FROM STARGAZERS TO POLITICAL SUPERSTARS
Double Standard
When the Corporations get together / it’s called a Think-tank; / When the workers get together / it’s called a Union; / When the Corporations call for Self-Responsibility / it’s called Conservatism; / When the Unions answer back, / it’s called class Warfare.
1 Hear this, all you peoples; listen, all who live in this world,2 both low and high, rich and poor alike: My mouth will speak words of wisdom; the utterance from my heart will give understanding. 4 I will turn my ear to a proverb; with the harp I will expound my riddle: 5 Why should I fear when evil days come, when wicked deceivers surround me—6 those who trust in their wealth and boast of their great riches?
Psalm 49:1-6
For Copernicus, A 'Perfect Heaven' Put Sun At Center
by Joe Palca
November 8, 2011
It doesn't happen often, but there are times when a single book turns the world on its head. Isaac Newton's Principia unraveled the mystery of gravity. Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species explained how evolution worked.
FOURTH AMENDMENT [U.S. Constitution]
'The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.'
ON POINT RADIO
GPS tracking, the government, and you. The Supreme Court looks at whether tracking your ever move equals “unreasonable search.”
GIOVE-A, part of the satellite navigation system Galileo. (AP)
A big case before the Supreme Court today on privacy and technology. GPS tracking, and how casually the government can keep an eye on your every move. The case in question bagged a big drug dealer. But without a search warrant or probable cause when Antoine Jones was tracked everywhere he went by satellite.
Law enforcement says “give us the tools.” Privacy advocates say in the age of tech that can track you every twitch, the room for abuse here is huge.
This hour On Point: the Supreme Court looks at whether tracking you all over, all the time, equals “unreasonable search.”
-Tom Ashbrook
Guests
Daniel Solove, Professor of Privacy and Technology Law at George Washington University Law School. Author of: “Nothing to Hide: The False Tradeoff between Privacy and Security.”
Maggie Fox, Managing editor for Technology at The National Journal.
Maggie Reardon, senior writer for C-NET.
Clifford Fishman, professor at the Columbus School of Law, Catholic University.
From Tom’s Reading List
The Los Angeles Times “Sunset Strip bookie Charlie Katz suspected the feds had bugged his apartment, so he would amble over to a pay phone outside where Carney’s hot dog joint now stands to call in his bets to Boston and Miami.”
Reuters “The Supreme Court for the first time will hear arguments on Tuesday on whether police need a warrant to track a suspect’s vehicle with a GPS device, another clash between new surveillance technology and basic privacy rights.”
Wall Street Journal “In a case that questions the Constitution’s meaning in light of modern surveillance technology, the Supreme Court will consider Tuesday whether police need a warrant before secretly attaching a GPS tracking device to a suspect’s car.”
You can find the full text of the Fourth Ammendment to the U.S. constitution here.
THE CONSTITUTION—THE LAW—AND YOU
Charles A. Reich
The more I try to escape Charles A. Reich and Opposing The System (1995), the more I am drawn back to it by current news reports, events, and political pundits. On Monday, November 7, 2011, I went to see Paul Street at Prairie Lights independent book store where the “Live from Prairie Lights” series is broadcated from here in I.C.
“Live from Prairie Lights” is an internationally known readings series, which features some of the best up-and-coming and well-established authors & poets from all over the globe. Presented before a live audience and streamed over the worldwide web, this long running series brings the spoken word from the bookstore to the masses.Most readings begin @ 7:00 p.m. Arrive early to assure yourself a seat.The Live from Prairie Lights archive is available here.
Mr. Street was to read from and discuss his latest book, Crashing the Tea Party: Mass Media and the Campaign to Remake American Politics, written with Anthony DiMaggio, who was not there. In the same week Tuesday thru Thursday, the University of Iowa Public Policy Center was sponsoring a symposium: Conflict and Civility in Political Discourse: Where is the line? At the Sheraton Hotel.
Street mainly concentrated on Occupy Iowa City and the Tea Party, while the UI symposium was to make an effort of trying to civilize US; mostly to take away our free speech. But what each had in common was that the surface of the System was reported minutely, but its deep structure was never examined, so that what was discussed was old news to me after reading Reich’s Opposing The System.
The Deep Structure Examined in Opposing the System
Reich shows how the downfall of the American Republic began, not with disappointment with the Obama presidency, but with Congress, as it has consistently, ignoring the Constitution itself.
Do Police Need Warrants For GPS Tracking Devices?
November 8, 2011
The U.S. Supreme Court, an institution steeped in tradition, steps into the turbulent world of new technology Tuesday. At issue before the court is whether police must get a warrant from a judge before they can attach a GPS tracking device to a car so they can monitor a suspect's every movement for an indefinite period of time.
The case could have enormous implications for privacy rights in the information age.
Police, quite naturally, want to use new technology to get the goods on the bad guys, and citizens, quite naturally, think that when they leave their homes, they still have some zone of personal privacy in their cars. This case presents that clash in vivid terms.
In 2004, a joint FBI-Washington, D.C., Metropolitan Police task force began investigating suspected drug kingpin Antoine Jones. First they got a warrant and wiretapped him, but Jones was careful about how he spoke on the phone. So then they put a GPS tracking device on his car, and for 28 days, every time that car moved, its location was tracked by satellite, with the information sent every 10 seconds to the FBI. The tracking led to Jones' arrest, plus the seizure of 97 kilos of cocaine and $850,000 at a stash house. Jones was convicted of conspiracy to distribute drugs, but a panel of conservative and liberal judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington unanimously threw out the conviction because the tracking device had been attached without a warrant. The court said that tracking a car for such a long period without court authorization violates the Fourth Amendment's ban on unreasonable searches.
http://www.npr.org/2011/11/08/142032419/do-police-need-warrants-for-gps-tracking-devices
Charles Reich writes that as government became more clearly allied with business, the legal system lost whatever neutrality it possessed and became a pliable tool of power. The wealth that government distributes and the advantages that government confers must be based upon some form of legal authorization. But when law is employed to justify this process, the ideal of “equal just under law: disappears and respect for the law is lost. While an unemployed worker receives less than enough compensation to live on, a rancher obtains government subsidized grazing privileges of great value, a lumber company gets to use the national forests for very substantial profit, and the recipient of a defense contract obtains a privilege worth millions of dollars.
President Clinton: 'There's Very Little Talk About What Actually Works'
As he listens to the current debate in Washington over the budget deficit, taxes and economic policy, former President Bill Clinton says the discussion lacks a lot.
"It's all about 'is the government good or bad or taxes always good or bad?' " he told Morning Edition co-host Steve Inskeep during an conversation that's scheduled to air Tuesday. "There's very little talk about what actually works."
OPPOSING THE SYSTEM
Reich posits that most legally authorized favors and advantages are the result of successful lobbying or other uses of power and influence. Groups like the poor, which lack power and influence, end up with the smallest share of government bounty. Obtaining government wealth thus becomes an insiders’ game. Those on the outside are the losers.
Lawlessness becomes difficult to distinguish from the advantageous use of law. The person who acquires wealth with the help of a gun may see himself as no different from the person who acquires wealth with the help of a tax break or favorable agency ruling, except that the latter is not subject to punishment and usually walks off with a far greater gain. Why should the dispossessed respect the authority of law? The outsider’s crime may seem morally no different from the insider’s coup.
The increasing merger of governmental and corporate interests has been further solidified by the emergence of a trained group of managers who moved easily and interchangeably from the corporate to the public sector and back again. The existence of this managerial elite allows both sectors to make important decisions on the basis of shared knowledge and shared assumptions without any conspiracy or overt coordination. The most basic choices can be taken out of the hands of the people and made in undemocratic fashion without any visible signs of how this is accomplished. Even members of the elite do not necessarily recognize the coordinated decision-making process of which they are a part.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/pov/all
Class, race and social mobility 21 Oct 201
Fri, 21 Oct 11
Duration: 10 mins
Will Self reflects that racism is rarely a sole cause of social injustice but alongside other problems such as poverty it can put people at the bottom of the heap.
THE MANAGERIAL ELITE
The managerial elite is formed on the basis of shared knowledge and assumptions. The shared knowledge is acquired in school, college, professional school, and later on at work. Like other significant features of the System, this shared knowledge has no name, is never directly taught, is not written down, and prefers invisibility. The starting point of the elite’s shared knowledge is that every member of the elite discovered the road to success, which the vast majority never finds.
The many years of test (ACT, GRE, Iowa Basic Skills, NCS and other Standardized test that measure the head from the inside) passing give rise to a knowledge of what is required to satisfy those who create and administer the tests, and what will bring about rejection. Our present managers may be the most thoroughly tested group of individuals who ever lived on the planet. What are they tested for? The answer is: skills that advance the interests of the System. But these skills are not necessarily the same as the substantive skills of the doctor, the auto worker, the farmer. The people who run our society may not be the best at the usual categories of human achievement, but they are the best at rising to the top of the System.
The elite are set apart from those who lack all power in the workplace and are not required to do work that is an alienating experience because of repetition, hazardousness, oppressive supervision, lack of respect, or other bad conditions. The elite have been able to make their jobs personally rewarding and gratifying, so that they find pleasure in work as well as in monetary compensation. The elite generally enjoy job security, high esteem, opportunities for self-expression, and the ability to pass their status along to their children.
Their job gives them an income in intangibles that may be worth many times their monetary pay. They possess influence. They can make things happen. They can get other people jobs and rewards [with a phone call]. If they are high enough, they can influence the nation’s thinking. They are “in the loop,” “inside the Beltway,” or otherwise closely connected to the mind of the System.
The elite do not know what the world is like for the non-elite, even if they come from a non-elite background. They do not know the causes of nonsuccess. The elite do not experience the consequences of the policies that they set and the decisions that are made. The elite do not understand unfairness, for life has been more than fair to them.
Republican presidential candidates (from left) Jon Huntsman, Herman Cain, Rep. Michele Bachmann, Mitt Romney, Gov. Rick Perry, Rep. Ron Paul, Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum prepare to debate during the event sponsored by CNN and the Tea Party Express at the Florida state fairgrounds on Sept. 12 in Tampa.
Tea Party Looks To Recapture Election Magic In 2012
by Don Gonyea
November 8, 2011
It was one year ago that the Tea Party movement helped Republicans take control of the U.S. House of Representatives. With the presidential election a year away, the movement finds itself searching for ways to have the same kind of impact this time around.
Elites do not see how a deserving person can fail, except by his or her own weakness. To the elite, the world looks rational and orderly. To those at the bottom, the world looks unfair, random, cruel, and chaotic.
The elite live in a different country than the rest of Americans. It is not possible to understand the System and its actions without understanding this fact. The elite sees its own ascendancy as just, and cannot understand the anger below.
BBC WORLD SERVICE
The State Of Israel
Media :
Availability:
Available to listen.
Last broadcast today, 20:05 on BBC World Service (see all broadcasts).
Next on:
Tomorrow, 02:05 on BBC World Service
Synopsis
As the Arab Spring rolled across the Middle East, protestors were also out on the streets in Israel.
But they weren't demonstrating about human rights or democracy - they were shouting slogans about poverty and the price of cottage cheese.
And all this at a time when Israel has one of the fastest-growing economies in the world - what's going on?
In this week's Assignment, former BBC Middle East correspondent Tim Franks returns to Israel to examine the dramatic social changes within the country.
The numbers of ultra-orthodox and settlers are rising rapidly - and the old European leftist elite is looking increasingly irrelevant.
Will the new Israeli power structure make the chance of peace in the region more or less likely - or will the country become increasingly concerned with its own internal struggles?
Join Tim Franks for Assignment as he unravels the complexities of the state of Israel.
(Image: An Israeli flag. Credit: Getty)
The state of Israel: Internal influence driving change
The view, as our plane banked, was familiar: the sea, the sand, the skyscrapers of the Tel Aviv coastline. It was my first return to Israel since the end of my posting as Middle East correspondent, 18 months before
Middle East Crisis
Latest news, analysis and background on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
LISTEN CAREFULLY
When you listen closely to Mitt Romney (and other Republican candidates for president), the political rhetoric is to convince Whites to become indentured servants at most—slave labor at least. They don’t ask as the Israelis do, “What is good for the nation.” Moreover, it was American business practices which brought on the Great Depression and enable Hitler and the rise of fascism/Nazism to rise in Europe. It was American lax business practice which has brought on the Great Recession and threatens to bring fascism as an acceptable governmental practice in the United States. The scapegoats (so-called illegal aliens) and the lockstep neo-liberal policies (the Neoconservative pledge to Grover Norquist and Right-wing Religionist) are already in place.
Most importantly, remember the role that the corporations' (Industrialists) played in fostering Nazism/fascism in Germany—and how much the Weimar Republic, a liberal “democracy,” resembled our present American Republic.
ELITES ROAD TO SUCCESS
Reich posits that the rules for success used by the elite are often very different from the rules observed by ordinary people. This leads the elite to believe that those below “cannot be told” the real reasons for decisions that are made. The question becomes what should the people be told, not what are the facts. The perplexity of the voter who tries first one party and then the other, winding up always with the same elite, shows how democracy has given way to the rule of the System’s managers.
THE CONSTITUION WHICH GUIDES THE SYSTEM
Reich posits that it is shared knowledge that leads to shared assumptions among the elite, which are even more crucial than knowledge in making it possible for the elite managers to work together without “conspiracy.” These invisible shared assumptions are the real Constitution, the real fundamental law, which guides the System:
First: Impersonal economic “forces” produce better decisions and choices than can be made by even the most thoughtful individuals or groups attempting to weigh the competing interests of society. Often called “market forces,” they are venerated and deferred to even when the “market” is impaired, dominated, or nonexistent.
Second: “Economic growth” is a measure of the well-being of the society as a whole. Such growth benefits all the elements and individuals in society. There is no need for “Gross Domestic product” to be offset by a compilation of “Gross Domestic Cost.” “Growth” can be counted on to create new jobs and wider individual opportunity.
Third: All of the important social values affected by the economic system are measurable and quantifiable. Intangible or “soft” interests such as trust, loyalty, community, natural beauty, or sacredness are separate from the economic process and may be “willed” by individuals of strong enough character and a high enough sense of personal responsibility. For example, care of children is a matter of “will,” not economics.
Fourth: The treatment of people in their role as employees does not affect the rest of their lives. For example, an authoritarian workplace does not diminish or impair a worker’s ability to practice democracy outside the workplace. Summary layoffs and terminations after years of service do not affect workers’ capacity for loyalty, or for commitment to loved ones. Coercion on the job does not lead to an increase of coercive behavior off the job.
Fifth: The market may be counted on to supply human and social needs even though a massive and unrelenting effort is made to influence consumer preferences, no opposing view of needs is allowed to reach the public by way of the media, and the consumer has received no information about society’s need for balance, diversity, or long-term investment. No alternative method of planning for the future is required.
Sixth: People are rational actors whose behavior can be motivated, controlled, channeled, and deterred by threats and promises of economic gain and loss, by repression and punishment, by constant competition against others, and by orders issued by those in superior positions. Economic self-interest is expected to dominate human behavior, but people can be expected to forgo self-interest in their personal lives in favor of heightened responsibility to others and to “the community.”
Seventh: The ultimate product of society is the best possible System, not the best possible human beings.
MANAGERIAL REVIEW
Given these shared assumptions, the corporate elite and the governmental elite together make the most important decisions affecting society, often overriding what voters choose at the polls. What remains for presidential candidates to debate or for Congress to vote on is most often trivial and irrelevant, incapable of overturning the more basic decisions that are made in nondemocratic fashion. It is as if the Constitution had been amended to include the following provisions:
Policies and choices made by voters as part of the electoral process shall be subject to review by a Board of Managers representing the governmental and corporate sectors. The Board may, in its absolute discretion, confirm or reverse decisions by the electorate or substitute other policies for those chosen by the electorate.
The revolution of capitalism 02 Sept 2011
Fri, 2 Sep 11
Duration: 11 mins
John Gray argues that one side-effect of the financial crisis is an increasing number of people who believe that Karl Marx was right, as capitalism destroys the bourgeousie.
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David Biddle
jmac1949
Snowden
libbyliberalnyc
skypixie0
Jimmy Zuma
Salon.com
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