April 13, 2015

5 Worst Things About the Techno-Libertarians Solidifying Their Grasp on Our Economy and Culture

5 Worst Things About the Techno-Libertarians Solidifying Their Grasp on Our Economy and Culture
There's a lot wrong with the tech industry, and it's increasingly impacting ordinary Americans.

By Richard Eskow / AlterNet
April 1, 2015


Nowadays the Silicon Valley is either celebrated as a hotbed of creativity or condemned as a cauldron of greed and wealth inequality.

While there are certainly some talented and even idealistic people in the Valley, there's also an excess of shallow libertarianism, from people who have enriched themselves with government-created technology who then decide they're being held back by government. That's shortsighted and vain. And yes, there are serious problems with sexism and age discrimination – problems which manifest themselves with some ugly behavior.

But such ethical problems aren't solely, or even primarily, the product of individual character defects. They're the result of self-reinforcing cultural norms at work. Anthropologists and sociologists could do worse than study the tech culture of the Silicon Valley. It would be important work, in fact, because this insular culture is having a deep and lasting impact on our economy and society.

Here, to star them off, are five socially destructive aspects of Silicon Valley culture:

1. Tech products become the byproducts of a money-making scheme rather than an end unto themselves.

It's almost inevitable when big money enters the picture: Smart or talented people are drawn to a field for the chance to get rich, not necessarily because it's where their greatest talents or dreams lie. The same thing has happened to fields as diverse as film, pop music, and the financial sector. There's nothing wrong with getting rich, but it should be the byproduct of a happy marriage between talent and inspiration.

But here's how it works instead: The goal of entrepreneurs and innovators was once summed up in the cliched phrase, “build a better mousetrap.” But for many Silicon Valley products and services, including services like Uber and AirBnB, the goal now is to build a product which can be hyped into a multi-billion-dollar valuation – preferably by winning as much market share as possible, and then using that market position to engage in the kinds of practices usually reserved for monopolies and monopsonies (markets in which there is only one buyer). This process is described in more detail here. ..............(more)

http://www.alternet.org/culture/5-worst-things-about-techno-libertarians-solidifying-their-grasp-our-economy-and-culture

April 13, 2015

Hillary Clinton's Wall Street dilemma

New York (CNN) Wall Street is more than ready for Hillary Clinton.

The former secretary of state confirmed on Sunday what the political world has expected for months -- eight years after her first failed White House bid, Clinton will once again seek the Democratic Party's nomination for president.

"I'm hitting the road to earn your vote, because it's your time," Clinton said in a video released Sunday afternoon officially kicking off her campaign. "And I hope you'll join me on this journey."

As Clinton sets off onto the campaign trail to reintroduce herself to voters and court donors across the country, Wall Street elites are ready to roll out the red carpet. But while the enthusiastic support from the industry will be a financial boon for Clinton's newly launched campaign, it will also pose a delicate balancing act when it comes to appeasing a vocal wing of her party that is antagonistic toward the banking sector.

.....(snip).....

Robert Wolf, the former CEO of UBS Americas and a close Obama associate who will back Clinton in 2016, said there's an "incredible amount of enthusiasm" for her campaign to get off the ground.

"We know the secretary from the years of being first lady to the senator to the secretary, so we have decades of working relationship with her," Wolf, who now runs a boutique consulting firm headquartered in Manhattan, told CNN. "I don't think it's surprising that the former senator of New York is close to the finance community." ...............(more)

http://www.cnn.com/2015/04/12/politics/hillary-clinton-2016-wall-street/

April 13, 2015

John Nichols: Hillary Clinton’s Soft Populism Is Not Enough

from the Nation:



by John Nichols


As she struggled to keep her 2008 campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination alive, Hillary Clinton took a turn toward economic populism. It helped; after a series of setbacks in early caucus and primary states, Clinton’s abandonment of frontrunner caution and embrace of “I'm in this race to fight for you” rhetoric secured her big wins in states such as Ohio and Pennsylvania. Ultimately, she gained more votes than Barack Obama and came reasonably close to wrestling the nomination from him. If Clinton had run from the start as a populist, there is no telling what might have happened. But the important thing to remember is that Clinton did not turn up the volume until she felt she had no other choice—and by then it was too late.

Now, as she launches a new bid for her party’s nomination, Clinton is starting with populist talk. In a slick announcement video released Sunday she gripes that "the deck is still stacked in favor of those at the top."

"Everyday Americans need a champion, and I want to be that champion," says the former First Lady, US Senator and Secretary of State, on the various platforms employed for the carefully coordinated social media launch of her long-anticipated candidacy.

Clinton sounded the same themes in somewhat more detail in a freshly-released epilogue to her book, Hard Choices. Reflecting on the birth of her granddaughter, she writes, “I'm more convinced than ever that our future in the 21st century depends on our ability to ensure that a child born in the hills of Appalachia or the Mississippi Delta or the Rio Grande Valley grows up with the same shot at success that Charlotte will.”

.......(snip).......

Activist pressure is essential, and it may move Clinton some. But a real race for the nomination, as opposed to a coronation, is the best guarantee that the party will produce a sufficiently populist nominee to strike the chords that will inspire voters. If Clinton is not up to the task, then Democrats had better find an alternative. If Clinton recognizes that she must not merely note the crisis but address it—recognizing the concerns about her record and answering them with economic agenda that makes real the populist promise—then she will have the right message not just for a nomination fight but for a November fight that will require a lot more than platitudes. ..............(more)

http://www.thenation.com/blog/204041/hillary-clintons-soft-populism-not-enough#

April 13, 2015

Hillary announces (cartoon)

http://www.truthdig.com/cartoon/item/hillary_announces_20150412

April 12, 2015

Kamala Harris Urges Forgiveness of Student Debt from Predatory Colleges

(Bloomberg) California Attorney General and U.S. Senate candidate Kamala Harris signed on to a letter to Education Secretary Arne Duncan Thursday that asks the federal government to wipe away the debt amassed by college students targeted at the non-profit Corinthian Colleges, Inc.

Harris was joined by the the top law enforcement officials in eight other states in seeking forgiveness for the debt students amassed at Corinthian.

"We, the undersigned Attorneys General of Massachusetts, California, Connecticut, Illinois, Kentucky, New Mexico, New York, Oregon and Washington, write to urge the Department of Education to immediately relieve borrowers of the obligation to repay federal student loans that were incurred as a result of violations of state law by Corinthian Colleges, Inc. ('Corinthian')," the letter states. "We also write to request that the Department work with state attorneys general to establish a clear system for student borrowers to seek relief from the Department-as allowed under statute, Department regulations, and loan terms—when schools break the law."

The largest chain of for-profit colleges in the country until 2014, when it shut down in a deal with the Department of Education, Corinthian is alleged to have lured students into loan agreements with false and misleading claims. The letter cited those allegations as well as the lawsuits brought against the company by several states and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. ..............(more)

http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-04-09/kamala-harris-urges-forgiveness-of-student-debt-from-predatory-lenders

April 12, 2015

The FDA’s phony nutrition science: How Big Food and Agriculture trumps real science .......

from Salon:


The FDA’s phony nutrition science: How Big Food and Agriculture trumps real science — and why the government allows it
Sugar and corn syrup have been pumped into the food chain, causing a dramatic increase in illnesses. Here's why

Richard Jacoby and Raquel Baldelomar

Excerpted from "Sugar Crush: How to Reduce Inflammation, Reverse Nerve Damage and Reclaim Good Health"

Lie: The U.S. Department of Agriculture Knows What Should Be on Your Plate

You know by now that sugar has been pumped into the food chain over the last fifty years, especially in the form of high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS). As a result, there has been a dramatic increase in a whole range of illnesses that manifest in different parts of your bodies, depending on your own genetic profile. All are caused by the same underlying impact of inflammation from sugar, and the resulting nerve damage and compression. Medical professionals can be blinded by the bias of their specialties and miss the important connections linking these seemingly unrelated conditions. But like us, they’re hampered by information linked to the partnership between the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Big Agra complex.

When the Government Took an Interest in What You Eat

In 1916, the USDA began a well-intended nutrition education program consisting of two publications, “Food for Young Children” and “How to Select Food.” These plans established guidelines for groups and households to provide “protective foods.” Then, in 1992, after several successive programs, the USDA established the familiar Food Guide Pyramid, with its six basic food groups. The base of the pyramid, as we all recall, consisted of the Bread, Cereal, Rice & Pasta Group. Americans were advised that in order to be healthy, they needed to consume 6–11 servings of these foods per day! The pyramid then stacked foods in descending importance: fruits and vegetables, meats and dairy products, and finally, fats and sweets to be used sparingly. A modified MyPyramid Food Guidance System was initiated in 2005; it added the concept of exercise and stressed moderation in food choices rather than specific daily servings.

The latest incarnation, established in 2011, is a dinner plate icon called MyPlate, which advises us on the percentages of foods we should consume daily: 30 percent grains, 40 percent vegetables, 10 percent fruits, and 20 percent protein, with a small, side portion of dairy.

And yet the official government dietary guidelines for healthy eating are dangerously wrong in almost every respect. Like the old food pyramid in its various incarnations, the new food plate is the product of the marriage of politics and Big Agra lobbying—actual nutrition has very little to do with the recommendations. As they stand today, and have for decades, the official recommendations of the USDA are determined by the commercial interests of agribusiness. They’re also the primary reason why two-thirds of all Americans are overweight. They’re why 29 million Americans have type 2 diabetes, another 19 million have it but don’t know it, and 79 million people have prediabetes. They’re also why I never lack for patients suffering from diabetic peripheral neuropathy.

So, what’s wrong with MyPlate? Almost everything. Specifically, the USDA officially promotes a diet that is far too high in carbohydrates and far too low in healthy fat. In other words, your government is promoting a diet that will make you obese, give you a whole slew of illnesses, and kill your nerves. ........................(more)

http://www.salon.com/2015/04/12/the_fdas_phony_nutrition_science_how_big_food_and_agriculture_trumps_real_science_and_why_the_government_allows_it/

April 12, 2015

5 Worst Things About the Techno-Libertarians Solidifying Their Grasp on Our Economy and Culture

5 Worst Things About the Techno-Libertarians Solidifying Their Grasp on Our Economy and Culture
There's a lot wrong with the tech industry, and it's increasingly impacting ordinary Americans.

By Richard Eskow / AlterNet
April 1, 2015


Nowadays the Silicon Valley is either celebrated as a hotbed of creativity or condemned as a cauldron of greed and wealth inequality.

While there are certainly some talented and even idealistic people in the Valley, there's also an excess of shallow libertarianism, from people who have enriched themselves with government-created technology who then decide they're being held back by government. That's shortsighted and vain. And yes, there are serious problems with sexism and age discrimination – problems which manifest themselves with some ugly behavior.

But such ethical problems aren't solely, or even primarily, the product of individual character defects. They're the result of self-reinforcing cultural norms at work. Anthropologists and sociologists could do worse than study the tech culture of the Silicon Valley. It would be important work, in fact, because this insular culture is having a deep and lasting impact on our economy and society.

Here, to star them off, are five socially destructive aspects of Silicon Valley culture:

1. Tech products become the byproducts of a money-making scheme rather than an end unto themselves.

It's almost inevitable when big money enters the picture: Smart or talented people are drawn to a field for the chance to get rich, not necessarily because it's where their greatest talents or dreams lie. The same thing has happened to fields as diverse as film, pop music, and the financial sector. There's nothing wrong with getting rich, but it should be the byproduct of a happy marriage between talent and inspiration.

But here's how it works instead: The goal of entrepreneurs and innovators was once summed up in the cliched phrase, “build a better mousetrap.” But for many Silicon Valley products and services, including services like Uber and AirBnB, the goal now is to build a product which can be hyped into a multi-billion-dollar valuation – preferably by winning as much market share as possible, and then using that market position to engage in the kinds of practices usually reserved for monopolies and monopsonies (markets in which there is only one buyer). This process is described in more detail here. ..............(more)

http://www.alternet.org/culture/5-worst-things-about-techno-libertarians-solidifying-their-grasp-our-economy-and-culture

April 12, 2015

Factory Farm Meat: Why Vegetarians, Ranchers and Conscious Omnivores Need to Unite

Factory Farm Meat: Why Vegetarians, Ranchers and Conscious Omnivores Need to Unite

Saturday, 11 April 2015 00:00
By Ronnie Cummins, Organic Consumers Association | Op-Ed


For the first time since the advent of industrial agriculture, the federal government is considering advising Americans to eat “less red and processed meat.”

That advice is the outcome of studies conducted by an independent panel of “experts” which was asked by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) for recommended changes to the U.S. Dietary Guidelines.

The February 19 “eat less red and processed meat” pronouncement by the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee (DGAC) was reported widely in mainstream media. It set off a heated debate about whether or not consumers should eat meat, a debate that included the standard name-calling by factory farm front groups, including the Farm Bureau, denouncing consumers and environmentalists (and their alleged pawns on the DGAC) for being “anti-meat” and “anti-farmer.”

Unfortunately in its recommendations, the DGAC didn’t really come out and tell us the whole truth, which would go something like this: “Americans should eat less, or rather no red and processed meat from filthy, inhumane factory farms or feedlots, where the animals are cruelly crammed together and routinely fed a diet of herbicide-drenched, genetically engineered grains, supplemented by a witch’s brew of antibiotics, artificial hormones, steroids, blood, manure and slaughterhouse waste, contributing to a deadly public health epidemic of obesity, heart disease, cancer, antibiotic resistance, hormone disruption and food allergies.”

If the DGAC had really told us the truth about America’s red meat horror show (95 percent of our red meat comes from these Confined Animal Feeding Operations or CAFOs), we’d be having a conversation about how we can get rid of factory farms, instead of a rather abstract debate on the ethics of eating meat. ..................(more)

http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/30110-factory-farm-meat-why-vegetarians-ranchers-and-conscious-omnivores-need-to-unite

April 12, 2015

Ex-Lobbyists for Spies Are Overseeing Government Spying

On Edit: Link at bottom corrected.


http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/lobbyists_for_spies_are_overseeing_us_government_spying_20150411


via truthdig:



Increasingly, the task of overseeing the National Security Agency is going to former lobbyists for NSA contractors and other intelligence community insiders.

Investigative journalist Lee Fang reports at The Intercept:

A wave of recent appointments has placed intelligence industry insiders into key Congressional roles overseeing intelligence gathering. The influx of insiders is particularly alarming because lawmakers in Washington are set to take up a series of sensitive surveillance and intelligence issues this year, from reform of the Patriot Act to far-reaching “information sharing” legislation.

After the first revelations of domestic surveillance by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, President Obama defended the spying programs by claiming they were “subject to congressional oversight and congressional reauthorization and congressional debate.” But as Rep. Alan Grayson, D-Fla., and other members of Congress have pointed out, there is essentially a “two-tiered” system for oversight, with lawmakers and staff on specialized committees, such as the House and Senate committees on Intelligence and Homeland Security, controlling the flow of information and routinely excluding other Congress members, even those who have asked for specific information relating to pending legislation.

The Intercept reviewed the new gatekeepers in Congress, the leading staffers on the committees overseeing intelligence and surveillance matters, and found a large number of lobbyists and consultants passing through the revolving door between the intelligence community and the watchdogs who purportedly oversee the intelligence community. We reached out to each of them earlier this week and have yet to hear back.

Read about some of the regulators and their professional affiliations here.

—Posted by Alexander Reed Kelly.

April 11, 2015

California Urban Water Use Restricted While Regulators Give Oil Industry Two More Years To Operate..

California Urban Water Use Restricted While Regulators Give Oil Industry Two More Years To Operate Injection Wells In Protected Groundwater Aquifers

Mike Gaworecki is a San Francisco-based journalist who writes about energy, climate, and forest issues, His writing has appeared on BillMoyers.com, Alternet, Treehugger, Change.org, Huffington Post, and more. He is also a novelist whose debut “The Mysticist” came out via FreemadeSF in 2014. Originally published at Desmogblog.

With snowpack levels at just 6% of their long-term average, the lowest they’ve ever been in recorded history, California Governor Jerry Brown has announced new regulations to cut urban water use 25%, the first ever mandatory water restrictions in the state.

California is in the fifth year of its historic, climate-exacerbated drought and, per a recent analysis by a senior water scientist at NASA, has only one year of water left in its reservoirs, while groundwater levels are at an all-time low.

The Golden State’s towns and cities only account for about 20% of all water used for human purposes, however (including residential, institutional, industrial and commercial uses). Agriculture uses the other 80%.

Half of the produce grown in America comes from California, yet 2015 is likely to be the second year in a row that California’s farmers get no water allocation from state reservoirs. In some parts of the state, agricultural operations have pumped so much groundwater that the land is starting to sink. ....................(more)

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2015/04/california-urban-water-use-restricted-regulators-give-oil-industry-two-years-operate-injection-wells-protected-groundwater-aquifers.html