation, censorship or other abuses; and have their technical work evaluated by peers -- all without fear of retribution.

Statement signatories include Nobel laureates and scientists with significant federal government experience, including former National Science Foundation Director Rita Colwell, former Presidential Science Advisor Neal Lane, and former National Institutes of Health Director Harold Varmus.

For the statement, go to: www.ucsusa.org/scientificfreedom

''10 Myths About Canadian Health Care, Busted''

2008-02-06T09:00:00.000-05:00

1. Canada's health care system is "socialized medicine." False.

2. Doctors are hurt financially by single-payer health care. True and False.

3. Wait times in Canada are horrendous. True and False again.

4. You have to wait forever to get a family doctor. False for the vast majority of Canadians, but True for a few.

5. You don't get to choose your own doctor. Scurrilously False.

6. Canada's care plan only covers the basics. You're still on your own for any extras, including prescription drugs. And you still have to pay for it. True.

7. Canadian drugs are not the same. More preposterious bogosity.

8. Publicly-funded programs will inevitably lead to rationed health care, particularly for the elderly. False. And bogglingly so.

9. People won't be responsible for their own health if they're not being forced to pay for the consequences. False.

10. This all sounds great -- but the taxes to cover it are just unaffordable. And besides, isn't the system in bad financial shape? False and True.

Read Sarah Robison's article on the AlterNet for more complete answers.

''Best Progressive Books of 2007''

2008-01-31T09:00:00.001-05:00

From an article by Don Hazen on the AlterNet:

1. Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army by Jeremy Scahill

2. The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism by Naomi Klein

3. Beyond the Green Zone: Dispatches from an Unembedded Journalist in Occupied Iraq
by Dahr Jamail

4. Blue Grit: True Democrats Take Back Politics From the Politicians by Laura Flanders

5. Road from Ar Ramadi: The Private Rebellion of Staff Sergeant Mejia by Camilo Mejia

6. The World Without Us by Alan Weisman

7. The End of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot by Naomi Wolf

8. Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic by Chalmers Johnson

9. Legacy of Ashes: A History of the CIA by Tim Weiner

10. Army of None: Strategies to Counter Military Recruitment, End War, and Build a Better World by Aimee Allison and David Solnit

A Technoliberation ''State of the Group''

2008-01-30T09:00:00.000-05:00

The Technoliberation Yahoo Group was created on August 19, 2005, by Tom Fitzgerald as a welcoming space for conversation, collaboration, organization, and debate among liberal, social, and radical democrats from around the world all of whom share the sense that emerging, converging, disruptive global technological developments threaten unprecedented harm while they promise unprecedented emancipation for humanity. Members are encouraged to think about the ways in which technology provokes us to rethink and reimagine the left wing of the possible.

However, unable to keep up with his duties as owner and moderator, Tom decided to leave after transferring ownership of the group to Dale Carrico and me, Vladimir De Thezier, on January 23, 2007. So we should all wish Tom the best of luck in his present and future endeavors.

In light of this passing of the torch and the beginning of a new year, I would like to take this opportunity to paraphrase many things Dale has said to remind everyone that Technoliberation is a space where there are many viewpoints and real disagreements, but where we all share:

1. A basic commitment to some construal of democracy;

2. Some form of robust rights culture;

3. Some sense that government is indispensable for the administration of justice and the nonviolent adjudication of disputes, and;

4. The sense that unaccountable concentrations of authority (whether governmental or corporate) are all to be resisted;

5. A real commitment to a culture that reflects the real diversity of the world about which we are talking;

6. Some recognition that technological development is not just an accumulation of useful inventions but is also always social struggle, and;

7. At least a willingness to concede that not all social constructionists are therefore anti-science relativists and that not all champions of consensus science are therefore naive realists.

We should all be aware and excited by the raison d'etre of this group which is an *outreach* effort to copyfighters, p2p-enthusiasts, free software advocates, democratic experimentalists, world federalists, basic income guarantee and zerowork advocates, pro-choice feminists, Afro-futurists, body modifiers, WorldChangers, Viridians and other pro-tech post-natural Greens, post-humanist humanitarians, responsible nanotech activists and nanosocialists, leapfrogging enthusiasts, freethinkers, morphological freedom fighters, hedonic experimentalists, psychedelic futurists, advocates for the differently enabled, prosthetic queers, and a whole rainbow coalition in a spectrum that exceeds the one visible to the unaided eye.

So let's all relentlessly advertise this space in our blogs and sites to keep a *diversity* of people (including people with whom we don't agree on everything that matters to us personally) talking here.

However, it has become a factoid that Technoliberation is a if not the "technoprogressive" group. However, I think it is important to clarify that, in the mind of the owners of this group, "technoprogressive" is or was used simply as a handy short-hand to describe democratic-left progressive politics that emphasize technoscience issues. In other words, techno + progressive = technoscience-focused progressive politics, in their various forms.

Therefore, in our view, "technoprogressivism" is NOT the ideology nor the identity of a marginal elite organization nor a parochial tribe of the Chosen nor an exclusive movement that should prevail over others and "sweep the world" nor a singular programmatic Cause nor a special interest group among others. Technoprogressivism is, or should be, a *tide* in the sense of "a clamor of different contending voices moving in broadly the same democratizing and emancipatory direction, but providing constant novel insights, constant checks on abuses, constant reinterpretations of our values, constant reinvigorations of our hopes, constant responsiveness to dangers" as Dale so eloquently put it.

Now, with all that being said, I've already expressed my concern that Technoliberation can risk becoming an obscure group debating esoteric issues that are irrelevant to the lives of everyday people or, worse, the echo chamber of some "real utopia" guru (whether he or she is me or someone else). So, on May 11, 2006, I created a poll in which I asked members of this group whether Technoliberation should take the steps to create:

1. A news magazine which inspires citizen action and advocacy on
techno-progressive issues.

2. Nonprofit organizations that primarily focus on education and
advocacy on important technoprogressive issues at a national level in
each of our respective countries.

3. National political action committees that mobilize people across
our respective countries to fight important techno-progressive
battles in the legislature.

4. All of the above.

5. A combination of the above.

6. None of the above.

Although 32% of respondents said "All of the above" while 45% said "A combination of the above", we failed miserably to act on these results, which is why I would like to know who among you have the skills, time, energy and even funds to help start some of these proposed projects.

I would also like to float around the idea of producing a videodocumentary on democratic-left progressive politics that emphasize technoscience issues. So if you want to collaborate with me on this project, contact me as soon as possible.

That's all folks. Let's see what this open conspiracy can lead to before the end of the 2000s(!).

JFK Was No Liberal Saint But Does It Matter?

2008-01-28T21:00:00.001-05:00

It seems that many old and young progressive liberal Americans were misty-eyed when they read Caroline Kennedy's poignant endorsement of Senator Barack Obama's candidacy in which she went so far as to compare him to her late father, U.S. President John F. Kenndy.

However, as historian Eric Paddon points out in his essay St. John the Liberal?, we should all remember that:

Those who argue the case for conspiracy in the JFK Assassination, frequently do so from the perspective that when JFK was killed, a great symbol of Progressive liberalism was snuffed out, and with his death, the hopes of revolutionary "progressive" reform in American society was snuffed out as well. Always, JFK is seen as one who would have been at home with the radicals of the late 1960s who marched against the war in Vietnam and demanded an end to the Cold War, and who argued for more action on social justice issues of civil rights and poverty. To the likes of an Oliver Stone, the murder of JFK represented a conspiracy by reactionary forces who wanted to stop the progressive ideas of greater action for social justice and the end of the Cold War from being implemented. As conspiracy author Jim Marrs put it:
But it may be worth considering what kind of America we might have today if President Kennedy had lived. Imagine the United States if there had been no divisive Vietnam War, with its attendant demonstrations, riots, deaths, and loss of faith in government. There may not have been the scandals of Watergate, other political assassinations, or the Iran-Contra Pentagon-CIA attempt at a "secret government." Detente with Communist Russia and China might have come years earlier, saving hundreds of millions of wasted defense dollars--dollars that could have been put to use caring for the needy and cleaning up the environment. Picture a nation where no organized-crime syndicate gained control over such divergent areas of national life as drugs, gambling, labor unions, politicians, and even toxic waste disposal. (Crossfire, p. 589).
The fact of the matter is that the real JFK bears no relation to the progressive martyr envisioned by Oliver Stone, Jim Marrs, and by numerous members of Internet newsgroups. In order to promote the idea of JFK as "progressive," they have asserted some strange things that even liberal historians would find very puzzling."

The irony is that, since Barack Obama may NOT be the progressive liberal so many Americans want him to be, he may in fact be like John F. Kennedy - a moderate centrist who promotes a culture of compromise which will always serve The Establishment quite well - in the same way Bill Clinton was...

*sigh*

10 Reasons Why the Fight for Reproductive Justice Is Still Essential in the U.S.

2008-01-24T09:56:00.001-05:00

From Jill Filipovic's piece, which was posted on the AlterNet, Feministe and the Huffington Post.

10. Abortion is already inaccessible and out of reach for many women.

9. If abortion is illegal, then women and doctors will be criminals.

8. Anti-choicers care about controlling your sex life, not saving babies.

7. They're going after your birth control, too.

6. Illegal abortion kills women.

5. Legal abortion is good for women, men and families.

4. Poor women and women of color are disproportionately impacted by anti-choice policies.

3. Choice isn't just about not giving birth -- it's about your right to have children.

2. Anti-choicers are also going after the rights of women around the world.

1. Reproductive justice is about you.

Eulogy for the Homo Technologicus

2008-01-23T09:00:00.000-05:00

According to science historian Yves Gingras, the world in which we live is a product of human reason. It is the combination of technique and reason which gives birth to technology. Homo sapiens being homo faber, everything that surrounds him can only be artificial that is to say craftwork. In this precise sense, the human animal is necessarily counter-nature, anti-nature, the most paradoxical product of Nature. He has become, in sum, a homo technologicus.

Going Old School: A Technoprogressive Re-Affirms Himself As A Progressive

2008-01-22T09:00:00.001-05:00

As all my colleagues and a few of my readers know, I was previously involved in a futurist subculture that I increasingly became uncomfortable being identified with due to its following fundamental flaws:

1. An undercritical support for technology in general and fringe science in particular;
2. A distortive "us vs. them" tribe-like mentality and identity; and
3. A vulnerability to unrealistic utopian and dystopian "future hype".

I therefore recently renounced my adherence to this futurist ideology and movement to overcome both the cognitive dissonance and conflicts of interests that came along with my involvement.

However, in 2004, perhaps through a leap of consciousness or, more probably, due to our moving in the same circles, both rhetorician Dale Carrico and I had already seen the need for new language to make real progress in discussions of emerging technology.

We both began using the term "techno-progressive" to describe our stance of active support for the convergence of technological change and social change.

Techno-progressives such as us had and still have the audacity to assert that technological developments can be profoundly empowering and emancipatory when they are regulated by legitimate democratic and accountable authorities to ensure that their costs, risks and benefits are all fairly shared by the actual stakeholders to those developments.

However, as Carrico recently pointed out on his excellent blog Amor Mundi, it was only a question of time before a rogues gallery of techno-utopian futurists began co-opting the term "techno-progressive" in the service of their (desperately-needed) public relations efforts.

Since fighting to reclaim this term from this clique would be another one of those lost causes that does not contribute to technodevelopmental discourse and politics, I simply won't.

I'm far more concerned with a troubling fact reported by Drew Westen in his book The Political Brain: The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation:

[A]ll good narratives. . . [are] easy to tell and retell. [They are] easy to write. Everyone knows exactly what someone who calls himself or herself a conservative purportedly values: military strength, tax cuts, minimal government, fiscal restraint, traditional values, patriotism, and religious faith. This clear message starts conservative candidates with 35 to 60 percent of the vote before opening their mouths, depending on the state or district.

It isn't easy to write a similar story of what it means to be a Democrat -- something very ominous for the Democratic Party. We don't even know what to **call** people on the left. Liberal has accreted the same kinds of connotations as Negro did in the 1960s, and progressive is probably the best alternative, but it sounds, well, retro.

So let's make progressivism hip. As a creative professional, I am aware of the power of the media to create great social change. My goal is to deliver compelling entertainment through films and documentaries that will inspire audiences to get involved in the issues that affect us all.

So if you want to collaborate, contact me and let's see if together we can broadcast a cool voice for the Next Left's struggle for technology and democracy.

De-Immanentize the Eschaton?

2007-12-31T00:00:00.001-05:00

Since I ended my technoprogressive manifesto with a dire warning about "barbarians within our midst", I've been asked by a few of my readers to more clearly identify the threat to democracy I am so concerned about. Two words: Christian fascism.

From the Amazon.com book description:

Twenty-five years ago, when Pat Robertson and other radio and televangelists first spoke of the United States becoming a Christian nation that would build a global Christian empire, it was hard to take such hyperbolic rhetoric seriously. Today, such language no longer sounds like hyperbole but poses, instead, a very real threat to our freedom and our way of life. In American Fascists, Chris Hedges, veteran journalist and author of the National Book Award finalist War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning, challenges the Christian Right's religious legitimacy and argues that at its core it is a mass movement fueled by unbridled nationalism and a hatred for the open society.

Hedges, who grew up in rural parishes in upstate New York where his father was a Presbyterian pastor, attacks the movement as someone steeped in the Bible and Christian tradition. He points to the hundreds of senators and members of Congress who have earned between 80 and 100 percent approval ratings from the three most influential Christian Right advocacy groups as one of many signs that the movement is burrowing deep inside the American government to subvert it. The movement's call to dismantle the wall between church and state and the intolerance it preaches against all who do not conform to its warped vision of a Christian America are pumped into tens of millions of American homes through Christian television and radio stations, as well as reinforced through the curriculum in Christian schools. The movement's yearning for apocalyptic violence and its assault on dispassionate, intellectual inquiry are laying the foundation for a new, frightening America.

American Fascists, which includes interviews and coverage of events such as pro-life rallies and weeklong classes on conversion techniques, examines the movement's origins, its driving motivations and its dark ideological underpinnings. Hedges argues that the movement currently resembles the young fascist movements in Italy and Germany in the 1920s and '30s, movements that often masked the full extent of their drive for totalitarianism and were willing to make concessions until they achieved unrivaled power. The Christian Right, like these early fascist movements, does not openly call for dictatorship, nor does it use physical violence to suppress opposition. In short, the movement is not yet revolutionary. But the ideological architecture of a Christian fascism is being cemented in place. The movement has roused its followers to a fever pitch of despair and fury. All it will take, Hedges writes, is one more national crisis on the order of September 11 for the Christian Right to make a concerted drive to destroy American democracy. The movement awaits a crisis. At that moment they will reveal themselves for what they truly are -- the American heirs to fascism. Hedges issues a potent, impassioned warning. We face an imminent threat. His book reminds us of the dangers liberal, democratic societies face when they tolerate the intolerant.

If we accept Hedges's conclusions as sound, one question that immediately comes to mind is what possible national crisis could realistically occur which Christian fascists could take advantage of?

Chalmers Johnson, author of Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic, may provide us with an answer in an AlterNet interview:

If you had asked me what I think actually will happen -- and again, I cannot foresee the future -- the economic news encourages me in this thought. I believe we will stagger along under the façade of constitutional government until we're overtaken by bankruptcy. Bankruptcy will not mean the literal end of the United States, any more than it did for Germany in 1923, or China in 1948, or Argentina just a few years ago, for 2001 and 2002.

But it would mean a catastrophic shake up of the society, which could conceivably usher in revolution, given the interests that would be damaged in this. It would mean virtually the disappearance of all American influence in international affairs. The rest of the world would be greatly affected, but it would begin to overcome it. We probably would not.

That's what I think is the most likely development, given the profligacy of our government in spending money that it doesn't have, in borrowing it from the Chinese and the Japanese, and the defense budgets that are simply serving the interest of the military-industrial complex.

So without sounding like one of the alarmists I am often critical of, how can the emerging technoprogressive mainstream counter these two converging threats to American democracy?

''Freeing the Dark Data of Failed Scientific Experiments''

2007-12-28T09:00:00.000-05:00

In 1981, the New England Journal of Medicine published a Harvard study that showed an unexpected link between drinking coffee and pancreatic cancer. As it happened, researchers were anticipating a connection between alcohol or tobacco and cancer. But according to the survey of several hundred patients, booze and cigarettes didn't seem to increase your risk. Then came a surprise: An incidental survey question suggested that coffee did increase the chances of pancreatic cancer. So that's what got published.

Those positive results, alas, were entirely anomalous; 20 years of follow-up research showed the coffee-cancer connection to be bunk. Nonetheless, it's a textbook example of so-called publication bias, where science gets skewed because only positive correlations see the light of day. After all, the surprising findings are what makes the news (and careers).

So what happens to all the research that doesn't yield a dramatic outcome — or, worse, the opposite of what researchers had hoped? It ends up stuffed in some lab drawer. The result is a vast body of squandered knowledge that represents a waste of resources and a drag on scientific progress. This information — call it dark data — must be set free.

For the past couple of years, there's been much talk about open access, the idea that more scientific publications should be freely available — not locked behind firewalls and subscriptions. Thanks to the Public Library of Science (PLoS) and other organizations, that notion is making headway. Liberating dark data takes this ethos one step further. It also makes many scientists deeply uncomfortable, because it calls for them to reveal their "failures." But in this data-intensive age, those apparent dead ends could be more important than the breakthroughs. After all, some of today's most compelling research efforts aren't one-off studies that eke out statistically significant results, they're meta-studies — studies of studies — that crunch data from dozens of sources, producing results that are much more likely to be true. What's more, your dead end may be another scientist's missing link, the elusive chunk of data they needed. Freeing up dark data could represent one of the biggest boons to research in decades, fueling advances in genetics, neuroscience, and biotech.

Human Rights Has a New Media Hub on the Internet

2007-12-10T09:00:00.000-05:00

A new website started by the human rights organization WITNESS is an online media hub for human rights, offering activist tools for campaigns and groups working to end human rights abuses.

''The Most Anti-Tech Organizations in America''

2007-12-02T09:00:00.000-05:00

Since the techno-progressive issues discussed in the following PC World article by Mark Sullivan is the raison d'être of the Vangarde blog, I am taking the liberty of posting here in full:

The Most Anti-Tech Organizations in America
These groups line up against tech interests in courtrooms and corridors of power across the country.
Mark Sullivan, PC World
Sunday, December 02, 2007 08:00 PM PST

Their names keep coming up over and over again in courtrooms and corridors of power across the country--those groups whose interests always seem to run counter to those of technology companies and consumers. They come in many forms: associations, think tanks, money-raising organizations, PACs, and even other tech-oriented industries like telecommunications.

The tech issues that they're concerned with are what you might expect: digital rights management and fair use, patent law, broadband speed and reach, wireless spectrum and network neutrality. I talked to a good number of tech and media policy insiders in Washington, D.C.--mostly off the record--to find out who these groups are, how they operate, and who pays their bills. We'll start with the biggest offenders first and work our way down.

1. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA)
Issue: Copyright and Fair Use

The Internet economy should be a boon for digital media companies and for those of us that like to buy our music and video online. It's also a very powerful way to connect with people of like mind with a view toward learning about new things to watch and listen to. Unfortunately, the content owners in the record and movie industries have mainly seen the Web as a platform for piracy, and have mainly failed to adapt their businesses to the realities of online, as one lonely industry executive recently admitted.

The record and film industries are represented in legal and policy matters by two major organizations--the RIAA and the MPAA--with some key individual companies like Warner Music Group and Disney acting on their own behalf in certain cases. The RIAA and MPAA have exercised considerable political and economic influence to push a legal and policy environment in which the content owners keep tight control of the way their content is distributed and used. "I think it's fair to say that their approach is that any innovation that they haven't signed off on is bad," says Fred von Lohmann, senior intellectual property attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Lots of Lawsuits

Companies distributing music or video in ways the studios or labels don't approve of have quickly found themselves on the wrong end of a lawsuit. There are many examples. Perhaps most famously, the RIAA sued Napster in 1999, charging the file sharing service with "contributory" copyright infringement. After losing several major court decisions, Napster (as we knew it) folded in 2002. At around the same time the RIAA sued and shut down Michael Robertson's (MP3.com) BeamIt service, which helped users to upload and store music from their CD collections in an online locker.

Earlier this year Warner Music Group filed an infringement lawsuit against the social networking site imeem, which allowed its members to post songs on their profile pages that could be streamed by other users. San Francisco-based imeem was forced to settle out of court and now can stream only songs from labels with which it has contract agreements. All other songs run for 20 seconds and then stop.

On the video side, some major copyright infringement lawsuits against YouTube (sued by Viacom) and MySpace (sued by Universal) are still in progress. If these suits end badly, they could further restrict our access to online video and even endanger the video operations of YouTube and MySpace. Video copyright lawsuits are also in progress against the DivX Stage 6 and Veoh online services.

A Chilling Effect

The suits are a real threat to the next generation of bi-directional, participatory Web services that are the promise of Web 2.0. The Electronic Frontier Foundation's von Lohmann believes this year's suits against imeem and others are just "the tip of the Web 2.0 litigation iceberg."

Von Lohmann also thinks the suits may hurt legitimate companies while leaving the real content pirates untouched. "I think it's fair to say that copyright threats from entertainment industries are exerting a serious chilling effect on several companies that are trying to do the right thing, while having little impact on offshore companies that are more adventurous," von Lohmann says. "In other words, the innovation that should be fueling our economy is now fueling someone else's."

Leverage in Washington

The RIAA and MPAA have worked very hard in Washington to apply the aggressive posture they use in the courts to the policy-making arena. Their attorneys and lobbyists are constantly meeting with members of Congress and presenting their side of issues of concern (mainly copyright-related) in front of regulatory bodies like the Federal Communications (FCC). And, most would agree, they've been fairly effective at getting their way. "Their combined muscle in lobbying and inter-corporate pressure is pretty substantial," says von Lohmann says.

Both organizations have their own staffs of lobbyists in Washington, but both also contract with numerous outside lobbying firms. In 2006 alone, the RIAA reported lobbying expenses of $1.5 million, while the MPAA reported $1.8 million. The RIAA retained the services of 13 outside lobbying firms in 2006 to help make its case to lawmakers, while the MPAA used 17 outside lobbying firms.

The content owners also donate to candidates for federal office as a way of furthering their long-term agendas. For example, Time Warner gave $17 million to various candidates for federal office between 1989 and 2005, says the Center for Responsive Politics. The Walt Disney Company donated almost $9.5 million during that period.

Whether or not the RIAA's and MPAA's tactics have really helped the entertainment industry is debatable. Their legal and lobbying tactics have put real limitations on the way that we consumers are allowed to use the digital content we purchase, causing many of us to wonder if we truly own the digital content we buy. The digital rights management (DRM) software that the content owners wrap around our music and video files often prevents us from playing media on all of our devices, copying it, or owning it forever. This has stirred up a lot of resentment, even as file sharing continues to be rampant around the globe.

2. The Pharmaceutical/Biotech Industry
Represented by Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers Association (PhRMA) and Patent Attorneys
Issue: Patent Reform

Over the last ten years it's become increasingly obvious that the system we have for patenting new tech ideas is broken. The number of tech patents granted by the U.S. Patent Office has gone way up over the past decade, while the quality of those patents has gone way down, most analysts agree.

A bad patent can mean one that covers too broad a swath of technology, preventing others from innovating in that area. It can also mean patents granted for ideas that are obvious--ideas that aren't really innovative, but just take the next logical step in the development cycle. When such bad patents are granted in a certain tech area, it can take away the incentive for other technologists to innovate and invest in that area. That's bad news for those of us who expect new and better tech toys every year.

Problem is, tech is not the only industry that uses the patent system to protect intellectual property. Every other industry uses it too, and some of them feel strongly that it's working just fine. Enter the pharmaceutical industry, tech's unlikely adversary in the battle over patent reform. The pharmaceutical industry (and its attorneys) might end up directly affecting the state of personal technology for you and me.

"Basically, two constituencies oppose patent reform: The biomedical industry--pharmaceutical and biotech companies--who rely on patents and want them to be as strong as possible, and patent lawyers, who are both resistant to change in general and likely fearful of how reform will affect their practices," explains Stanford Law Professor Mark Lemley.

Big Pharma in Washington

The big pharmacy companies--think Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer, and Merck--have megabucks not only to pay attorneys for patent work, but also for lobbying lawmakers to keep the system the same. Pfizer, for instance, reported $12.2 million in lobbying expenses for 2006 alone.

Much of the pharmaceutical and biotech industries' lobbying work is done by or through the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers Association (PhRMA), whose members include practically all of the big pharmaceutical companies with interests in the U.S. market. PhRMA reported spending $18.1 million in lobbying expenses in 2006 (ranking it the 7th biggest lobbying organization in the U.S. for the year), most of which was used to hire the services of 42 external firms to help influence regulatory bodies and lawmakers. PhRMA has spent more than $115 million on lobbying since 1998.

Big Pharma also exerts its influence by donating to federal candidates and political parties, although the biggest money comes directly from the large pharmaceutical companies themselves, not their industry organization, according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics. For instance, Pfizer has donated $11.6 million to various candidates from 1989 through 2006, and Bristol-Myers Squibb gave $6.8 million to various candidates during the same period.

But, as Stanford's Lemley points out, Big Pharma isn't the only dog in the fight. Thousands of patent attorneys represented by the American Intellectual Property Law Association (AIPLA) also are fighting patent reform. With the sheer number of patent grants soaring in recent years, being a patent attorney has never been more lucrative. Not only do inventors need legal help to file for patents, but there are far more legal squabbles between companies over patents than ever before; this also keeps patent attorneys' phones ringing.

Battling the Bill

This year both PhRMA and the AIPLA have been out lobbying against a new bill called The Patent Reform Act of 2007, which would change the patent rules in favor of tech interests. The bill was passed by the House in September. A Senate version of the bill was passed in committee but awaits a hearing and possibly a vote by the full Senate.

Unlike some other tech policy issues, the players involved with patent reform are not playing rhetorical games on the issue, at least not right now, says one House staffer. "You have a difference in philosophy between pharma/biotech and tech," the aide says. "Both sides are being totally forthright about what they want, but both sides have such different philosophies and they're so different in the way they use patents that it's almost irreconcilable."

3. Big Telco Companies, Industry Group USTelecom
Issue: Network Neutrality

Network neutrality principles are rules that prevent large Internet service providers (ISPs) like AT&T, Verizon, and Comcast from giving one Internet company's traffic priority over another's. Up until now, the Internet has been a fairly neutral place--we have equal access to any (legal) content we choose to access. But if the big ISPs begin giving preferential treatment to the highest-paying Internet sites, they could effectively make it harder for us consumers to access some of the vast content and services on the Web. The next Google and Yahoo of tomorrow, now gestating in garages and dorm rooms across the country, likely wouldn't have the funds to buy enough bandwidth to compete with the Google, Yahoo, and other giants of today. That's bad for us, because the companies of tomorrow might simply be better.

The phone companies had at one time reserved the right to parcel out bandwidth as they saw fit, as evidenced by the words of former AT&T CEO Ed Whitacre in late 2005:

"How do you think [Internet companies are] going to get to customers? Through a broadband pipe. Cable companies have them. We have them. Now what they would like to do is use my pipes free, but I ain't going to let them do that because we have spent this capital and we have to have a return on it." And so began the network neutrality fight we know and love today."

What Smoking Gun?

But so far there's been no smoking-gun evidence that the "Internet tollbooths" Whitacre alludes to are being set up on a large scale--that major net neutrality breaches are taking place at the big ISPs. We've seen only borderline offenses like traffic Comcast's recent throttling back of BitTorrent file sharing. But Comcast may have singled out BitTorrent traffic not because it's BitTorrent traffic or because it's file sharing traffic, but because peer-to-peer traffic eats up huge amounts of bandwidth--both upstream and downstream. Still, many people believe that some type of traffic discrimination is inevitable, and that network neutrality principles must be codified into law to prevent it.

Some say that the absence of network neutrality guarantees in existing law is already hurting tech companies, and, by extension, tech consumers. "It fosters an area of uncertainty," says Art Brodsky of Washington D.C.-based public interest group Public Knowledge. "The point is you have to wonder, if you're a technologist, and you'd love to get this [service] on the Web, and if I'm competing against another company that has a sweetheart deal with the phone company and they move my packets to the back of the line, am I going to get screwed?"

The companies that own the big broadband pipes remain willing to fight hard against a law restricting their right to discriminate on their networks. A major pro-network neutrality bill cosponsored by Senator Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, and Senator Byron Dorgan, D-North Dakota, failed to pass last year, in part because of a massive lobbying campaign by Big Telco and it allies. The two Senators reintroduced the bill again in January, but little action has been taken on it. The phone companies have already done a lot of talking on Capital Hill to prevent passage of a net neutrality law. And, it should be said, the tech and consumer groups pushing for a law have not always stated their case clearly enough to move lawmakers and their constituents. That situation, I believe, is getting better, but a smoking gun--an obvious net neutrality breach by a large ISP--will likely be needed for Congress to pass a law.

Legions of Lobbyists

The big telcos are very influential in Washington, and rarely loose a fight over something they really want. "They've got armies of lobbyists that work for them," Public Knowledge's Brodsky says. "They've got regiments of lobbyists that are hired guns. They've got zillions of dollars to spread around town in campaign contributions and other ancillary supports."

AT&T has a large contingent of in-house lobbyists in Washington, but also farms out much of the work. AT&T reported almost $19.1 million in lobbying expenses last year, hiring 25 outside firms to do its bidding in the capital. That makes AT&T the fifth-largest lobbying spender in the U.S. for 2006, followed closely by the telcos' industry group USTelecom, which spent $18.4 million during the year. Verizon and Verizon Wireless together reported $13 million in lobbying expenses, and hired some 45 outside lobbying firms in addition to internal lobbying staff.

One interesting thing about these lobbyists is their somewhat incestuous relationship with the offices in which they lobby. Brodsky says Verizon and AT&T routinely hire lobbyists from the staffs of senators and representatives. "If you look at the lobbying forms for the companies, you'll see a lot of people that worked for very influential members of Congress and senators and things." One example is Tom Tauke, a former congressman from Iowa who now heads up Verizon's lobbying efforts in Washington. Tauke has long been an outspoken critic of network neutrality legislation.

The big phone companies also give generously to the campaigns of federal election candidates. In fact, AT&T was the 2nd largest political donor from 1989 to 2006 at almost $38 million, again according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics. Verizon donated $15.5 million to candidates in federal elections between 1990 and 2005.

4. Verizon, AT&T, Progress and Freedom Foundation
Issue: Broadband Penetration

Just as railroads and highways did in the past, broadband and mobile communications can dramatically increase the productivity and efficiency of the economy. The U.S. government has taken a largely deregulatory approach to the broadband ISP market, based on a belief that competition will compel large ISPs like AT&T, Verizon, and Comcast to sell broadband at the speeds and price points that consumers want.

But this hands-off approach is being called into question. The reason is this: Back in the 1990s the U.S. led the world in broadband penetration and speeds, but today the U.S. has fallen to 15th among the world's developed countries in terms of broadband penetration, according to data collected by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

A study by the Communication Workers of America finds that the average download speed of Internet connections in the U.S. is 1.9 megabits per second. The cost of DSL or cable connections in the U.S. ranges from $15 to $40 per month. Meanwhile, Tokyo residents can buy a 100-mbps connection for the equivalent of $10 per month.

The phone companies and their allies didn't much like the news from the OECD, and have for months engaged in a campaign to discredit the OECD report. The phone companies also get help from a vocal little spin house called the Progress and Freedom Foundation, which holds seminars, puts out position papers on various telecommunications issues, and lobbies on these issues as well. One of the main jobs of PFF's commentators has been to espouse the efforts of the phone companies to spread broadband access, while discrediting the OECD report. My sources in Washington tell me that it's common knowledge that a sizable part of PFF's roughly $3 million annual budget comes from the big phone companies. The Supporters page at the PFF Website is a Who's Who of large telco and cable interests.

No Incentive for Growth

The OECD data notwithstanding, the phone and cable companies have had little real incentive to improve the speeds, prices, and reach of their broadband services. Today most Americans, if they have any choice of broadband providers at all, can choose service only from a cable or a telephone company ISP. Meanwhile, the FCC and the courts have consistently ruled that the cable and telephone companies are under no legal obligation to share their broadband lines with would-be competitors. Some argue that federally collected monies and tax incentives helped pay for those lines in the first place, and that the current owners of those facilities have an obligation to share them. Only real competition, not the short-term interests of shareholders, can compel ISPs in the U.S. to boost broadband speeds and lower costs to world-class levels.

The FCC doesn't help the situation by defining broadband as anything above a decidedly slow 200 kilobits per second. That low threshold allows the FCC and phone and cable companies to make some rosy claims about the state of broadband in the U.S., such as this one, proudly posted at the USTelecom site: "The total number of new high-speed lines (200 kbps in at least one direction) increased by 61% from 51.2 million at the end of 2005, to 82.5 million at the end of 2006."

The effect of slow broadband speeds and poor availability on tech is obvious. A whole generation of innovative businesses that depend on real broadband is still waiting to come into existence. For now, consumers will have to wait for new, lightning-fast information, media, and telecommunications services that could change the way we work and play.

5. Large Wireless Carriers and...
the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association (CTIA); TV Broadcasters and the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB)
Issue: Wireless Spectrum

In 2005 Congress passed the Digital Television and Public Safety Act of 2005 (DTV Act), which mandates that the TV broadcasters convert their signals from analog to digital by February 2009. That will make available some tracts of analog wireless spectrum that are valued highly by competing Internet, telecommunications and broadcasting interests. Such spectrum is considered to be "beachfront property," partly because the signals that can be sent over it travel over long distances and can be received well indoors.

The 700-MHz War

The FCC will auction off 60 megahertz (MHz) of that spectrum within the 700 MHz band in 2008. A coalition of tech and public interest groups led by Google, called the Coalition for 4G in America, earlier this year argued hard for the FCC to apply a set of "open" standards to the entire 64-MHz chunk, so that it would support any device or any application. The FCC eventually agreed to that requirement for about half of the 64-MHz band of spectrum. Google acted at least partly out of self interest: The public Internet, whether accessed via landline or wirelessly, is Google's sole means of getting its services to the public, so of course it wants its search service to work over as many connected devices as possible.

Google and its coalition also asked the FCC to require the eventual licensee of the spectrum to share its network with competing wireless service providers. Under pressure from big wireless carriers like Verizon Wireless and Sprint, the FCC refused this last request. The wireless carriers want to be able to utilize and market that spectrum in the same way they do now--so that only certain devices work on the system in certain markets, while they remain under no obligation to share the network with other providers. The carriers accused Google and friends of simply trying to devalue the spectrum.

They also accused the Google coalition of trying to drive down the value of the spectrum to those who might build new networks on it. Here's the spin from the wireless carriers' industry group, the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association (CTIA): "CTIA opposes encumbering this valuable spectrum with unnecessary regulations and restrictions that place bidders on unequal footing, limit the utility of the spectrum, and ultimately drive down the value to consumers and the U.S. Treasury." CTIA says the spectrum, unencumbered, will "drive technological innovation, bring advanced wireless data services to rural America, and . . . contribute billions to the U.S. Treasury."

Google and its coalition partners believe that an "open" and nationwide wireless network using the 700-MHz band could create a third broadband pipe, an alternative to the cable or DSL lines sold by the cable and telephone companies. Of course, the big wireless incumbents are against this because they don't want the competition from a "third pipe." This is a worrisome situation, since the one person who could require that the band be open, FCC chairman Kevin Martin, has a long history of deregulatory and Big Telco-friendly rulings. Indeed, in Washington, if Big Telco really wants something, it usually gets it.

Between the Channels

After the broadcasters' transition to digital TV in 2009, the spectrum between 54 MHz and 698 MHz (between channels 2 through 51) will be used for digital television, but there will be spaces left over between the channels that could be used for other purposes. Those are called "white spaces," and the FCC is considering auctioning off licenses to that spectrum, too.

Technology companies like Microsoft are hoping to use some of that white space to connect low-power, mobile devices (such as laptops and iPhone-type PDAs). But the TV broadcasters, represented by the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB), have launched a large lobbying campaign against using white spaces for Internet access. The NAB, through its lobbyists and TV ads, is saying that such devices will definitely interfere with the digital TV signal, which they say would result in poor picture quality for the folks watching at home.

Most recently, the FCC's Office of Engineering and Technology tested a couple of devices to see if the broadcasters' fears are reasonable. The "High Tech White Spaces Coalition" (a collection of companies that includes Google, Microsoft, Dell, and Intel) submitted a device to be tested, as did Philips Electronics.

The results were complex, and left some doubt about the tech companies' claims that the devices would not interfere. The NAB immediately seized on this as a victory, but most observers would agree that more testing is necessary to decide the issue. The FCC has made no final decision, and the jury is still out on whether white spaces can be used to improve connectivity in the U.S.

What You Can Do

The outcomes of the legal and policy fights described above will have a direct affect on the quality, price, and functionality of the technology we consumers use in the coming years. If you care about such things, there are a number of ways to put yourself in the arena. The first thing is to get informed about the tech issues being discussed locally and nationally--PCWorld.com is a good place to start for that. Once you're armed with enough information to be dangerous, you can research a little further and discover exactly where your local, state, and federal representatives stand on the tech issues you care about. If you don't like what they say, e-mail, call, or write them and ask them to explain.

The Internet has also become a powerful tool for tech advocacy, and for virtually any major tech issue, you'll find a number of informational sites. These sites typically offer up-to-date news, opinion blogs, and studies to keep you informed, as well as petitions, contact information for elected officials, and form letters to help you make your views known.

Finally, tech policy is a major plank in the platform of any local, state, and national candidate for public office nowadays. Using resources like On The Issues.org, you can learn where the candidates stand on the tech issues that affect you, before giving them your vote.

Bright Green Solutions to Stopping Global Warming

2007-11-29T10:00:00.000-05:00

From self-described socialist United States Senator from Vermont Bernie Sanders:

Scientists now tell us that the crisis of global warming is even worse than their earlier projections. Daily front-page headlines of environmental disasters give an inkling of what we can expect in the future, multiplied many times over: droughts, floods, severe weather disturbances, loss of drinking water and farmland and conflicts over declining natural resources.

Yet the situation is by no means hopeless. Major advances and technological breakthroughs are being made in the United States and throughout the world that are giving us the tools to cut carbon emissions dramatically, break our dependency on fossil fuels and move to energy efficiency and sustainable energy. In fact, the truth rarely uttered in Washington is that with strong governmental leadership the crisis of global warming is not only solvable; it can be done while improving the standard of living of the people of this country and others around the world. And it can be done with the knowledge and technology that we have today; future advances will only make the task easier.

''iPolitics Is Everywhere -- Feel Empowered Yet?''

2007-11-29T09:00:00.000-05:00

While opening political discussion through digital tools is worthwhile, virtual democracy needs broader reforms to address basic inequities in the political system. Many barriers remain: from laws passed in more than a half-dozen states (including Florida and Ohio) that discourage groups like the League of Women Voters and ACORN from running voter registration drives, to lingering questions about vote fraud involving electronic ballot machines, to the disproportionate influence that the electoral college system grants to voters in "swing states." If as much was being invested in opening up our voting system as is in opening up our media system, real change could happen.

''Carbon Capture: Miracle Cure for Global Warming, or Deadly Liability?''

2007-11-26T09:00:00.000-05:00

Technology to siphon off carbon dioxide from power plants and insert it into rock formations has the government, industry and many leading environmental groups wiping their brows and sighing, "phew." They say "carbon capture and storage" could be one of the central keys to unlocking how the world beats back climate change.

But for a growing list of critics, injecting carbon dioxide into the earth is as risky as sticking a Botox needle into a brow -- who really knows what's going on under the skin? And because this climate cure comes with no prescription to radically change the world's energy diet, skeptics say carbon capture and storage (CCS) is a diversion and a false solution.

CCS is the process of collecting carbon dioxide emissions from sources such as fossil fuel-burning power plants before it reaches the atmosphere and storing it in deep geological formations or in the ocean. While the technology to capture the carbon is already commercially available, and CO2 injection pilot projects are under way, any large-scale plans to capture and store carbon have been mostly elusive.

What's clear, however, is that efforts to push for CCS as one of the most promising technological fixes are heavily under way, just as holes in the plan are slowly bubbling to the surface.

Control

2007-10-31T21:00:00.001-05:00

Whenever I hear anyone suggest renewable energy and clean technology are the twin solution to reducing the United States's dependence on oil and therefore US military intervention in the Middle East, I am reminded of Michael Shank's February 2007 interview of Noam Chomsky, in which the "arguably the most important intellectual alive today" said:

The point in the Middle East, as distinct from North Korea, is that this is center of the world's energy resources. Originally the British and secondarily the French had dominated it, but after the Second World War, it's been a U.S. preserve. That's been an axiom of U.S. foreign policy, that it must control Middle East energy resources. It is not a matter of access as people often say. Once the oil is on the seas it goes anywhere. In fact if the United States used no Middle East oil, it'd have the same policies. If we went on solar energy tomorrow, it'd keep the same policies. Just look at the internal record, or the logic of it, the issue has always been control. Control is the source of strategic power.

''Your Privacy Is Someone Else's Profit''

2007-10-29T09:00:00.000-05:00

Mark Andrejevic's new book iSpy: Surveillance and Power in the Interactive Era explores the implications of the disenfranchising of Americans in the interactive era. Who owns our information? How is it shared? How will advertisers and the government use our information in the future? Andrejevic sat down with AlterNet to share what he's learned through his research.

Here's the part of the interview which caught my attention:

Onnesha Roychoudhuri: Throughout the book, you argue that interactivity does not necessarily mean democratization. Can you explain?

Mark Andrejevic: Living through the '90s, there was this euphoric set of predictions about the empowering and democratizing capacity of the new medium. I read that against what the current political and economic situation looks like today. We live in a society that has become increasingly economically stratified in the past decade and also increasingly unresponsive democratically.

Yet we're still bombarded with the type of claims that Time magazine made when it named "us" as the person of the year. Time says that the current situation is about the many wresting power from the few and how this is going to transform the world. The book documents a whole barrage of these types of claims. Very often they're made in the abstract: "Interactivity will have the power to challenge entrenched monopolies and overturn elitist hierarchies," "It allows the public to seize the means of production." I'm not out to debunk the claim that this potential exists. What concerns me is the way in which the celebration of the potential so quickly slides into a claim that this potential is being actualized. What we have to do is find a way to distinguish between the promise that resides in these interactive technologies and their actual application. And then to be able to distinguish between which applications live up to that promise and which don't.

You can read the rest of the interview on the AlterNet.

''Is DNA Research Giving New Life to the Idea That Race Exists?''

2007-10-18T09:00:00.000-05:00

Despite the bioconservative leaning of the Center for Genetics and Society, I very much liked this quote from Patricia Berne in an Alternet article focusing on how the study of human genes has resurged a debate about the nature of race, with dangerous consequences for criminal justice:

While acknowledging that science is often used for positive purposes, including ones that benefit communities of color, social justice advocates must remain vigilant. All technologies, including new genetic technologies, develop in a political, economic and social context, says Patricia Berne of the Center for Genetics and Society, a public affairs nonprofit based in Oakland, California. "The broader political left has not really grappled with the ways these technologies affect our claim to resources, our claim to rights, and the well-being of our communities," she notes. Before race is resurrected and redefined by biologists, geneticists and biotech firms, social justice advocates must grapple with the issues and add their voices to the debate.

Since "race" is not a scientific concept, I found Celeste Michelle Condit's suggestion of alternative directions quite interesting:

Current efforts to designate large clusters of human genetic variation as “races” are scientifically inaccurate and therefore inhibit both basic and medical research. The proposed nomenclature is borrowed from imprecise and changeable lay vocabularies, rather than from scientific standards. It assigns supposedly “continental” labels to clusters, but the clusters do not correspond to continents, and the names given to the clusters do not correspond with their geographic boundaries. A better approach would be to develop categories recognizing that the clusters are based on “Large Diffuse Geographic Populations” (LDGP), with precise geographic descriptions of the boundaries of such groupings. Such an approach would highlight the lack of association between these large clusters and the distribution of most medically relevant alleles. It would also facilitate consistency across scientific studies, which currently use so-called “racial” labels to refer to different groups from one study to the next.

"Heresy Does Not Equal Correctness"

2007-10-17T09:00:00.000-05:00

When uncritical techno-utopians are on the defensive, their typical response reminds me of something Micheal Shermer wrote in his 1997 book Why People Believe Weird Things: Pseudoscience, Superstition and Other Confusions of Our Time:

They laughed at Copernicus. They laughed at the Wright Brothers. Yes, well, they laughed at the Marx brothers. Being laughed at does not mean you are right. Wilhelm Reich compared himself to Peter Gynt, the unconventional genius out of step with society, and misunderstood and ridiculed as a heretic until proven right: ''Whatever you have done to me or will do to me in the future, whether you glorify me as a genius or put me in a mental institution, whether you adore me as your savior or hang me as a spy, sooner or later necessity will force you to comprehend that I have discovered the laws of the living.'' (in Gardner 1952, p. 259). Reprinted in the January/February 1996 issue of the Journal of Historical Review, the organ of Holocaust denial, is a famous quote from the nineteenth-century German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, which is quoted often by those on the margins: ''All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as self-evident.'' But ''all truth'' does not pass through these stages. Lots of true ideas are accepted without ridicule or opposition, violent or otherwise. Einstein's theory of relativity was largely ignored until 1919, when experimental evidence proved him right. He was not ridiculed, and no one violently opposed his ideas. The Schopenhauer quote is a rationalization, a fancy way for those who are ridiculed or violently opposed to say, ''See, I must be right.'' Not so.

History is replete with tales of the lone scientist working in spite of his peers and flying in the face of the doctrines of his or her own field of study. Most of them turned out to be wrong and we do not remember their names. For every Galileo shown the instruments of torture for advocating a scientific truth, there are thousand (or ten thousand) unknowns whose ''truths'' never pass muster with other scientists. The scientific community cannot be expected to test every fantastic claim that comes along, especially when so many are logically inconsistent. If you want to do science, you have to learn to play the game of science. This involves getting to know the scientists in your field, exchanging data and ideas with colleagues informally, and formally presenting results in conference papers, peer-reviewed journals, books and the like.

''Scientists Flex Political Muscles''

2007-04-24T09:00:00.000-05:00

As a technoprogressive, this is exactly the kind of dialogue I want to foster and see maintained:

The biggest general science conference in the world is shaping up to be unusually political this year, with an emphasis on global warming and sustainability. There's even a workshop on how scientists can fight anti-evolutionists on local school boards.

"It's a smorgasbord of all research in every field," said Ginger Pinholster, spokeswoman for the American Association for the Advancement of Science, or AAAS, which begins its annual meeting Thursday in San Francisco. "It helps to foster dialogue between scientists and the public and with policy makers."

Much of the research presented will look at the effects of global warming on glaciers, Antarctica and the ocean. In one speech, a Carnegie Mellon University professor who studies decision-making and public policy is expected to talk about how science can "induce urgent action" regarding climate change.

"The purpose of science is to tell us about the nature of the world whether we like the answer or not," said Alan I. Leshner, CEO of the AAAS.

The AAAS' annual meeting attracts about 10,000 attendees, including more than 1,000 journalists from around the world, giving the conference a loud, global voice.

''Using Nanotechnology to Improve Healthcare in Developing Countries''

2007-04-23T21:00:00.003-05:00

The Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies was established in 2005 by the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. The project is dedicated to helping ensure that as nanotechnologies advance, possible risks are minimized, public and consumer engagement remains strong, and the potential benefits of these new technologies are realized.

The following is the description of February 27th webcast they produced, which contains questions I wish were the focus of most nano-utopians:

What if doctors in Kenya could equip cells of the retina with photoswitches that can be flipped on, essentially making blind nerve cells see and restoring light sensitivity in people with degenerative blindness? What if public health workers in Bangladesh could place contaminated water into transparent bottles, which when placed in direct sunlight could disinfect the water and help prevent water-borne diseases like cholera, dysentery or polio?

What if a medical technician in Vietnam could use a tiny "reporter" molecule that attaches itself to specific bacteria or viruses in a patient sample and read with an inexpensive laser device-no bigger than a briefcase-whether an infectious disease is present? What if a nurse in Brazil could dispense a gel that would stick to the AIDS virus surface like molecular Velcro and prevent it from attacking healthy cells in sexually active women?

These scenarios are not science fiction. They are just a few examples of the exciting potential of nanomedicine-an offshoot of nanotechnology which researchers in both industrialized and developing countries hail as enabling the next big breakthroughs in medicine and which they promise to change virtually every facet of health care, disease control and prevention. Several of the projects being financed by The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation's $450 million Grand Challenges in Global Health initiative involve nanotechnology, including development of a nanoemulsion-based vaccine delivery system that uses a simple nasal swab rather than an injection.

What is nanotechnology? How is nanotechnology expected to transform medicine and health care in the future? How can nanomedicine help the truly needy in developing countries? And what are the challenges of ensuring that nanotechnology meets the specific health needs of Third World peoples?

A "technoprogressive" commentary on the Virginia Tech Massacre

2007-04-22T09:00:00.000-05:00

Cultural historian and media scholar Siva Vaidhyanathan wrote a powerful commentary on the school shooting that occured at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. Here is an excerpt:

As a culture, we are very bad at thinking about technology. We look to it either as something to fear or as a panacea for the flaws of the human condition. Technology is neither. It is merely an extension of our own wills and capabilities.

Americans at once will worship technological "advancement" while lurching to blame whatever is new and strange for maladies that have affected our species for millennia. We often view technology either as haunted by evil or neutral and independent of human interaction and intentions.

In fact, no technologies are neutral. A gun in the first act of a play goes off in the third for a reason — the very presence of the technology opens up possibilities and steers imaginations. Guns do not cause senseless violence. But they certainly make violence more conceivable, efficient and effective.

And no technology is haunted or inherently corrupting. We are sentient beings who make our own decisions about how we treat our fellow humans.

People have been killing each other ever since there were people. Video games are not needed to spur the imagination of a person who intends to do others harm.

Regardless of how much we might fear the new and unfamiliar, we also often look to new technology as a quick-fix for the things we fear. We reflexively throw money towards technologies intended to save us from an immediate menace while ignoring dangers that truly threaten us.

After 9/11 we wasted billions on biometric and data-mining technologies to protect ourselves from rare and limited dangers like hijackings, anthrax epidemics and chemical weapon attacks. Yet we defunded efforts to attack real killers like cancer and real lifesavers like public transportation.

To read the entire piece, click here.

TechnoRadicalism: An Ethic of Risk?

2007-04-21T09:00:00.000-05:00

Today when we listen to conservative ethicists, whether they be bioethicists, infoethicists, nanoethicists, neuroethicists, roboethicists or technoethicists, one would think that ethics can be reduced to a taboo.

According to my favorite French philosopher, Dominique Lecourt, the time has come to launch a counter-ethical school and movement, which I describe as "technoradical", otherwise we risk becoming a puny humanity seeking a delusional security in a web of taboos which would assault what has nurtured the nobility and dignity of the human being: his insatiable thirst for knowledge. We should not be content with defining good as a step back from evil, neither satisfy ourselves with a "heuristics of fear" to use German philosopher Hans Jonas' pathetic expression. We must tirelessly build a positive idea of the greater good, live it and then substitute an ethic of fear with an ethic of risk.

Tying these two words together may seem like a heresy; however, the human adventure, when it is as its most noble, was and is always about the courage to confront risk. But Lecourt doesn't use "courage" in the modern sense of knowing to endure suffering or take bad punches, but in the ancient Greek sense of knowing to take risks not in fear of an evil but in the undertaking of great deeds in the service of good.

From this technoradical point of view, science holds a lesson in ethics: whether we like it or not, it never let's itself stopped by taboos. We should not regret it or be overcome with fear. On the other hand, we can and should worry about the uses of science conceived according to logics which happen to be the ever more powerful and exclusive logics of profit.

Again must we know what we value to be the good for the human condition. But we will never, they say, come to a universal agreement! At the very least we must ask the question and not retreat to positions we presume sure, but which reveal themselves eminently dangerous. For it is self-evident that nothing exposes more our insecurity than the distraught desire for security.

Not too long ago my colleague and friend rhetorician Dale Carrico hastily dismissed technoradicals as "rebels without a cue". What he didn't know at the time is that for me and many others the term "radical" (from Latin rādīx, rādīc-, root) is used as an adjective meaning of or pertaining to the root or going to the root. Therefore, like or unlike the typical technoscientifically-literate and -focused progressive advocate, a technoradical asserts that only a risk ethic can and should guide us in wielding technology and radicalism in order for human beings to overcome some of the root causes of inequalities of power.

TechnoProgressive: The Manifesto of a Technoscience-Focused Progressive Artivist

2007-04-20T09:00:00.001-05:00

My name is Vladimir De Thézier.

Born in Montreal, I am a Québécois of Haitian origin who sometimes prefers to be called a "North American" to acknowledge all the cultures which have influenced me. I’ve always felt that if one doesn’t indulge in national, ethnic or racial pride, one can avoid the cognitive dissonance brought upon by national, ethnic or racial shame.

I read widely as a youth, which nurtured my life-long rationalism and cosmopolitanism. However, at the age of 17, my alienation from apolitism and atheism drove me to a 10-year search for meaning. I explored a variety of ideologies and religions (from anarchism to Co-Freemasonry!) but gradually became disillusioned with each of them.

My study of, and dismay at, the consequences of both nationalism and capitalism made me choose international social democracy as my political philosophy; while my introduction to neurotheology, which explains the evolutionary and neuro-psychological origins of spirituality, made me conclude that agnostic posthumanism was the only intellectually honest position for me to take.

In 2002, my aspiring work in hyperlink film screenwriting, and growing interest in the promises and dangers of emerging technologies, led me to embrace efforts by a new generation of futurists to expand the middle ground between technorealism and techno-utopianism, as the most comprehensive synthesis of my goals.

As a technoprogressive social entrepreneur, I am working on Democratech, a project which aims to organize citizen conferences on emerging technologies. My goal is to establish a more democratic rapport between citizens, experts and political authorities.

As a technoprogressive creative professional, I am aware of the power of the media to create great social change. My goal is to deliver compelling entertainment through films and documentaries that will inspire audiences to get involved in the issues that affect us all.

But what does a technoprogressive believe you ask?

I can only speak for myself when I say that I believe democracy is a human invention and a political "technology" which historically is still very young and whose power and potential has neither been fully understood nor realized. As a human invention, it is imperfect and will always be but it also can be improved, just as a car or computer or, using a better analogy, a software programme, can be upgraded.

Politics is like the "Operating System" of society and to remain free and prosperous, it is to our advantage, in addition to being our civic duty, to constantly improve democracy as the least worst of all possible political "Operating Systems".

As a technoprogressive, I believe that we must continue tweaking the political technology of democracy to defuse our most pressing local, national and global problems. Otherwise, the realization that the barbarians have been within our gates all along will occur with the disorienting abruptness of a detonation.

Vangarde

2007-04-20T08:59:00.000-05:00

vanguard

Function: noun

Etymology: Middle English vauntgard, from Anglo-French vantgarde, avantgarde, from avant- fore- (from avant before, from Late Latin abante) + garde guard

Date: 15th century

1 : the troops moving at the head of an army
2 : the forefront of an action or movement

— van·guard·ism (noun)
— van·guard·ist (noun)