Old Fucking Punk @lwriemen@librem.one

84% of the top 20 newspapers in circulation are owned by right wing billionaires

Woman whose vulva was probed by Burbank TSA "officers" who ignored her refusal sues
https://boingboing.net/2019/12/05/groin-search.html

The New Deal Funded the Arts. The Green New Deal Should, Too.

Near the end of his first term, as effects of the Depression lingered, President Franklin D. Roosevelt faced growing popular clamor for dramatic economic action. In response, he launched a series of initiatives in 1935 that historians dub the Second New Deal. Among these audacious programs were the Social Security Act, the National Labor Relations Act and the Works Progress Administration (WPA), which provided jobs for more than 8.5 million unemployed Americans. WPA workers built crucial infrastructure around the country, including the start of the federal highway system and hundreds of thousands of public buildings, parks and playgrounds.

The WPA also had a cultural wing that supported writers documenting the nation’s folklore (including the stories of elderly freed slaves), artists creating murals and statues for new public buildings, and playwrights and theater workers staging inexpensive performances across the country. WPA organizations like the Federal Writers’ Project and the Federal Theatre Project (FTP) brought art to the people and provided jobs for unemployed cultural workers— all while shining the spotlight on pressing political issues. The Green New Deal should learn from this: A federal Green Arts Project could help lift up radical solutions to corporate malfeasance in our own time, while creating huge numbers of low-carbon jobs.

In 1936, roughly 27 million Americans lived on farms, largely without electricity. As the science writer Waldemar Kaempffert argued in a New York Times editorial that year, electrification was a critical challenge for the United States, whose relatively weak federal government prevented it from launching the kind of nation-spanning modernization projects initiated by the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. 

This challenge underlined the inequities and dysfunctions of the United States’ capitalist economy. As Kaempffert explained, “Power companies are not philanthropic institutions. Investors look to them for dividends. If there is no market in a sparsely populated territory it is ruinous to electrify it, and this because it costs 10 times as much to distribute as to generate energy.” The logic of the market, in other words, not only acted against the public interest, but excluded a significant segment of the public—in particular, rural residents—from access to key infrastructure. As Kaempffert argued, “The profit motive must be subordinated to the obvious social duty of spreading the use of electricity.”

It was in this context that, in 1937, the Living Newspaper unit of the FTP debuted the playPower in New York City. Billed as “a thrilling dramatization of modern industry,” Power presented details of the corrupt dealings of the nation’s private, investor-owned electric utilities, such as rampant price fixing and other methods of gouging the public. Power challenged corporate control and corruption in media in two ways: on stage—showing how the big utilities bought off academics and newspapers to discredit the idea of publicly provided electricity—and off—by giving artists a space to produce critical accounts of timely social and political issues.

Power remains all too relevant. The nation’s dominant electric utilities are still in private hands, gouging ratepayers around the country. Worse still, saddled with massive fossil fuel assets, these monopolistic corporations are one of the major obstacles to a transition to renewable energy. Electric utilities largely rely on coal and natural gas and spend billions lobbying Congress in their interest.

The second half of Power documents the struggle to establish the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), the public entity that electrified much of the rural South. At the time Power was produced, the utilities were fighting TVA in the Supreme Court, but the FTP did not shy away from controversy; it was defined by its daring interventions. Under the direction of the pioneering female theater director and writer Hallie Flanagan, the FTP’s Living Newspaper unit assembled a team of journalists to gather factual information about an issue of public concern, then distributed the research to editors and writers to create narratives. The FTP’s focus on public power—in both senses—offers a suggestive model for today.

The Green New Deal, as outlined by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and others, is self-evidently about transforming the country’s infrastructure. But like the New Deal, it also needs a cultural wing. The Green New Deal must, at bottom, be about changing people’s minds: about where power should come from and who has the right to generate it; about what a just transition for workers and affected communities should look like; about what constitutes a good life. While much has changed in U.S. culture since the 1930s, the corporate media is still failing to host these important conversations. When even supposedly enlightened companies like Google are contributing to climate change-denying think tanks, the public needs a space for media in the general interest.

We all know that a Green New Deal would involve massive public works: transforming the electrical grid to renewable energy; electrifying transportation; decarbonizing manufacturing; building millions of zero-carbon public buildings and social housing units; retrofitting existing buildings for efficiency and electrified heating and cooling; and totally revamping the country’s agricultural sector. All this will generate hundreds of thousands of wellpaying jobs that could lift entire communities out of economic and social oppression.

A federal Green Arts Project could boost such projects, too, by explaining the necessity and attractiveness of infrastructure like high-speed rail and zero-carbon social housing, using artforms that speak to the public more effectively than data ever could. Such a Green Arts Project could help dramatize the need for a just transition, one that attends to and rectifies the unevenness of environmental impacts.

The Green New Deal cannot just be about building more stuff. In fact, a crucial element of the Green New Deal must be figuring out how to consume much less without spurring mass unemployment. Capitalism as an economic system is inherently driven to grow or face crisis, which explains why CEOs sit around boardrooms figuring out how to get people to buy more Whoppers, 15-foot Rudolph-the-reindeer inflatables and Return of the Jedi wall clocks—wonders of consumer culture that make us sick and contribute to the destruction of ecosystems like the Amazon rainforest. All this economic growth has meant feeding more and more of the planet into the insatiable maw of capitalism. In the period from 1970 to 2017, as inequality skyrocketed, the global extraction of natural resources increased more than 240%. In 2017, the world extracted a staggering 92 billion tons of material stuff, from construction materials to metals to fossil fuels to food. The Global Footprint Network estimates that resource use overshoots, by more than 70% annually, what can be sustainably maintained.

While we should strive to increase our economic efficiency, the evidence shows that more growth inherently means more carbon emissions, and more extraction writ large. We ultimately must scale down global economic activity if we intend to avoid climate chaos, and build up new, low-extraction industries to avoid galloping unemployment. What we need is jobs that don’t involve working endlessly to make more useless stuff; instead, the Green New Deal should pay handsomely and connect people with one another. Building up the so-called social economy could include cooperative institutions for childcare, elder care, education and other services. It must also include cultural work.

The arts can be a low-extraction sector of the economy, and a Green Arts Project would clearly seek to support low-budget, minimal-impact ventures akin to the Federal Theatre Project rather than blockbuster Hollywood cinema. As with the FTP, the content of local productions could be tailored to local circumstances, allowing masses of people to consume relevant cultural productions without consuming lots of resources. And, as the model of Power suggests, a federal Green Arts Project could also allow writers and artists to catalyze important debates about corporate monopolies and the limits of economic growth.

Power could easily be updated for a contemporary audience. But in addition to such muckraking, a Green Theater Project might provide a forum to debate vexing questions about what public energy ought to look like: local and decentralized, largescale and federally run, or some combination? And how do we ensure that the energy transition is as just and democratic as possible?

There are obviously many complex technical issues behind these questions, about which members of the public need to be educated. But the challenge of creating renewable public power is ultimately a political, and even cultural, one. The American public needs new stories, ones that challenge dominant Hollywood narratives that suggest the climate crisis will inevitably devolve into a Hobbesian war of all against all. In place of such box office nihilism, we need visions of human empathy and solidarity in the face of ecological chaos. We need hope for a damaged people and planet. And to give it to us, we need an Arts Project for the Green New Deal.

Restorative Justice: A Better Model of Criminal Justice

re•stor•a•tive jus•tice

noun

A response to crime that prioritizes repairing the harm done to victims and communities

"When will our consciences grow so tender that we will act to prevent human misery rather than avenge it?" —Eleanor Roosevelt

What does that actually look like?

Restorative justice programs are increasingly common within schools and nonprofits, and 35 states have adopted legislation encouraging the practice. Mental health and drug courts aim to connect offenders with the treatment they need. Diversion programs allow young people to avoid the conventional juvenile justice system and meet with those affected by a crime (which can include the broader community, family of a victim or, if they so choose, the victim themselves) for a process of learning, mediation and restitution. Outcomes are non-punitive, and can include some form of direct assistance to the victim as well as commitments from the offender to various forms of community engagement (including but not limited to conventional community service).

This sounds touchy-feely.

Maybe. But restorative justice is also an urgently needed alternative to locking people up. In the U.S., one out of every 38 people is under some form of correctional supervision, a costly system that exacerbates racial and economic inequality without actually stopping crime. In 2015, the school district of Jefferson Parish, La., made headlines when a Black eighth-grade student was arrested and handcuffed in front of his class after throwing some Skittles. The district committed to a new discipline code and restorative justice training for teachers and staff, and in one school, suspensions—which are statistically four times more likely to be given to Black students—are down 56%.

So does restorative justice work?

It’s looking good! There’s solid evidence that drug courts and alternative juvenile justice courts are more effective at reducing recidivism than traditional approaches. In a number of studies, victims of crimes prefer restorative justice over the traditional court process, which can trigger the trauma of the crime all over again. This method does not require victims to forgive anyone—and they often do not—but, unlike conventional trials, the process is designed to heal, address root causes and prevent offenses from happening again. Programs labeled as restorative justice aren’t always a step in the right direction. There are concerns that fee-based or privately operated programs may actually exacerbate inequities. Viewed as part of a larger movement against mass incarceration and for a more peaceful society, however, restorative justice is an important philosophy.

This is part of “The Big Idea,” a monthly series offering brief introductions to progressive theories, policies, tools and strategies that can help us envision a world beyond capitalism. For recent In These Times coverage of restorative justice in action, see, "To End Mass Incarceration, We Must Rethink How We Respond to Violence" and "Trial by Peace Circle: How a Chicago Community Is Pursuing Jail-Free Justice."

Peloton Alternatives

Just ride your stationary bike and read an inspirational group text.

Lowering the Barr

The AG says you have to “respect” cops enough if you want their help.

@BernieOrVest For sure - Voter fraud will take place this election. It would be amazing if some people came up with a way to use social media to independently count votes - or make sure votes were counted equally - or something.

This is where social media is going to help our cause - in order to make their voter fraud more difficult for them and less harmful to us, we need to put everything out in the open, for the public to see.

Enter the MCU

Enter...the Irish-Man!

Chicago Police Department used fake profiles as a backdoor to private Facebook groups. https://apnews.com/a0c6091e5f234d93bc46948fde4723db

There's a lot to like about Sen. Cantwell’s new Consumer Online Privacy Rights Act, or COPRA. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/12/sen-cantwell-leads-new-consumer-data-privacy-bill

The FCC's decision to increase the amount of spectrum dedicated towards unlicensed uses will allow everyone to access and innovate with these valuable public airwaves.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/12/fcc-opening-some-very-important-spectrum-broadband

The Food Stamp Work Requirement Is a Scheme to Punish Hungry Americans

Growing up in Boonville, California in the 1990s, a friend of mine would sometimes jokingly use the phrase "the beatings will continue until morale improves." If people are feeling bad, what better incentive to change their mood than getting repeatedly whacked with a stick?

The campaign of socialist candidate Joshua Collins for WA-10 just got interesting. The incumbent Dem announced his retirement today, and it is past the deadline for new candidates to join, so it appears Josh will be the only one running for the Dem nomination
https://mobile.twitter.com/Joshua4Congress/status/1202316479724544000
@politics @Bernie2020

Ah yes, poetic justice.

"These owners can choose to share some, all, or none of their footage with police; police do not need a warrant in order to request camera footage from residents....when camera owners are "uncooperative or unavailable," officers are instructed to contact Ring and request that the captured video be preserved." #privacy

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/bjw9e8/inside-rings-quest-to-become-law-enforcements-best-friend

And that's not all we learned this week:
As recently as July, police could access a "heat map" that got very close to showing specific locations of Ring cameras in their town. (Ring has maintained that they do not show exactly where cameras are located.)

https://www.cnet.com/news/ring-gave-police-a-street-level-view-of-where-video-doorbells-were-for-over-a-year/

“Fear sells.”

That's what Ring said in 2016, according to this staggering history of how Amazon's surveillance doorbell company built over 600 police partnerships and put cameras on front doors across America.

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/zmjp53/how-ring-went-from-shark-tank-reject-to-americas-scariest-surveillance-company

“Our Biggest Enemy Is PG&E”: Inside the Fight to Put Utilities Under Public Control

SANTA ROSA, Calif.—“We’ve been evacuated twice in the past five years,” J.D. Opperman tells a small crowd of around 30 who had gathered to protest Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) in downtown Santa Rosa on Nov. 16, 2019. Among the protesters were members of the Marin, North Bay and East Bay chapters of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). They held handmade signs reading “PG&E: The ultimate homewrecker” and “PG&E: Poster child for the corporate death penalty.”

Opperman explained the first time he was evacuated, during the Tubbs Fire that hit Santa Rosa in 2017, it was “terribly frightening. I had to pack everything I owned, shove it into my car. I was in school, a student, worried about exams and everyday things. I have a child.”

After the fire, Opperman sought cheap rent in Guerneville, a small town in the redwoods on the edge of the Russian River. It’s not surrounded by a tinder box of dry fields like Santa Rosa, but when the Kincade Fire broke out in October 2019, Opperman was again forced to evacuate.

“This time around was even more frightening,” he told the crowd as it stood solemnly in Old Courthouse Square. “The fire forced the evacuation of my two 80-year-old grandparents, one of whom ended up in the hospital for a stomach ulcer from the stress. My family and I called around but every hotel was booked, we had nowhere to go. My girlfriend had a panic attack about money; our businesses [were] closed and we [couldn’t] earn the money we needed to survive. My daughter had a panic attack as well. She was overwhelmed by the situation.”

Opperman was just one of the attendees who personally experienced the stress of last-minute evacuations—from Santa Rosa, Guerneville and Windsor. But the protest wasn’t just for people to share trauma; there was a strong call to disband PG&E, particularly from local democratic socialists.

“We are here today to voice our collective outrage” against PG&E’s corporate interests, says Brandi Chalker of North Bay DSA. “Our biggest enemy is PG&E itself. The losers in this game? That’s us, folks. We stand against PG&E as a corporate, for-profit entity.”

Opperman’s family members were just a few of the nearly 200,000 people forced to flee the Kincade Fire, which burned more than 77,000 acres—making it the largest wildfire ever in Sonoma County. An investigation is ongoing, but it appears to have started from a spark from a broken cable on a high transmission power line. It’s not the first time the utility has been blamed for a blaze, including the Camp Fire in 2018, which killed 85 people in Paradise, Calif.

While climate change and drought have made California particularly vulnerable to fast-moving, powerful fires, the situation has been exacerbated by PG&E’s failure to secure all of its power lines and transformers. Trimming overgrown trees near power lines is a proven preventative measure, but the company has been slow to negotiate with tree-trimming contractors. Of the 2,455 miles of vegetation along power lines identified as high risk, PG&E has only trimmed 760 miles of it. In June 2019, the bankrupt utility announced plans to shell out $11 million in performance bonuses to its executives.

As wildfires have become a seasonal norm, pressure has risen for a public takeover of the shareholder-owned PG&E, mirroring calls across the nation for utilities to be placed under public control. Many utility cooperatives do exist: The Delaware Electric Cooperative, for example, was founded in 1936 and serves 101,000 people, and Bluebonnet Electric Cooperative has served 14 Central Texas counties since 1939. In addition to providing customers with added transparency over decisions and finances, co-op utility companies can also provide local economic opportunities.

But 2019 marked a shift in California as homes and businesses continued burning and mass evacuations and power shut-offs hit an unprecedented scale. By early November, PG&E shut off nearly 2.5 million customers, the largest such event in state history, and politicians are paying attention. More than 20 California mayors, led by San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo (D), signed on to a plan to turn PG&E into a customer-owned cooperative. Pressure is on for Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) to take a stance on what will certainly become a key voter issue.

The exact logistics of a takeover are still unclear. Despite filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, PG&E declined to sell in September 2019 after San Francisco officials made a $2.5 billion offer for the city’s electric grid.

Meanwhile, PG&E CEO Bill Johnson says the public should expect rolling blackouts for a decade. Hours after the Santa Rosa protest, news emerged that high winds ensured more power outages on the immediate horizon.

“Public ownership of this utility is a definite necessity,” Opperman told the crowd at the Santa Rosa protest. “There is no reason that something that is so critical to the modern world and the functioning of daily life should be owned by a private industry.”

Going for Medicare for All Proves That Radicalism Is the Only Way

Moderates who love incrementalism constantly say that is the only way to get things done but the current debate over healthcare shows that the exact opposite is true.

THE BIRDIE PARTY?
#BernieOrVest
#NotMeUs
#Sanders/Turner2020

RT @Jscott1145@twitter.com

Careful @HillaryClinton@twitter.com we have no issue going somewhere else. @TheDemocrats@twitter.com party is already a shell of itself. https://twitter.com/dabrandolfski/status/1201991017873821697

🐦🔗: https://twitter.com/Jscott1145/status/1202110454618873856