I cannot stress enough that this elitist attitude towards society is a learned mindset, that comes with a sense of extreme entitlement, and not some inherited tendency. As it succeeds it can become contagious among those who are morally weak and easily influenced.Some good quotes.
How ideas move through academia may depend on where those ideas come from as much as their quality, a new study suggests.Science Daily
Following his ouster from New America, antitrust scholar Barry Lynn talks to ProMarket about academic capture and the power of digital platforms like Google.I don't know about "slow and creeping." A lot of influential think tanks were founded by big money to promote ruling elite ideology as a means of influence and propaganda. Coupled with increasing centralization of media control and inroads of influence into eduction, the forum free enquiry and debate is shrinking.
But something much larger than government-on-government influence is happening, and I’d like to call that out in this post. We keep talking about physical border security, but what about influence security? Any country with widespread Internet access is susceptible to the same kind of fake news and other social media influence that we suspect Russia of doing. And every citizen can play this game. For example, if I were highly motivated to influence an election in Great Britain, I’m sure I could move a few thousand votes in any direction I chose. Could it be said in that case that America is trying to manipulate a foreign election? Yes, unambiguously so. And I believe it is totally legal, even if I use fake news as my persuasion.
From 2017 onward, the democratic process in any country is open to “voting” by the entire world. The foreign “votes” will come in the form of social media influence on the local voters. There is no practical way to stop any of that from happening. And that means political power will migrate from the traditional triumvirate of politicians, rich people, and the media, to individual persuaders who are good at it. In 2017 and beyond, the best persuaders in the world will be influencing democratic elections in every country. And those persuaders will be from anywhere on the globe. Borders can’t stop persuasion.
While you were watching the news coverage about physical borders between countries, and physical immigration, the democratic process in each country became global. We can (and do) influence politics across borders now, bigly. And fake news is part of the soup, unfortunately.What Adams leaves unsaid is that TPTB will attempt to control this to their advantage, using censorship if deemed needed. However, they will likely prefer use the Internet for their own propaganda, disinformation, psyops, and other fake news, rather intervene directly with censorship or shutting down venues, which would be perceived as illiberal.
WikiLeaks’ dump of messages to and from Clinton’s campaign chief offer an unprecedented view into the workings of the elite, and how it looks after itself.But, but, but, Putin!
In Chapter 24 of The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, Concluding Notes on the Social Philosophy towards which the General Theory might Lead, John Maynard Keynes confronted the issue of the “arbitrary and inequitable distribution of wealth and incomes” in capitalist economies. The argument he advances in that Chapter of his 1936 book contains guidelines for the progressive left that some just cannot seem to grasp. In short, governments (as our agents) do not need the savings of the rich to ensure that society prospers. There was another interesting contribution in 1946 from the American statistician and economist – Beardsley Ruml – who wrote that “Taxes for Revenue are Obsolete”. The progressive left would be advised to study his work and stop building political policy platforms on the claim that governments needs to make the rich pay their fair share of taxes so that adequate public services and infrastructure can be provided. The incomes and taxes paid by the rich are largely irrelevant to the capacity of a national, currency-issuing government to provide first-class public services and infrastructure. It is time to re-frame the debate and the way in which progressive political forces state their policy aspirations….According to functional finance, the purpose of taxation is to control inflation rather than fund government that is a currency sovereign.
So the government might impose taxes:
1. To control inflation.
2. To redistribute purchasing power from the rich to the poor (high income to low income).
3. To alter the allocation of resources away from undesirable ends – such as tobacco taxes.
4. To provide some hypothecated public transparency for major projects/programs.
So from a functional finance perspective, taxation must be designed to advance these purposes and the public discussion must be about the idea of public purpose and never about raising revenue.
So from a functional finance perspective, taxation must be designed to advance these purposes and the public discussion must be about the idea of public purpose and never about raising revenue.…Bill Mitchell – billy blog
Jonathan Soros, son of George Soros and heavy donor to campaigns to get money out of politics, writes a nuanced account of what huge, open campaign contributions do to electoral politics.
After a certain point, spending doesn't make a huge difference in electoral outcomes (one study says that doubling funding shifts the needle by one percent), but because politicians are entirely beholden to their funders to reach that certain point, the electoral agenda becomes about their donors' priorities. And once in office, every argument is couched in terms that are set by those donors (as Barney Frank quipped, "[Congress are not] the only people in the history of the world who, on a regular basis, took money from perfect strangers and made sure it had no effect on them."
Soros points out that money was corrupting politics -- albeit less openly -- long beforeCitizens United, and calls for a radical campaign-spending reform to minimize the reach of large campaign donors' priorities on political discourse.…Boing Boing
Survey by social scientists shows why Washington focuses on deficits instead of desperately needed jobs.AlterNet
