The shift to post-industrialism was associated with the rise of a powerful new set of capitalist elites and new corporate centers of production, finance, and communication. In the 21st century, Silicon Valley became the symbol of the new post-industrial high-tech world. It would become the showcase of the new high-tech companies, such as Microsoft, Amazon, and Apple, which were becoming the first trillion-dollar companies, led by tycoons such as Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Steve Jobs, Tim Cook, Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, Sam Altman, and Peter Thiel, all fabulously wealthy members of the Big Tech power elite. Silicon Valley introduced itself as a modern miracle, bringing unprecedented new productivity and prosperity that would benefit both owners and workers, and contribute to the betterment of the general population with magical new products such as the personal computer, the iPhone, and the new internet-based world of online culture and communication on social media. This new world revolutionized the economic and social spheres, while also having major uses and implications for politics and the military. Because billions of people globally now have iPhones or personal computers, with access to the new online universe of the internet and social media, Silicon Valley seemed to open up not only a transformative new economy for entrepreneurs and knowledge workers but a transformed, newly connected world of online social communication and relationships.

This is not entirely an illusion. The online world does open up new social connections and political connections, with social media being a powerful new tool for the younger generation to build new friendships, communities, and politics. But Silicon Valley’s fantastic new array of electronic communications and online connections may also prove to be a gateway to weak social relations and ultimately the end of strong face-to-face social relationships, as well as democracy itself. We face a sociocidal transformation fueled by high tech, with Silicon Valley also proffering its own politics of authoritarianism. Sociocide is the process by which human connection is largely severed, and individuals are only concerned for themselves. A sociocidal society is one in which solidarity is nonexistent and meaningful human relationships are destroyed.

Several sociocidal forces emerge directly from the economic restructuring created by huge Big Tech firms, especially the “Magnificent Seven,” whose individual worth now reaches into the trillions:  Microsoft, Apple, NVIDIA, Amazon, Alphabet (Google), Meta (Facebook), and Tesla. One is the interest of these corporate high-tech elites, much like their corporate counterparts in other spheres, in eroding the face-to-face workplace and social ties that can challenge their power. In the workplace, that translates into the intensified attack on secure employment, unionism, and a collective physical workplace. The intent is to weaken the social relations of workers in the workplace – and more broadly, to subvert the solidarity and face-to-face connections of people throughout society that can challenge authoritarianism in both work and politics.

Focusing first on the workplace, the Magnificent Seven play a special role here by creating and developing the technology – including the personal computer, iPhone, internet apps, AI, robots, and social media — that allows corporate elites to create a precariat of dispersed and contingent workers, increasingly separated from each other, while also replacing millions of workers and transferring their jobs to robots and other AI inventions.

The most rapid replacement of workers by robots and AI is in high-skill jobs. Matt Sigelman, president of the Human Resources Institute, summarized his Institute’s widely circulated report on AI, saying, “There’s no question the workers who will be most impacted are those with college degrees, and those are the people who always thought they were safe.” He indicates that: “Companies in finance, including Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley, have some of the highest percentages of their payrolls likely to be disrupted by generative A.I. Not far behind are tech giants like Google, Microsoft and Meta.”

Tech workers, talented and highly trained, are developing the tools allowing their companies to eliminate many of their own jobs. Meanwhile, employers are also using robots to replace low-skill workers. The sociocidal tech impulse of Silicon Valley, as in other sectors, is embraced because of its profit-saving capacity. And the fastest way to increase profit is to reduce wages, usually by weakening relations among employees or busting unions.

The Magnificent Seven have used their overwhelming economic power to directly undermine unions, the most effective form of worker social relations and organization. In January 2024, Elon Musk, now legendary for his anti-union and broader right-wing views, filed a lawsuit in federal courts to declare unconstitutional the National Labor Relations Board, which protects and regulates workers’ right to organize. In August 2024, just before his re-election, Trump joked with Musk about firing workers, complimenting Musk during a two-hour conversation on X for firing Tesla workers who wanted to strike. “They go on strike,” Trump said to Musk, “and you say, ‘That’s OK, you’re all gone.’” Trump then added, “You’re the Greatest!” The UAW filed labor charges against both Trump and Musk for the unfair labor practices that the two had celebrated; Musk’s Tesla had clashed with union activists for years, and the NLRB in 2021 had found that the non-union Tesla violated labor laws when it fired a union organizer.

One of Musk’s Magnificent Seven compatriots, Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon, quickly joined in Trump and Musk’s union-busting party, filing a copycat suit to make the NLRB and unions unconstitutional. Here, we see the world’s two richest men, leaders of the High-Tech Robber Barons, exploiting economic size to reap the fruit of their technology’s economic power. They are seeking a revolutionary breakdown of workplace social relations, moving from the sociopathy of the first Gilded Age to the sociocide of today’s Gilded Age.

The Magnificent Seven’s power undercuts workplace social relations and fiercely attacks union solidarity in the name of free-spirited libertarianism running rampant in Silicon Valley. The broader corporate success in drastically weakening unions is key to sociocide in the entire US labor force and has been achieved not only by the anti-union fervor of corporations since the New Deal but also by the zeal of the Republican Party from Reagan through Trump to make the destruction of labor solidarity and unions a top political priority.

_________________________________________

The above is an excerpt from Charles Derber’s most recent book, Bonfire: American Sociocide, Broken Relations, and the Quest for Democracy.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Charles Derber.

Three journalists told CPJ that investigative reporting on major economic events, a cornerstone of Hong Kong’s financial transparency, has nearly disappeared amid government pressure and the departure of major outlets. 

The sharp decline in press freedom, the journalists said, is a direct result of the National Security Law. This law, enacted on June 30, 2020, was imposed directly by Beijing, bypassing Hong Kong’s local legislature, and included offenses for secession, subversion, terrorist activities, and collusion with foreign forces, with penalties ranging from a three years to life imprisonment.  

In the five years since it was enacted, authorities have shut down media outlets and arrested several journalists, including Jimmy Lai, the founder of one of Hong Kong’s largest newspapers, the pro-democracy Apple Daily. Several major international news organizations have either relocated or downsized their operations in Hong Kong, leading to a decline in reporting on the city and its financial hub.

“Hong Kong’s economic boom happened because journalists could work without interference,” said a veteran reporter with 11 years’ experience in television, newspapers, and digital platforms in Hong Kong, who spoke to CPJ on condition of anonymity due to security concerns.

While markets still function, at least three media professionals told CPJ that the erosion of press freedom — often overlooked — is a key factor behind Hong Kong’s fading financial appeal to market participants. One reporter described the media as “paralyzed.” 

Another hastily passed security law enacted in March 2024 in Hong Kong further deepened fears that it would be used to suppress press freedom and prosecute journalists.

“There has never been an international financial center in history that operates with restrictions on information,” Simon Lee, an economic commentator and former assistant CEO of Next Digital Group, the parent company of Apple Daily, told CPJ.

Hong Kong long served as a base for reporting on China’s economy and power structures, said a former financial journalist on the condition of anonymity, citing safety concerns.

“Most Hong Kong-listed companies come from the mainland [China]. Foreign media used Hong Kong to observe China’s economic operations or wealth transfers,” the former financial journalist told CPJ. “Now the risks feel similar to reporting from inside China.”

Crackdowns, shutdowns, and an exodus of major media

Since the introduction of the National Security Law in 2020, at least eight media outlets have shut. These included Apple Daily, news and lifestyle magazine Next Magazine, both published by Lai’s Next Digital group, and the online outlet Stand News, after they were raided by authorities.

At least four other media organizations — Post852, DB channel, Citizen News, and FactWire — ceased operations voluntarily, citing concerns over the deteriorating political environment.

Reporting was also criminalized in several cases, with journalists prosecuted for “inciting subversion” or “colluding with foreign forces.”  

China had the world’s highest number of imprisoned journalists in CPJ’s latest prison census — 50 in total, including eight in Hong Kong.

The New York Times moved part of its newsroom to Seoul in 2020. In March 2024, Radio Free Asia closed its Hong Kong office, and in May, The Wall Street Journal relocated its Asia headquarters to Singapore.

 “With fewer foreign correspondents based in the city, there’s simply less reporting on Hong Kong,” the former financial journalist told CPJ. “As a result, the city’s economy may receive less objective attention on the global stage.”

The former financial journalist said that one of the biggest losses after the security law was the disappearance of Apple Daily. Unlike most local media, which focused on routine market updates, Apple Daily connected business to politics and mapped interest networks — an increasingly rare practice.

Next Digital, through Apple Daily, built a reputation for investigative financial reporting. A former staff member told the BBC that the company once spent over 100,000 yuan (US$14,000) tracing dozens of property owners to uncover a developer’s hidden ties with a bank.

“From a financial news perspective, one of our biggest problems is losing Apple Daily,” the former financial journalist told CPJ.

Local business reporting also fades away

As Hong Kong’s financial hub reputation comes under question, stories on high unemployment rates, struggling small businesses, and store closures are increasingly out of sight.

“One direct effect is feeling increasingly unable to grasp what’s happening in the city; important information no longer seems easy to access,” Lee said. “Previously, competition among professional outlets encouraged source sharing and helped maintain a power balance. Now, one-way government-controlled information faces little resistance.”

Lee told CPJ that changes in Hong Kong’s media landscape are particularly evident in major financial events, pointing to the coverage of the 2024 sale of Li Ka-shing’s port assets, in which local outlets failed to question the deal’s structure, rationale, or political implications.

“Beijing called it a national security matter, and the other side of the story disappeared,” Lee told CPJ. “Many focus on the judicial system when discussing fairness, but true fairness also depends on the free flow of information … Without information freedom, public oversight fades, and the market’s system of checks and balances collapses.”

Lee also cited the case of Alvin Chau, a casino tycoon in Macao who was sentenced in 2023 to 18 years for illegal gambling. While foreign media uncovered his alleged links to oil smuggling operations to North Korea, local media offered little follow-up.

“These investigations and reports simply no longer exist,” Lee said.

Sources can’t speak freely

Two journalists told CPJ they have noticed increasing reluctance from interviewees. 

During previous years of the Annual Budget Speech, Hong Kong’s yearly announcement of its public spending and economic plans, the media would host analysis shows with economists debating government spending and policies. 

“We would ask about the fiscal surplus, support for the poor, and whether measures were targeted,” the veteran reporter told CPJ, adding that now, “only one professor is willing to speak openly.”

Lee told CPJ that the atmosphere of “not being allowed to criticize” the broader structure or government policy has also extended to the reporting on how financial markets operate.

Market participants should be free to take either optimistic or pessimistic views of the economic outlook, Lee told CPJ, adding that today in Hong Kong, it is discouraged to express pessimism, and even silently shifting toward defensive investment strategies or risk-averse behavior may be interpreted as making a political statement.

“It’s hard for any place with such high information costs to remain a global financial hub,” Lee said. “Because even pulling back on investment can send a signal. If investors are accused of intentionally dragging down the market just because they try to hedge or take a cautious view, they may decide it’s safer to avoid the market altogether.”

In response to CPJ’s request for comment, a Hong Kong government spokesperson referred CPJ to a statement that said the security law has enabled the city to “make a major transition from chaos to order” and “the business environment has continuously improved,” while press freedom is protected under the law.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CPJ's Asia-Pacific program staff.

Sebastien Lai has sought a meeting with Starmer for more than two years to advocate for the release of his father, 77-year-old Jimmy Lai, who founded Apple Daily. His health is deteriorating and he risks dying in jail.

Lai has been imprisoned for over 1,600 days, mostly in isolation, while awaiting the outcome of a long-delayed trial for sedition and conspiring to collude with foreign forces under the Beijing-imposed National Security Law. After Lai’s arrest in 2020, Apple Daily was shuttered on June 24, 2021, following police raids and the freezing of the paper’s assets.

Read the full joint letter here.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CP Staff.

Several Indian media outlets picked up the story and began reporting on it. Republic Bharat, News24, IndiaTV, and Ahmedabad Mirror published reports claiming that Apple had fired the chief designer behind the Liquid Glass UI and his entire design team, and that this termination happened just a few hours after the official announcement of iOS 26. However, after the story began receiving scrutiny, all the outlets either updated their articles to correct the information or deleted them altogether.

NDTV Profit and Gadget 360 Hindi, both owned by the Adani Group, also published similar stories amplifying the same claims. The report published by NDTV was also republished by MSN.com.

‘Intended as Satire’

Alt News conducted a search of Jon Yongfook’s profiles on X as well as LinkedIn. Upon examining his professional history, we found no confirmation indicating he had ever been employed by Apple. His X profile bio however, clearly states that he is the founder of BannerBear, which is a SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) platform for the automatic generation of images, social media visuals, ecommerce banners and more. Furthermore, according to the job history listed on his LinkedIn profile, Yongfook is a former employee of Aviva.

In addition, Yongfook later posted a clarification on his X account in a follow-up tweet. He explained that his original post had been intended as satire. He wrote, “I have been an Apple user for more than 20 years, this is the worst UI I have seen, I hope Apple will make some changes to it.”

Bless all of you who recognized this as satire. I’ve been enjoying the puns. I’ve been an Apple user for 20+ years, this is the worst UI I’ve seen, I hope they tweak it.

To be perfectly transparent, this is overwhelming my notifications now, so I’m putting the thread on mute

— Jon Yongfook (@yongfook) June 10, 2025

To sum up, X user Jon Yongfook is not an Apple employee but rather an Apple user who posted a satirical comment on social media. The post was amplified as ‘news’ by several media outlets including Republic Bharat, NDTV Group, and News24 seemingly without any verification. These outlets falsely reported that Apple had fired the lead designer and the team behind Liquid Glass UI.

The post Indian media picked up Apple user’s satiric tweet, ‘reported’ team behind newly launched UI had been fired appeared first on Alt News.

This content originally appeared on Alt News and was authored by Pawan Kumar.

China’s mixed and managed economy is designed to match its stage of development and is well managed. The U.S. non-managed economy has no design and does not match its advanced stage of economic development. China uses exports to grow its economy and limit debt. The U.S. runs severe deficits in its trade balance and needs a growing debt to finance the trade deficit and to increase the GDP. The rapidly growing debt portends economic decline, and there is no certified way to escape the predicament. U.S. hegemony and world leadership appears doomed. The sooner the U.S. leaders recognize the dangers and readjust the economy, the less will be the slide. More on this later. Facts and statistics supply the proof that the PRC has successfully met the challenges.

Overly contentious USA

Using sanctions from legislative directives, rather than pursuing cooperative efforts to combat China’s rise to the world’s number one industrial power, the U.S motivates China to become self-sufficient in technological applications, temporarily interrupts China’s advances, and eventually causes havoc to American companies

Citing security concerns, the U.S. Congress, in 2019, passed the National Defense Authorization Act and essentially banned use of telecommunication equipment from 5G network pioneer Huawei and smartphone manufacturer ZTE. In June 2020, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) designated ZTE a national security threat. The security concerns proceeded from a possibility that the Chinese government could demand the habits of American citizens, similar to the information that Google and a host of advertising firms gather from internet searchers.

Huawei is of more major significance, but ZTE’s shrugging off the sanctions deserves mention. Its steady revenue growth until facing competition from other companies, relates its success.

This telecom company entered the smartphone market in 2010 and now has the 12th spot in the listing of the Largest Smartphone Manufacturers & Brands in the World. ZTE is also the 6th largest supplier in the Global 5G Infrastructure Market.

Huawei, global leader in development of 5G networks and China’s technology powerhouse, reeled from U.S. sanctions and stumbled as a boxer from an unaware punch. Predictions had Huawei barely surviving. Labelled as a company the U.S. could not do with, Huawei is now the company the world cannot do without. Refuting U.S. attempts to restrict its advances, Huawei expanded into new markets, into new industries, and developed unique alternatives to the denied technologies.

After years of “barely surviving,” Huawei is a leading network company on the globe, having constructed approximately 30% of worldwide 5G base stations, and is fourth in global smartphone manufacturing. After losing access to Google’s Android and Oracle’s software, Huawei developed its own operating system, Harmony OS, which has become the second most popular mobile operating system in China and, by 2025, was installed in over 900 million devices.

In 2022, the Commerce Department informed NVidia and AMD to restrict exports of AI-related chips to China, and informed chip equipment makers — Lam Research, Applied Materials and KLA — to restrict sending tools to the PRC for manufacturing advanced chips. China’s tech giant responded by challenging NVidia artificial intelligence dominance with its Ascend 910D AI processor chip, which “reflects China’s strategic push to develop indigenous semiconductor capabilities.” The U.S. did not respond to Huawei’s advance with its own technology advancements and again responded with threats. On May 15, 2025, the Trump administration warned that using Huawei’s AI chips might violate US export laws.

Ignoring U.S. threats, Huawei expanded use of its chips into the automotive industry and set a new standard for smart driving and self-driving technology.

Huawei’s ambitious undertaking includes the introduction of cutting-edge smart vehicles equipped with advanced autonomous driving technologies. The company is leveraging its prowess in artificial intelligence (AI) and big data to enhance vehicle performance and safety features. With a focus on seamless connectivity and user experience, Huawei is positioning itself as a significant player in the highly sought-after smart driving space, previously dominated by traditional automotive giants and tech firms like Tesla.

In August 2023, President Biden issued an Executive Order “Addressing United States Investments in Certain National Security Technologies and Products in Countries of Concern.” The order prohibited U.S. investments in semiconductors and microelectronics, quantum information technologies, and artificial intelligence technologies in China. In November 2024, “The U.S. reportedly ordered TSMC to halt shipments of advanced chips to Chinese customers that are often used in artificial intelligence applications.”

As a result, Xiaomi, a leading smartphone manufacturer, which has expanded into electric SUV car production, developed its 3-nanometre XRing O1 system-on-a-chip (SoC). Following Apple, Qualcomm, and MediaTek, Xiaomi became the fourth tech company in the world to design a 3-nanometer mobile SoC for mass production. A Chinese company can now compete with American companies in selling the unique chips, and Qualcomm, which has been a long-standing supplier of mobile chips to Xiaomi, might have its sales disrupted.

Statistics tell the story

What have all these underhanded means to stifle the Chinese economy accomplished? Statistics in the following table tell the story. The Chinese economy surpassed the U.S. economy in 2022 and is leaving Uncle Sam far behind.

The U.S. has a higher GDP than China. China has a higher GDP/PPP. Unlike nominal GDP, which uses current exchange rates, GDP/PPP adjusts for differences in price levels between countries and provides a more realistic measure of the value of goods and services produced. Another consideration is the value given to components of the GDP. Capital, hard goods, and agriculture supply the most needed wants to a community, and their purchases play a more significant role in the economy. The service economy, a paramount feature of the U.S. economy, exaggerates its GDP. One dollar of purchase in goods production requires time for feedback to the manufacturer before other goods are replenished and additional purchases augment the GDP. Purchases in the service economy quickly pass the same money from one service provider to another and elevate the GDP. Industrial output, whether for domestic or foreign use, more appropriately demonstrates the robustness of an economy. China leads the United States in industrial output and demonstrated robustness by becoming the leading manufacturer and exporter of automobiles.

A comparison between two dynamos of each nation, U.S. Tesla and China BYD, automobile manufacturers and innovators that rose rapidly against established competitors, complete the story. BYD, which started at about the same time as Tesla, has surpassed Tesla in automobile sales.

BYD Revenue

Tesla Revenue

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More than that, BYD has accomplished what was never considered possible; with a fully charged battery and a full tank of gas, unbiased testing of its new hybrid auto technology showed a driving range of 1,305 miles before charge or fill up. Its fully electric models use advanced sodium ion batteries and, in 5 minutes, can be charged to obtain a 250 mile range. A vertically integrated company, which manufactures its parts and is a leading provider of electric car batteries, BYD sells its autos at the lowest prices in China.

Revisions by BYD include paring the price of its Seagull hatchback to 55,800 yuan ($7,780), a 20% reduction to a model that was already the carmaker’s cheapest and one that had garnered global attention for its sub-$10,000 price tag. The Seal dual-motor hybrid sedan (direct competitor to the $37,000 Tesla Model 3) saw the biggest price cut at 34%, or by 53,000 yuan to 102,800 yuan ($14,333). (ED: These may be temporary price cuts.)

Fatal Decline of the Imperial Power

The U.S. cannot compete with or contain China. Using China as a scapegoat for its global economic decline has proved counterproductive. Better for the U.S. to cooperate with the PRC, realistically examine its economy, become aware of its limitations, and take decisive action to prevent a fatal decline.

The hindrances to economic progress is fourfold:

(1) Debt drives the economy and the debt has become unmanageable.
(2) Manufacturers have established offshore facilities to open new markets and to compete more effectively.
(3) Off shore production and having the dollar as an international currency has produced a high trade deficit.
(4) U.S. markets in the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America have eroded.

Debt drives the U.S. economy and, the two charts indicate that without increasing the exorbitant debt, the economy will stagnate.

GDP/PPP

All Sectors Debt

Given a money supply to purchase goods and services, how can production and eventual sales of goods and services advance without increases in the money supply? One way is to increase the velocity of money, which occurred with on-time inventory, credit card purchasing, and computer speedup of financial transactions. These phenomena occurred during past decades and exploded the GDP. Another means is by having a positive trade balance; selling goods externally. If these means are not occurring, and they no longer are, increases in the money supply are required to increase production and sell additional goods.

U.S. goods trade deficit increased in 2024 to a record $1.2 trillion, and, although many economists excuse the trade deficit, saying that,

a trade deficit can only arise if foreigners invest more in the US than Americans invest abroad. In other words, a country can only have a trade deficit if it also has an equally sized investment surplus. The US is able to sustain a large trade deficit because so many foreigners are eager to invest here,

is more a rationalization than a reality. The trade deficit arose because American industry found it more profitable to produce overseas and made the dollar the international currency. As an international currency, the dollar is in demand and its exchange rate is high compared to other currencies. The strong dollar raises the prices of U.S. goods, makes its exports expensive and its imports cheap. Yes, the balance of payments must be equalized, and the dollars return as either purchase of government securities ─ one principal reason for rise in government debt ─ or purchase of U.S. assets. The former has become unwieldly, leading to high interest rates and the latter gives foreign interests increased power in the American system. Having a positive balance of trade reduces government debt and foreign influence.

Government debt is not the total problem. A system that exists by debt is the real problem. For a free wheeling and profit first economy that generates huge trade deficits to grow, the money supply must grow. Because money is created by either bank loans (debt) or Federal Reserve borrowings from the Treasury (debt), all money is debt. For the economy to continually grow, debt must continually grow. Soon, financing the debt and its increasing interest rates will be a difficult problem. Credit will freeze, loans will default, and the money supply will shrink. Boom will become bust. The United States has no choice but to have its economy more managed and align government and industry in common goals that correct the trend to a fatal decline.

Tariffs as a government money raiser and incentive to produce locally will be another tax on the American consumer and will not stimulate private investment in internal production to replace foreign imports. So, why not maintain low priced imports and tax the consumer for another goal ─ government investment in competitive industries. Cooperation between government and industry, rather than free-wheeling economics will enable more rational decisions and predictable operations.

The United States pioneered the global economy but globalization is no longer a perfect fit for the economically mature nation. Markets once lost are usually lost for a long time. Preserving present markets and finding niche markets for specialized goods, which the omnipresent U.S. economy has many, will stabilize exports.

History shows that private industry has never been the source of solutions to economic lapses. Changes in life style and a return to the cohesion and social legislation that characterized the Franklin Delano Roosevelt era might solve the economic, social, and political declines predicted for America’s future. The democratic socialization of America is begging to begin.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Dan Lieberman.

The Hong Kong Free Press (HKFP), InMedia, The Witness, ReNews, and Boomhead are among the outlets that have received backdated tax demands from the Inland Revenue Department (IRD) since November 2023, according to the Hong Kong Journalists Association (HKJA), the city’s main press union. The HKJA said it is also under audit.

“Hong Kong is taking a page out of the playbook of authoritarian regimes elsewhere that are using similar intimidation tactics,” said Beh Lih Yi, CPJ’s Asia program coordinator. “Targeting journalists with tax audits without sufficient evidence not only rings alarm bells for press freedom but also raises concerns more broadly about Hong Kong as a safe and reliable location to do business.”

Tax authorities claimed that the news outlets, journalists and some of their family members had not reported their full income from 2017 to 2019, according to HKJA chairperson Selina Cheng, who said the audits contained errors and were “unreasonable.” Cheng and her parents are among those under tax probes.

The HKJA said the IRD sent separate back tax demands to each media outlet and to the association itself, with a combined total of around HK$700,000 (US$89,450), based on the union’s calculations. It added that more than 20 individuals — including journalists, former board members, and some of their family members — also received tax demands, with the total amount requested reaching up to HK$1 million (US$127,900).

In a statement, the HKFP said that it is undergoing a seven-year audit after being “randomly selected” by the IRD.

Hong Kong has seen a dramatic decline in press freedom since the enactment of the Beijing-imposed national security law in 2020. Several independent media outlets, including Apple Daily and Stand News, have been forced to shut down, while journalists have been assaulted, arrested and imprisoned. 

In response to CPJ’s request for comment on the audits, an IRD spokesperson said the department follows “established procedures” and the industry or background of a taxpayer “has no bearing” on such audits.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CPJ Staff.

Sebastien, who leads the #FreeJimmyLai campaign, last saw his father in August 2020 — weeks after Beijing imposed a national security law that led to a massive crackdown on pro-democracy advocates and journalists. Among them Lai, founder of the now-shuttered pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily.

After nearly four years in Hong Kong’s maximum-security Stanley Prison and multiple delays to his trial, the aging British citizen was due to take the stand for the first time on November 20 on charges of sedition and conspiring to collude with foreign forces, which he denies.

Lai, who has diabetes, routinely spends over 23 hours a day in solitary confinement, with only 50 minutes for restricted exercise and limited access to daylight, according to his international lawyers.

The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention has found that Lai is unlawfully and arbitrarily detained and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has called for his release.

Responding to CPJ’s request for comment, a Hong Kong government spokesperson referred to a November 17 statement in which it said that Lai was “receiving appropriate treatment and care in prison” and that Hong Kong authorities “strongly deplore any form of interference.”

In an interview with CPJ, Sebastien spoke about Britain’s bilateral ties with China, as well as Hong Kong — a former British colony where his father arrived as a stowaway on a fishing boat at age 12, before finding jobs in a garment factory and eventually launched a clothing retail chain and his media empire.

What do you anticipate when your father takes the stand for the first time?

To be honest, I do not know. My father is a strong person, but the Hong Kong government has spent four years trying to break him. I don’t think they can break his spirit but with his treatment they are in the process of breaking his body. We will see the extent of that on the stand.

Your father turned 77 recently. How is he doing in solitary confinement?

The last time I saw my father was in August of 2020. I haven’t been able to return to my hometown since and therefore have been unable to visit him in prison. His health has declined significantly. He is now 77, and, having spent nearly four years in a maximum-security prison in solitary confinement, his treatment is inhumane. For his dedication to freedom, they have taken his away.

For his bravery in standing in defense of others, they have denied him human contact. For his strong faith in God, they have denied him Holy Communion.

We have seen governments across the political spectrum call for Jimmy Lai’s release —the U.S., the European Parliament, Australia, Canada, Germany, and Ireland, among others. What does that mean to you?

We are incredibly grateful for all the support from multiple states in calling for my father’s release. The charges against my father are sham charges. The Hong Kong government has weaponized their legal system to crack down on all who criticize them.

You met with the U.K. Foreign Secretary David Lammy recently, who said Jimmy Lai’s case remains a priority and the government will press for consular access. What would you like to see Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s government do?

They have publicly stated that they want to normalize relationships with China and to increase trade. I don’t see how that can be achieved if there is a British citizen in Hong Kong in the process of being killed for standing up for the values that underpin a free nation and the rights and dignity of its citizens.

Any normalization of the relationship with China needs to be conditional on my father’s immediate release and his return to the United Kingdom.

Your father’s life story in many ways embodies Hong Kong’s ‘never-give-up’ attitude. Do you think Hong Kong journalists and pro-democracy activists will keep on fighting? What is your message to Beijing and the Hong Kong government?

I think most of the world shares his spirit. Hong Kong is unique because it’s a city of refugees. It’s a city where we were given many of the freedoms of the free world. And as a result, it flourished. We knew what we had and what we escaped from.

My message is to release my father immediately. A Hong Kong that has 1,900 political prisoners for democracy campaigning, is a Hong Kong that has no rule of law, no free press, one that disregards the welfare of its citizens. This is not a Hong Kong that will flourish.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Beh Lih Yi.

“This show trial must end before it is too late,” said CPJ CEO Jodie Ginsberg on Monday. “The case of Jimmy Lai is not an outlier, it’s a symptom of Hong Kong’s democratic decline. Hong Kong’s treatment of Jimmy Lai — and more broadly of independent media and journalists — shows that this administration is no longer interested in even a semblance of democratic norms.”

Lai, the founder of the now-shuttered pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily, has spent nearly four years in a maximum-security prison and solitary confinement since December 2020. He has faced multiple postponements to his trial, in which he has been charged with sedition and conspiring to collude with foreign forces.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer told parliament in October that the case of Lai, who is a British citizen, was a “priority” and called for his release. Similarly, United Nations experts in January urged Hong Kong authorities to drop all charges against the publisher and free him.

The U.N. Working Group on Arbitrary Detention found that Lai is unlawfully and arbitrarily detained in Hong Kong, expressed alarm over his prolonged solitary confinement, and called for immediate remedy. Lai suffers from a long-standing health issue of diabetes.

Lai won a press freedom award from CPJ and the organization continues to advocate for his freedom.

Responding to CPJ’s request for comment, a Hong Kong government spokesperson referred to a November 17 statement in which it said that Lai was “receiving appropriate treatment and care in prison” and that Hong Kong authorities “strongly deplore any form of interference.”

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

We speak with former Ohio state senator and Bernie Sanders presidential campaign staffer Nina Turner about how the 2024 election has left her and many voters “frustrated” and “exhausted.” While she is not endorsing a candidate, she denounces the white supremacist rhetoric of the Trump campaign, which she notes is “as American as apple pie.” Turner pushes back on comparisons of the Trump movement to the rise of Nazi Germany, which she argues threaten to whitewash the United States’ own anti-democratic history. “The unfulfilled promises of this country, the undealt-with anti-Blackness and other types of racism and bigotry have not been dealt with sufficiently,” she explains. “It is us, and we need to deal with it and not push it off on some other nation.”

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

“Apple’s actions restrict access to vital information and embolden authoritarian regimes seeking to silence independent media in countries like Russia,” said Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator, in New York. “We call on Apple to uphold press freedom and ensure that people have access to objective and unbiased news.”

Apple informed RFE/RL in a letter that it had removed the app of Current Time TV, a Russian-language digital network operated by RFE/RL, because it contained content deemed illegal in Russia and included materials from an organization classified as “undesirable” by Russian authorities, RFE/RL reported on October 18.

In an October 22 post on X, RFE/RL said Apple’s compliance with the Russian government’s request  was “part of a trend to deny people in authoritarian countries access to uncensored information.” 

A representative from RFE/RL confirmed to CPJ that the app of Radio Azattyk, RFE/RL’s Kyrgyz Service, was also removed.  

Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Roskomnadzor has blocked the websites of RFE/RL, including its Russian Service, Radio Svoboda, and Current Time. 

On March 6, 2022, RFE/RL suspended its operations in Russia in response to government actions aimed at forcing its Russian division out of business. In February 2024, the Russian Justice Ministry officially labeled RFE/RL as “undesirable.”

As of late September, Apple had removed nearly a hundred of VPN services from its Russian App Store. Roskomnadzor publicly acknowledged the blocking of only 25 VPN apps at its request. 

VPNs can be used by Russians to gain access to censored news and information.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CPJ Staff.

“Denying Louise Delmotte’s entry is a petty act of retaliation against her journalistic work,” said Iris Hsu, CPJ’s China representative. “This pattern of denying journalists entry has become a way for government authorities to pressure and harass the media.”

Associated Press photojournalist Louise Delmotte was denied entry into Hong Kong on September 14, following a refusal by authorities to renew her work visa, and repatriated back to France after her arrival to the city’s airport as a tourist. Delmotte’s work visa expired in the first half of this year, and the immigration department denied her visa extension application without any stated reason, according to media reports.

In August 2023, the Associated Press published Delmotte’s photographs of Jimmy Lai, founder of the pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily, walking in and out of solitary confinement at the maximum-security Stanley prison. Lai faces charges of conspiracy to print seditious publications and collusion with foreign forces under a Beijing-imposed national security law. The media mogul faces life imprisonment if found guilty. 

The Hong Kong Immigration Department did not immediately respond to CPJ’s email requesting comment. During a media session on Tuesday, Hong Kong chief executive John Lee was asked about Delmotte’s entry denial and said, “the Immigration Department is doing the same as all other immigration authorities are doing in other jurisdictions; that is, they will look at the entries’ characteristics and examine the entries in accordance with the policies and the laws.” 

The Associated Press told CPJ in an email that immigration authorities did not provide a reason for Delmotte’s denial. “Louise Delmotte is a talented journalist, and we are proud of the important work she has done in Hong Kong for The Associated Press,” the outlet wrote. “AP continues to have a presence in Hong Kong and is working with Louise on next steps.”

China was the world’s largest jailer of journalists, with at least 44 journalists behind bars on December 1, 2023, when CPJ conducted its most recent annual prison census.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CPJ Staff.

Photograph Source: Jim Pennucci – CC BY 2.0

I’ve lived for many years in an old apartment building in New York and, for all the years I’ve spent in this elevator building, I’ve never had a problem with mice.  Well, never until now.

Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve seen a half-dozen mice run along the baseboard under a radiator and by my refrigerator.  According to the building’s “super,” construction work in another apartment disrupted the normal life of the mice and they are scattering.  Using glue mice traps supplied by an exterminator, three mice were trapped and died.  Now my private “war” with these tiny little creatures is over as the mice have retuned to the building’s infrastructure and no longer appear to be coming out.

My mice problem led me to think about all the other “wild” creatures that call New York home.   The most common mouse is dubbed “house mice” and is about 5 inches long (not including its tail), has brown or gray fur and large ears. House mice can come into any home they can get into and make a nest wherever they can find a quiet spot. (“Deer mice” are mostly outdoor creature but do live in attics or basements.)

There are no estimates as to the number of mice in the city.  However, the City government finds that nearly 25 percent — 680,000 households — report seeing mice or rats, or signs of mice or rats, in their home or residential building.  However, as The New York Times reports, “There are an estimated three million rats in New York, but in the absence of a proper census, there is really no way to know how many.”

There are two types of rats in the city. “Norway rats” — also known as “brown rats” or “sewer rats” — are the most prevalent and are about 9 inches long with tails of at least 6 inches. They live primarily in basements and on ground floors, but can be found in home and food store garbage dumps. “Roof rats” are slightly smaller than Norway rats at around 7 inches long but with a tail that could be as long as 10 inches. They can scale tree are often dwell in roofs and attics.

In the face the COVID pandemic, New York’s mayor Bill de Blasio launched an “open restaurants” program in June 2020, offering a lifeline to the hospitality industry. At its height, there were some 12,000 establishments offering outdoor services.  However, these outdoor “sheds” led to what one report claims that “complaints hotline mentioning rodents have jumped this year, 15% up on pre-pandemic levels.”

Ironically, in May 2024, Mayor Eric Adams was issued a ticket by a city health inspector who found fresh rat droppings and a rat burrow “at the front left base of the staircase of the property” he owns the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood.

Numerous bugs call the city home.  The city finds that some 880,000 households – about 30 percent of households — report having cockroaches in their home. A 2021 survey by the U.S. Census Bureau found that nearly 1 in 6 New Yorkers reported seeing cockroaches in their homes, compared to 1 in 9 households nationally. Cockroaches are far more common in low-income households than higher-income ones, and this disparity is greatest among Hispanic households.

There are numerous kinds of roaches in city homes.  The most common are the “American Cockroach,” typically found in moist basements and lower floors, and the “German Cockroaches,” which is smaller and can be found anywhere inside the home.  Cockroaches range in size between 1/2 to 3 inches in length and are a reddish-brown or dark-brown color. “Waterbugs” — alsoknown as oriental cockroach as well as toe biter, electric-light bug or alligator tick — are bigger than cockroaches and are tan to black and are approximately 1-inch long.

Other bugs that dwell in the Big Apple include: (i) “bed bugs,” nocturnal creature that like warm mattresses and often feed on someone sleeping on the bed; (ii) flees, wingless creatures that bite through skin and suck blood of both mammals and birds; (iii) termites, that mostly feed on dead plant material and cellulose, in the form of wood and soil; (iv) flies, a half-dozen varieties that can carry disease-causing contaminants which can causetyphoid, cholera, Salmonella, dysentery, tuberculosis, anthrax and worms; (v) fruit flies, a half-dozen types of flies often found in kitchens and garbage areas; (vi) long-tailed aphid eater flies (aka syrphid or flower flies), they pollinate NYC plants; (vii) golden digger wasps, they pollinate plants; (viii) ants, ten variants that live in underground communities headed by a queen or queens; (ix) moths, including the large, motted-green Pandorus Sphinx Moth (aka Hawk Moth) and (x) caterpillars and butterflies, up to 110 species and include the Black Swallowtail Butterfly.

Adding to the bug problem are mosquitoes that flourish in a warm, moist climate, especially in the summer.  Infected mosquitos are spreading a new West Nile virus to humans as well as birds, horses and other mammals.  The city government has a map that traces mosquitoes by area.

Then there are spiders.  There is many different types of both male and females spiders and are recognized by their cobwebs — thin silken thread structures found in one’s home. The webs are designed to catch prey.  In addition, there are a dozen or so beetles as well as a handful of different types of mites and weevils.

Finally, there are the bees. The Parks Department reports that the city “is home to more than 200 species of bees” and they pollinate approximately 68 percent of flowers in parks and residential neighborhoods.  Among them are Brown Belted Bumblebees, Ligated Furrow Bees (aka Mining or Sweet Bees), Leaf Cutter Bees.

Many New Yorks have domesticated pets, be they any and all kinds of cats or dogs, birds or fish, gerbils or hamsters and even turtles and some reptiles, among others. But these are domesticated animals, not feral or wild creatures that call the city home.

Adrian Benepe, president of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, told the Times, “I grew up in the parks.”  He added, “[t]here were never red-tailed hawks or Peregrine falcons or bald eagles. You didn’t even see raccoons; there were pigeons and rats and squirrels, that was it. Now there are bald eagles all over the city. This winter [2021] they were in place you haven’t seen them in generations, and they were hunting in Prospect Park.”

There has been a growth in the number and kind of feral animals in the city.

The Daily News reported in 2023 that — like the rat population — the feral-cat population has exploded.  It estimated that there are between 500,000 to 1 million cats now living on the city streets. “These feral cats running amok everywhere,” a cat rescuer told the paper.

Among other feral animals calling the city home are chipmunks, squirrels, raccoons, red foxes and skunks.  In addition, in Central Park there are raptors, bats and a coyote; in Statin Island are beavers, salamanders and leopard frogs; in the Bronx are a bobcat, mink and foxes.  In the waters passing through and around the city one can now find endangered alewife herrings and American eels in the Bronx River as well as osprey and egrets lurk nearby; in Queens are baby damselflies, sea turtles and baby seals; and in Brooklyn are exotic insects.  In the Hudson River, oysters and seahorses can be found at piers.

New York is alive with humans and living creatures of every kind.  Humans live in a postmodern city, with nearly everyone clutching their mobile phone as they walk down a street, shop in a store, eat in a coffee shop or restaurant, ride on a bus or subway or simple live at home.  Nature can be found all around New Yorkers, whether trees on streets, public parks, gardens in home yards or simply flower pots on windowsills or living rooms.

Sadly, the full scope of the other living creatures that call New York home – both domesticated and feral – is often not fully appreciated.  It took a visit by mice in my apartment to open my eyes to some of all the other creatures that the call the city home.

The post Other Lives in the Big Apple appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by David Rosen.

In response, Chiara Putaturo, Oxfam EU tax expert, said:

“This ruling exposes EU tax havens’ love affair with multinationals. It delivers long-overdue justice after over a decade of Ireland standing by and allowing Apple to dodge taxes.

“While this ruling will force the tech giant to pay its debt, the root of the issue is far from solved. EU tax havens can still make sweetheart tax deals with big multinationals. The duty to stop this rests on the shoulders of EU policymakers. Yet, they have turned a blind eye to tax havens within their borders and the harmful race to the bottom that countries like Ireland are instigating.

“This ruling must not stand alone as a single victory - it needs to compel the EU to close all loopholes that allow corporations to avoid paying their fair share of tax. It is time they end this draining of governments’ coffers and put that revenue into fighting the climate crisis and building hospitals, schools and other services for people.”

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

On July 4, Apple removed more than 20 VPN apps, including Red Shield VPN, Le VPN, HideMyName, PlanetVPN, AdGuard VPN, among others, from its Russian App Store following a request from Russian state media regulator Roskomnadzor.

VPNs are popularly used to gain access to independent news sources outside of Russia’s near-total government censorship. Since the beginning of the Kremlin’s full-scale war on Ukraine in February 2022, authorities have permanently blocked Russian access to international and local independent media websites, as well as social media platforms, such as Instagram, Facebook, X , and YouTube. Websites for individual publications by Russian and international human rights organizations, including Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, among others, have also been blocked. 

Read the full joint letter here. 

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

"Distribution companies in the U.K., United States and Canada are kneeling down [to China]," DGX Music, the creative team behind "Glory to Hong Kong.” wrote on their Instagram account on Tuesday. "It has completely disappeared from all streaming platforms.” 

"We couldn't find the original version of 'Glory to Hong Kong' released by DGX Music on Apple Music or Spotify in Hong Kong, Taiwan, the United Kingdom or Canada," the songwriters said.

"Glory to Hong Kong," which sparked a police investigation after organizers played it in error at recent overseas sports events, was regularly sung by crowds of unarmed protesters during the 2019 protests, which ranged from peaceful mass demonstrations for full democracy to intermittent, pitched battles between protesters and armed riot police.

Public live performances of the song are already banned in Hong Kong, as its lyrics are deemed illegal under stringent national security legislation.

But the Court of Appeal on May 8 granted the government a temporary injunction to address its continued availability online, calling it a "weapon" that could be used to bring down the government, and an "rfainsult" to China's national anthem.

‘Separatist intent’?

The song calls for freedom and democracy rather than independence, but was nonetheless deemed in breach of the law due to its "separatist" intent, officials and police officers said at the start of an ongoing citywide crackdown on public dissent and peaceful political activism.

A survey of Spotify and Apple Music in Taiwan, the U.K. and Canada yielded no results for the original version of the song during a search by RFA Cantonese on Wednesday. However, some remixes and cover versions were still available.

Multiple versions of the song were still visible following a search of YouTube in several locations.

The song's disappearance comes after YouTube blocked access to dozens of videos containing the song to viewers in the city in May, following a court injunction that said it could be used as a "weapon" to bring down the government.

The company, which is owned by Google's parent Alphabet, said 32 videos featuring the banned song had been geoblocked and are now unavailable in the city.

DGX Music reported in June that a newly released a capella version of the song was suddenly deleted by U.S. publisher Distrokid, with no reason given, while Scotland's Emubands made it clear that it had removed the song due to the injunction. 

Threat to freedom of speech

But the songwriters said the injunction only applies to Hong Kong, and should have no overseas effect at all.

"Some Western media organizations have complied with the Hong Kong government's political injunction unnecessarily, resulting in the violation of basic human rights," DGX Music wrote.

"This has a fundamental impact on Western democratic societies, and poses a serious threat to the principles of freedom of speech, freedom of the press and freedom of artistic expression," they said.

Hong Kong lawyer-turned-musician Adrian Chow said even big multinational platforms will adopt unnecessarily conservative attitudes "in order not to alarm senior management or the legal department."

"They just give in, saying it's just one song, not Taylor Swift's entire back catalog," Chow said. "Maybe when their legal departments found out how little income it makes, they felt it wasn't worth the risk ... as the legal fees [in case of a lawsuit] would far exceed any income from the song."

He said independent creators have very little bargaining power with the online streaming platforms, and there is scant opportunity for negotiation.

The Hong Kong authorities can also step up pressure on overseas corporations through any business operations they have in the city, he said.

The song's labeling as "Hong Kong's national anthem" on YouTube has been "highly embarrassing and hurtful to many people of Hong Kong, not to mention its serious damage to national interests," the Court of Appeal judges said when they granted the injunction on May 8.

Hong Kong passed a law in 2020 making it illegal to insult China's national anthem on pain of up to three years' imprisonment, following a series of incidents in which Hong Kong soccer fans booed their own anthem in the stadium.

Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Luk Nam Choi for RFA Cantonese.

The letter said Neuberger’s role in the Hong Kong ruling, as a non-permanent overseas judge on Hong Kong’s top court, contradicts his previous efforts in advocating free speech and press freedom. Neuberger’s continued involvement would be, in effect, “sponsoring a systematic repression of human rights against peaceful activists and journalists in the city.”

Neuberger, a former head of Britain’s Supreme Court, resigned as chair of an advisory panel to the Media Freedom Coalition on August 14, two days after the conviction of Lai and six pro-democracy campaigners was upheld. Lai has been behind bars since December 2020.

The MFC is a group of 50 countries that pledge to promote press freedom at home and abroad. CPJ is a longstanding member of the MFC’s consultative network of nongovernmental organizations.

Read the joint statement here.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

“There is no journalism without press freedom,” said CPJ Asia Program Coordinator Beh Lih Yi. “Hong Kong journalists must be allowed to defend their right to report independently without the fear of reprisal or losing their livelihood. If Hong Kong is serious about reviving its slowing economy, then it must improve the media climate swiftly to shake off a reputation as a place with ever-increasing repression.” 

In recent months, officials and pro-Beijing news outlets have heaped pressure on the Hong Kong Journalists Association (HKJA), the city’s largest trade union for journalists.

In June, Hong Kong’s security chief Chris Tang accused the HKJA of lacking legitimacy and siding with demonstrators in 2019, while China’s state-backed Global Times in a July report described the group as “disingenuous and dangerous.”

In July, HKJA’s chair Selina Cheng said she was fired from her role at The Wall Street Journal after she was elected to lead the journalists’ union. She had been the sole candidate for the position amid a growing climate of self-censorship in Hong Kong, once a beacon of press freedom in Asia.

Asked for comment, a WSJ spokesperson told CPJ in an email that the outlet made “personnel changes” but could not comment on specific individuals. The spokesperson added that the WSJ advocates for press freedom in Hong Kong, the city which had been WSJ’s Asia headquarters before they were moved to Singapore in May. 

Another foreign correspondent and a local nonprofit adviser resigned immediately after they were elected to the HKJA’s executive committee in the group’s election following Tang’s criticism of the union.

Between May 2023 and March this year, Tang wrote eight letters to various international news outlets over their editorials or opinion articles about Hong Kong, some of which he labeled “extremely misleading,” “scaremongering,” and “lies.” Four of the eight letters were sent to WSJ.

A Hong Kong government spokesman said the city’s media landscape was “as vibrant as ever” with over 200 media organizations registered with local authorities, and that press freedom and the right to join trade unions were both protected under the law.

“As always, the media can exercise their freedom of the press in accordance with the law. Their freedom of commenting on and criticizing government policies remains uninhibited as long as this is not in violation of the law,” the spokesman told CPJ in an email.

Lengthy trials

The HKJA is the main journalists’ union in Hong Kong and has been advocating for press freedom since it was founded in 1968, but has been battling dwindling membership and funds after Beijing imposed a national security law in Hong Kong in 2020 that saw journalists arrested, jailed, and threatened. 

Among them, the then-HKJA chair Ronson Chan was sentenced to five days in jail in 2023 for obstructing a police officer while reporting.

Hong Kong passed its own homegrown national security law in March, and the U.S. Congress-funded Radio Free Asia shut its Hong Kong bureau days later over safety concerns for its reporters – joining an exodus of media and journalists who left the city since the 2020 crackdown began.

Journalists who remain point to a rising culture of self-censorship in local newsrooms and an increasing hesitation to criticize the government as Hong Kong loses its shine as a leading global financial hub. The city, once the world’s largest IPO market by value for years, saw proceeds raised from new share listings in the first half of 2024 plunge to a two-decade low.

Journalists also face lengthy delays and repeated postponements in their trials.

This includes the now-shuttered pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily’s founder Jimmy Lai, whose trial on national security charges was adjourned again last month to late November. A representative for advocacy group Reporters Without Borders who went to Hong Kong to monitor Lai’s trial was detained and deported upon arrival.

The 76-year-old has been behind bars since 2020. On August 12, Lai lost an appeal against his conviction for taking part in unauthorized anti-government protests.

Patrick Lam and Chung Pui-kuen, former editors of the now-defunct independent news outlet Stand News are expected to hear the verdict in their sedition trial in late August, after a court in April postponed the long-awaited decision. The duo were granted bail in late 2022 after being remanded in custody for nearly a year.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

In May, they graduated from Columbia University, among the very few North Korean escapees to do so.

Along the way, Lee Hyunseung, 38, and his sister Seohyun, 32, have had to adjust to a wholly different culture and to a more ordinary lifestyle – earning money at part-time jobs, buying groceries, watching movies with friends and experiencing freedom – something they’re still not completely used to.

“For the first three years after escaping from North Korea, I was more focused on settling down and dealing with various overlapping situations rather than truly feeling free,” said Hyunseung. “I’ve been learning the concept of freedom as I engage with society and receive education.”

As a college student, he was impressed by the ease with which his classmates expressed themselves and even gathered to protest – freedoms they seem to take for granted, but still seemed extraordinary to him.

In late April, he felt envious as he witnessed demonstrations materialize on Columbia’s campus against Israel’s military strikes on Gaza.

“The fact that the United States truly respects freedom of expression strikes a chord in my heart,” he said. “In North Korea or China, it’s unimaginable to even think about such things.”

But when the protests turned violent and the demonstrators occupied buildings on the campus, he felt they had gone too far. “This freedom of expression has gone beyond freedom and is causing discomfort to other students,” he said.  

‘One-percenters’

Hyunseung and his sister were born into a privileged family in North Korea – the so-called “one-percenters” who lived at the top of the country’s economic pyramid, far above the masses who often struggled to make ends meet.

Their father, Ri Jong Ho, was a senior economic official who served under all three generations of the Kim Dynasty – national founder Kim Il Sung, his son Kim Jong Il and his son Kim Jong Un, the current supreme leader.

Stationed in Dalian, China, Ri led a trading corporation under the control of Office 39, a clandestine group formed in the 1970s to manage slush funds for the North Korean leader.

Hyunseung and Seohyun went to an international school in Dalian, where they learned English as well as Mandarin.

In 2014, the family saw many members of the upper echelons being arrested or suddenly disappearing in the wake of Kim Jong Un’s purge and execution of his uncle Jang Song-thaek.

Fearing that they could be next, Ri decided to defect. The four family members drove to a local park in Dalian, left their phones in the car and discreetly discussed their escape plans.

“I couldn’t even dream of escaping,” said Hyunseong, 28 at the time. “I wanted to go to America, but I was at a loss because I didn’t know how to get there.”

They left China in late 2014 for South Korea in what Seohyun described as “a whirlwind” or “a dream” – but declined to describe the details for various personal reasons. 

“It was hard to believe that this was actually happening to us,” she said. “It was incredibly tense. We didn’t know who might appear or who might attack us.”

The family landed in South Korea, which readily welcomes escapees, thinking they would be safe there. But they said they were spied on and targeted in hacking attacks by North Korea.

Two years after their escape, the North Korean propaganda website Uriminzokkiri ran a hit piece on Ri featuring his mother and siblings publicly denouncing him and demanding that the family return.

The family took it as a message of intimidation from the North Korean authorities, who are known to punish family members for the actions of its citizens living abroad.

So in 2016, the family left for the United States to seek asylum.

Friends with former enemies

At Columbia, one of Hyunseung’s friends was a member of the U.S. military – an enemy during his previous life in North Korea, where he was required to serve time in the army.

“He is one of my best friends,” said James Brown, an intelligence officer in the U.S. Marine Corps, one of a group of friends meeting at a bar near Columbia after class. 

“We have a great relationship. But at one point in time, I’m South of DMZ and he is North of it,” he said. “We were probably doing exercises against each other, so it’s kind of funny.”

The next evening, both Hyunseung and his sister attended a screening of “Beyond Utopia,” a documentary about escape journeys of several North Korean families.

The event was hosted by Korea Focus, a student group affiliated to the university, and Seohyun helped to organize it. “As a student who escaped North Korea, I feel it is my duty to spread awareness,” she said.

Later, while walking through bustling Times Square in the rain, Seohyun reflected on how her journey has contrasted with so many of her compatriots.

“There are many smart and talented individuals in North Korea,” she said. “However, it’s heartbreaking that they live like tools and slaves to the regime, without even the opportunity to realize their own talents.”

Walking with her, Hyunseung said that “when you don’t have freedom, you don’t even realize whether you have it or not. But once you experience freedom, you’ll do everything in your power to never lose it. It becomes more precious.”

Hyunseung often visits a Korean supermarket near the Columbia campus, and is struck by how expensive food has become.

“Prices are quite high here, so it’s hard to decide when shopping for groceries,” he said while perusing the produce aisle with two RFA reporters. 

He looks at some expensively priced meat. “I wonder if there are any sales going on?” he wonders out loud.

The total for his groceries quickly climbs above $50, and after another comment about high prices he invites the reporters into his apartment for a meal. 

In his tiny kitchen, he chopped vegetables, added spices to a broth on the stove and fried meat. About 40 minutes later, the food was ready to eat – North Korean-style dubu kimchi-jjigae (kimchi stew with tofu) and South Korean-style Dwaeji-kalbi (pork spare ribs).

Pyonghattan

Though Hyungseung is not hurting for money, his living situation, in which he shares a small apartment with two roommates, is a far cry from the life he was born into.

In 2016, the Washington Post introduced Hyunseung’s family as part of North Korea’s top 1%, saying that when they lived in Pyongyang, they enjoyed a standard of life similar to that of wealthy Manhattan residents. 

The report described the lifestyle of young rich Pyongyangers: working out just to be seen, meeting friends in trendy coffee shops for a chat over overpriced cappuccino and going overseas for shopping trips. 

The official salary in North Korea at the time was $10 per month, according to the report, but at one of the restaurants frequented by the 1%, a steak with a baked potato costs almost five times as much.

They were living the good life in their insulated elite-class bubble, which the Post described as ‘Pyonghattan.’

When they fled to South Korea, their mother was worried that they had become used to having so many advantages in North Korea that they might not be able to adapt.

“My wife was worried about how we would survive in a capitalist society without money,” their father, Ri Jong Ho, told RFA Korean. “But the kids reassured her, saying, ‘We will go and earn money, so don’t worry about that.’”

It has now been eight years since the family moved to the United States, and their life here has been anything but luxurious. Gone are the days where they could spend money freely. Instead they know the struggles of life as immigrants.

“I worked as a waiter at a ramen restaurant and a valet parking attendant,” Hyunseung said. “I made a mistake while working in the parking lot. A customer got angry with me and he called me ‘some Chinese guy’” – not realizing until later that he was subjected to discrimination.

His sister Seohyun is now used to living in New York, and blends in with everyone around her. Ironic considering that when she was in North Korea, she had not even heard of “the city.”

“I had no idea at all,” she said. “We learned about countries and their capitals back in North Korea, so I knew about Washington D.C., but I hadn’t heard of New York specifically.”

At first, she was afraid of going out at night, but now it doesn’t bother her at all.

Hyunseung sits in front of the Alma Mater statue on the steps in front of Low Library, pondering his place in the city.

“I haven’t really thought of myself as a New Yorker yet,” he said. “So I guess I’d say I’m more of a Pyongyang-New Yorker,” he said, with a chuckle.

Translated by Claire S. Lee and Leejin J. Chung. Edited by Eugene Whong.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Park Jaewoo and Jamin Anderson for RFA Korean.

Apple must publicly condemn Hanoi’s use of “ambiguous laws” to arrest Vietnam’s climate activists on “trumped-up” tax evasion charges or risk “violating your own environmental and human rights policies and delegitimizing Apple’s positive work in these areas,” said the letter from the Members of the Vietnam Climate Defenders Coalition, addressed to the company’s leadership and board of directors.

“Since Vietnam is now Apple’s most important production hub outside of China and you have committed to human rights and ‘equity and justice in climate solutions,’ we believe you have a responsibility to weigh in on the systematic persecution and imprisonment of climate leaders in the country,” it said.

The letter referenced the imprisonment of Nguy Thi Khanh, who served 16 months behind bars after working to reduce the government’s coal expansion plans; environmental lawyer Dang Dinh Bach, who is serving a five-year sentence after representing communities impacted by pollution; and Hoang Thi Minh Hong, who is serving three years in prison after founding environmental group CHANGE Vietnam.

The group also called attention to authorities’ recent arrest of Ngo Thi To Nhien, the former executive director of Vietnam Initiative for Energy Transition, for “appropriation of information or documents,” which it said suggested efforts by the government to “criminalize access to information about Vietnam’s clean energy transition.”

The 61 organizations said Apple had failed to uphold its commitment to equity and justice in climate solutions, as well as transitioning its suppliers to renewable energy and a net-zero carbon impact from all of its products by 2030 by building manufacturing capacity in Vietnam.

“In Vietnam … those who would have facilitated net-zero carbon impact by supporting the transition to clean energy and other climate solutions are either in jail or have been silenced due to fear that they could be next,” they said. “Environmental organizations are shutting down, and there is currently no transparency or safe way for civil society to participate in this vital clean energy transition.”

The letter urged Apple to publicly pressure Vietnam’s government to release its imprisoned climate activists and ensure that civil society is free to participate in the country’s transition to clean energy without fear of persecution.

It noted that Apple’s own commitment to human rights champions “an open society in which information flows freely” and states “the best way we can continue to promote openness is to remain engaged, even where we may disagree with a country’s laws.”

Avoid ‘same mistakes’

Ben Swanton, co-director of environmental watchdog Project88, among the letter’s signatories, told RFA Vietnamese that Apple “should not make additional investments in intensive manufacturing in Vietnam while the country lacks clean energy sources and the government continues to imprison climate activists on false criminal charges.”

Michael Caster, Asia digital program manager for ARTICLE 19, another of the signatories, said Apple has a corporate responsibility “not to make the same mistakes” in Vietnam as it has in China, where he said “human rights abuses have been rampant, including with Apple’s complicity in areas of censorship and surveillance.”

“This requires robust human rights due diligence across its supply chain,” he told RFA. “As part of this process, Apple should seriously take into account Vietnam's persecution of climate activists, independent journalists, and others, and consider using its potential economic leverage to publicly condemn such actions."

Members of the Vietnam Climate Defenders Coalition noted that it had written a letter outlining similar concerns to Apple on May 31, 2023, one day after which Hoang Thi Minh Hong was arrested and Dang Dinh Bach declared a hunger strike in prison.

It said it met virtually with members of Apple’s staff to discuss the concerns in November, but has yet to receive a response regarding the company’s next steps.

“Apple, a company of growing significance to Vietnam’s economy, is in a unique position to bring this issue to the forefront,” the group said. “Simply stating that you are in support of equitable and just climate solutions and human rights is not enough. Your commitments require action, and now is the time to take it.”

Responsibility ‘wherever it operates’

Germany-based writer Vo Thi Hao, a frequent critic of Vietnam’s persecution of environmental activists, called their arrests “ridiculous and unjustified” in an interview with RFA.

“These activists, who had been protecting the common environment for the entire country, including those who arrested them, are now facing unjust sentences,” she said, calling for their immediate and unconditional release.

She noted that Apple’s ability to take action to protect activists in Vietnam “would be a challenge,” as it would need to “choose between democracy and human rights values and economic benefits brought about by the Vietnamese market.”

But she called on the company to do more to protect freedom and democracy, not only in the United States, but “wherever it operates.”

Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director at New York-based Human Rights Watch, said Apple and other major Western manufacturers “who are de-risking their supply chains” by moving from China to Vietnam “need to realize just how bad the human rights situation is in Vietnam.”

“Climate change activists and NGO leaders are in jail, workers are prohibited from forming independent unions, and the human rights and democracy movement has effectively been wiped out,” he told RFA. “If Apple doesn't speak out against this, then they are complicit and need to face repercussions from US and European consumers.”

Translated by Anna Vu. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Vietnamese.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

Ocasio-Cortez noted that "years of grassroots organizing on behalf of vulnerable Americans led to the creation of the first federal public housing units—but, for decades, the federal government has allowed our limited public housing stock to fall into disrepair."

"Residents are dealing with mold growth, lead-based paint hazards, lack of central cooling and heating, failing water infrastructure, and numerous other safety concerns," the congresswoman said. "It is beyond time for the federal government to take responsibility and pass legislation that offers comprehensive, public solutions."

"The Green New Deal for Public Housing Act will allow for an increase in public housing units, create an estimated 280,000 jobs, and invest up to $23 billion a year over 10 years for highly energy-efficient developments," she explained. "This will produce on-site renewable energy, expand workforce capacity, and focus on community development. Every American deserves to live in a safe, vibrant, and environmentally conscious community—including public housing residents. I am confident this legislation is how we make that a reality."

The jobs estimate comes from an analysis released Thursday by the Climate and Community Project and the Socio-Spatial Climate Collaborative—which also found that the proposed upgrades to U.S. public housing stock would cut carbon emissions by 5.7 million metric tons, the equivalent of taking 1.26 million cars off the road each year.

"Public housing is an essential source of stable and affordable housing for 1.7 million Americans, and our research shows we are rapidly losing units to conversions, demolitions, and deterioration," said Kira McDonald of Climate and Community Project. "This legislation would constitute decisive action to stave this loss and transform living conditions for public housing residents. In so doing, it would improve residents' health, safety, help eliminate carbon emissions, and help build the new green industries we need to decarbonize."

As Ocasio-Cortez's office summarized, the bill would:

• Expand federal programs to provide residents with meaningful work investing in their communities, to own and operate resident businesses, to move toward financial independence, and to participate in the management of public housing;
• Expand resident councils so that public housing residents have a seat at the table for important decisions regarding their homes; and
• Replenish the public housing capital backlog and repeal the Faircloth Amendment, which limits the construction of new public housing developments.

The legislation would also create two grant programs for deep energy retrofits; community workforce development; upgrades to energy efficiency, building electrification, and water quality; community renewable energy generation; recycling; resiliency and sustainability; and climate adaptation and emergency disaster response.

As world leaders dragged their feet on climate action last year, declining to demand a global phaseout of planet-heating fossil fuels at the most recent United Nations climate conference, all life on Earth was forced to contend with record high temperatures. The United States alone saw 28 disasters that each caused at least $1 billion in damage, collectively costing at least $92.9 billion.

"In these difficult times, we must move forward boldly to address the systemic and existential crises facing us today and that includes urgently combating climate change and making sure every American has a safe and decent place to call home," Sanders said Thursday. "It is unacceptable that, on a single given night in America, over 650,000 people are homeless."

That record number comes from an annual report released by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development in December. As Common Dreamsreported at the time, academics and advocates have long stressed that the formal figure only represents a faction of the people dealing with housing insecurity nationwide.

"It is unacceptable that, in the richest country in the history of the world, people are choosing between paying rent and putting food on the table," argued Sanders. "It is unacceptable that our nation's public housing is in a state of chronic disrepair and energy inefficiency after generations of government neglect. It is unacceptable that we have not done more to transform our energy systems, our communities, and our infrastructure away from fossil fuels and toward renewable energy. This legislation is a major step in the right direction, and I am proud to partner with Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez in introducing it today."

Joining the pair in backing the bill are 55 other House Democrats and Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), and Peter Welch (D-Vt.).

Markey, who has spearheaded the broader battle for a Green New Deal with Ocasio-Cortez, said that "in the five years since its introduction, Green New Deal advocacy has catapulted environmental justice to the top of the national agenda, helped deliver historic victories, and charted a course for a better future."

The Green New Deal for Public Housing Act is also endorsed by over 70 advocacy groups and labor unions, including the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees, American Federation of Teachers, Center for Popular Democracy (CPD) Action, Movement for Black Lives, MoveOn, National Low Income Housing Coalition, Public Citizen, and Sunrise Movement.

"Our opponents use tactics like the Faircloth Amendment to defund our public housing. And then they point to our public housing and say, 'Look, it's not working.' That's what they do—but we're not confused," declared DaMareo Cooper, co-executive director of CPD Action.

"We're in another awakening right now. People have been through too much. They are tired. We are tired. Enough is enough," Cooper added. "We all know that it's impossible for you to think that a government in this day and age cannot create housing for everyone."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

Meanwhile, far-right Republicans like Texas Congressman Chip Roy have made comments like, "Everyone that I know and trust about the border, about overall spending, see it as a complete and total failure and a capitulation by Republicans. And leadership worked the deal, so it's on leadership."

Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) not only opposed the package but also filed a motion to vacate, hoping to remove House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.)—which would only require a simple majority if it came up for a vote.

House Republicans elected Johnson to the leadership role in late October, after ousting former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.)—who then opted to leave office at the end of last year—and rejecting three other candidates for the post: Reps. Tom Emmer (D-Minn.), Steve Scalise (R-La.), and Jim Jordan (R-Ohio).

Noting that Greene filed a regular motion rather than a privileged one, meaning it could be referred to a committee, "where it would likely languish," NBC Newsreported Friday:

Greene told reporters that her motion to vacate was "more of a warning than a pink slip," saying she does not want to "throw the House into chaos," like the three and a half weeks that the chamber was without a speaker when McCarthy, her close ally, was ousted.

"I'm not saying that it won't happen in two weeks or it won't happen in a month or who knows when. But I am saying the clock has started. It's time for our conference to choose a new speaker," she said.

Johnson's October election led Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.)—who filed the motion to vacate targeting McCarthy—to declare that "MAGA is ascendant," a reference to the "Make America Great Again" campaign slogan of former President Donald Trump, the presumptive GOP nominee for the November election.

While Gaetz voted against the spending package on Friday, he also said that "if we vacated this speaker we'd end up with a Democrat. You know, when I vacated the last one, I made a promise to the country that we would not end up with a Democrat speaker and I was right. I couldn't make that promise again today."

Asked if he thinks Johnson's job is safe, Gaetz responded, "It is."

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) also responded dismissively when questioned about Greene's motion on Friday, tellingPunchbowl News, "She's a joke."

A spokesperson for Johnson, Raj Shah, toldPolitico that the speaker "always listens to the concerns of members, but is focused on governing. He will continue to push conservative legislation that secures our border, strengthens our national defense, and demonstrates how we'll grow our majority."

However, Johnson's limited control over the House is dwindling. Congressman Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.), who backed the spending bill, revealed that he is resigning from his seat effective April 19 after previously saying that he would not seek reelection. Friday was also the last day of Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.), who announced earlier this month that he would step down from his seat.

The Washington Post noted Friday that "Buck and Gallagher are the sixth and seventh members of the House who are quitting midterm simply to leave for the private sector, a trend we dubbed 'the Great Resignation' last weekend. It's also the highest number of lawmakers quitting public service altogether in at least 40 years."

Responding to Gallager's announcement on social media, HuffPost's Jennifer Bendery said that "House Republicans are imploding in plain sight."

In yet another disruption to the chamber's GOP leadership, Rep. Kay Granger (R-Texas)—who announced last year that she wouldn't seek reelection—wrote in a Friday letter to Johnson that she plans to step down as chair of the House Appropriations Committee.

Granger told the speaker she would stay in the post until the Republican Steering Committee chooses her replacement and then remain on the panel through the end of her term to offer "advice and counsel for my colleagues when it is needed."

The Texas Tribunepointed out that "the Appropriations Committee will need to pass another set of federal funding bills before the end of September to keep the government funded. Congress has failed to meet that deadline for nearly 30 years, and Granger acknowledged in her letter that election years in particular often distract Congress from passing spending bills on time."

GOP members of the upper chamber were also accused of sowing chaos on Friday, as the midnight shutdown deadline loomed.

Senate Budget Committee Chair Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) said on social media, "Well, it looks like we're headed for a shutdown at the hands of Senate Republican gremlins who (1) know that amendments can't pass because there's no House to send an amended bill back to (they adjourned) and (2) want amendments anyway."

"And (3) can't decide amongst themselves what won't-pass amendments they want," Whitehouse added. "I sure hope I'm wrong. But the Republican Senate caucus is a rudderless ship right now, so the gremlins are running the show."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

Ollongren told RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service during a visit to Kyiv on March 21 that a plan to deliver 24 F-16s jets is on track, with the first aircraft coming from Denmark.

Live Briefing: Russia's Invasion Of Ukraine

RFE/RL's Live Briefing gives you all of the latest developments on Russia's full-scale invasion, Kyiv's counteroffensive, Western military aid, global reaction, and the plight of civilians. For all of RFE/RL's coverage of the war in Ukraine, click here.

"I think we are on track to see deliveries, first Danish this summer, and then we're going to scale up," she said while declining to give the exact number of planes involved in the first delivery.

"We know that we will start with the Danish F-16s, that is now in our planning and in the Ukrainian planning. And in the end, I mean, it doesn't matter anymore. If it's a Dutch or Danish or Norwegian F-16 because [the planes are] going to be Ukrainian."

The arrival of the fighter jets will be a long-awaited development to help Kyiv fill a crucial hole in its defense capabilities.

Russia has used its more advanced and more numerous jets to repeatedly bomb Ukrainian cities, slow its counteroffensive, and threaten its ships exporting grain crucial to its economic survival, making Kyiv’s acquisition of modern U.S. jets a key ingredient to its successful defense of the country.

Ukraine inherited an aging fleet of Soviet MiG and Sukhoi jets that lack the strike depth and technology of modern Russian jets, putting Kyiv at a significant disadvantage in the war. Ukraine also has a much smaller fleet than Russia.

The more advanced F-16s would allow Ukrainian pilots to strike deep into Russian controlled areas and with great accuracy, intercept missiles that have terrorized Ukraine cities, and take on Russian jets that threaten its shipping lanes.

Ollongren said the key to the effectiveness of the jets will be the training of both pilots and technical staff to ensure they operate at peak performance.

"It is of no use if you don't know how to use [them] most effectively, and that requires training and that requires the right people for the maintenance and the right infrastructure. So when you get [them], you know that you will be able to use [them]," she said.

"So once...Ukraine gets the F-16, everything has to be in place, including, of course, how to protect them."

Since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the country has been backed by the United States, the European Union, and other Western allies.

Russia launched a missile attack on Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, early on March 21, injuring at least 10 people and damaging residential buildings and industrial facilities, city officials said.

But a new $60-billion aid package to Ukraine has been stalled in the U.S. House of Representatives as Republican lawmakers demand deep changes to domestic immigration policy.

With Washington's funding spigots turned off for the time being, the European Union has been moving to increase its assistance.

Earlier this week, the European Council approved the creation of the Ukraine Assistance Fund (UAF) and earmarked 5 billion euros ($5.4 billion) for it to be used for the provision of both "lethal and nonlethal military equipment and training."

Ollongren said the holdup in the United States on new aid is "a bit frustrating," but given the threat Russia's aggression poses to Europe, the 27-nation EU will continue to push to increase aid levels.

"We are working on increasing production levels...For Ukraine, it's an existential threat. But for Europe, it's also an existential threat. So it is in our best interest," to continue aid to Kyiv, she said.

"It's also in the America's best interest to continue that support and to step it up and to do more," she added.

This content originally appeared on News - Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty and was authored by News - Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty.

Janine Jackson interviewed the Repair Association’s Gay Gordon-Byrne about the right to repair for the March 15, 2024, episode of CounterSpin. This is a lightly edited transcript.

Dayton Daily News (2/15/24)

Janine Jackson: The president of the Ohio Farmers Union wrote an op-ed—I saw it in the Dayton Daily News—lamenting that “the needs and interests of family farmers have been ignored time after time by state and federal office holders.” A key complaint: manufacturers’ refusal to share the software needed to fix their products, forcing people to deal with a limited number of “authorized” shops, or to just throw away the broken thing and buy a new one.

Joe Logan wrote:

Frustrating enough for ordinary consumers, but for a farmer in the short window of harvest time, dealing with a breakdown of a half-million-dollar piece of equipment like a tractor or combine, it can be devastating.

Farmers versus faceless corporations—sounds like a ready-made storyline. So why don’t we hear it? Why is the right to repair controversial?

Gay Gordon-Byrne is executive director of the Repair Association, online at repair.org. She joins us now by phone from upstate New York. Welcome to CounterSpin, Gay Gordon-Byrne.

Gay Gordon-Byrne: Thank you very much for having me!

JJ: I think the right to repair is a keystone issue, affecting and reflecting a lot of other ideas, rights and relationships. But first, we’re talking with you now because the terrain is changing, in terms of the law around people’s ability to access the data and tools they need to fix, instead of replace, machines like tractors, like washing machines and, yes, like phones. The meaningful action seems to be at the state level. Can you bring us up to date on what’s happening legislatively, statewise?

Gothamist (12/29/23)

GG: Sure. We’ve been working with state legislatures since January of 2014, so we’ve now got a full 10 years under our belts. And over that time—I didn’t get a completely accurate count, because it does keep changing—we’ve actually been able to introduce bills in 48 out of 50 states, and over the years, that’s coming up to about 270+ pieces of legislation. So we’re pretty mature now, in terms of what we know needs to be done and can be done by states, and what that wording looks like.

So we’re pretty experienced at this point. We’ve had some good success lately. We got our first couple of bills through to the end and signed by the governor, starting in the end of 2022, in New York. Three more states—I think I could be miscounting, because my brain’s a little fried—but three more states in 2023, and we’ve got a bill in front of the governor in Oregon. So things are looking good.

JJ: So when you go in at a state legislative level, what do you concretely ask for? What is that language in the bills that you put forward?

GG: It’s actually pretty much consistent. There’s really only one active sentence, and it says that, “Hey, Mr. Manufacturer, if you want to do business in our state, you must provide all the same materials for purposes of repair that you’ve already created for your own repair services.” That’s pretty much it.

JJ: Right. So it means that you don’t have to only go to the Apple store to fix your Apple tech. But that, though, leads me to another question, which I know you’ve worked on, which is some companies are kind of saying they support this, but they have important compromises involved in their compliance.

GG: Yeah, some compliance is slightly malicious. And we keep trying, every time we file a new bill, we try to basically kick that malicious idea down, and make sure that the bills, as they go forward, are more and more explicit, and eliminate some of the loopholes that have been stuffed into bills, because legislators are really not necessarily technologists. We don’t expect them to be, but when a company like the big fruit company says, “Hey, I want to support right to repair in California,” they’re kind of helpless. They’ll take the support, and they’ll give away what they have to give away to get the bill done.

Verge (2/9/24)

JJ: So what does that malicious compliance look like? It’s a rhetorical support for the right to repair, but when it actually pans out, it doesn’t look like what you’re actually calling for.

GG: Yeah, the best example right now is what we call “parts pairing.” That’s been a problem all along, and we thought we had it nailed down in our template legislation, which we wrote back in 2015, that you can’t require specifically that you buy a part only from the manufacturer, and only new. And Apple got around it. They just said, “Well, we’re going to make sure that if you order a part from us, it’ll only work if you give us the serial number of your phone, and we preload that serial number into the part that we ship you, and that’ll work, but nothing else will.”

Which is really malicious, because it eliminates the ability to even use a part that might be brand new out of a phone that’s busted, and it eliminates the opportunity for a repair shop to stock any kind of inventory. It ruins the opportunity of restoring donated devices so that they can be reused, because who’s going to spend $300 to buy a brand-new part when the phone is only worth $200?

JJ: The right to fix things that we’ve bought and paid for—it shows up a kind of conflict between one narrative that Americans are told and tell ourselves, about Americans as scrappy, as individuals who rely on themselves, and then this other, different, unspelled-out story about how, no, you’re stupid, you’ll probably only hurt yourself; the only responsible thing to do is to pay the company whatever they want to charge you. And you know what, why don’t you just buy the latest version? Wouldn’t that be easier?

Not everyone can or wants to fix their own stuff, but the idea that, even though you bought it, you don’t ever really own it, it just seems like it should be a hard sell to people. So how did we get here?

Gay Gordon-Byrne: “States have the ability to simply say, ‘You can’t sell this stuff…and then unsell it using an unfair and deceptive contract.'”

GG: Companies have had basically a full generation, like 20 years, to perfect their marketing. And what they’re marketing to us is exactly what you said, that we’re too stupid to be able to fix our stuff, concurrently with the stuff that’s “too complicated to repair”—which is also baloney, because they create the repair materials that can be used by the least technologically expensive person to make repairs for them. We’re not paying people $300 an hour to repair cell phones. They’re getting paid 20 bucks, if that.

So the tools that are there are made to make repairs easy and efficient and less costly for the manufacturer, but we’ve been told we can’t do them. We’ve been told it’s too sophisticated, it’s too complicated.

And the emperor really has no clothes. And the fun part about doing this legislation is seeing the eyes light up when we talk with legislators, saying, this is actually not right. It’s not legal. There are supposed to be protections and antitrust law that prevent this behavior. But the Department of Justice has had about a 40- or 50-year hiatus on antitrust. It’s coming back, but it’s very, very cumbersome to go that way.

So the states have the ability to simply say, “You can’t sell this stuff, on the one hand, and then unsell it using an unfair and deceptive contract,” which is typically an end-user license agreement. Those agreements are of no value to anybody, except to remove your rights to fix your stuff.

JJ: Right, and they’re in the tiniest print you could ever imagine. And I just, finally, for anyone who’s missing it, this isn’t just a consumer rights failure, which is big enough, but it’s also an environmental disaster, to have industries based on buy it, throw it out, buy the new one. That’s a lose/lose.

GG: It’s pervasive. When we’ve taken a look at it and evaluated a lot of the contracts, we come to the conclusion that something more than 90% of the equipment on the market today literally cannot be repaired by anybody other than the manufacturer, if it’s repairable at all. And this is an environmental catastrophe. And it applies to everything that has a chip in it, which is now including toasters and blenders and coffee grinders, and all sorts of little stuff that, really, why do you have to throw it away? First of all, it’s made like garbage, but second of all, you can’t fix it.

JJ: We’ve been speaking with Gay Gordon-Byrne, executive director of the Repair Association. They’re online at repair.org. Thank you so much, Gay Gordon-Byrne, for speaking with us today on CounterSpin.

GG: Oh, my pleasure. Anytime.

The post ‘They’re Marketing to Us That We’re Too Stupid to Fix Our Stuff’ <br></em><span class='not-on-index' style='color:#000000; font-size: 23px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 25px; font-family: 'Open Sans','sans-serif'; padding-bottom: -10px;'>CounterSpin interview with Gay Gordon-Byrne on right to repair appeared first on FAIR.

This content originally appeared on FAIR and was authored by Janine Jackson.

The spotlight

If you’ve read any climate-related news in the past several years, you’re probably familiar with the scourge of microplastics. These tiny bits of plastic end up clogging oceans. They show up at alarming rates in bottled water, food, clouds — and in the human body. A study published just last month in the journal Toxicological Sciences tested 62 placentas, and found microplastics, in varying concentrations, in every single one. While their long-term impacts on human health are still largely unknown, another study published earlier this month linked microplastics in arteries with increased risk of heart attacks and stroke.

A lot of attention has focused on phasing out single-use plastics, which create visible plastic pollution and release microplastics when they break down. But there’s growing recognition that plastics, and microplastics, are hidden in a staggering number of products we depend on — including, notably, our clothing.

The bits of plastic shed from synthetic textiles have their own term: microfibers. Scraps of polyester, nylon, elastane, and other synthetic fabrics slough off of our clothes in the course of wearing, storing, and washing them. Laundry alone may account for about a third of the microplastics released into the ocean each year — and some innovations and regulations have emerged to reduce the transfer of microplastics from our washing machines to our water systems. But another set of innovators are imagining something bigger: what our clothes could be made of instead.

The problem, of course, is that plastics are so darn functional. Synthetic fibers are typically cheaper to produce than organic materials, and they also offer performance benefits, like stretchiness and weatherproofing.

“The age of plastic began because it mimicked other things, and the functionality was so good that it became its own thing,” fashion designer Uyen Tran told Grist, when we interviewed her for our 2023 Grist 50 list. In 2020, Tran founded a company called TômTex to create bio-based materials that can replace synthetic fabrics as well as leather and suede. She believes that a wave of new materials is ready to outcompete plastic-based textiles. “I think biomaterial is on the edge of becoming its own thing as well. Just give us a few more years, and you will see.”

In this newsletter, we’re rounding up a handful of the materials — from apple waste to artificial spider silk — that are already on the market, offering a glimpse of a plastic-free future for our textiles.

Shrimp shells: TômTex’s bio fabrics are made out of the waste from mushrooms and shrimp shells. The company sources the latter partially from the shrimp industry in Tran’s native Vietnam, which creates hundreds of tons of shell waste annually. And, Tran noted in her Grist 50 profile, she eventually hopes to build a network of regional production facilities all over the world, sourcing materials from waste streams in different regions. The company debuted its fully biodegradable shell-based fabric at New York Fashion Week in 2022, in a collaboration with designer Peter Do. Its mushroom-based fabric was seen on runways in both London and Paris Fashion Weeks in 2023. Read more

Apple mush: Another example of a company harnessing waste streams as raw materials for textiles is Allégorie, a New York-based accessory company making bags and wallets out of apple pomace — the mush left behind from juicing — as well as cactus, mangos, and pineapple leaves. Co-founder Heather Jiang told Marie Claire that some of the products even retain a pleasant, fruity scent.

Allégorie’s fruit-based products are meant to offer a better vegan leather, as the majority of faux leather products currently on the market are made of plastics like polyurethane and vinyl. The company also sees reducing food waste as part of its mission. Read more

Old cotton: A perhaps less surprising waste stream is used clothing itself. Early last year, a Swedish company called Renewcell opened the world’s first commercial-scale textile-recycling facility, the BBC reports. The company shreds old cotton clothing (with up to 5 percent non-cotton content), like shirts and jeans, and then chemically processes them to separate the fibers, which results in a simple organic compound called cellulose. This can then be spun into new viscose fabric.

The big sell here is reducing textile waste; more than 100 billion clothing items are produced each year, and only 1 percent end up getting cycled into new garments. But the company is using that existing stock instead of plastic to make new clothes — and clothes that in turn won’t create more microplastics. The mill has contracts with a number of suppliers, including Swedish fashion giant H&M. Read more

Enhanced cotton: A company called Natural Fiber Welding is working on enhancing natural materials like cotton to confer some of the same benefits that synthetic fabrics offer. Wired reports on how the process, known as (you guessed it!) “fiber welding,” uses liquid salts to partially break down the fibers and then fuse them together, creating longer and stronger threads that can mimic some of the coveted characteristics of synthetics, like strength and durability, especially relevant for athletic and outdoor apparel. The company announced a partnership with Patagonia in 2021. Read more

Lab-grown spider silk: A Japanese company called Spiber is pioneering what it calls “brewed protein” fibers — a way to produce desirable natural substances in a lab. As The Japan Times reports, it began in 2007 with efforts to engineer spider silk, which has long been admired for its strength, durability, and lightness. (Hence the name, which combines “spider” and “fiber.”) The company’s first product, made from a silk protein synthesized by bacteria enhanced with a snippet of spider DNA, was used in 2015 by The North Face, in a prototype coat called the Moon Parka.

But the company encountered a challenge in trying to create a product that wouldn’t shrink when wet, as spiderwebs do. Today, taking lessons from its initial engineering process, Spiber produces a brewed protein material that does not replicate any specific natural substance. The novel material is now being used by sportswear company Goldwin (the distributor for The North Face in Japan), which hopes to have 10 percent of its new products use brewed protein by 2030. Read more

— Claire Elise Thompson

More exposure

• Read: more about microfibers, and some of the technological and regulatory solutions that could stop them escaping from laundry machines into waterways (Grist)
• Read: an article about “instant fashion” and its heavy dependence on polyester (Harvard Business Review)
• Read: about a mountain of clothing waste that was burned in Chile’s Atacama Desert in 2022 — essentially an oil fire (Grist)
• Read: more about the growth of biomaterials, in clothing and other industries (Dezeen)

A parting shot

Another increasingly common bio-based textile is lyocell. The semi-synthetic fiber, also sometimes known by the brand name Tencel, is famous for its softness and its relative sustainability. It’s made by chemically dissolving wood pulp (usually fast-growing eucalyptus), pushing the mixture through a shower-head-like device called a spinneret, and then spinning the fibers into a yarn. In this photo from The Fashion Awards 2023 in London, Nicole Scherzinger (of Pussycat Dolls fame) wears a custom Tencel gown by Patrick McDowell, a luxury designer who only uses sustainable and recycled fabrics.

IMAGE CREDITS

Vision: Grist

Parting shot: Samir Hussein / Getty Images

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Apple waste, spider silk, enhanced cotton: How bio-based textiles could replace plastic in our clothing on Mar 13, 2024.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Claire Elise Thompson.

In the past, Godin would have replaced the broken screen on the spot with a working screen harvested from a dead phone, saving the customer from having to buy a brand new screen from Apple. But if Godin performs this simple procedure on one the latest models of iPhones, features such as True Tone, which adjusts screen brightness and color based on the ambient light conditions, won’t work anymore. What’s more, the phone will issue a repeated message warning the user that Apple cannot determine if the screen is genuine.

This is because many replacement iPhone parts, including screens, must now be “paired” with the phone using Apple’s proprietary software before they will function properly. And Apple’s “parts pairing” software will only recognize replacement parts purchased directly from Apple for that specific repair job — meaning an independent shop would have to order the part when the customer comes in, then potentially wait days for it to arrive. Meanwhile, the customer could go to an Apple Store and get their phone fixed with authorized parts on the spot. Godin says he’s losing business because of the hurdles a customer might face getting their iPhone fixed at his shop.

“It’s a lot of telling customers in advance, ‘We might run into this or that complication,’” Godin told Grist. “And the majority of the time, they don’t have us do the repair.”

As more and more states enact laws protecting consumers’ right to fix the devices they already have, or get them fixed at the repair shop of their choosing, tech titans are clashing over parts pairing. New York, Minnesota, and California all passed digital right-to-repair bills over the last two years, and repair advocates say Apple and trade associations it belongs to worked behind the scenes to weaken or block language that interfered with parts pairing. But while advocates expect Apple will fight new laws targeting the practice, Google came out in support of Oregon’s bill earlier this month — partly because of its ban on parts pairing. With tech giants now staking out opposing positions on parts pairing, repair advocates see a potential opportunity to gain ground.

Godin testified at a recent hearing of the Oregon Senate’s Energy and Environment Committee, which is considering a right-to-repair bill that explicitly bans parts pairing. If passed into law, the Oregon bill would represent the strongest legal rebuke yet of a practice that many independent repair shops see as an existential threat to their businesses, and that repair advocates say is fueling electronic waste and unnecessary resource consumption. 

Restricting parts pairing is “the next step that likely needs to happen for right to repair to really gain a lot more traction,” said Colorado state representative Brianna Titone, who is sponsoring a digital right-to-repair bill in her state for the fourth time this year.

The right-to-repair movement is premised on the idea that when consumers have access to the parts, tools, and information needed to repair the devices they own, they can use those devices for longer. This both saves consumers money and reduces the environmental downsides of technology, which include electronic waste and the greenhouse gas emissions and resource consumption associated with manufacturing new products.

But parts pairing threatens to undermine the benefits of repair. Parts pairing refers to when companies use software to track their parts and control how they are used. Companies can assign spare parts serial numbers and program those parts to work properly only after their installation has been authenticated using the manufacturer’s specialized software. The practice isn’t exactly new: For years, agricultural equipment maker John Deere has restricted access to the software tools needed to install replacement parts on its tractors, while some automakers have engaged in “VIN burning,” or using software to limit the installation of replacement parts to a single vehicle. But in the consumer technology realm, parts pairing is becoming a greater concern for independent repairers, largely due to Apple’s growing use of the practice for its iPhone and laptops.

Apple claims its pairing process using the company’s “System Configuration” software tool is important for calibrating parts after their installation to ensure the best performance. But this kind of technology also represents a powerful tool for restricting repair. A person whose iPhone 15 battery dies can still go to an independent shop to get it swapped for a new one, or do the repair on their own. But in order to receive battery health updates and avoid nagging warning messages that the phone contains an unrecognizable part, that shop or individual needs to purchase the new battery from Apple, then pair it using System Configuration. This can cause repairs to take more time, in addition to driving up costs (while ensuring that Apple gets a cut). 

Parts pairing is perhaps an even bigger problem for refurbishers, who use secondhand parts to keep costs down as they’re restoring old devices for resale. If a customer buys a refurbished laptop only to encounter warning messages about non-genuine parts, they may return it, said Marie Castelli, head of public affairs at the online refurbished device store Back Market. 

“We have clients opening [return] tickets because they are afraid of messages” alerting them that the device cannot recognize a part like the screen, Castelli told Grist. 

There’s an environmental cost to parts pairing, as well. When customers are steered away from used parts, those parts become e-waste. Meanwhile, demand for new parts rises, resulting in additional resource consumption and emissions tied to manufacturing. Right-to-repair is “about trying to keep things out of landfills; trying to reduce our dependence on all these minerals that go into all these parts,” Titone said. “And that’s really the big problem with parts pairing.”

The right-to-repair movement has made considerable progress forcing manufacturers to make spare parts, tools, and repair documentation available through a recently passed wave of state bills. But advocates say that Apple, and its trade association allies, have been largely successful in keeping bans on parts pairing out of the bills that have passed so far. 

In New York, language that would have interfered with Apple’s internet-based system for pairing replacement parts was removed from the state’s right-to-repair bill after the trade association TechNet — which Apple is a member of — requested its deletion. In California, a coalition of lawmakers, repair advocates, and industry representatives negotiating the text of the state’s new right-to-repair law reached an agreement with Apple on the bill text prior to its approval by the Senate, according to David Stammerjohan, chief of staff for California state senator and bill sponsor Susan Eggman. After that agreement was reached, some coalition members wanted to add language that explicitly addressed parts pairing.

“We discussed it with Apple, which indicated they wanted to stick to the terms of the agreement,” Stammerjohn told Grist in an email. “Like all major bill negotiations, there were things industry would have liked in the bill that did not get in and things we would have liked in the bill that did not get into the final agreement.” 

Minnesota’s new right-to-repair law does address parts pairing more explicitly. The law requires device manufacturers to make spare parts, tools, and documentation available to the public on fair and reasonable terms that cannot include any “requirement that a part be registered, paired with, or approved by the original equipment manufacturer or an authorized repair provider before the part is operational.” But while this may sound like a ban on parts pairing, Gay Gordon-Byrne, executive director of the repair advocacy organization Repair.org, worries that the language isn’t airtight enough to deter a manufacturer from locking down certain functions using software and then arguing its case before the state’s attorney general if anyone complains.

“I don’t have to be a legal expert to tell you I would expect that,” Gordon-Byrne told Grist.

Repair.org has written a template right-to-repair bill that includes provisions its members would like to see incorporated into actual legislation. For the 2024 legislative cycle, the organization updated its template bill language to more explicitly define, and prohibit, parts pairing. Some of that stronger language made its way into the bill now under consideration in Oregon, which states that manufacturers cannot use parts pairing to reduce the functionality or performance of a device or cause the device to display “unnecessary or misleading alerts or warnings about unidentified parts.”

This language is a key reason Google, whose more recent Pixel smartphones and Chromebook laptops would be covered under the latest version of Oregon’s bill, chose to throw its support behind the legislation, according to Stephen Nickel, who heads up repair operations at the company. In an interview with Grist, Nickel said that Google liked the “comprehensive” nature of the bill.

“It considers all aspects of repairability, and particularly … the issue of parts pairing,” he said, adding that Google is prepared to comply with “any and all” of the bill’s requirements.

Google’s newfound opposition to parts pairing, Titone said, suggests that the closed-door negotiations between lawmakers and device manufacturers are now spilling out into a “turf war” among tech companies vying for customers “in a very competitive market.”

“I think there is a market strategy that Google is trying to exploit right now,” she said. “Having [Pixel smartphone] repairability be really high is an edge.” 

It remains to be seen whether Apple or others will fight the new Oregon bill or future ones that seek to restrict parts pairing. But all signs suggest a battle is brewing. Titone, the Colorado representative, said that when she spoke with Apple several months back concerning the right-to-repair bill she’s introducing this year, the company asked her to allow parts pairing in the text.

In response to Grist’s request for comment, an Apple spokesperson shared remarks that AppleCare VP Brian Nauman made at a White House repair event in October affirming the company’s commitment to a uniform federal repair law that “balances repairability with product integrity, usability, and physical safety.” The spokesperson declined to address criticisms of Apple’s parts pairing practices or share the company’s position on the anti-parts pairing provisions in the new Oregon bill or Minnesota’s recently passed law.

It isn’t just U.S. lawmakers seeking to limit parts pairing. The European Union is currently negotiating a new set of EU-wide rules on the right to repair that would make it easier and more cost-effective for consumers to repair devices versus replacing them. In November, the European Parliament adopted a draft version of the right-to-repair rules that, among other things, prohibits companies from using software to impede independent repair. The Parliament’s version of the rules must now be reconciled with draft versions proposed by the European Commission and European Council, with negotiations over the final text set to conclude in early February. But Castelli of Back Market, who is following the negotiations closely, said that “hopes are high in terms of what’s achievable” when it comes to parts pairing.

“Everyone wants to land on something and is open to negotiations,” she said.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Apple uses software to control how phones get fixed. Lawmakers are pushing back. on Jan 30, 2024.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Maddie Stone.

In Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest city, the number of people killed in the Russian attack increased to five, the Prosecutor-General's Office said on Telegram, after initial reports put the number at three.

"Despite the efforts of the medics, two wounded people died in the hospital," the message reads.

Another 51 people were wounded, including four children, regional Governor Oleh Synyehubov said on Telegram, adding that Russian Kh-22 missiles struck civilian targets in the Kyiv and Saltivka districts.

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"Apartment buildings, an educational institution, and other exclusively civilian infrastructure were destroyed," Synyehubov wrote.

Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov said 30 residential buildings were damaged, some 1,000 windows were broken, and the heating had to be turned off in 20 houses as the temperatures reached minus seven degrees Celsius.

In Kyiv, at least 20 people, including four children, were wounded, Mayor Vitali Klitschko and city administration chief Roman Popko said on Telegram.

One woman was declared clinically dead despite efforts by doctors to resuscitate her, Popko said.

Three districts -- Pechersk, Svyatoshynsk, and Solomyansk -- were targeted in the attack, Klitschko said.

"As a result of the Russian missile attack, 20 people were wounded; 13 of them are hospitalized, including three children. One 13-year-old boy and six adult victims were treated by medics on the spot," Klitschko wrote.

Russian missiles also hit the city of Pavlohrad, in the southern region of Dnipropetrovsk, killing at least one person, regional Governor Serhiy Lysak announced on Telegram.

In Moscow, the Russian Defense Ministry claimed on January 23 that the missile strikes "successfully" targeted Ukraine's military production facilities, hitting all intended targets, while Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov again denied that Russian forces had struck civilian areas, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

Russia over the past several weeks has abruptly intensified its missile strikes on Ukrainian civilian targets, causing numerous deaths, injuries, and material damage. The eastern city of Kharkiv, just 30 kilometers from the Russian border, has been particularly targeted by Russian strikes.

According to Ukrainian officials, only between December 29 and January 2, Russia launched more than 500 Iranian-made drones and cruise missiles at Ukraine's cities.

The unusually intense wave of strikes has also put pressure on Ukraine's air-defense capabilities and its ammunition stockpiles, prompting President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to call on Kyiv's allies to step up weapons deliveries.

With reporting by AP

This content originally appeared on News - Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty and was authored by News - Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty.

Independent reporter Talia Jane posted the following on Twitter/X:

The action was in protest against corporate wealth alongside increased food insecurity & to call attention to Amazon’s contracts with Israel.

She also posted a video of the event with people throwing around flyers and shouting, “Feed the people, eat the rich!” Jane stated the food was later redistributed and given to food ‘distros’ and community care spaces feeding migrants and the unhoused.

It’s Going Down — which describes itself as “a digital community center for anarchist, anti-fascist, autonomous anti-capitalist and anti-colonial movements across so-called North America” — has published on its website the texts of the flyers.

Here is an abridged version of one of the texts:

We assert that corporations like Amazon and Whole Foods do a tremendous amount of harm: hoarding wealth and resources, stealing labor, and destroying the land we live on. When we purchase food from Whole Foods, only a small fraction of what we spend is going back to those doing the labor to produce the food — the vast majority of it is funneled into Jeff Bezos’s coffers, where it is in turn reinvested in weapon manufacturing, war, and big oil.

Furthermore, Amazon’s contract for Project Nimbus with the IOF [Israel Occupation Forces] means that Bezos profits directly from the ongoing genocide in Palestine. Boycott. Divest. Shoplift. Not another dime for genocide!

We believe direct action is a vital form of resistance against the capitalist institutions built to crush, starve, and bleed us to death. Solidarity with shoplifters everywhere! We hope you will be inspired to take similar action wherever you are.

Move like water. Take back what has always been yours. Become ungovernable.

Some of the unscrupulous practices and the adverse impacts of Bezos and his Amazon corporation are described in the online article ‘Amazon, ‘Economic Terrorism’ and the Destruction of Livelihoods’. Indeed, US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in 2019 that Amazon had “destroyed the retail industry across the United States.”

Project Nimbus, referred to in the flyer, is a $1.2bn contract to provide cloud services for the Israeli military and government and it will allow for further surveillance of and unlawful data collection on Palestinians while facilitating expansion of Israel’s illegal settlements on Palestinian land.

Direct action

Of course, there will be those who condemn the direct action described above. And they will do so while remaining blissfully unaware of or silent on the direct action of the super-wealthy that has plunged hundreds of millions into hardship and poverty.

The wholly unavoidable conflict in Ukraine (which profits corporate vultures), speculative food commodity trading, the impact of closing down the global economy via the COVID event and the inflationary impacts of pumping trillions of dollars into the financial system have driven people into poverty and denied them access to sufficient food.

All such events did not result from an ‘act of God’. They were orchestrated and brought about by deliberate policy decisions. And the effects have been devastating.

In 2022, it was estimated that a quarter of a billion people across the world would be pushed into absolute  poverty in that year alone.

In the UK, poverty is increasing in two-thirds of communities, food banks are now a necessary part of life for millions of people and living standards are plummeting. The poorest families are enduring a ‘frightening’ collapse in living standards, resulting in life-changing and life-limiting poverty. Absolute poverty is set to be at 18.3 per cent by 2023-2024.

In the US, around 30 million low-income people are on the edge of a “hunger cliff” as a portion of their federal food assistance is taken away. In 2021, it was estimated that one in eight children were going hungry in the US.

Small businesses are filing for bankruptcy in the US at a record rate. Private bankruptcy filings in 2023 have exceeded the highest point recorded during the early stages of COVID by a considerable amount. The four-week moving average for private filings in late February 2023 was 73% higher than in June 2020.

As hundreds of millions suffer, a relative handful of multi-billionaires have gained at their expense.

A February 2023 report by Greenpeace International showed that 20 food corporations delivered $53.5 billion to shareholders in the financial years 2020 and 2021. At the same time, the UN estimated that $51.5 billion would be enough to provide food, shelter and lifesaving support for the world’s 230 million most vulnerable people.

These ‘hunger profiteers’ exploited crises to gain grotesque profits. They plunged millions into hunger while tightening their grip on the global food system.

Meanwhile, nearly 100 of the biggest US publicly traded companies recorded 2021 profit margins that were at least 50 per cent higher than their 2019 levels.

In a July 2021 report, Yahoo Finance noted that the richest 0.01% — around 18,000 US families — hold 10% of the country’s wealth today. In 1913, the top 0.01% held 9% of US wealth and just 2% in the late 1970s.

The wealth of the world’s billionaires increased by $3.9tn between 18 March and 31 December 2020. Their total wealth then stood at $11.95tn, a 50% increase in just 9.5 months. Between April and July 2020, during the initial lockdowns, the wealth held by these billionaires grew from $8 trillion to more than $10 trillion.

The world’s 10 richest billionaires collectively saw their wealth increase by $540bn over this period. In September 2020, Jeff Bezos could have paid all 876,000 Amazon employees a $105,000 bonus and still be as wealthy as he was before COVID.

And do not forget the offshoring of plundered wealth by the super-rich of $50 trillion into hidden accounts.

These are the ‘direct actions’ we should really be concerned about.

A point rammed home via another flyer that was issued during the protest in New York:

The shelves in this store have been stocked with items that were harvested, prepared, and cooked via a long supply chain of exploitation and extraction from people and land.

This food was made by the People and it should fill the bellies of the People.

Don’t fall prey to the myth of scarcity! Look around you: there is enough for all of us. This food is being hoarded, and we are giving it back to our communities. The world belongs to us – everything is already ours.

We deserve to eat whether we can pay or not. Tear down the system that starves and kills people, one liberated apple at a time!

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Colin Todhunter.

Lai, a British citizen and founder of the now-shuttered pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily, has been behind bars since December 2020 and is due to be tried on charges of foreign collusion under the national security law – imposed by Beijing three years ago – that has been used to stifle free speech and crush dissent in the city, once a bastion of press freedom in Asia.

“The trial is a travesty of justice. It may be Jimmy Lai who is in the dock, but it is press freedom and the rule of law that are on trial in Hong Kong,” said Beh Lih Yi, CPJ’s Asia program coordinator, on Friday. “The government is pulling out all the stops to keep Lai behind bars. This is a dark stain on Hong Kong’s rule of law and is doing a disservice to the government’s efforts to restore investor confidence.”

The start of the trial has been postponed multiple times, and it will be held without a jury. The Hong Kong government has prevented Lai’s choice of counsel, British lawyer Timothy Owen, from representing him and a court in May upheld the decision.

Lai is currently serving a prison sentence of five years and nine months on fraud charges related to a lease dispute.

Lai received CPJ’s Gwen Ifill Press Freedom Award in 2021 in recognition of his extraordinary and sustained commitment to press freedom.

China ranked as the world’s second-worst jailer of journalists in CPJ’s 2022 prison census, which documented those imprisoned on December 1, 2022, with at least 43 journalists behind bars.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Arlene Getz/CPJ Editorial Director.

On Tuesday, 75-year-old Lai will have been behind bars in Hong Kong for 1,000 days. The release of Lai, who is facing charges that could lead to life imprisonment, is a fundamental step to safeguard press freedom in Hong Kong, the groups said.

Read the full letter below.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

CPJ’s call follows reports on Thursday—a day after the disclosure that the phone of exiled Russian journalist Galina Timchenko had been infected by Pegasus spyware—that three Latvia-based journalists said Apple had notified them that their phone could have been targeted by hacker attacks.

The three were named as Latvian journalist Evgeniy Pavlov and exiled Russian journalists Evgeniy Erlich and Maria Epifanova.

“The growing reports of possible hacker attacks against at least three independent journalists based in Latvia are all the more worrying given the recent revelation that exiled Russian journalist Galina Timchenko’s phone was infected with Pegasus spyware,” said Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator. “Latvian authorities must conduct a swift and transparent investigation into these allegations and ensure the digital and physical safety of journalists who are temporarily or permanently residing in their countries.”

On Wednesday, September 13, an investigation released by rights group Access Now and research organization Citizen Lab revealed that the phone of Timchenko, the head of independent Russian-language news website Meduza, who has lived in Latvia since 2014, was infected by Pegasus, a form of zero-click spyware produced by the Israeli company NSO Group, while she was in Germany in February. 

Apple had warned Timchenko in June that her device may have been targeted with state-sponsored spyware. The Access Now/Citizen Lab investigation reported that the attack could have come from Russia, one of its allies, or a European Union state.

Apple sent email and text alerts to Erlich’s iPhone while he was in Poland, traveling by car from Latvia to Germany on August 29, warning that “state-sponsored attackers” might be targeting his device, the journalist told CPJ via messaging app.

Erlich is the former chief editor of a regional program for Current Time TV, and an independent producer with Votvot, an on-demand Russian language streaming platform, who moved to Latvia in 2014. Current Time TV and Votvot are affiliated with the U.S. Congress-funded broadcaster Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL).

On August 29, Apple warned Epifanova, who moved to Latvia in 2016, that her iPhone may have been hacked by “state-sponsored hackers.” On September 3, the Telegram channel warned her that someone had logged into her account from a device in Egypt, Novaya Gazeta Europe reported.

Epifanova is the CEO of independent news outlet Novaya Gazeta Europe and publisher of Novaya Gazeta project Novaya Gazeta Baltija, which covers Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia.

Novaya Gazeta Europe is a Latvia-based newspaper launched in April 2022 by journalists who previously worked at the independent Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta. Russian authorities designated Novaya Gazeta Europe as an “undesirable” organization in June, banning the outlet from operating on Russian territory.

Also, on August 29, Apple emailed Latvian journalist Evgeniy Pavlov that his phone might have been hacked by “state-sponsored hackers.” 

Pavlov is a correspondent with Novaya Gazeta Baltija and reports for Current Time TV and the Russian-language Latvia-based web portal rus.nra.lv.

Epifanova and Pavlov were in Latvia when they received the warnings; they turned to Access Now on Thursday to have their devices checked for spyware infection, Ekaterina Glikman, deputy editor of Novaya Gazeta Europe, told CPJ via a messaging app. 

CPJ’s emails to the Latvian State Security Service and the German Federal Ministry of the Interior received no responses.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

On Tuesday, the most valuable company in the world delivered a letter to California Senator Susan Eggman expressing its support for SB 244, a “right-to-repair” bill that would make it easier for the public to access the spare parts, tools, and repair documentation needed to fix devices.

“Today, Apple writes in support of SB 244, and urges members of the California legislature to pass the bill as currently drafted,” D. Michael Foulkes, Apple’s director of state and local government affairs, wrote in the letter.

It was a dramatic turnaround for a company that has played a key role in quashing right-to-repair bills in statehouses around the country, including California. As recently as 2022, Apple asked New York Governor Kathy Hochul to veto a right-to-repair bill. (Hochul wound up signing that bill into law, but not before revising the text to make it more corporate friendly.) But advocates say that Apple recognized it was on the losing side of the fight over repair access. Its decision to support a right-to-repair bill in its home state reflects the growing pressure Apple faces from shareholders, lawmakers, federal regulators, and the public to end monopolistic restrictions that limit consumers’ ability to fix their devices.

“Right to repair is here to stay, and they know it,” Nathan Proctor, who heads the U.S. Public Research Interest Group’s right-to-repair campaign, told Grist. 

That wasn’t always the case. For years, Apple’s position was that making parts and repair tools available to the public is a bad idea. Over the years, the company has repeatedly claimed that right-to-repair laws create safety and cybersecurity risks and could force manufacturers to divulge trade secrets. Despite the U.S. Federal Trade Commission concluding in 2021 that there was “scant evidence” to support these claims, Apple, along with trade associations it’s a member of, continued making them. In a letter to Hochul last August, the company wrote that New York’s electronics right-to-repair bill, which had recently passed the state legislature, would “harm consumer security, privacy, safety and transparency … and do nothing to advance New York’s environmental goals.”

Repair advocates counter these arguments by pointing out that it is in Apple’s financial interest to ensure its customers only get their devices fixed on the company’s terms. When consumers have limited ways to repair damaged or malfunctioning gadgets, they often choose to replace them, ensuring a steady stream of sales for manufacturers like Apple. Greater access to independent repair, advocates say, benefits consumers, who often are able to fix things more conveniently and more affordably at home or via an independent shop. According to both advocates and tech industry-backed research, it also benefits the planet: With more repair options, consumers are able to keep their current devices in use for longer, reducing electronic waste and the carbon emissions tied to manufacturing new ones.

Apparently, Apple now agrees with repair advocates. “In recent years, Apple has taken significant steps to expand options for consumers to repair their devices which we know is good for consumers’ budgets and good for the environment,” Foulkes wrote in the letter.

Apple’s about-face didn’t come out of nowhere. As Foulkes’ letter points out, the company began shifting its public position on independent repair a few years back, as the right-to-repair movement was garnering national media attention and high-level support. 

In 2019, Apple launched its “Independent Repair Provider” program, granting independent shops access to the repair documentation and original parts that were previously only available to Apple “authorized” repair partners. In 2022, it announced “Self Service Repair,” a program that allows customers to purchase genuine Apple parts and tools to make common repairs on newer iPhones and Macs. Both programs have their flaws — the Independent Repair Provider program required independent shops to sign an onerous contract, while Self Service Repair, by many accounts, is an expensive and clunky way to fix a device. But advocates also hailed both as symbolic victories, considering Apple’s influence on the broader consumer tech industry.

Voicing support for a right-to-repair bill in California, the largest economy in the country and the central nervous system of Big Tech, may be Apple’s biggest symbolic concession yet. Unlike in the past, when Apple has simply asked lawmakers to shoot down right-to-repair bills, Proctor said that this time the company came to the negotiating table. Working with the office of bill author Eggman, Apple pushed for some changes to the text. Ultimately, the bill reached a place where the company was comfortable supporting it. 

The bill requires that manufacturers of electronics and appliances make parts, repair tools, and documentation available to the general public, for devices first sold on or after July 1, 2021. For devices costing between $50 and $99.99, manufacturers must provide repair access for at least three years after the product is no longer manufactured; for those costing more than $100, that number rises to seven years. In its letter, Apple lists a few bill provisions that were crucial for the company’s support, including language that clearly states manufacturers only have to offer the public the same parts, tools, and manuals available to authorized repair partners, and the bill’s exclusive focus on newer devices. 

“Apple’s support for California’s Right to Repair Act demonstrates the power of the movement that has been building for years and the ability for industries to partner with us to make good policy to benefit the people of California,” Eggman told Grist in an emailed statement. “I’m grateful for their engagement on this issue and for leading among their peers when it comes to supporting access to repair.”

By choosing to work with lawmakers on SB 244, Apple is following in the footsteps of Microsoft, which negotiated the details of a recent Washington state right-to-repair bill before supporting it publicly. (Ironically, that bill stalled out in the state Senate after failing to gain the support of a key Democrat who is a former Apple executive.) While it’s unclear whether Microsoft’s cooperative approach on right to repair in Washington directly influenced the iPhone maker’s strategy in California, advocates previously told Grist that Microsoft’s leadership helped bring the entire tech industry to the negotiating table. Apple didn’t respond to a request for comment.

The California Senate passed SB 244 by a vote of 38-0 in May. The state Assembly’s appropriations committee is expected to vote on the bill next week, after which it could go to the Assembly floor for a vote.

California appears to have a good shot at becoming the fourth state to sign a right-to-repair bill into law over the past year, following New York, Colorado, and Minnesota. A strong right-to-repair law in California has the potential to become the de facto standard, potentially leading to a national agreement between Big Tech and the repair community similar to what happened in the auto industry after Massachusetts passed a right-to-repair law for cars. 

But regardless of this bill’s fate, advocates are taking a moment to celebrate their latest victory.

“It’s a huge win for the whole coalition that were dogged in their pursuit of legislation, and a proud moment for all of us watching the big guns fall,” Repair.org executive director Gay Gordon-Byrne said in a statement.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline In a historic about-face, Apple publicly supports right-to-repair bill on Aug 24, 2023.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Maddie Stone.

The post The Nuclear Apple appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Robert Koehler.

"The worst thing was that the day they arrested several high-level executives was actually my birthday, so I have felt very sad on my birthday these past couple of years," he said. 

"I feel very bad that they have been sitting in jail for the past two years," he said.

The Apple Daily, founded by pro-democracy media magnate Jimmy Lai, was raided by national security police on June 17, 2021, becoming one of the biggest casualties of draconian national security law imposed by the ruling Communist Party in a bid to suppress the 2019 protest movement.

Five days later, as the paper shut down for good, a group of editors and reporters gathered outside the headquarters of Lai's Next Digital media empire, bowing to their readers to show gratitude for their support over the years. 

"We are the Apple Daily editorial team, including reporters, and we have something to say to the people of Hong Kong – thank you," one said. 

The last edition of the paper sold a record-breaking 1 million copies, with people lining up on the street from the early hours to get their piece of Hong Kong history, making a bittersweet end to 26 years of the paper’s sensationalist, hard-hitting style and its cheery apple logo.

Two years later, the doors of Next Digital's former headquarters are boarded up, and the company's name has been erased from the bus stop outside. 

Leaving Hong Kong, journalism

Radio Free Asia caught up with four of its former journalists in recent weeks, marking the second anniversary of the raid. 

Not many former Apple Daily staffers – who once numbered around 600 – are still in journalism, while an estimated 1 in 10, have left Hong Kong for a new life overseas. 

Meanwhile, at least 15 other media outlets have since also shut down, either because they were also being investigated by the national security police, or as a pre-emptive decision. 

Of the former journalists who spoke to RFA Cantonese, some have changed careers, others have emigrated, and some have gone back to school. 

And some diehards have clung to their profession because they believe very strongly in the idea of a free press for Hong Kongers – wherever they are in the world.

Three former staff members, who gave only the pseudonyms Ah Y, Ah A, and Jimuk for fear of political reprisals against themselves or their loved ones, spoke to Radio Free Asia about their current plans and their memories of the crackdown, which proved so fateful not just for the Apple Daily, but for Hong Kong. 

A fourth – Taiwan-based Photon News website founder Leung Ka Lai – agreed to speak on the record.

More than a job

All are still struggling in their own way to come to terms with the loss of their paper, which was so much more than a job, and which has become a symbol of the crackdown on dissent and peaceful political opposition in Hong Kong since the protest movement tried to take issue with the erosion of the city's promised freedoms.

"I worked for the Apple Daily for more than 20 years – that place took all of my blood, sweat and tears. Anyone who says they don't miss the place is lying," Ah Y said. 

For Ah A, it's the openness of the interactions with colleagues he misses the most. 

"That open atmosphere made me very happy to go to work,” he said. “I miss that rapport with my colleagues, and I miss the feeling of everyone working together."

Jimuk said he still treasures every moment he spent working there.  

"I haven't forgotten anything about the paper over the last two years because I invested so much in it, both mentally and emotionally, and did some good work there," they said. 

For Ah Y, who now lives in the United Kingdom, there seems to be little point in staying in the industry at all. "These days being a journalist seems pretty pointless," he said, adding that he hadn't planned on leaving the profession, and isn't sure what to do now.   

"It's not easy to just change careers after 20 years in journalism," he said. "I've spent more than half of my working life doing this job, and I always thought I would keep doing it until I retired." 

Ah Y now does manual labor in Britain.

 "Being a journalist has lost its meaning in this day and age," he said. "It would feel like going through the motions, like a zombie. And there isn't much of a future in it for young people." 

Keeping the spirit alive

Jimuk is carrying out academic research into the Apple Daily in Taiwan, and teaching students from Taiwan and the rest of the world about the demise of press freedom in Hong Kong and about the 2019 protest movement. 

He feels that he's still working as a communicator, only in a different venue and profession. 

"I often think about how to keep the spirit of the Apple Daily alive," he said. "Also about how we can help preserve its history. My aim over the next few years is to create an academic archive detailing more than two decades of Apple Daily history.”

Ah Y has also written about Hong Kong for some Taiwanese news organizations, something he has been grateful for because he feels as if he is helping Hong Kong from overseas. 

Ah A decided to brave the chilly political climate and stay in Hong Kong, but hasn't managed to find another reporting job, as his resume is now tainted by his association with his former paper.

Instead, he has worked in sales, data analysis and as an Uber driver since the paper's demise. 

He said media organizations in Hong Kong now appear reluctant to hire him.  

"Journalists I have worked with from other media organizations have invited me to interview, and I went to more than one that was on the point of hiring me, but then didn't get approval from the highest level," he said. 

"Each time it was because I was one of the last journalists to leave the Apple Daily," he said. 

Excluded

It seems that being a former Apple Daily journalist is now something akin to the Black Five Categories of the Cultural Revolution of 1966-1976 in mainland China – a recipe for vilification and exclusion, according to its former staffers.

Some former journalists at the paper have even been turned down for teaching positions in universities.  

"It's a shame, because I would never have done this job for so long if I didn't really love it," said Ah A, who was a journalist for 16 years. "But the industry is changing so rapidly that I probably wouldn't be able to bear it. I'm getting a bit long in the tooth for that."  

"I prefer the challenge of trying a different career altogether," he said. 

As the ruling Communist Party tightened its grip on Hong Kong in the wake of the 2019 protest movement, it "gutted" press freedom in the city, according to journalists and overseas rights groups. 

Since the national security law took effect on July 1, 2020, Hong Kong has plummeted from 18th to 140th in Reporters Without Borders' annual press freedom index. 

Last hurrah

The 2019 protest movement, which was covered round-the-clock by a dedicated press corps who braved constant street battles between protesters and riot police, may have been its last hurrah. 

With daily drone footage, live-tweeting, live streams, running commentary, political debate and in-depth interviews with participants, Hong Kong's journalists offered a depth and intensity of coverage that hasn't been seen in the city since. 

That year, they really fulfilled their role as the fourth estate that holds governments to account and speaks truth to power.

But by the following year, the National Security Law had put an end to the activities of its once-intrepid press corps, barring the depiction of any scenes or slogans seen as “glorifying” the protesters or their aims.

Jimmy Lai, who was initially arrested and released on bail at the time of the national security raid, was taken back into custody, where he remains awaiting trial on national security charges. 

He was also convicted of "fraud" in connection with the alleged misuse of Next Digital premises under the terms of its lease agreement. 

Meanwhile, six former Apple Daily executives have pleaded guilty to "conspiring and colluding with foreign powers" under the national security law. 

Other casualties

Six months after the raid on the Apple Daily, the pro-democracy Stand News website was also forced to close, with two of its senior editors prosecuted. A month later, Citizen News followed suit, saying it needed to shut down to keep its journalists safe. 

"Four years on, the transformation has been shocking," Leung Ka Lai said. "Nobody thought this could happen, not even people with more than a decade of experience in Hong Kong media organizations." 

"I used to think it would be something like the frog in the gradually heating pan of water, but actually, things changed overnight," she said. 

Leung, who worked for 16 years as a journalist in Hong Kong, the last three of them at the Apple Daily, tried to stay on after the paper closed, working as a citizen journalist covering protests and political opposition. 

But she has since moved to the democratic island of Taiwan, where she founded Photon News, a service for Hong Kong readers anywhere in the world. 

‘Be water’

Leaving felt like the Bruce Lee maxim used by the 2019 protesters to denote a fluid approach to political opposition, "Be Water."  

"I chose to leave because it turns out that there is some space to do my work here, enough freedom of expression," she said.   

"Resistance takes many forms, and refusing to put up banners can be a form of resistance, if that's what the regime wants you to do," Leung said. "I don't want to put up protest banners -- I'm a journalist." 

Yet Leung has found that self-censorship has dogged her shoestring news operation even in Taiwan, as people are reluctant to speak to the press due to risks under the national security law. There is also the need to protect her own employees. 

“We are now overseas, in a place that isn't threatened by Hong Kong's National Security Law, but still have to consider the safety of anonymous colleagues, and sometimes there are decisions to be made about which stories to run, and how they should be written," Leung said. 

While some former colleagues have carried on reporting via social media, there are concerns about how effective an option this can be in the longer term.

"There are lot of like-minded colleagues in Hong Kong who have started their own news platforms, and there seems to be some room for them to do that," Leung said, adding that while 12 media organizations have folded, 15 new services -- albeit smaller and less well-funded -- have sprung up to take their place. 

"But Hong Kongers are pretty picky, and won't just accept anything you feed them," she said, adding that the prospects for what little press freedom remains are looking grim, with the government planning further national security legislation.

Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Edward Li for RFA Cantonese.

When you look inside, you learn that this virtual meeting is on June 20, 2023, “live via Webcast.” No more in-person shareholder meetings, where at least for a couple of hours a year, the GM CEO, officers and the Board of Directors would have to hear out their powerless owner-shareholders’ recommendations or complaints. The media reports of these gatherings would sometimes highlight shareholder demands.

Not surprisingly, GM wants its shareholders to vote on management’s proposed “full agenda,” for this globally omnipresent giant auto company – with its factories, offices and other installations radiating impact in many directions that affect economics, politics, the environment and lives of workers, taxpayers and consumers.

The agenda reveals the anemic state of individual and institutional shareholders, long disempowered by the corporate toady – Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). GM management only presents seven proposals for a vote. The first is to re-elect its 13-member Board of Directors, starting with Chair and CEO Mary T. Barra. The second is to ratify the election of Ernst & Young LLP as the company’s accounting firm. The third is to vote on the “advisory approval of Named Executive Officer Compensation,” and the fourth is to approve the company’s “long-term incentive plan.”

The GM Board of Directors urged an affirmative vote for these four proposals but they declined to do so for proposals 5, 6 and 7, that came from the owners-shareholders, which means GM, the company, is opposed.

Proposal 5 requested a report on GM’s operations in China; Proposal 6 asked for Shareholders’ Written Consent on some matters; Proposal 7 dealt with “sustainable materials procurement targets.”

Shockingly, proposals 5, 6, and 7 were too much for the imperial hired bosses of GM, who gave not a single nod to their shareholders’ requests. And not a single worry that next year would bring heightened indignation by large institutional shareholders (e.g., Fidelity, Vanguard, etc.) or individual owners. Proposals before the SEC to give shareholders more voice on more matters (e.g., campaign contributions) remain bottled up for years by corporate lawyers and the mostly indentured SEC Commissioners.

Imagine, after explicitly promising not to make any campaign donations to members of Congress who voted to overturn the 2020 election results, GM broke its promise in 2022 and sent hefty checks to 12 of the GOP seditionists and the National Republican Campaign Committee. MoveOn released an excoriating TV ad on GM’s broken promise. But no proposal cleared the barriers to demand an apology and other corrective actions for GM’s betrayal of the public trust.

It’s not just GM, of course. When Apple held its virtual meeting on March 10, 2023, the Board of Directors recommended a “Yes” vote to 1) re-elect members of the Board, including Al Gore, 2) “Yes” to ratifying Ernst & Young as its accountant, and 3) “Yes” to an “advisory vote to approve executive compensation.” However, Apple’s management responded with silence, meaning thumbs down, to shareholder proposals on “civil rights,” one on a China audit, another on communication with shareholder proponents, and lastly, one on “racial and gender pay gaps.”

The giant New England utility company Eversource Energy held its May 3, 2023 shareholder meeting in person, but at the corporate law firm of Ropes & Gray LLP. This is not exactly a space for hundreds of the company’s owners to turn out. No matter, all the proposals on the agenda once again were the company’s proposals dealing mostly with executive compensation. There were zero agenda items dealing with the company’s “blackouts,” disinvestment in skilled emergency staff, buying up public drinking water systems, climate issues, or its customers’ formidable difficulties registering complaints about a rate formula that no longer charges consumers for what they use, but rather bills customers using an arcane, more expensive formula.

So, the long slide for shareholder-driven corporate accountability continues. Yet the long upsurge in overwhelming corporate power also continues unabated – controlling federal and state regulators, blocking or dragging out court challenges for purposes of tactical attrition, pouring money into the campaign coffers of elected lawmakers and judges, and “handling” the large mutual and pension funds. (These large funds are similarly structured top-down with heavy payments to the bosses.)

Some nonprofits and religious orders still make a valiant try each spring with a few companies focusing on climate violence policies or the insatiable demands by manufacturers of large weapons of mass destruction. But the immunized, pampered, super-rich CEOs lose little sleep over such challenges.

Some large institutional shareholders like Blackrock, through its CEO Larry Fink, orate that companies should address the conditions of communities’ suppliers, workers, consumers and other affected “stakeholder” groups. But saying is not doing. And with about $8 trillion in invested assets, Blackrock could do a lot.

Shareholder and advocacy groups’ nudging sometimes brings forth voluntary moves, such as Starbucks eliminating plastic straws globally in 2020. Overall, the efforts of shareholder activities paint a dismal picture of historically high corporate supremacy over our political economy and its culture. All the while the algorithms grip and the chatbots loom.

Since corporations are all chartered into existence by state governments, it is time to dust off a more than hundred-year-old federal chartering proposal espoused by Presidents William Howard Taft, Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson. Federal chartering might delineate better the terms of corporations’ existence and operations. That was the way they and others during the Progressive Era, wanted to rewrite the contract between giant companies and the government.

In 2018, Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) proposed federal chartering by introducing the Accountable Capitalism Act, which is needed now more than ever in this globalized economy. She has yet to re-introduce the bill, seek co-signers and hold public hearings on this proposal which have been long-sought by civic advocates.

Existing state-based corporate chartering laws (mostly shaped by the race-to-the-bottom states of Delaware and Nevada) are ludicrously obsolete, hailing from the days of the quill pen.

For several years, we’ve been inviting Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders on our radio show/podcast to discuss the big picture questions of giant corporatism. They have yet to accept.

Do you wonder why the progressive forces have so little influence over their forlorn allies in the Congress? Wonder no more. See our new report The Incommunicados for some compelling evidence.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Ralph Nader.

Just hours after Reporters Without Borders (RSF) and 116 publishers, editors-in-chief, and senior editors from around the world called for the release of Apple Daily founder and RSF Press Freedom Prize laureate Jimmy Lai (in Cantonese: Lai Chee-ying), the Hong Kong government responded with a veiled threat.

It published a statement threatening in veiled terms the “organisations and individuals” who “interfere with the judicial proceedings” without explicitly mentioning RSF or the signatories to the call.

In the Hong Kong government’s views, calling for Lai’s release “is very likely to constitute the offence of criminal contempt of court or the offence of perverting the course of justice,” which could carry a sentence of respectively two and seven years in prison under the Criminal Procedure Ordinance in Hong Kong.

• READ MORE: ‘Free Jimmy Lai now’ plea by RSF and 116 global media leaders
• Other Jimmy Lai reports

The statement also claimed, against mounting evidence to the contrary, that press freedom was still being “respected and protected” in the territory.

It also said that the arrest and prosecution of Jimmy Lai and other press freedom defenders were “completely unrelated to the issue of press freedom”.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by Pacific Media Watch.

More than 100 media leaders from around the world have joined Reporters Without Borders (RSF) in signing an unprecedented joint statement expressing support for detained Apple Daily founder and publisher Jimmy Lai in Hong Kong.

They have called for his immediate release.

Among the signatories are publishers, editors-in-chief, and senior editors from 41 countries, including New Zealand — and two Nobel Peace Prize laureates.

• READ MORE: Other Jimmy Lai reports

This powerful joint statement is signed by 113 media leaders spanning 41 countries, from Egypt to Turkey, from India to Gambia, from Myanmar to Mongolia, and everywhere in between.

RSF coordinated this call in support of Jimmy Lai, who has become an emblematic figure in the fight for press freedom in Hong Kong and globally.

The action also seeks to highlight the broader dire state of press freedom in the Chinese-ruled territory, which has deteriorated sharply in recent years.

A former laureate of RSF’s Press Freedom Prize, 75-year-old Jimmy Lai has worked over the past 25 years to uphold the values of freedom of speech and press through his independent media outlet Apple Daily.

Concurrent sentences
Detained since December 2020 in a maximum security jail and repeatedly refused bail, Lai is already serving concurrent sentences on charges of attending “unauthorised” pro-democracy protests and allegations of fraud.

He now faces a possible life sentence under the draconian national security law, with his trial scheduled to start on September 25.

“We stand with Jimmy Lai. We believe he has been targeted for publishing independent reporting, and we condemn all charges against him,” said the RSF and co-signatories.

“We call for his immediate release.”

They also called for the release of all 13 currently detained journalists in Hong Kong, and for any remaining charges to be dropped against all 28 journalists targeted under national security and other laws over the past three years.

Among the signatories are 2021 Nobel Peace Prize laureates Dmitry Muratov (Novaya Gazeta, Russia) and Maria Ressa (Rappler, the Philippines); publisher of The New York Times A.G. Sulzberger; publisher of The Washington Post Fred Ryan; CEO Goli Sheikholeslami as well as editor-in-chief Matthew Kaminski of Politico (USA); editors from a wide range of major UK newspapers including Chris Evans (The Telegraph), Tony Gallagher (The Times), Victoria Newton (The Sun), Alison Philipps (The Daily Mirror); Ted Verity (Mail newspapers), and Katharine Viner (The Guardian); editor-in-chief of Libération Dov Alfon, editorial director of L’Express Éric Chol and director of Le Monde Jérôme Fenoglio (France); editors-in-chief of Süddeutsche Zeitung Wolfgang Krach and Judith Wittwer, and editor-in-chief of Die Welt Jennifer Wilton (Germany); editor-in-chief of Expressen Klas Granström (Sweden); and many more from around the world.

Among the signatories is Dr David Robie, editor and publisher of the New Zealand-based Asia Pacific Report.

The RSF appeal over Apple Daily founder and publisher Jimmy Lai.

‘Powerful voices’
“We have brought these powerful voices together to show that the international media community will not tolerate the targeting of their fellow publisher. When press freedom is threatened anywhere, it is threatened everywhere,” said RSF’s secretary-general Christophe Deloire in a statement.

“Jimmy Lai must be released without further delay, along with all 13 detained journalists, and urgent steps taken to repair the severe damage that has been done to Hong Kong’s press freedom climate over the past three years, before it is too late.”

Jimmy Lai’s son Sebastien said: “Hong Kong is now a city shrouded in a blanket of fear. Those who criticise the authorities are threatened, prosecuted, imprisoned. My father has been in prison since 2020 because he spoke out against CCP [Chinese Community Party] power.

“Because he stood up for what he believes in. It is deeply moving to now see so many powerful voices — Nobel prize winners, and many of the leading newspapers and media organisations across the world — speak out for him.”

Over the past three years, China has used the national security law and other laws as a pretext to prosecute at least 28 journalists, press freedom defenders and collaborators in Hong Kong — 13 of whom remain in detention, including Lai and six staff of Apple Daily.

The newspaper itself was shut down — a move seen as the final nail in the coffin of press freedom in Hong Kong.

Hong Kong is ranked 140th out of 180 countries in RSF’s 2023 World Press Freedom Index, having plummeted down the rankings from 18th place in just 20 years.

China itself ranked 175th of the 180 countries and territories surveyed.

• The full text of the statement and list of signatories are here.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by Pacific Media Watch.

More than 100 media leaders from around the world have joined Reporters Without Borders (RSF) in signing an unprecedented joint statement expressing support for detained Apple Daily founder and publisher Jimmy Lai in Hong Kong.

They have called for his immediate release.

Among the signatories are publishers, editors-in-chief, and senior editors from 41 countries, including New Zealand — and two Nobel Peace Prize laureates.

• READ MORE: Other Jimmy Lai reports

This powerful joint statement is signed by 113 media leaders spanning 41 countries, from Egypt to Turkey, from India to Gambia, from Myanmar to Mongolia, and everywhere in between.

RSF coordinated this call in support of Jimmy Lai, who has become an emblematic figure in the fight for press freedom in Hong Kong and globally.

The action also seeks to highlight the broader dire state of press freedom in the Chinese-ruled territory, which has deteriorated sharply in recent years.

A former laureate of RSF’s Press Freedom Prize, 75-year-old Jimmy Lai has worked over the past 25 years to uphold the values of freedom of speech and press through his independent media outlet Apple Daily.

Concurrent sentences
Detained since December 2020 in a maximum security jail and repeatedly refused bail, Lai is already serving concurrent sentences on charges of attending “unauthorised” pro-democracy protests and allegations of fraud.

He now faces a possible life sentence under the draconian national security law, with his trial scheduled to start on September 25.

“We stand with Jimmy Lai. We believe he has been targeted for publishing independent reporting, and we condemn all charges against him,” said the RSF and co-signatories.

“We call for his immediate release.”

They also called for the release of all 13 currently detained journalists in Hong Kong, and for any remaining charges to be dropped against all 28 journalists targeted under national security and other laws over the past three years.

Among the signatories are 2021 Nobel Peace Prize laureates Dmitry Muratov (Novaya Gazeta, Russia) and Maria Ressa (Rappler, the Philippines); publisher of The New York Times A.G. Sulzberger; publisher of The Washington Post Fred Ryan; CEO Goli Sheikholeslami as well as editor-in-chief Matthew Kaminski of Politico (USA); editors from a wide range of major UK newspapers including Chris Evans (The Telegraph), Tony Gallagher (The Times), Victoria Newton (The Sun), Alison Philipps (The Daily Mirror); Ted Verity (Mail newspapers), and Katharine Viner (The Guardian); editor-in-chief of Libération Dov Alfon, editorial director of L’Express Éric Chol and director of Le Monde Jérôme Fenoglio (France); editors-in-chief of Süddeutsche Zeitung Wolfgang Krach and Judith Wittwer, and editor-in-chief of Die Welt Jennifer Wilton (Germany); editor-in-chief of Expressen Klas Granström (Sweden); and many more from around the world.

Among the signatories is Dr David Robie, editor and publisher of the New Zealand-based Asia Pacific Report.

The RSF appeal over Apple Daily founder and publisher Jimmy Lai.

‘Powerful voices’
“We have brought these powerful voices together to show that the international media community will not tolerate the targeting of their fellow publisher. When press freedom is threatened anywhere, it is threatened everywhere,” said RSF’s secretary-general Christophe Deloire in a statement.

“Jimmy Lai must be released without further delay, along with all 13 detained journalists, and urgent steps taken to repair the severe damage that has been done to Hong Kong’s press freedom climate over the past three years, before it is too late.”

Jimmy Lai’s son Sebastien said: “Hong Kong is now a city shrouded in a blanket of fear. Those who criticise the authorities are threatened, prosecuted, imprisoned. My father has been in prison since 2020 because he spoke out against CCP [Chinese Community Party] power.

“Because he stood up for what he believes in. It is deeply moving to now see so many powerful voices — Nobel prize winners, and many of the leading newspapers and media organisations across the world — speak out for him.”

Over the past three years, China has used the national security law and other laws as a pretext to prosecute at least 28 journalists, press freedom defenders and collaborators in Hong Kong — 13 of whom remain in detention, including Lai and six staff of Apple Daily.

The newspaper itself was shut down — a move seen as the final nail in the coffin of press freedom in Hong Kong.

Hong Kong is ranked 140th out of 180 countries in RSF’s 2023 World Press Freedom Index, having plummeted down the rankings from 18th place in just 20 years.

China itself ranked 175th of the 180 countries and territories surveyed.

• The full text of the statement and list of signatories are here.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by Pacific Media Watch.

Here is a letter that Steve Clifford and I sent to the CEO Tim Cook of Apple corporation, whose percentage of charitable giving relative to its taxable income is astoundingly low as compared to other corporations noted below. Apple should increase its charitable giving.

April 24, 2023

Tim Cook, CEO
Apple, Inc.
One Apple Park Way
Cupertino, CA 95014

Dear Tim Cook,

We are writing you regarding Apple’s charitable giving.

Your predecessor reportedly believed that he could do more for the world by making great products than by donating to charitable causes. Apple’s charitable giving has increased substantially since you became CEO, indicating that you don’t share this opinion.

Apple does not report to shareholders (or anyone else) total charitable giving. However, from various press releases, we understand that under your leadership, Apple has:

• Initiated an Employee Matching Giving program that has raised over $880 million since 2011 for almost 44,000 organizations. As this is a 50/50 matching program, we assume Apple contributed $440 million.
• Supported (RED) in its fight against AIDS. We read that in 2010 Apple donated $50 million to (RED) and $50 million to Stanford University Hospitals for the same cause.
• Launched, in January 2021, a Racial Equity and Justice Initiative in the United States with the goal of “building a more just, more equitable world.” Apple made an initial commitment of $100 million, and seven months later, added an additional $30 million.
• Pledged, in November 2019, $2.5 billion to confront California’s housing crisis. By July 2021, $1 billion of this pledge had been deployed. While these funds seem to have been invested in housing funds, they might not properly count as charity. Nonetheless, they are an important and needed action.

Given the philanthropic path you have chosen, we share two observations:

First, it is impossible to accurately calculate how much Apple has donated to charity. One of us is a shareholder, and we both would like to see Apple report its charitable giving in its annual report. Since you presumably are proud of what Apple has accomplished in this endeavor, you should be proud to disclose it.

Second, we urge Apple to become a leader in charitable giving. Apple is viewed by many as the iconic American company with its products, innovation, and brand loyalty. In addition, its financial performance is unrivaled. However, despite its progress since 2011, Apple is very far from being a leader in corporate giving, as measured by the ratios of giving to pre-tax profits and stock buybacks.

The ten most charitable companies among the largest 75 U.S. public companies ranked by market value, donated an average of 1.3% of pre-tax income to charity. * We estimate that Apple’s charitable giving in recent years was less than 0.1% of pre-tax profits. For every $100 in pre-tax profits, Apple donated 10 cents.

We estimate also that Apple donated 10 cents for every $100 spent on stock buybacks. Between 2017 and 2022 Apple spent $427 billion on stock buybacks, again roughly 1,000 times what is donated to charity. (To emphasize the enormity of this amount, a person living 427 billion seconds would have been born in 11.417 B.C.E, centuries before the invention of agriculture.)

As you know, the tax laws allow a corporation to deduct up to 10% of its taxable income for charitable contributions. We request a discussion of these suggestions with you or with any high-level Apple representative.

Sincerely yours,

Ralph Nader

Steve Clifford
Former CEO and Author of The CEO Pay Machine

P.O. Box 19312
Washington, DC 20036

CC: Apple’s Board of Directors
Interested Parties

Readers can email their reactions to Apple at media.help@apple.com or call 408-996-1010.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Ralph Nader.

April 24, 2023

Tim Cook, CEO
Apple, Inc.
One Apple Park Way
Cupertino, CA 95014

Dear Tim Cook,

We are writing you regarding Apple’s charitable giving.

Your predecessor reportedly believed that he could do more for the world by making great products than by donating to charitable causes. Apple’s charitable giving has increased substantially since you became CEO, indicating that you don’t share this opinion.

Apple does not report to shareholders (or anyone else) total charitable giving. However, from various press releases, we understand that under your leadership, Apple has:

• Initiated an Employee Matching Giving program that has raised over $880 million since 2011 for almost 44,000 organizations. As this is a 50/50 matching program, we assume Apple contributed $440 million.
• Supported (RED) in its fight against AIDS. We read that in 2010 Apple donated $50 million to (RED) and $50 million to Stanford University Hospitals for the same cause.
• Launched, in January 2021, a Racial Equity and Justice Initiative in the United States with the goal of “building a more just, more equitable world.” Apple made an initial commitment of $100 million, and seven months later, added an additional $30 million.
• Pledged, in November 2019, $2.5 billion to confront California’s housing crisis. By July 2021, $1 billion of this pledge had been deployed. While these funds seem to have been invested in housing funds, they might not properly count as charity. Nonetheless, they are an important and needed action.

Given the philanthropic path you have chosen, we share two observations:

First, it is impossible to accurately calculate how much Apple has donated to charity. One of us is a shareholder, and we both would like to see Apple report its charitable giving in its annual report. Since you presumably are proud of what Apple has accomplished in this endeavor, you should be proud to disclose it.

Second, we urge Apple to become a leader in charitable giving. Apple is viewed by many as the iconic American company with its products, innovation, and brand loyalty. In addition, its financial performance is unrivaled. However, despite its progress since 2011, Apple is very far from being a leader in corporate giving, as measured by the ratios of giving to pre-tax profits and stock buybacks.

The ten most charitable companies among the largest 75 U.S. public companies ranked by market value, donated an average of 1.3% of pre-tax income to charity. * We estimate that Apple’s charitable giving in recent years was less than 0.1% of pre-tax profits. For every $100 in pre-tax profits, Apple donated 10 cents.

We estimate also that Apple donated 10 cents for every $100 spent on stock buybacks. Between 2017 and 2022 Apple spent $427 billion on stock buybacks, again roughly 1,000 times what is donated to charity. (To emphasize the enormity of this amount, a person living 427 billion seconds would have been born in 11.42 BCE, centuries before the invention of agriculture.)

As you know, the tax laws allow a corporation to deduct up to 10% of its taxable income for charitable contributions. We request a discussion of these suggestions with you or with any high-level Apple representative.

Sincerely yours,
Ralph Nader
Steve Clifford
Former CEO and Author of The CEO Pay Machine
P.O. Box 19312
Washington, DC 20036
CC: Apple’s Board of Directors
Interested Parties

Readers can email their reactions to Apple at moc.elppanull@pleh.aidem or call 408-996-1010.

Ralph Nader

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Ralph Nader.

The APPG’s report urged the U.K. government to treat the case of Lai, a British citizen and founder of Hong Kong’s now-shuttered pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily, as a political priority and to consider his detention arbitrary. The group found the U.K. government’s response to Lai’s case has been “minimal, arguably negligent.”

CPJ was among the groups that submitted evidence to the APPG inquiry.

“British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and his government must heed the newly released All-Party Parliamentary Group report, which calls on them to pressure for publisher Jimmy Lai’s release,” said Beh Lih Yi, CPJ’s Asia program coordinator. “It is time for Sunak to say enough is enough. In five months, Lai will be tried under Hong Kong’s national security law, which could see him spend the rest of his life in jail. Will the British PM end his deafening silence?”

Lai has been behind bars since December 2020. He is serving a sentence of five years and nine months on fraud charges and is awaiting trial on national security charges, due to start in September, which could imprison him for life. 

The APPG on Hong Kong is an informal cross-party group in the U.K. Parliament, started in November 2019.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

CPJ recommended that APPG members send an urgent appeal to the Hong Kong government to request the release of Jimmy Lai and other imprisoned journalists and seek British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Foreign Secretary James Cleverly’s immediate action to secure Lai’s release.

Lai, a British citizen and the founder of the now-shuttered pro-democracy Hong Kong newspaper, Apple Daily, has been behind bars since December 2020. He is serving a sentence of five years and nine months on fraud charges and is awaiting trial on national security charges, due to start in September 2023, which could jail him for life. 

The APPG on Hong Kong is a cross-party group with no official Parliament status formed in November 2019 in response to the political and social crisis in Hong Kong. The APPG’s inquiry is often used to advise the government.

Read the complete inquiry submission here.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

The victims of the devastating 7.8-magnitude earthquake in Turkey and Syria need your help now. The surviving families and children and those rescued alive from the rubble are in serious danger in affected wintertime impoverished regions. Refugees in other places fleeing their war-torn homelands are also suffering. International aid agencies are grossly insufficient for these immediate humanitarian necessities.

What are you Big Business Titans doing sitting on massive pay, profits, and tax escapes? Awakening your consciousness for your fellow human beings may be a modest form of redemption. Further, you have access to logistics specialists, delivery systems, communication facilities, and many other contacts and resources. You get your calls returned! Fast!

Tim Cook, you have been making $833 a MINUTE (plus lavish benefits). Remarkably, your compensation is not even in the top ten of operating company CEOs. Moreover, your own cultivated sense of envy knows that there are Hedge Fund Goliaths, who in some recent years, made off with over $2,500 per MINUTE on a forty-hour week.

Tim, you and the Apple corporation are known to pay few taxes given what tax attorneys and tax accountants do for you (especially with Apple taking advantage of foreign tax havens while receiving the fruits of Washington's free government R&D over the years). Your company has so much leftover money, flowing from the deprivation of a million serf laborers in China, and so few productive outlets for this mass of capital that you have set records for stock buybacks—over $400 billion in the last decade.

You and Apple and the Hedge Fund Titans are not known for your charitable giving as a percent of your adjusted gross income. Yet, if asked "Do you believe in the Golden Rule?" you would probably say "Yes"—at least in public.

Use your wealth and newfound empathy to organize direct relief for these earthquake victims and other major refugee areas such as the starving children of Somalia. Deliver food, medicine, clothing, shelter, mobile clinics, and many other available airlifted essentials. Hire skilled people to make it happen. Give your new organization a prominent logo for permanence and for setting an example for other super-rich to emulate.

Your isolation from the public expectation that you enter the above engagements in a significant way is quite remarkable. That should trouble you and your public relations advisors.

Just this week National Public Radio (NPR) featured a startling compilation of what producers of movies and TV shows believe appeals to their viewers. It is no longer awe or envy of the 'rich and famous.' It is no longer the Horatio Alger myth. It is encapsulated in NPR's headline: Why "eat the rich" storylines are taking over TV and movies.

As Bob Dylan sang, "the times, they are a-changin'."

NPR reporter Kristin Schwab related:

Hollywood's depictions of the wealthy—and perhaps societal attitudes toward them—have changed.… The moment isn't random. Think about the extreme economic events we've been through. There's the pandemic, when essential workers kept the country running while the richest 1% amassed a huge sum of wealth—twice as much as the rest of the world put together (her emphasis), according to the non-profit Oxfam. And before that was The Great Recession, which is how we got the term "the 1%."

Mr. Cook, Apple is reportedly making a contribution to the Turkey/Syria relief effort. Are you personally making a contribution? Your Big Business Titan comrades may think they can get away with gated, cold-blooded mentalities. They may be right about that if the mass media doesn't turn its steely gaze toward their hoards of gold and question their "don't give a damn" attitude.

Maybe they just can't help themselves—so busy are they counting their lucre. Here is an idea: ask them to ask their grandchildren, 12 and under, what they want them to do. Absorb their moral authority and MOVE FAST TO HELP THOSE IN NEED!

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Ralph Nader.

What are you Big Business Titans doing sitting on massive pay, profits and tax escapes? Awakening your consciousness for your fellow human beings may be a modest form of redemption. Further, you have access to logistics specialists, delivery systems, communication facilities and many other contacts and resources. You get your calls returned! Fast!

Tim Cook, you have been making $833 a MINUTE (plus lavish benefits). Remarkably, your compensation is not even in the top ten of operating company CEOs. Moreover, your own cultivated sense of envy knows that there are Hedge Fund Goliaths, who in some recent years, made off with over $2,500 per MINUTE on a forty-hour week.

Tim, you and the Apple corporation are known to pay few taxes given what tax attorneys and tax accountants do for you (especially with Apple taking advantage of foreign tax havens while receiving the fruits of Washington’s free government R&D over the years). Your company has so much leftover money, flowing from the deprivation of a million serf laborers in China, and so few productive outlets for this mass of capital that you have set records for stock buybacks—over $400 billion in the last decade.

You and Apple and the Hedge Fund Titans are not known for your charitable giving as a percent of your adjusted gross income. Yet, if asked “Do you believe in the Golden Rule?” you would probably say “Yes” – at least in public.

Use your wealth and newfound empathy to organize direct relief for these earthquake victims and other major refugee areas such as the starving children of Somalia. Deliver food, medicine, clothing, shelter, mobile clinics and many other available airlifted essentials. Hire skilled people to make it happen. Give your new organization a prominent logo for permanence and for setting an example for other super-rich to emulate.

Your isolation from the public expectation that you enter the above engagements in a significant way is quite remarkable. That should trouble you and your public relations advisors.

Just this week National Public Radio (NPR) featured a startling compilation of what producers of movies and TV shows believe appeals to their viewers. It is no longer awe or envy of the ‘rich and famous.’ It is no longer the Horatio Alger myth. It is encapsulated in NPR’s headline: Why “eat the rich” storylines are taking over TV and movies.

As Bob Dylan sang, “the times, they are a-changin’.”

NPR reporter Kristin Schwab related:

Hollywood’s depictions of the wealthy – and perhaps societal attitudes toward them – have changed.… The moment isn’t random. Think about the extreme economic events we’ve been through. There’s the pandemic, when essential workers kept the country running while the richest 1% amassed a huge sum of wealth – twice as much as the rest of the world put together (her emphasis), according to the non-profit Oxfam. And before that was The Great Recession, which is how we got the term “the 1%.

Mr. Cook, Apple is reportedly making a contribution to the Turkey/Syria relief effort. Are you personally making a contribution? Your Big Business Titan comrades may think they can get away with gated, cold-blooded mentalities. They may be right about that if the mass media doesn’t turn its steely gaze toward their hoards of gold and question their “don’t give a damn” attitude.

Maybe they just can’t help themselves – so busy are they counting their lucre. Here is an idea: ask them to ask their grandchildren, 12 and under, what they want them to do. Absorb their moral authority and MOVE FAST TO HELP THOSE IN NEED!

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Ralph Nader.

The latest edition of the Corporate Climate Responsibility Monitor, released by the NewClimate Institute for Climate Policy and Global Sustainability and Carbon Market Watch, closely examines the climate commitments of two dozen large global companies, from Apple to Walmart to Mercedes-Benz to Samsung.

While such companies often tout their net-zero-emissions commitments and support for the Paris climate accord as proof that they're helping lead the way to a more sustainable future, a closer look shows that their plans are "wholly insufficient and mired by ambiguity," the new study argues, spotlighting the misleading tactics that businesses deploy to make their pledges appear more ambitious than they are.

"Overall, we find the climate strategies of 15 of the 24 companies to be of low or very low integrity," the analysis states. "We found that most of the companies’ strategies do not represent examples of good practice climate leadership. Companies' climate change commitments do not add up to what their pledges might suggest."

"Their combined emission-reduction commitments," the study continues, "are wholly insufficient to align with 1.5°C-compatible decarbonization trajectories; targets and potential offsetting plans remain ambiguous; and the exclusion of emission scopes severely undermines the targets of several companies."

According to the new research, companies' stated emission-reduction targets for 2030 can't be trusted because they "address only a limited scope of emission sources, such as only direct emissions (scope 1) or emissions from procured energy (scope 2), and only selected other indirect emission categories (scope 3)," even though the last category accounts for more than 90% of the greenhouse gas pollution for most of the examined corporations.

"For the 22 companies with targets for 2030, we find that these targets translate to a median absolute emission-reduction commitment of just 15% of the full value chain emissions between 2019 and 2030," the study estimates.

One of the report's authors, Thomas Day of the NewClimate Institute, said in a statement that "in this critical decade for climate action, companies' current plans do not reflect the necessary urgency for emission reductions."

Sabine Frank, the executive director of Carbon Market Watch, told the Wall Street Journal that "at a time when corporations need to come clean about their climate impact and shrink their carbon footprint, many are exploiting vague and misleading 'net zero' pledges to greenwash their brand while continuing with business as usual."

The report, which offers an in-depth examination of the 24 companies' climate pledges, points specifically to "offsetting" as a tactic companies use to overstate the scope of their climate action.

Offsetting involves making up for carbon emissions by funding carbon pollution cuts elsewhere. According to the new study, Nestlé, PepsiCo, and other prominent corporations are guilty of using offsetting to make it appear as though they're on track to meet their 2030 emission-reduction commitments.

As the NewClimate Institute and Carbon Market Watch explain:

Half of the companies we assessed—including Apple, Deutsche Post DHL, Google, and Microsoft—make carbon neutrality claims today, but these claims only cover 3% of those companies' emissions on average.

The vast majority of emission sources are excluded from these claims, but this critical information is not clear in the marketing materials displayed to consumers. At least three-quarters of the companies we assessed plan to heavily rely on offsetting through forestry and land-use-related projects in the future.

This is problematic for two key reasons: the non-permanence of biogenic carbon storage makes such projects fundamentally unsuitable for offsetting emissions; and the scale of carbon credit demand implied by these companies’ plans would require the resources of 2-4 planet Earths, if followed by others.

Lindsay Otis, a policy expert at Carbon Market Watch, said that "by making such outlandish carbon neutrality claims, these corporations are not only misleading consumers and investors, but they are also exposing themselves to increasing legal and reputational liability."

"Instead, they should implement ambitious climate plans to reduce their own emissions, while financing action outside of their own activities, without claiming that this makes them carbon neutral," said Otis.

The report concludes that, based on the growing evidence of deceptive corporate practices, regulators can't "rely on existing voluntary initiatives to ensure compliance with the necessary standards for credible and transparent corporate climate action."

"Companies' plans for the period up to 2030 fall far short of the efforts needed in this crucial decade for climate action to stand a reasonable chance of limiting global warming to 1.5°C," the report states. "Forthcoming regulation, for example the E.U.'s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive entering into force in 2023, will introduce tighter requirements for corporate climate strategies, but their final implementation will need to be closely monitored to ensure a high standard of compliance."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Jake Johnson.

Damus was removed from the Apple China App Store a day after being launched there, the developers said via their Twitter account.

"We are writing to notify you that your application, per demand from the Cyberspace Administration of China, will be removed from the China App Store because it includes content that is illegal in China, which is not in compliance with the App Store review guidelines," the App Store said in screenshot of the notification letter attached to Damus' tweet.

According to the Cyberspace Administration, the app had failed a security assessment for apps having "public opinion" or "social mobilization" capabilities, the letter said.

Apple's removal of apps from its Chinese app store that could empower users to get around the country's strict censorship regime has sparked criticism from users and service providers before.

‘Must comply’

In October 2019, the company took down a hugely popular police-tracking app from its Hong Kong store after it was used by participants in the 2019 protest movement to evade arrest or police violence.

"Apps must comply with all legal requirements ... it is your responsibility to understand and make sure your app conforms with all local laws ... apps that solicit, promote, or encourage criminal or clearly reckless behavior will be rejected," it said in the letter to Damus.

The app was likely banned because of its lack of content moderation, and had already been rejected multiple times because Apple requires apps to have a mechanism for reporting and blocking objectionable users and content, the Bitcoin site Watcher.Guru said in an article on Friday.

Any online platform that is accessible to users inside the Great Firewall of Chinese internet censorship must first acquire an internet content provider license, which are generally refused to apps capable of "disrupting public order" or evading censorship, and to platforms that refuse to gather real-name information and IP addresses from users or hand over user data to the authorities when requested.

Nostr -- short for Notes and Other Stuff Transmitted by Relays -- also had built-in support for the Bitcoin Lightning Network, Watcher.Guru said.

"The inclusion of support for the Bitcoin Lightning Network is another reason why authorities don’t look kindly on the project, as crypto is banned within the country," it said.

Snowden a fan

Former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden, now exiled in Russia after leaking huge quantities of information on the agency's mass-surveillance of ordinary citizens to the media, is a prominent fan of Nostr and related apps.

"The problem is that most major states are pressuring corporations to limit speech," Snowden wrote after opening an account on the platform, posting a screenshot of the post to his Twitter account on Jan. 23.

"The solution is to remove the ability to limit speech from corporate hands," he wrote, adding to his Twitter followers: "Find me there."

A social media user in China who gave only the nickname Lisa said Damus had the ability to evade Chinese internet censorship, and that she knew of many people who had already downloaded it.

"The new Twitter-like app, Damus, was popular in China for a day, but was taken down today," she said. "I saw there were discussions about this in my WeChat groups for the past couple of days."

"It was taken down from the store after just one day," she said.

Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Gu Ting for RFA Mandarin and Chingman for RFA Cantonese.

When Safari users in Hong Kong recently tried to load the popular code-sharing website GitLab, they received a strange warning instead: Apple’s browser was blocking the site for their own safety. The access was temporarily cut off thanks to Apple’s use of a Chinese corporate website blacklist, which resulted in the innocuous site being flagged as a purveyor of misinformation. Neither Tencent, the massive Chinese firm behind the web filter, nor Apple will say how or why the site was censored.

The outage was publicized just ahead of the new year. On December 30, 2022, Hong Kong-based software engineer and former Apple employee Chu Ka-cheong tweeted that his web browser had blocked access to GitLab, a popular repository for open-source code. Safari’s “safe browsing” feature greeted him with a full-page “deceptive website warning,” advising that because GitLab contained dangerous “unverified information,” it was inaccessible. Access to GitLab was restored several days later, after the situation was brought to the company’s attention.

The warning screen itself came courtesy of Tencent, the mammoth Chinese internet conglomerate behind WeChat and League of Legends. The company operates the safe browsing filter for Safari users in China on Apple’s behalf — and now, as the Chinese government increasingly asserts control of the territory, in Hong Kong as well.

“Presumably people purchase Apple devices because they believe the company when they say that ‘privacy is a fundamental human right’. What they fail to add is *except if you are Chinese.”

“I suppose the nature of having a ‘misinformation’ category is that China is going to have its own views on what that means.”

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This content originally appeared on The Intercept and was authored by Sam Biddle.

The post War is as Popular as Cherry and Apple Pie appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Howard Lisnoff.

“The harsh sentence handed to Jimmy Lai on trumped-up fraud charges shows how Beijing and Hong Kong will stop at nothing to eliminate any dissenting voices,” said CPJ Asia Program Coordinator Beh Lih Yi in Frankfurt, Germany. “Authorities must end this persecution once and for all. Lai is 75 and has served two years behind bars. He must be released immediately and all charges must be dropped.”

The sentence was handed down after a court on October 25 convicted Lai of two counts of fraud for allegedly violating the terms of the lease of Next Digital’s headquarters. He was also fined HK$2 million (US$257,000).

Lai plans to appeal the jail sentence, former Next Digital executive Mark Simon told CPJ via email.

Wong Wai-keung, a Next Digital administrative director was also convicted on the same charge and sentenced to 21 months in prison.

Lai has been in prison since December 2020 and has served a 20-month prison term for two other charges relating to his alleged involvement with unauthorized demonstrations. He is awaiting trial on national security charges, for which he faces life imprisonment; proceedings are expected to begin on December 13.

In 2021, Lai received CPJ’s Gwen Ifill Press Freedom Award in recognition of his extraordinary and sustained commitment to press freedom.

China was the world’s worst jailer of journalists in 2021, according to CPJ’s 2021 prison census, the first time that journalists in Hong Kong appeared on CPJ’s census. CPJ will release its 2022 prison census on December 14.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Arlene Getz/CPJ Editorial Director.

The Honorable John Lee
Chief Executive
Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, People’s Republic of China
Chief Executive’s Office
Tamar, Hong Kong

Sent via email: ceo@ceo.gov.hk

Dear Chief Executive Lee,

We, the undersigned press freedom and human rights groups, are writing to request your leadership to cease targeted persecution against Jimmy Lai, the 74-year-old founder of Next Digital Limited and the Apple Daily newspaper, release him from jail, and immediately drop all charges against him.

On December 1, Lai will stand trial without a jury on collusion charges under the national security law. He has been behind bars for more than 22 months since December 2020 after being charged under the national security law.

Prior to your inauguration in July, you promised freedom of the press in Hong Kong would continue to be protected by the city’s Basic Law and meet the international standards of media freedom. You reiterated in a September speech at a National Day media reception that Hong Kong is governed by rule of law, and that freedom of speech and of the media are fully guaranteed under the Basic Law.

We welcomed your commitment to uphold press freedom and your remarks recognizing journalists as a force “for societal progression and the improvement of people’s lives through objective and fair reporting and commentary.”

But these promises ring hollow when Lai, one of Hong Kong’s best-known media figures, sits behind bars for his commitment to critical journalism. Such journalism is essential to your efforts in cementing Hong Kong’s role as a global financial hub, for which a free press and judicial independence are vital elements, and to comply with international legal obligations to uphold press freedom.

Lai’s imprisonment and the jailing of other Hong Kong journalists, including several executives of the now-defunct Apple Daily, have seriously undermined the confidence in the city’s judiciary and the rule of law.

Lai was first sentenced to 14 months in prison in April 2021 for “organizing and knowingly taking part in unauthorized assemblies” in August 2019. The following month, a court sentenced him to another 14 months for “organizing an unauthorized assembly” in October 2019 and ordered Lai to serve a total of 20 months’ imprisonment.

In December 2021, Lai was sentenced again to 13 months in prison for “inciting others” to take part in an unauthorized assembly in 2020.

While the judge ordered the sentence to run concurrently to the previous sentences he was serving, Lai has now been behind bars for more than 22 months, exceeding the 20-month term he was previously given.

As well as his upcoming national security trial, a court in October found Lai guilty of fraud for allegedly violating the lease of Next Digital’s headquarters, although it is clear that he was targeted in retaliation for his journalism.

Also in October, another court upheld a ruling that police could search Lai’s two mobile phones that stored journalistic information, violating the basic principles of press freedom and journalistic confidentiality.

In addition, his international legal team at Doughty Street Chambers has faced intimidation and harassment through anonymous emails, warning the lawyers against traveling to Hong Kong to defend Lai or risk facing action under the subversion law.

We welcome your pledge to enhance the confidence of the public and the international community in Hong Kong’s rule of law in your first policy address as chief executive. As the chairperson of the Committee for Safeguarding National Security of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region that oversees the Hong Kong Police Force’s national security department, exercising your authority to drop the charges against Jimmy Lai and free him immediately is a crucial step toward regaining global confidence in Hong Kong.

Time is of the essence for your government to act and we strongly urge you to do so now.

Sincerely,

Amnesty International
ARTICLE 19
Association of Taiwan Journalists
Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong Foundation
Committee to Protect Journalists
Croatian PEN Centre
Freedom House
Human Rights Watch
Independent Chinese PEN Center
International Federation of Journalists (IFJ)
PEN America
PEN Club Français
PEN International
PEN Lebanon
PEN Netherlands
PEN Türkiye Center
PEN Ukraine
Peoples’ Vigilance Committee on Human Rights (PVCHR), India
Reporters Without Borders (RSF)
Swedish PEN
Taiwan Association for China Human Rights
Trieste PEN Centre
Vietnamese League for Human Rights in Switzerland

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Jennifer Dunham.

“Today’s conviction of Jimmy Lai on trumped-up fraud charges shows that Hong Kong will stop at nothing to silence one of its fiercest media critics,” said CPJ President Jodie Ginsberg in New York. “Lai is clearly being targeted for his journalism, and the persecution must stop. Hong Kong authorities should let Lai go free and drop all charges against him.”

The court convicted Lai of two counts of fraud for allegedly violating the terms of the lease of Next Digital’s headquarters. A sentence has yet to be announced, but Lai will appeal, Next Digital executive Mark Simon told CPJ via email. 

Wong Wai-keung, a Next Digital administrative director who has been awaiting trial on bail, was also convicted on the same charge.

Lai has been behind bars since December 2020 and has served a 20-month prison term for two other charges relating to his alleged involvement with unauthorized demonstrations. He is awaiting trial on national security charges, for which he faces life imprisonment; proceedings are expected to begin on December 1.

In 2021, Lai received CPJ’s Gwen Ifill Press Freedom Award in recognition of his extraordinary and sustained commitment to press freedom.

China was the world’s worst jailer of journalists in 2021, according to CPJ’s December 1 prison census. It was also the first time that journalists in Hong Kong appeared on CPJ’s census.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Madeline Earp.

The labor movement sweeping the United States notched another win Friday when workers in Oklahoma City voted to become the second unionized Apple Store in the nation, following the first victory in Maryland earlier this year.

Citing a preliminary tally from the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), CNN reported that 88 of 95 workers at the Penn Square Mall store weighed in, and 56 of them—or 64%—voted to be represented by Communication Workers of America (CWA).

"We felt like we had the majority support, and as long a people got out and cast their vote, we would win," Leigha Briscoe, a 28-year-old on the organizing committee at the store, told CNN after the ballots were counted.

Noting the June vote in Maryland and a stalled effort in Atlanta, organizers and supporters of the Oklahoma City campaign celebrated on social media:

"Let me congratulate the Apple Store workers in Oklahoma City for voting to become the second unionized Apple Store in the U.S." tweeted Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). "Last year, Apple made a record $95 billion profit. Its billionaire CEO made $99 million in 2021. It's time for Apple to treat its workers with respect."

According to the Penn Square Labor Alliance (PSLA), supporters of the union drive are working toward fair compensation, career development, bonuses and benefits that align with those of corporate employees, hiring from under-represented communities, labor conditions that respect health and well-being, improved safety, and "an influential role in decision-making to ensure our daily operations match our publicly-stated values, flexibility to allow for civic participation, and opportunities for paid volunteer work."

Apple employee and PSLA organizer Michael Forsythe told Public Radio Tulsa earlier this week that his store's campaign was also supported by local Starbucks workers fighting for unions.

"I really hope that this kind of reinvigorates the labor movement further and gets more locations, whether it's Apple or not, whether it's local Trader Joe's or Home Depots, whatever it is," Forsythe added. "I hope more people start fighting to take their seat at the table. And I hope that we can show up and do what we can in solidarity to support them."

Public Radio Tulsa noted that Apple has received union-busting complaints from both the PSLA and the NLRB.

More Perfect Union reported in early October that "Oklahoma City workers say they've faced a series of escalating anti-union tactics from management, including regular one-on-one 'walk and talk' conversations between managers and workers, roundtable discussions about unionization, and, most recently, an influx of additional managers in the store."

Apple employee and union organizer Kevin Herrera told News 9 this week that "there's definitely been meetings, there's been walks and talks. There's been instances where I have even felt under the pressure, under the stress and it's really hard to navigate those meetings."

The organizer highlighted workers' desire fore a clearer path the move up in the company, saying that "it takes abiout an average of three years for my peers and my colleagues to transition into a full-time role. I don't know about anyone else but I find it hard to support a family on a part-time income."

Herrera also said he wants to ensure fellow Spanish speakers "can have the same experience as our English speakers have" when they come in to shop, noting that on Mother's Day, "I had a line of one hour and a half people waiting to speak to me because I was the only bilingual speaker in the store at the time."

Asked to comment on the Friday's development, Apple said in a statement to CNN that "we believe the open, direct, and collaborative relationship we have with our valued team members is the best way to provide an excellent experience for our customers, and for our teams."

"We're proud to provide our team members with strong compensation and exceptional benefits," the company added. "Since 2018, we've increased our starting rates in the U.S. by 45% and we've made many significant enhancements to our industry-leading benefits."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams - Breaking News &amp; Views for the Progressive Community and was authored by Jessica Corbett.

The labor movement sweeping the United States notched another win Friday when workers in Oklahoma City voted to become the second unionized Apple Store in the nation, following the first victory in Maryland earlier this year.

Citing a preliminary tally from the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), CNN reported that 88 of 95 workers at the Penn Square Mall store weighed in, and 56 of them—or 64%—voted to be represented by Communication Workers of America (CWA).

"We felt like we had the majority support, and as long a people got out and cast their vote, we would win," Leigha Briscoe, a 28-year-old on the organizing committee at the store, told CNN after the ballots were counted.

Noting the June vote in Maryland and a stalled effort in Atlanta, organizers and supporters of the Oklahoma City campaign celebrated on social media:

"Let me congratulate the Apple Store workers in Oklahoma City for voting to become the second unionized Apple Store in the U.S." tweeted Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). "Last year, Apple made a record $95 billion profit. Its billionaire CEO made $99 million in 2021. It's time for Apple to treat its workers with respect."

According to the Penn Square Labor Alliance (PSLA), supporters of the union drive are working toward fair compensation, career development, bonuses and benefits that align with those of corporate employees, hiring from under-represented communities, labor conditions that respect health and well-being, improved safety, and "an influential role in decision-making to ensure our daily operations match our publicly-stated values, flexibility to allow for civic participation, and opportunities for paid volunteer work."

Apple employee and PSLA organizer Michael Forsythe told Public Radio Tulsa earlier this week that his store's campaign was also supported by local Starbucks workers fighting for unions.

"I really hope that this kind of reinvigorates the labor movement further and gets more locations, whether it's Apple or not, whether it's local Trader Joe's or Home Depots, whatever it is," Forsythe added. "I hope more people start fighting to take their seat at the table. And I hope that we can show up and do what we can in solidarity to support them."

Public Radio Tulsa noted that Apple has received union-busting complaints from both the PSLA and the NLRB.

More Perfect Union reported in early October that "Oklahoma City workers say they've faced a series of escalating anti-union tactics from management, including regular one-on-one 'walk and talk' conversations between managers and workers, roundtable discussions about unionization, and, most recently, an influx of additional managers in the store."

Apple employee and union organizer Kevin Herrera told News 9 this week that "there's definitely been meetings, there's been walks and talks. There's been instances where I have even felt under the pressure, under the stress and it's really hard to navigate those meetings."

The organizer highlighted workers' desire fore a clearer path the move up in the company, saying that "it takes abiout an average of three years for my peers and my colleagues to transition into a full-time role. I don't know about anyone else but I find it hard to support a family on a part-time income."

Herrera also said he wants to ensure fellow Spanish speakers "can have the same experience as our English speakers have" when they come in to shop, noting that on Mother's Day, "I had a line of one hour and a half people waiting to speak to me because I was the only bilingual speaker in the store at the time."

Asked to comment on the Friday's development, Apple said in a statement to CNN that "we believe the open, direct, and collaborative relationship we have with our valued team members is the best way to provide an excellent experience for our customers, and for our teams."

"We're proud to provide our team members with strong compensation and exceptional benefits," the company added. "Since 2018, we've increased our starting rates in the U.S. by 45% and we've made many significant enhancements to our industry-leading benefits."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams - Breaking News &amp; Views for the Progressive Community and was authored by Jessica Corbett.

The hearing started unsurprisingly enough. Chaim Gelfand, the NSO Group lawyer, laid out the company line that Pegasus is designed for use against terrorists and other criminals. He promised that the company controlled its sales, developed human rights and whistleblowing policies, and took action against those governments that abused it. He wanted to “dispel certain rumors and misconceptions” about the technology that have circulated in “the press and public debate.” He made his case.

Then, surely from NSO Group’s perspective, it went downhill. MEP after MEP asked specific questions of NSO Group. For instance: if Pegasus is sold only to counter terrorism or serious crime, how did it come to be used in EU member states? How did it come to be used to eavesdrop on staffers at the European Commission, another public allegation? Can NSO provide examples of when it terminated contracts because a client misused Pegasus? Can NSO clarify what data it has on its clients’ uses of Pegasus? How does NSO Group know when the technology is “abused”? More personally: How come you spied on me?

MEPs were angry. Increasingly their questions became more intense, more personal, more laced with moral and legal outrage. And this tenor only deepened over the course of the hearing, as the NSO lawyer stumbled through his points and regularly resorted to the line that he could not speak to specific examples, cases or governments. Few, if any, seemed persuaded by the NSO Group claim that it has no insight into the day-to-day use of the spyware by the “end-user”. To the contrary, the PEGA hearing ended with one thing clear: NSO Group faces not only anger but the reality of an energized set of legislators.

More than a year after release of the Pegasus Project, the global reporting investigation that disclosed massive pools of potential targets for Pegasus surveillance, the momentum for action against spyware like Pegasus is gathering steam. 

Read CPJ’s complete special report: When spyware turns phones into weapons

In 2019, in my capacity as a U.N. Special Rapporteur, I issued a report to the United Nations Human Rights Council that surveyed the landscape of the private surveillance industry and the vast human rights abuses it facilitates, calling for a moratorium on the sale, transfer and use of such spyware. At the time, few picked up the call. But today, with extensive reporting of the use of spyware tools against journalists, opposition politicians, human rights defenders, the families of such persons, and others, the tide seems to be turning against Pegasus and spyware of its ilk.

The U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, several U.N. special rapporteurs, the leaders of major human rights organizations, and at least one state, Costa Rica, have joined the call for a moratorium. The Supreme Court of India is pursuing serious questions about the government’s use of Pegasus. The United States Department of Commerce placed NSO Group and another Israeli spyware firm on its list of restricted entities, forbidding the U.S. government from doing any business with them. Apple and Facebook’s parent company Meta have sued NSO Group for using their infrastructure to hack into individual phones.

All of these steps suggest not only momentum but the elements of a global process to constrain the industry. They need to be transformed into a long-term strategy to deal with the threats posed to human rights by intrusive, mercenary spyware. State-by-state responses, or high-profile corporate litigation, will generate pain for specific companies and begin to set out the normative standards that should apply to surveillance technologies. But in order to curb the industry as a whole, a global approach will be necessary. 

In principle, spyware with the characteristics of Pegasus – the capability to access one’s entire device and data connected to it, without discrimination, and without constraint – already violates basic standards of necessity and proportionality under international human rights law. On that ground alone, it’s time to begin speaking of not merely a moratorium but a ban of such intrusive technology, whether provided by private or public actors. No government should have such a tool, and no private company should be able to sell such a tool to governments or others.

In the land of reality, however, a ban will not take place immediately. Even if a coalition of human rights-friendly governments could get such negotiations toward a ban off the ground, it will take time.

Here is where bodies like the European Parliament and its PEGA Committee – and governments and parliamentarians around the world – can make an immediate difference. They should start to discuss a permanent ban while also entertaining other interim approaches: stricter global export controls to limit the spread of spyware technology; commitments by governments to ensure that their domestic law enables victims of spyware to bring suits against perpetrators, whether domestic or foreign; and broad agreement by third-party companies, such as device manufacturers, social media companies, security entities and others, to develop a process for notification of spyware breaches especially to users and to one another. 

Some of this would be hard to accomplish. It’s not as if the present moment, dominated as it is by tensions like Russian aggression against Ukraine, is conducive to international negotiations. Some steps could be achieved by governments that should be concerned about the spread of such technologies, already demonstrated by U.S. and European outrage. Either way, governments and activists can begin to lay the groundwork, defining the key terms, highlighting the fundamental illegality of spyware like Pegasus, taking steps in domestic law to ensure strict controls on export and use. 

There is precedent for such action in the global movement to ban landmines in the 1990s, which started with little hope of achieving a ban, focused instead on near-term controls. Ultimately human rights activists and like-minded governments were able to hammer out the Ottawa Convention to ban and destroy anti-personnel landmines in 1997. It is, at least, a process that activists and governments today could emulate and modify.

Human rights organizations and journalists have done the work to disclose the existence of a major threat to freedom of expression, privacy, and space for public participation. It is now the duty of governments to do something about it.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by David Kaye.

BJP worker Arun Yadav tweeted the image, describing it as the mid-day meal at a government school in Uttar Pradesh. He added that if such a meal was provided at any school in Delhi, it would make headlines in international newspapers. (Archived link) He was obliquely referring to a New York Times report on August 16, which praised the AAP government for overhauling the government schools in Delhi.

BJP affiliated lawyer Advocate Ashutosh Dubey also tweeted two photos, writing, “In Maharaj ji’s Uttar Pradesh there is only one drawback. Yogi Adityanath does not know how to advertise! (Archived link)

Sagar Kumar of Sudarshan News also amplified the image on Twitter with the same claim. (Archived link)

Shivam Pratap of Zee News, BJP Delhi’s Purvanchal Morcha president Kaushal Mishra, journalist Shweta Negi, and BJP worker Prakhar Bajpai also promoted the image and the claim.

Fact-check

Alt News first examined the website of the Mid-Day Meal Authority, Uttar Pradesh. Here, we were able to find the weekly menu of mid-day meals. It is worth noting that the menu contains no mention of paneer curry, ice cream, milkshake, etc. However, in the viral picture, all these items are seen on the child’s plate.

We performed a keyword search using terms related to the viral claim. This led us to a story by UP Tak on the Upper Primary Middle School in Malakpur, Jalaun. Speaking to ‘UP Tak’, Amit, the sarpanch of Malakpur, had said that this type of special menu was provided to the students two to three times in a month. Additional resources are arranged by the village head and money is raised via crowdfunding most of the time.

We spoke to Amit, the village head of Malakpur for more information. He explained that when the concept of the mid-day meal was introduced, there were two objectives behind it. The first was to eradicate malnutrition among rural children and the other objective was to incentivize coming to school regularly. This is why, Amit said, he updated the mid-day meal menu. During December and January, the children’s winter vacation lasted long due to the Omicron virus. At the time, Amit used to take classes once a week. That’s when the children requested that he incorporate paneer and peas curry in the meal. He told the children that they would be provided the dish when regular classes resumed. 

After the school reopened, the teachers had an internal discussion and the new service was implemented from February 14. It was named the ‘Add-on Mid Day Meal’. This contained some added items in excess of what was predetermined in the mid-day meal menu. He designed the roster, as per which paneer curry was to be provided at least once a month, salad was to be given daily, sweets once or twice a month, apples twice a month and the prescribed quantity of milk or a milkshake to improve its nutritional value, etc. were added. Apart from this, he decided that the ‘Add on Menu’ would be provided on randomly selected days. Amit also shared with us the picture of the ‘Add on Menu’ notice.

Tithi Bhojan 

The ‘Tithi Bhojan’ concept was implemented from July 1, 2022. As part of this, any individual, organization or collective can provide special food to children on special occasions or festivals. This is mentioned in the sixth point of the About section of the Prime Minister’s Poshan Shakti Nirman (PM POSHAN), a government website.

Amit informed Alt News that the viral picture was taken on August 31. A person named Saurabh, the branch manager at Canara Bank, Kanpur, had arranged the special meal for school children under Tithi Bhojan on his birthday in that particular school. Amit posted these pictures on his Facebook page. The images featured school children holding boards in their hands with the name of the school, the date of the meal, and the name of the panchayat. Along with this, the children can also be seen wishing Saurabh on his birthday with messages written on the board.

Amit had earlier shared some more pictures of children being provided meals under Tithi Bhojan on July 9 and August 1 on Facebook.

To sum it up, an image of a meal provided to school children under the Tithi Bhojan programme was falsely circulated on social media as the items in the mid-day meal in Uttar Pradesh. The initiative was the brainchild of village head Amit and carried out with public support. Many BJP leaders and social media users shared it while praising the Uttar Pradesh government.

The post Fact-check: Does UP schools serve paneer, apple and ice-cream in mid-day meal? appeared first on Alt News.

This content originally appeared on Alt News and was authored by Abhishek Kumar.

In 1995, Umberto Eco assessed that ‘Ur-Fascism derives from individual or social frustration. That is why one of the most typical features of the historical fascism was the appeal to a frustrated middle class, a class suffering from an economic crisis or feelings of political humiliation, and frightened by the pressure of lower social groups. In our time, when the old ‘proletarians’ are becoming petty bourgeois (and the lumpen are largely excluded from the political scene), the fascism of tomorrow will find its audience in this new majority.’ (source)

For whom is this Fourth of July dedicated to? The original First Nations people? The Afrikan slave? The immigrant? Roxanne Dunbar Ortiz explains a different history of USA and July Fourth’s meanings in her book,

The integral link between Wounded Knee in 1890 and Wounded Knee in 1973 suggests a long-overdue reinterpretation of indigenous-US relations as a template for US imperialism and counterinsurgency wars. As Vietnam veteran and author Michael Herr observed, we “might as well say that Vietnam was where the Trail of Tears was headed all along, the turnaround point where it would touch and come back to form a containing perimeter.”

Seminole Nation Vietnam War veteran Evan Haney made the comparison in testifying at the Winter Soldier Investigations:

The same massacres happened to the Indians . . . I got to know the Vietnamese people and I learned they were just like us . . . I have grown up with racism all my life. When I was a child, watching cowboys and Indians on TV, I would root for the cavalry, not the Indians. It was that bad. I was that far toward my own destruction.

Great words, but not for all audiences. See below, my op-ed in the local rag, after a little bit of Rags to Riches soft shoe tap dancing. Yeah, yeah, another year has gone by, and the fireworks are littering our beaches, toxifying the air and water, scaring the wildlife and pets, and cork-screwing into the chambers of hell for those of us with any form of complex PTSD.

Business as usual, sort of.

The lockdowns are a thing of the past (not), and, sure, the grocery stores (many owned by a French guy and German guy and a British guy — guy as in investment outfit from those countries) have inflated, gouging, profiteering prices, the hardware store (monoply run by Koch; i.e. Home Depot, or the others like Ace and Lowes — bye bye mom and pops!) is out of the basics to keep the old house or apartment upkeeped (or the price gouging and war-lockdown-billionaire profiteering in a time of Covid-Monkey Pox-All Things Cancelled is almost comical, as in six to seven times the unit price for anything compared to 2019!).

Lots to celebrate, no? Trillions for the offensive military and surveillance and digital and prison and financial hobbling complex. Below is, as I have stated before, an attempt to reach retirees, service industry folk, timber and fisher workers, and vacationers in the local hard copy twice-a-week newspaper. Lincoln County, Oregon, is a very strange and dichotomous place indeed. High poverty, and highly educated. Rich retirees and hundreds running around the woods in meth madness. Service workers form Guatemala, and a timber industry that sprays agent orange on clear cuts. Right on the Pacific, west of the Central Coast Range, a paradise, sort of, with 78 inches of rain a year, verdant forests, winds, and dramatic coastlines. The NOAA research ship is harbored in Newport, and the Oregon State University Hatfield Marine Sciences Center is located here as well. (see Haeder’s, “Bridging the Divide” and “Should We Trust Science?”

When you read my 1,000 word piece, you will note that I self censored, and that is also called editing, knowing your audience, and capturing ten minutes of a person’s time with honey laced with a little bit of truth.

The Fourth of July essay, written by a communist, me. Mellow, milquetoast with margarine on top, and necessary for me, a man without a tribe, a man with shitty prospects on the downside of 65.

This is an exercise in dumbdowning and, well, infantilizing. Sacred cows and holy history. And yet, we have lots of killing in Ukraine to celebrate.  Getting people in the USA upset gets you, well, these lovelies:

• If you criticize it so much, why don’t you just move to some other “great” country.
• All countries have faults, but this one is the most dynamic in terms of the democracy, freedom of choice, capitalism experiments, and all those other countries certainly send their emissaries here to learn our ways.
• To the conquerer goes the spoils — buck up. History is written by the victors.
• And, so, why are millions crossing deserts and war zones to get to this supposed shit-hole if the country is so bad?
• If we as a collective West don’t get into Africa and into Asia, then you just want the Chinese to exploit those places. I am sure the average Ethiopian is much more happier with Black Americans assisting with their country than the Chinese?
• This is and always will be a Christian nation, and, yes, replacement theory is about concerns about the bloodline and the collective intelligence and spiritual and psychological alignments that the White Race have compared to those other cultures and races who have much different and anti-American values.
• A good red/communist is a dead commie!

Easier said than done, just hitching out of here to another country. I just read that many/majority in the EU do not want more American military on those lands: 27 countries as of now, out of 44 European countries. Imagine that, those twenty-seven nations trying to extract the United States of Chaos/Lies/Destruction from the collective, which is bound to grow beyond the current  27 countries.

Not a Hallmark version of Fourth of July, but watered down, for sure, is what I give to the local readership.

Now now, we know why Hallmark sells so many cards, why Hersheys sells so many sweets, why apple pie is such an American treat. There is an American story behind every business, so here, J.C, Hall, of Hallmark fame. Again, PT Barnum, snake oil salesmen, reservations, boarding schools, genocide then, now and the future, so yep, the world for AmeriKKKans is La-La Land, and they complain about red state v. blue state, but the state of the American mind is mired in epigentic trauma, mostly not acknowledged, and the Karma is Coming Back to Kick this Country’s Ass, but it will be the Romans, with two centuries of collapse over a 500 year period of rape, mayhem, lies, chaos, disaster (47 BC to 462 AD). “Letting a sleeping dog lie” —  that is, to ignore a problem because trying to deal with it could cause an even more difficult situation  — is the American Way, 2022, a la endless death deals with ZioLensky and endless bioweapons research (sic) for endless ways to transform (eugenics) the world.

It is a mad mad mad world of Hallmarking the Country, while still Disneyfying and Walmartizing Mister Rogers’ Neighborhoods!

Hall was born in 1891 in David City, Nebraska, the son of Nancy Dudley Houston and George Nelson Hall, a traveling Methodist minister who had provided sparingly for his invalid wife and children. When Hall was seven, his father died. By age eight Hall was selling door-to-door with the company that eventually became Avon Products. Hall’s belief was that in the difficult economic straits of his widowed mother’s family, he needed to add a postscript to his father’s bible quote, “the Lord will provide”; it was, “It’s a good idea to give the Lord a little help.”

In 1905, Hall and his brothers invested $540 to buy picture postcards to sell to store owners and other dealers around their area. They also convinced some of the traveling salesmen who came into the Halls’ bookstore, which Joyce Hall’s older brothers bought with a partner in 1902, to add the postcards to their sales territories. Hall conceived the Norfolk Post Card Company in 1908 in Norfolk, Nebraska.

In 1910, Hall moved to Kansas City, Missouri, with little more than two shoe boxes of postcards. By 1913, he and his brothers were operating a store (which would eventually evolve into Kansas City’s Halls department store) selling not only postcards but also greeting cards. The store burned in 1915, and a year later, Hall bought an engraving business and began printing his own cards. It turned into a bigger business than he had had before. In 1928, he began marketing his cards under the Hallmark brand name.

Hall, who objected to the name Joyce and typically went by “J.C.”, retired in 1966 and spent his retirement in efforts to revitalize the Kansas City downtown area. One of the results was Crown Center, a combination business/shopping district surrounding the Hallmark corporate headquarters. Hall died in 1982 in Leawood, Kansas. (source)

Now, of course, that postcard salesman’s dream is a huge multi-company operation, conservative, dishing up Christian feel-good media while lobbying for conservitism and Republican values (sic).

Oh, then, there is slavery in my chocolate: Oh, that Hershey,

“The beatings were a part of my life,” Aly Diabate, a freed slave, told reporters. “Anytime they loaded you with bags (of cocoa beans) and you fell while carrying them, nobody helped you. Instead they beat you and beat you until you picked it up again.”

Brian Woods and Kate Blewett are ground-breaking film-makers who made history when they went undercover in China eight years ago to make a documentary which shook the world — “The Dying Rooms” — about the hideous conditions in Chinese state orphanages. Recently, they made a film about the use of child slaves in African cocoa fields. “It isn’t the slavery we are all familiar with and which most of us imagine was abolished decades ago,” says Brian Woods. “Back then, a slave owner could produce documents to prove ownership. Now, it’s a secretive trade which leaves behind little evidence. Modern slaves are cheap and disposable. They have three things in common with their ancestors. They aren’t paid, they are kept working by violence or the threat of it, and they are not free to leave.”

Blewett and Woods tell of meeting Drissa, a young man from Mali who had been tricked into working on an Ivory coast cocoa farm. “When Drissa took his shirt off, I had never seen anything like it. I had seen some pretty nasty things in my time but this was appalling. There wasn’t an inch of his body which wasn’t scarred.”

This from John Robbins, of the the Baskin Robbins family fame: “Is There Slavery In Your Chocolate?”

Here, another “history” of Hershey, Milton:

Rags-to-riches stories might seem like they’re a dime a dozen, but Hershey’s story was shaped by incredible hardship. Born Milton Snavely Hershey on September 13, 1857, Hershey had one younger sister who died when she was 4. His father was prone to what Hershey History calls “get rich schemes”, and all of those schemes — which included a trout farm — failed. Attempts to find that one last working scheme meant a lot of moving around, so young Hershey attended seven different schools before ultimately ending his formal education at the fourth grade.

Hershey then embarked on a series of failed ventures. He was dismissed from an apprenticeship as a printer, declared bankruptcy after opening his first candy company, and traveled across the country in a failed attempt to get in on a silver mine. He tried another candy business in New York City, and the doors closed on that one, too.

Hershey’s family — who had invested in his failed businesses — largely shunned him. The exception was an aunt, who gave him a loan to buy his first caramel-making equipment. He spent days making candy, nights selling them from a pushcart, and found his calling. (Source)

Rags to riches, and that American Dream.

According to a 2010 report titled “Time to Raise the Bar: The Real Corporate Social Responsibility for the Hershey Company,” “Hershey has no policies in place to purchase cocoa that has been produced without the use of labor exploitation, and the company has consistently refused to provide public information about its cocoa sources…Finally, Hershey’s efforts to further cut costs in its cocoa production has led to a reduction in good jobs in the United States.” (Source)

Note that the dream/nightmare, all that murdering and land theft, AKA, The Indian Wars, lasted until 1924 (started in 1609).

Opinion Page: Newport News Times, Fourth of July by Paul Haeder

Baseball, Mom and Apple Pie — Another Fourth of July Lie

Do we collectively have a duty as Americans to honor the idea of hope, change and a Republic free from British rule? Yep. I’ve worked as a teacher for 45 years. Before that, I was a product intense indoctrination — military brat. Mark two branches my old man ventured into: Air Force and Army. He put in 32 years, total.

I was born to question authority. Living overseas, on military bases and posts, and around a militaristic mindset, I did my duty as any red-blooded American should: question those who wield power. That wasn’t just the MPs I crossed paths with. I doubted my teachers’ power. As a newspaperman, I questioned many of those powers while covering city, county, military, education, police and federal beats.

That powerful elixir — free speech, free association and “innocent before proven guilty”— had entered my veins young. I questioned my editors’ decisions and questioned the owners of these small newspapers, and then later, the owners of the big papers (owned by Gannet or Pulitzer) for which I worked.

I gravitated toward the words of Americans like Frederick Douglass. “What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim.” (1852).

I anticipate cringing from News-Times readers with concocted beliefs in false prophets and bad information. Knowing our people’s history of the United States is about embracing the good, bad, and ugly, as well as the warts and accomplishments of the US of A.

There is no communist conspiracy tied to teaching ethnic studies, embracing more nuanced history of indigenous and enslaved people, and knowing the roots of some disastrous features of our country’s legal, economic, and education systems: monopolies, Manifest Destiny, oligarchs influencing policy and laws, a second gilded age of wealth gap between haves and haves not, racism, sexism, and debt.

Douglass may have been pointing out the injustices in that July 4 speech, but he was aware of his place in the country. “The fact is, ladies and gentlemen, the distance between this platform and the slave plantation, from which I escaped, is considerable — and the difficulties to be overcome in getting from the latter to the former, are by no means slight,” Douglass stated 170 years ago.

Some of the most remarkable “patriots” I have worked with were people assisting the poor, sick, old, disabled, and needy. In El Paso, Casa Anunciacion was run and staffed by remarkable people giving aid to refugees of Guatemala and El Salvador. While these simple people in many cases came to the U.S. for political asylum, they embraced Ruben Garcia, the ex-priest running the nonprofit, and the youth coming from around the country doing “their service” for mostly Jesuit and private colleges.

Imagine, victims of murder and forced displacement enforced by U.S.-trained militaries and leaders, and yet these people embraced us, the volunteers. They saw the United States as how Emma Lazarus imagined a Jewish refugee or Italian bricklayer would hold self-evident about this country. Her poem, “The New Colossus,” is at the base of Lady Liberty:

From her beacon-hand…
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
‘Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!’ cries she
With silent lips. ‘Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!’

Her poem was cast in bronze and put on the statue of Liberty. The statue was not conceived as a symbol of immigration. But to the millions of immigrants heading for Ellis Island, passing under the torch and her shining face, immigrants connected Lady Liberty with their own freedom.

Lazarus’s poem was set upon the pedestal in 1903 and “forever” locked the statue as a welcoming mother, and a symbol of hope to those outcasts of the world.

Shifting political baselines and cultural barrages, however, have forced people to defend that plaque. Even a fellow like Stephen Miller (senior advisor for policy and White House director of speechwriting to President Donald Trump) stated he thought the Lazarus poem should be ripped from the monument.

We are a divided nation, on many fronts, not just red state v. blue state. Read your history about slavery, about prohibition, about wars fought under false pretentions. We have been a mixed-up tossed salad of people, cultures, ethnicities. Not that proverbial melting pot.

There is a large dose of naivety in America’s collective consciousness that we are the world’s example of democracy. It is this hubris that covers both hope and delusion. However, we must hold future generations in both our collective hearts and with our policies.

Legacy is one not burdened with debt, decay, failing infrastructure and failing wars. We have to embrace our democracy’s roots: the Iroquois Confederacy, founded by the Great Peacemaker in 1142, is the oldest living participatory democracy on earth.

Ben Franklin followed suit 600 years later. Franklin referenced the Iroquois model as he presented his Plan of Union at the Albany Congress in 1754, attended by representatives of the Iroquois and the seven colonies. He invited the Great Council members of the Iroquois to address the Continental Congress in 1776.

Our roots run deep into this country’s Native American model of governance: one that is fair and will always meet the needs of the seventh generation to come.

This principle dictates that decisions made today should lead to sustainability for seven generations into the future. This Independence Day, can we realign ourselves into creating strong kinship bonds that promote leadership in which honor is not earned by material gain but by service to others?

End

Of course, apples are native to  Kazakhstan, in central Asia east of the Caspian Sea. The capital of Kazakhstan, Alma Ata, means “full of apples.” By 1500 BC apple seeds had been carried throughout Europe.

The Memory of Fire by Eduardo Galleano is magificent in bringing historical grounding to the Americas as:Genesis, Faces and Masks, and Century of the Wind. This epic prose poem covers Latin American history written in short vignettes that are nonfiction, but flow in a narrative prose which reads like fiction.

Console yourself not with the lie that your foe is weak, or stupid, or evil. Sometimes the enemy is worthy. Sometimes his cause is just. Sometimes both sides are right in their own ways-and in the hour that just causes collide, good men will rise up and leap into the fray, and the clash of their meeting will shake the heavens. And their blood will flow like rivers.

― Holly Lisle, Memory of Fire

Check him out on the internet, recorded in May 2009: Eduardo Galeano (1940-2015) Laura Flanders interviewed the author in anticipation of what would become his last book, Mirrors: Stories of Almost Everyone, published by Nation Books. Galeano spent a lifetime reflecting on the lives—political, cultural, and historical—of the people of the Americas. In April 2009, Venezuela’s late president Hugo Chavez gave Barack Obama a copy of Galeano’s book Open Veins of Latin America. Galeano joined us to discuss his work, the political moment, and the past and future of US-Latin American relations.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Paul Haeder.

'The spirit of those times'

Leung has published around 40 reports on her page since the paper closed, most of them about the aftermath of the 2019 protest movement, many of them based on interviews with arrestees and protest leaders.

"They say the protesters are a forgotten group, but their experiences are actually representative of the spirit of those times," Leung said. "My specialty is doing in-depth profiles ... I think it's very important to write down what happened to them, and preserve their thoughts and experiences."

"It feels more like a record, like the role of a storyteller, writing down their stories," she said.

Leung said she is trying to put into practice the ethos of the protest movement, summarized as a quote from late martial arts legend Bruce Lee, "be water."

"To be a human being, you need principles, and lines beyond which you won't go," Leung said. "If the biggest lesson Hong Kong people took from 2019 was to be water, then this needs to be integrated into everyday life, not just be a slogan."

Chan has dedicated his page to reporting on the progress of thousands of cases from the 2019 protest movement through the Hong Kong judicial system.

"I like being a reporter, so I think that by reporting on cases from the public gallery, I can offer something like a glimmer of light that lets each other know we exist," Chan said.

"I don't know if you can call it a sense of mission; it's more the method I have chosen to use," he said.

Sensitive topics bring personal risk

Chan, who remains in Hong Kong, said he still needs to consider his personal risk under the national security law.

"I need to think about the dangers and risks behind some reports, and won't touch any of the more controversial or sensitive topics," he said.

"I hesitate and struggle over whether to report certain Hong Kong-related events in foreign countries," he said. "It's a tough, rugged and difficult road to travel, that of an independent journalist."

"It means more risks at a time when there is little room for 100 flowers to bloom," Chan said, in a reference to the criminalization of public dissent under the national security law.

"But it makes what we are doing as reporters more meaningful," he said. "Journalists write the history of a particular time, so I want to preserve the truth for the next generation, including my own."

According to a June 22 report from the Human Rights Measurement Initiative (HRMI), Hong Kong's rating under three measures of civil and political rights has plummeted since the survey began in 2019.

Hong Kong's score for the "right to assembly and association" fell from 4.5 in 2019 to 3.1 in 2020, and then to 2.5 in 2021. The city's rating for the "right to hold and express opinions" and "right to participate in politics" fell by 2.7 and 2.4 respectively in 2021, putting all three indicators in the "very poor" category.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Chen Zifei, Cheryl Tung and Amelia Loi for RFA Cantonese.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Chen Zifei for RFA Mandarin.

After Apple employees in Maryland voted Saturday to form the tech giant's first retail store union in the United States, workers' rights advocates across the country celebrated the "pathbreaking win for labor."

"We love our jobs. We just want to see them do better."

Workers at the store in Towson recently organized into the Coalition of Organized Retail Employees (CORE) and have decided to join the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM).

"We did it!" IAM declared on Twitter, welcoming the Towson workers.

IAM international president Robert Martinez Jr. in a statement that "I applaud the courage displayed by CORE members at the Apple store in Towson for achieving this historic victory. They made a huge sacrifice for thousands of Apple employees across the nation who had all eyes on this election."

"I ask Apple CEO Tim Cook to respect the election results and fast-track a first contract for the dedicated IAM CORE Apple employees in Towson," Martinez added. "This victory shows the growing demand for unions at Apple stores and different industries across our nation."

The win in Maryland comes as Amazon and Starbucks workers across the nation are also pushing for unions—and the companies are fighting back.

Apple is no different, according to More Perfect Union and The Washington Post, which reported that "Saturday evening's initial tally was 65-33, and the official count was pending."

While an Apple representative declined to comment, Towson worker Billy Jarboe told the newspaper that the company's campaign to undermine the union drive "definitely shook people," but most supporters of the effort weren't swayed.

"It just feels good to go into a new era of this kind of work, hopefully it creates a spark [and] the other stores can use this momentum," Jarboe said.

Eric Brown, another employee in Towson, told the Post that organizers of an unsuccessful unionization campaign at an Atlanta store "let us know what some of the talking points and tactics were going to be, and we were able to let people know some of the things they may try."

Tyra Reeder similarly told The New York Times that "we kind of got some insight from the Atlanta store on things that were coming," pointing to the company's claims that a contract negitation process could lead to workers losing some benefits.

"For that to happen, a majority of us have to agree," Reeder said. "I don't think any of us would agree to lose something we love dearly, that benefits us."

As for being an Apple employee, Reeder said: "We love our jobs. We just want to see them do better."

U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) was among the political figures who welcomed the development in Maryland.

"Congratulations to Apple workers in Towson, Maryland on becoming the first Apple store in the United States to form a union!" Sanders tweeted. "What we are seeing right now is a historic uprising of working-class Americans telling the corporate elite that they have to end their greed."

Tom Perez, a Democratic candidate for Maryland governor, also congratulated the Towson workers while tying their win to the broader movement currently sweeing the country.

"This is a big deal," he said. "All across our country we're seeing workers demanding fairness and dignity. So proud that the nation’s first Apple store to form a union is right here in Baltimore County."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams - Breaking News &amp; Views for the Progressive Community and was authored by Jessica Corbett.

After Apple employees in Maryland voted Saturday to form the tech giant's first retail store union in the United States, workers' rights advocates across the country celebrated the "pathbreaking win for labor."

"We love our jobs. We just want to see them do better."

Workers at the store in Towson recently organized into the Coalition of Organized Retail Employees (CORE) and have decided to join the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM).

"We did it!" IAM declared on Twitter, welcoming the Towson workers.

IAM international president Robert Martinez Jr. in a statement that "I applaud the courage displayed by CORE members at the Apple store in Towson for achieving this historic victory. They made a huge sacrifice for thousands of Apple employees across the nation who had all eyes on this election."

"I ask Apple CEO Tim Cook to respect the election results and fast-track a first contract for the dedicated IAM CORE Apple employees in Towson," Martinez added. "This victory shows the growing demand for unions at Apple stores and different industries across our nation."

The win in Maryland comes as Amazon and Starbucks workers across the nation are also pushing for unions—and the companies are fighting back.

Apple is no different, according to More Perfect Union and The Washington Post, which reported that "Saturday evening's initial tally was 65-33, and the official count was pending."

While an Apple representative declined to comment, Towson worker Billy Jarboe told the newspaper that the company's campaign to undermine the union drive "definitely shook people," but most supporters of the effort weren't swayed.

"It just feels good to go into a new era of this kind of work, hopefully it creates a spark [and] the other stores can use this momentum," Jarboe said.

Eric Brown, another employee in Towson, told the Post that organizers of an unsuccessful unionization campaign at an Atlanta store "let us know what some of the talking points and tactics were going to be, and we were able to let people know some of the things they may try."

Tyra Reeder similarly told The New York Times that "we kind of got some insight from the Atlanta store on things that were coming," pointing to the company's claims that a contract negitation process could lead to workers losing some benefits.

"For that to happen, a majority of us have to agree," Reeder said. "I don't think any of us would agree to lose something we love dearly, that benefits us."

As for being an Apple employee, Reeder said: "We love our jobs. We just want to see them do better."

U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) was among the political figures who welcomed the development in Maryland.

"Congratulations to Apple workers in Towson, Maryland on becoming the first Apple store in the United States to form a union!" Sanders tweeted. "What we are seeing right now is a historic uprising of working-class Americans telling the corporate elite that they have to end their greed."

Tom Perez, a Democratic candidate for Maryland governor, also congratulated the Towson workers while tying their win to the broader movement currently sweeing the country.

"This is a big deal," he said. "All across our country we're seeing workers demanding fairness and dignity. So proud that the nation’s first Apple store to form a union is right here in Baltimore County."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams - Breaking News &amp; Views for the Progressive Community and was authored by Jessica Corbett.

New York Times Magazine (4/7/22)

Consumer advocate Ralph Nader wrote to the New York Times Magazine in response to its “Money Issue” (4/10/22), which focused on billionaires.

Your engrossing issue on megabillionaires—their road to riches and influence—devoted little attention to billionaire CEOs directly running their giant corporations. For example, how did CEO Tim Cook of Apple get his board to pay him $50,000 an hour or $850 a minute, while Apple store workers are making under $20 per hour? Apple’s wealth draws from a million serf laborers in China making iPhones and computers they cannot afford to buy.

Under Cook, Apple decided to pour over $400 billion of excess profits into unproductive stock buybacks. How fascinating would have been the Times covering how these decisions were made, in place of raising wages, thorough recycling, reducing prices for Apple’s expensive consumer products, bringing some production back to the USA or, heaven forbid, paying its fair share of income taxes.

While the hyperwealthy do attract celebrity treatment, it is when they manage multinational companies that their extraordinary supremacy becomes clearer.

Ralph Nader

Washington, DC

The post The Extraordinary Supremacy of the Hyperwealthy appeared first on FAIR.

This content originally appeared on FAIR and was authored by Ralph Nader.

Based on these findings, Microsoft will be taking actions to enable greater repairability of its devices by the end of the year, as stipulated in an agreement the tech company reached with investor advocacy nonprofit As You Sow last fall.

Microsoft’s study release came just two days after Apple launched “Self Service Repair,” a first-of-its-kind program that allows owners of recent iPhone models to order genuine Apple parts and tools to conduct basic smartphone repairs, like screen and battery replacements, at home. More such programs are coming: In late March and early April, Samsung and Google announced plans to sell genuine parts for smartphone repairs via partnerships with the repair guide site iFixit. Both of those programs appear on track to launch in the next few months.

From a consumer perspective, these actions are small steps toward a world in which tech titans actively facilitate repair of their products rather than standing in the way of it. Companies like Apple, Microsoft, and Google have not only historically designed products that are hard to fix, but also have a well-documented history of fighting bills that would support consumers’ right to repair them. For these corporations, repair audits and programs represent a major shift in policy that would not have come about without a mix of public and shareholder pressure, as well as the specter of looming laws and regulations aimed at curbing Big Tech’s anti-repair practices.

Companies are also changing their tune on repair because restricting it is increasingly at odds with their climate and sustainability goals, something shareholders have been keen to point out.

Microsoft’s new repair study affirms that independent repair has tangible environmental benefits. 

Conducted by technical consultancy Oakdene Hollins, the study looked at how facilitating repair through design changes and an increase in repair options would affect the waste and carbon emissions associated with Microsoft Surface Pro, Surface Book, and Surface Laptop Studio devices. According to a summary Microsoft published today, repairing Microsoft products instead of replacing them can reduce waste and carbon emissions associated with manufacturing new devices by up to 92 percent. 

The study found greater greenhouse gas emissions reductions when consumers had access to local repair options, underscoring the importance of supporting independent repair businesses and allowing capable fixers to repair their devices at home.

Tech companies aren’t waking up to the environmental benefits of repair all on their own. As As You Sow investor advocate Kelly McBee previously told Grist, when she first reached out to Microsoft about its restrictive repair policies last spring, the company told her it saw no connection between repairability and sustainability. When she met with Microsoft earlier this month to review the results of its study — which came about through a shareholder agreement As You Sow and Microsoft reached in October — Microsoft’s attitude had changed.

“They actually thanked us for bringing this to their attention,” McBee told Grist. “Which was a really different vibe from the first meeting — and they acknowledged that as well.”

McBee is optimistic that Microsoft will follow through with the second part of its shareholder pledge, to act on the results of its study by the end of 2022. She noted that the company has already taken a few steps toward enabling independent repair, including releasing a video showing how to disassemble its Surface Laptop SE in January, and launching a program in December that allows independent repair professionals to purchase Microsoft service tools from iFixit. 

“By the end of 2022, we will have expanded options in place for customers to have their devices repaired,” a Microsoft spokesperson told Grist in an emailed statement. “Independent repair is one piece of this portfolio of repair options and, by the end of 2022, we will undertake a limited pilot program to enable repair of certain devices by qualified independent repair shops.”

As Microsoft was negotiating a shareholder agreement with As You Sow last fall, Apple was facing a similar shareholder resolution introduced by the mutual fund company Green Century — one that asked the iPhone maker to “reverse” its anti-repair practices in order to bolster its climate commitments. While Apple initially tried to block the resolution, it instead wound up announcing its plan to launch the Self Service Repair program just in time to prevent the resolution from moving forward with the Securities and Exchange Commision, the federal investor protection agency. 

Apple has been tight-lipped about Self Service Repair since announcing it last fall, and before this week, Apple fans were starting to wonder if the company had forgotten about it. Now that it’s live, the repair community will be scrutinizing the program closely. Already, iFixit has raised concerns about how Apple parts are paired with individual devices based on their serial number — something that could allow Apple to restrict the use of those same parts to fix other phones in the future. Apple didn’t respond to Grist’s request for comment on this concern.

The Self Service Repair program is also limited in scope, offering spare parts, repair tools and manuals only for Apple’s iPhone 12 and 13 lineups as well as the third generation iPhone SE — and only for U.S. customers. But Apple says it will be expanding the program to additional countries, as well as adding manuals and tools to repair M1 Mac computers, later this year.

Despite the limitations of Apple’s program, its existence is symbolically a big deal. “For good and for ill, Apple has a huge influence on the behavior of competitors,” Nathan Proctor, who heads the right-to-repair campaign at the nonprofit U.S. Public Research Interest Group, told Grist. Apple’s effective capitulation to the right-to-repair movement last year by agreeing to launch a self-repair store very likely “turned up the heat on other companies,” Proctor says.

That includes Google and Samsung, both of which now have self-repair programs in the works. The Samsung program, which the company says is slated to launch this summer, will allow owners of a Samsung Galaxy S20 or S21 smartphone or a Galaxy Tab S7+ tablet to purchase genuine display assemblies (screens with a glued-on battery), backglass, and charging ports via iFixit. The Google program, which will make genuine screens, batteries, and other parts needed for Pixel smartphone repairs available through iFixit, is also on track for the summer, iFixit CEO Kyle Wiens told Grist. The companies, Wiens says, have been enthusiastic partners on these programs, offering feedback on iFixit’s latest Samsung and Google repair guides in addition to developing the replacement parts pipeline.

Green Century shareholder advocate Annalisa Tarizzo, whose firm also filed a proposal with Google asking the company to increase access to repair, told Grist that Google has agreed to meet with shareholders twice over the next year to “talk through more details” of the program, something she sees as a “good-faith effort” to follow through with it.  

All of these programs — if and when they come to fruition — are baby steps toward a world in which consumers are able to repair and maintain their devices indefinitely rather than being forced to upgrade every few years. Advocates say there is more each of these companies could be doing to bring about such a future. For instance, they could make parts and repair documentation available for more of their products: Tarizzo said she’d love to see Google expand its new iFixit partnership to include Nest thermostats. Tech companies could also come out vocally in favor of the right to repair at Congressional hearings and when submitting public comments to agencies, and distance themselves from anti-repair lobbying efforts. 

Even industry leaders like Dell, which designs some of the most fixable devices out there in addition to regularly publishing repair manuals for, is still a member of trade groups that lobby against repair-friendly legislation, like TechNet and the Consumer Technology Association. If companies that lead on repairability within their own product lines took a more public stand by calling out their own trade groups or industry peers for retrograde positions on repair, Proctor told Grist, that could be game-changing for the industry.

“If we actually want to make a huge change in the sustainability of our electronics, we need leadership,” Proctor said. “We need companies pushing the boundaries of what can be done.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Apple just launched its first self-repair program. Other tech companies are about to follow. on Apr 29, 2022.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Maddie Stone.

On April 13, the Hong Kong Journalists Association (HKJA) informed its members that it would hold an “Extraordinary General Meeting” on Saturday, April 23, to discuss the future of the group, according to news reports. 

Ronson Chan Ronsing, the association’s chairman, told the South China Morning Post that the HKJA, which reported 486 members last year, is considering disbanding as some members are worried about their future after the arrest of veteran journalist Allan Au Ka-lun last week and the closing of several outlets in recent months, including the pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily and non-profit news websites Stand News, and Citizen News.

“Any decision by the Hong Kong Journalists Association to disband would mark a sad day for press freedom in the Chinese-controlled territory, which has seen a progressive assault on independent journalism in recent years,” said Steven Butler, CPJ’s Asia program coordinator, in Washington, D.C. “The HKJA has for years provided a strong voice to support Hong Kong’s once-thriving community of journalists and its voice would be sorely missed.”

HKJA, a vocal advocate for the city’s press freedom, has come under attacks from authorities and pro-Beijing press since early 2019, when journalists presented HKJA-issued press passes to police while covering the mass protests against a controversial bill allowing extradition to mainland China. Last September, when the Hong Kong police force amended one of its general orders to allow police to decide for themselves whether someone was an accredited journalist, the HKJA was among the press associations that publicly condemned the action.

In January, the Registry of Trade Unions, a government body regulating labor unions in the city, launched an investigation into HKJA and asked the group to provide information on its finances and past events, according to news reports. The registry’s Assistant Labor Officer Colin Leung told CPJ by email that the registry sent an email to HKJA requesting the group “provide information about its activities which are suspected to be inconsistent with the Trade unions ordinance and/or union rules,” Leung wrote. “As follow-up action is underway, RTU does not comment on individual cases.”  

CPJ emailed the Hong Kong police force for comment but did not immediately receive any reply.

CPJ’s 2021 prison census found that China remained the world’s worst jailer of journalists for the third year in a row. It was the first time that journalists in Hong Kong appeared on CPJ’s census.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

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The chairman of a congressional subcommittee has asked Apple and Google to help stop fraud against U.S. taxpayers on Telegram, a fast-growing messaging service distributed via their smartphone app stores. The request from the head of the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis came after ProPublica reports last July and in January revealed how cybercriminals were using Telegram to sell and trade stolen identities and methods for filing fake unemployment insurance claims.

Rep. James E. Clyburn, D-S.C., who chairs the subcommittee (which is part of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform), cited ProPublica’s reporting in March 23 letters to the CEOs of Apple and Alphabet, Google’s parent company. The letters pointed out that enabling fraud against American taxpayers is inconsistent with Apple’s and Google’s policies for their respective app stores, which forbid apps that facilitate or promote illegal activities.

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“There is substantial evidence that Telegram has not complied with these requirements by allowing its application to be used as a central platform for the facilitation of fraud against vital pandemic relief programs,” Clyburn wrote. He asked whether Apple and Alphabet “may be able to play a constructive role in combating this Telegram-facilitated fraud against the American public.”

Clyburn also requested that Apple and Google provide “all communications” between the companies and Telegram “related to fraud or other unlawful conduct on the Telegram platform, including fraud against pandemic relief programs” as well as what “policies and practices” the companies have implemented to monitor whether applications disseminated through their app stores are being used to “facilitate fraud” and “disseminate coronavirus misinformation.” He gave the companies until April 7 to provide the records.

Apple, which runs the iOS app store for its iPhones, did not reply to a request for comment. Google, which runs the Google Play app store for its Android devices, also did not respond.

The two companies’ app stores are vital distribution channels for messaging services such as Telegram, which markets itself as one of the world’s 10 most downloaded apps.The company has previously acknowledged theimportance of complying with Apple’s and Google’s app store policies. “Telegram — like all mobile apps — has to follow rules set by Apple and Google in order to remain available to users on iOS and Android,” Telegram CEO Pavel Durov wrote in a September blog post. He noted that, should Apple’s and Google’s app stores stop supporting Telegram in a given locale, the move would prevent software updates to the messaging service and ultimately neuter it.

By appealing to the two smartphone makers directly, Clyburn is increasing pressure on Telegram to take his concerns seriously. His letter noted that “Telegram’s very brief terms of service only prohibit users from ‘scam[ming]’ other Telegram users, appearing to permit the use of the platform to conspire to commit fraud against others.” He faulted Telegram for letting its users disseminate playbooks for defrauding state unemployment insurance systems on its platform and said its failure to stop that activity may have enabled large-scale fraud.

Clyburn wrote to Durov in December asking whether Telegram has “undertaken any serious efforts to prevent its platform from being used to enable large-scale fraud” against pandemic relief programs. Telegram “refused to engage” with the subcommittee, a spokesperson for Clyburn told ProPublica in January. (Since then, the app was briefly banned in Brazil for failing to respond to judicial orders to freeze accounts spreading disinformation. Brazil’s Supreme Court reversed the ban after Telegram finally responded to the requests.)

Telegram said in a statement to ProPublica that it’s working to expand its terms of service and moderation efforts to “explicitly restrict and more effectively combat” misuse of its messaging platform, “such as encouraging fraud.” Telegram also said that it has always “actively moderated harmful content” and banned millions of chats and accounts for violating its terms of service, which prohibit users from scamming each other, promoting violence or posting illegal pornographic content.

But ProPublica found that the company’s moderation efforts can amount to little more than a game of whack-a-mole. After a ProPublica inquiry last July, Telegram shut some public channels on its app in which users advertised methods for filing fake unemployment insurance claims using stolen identities. But various fraud tutorials are still openly advertised on the platform. Accounts that sell stolen identities can also pop back up after they’re shut down; the users behind them simply recycle their old account names with a small variation and are back in business within days.

The limited interventions are a reflection of Telegram’s hands-off approach to policing content on its messenger app, which is central to its business model. Durov asserted in his September blog post that “Telegram gives its users more freedom of speech than any other popular mobile application.” He reiterated that commitment in March, saying that Telegram users’ “right to privacy is sacred. Now — more than ever.”

The approach has helped Telegram grow and become a crucial communication tool in authoritarian regimes. Russia banned Telegram in 2018 for refusing to hand over encryption keys that would allow authorities to access user data, only to withdraw the ban two years later at least in part because users were able to get around it. More recently, Telegram has been credited as a rare place where Russians can find uncensored news about the invasion of Ukraine.

But the company’s iron-clad commitment to privacy also attracts cybercriminals looking to make money. After the COVID-19 pandemic prompted Congress to authorize hundreds of billions of small-business loans and extra aid to workers who lost their jobs, Telegram lit up with channels offering methods to defraud the programs. The scale of the fraud is yet unknown, but it could stretch into tens if not hundreds of billions of dollars. Its sheer size prompted the Department of Justice to announce, on March 10, the appointment of a chief prosecutor to focus on the most egregious cases of pandemic fraud, including identity theft by criminal syndicates.

This content originally appeared on Articles and Investigations - ProPublica and was authored by by Cezary Podkul.

Russian state media regulator Roskomnadzor on Friday, March 4, blocked access to several news websites, including those of BBC Russian, German public broadcaster Deutsche Welle, Latvia-based independent news site Meduza, the Russian-language service of U.S. Congress-funded broadcaster Voice of America (VOA), and several services of the U.S. Congress-funded broadcaster Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), according to news reports.

Also Friday, the Russian legislature adopted amendments to the criminal code introducing higher penalties, such as fines, criminal liabilities, and imposing prison terms of up to 15 years for those convicted of disseminating “fakes,” or information that authorities deem to be false, about military operations, or discrediting Russian Armed Forces, according to media reports. Putin signed the amendments today, according to reports, meaning the bill goes into effect tomorrow.

“Russian authorities have moved quickly to establish total censorship and control over the free flow of information since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24,” said Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator. “The Russian public cannot be deprived of information and news and be forced to rely on the Kremlin-approved interpretation of events at this very important time in Russian history. The censorship must stop, and bans must be lifted.”  

Among other developments on Friday:

• Liberal radio station Ekho Moskvy closed all its social media accounts down following the station’s closure on Thursday, media reported.
• Independent Russian media outlet Znak and online broadcaster TV 2 in Tomsk city both closed due to an increased number of restrictions from the Russian government, according to media reports. 
• RFE/RL said in a statement the websites of its Russian, Tatar-Bashkir, and North Caucasus services, including the Russian-language Sever.Realii, Sibir.Realii, Idel.Realii, and Kavkaz.Realii were blocked.
• Liberal news website The Village announced on its Telegram channel that it has closed its Moscow office and that the editorial staff had started working from Warsaw, Poland’s capital. Two days earlier, on March 2, Roskomnadzor had blocked the publication’s website, according to reports.
• Independent news website computing.co.uk reported that the Apple app and Google app stores are blocked in Russia, and Roskomnadzor confirmed in a statement and on their platform that Facebook and Twitter are blocked. 

On February 24, Roskomnadzor said in a statement that all media “must only use information and data received from official Russian sources.”

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

CPJ joined civil society and media groups yesterday in a statement calling on Salvadoran authorities to respond to the findings by experts at Citizen Lab and Access Now, among others. It’s not clear who was operating the spyware, but Pegasus creator NSO Group, an Israeli company, has repeatedly said it sells Pegasus only to vetted government clients and investigates allegations of abuse. More than 180 journalists around the world were identified as possible Pegasus targets last July in investigative reports that the company said were false.

The incidents in El Salvador were first publicized in November, when several journalists with iPhones reported Apple had notified them about possible spyware; Apple subsequently filed a lawsuit against NSO in a U.S. court for facilitating surveillance.

Gavarrete covers politics, health, environment, and gender for El Faro and previously worked at Gato Encerrado. Investigators found that staff at both independent digital outlets faced repeated Pegasus attacks in 2020 and 2021, especially El Faro, which reported 22 phones owned by its journalists were infected 226 times in total. The incidents coincided with some of their most hard-hitting investigations, Gavarrete told CPJ. 

President Nayib Bukele and other Salvadoran officials have also singled out the sites and other independent outlets, disparaging staff, barring entry to press conferences, and denying work permits since Bukele’s election in 2019. 

CPJ emailed Bukele’s office for comment but did not receive a response.

In a recent phone interview, Gavarrete told CPJ’s Dánae Vílchez about how knowledge of the spyware has affected her reporting. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Let’s talk about context: What is happening in El Salvador right now regarding press freedom?

In 2021 we saw setbacks – [fewer options] for citizens requesting information from institutions to understand what the government is doing with public funds, and the government also took a more concrete position against media it considered “inconvenient,” those that are doing watchdog work and monitoring finances. I don’t believe the situation will improve.

Were you afraid you were being spied on?

Several of us already suspected that [our communications] were being intercepted. Information that we shared was later made public on social media through trolls and Twitter accounts, [or] on pages that share fake news. But it was just a hunch.

Last year I was working on an investigative project, and it seemed like someone had read my conversations with a source. People stopped us at the entrance to a building like they knew we were going to be there. That confirmed to me that we were being monitored, but I never knew where the intervention came from.

I don’t know, for example, if the theft of my computer was state surveillance. [Editor’s note: In 2020, Gavarrete’s laptop was stolen from her home though other valuables were untouched; she was working for Gato Encerrado at the time.] I could never confirm it because the investigation never went anywhere.

How did you find out what was really going on?

I was able to confirm that I was being monitored with Pegasus working directly with organizations that were looking into this matter here in El Salvador.

My first impression was shock; suspecting you’ve been targeted isn’t the same as knowing. It hit me not only on a professional level, but also emotionally. To think about the amount of information that passes through a device, and the personal information they can access and what they can do with [it]…Processing that took me a bit of time, but in the end you have to turn the page and try to continue. That was my way of coping.

From what you know, can you tell us a little about what was found on the phones?

We found continuous interventions in which [someone] had access to and extracted information from our phones. Analysis allowed us to identify specific dates when the infections occurred.

Many of my initial thoughts were about work: What kind of information was reaching my phone [on] those days? What sources was I seeing?

Then I thought about difficult moments in my life, [like] my father’s illness. Not only are these people interested in knowing who you are as a journalist, but they want to know what happens in your personal life. Imagine the type of unscrupulous people behind this.

There were dates when a number of [us] were subject to heavy surveillance. Some journalists endured [it for] at least a year. Even for the researchers [performing the analysis], the obsessive use of Pegasus in El Salvador was very strange. It is not just that devices were being infected, but that the infections were constant.

Why do you think the government would be interested in monitoring your work?

Those who are behind these interventions are undoubtedly interested in knowing what is being produced in our newsroom. The government will always be interested in knowing what journalists who are investigating them are doing, although we do not have evidence of specific contracts.

What has become very clear to us is that during the periods when we have been surveilled, El Faro was working on hard-hitting reports into corruption or irregular purchases. There isn’t a single day that the reports showed we had been infected that wasn’t related to something that El Faro published or an ongoing investigation.

At a global level, state surveillance shows that governments are interested in controlling what is said about them, and not fighting organized crime.

Has the government acknowledged what happened or taken any responsibility?

The government distanced itself from the messages from Apple. Some officials said that what Apple was saying was not about El Salvador. It was just a matter of denying and trying to shift attention elsewhere.

We hope the government can provide answers, clarify whether it is using this type of software, [and] investigate who is behind all this – and that the international community gets more involved in demanding that we get these answers. We are talking about an excessive amount of money that someone is spending on this.

How has this situation affected your work as a journalist? How does it make you feel?

It is a stressful burden. Now it’s confirmed, it is not only about protecting our integrity and that of our sources, but also our families, trying to explain what is going on and why they can’t communicate with us “normally.” [Our devices] may still be infected. Anything sensitive that they want to say to me, they can only say in person. This is one of the most significant pressures that I have had to deal with.

I was cautious before, but [now] I am even more extreme to avoid putting sources in danger. But it wears you out day-to-day, and you have to make an even greater effort to be able to produce journalism.

See CPJ’s safety advisory, “Journalist targets of Pegasus spyware”

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Dánae Vílchez/CPJ Central America Correspondent.

Americans, rich or poor, now live in a culture entirely perceived through simulacra-media images and illusions. We live inside a self-referential media hologram of a nation that has not existed for quite some time now. Our national reality is held together by images, the originals of which have been lost or never existed. The well-off with their upscale consumer aesthetic, live inside gated Disneyesque communities with gleaming uninhabited front porches representing some bucolic notion of the Great American home and family. The working class, true to its sports culture aesthetic, is a spectator to politics … politics which are so entirely imagistic as to be holograms of a process that has not existed for decades in America, if ever. Social realism is a television commercial for America, a simulacrum republic of eagles, church spires… and ‘freedom of choice’ between holograms. America’s citizens have been reduced to balkanized consumer units by the corporate state’s culture producing machinery. We are all transfixed on and within the hologram and cannot see one another in the living breathing flesh.

— Joe Bageant, from a 2005 interview with my late friend, Richard Oxman

We need to understand that technology is not simply a relation between humans and their natural environment, but more fundamentally a way of organizing global human society.

— Alf Hornborg, “Technology as Fetish: Marx, Latour, and the Cultural Foundations of Capitalism”, Theory, Culture & Society, vol. 31, no. 4

Note to readers: This is an impromptu, long overdue, unsolicited, and frankly incomplete second attempt at describing aspects of digital media and “extremely online” culture and ideology. You can read my first essay “Questioning the Extremely Online” by clicking the link. There are conservative, liberal, and leftist variants of the extremely online crowd; what unites them are social media as well as internet and screen addictions, a lack of class analysis, and technological fetishism.

The Psychology of the Terminally Online

It is not enough to change the world. That is all we have ever done. That happens even without us. We also have to interpret this change. And precisely in order to change it. So that the world will not go on changing without us. And so that it is not changed in the end into a world without us.

– Günther Anders, The Obsolescence of Man, Volume II

There are a few very inconvenient truths about the internet, digital media, and technological “progress” that Western societies have largely failed to account for. They are as follows: the technology and mediums are addictive, alienating, manipulative, exploitative, and violate privacy. Also, the glut of information that the internet and online media stores no longer seems to be able to advance any coherent cultural education or socio-economic framework for change that corresponds to what is necessary to avoid the devastating effects of climate change and various forms of collapse that are on the horizon.

One of the obvious and pernicious aspects of social media is its addictive and manipulative nature. As we have known for awhile now, social media amplifies negatives news and posts that anger and/or irritate us through algorithms designed to capture and hold our attention. As Silicon Valley guru Jaron Lanier explains in a British TV interview, our social media feeds are designed using behavioral modification techniques to serve an attention economy; where data is sold off to third parties to hook the user on products and/or digital services. This represents a new era for humankind, based on full-scale data accumulation and manipulation of our digital selves, one that Shoshana Zuboff details in her work The Age of Surveillance Capitalism. As Lanier and Zuboff aptly point out, the addictive and manipulative elements inherent to social media leads to degradation of the self and society.

The nature of time spent on computers and smartphones necessarily involves the lack of use of one’s material body. By atrophying our senses, we no longer question what it “feels like” to be online, allowing the alienating “manipulation engine”, as Lanier puts it, that is social media and web advertising to distort one’s neurobiology: the corporeal biochemical and physiological makeup of each person, and part of what makes an individual unique. Then comes addiction: as Lanier points out in the same interview, the addict is hooked to both the positive and negative aspects of the addiction: in this case the social media addict experiences positive emotions from validation, exposure and pseudo-solidarity and in the best cases deep connections, but also a perverse enjoyment from diving into the swamp of “rancor and abuse” that posting inevitably stirs up. Furthermore, fighting (in this case posting) for a cause becomes an end-in-itself and rationalized as worthy of the time spent: one cannot just give up, as the “sunk costs” of obtaining an outlet, platforms and followers self-justifies the “need” to always be broadcasting one’s unique or even brilliant ideas as well as inane and banal trivia and gossip.

One main and obvious critique regarding digitally-based sociopolitical manipulation is that people increasingly confuse, if only on subconscious levels, digitally-based “virtual” and “cyber” interaction, friendship, and activism with in-person connections and organizing. Certainly, a great many people fall into this category, as the substitution of virtual life for face-to-face offers a palliative to the endemic depression, anxiety, and host of psychosocial issues caused by the reactionary nature of capitalism and the hollowing out of communal life and civil society. Social media has become the new center of spectacle for post-modern society. As Guy Debord wrote in 1967, “the spectacle is not a collection of images, but a social relation among people, mediated by images.”

Capitalism has managed to thrive in our screen-driven world, even with the forces of production being shifted to the developing world, by profiteering off humanities’ sharing/cooperative communal ties: through harvesting personal data, then using targeted advertising to get users to buy and thus hook them on the platform and its products, and also selling one’s digital profile to third parties. Not only that, but mainstream capitalist ideology has managed to insinuate itself into every corner of the internet, and drive public narratives of events, through a process of regimenting the public on every issue, instantaneously, all the time.

Still, not many are going to readily admit that they believe most mainstream news sources verbatim, or even that advertising is particularly useful or accurate online. In terms of activism, most people still understand that signing online petitions has very little impact compared to in the street protest movements. Many people can see through the “bad faith” inherent to social media. Even taking into account the addictive nature of the medium and the resulting physiological manipulation that social media use causes, on both the conscious and subconscious levels, this still does not explain the immense forces behind internet and social media addiction and its hegemonic position within the cultural landscape.

What is taking place is quite broader in scope than a “substitution” of communal face-to-face activism and social connection with virtual, internet-based networks. While quite a lot of people fall into the first category above, as somehow ignorant and oblivious to the alienating and exclusionary nature of social media, there is another large group that needs analysis: the ruling class “winners” of social media, those with large platforms and significant followings, as well as those among the “extremely online” who engage in non-stop socio-economic and political commentary.

The Disintegration of the Digital Commons

On the floors of Tokyo
down in London town’s a go go,
with the record selection,
And the mirror’s reflection,
I’m dancin’ with myself

— Billy Idol, “Dancing with Myself”

This second group — one that explicitly acknowledges the inequalities and injustices baked into digital media — may indeed have more education and wealth, and some of whom even readily understand what has been lost; yet still view the new world of social media and digital engagement as the only game in town, and therefore the only way to gain new adherents/followers, or in the case of the extremely online left and right, political power.

Sadly, many on the left appear to be resigned to LARPing: playing an online game where they do not make the rules, do not have any leverage, power, or any money for that matter, and cannot possibly win. There is not any significant need for liberal/left journalists providing day-to-day “hot take” commentary, using platforms and influencer methods to gain followers and viewership, if the goal in mind is revolutionary change and/or attaining political power. If the goal in mind is likes, shares, streams of revenue, and even new forms of social capital, then the actions of these users makes more sense. What is needed is organizing skills and the ability to bridge gaps between classes and cultures in order to activate a working class base, and that is sorely lacking.

The terminally online in this second category can perceive that notions like the community, a social contract, and democratic consensus based on a shared culture of trust and reciprocity have been demolished in the Western world. They mostly fall into liberal-left/progressive camps but there are certainly conservative and even isolationist/anti-war libertarian variants. The common thread is that even with the implicit acknowledgment that “local community” and even face-to-face interaction is waning (especially in light of the technocratic and authoritarian reaction to the pandemic) the urge remains to put internet technology to work for the good of their own brands and content promotion.

So a new digital hierarchy of opinion and commentary is becoming entrenched, and has been for over a decade now, controlled by the ruling class and its mainstream media mouthpieces with the ability to censor and shadow-ban dissenting voices. The significant followings of online political commentators have created its own monopoly on user engagement and viewership — whether through a Google search, Youtube stream, or social media account, the masses are herded to the opinions of the same tiny group of influencers by the invisible algorithm. It was always easy to discredit a cable news commentator as biased and untrustworthy, but now the personalized feeds of social media give a new sheen of legitimacy and respectability — even if digital commentators with large viewerships are simply parroting mainstream lies and distortions (which they mostly do).

A related issue that has come to the fore is that the virtual nature of online “work” and digital influencing models simply mimic the wider mainstream capitalist model of capturing attention; through clicks, “likes”, advertising, and hawking merchandise. This certainly doesn’t take away from the valuable educational and activist networks that are coerced into adopting these models, but simply to point out that the most facile, vapid, compromised, lowest-common-denominator political analysis and trends will float to the surface, and become the most popular, in this environment. It’s no surprise, then, that the serious alternative media on the left has been taking a beating from Google’s adjustment of search algorithms, social media censorship, “shadow-banning” and “throttling” on platforms, as well as being ignored as usual by the mainstream.

Of course, just taking a wider lens of how most of the non plugged-in world and the poor (in the West and worldwide) views the often bitter, internecine factionalism and sometimes irrelevant controversies within social media would be helpful. When the usual posturing, identity politic culture wars, and cos-playing in online turf squabbles are put ahead of the material needs of the people, open-minded individuals who could be potential allies and comrades check out of the milieu and view socialism as an arcane subculture. Within the maelstrom of fighting for more reach, subscribers, and content promotion, nothing becomes more relatable in a narcissistic culture than endlessly talking about oneself.

This debased charade of public discourse has been allowed to fester, with basically no resistance, precisely because it suits late-stage capitalism — not only is the profit motive of targeted advertisement too lucrative, but the mechanisms of social control and surveillance too tantalizing, as it enters an era of semi-controlled collapse and corporate consolidation of the entire planet. There are alternate “post-truth” realities (Q-Anon, Russiagate), bubbles of echo-chamber subcultures preaching to the choir, the labeling of any ideas contrary to mainstream media as conspiracy theory (a term invented by the CIA to discredit anyone questioning the official story of the JFK assassination), ego-trippers taking pot-shots and “dunking” on those less knowledgeable, and sections of an overzealous cancel culture which all contribute to dividing, disempowering, and disincentivizing a populace from understanding how the dominant mode of production on the planet, capitalism, is holding the world hostage for the sake of short-term monetary profit.

The privileges of the extremely online (coming from mainly middle class backgrounds) create insular echo-chambers which keeps them sheltered from the realities of daily labor; it also alienates working class people who might otherwise be attracted to anti-capitalist thinking. The lack of blue-collar life experience and organizing skills from the self-proclaimed “leaders” in online discourse face problems relating to the cultural and aesthetic styles of the working classes, in terms of social capital, personal affect, to how theories and obscure references are flaunted, as well as artistic taste.

Connected with this notion are a perceived lack of authenticity and dedication; in this context, it is understandable how it is hard to take successful bloggers, podcasters, journalists, and even academics seriously because many do come from more privileged backgrounds, with all of the blind spots of class that this usually entails. This would not be as much of problem if the nexus of the extremely online was not nearly always targeting content towards their own white-collar milieu and focusing on fringe aesthetic pretensions and/or nice forms of cultural capital: instead, if the animus was focused against the ruling classes consistently, the snarky and cringe-worthy cultural signaling, non-stop commentary careerism, and thin gruel of cosmopolitan affects could be dropped.

Since much of the terminally/extremely online is middle class, they invariably come off as out-of-touch at best; dilettante, effete, or “soft” to put it politely: some re-create bubbles of professional class affluence and gate-keeping hierarchy online; others mimic the non-profit bureaucracy and the pseudo-organizing principles of white-collar NGOs; and more ape serious civic groups, community organizations, subversive ideology, serious strategies of resistance and protest, all the while staying within the confines of their self-imposed defanged and declawed liberal “progressivism”.

The Memeification of Society

The spectacle is the moment when the commodity has attained the total occupation of social life. Not only is the relation to the commodity visible but it is all one sees: the world one sees is its world.

— Guy Debord, Society of the Spectacle

It would be remiss if we did not mention one of the dominant forms of expression on social media: the meme. The function of the meme: a pictogram, is telling insofar as it reminds us that people not only do not want to read anymore, but also often don’t have time to invest in watching a short video, essay or novel, or even examine worthy works of art, either. Memes have become a form of postmodern hieroglyphs for screen-addicted Westerners. The meme acts as a floating signifier par excellence; when there is very little common ground or shared reality inherent in the online world, users (netizens is one cute name scholars like to use) pass along memes and interpret them to fit into prefabricated narratives and beliefs.

Not only that, certain extremely online media “poison the well” of nuanced online discourse by using the same generic tropes and stereotypical styles borrowed from memes and mass culture, and endlessly regurgitating one-dimensional thinking. Posters then inevitably adopt the same styles of humor from memes, and appear in the form of pre-packaged personalities: there’s the preening virtue signaler; the petit bourgeois influencers hawking a channel, brand, or merchandise; the bipartisan shrieking about the perils of socialism; the self-deprecating very earnest posters with endless commentary; the low-key spiritualist humble-bragger; the perpetual oversharer; the haranguing trolls and snarky “edgelords” who get off on other’s misery; the cantankerous self-appointed ideology police who admonish everyone who deviates from their purity politics; and many other prefabricated templates of virtual personality types to follow and waste one’s time “engaging” with.

“Posting wars” have taken the mantle from the culture wars that began heating up in the early 2000s: everyone can engage in their own lame version of liberal, conservative, or radical punditry; everyone can be their own asinine Jon Stewart, Rush Limbaugh, Alex Jones, Bob Avakian — whatever skin one wants to try on for the day; parroting the same tired tropes, shuffling through the never-ending news cycle, applying embarrassingly childish levels of critique, and usually stoking nationalistic fervor on all sides. Through algorithms that amplify the most simplistic, most milquetoast, most authoritarian, and frankly the most enraging and ignorant voices, social media performs a key element of social engineering and low-level psychological warfare: it keeps the population in perpetual angst, disorientation, and even fear; just off-kilter enough to be swayed by authoritarian demagogues, and just desperate and delusional enough to be assuaged by the liberal “resistance” that “democracy” will be restored soon.

This is just more Hollywood: we can find the same types of styles of media personalities, the same shows and movies promoting US foreign policy, the same jokes and narratives online as in mass consumer culture. Even if the “content” is likeable, or wholesome, or whatever, we often find the same tedious set-ups, the same formulaic variations to get to the punchline, the exact same references online that one might see in a lame superhero movie.

Again, there certainly is worthwhile work and even political education being done within online culture, but some of the problems with posting are the inexorable rise of the hyperreal blurring of truth and illusion, the layers of shellacking with ironic distance to make things “funny” or acceptable to an audience. Much like the sadistic overseer at one’s job who confuses “being the boss” with having a personality, the new cadres of the extremely online misunderstand that simply having an online presence, significant following in terms of numbers, or a media platform does not confer experience, brilliance, uniqueness, the ability to lead or be a role model about, well, anything. Much like politicians and modern celebrities (who are increasingly becoming the same thing), the extremely online are simply popular for being popular.

Through the Cyborg Looking Glass

It’s not an experience if they can’t bring someone along
They hang on emotions they bottle inside
They peck at the ground
And strut out of stride

— Phish, “Birds of a Feather”

Another issue that establishment commentators cannot seem to wrap their heads around is the liberal-dominated kitsch and camp social media behavior, attitudes, and posts that appeal to specific subcultures and make things go “viral” within small communities, but face the same echo-chamber issue when confronted with going beyond the “target audience”. By pandering towards in-groups, many internet-savvy influencers (even socialist and radical-minded ones) unconsciously adopt the same tactics as PR and marketing firms relying on focus groups to target audiences. Developing a following now consists of who can shout the loudest, report the fastest, and spurt out the most ridiculous and sensationalist click-bait. In other words, socio-economic control no longer simply functions with capitalist monopolization of the means of production — as many astute observers have pointed out, non-waged labor, leisure time, biopower, and cultural reproduction now are absorbed into the nascent “new world order” of global capitalism; which is in turn reshaping human consciousness in totally unforeseen ways.

Apparently variations of the above happens among leftists quite often on social media: the retweet/sharing of another’s post followed/captioned by a snappy or poignant comment to provide context, an added emphasis,  an angry denunciation and disavowal of the concept, or a gentle nudge to offer clarity. Certainly this is necessary in some cases, but the idea of becoming each other’s constant 24/7 news aggregators, soundboards, and amplifiers…in order to accomplish what exactly? Is there an unconscious desire to carry on with this quasi-forced show, which is obviously coercive due to social pressures, in order to meet the perceived need to regularly signal one’s beliefs and develop monetization models?

Another way of framing the question is to what extent are the flurry of posts about daily “news” and critiques of current events required, and to what extent do individuals yearn for and crave the never-ending spectacle of discourse to feed egos, get a dopamine rush, and/or gain popularity? To what extent is the drive to secure social capital an excuse to develop a liberal-left version of having “credentials”, and to what extent are those involved softening the edges of critiques, compromising values, and slowly becoming assimilated into a virtual world where technological power is worshipped and fetishized? Is there an engaged and dedicated minority of revolutionaries ready, willing, and able to storm the barricades physically, or do our online connections consist of a simulacra of ally-ship, and represent the dying embers of a burnt-out husk of a public sphere masquerading as serious discourse?

Putting aside the ignorance and vitriol all over the web for a minute, and there’s plenty of that, what comes to the fore is the quite boring and tedious background to online discourse. Not only is it incredibly lonely, nearly everyone is in some important sense going through the motions, performing in service of whatever fad or niche subculture, instantly sucked into commentary on any media narrative and scratching the itch; in this environment, political commentary in the West resembles sports news, or movie reviews, or fashion advertising; a running conversation on trendy, stupefying, salacious current events where no serious response to the power structure or the money system is offered. Not only are we faced with online/digital ennui, but internet commentary has become downright predictable- running the gamut from “influencers” who are demagogic authoritarians, to establishment types pandering to centrist neoliberal notions of “bipartisanship”, to libertarian pseudo-spiritual grifters, to tech moguls and celebrities incessantly reminding us “we’re all in this together”.  Pretty soon we will have algorithms and AI writing TV and movie dialogue as well as political news, if it’s not already happening, in order to gauge and profiteer off of what machine learning tells us is “fun” and “likeable” to the public.

The common thread is that high technology will somehow save us and make the world a more interesting and enjoyable place, which is a technophilic worldview: only the vast arrays of screens, robots, AI, internet of things, smart-grids, ever-watching and listening surveillance, and multinational corporations can solve the problems they themselves have created. No one stops to think — and this is another part of the equation, the lack of free time in the always-online world — maybe, just maybe, modern technology is diverting us from coming together, forming community-level mutual aid groups, organizing the working class, protecting the environment, and many other deadly serious issues.

As for the reasons why we keep diving head-first into the toxic stew of social media, here’s a quote from one Jay Hathaway at the Daily Dot to ponder over:

Why do we continue to lap at this useless, mean trickle of garbage juice? Even worse, why do we seek out more of it? Is it because we hate ourselves? Quite possibly, yes. Is it because we’re lonely, and we’re hooked on this simulacrum of human connection even as it makes us less relatable to the real people around us? There’s definitely some of that… At some point, you have to admit that you’re Extremely Online because you want to be. Or because you once wanted to be, and now it’s part of your identity. Who would you be if you weren’t Extremely Online?

We’re all liable to badger on about whatever pet issue we stand up for, and sometimes rightfully so; but the majority don’t really want to take action or even think through the implications of what would be needed to change our cultural momentum or our personal inertias. This is because, through the money system and the vagaries of an extreme social hierarchy, mainstream liberals and conservatives have become so beaten down that they adopt fatalistic and nihilistic mentality. Part of the reason they despise each other so much is that they recognize so much of themselves in each other. On varying levels of cognition they despise themselves. Being told their entire lives that more money and technology will bring more happiness and progress, and yet not being able to partake in any tangible culturally enriching activities or soul-expanding journeys, many become schizoid.

Social media and the denizens of the extremely online compound this problem. The loudest, meanest, crudest of the bunch are amplified in our social media feeds by algorithms designed to capture our attention, most obviously for ad revenue. Of course this is how the game got started in Silicon Valley, so we are ostensibly told that this whole racket is all about the money, no other nefarious “agendas”. Unfortunately the extremely online liberal and soft-left has swallowed this hook, line, and sinker that the only motive driving these companies is profit.

Yet, Facebook and Google are known to have taken start-up money from In-Q-Tel, a CIA created venture capital firm, and intelligence agencies are known to use backdoors through every browser, operating system, social media app, etc. Further, just thinking through what an “attention economy” and Shoshana Zuboff’s notion of “surveillance capitalism” really entails brings up rather unpleasant truths. One of which is that the national security state is monitoring the web at large not to play “defense” but to actively plant and stir up counterrevolutionary ideology not only in the mainstream but in the furthest recesses of online discourse. In short, there are now intelligence operators whose job is to act as an online COINTELPRO.

Beyond that, the full-scale push for more time spent in online communities as well as the wide availability of broadband internet connected to nascent “digital identity” technologies in the developing world will only allow for the wider use of cyber-based, psychological warfare, propaganda, and counterinsurgency techniques. Even pushing further, establishment narratives and media stories can be amplified through algorithms that favor “trusted sources”. The fact is that the public is not aware of the full capabilities of the national security state, and that social media can operate to create the same sorts of conditions that the CIA program “Operation Mockingbird” used to bribe journalists and editors into printing mainstream-favored news over dissident opinions.

We’ve already seen Facebook manipulate individuals media feeds as a social experiment to see if it would provoke more positive and negative emotions, and it worked as they readily admit. If, in previous generations mass propaganda worked through the model of “manufacturing consent”, today we are faced with perhaps an even more intractable situation: the normalization of consent and the amnestic erasure of the social, erosion of community, and destruction of a slower type of deliberative discourse, and of history. The regiments of mainstream liberalism and co-opted progressives are stirred into action to promote the interests of the status quo. Take two glaring recent examples from the US and the UK: Bernie Sanders’ supposed misogyny and Jeremy Corbyn’s so-called anti-Semitism.

Driven by an absurd, relentless media narrative, both messages were amplified and both candidates tarred and feathered in public because of an inane social media discourse. 2016 may have been the year that Twitter became relevant for national politics because of Trump; four years later, things have gotten even more absurd. To cite just one example in the 2020 election race, Elizabeth Warren became incensed about Bernie Sanders’ supporters being mean to her online- this become somehow debate-worthy and relevant enough to provoke national discussion. So not only has mass media become fixated on reactions to bad jokes or distasteful references on Twitter, but it now parrots the same maudlin sentimentality and priggishness as the denizens of the extremely online world.

Similarly, across the pond Corbyn was smeared over little more than insinuations and hyperbole; again amplified by ridiculous anti-socialist social media influencers, liberal and conservative alike. Then there was the mother of all the liberal delusions and overreactions the past four years: Russiagate. While the mainstream media played the dominant role, social media trolls, bots, and liberal officialdom continued to hammer away at collusion, becoming the mirror image of the nascent conservative post-truth fake news era. Narratives are now almost entirely driven by the profit-motive, money values and celebrity click-bait begin to exclusively dominate discourse, gossip becomes the main focus in a doomed capitalist economy where its leaders can no longer alter its course.

The fact is that this intentional manipulation of human nature serves the ultra-rich classes through more than their bank accounts. It’s not just about advertising money and profit, and not just about surveillance, or a new form of attention economy. It’s all of that and much more, much darker and dystopian. Social media, the web, and streaming services are the new fuels that run the alienation and atomization engine of our culture. They have become the dominant form of online expression, and through ads, codes, and algorithms have found their way into our collective unconscious. Not only do these pervasive media elements divide those with obvious ideological differences; the intricacies of the algorithms stir up unconscious impulses and polarize those with largely overlapping interests.

Of course we all know this phenomenon well (the narcissism of small differences) and it predates the internet age, but what is novel here is not its reappearance on a bigger “stage” but its targeted, precise, insidious deployment into our social newsfeeds. Individuals are made to feel the need to keep up with internet flame wars, memes, and obscure references or else the feeling of being “left out” and/or uninformed begins to creep up out the recesses of one’s consciousness. Social isolation and stigmatization for not being able to “keep up with the facts” (Fear of Missing Out-FOMO) and events in our modern world is a very real thing, just as ruthless on social media as the various hierarchies in the corporate world, civic life, and academia, just to name a few instances.

Further, the lack of being able to have one’s opinion heard or validated online in the maelstrom of discontent it has sown often gives young people, especially those with low self-esteem, the idea that their thoughts and opinions don’t matter and are somehow unworthy of attention. This is compounded for those that, due to propaganda uncritically filtered from others or simply naiveté, believe that the best art, theory, and culture rise virtuously to the top in the great “democratic” marketplace of ideas that the internet and social media has come to represent.

Unfortunately the trend of the extremely online is to uphold the hegemony of the insulated, college-educated, the mostly liberal but also conservative petit bourgeoisie. Working class leftists and anti-capitalists, and even the very minor celebrities in the international left, will continue to be marginalized, censored, and their work ignored because they do not bear the stamps of officialdom: the Twitter blue check-mark or “verified” Google news.

All of these trends and addictive technologies converge into a dystopic framework: one that will attempt to enslave humanity in some form of digital prison; one where real-time sensors, AI driven and smart-grid internet hyperconnectivity will be able to drive human behavior on an unprecedented scale. Our “docile bodies” are being reprogrammed and conditioned to accept this, one ad, TV show, one scroll through the feed, one dopamine hit at a time. In order to accomplish this nightmare, the ruling elites need to “data-fy” us by hooking us up — by merging man and machine. Hence, this is why wearable technologies have been marketed so hard: it is not enough for a smartphone or external biosensors to do the job of extracting surplus value from our bodies. The falling rate of profit will eventually force the “data is the new oil” tech oligarchs to police our thoughts, modulate our pleasures and pains, and keep up the façade of a world of obedient workers, even if it means resorting to dystopian totalitarian tactics such as implants, virtual reality gaming systems, cheap or even free housing for those who live where they work, and a host of unforeseen emerging concepts as global civilization continues down the glide path towards oblivion.

Techno-Feudal Oligarchy

Bill Gates’ and Paul Allen’s BASIC-MS operating system, which they sold to IBM and ended up dominating the global market for many years, was written in BASIC computer language. This language was developed by professors at Dartmouth in 1964 with funding from the National Science Foundation…The PARC research facility, from which Steve Jobs obtained the basics of the graphic user interface that became the Mac and later all computer interfaces, had several former ARPA researchers working on these display concepts…Facebook’s deferential corporate biographer David Kirkpatrick admits, ‘Something like Facebook was envisioned by engineers who laid the groundwork for the internet. In a 1968 essay by J.C.R. Licklider and Robert W. Taylor, ‘The Computer as Communication Device,’ the two essentially envisioned Facebook’s basic social network. They worked for ARPA… Google itself, considered the most academically inspired of the megacaps, was originally google.stanford.edu, where it was developed through the state and federal tax funding of California and the United States…Page’s first research paper included the note, ‘funded by DARPA’.

— Rob Larson, Bit Tyrants

One thing to remember is that Western governments are never going to willingly reign in the monopoly transnational corporations that dominate the internet. The five biggest (Apple, Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon) form an internet oligopoly, as Nikos Smyrnaios explains. Through a process of the convergence of IT, web, media, intellectual property rights domination, deregulation of the digital sector, tax avoidance, and a never-ending slush fund from the biggest banks, as well as the “network effect” that herd consumers to a very few web conglomerates, the big five have managed to create basically a private internet cartel, based on inventions and achievements made with public funding, which have been effectively stolen and privatized using intellectual property and patent laws.

As Rob Larson explains in his book Bit Tyrants, the network effect occurs because the very few big social media networks offer increased connections and usefulness for people as more people flock to the platform. This makes the Big Five and a few other platforms virtual monopolies that can exert leverage; whether through algorithms, censorship, banning, and other opaque measures to destroy competition.

Naomi Klein pointed out in The Intercept in her piece “Screen New Deal” that the tech oligarchs are prepared to use the pandemic as an excuse to push their business model onto the world. As she writes:

It’s a future in which our homes are never again exclusively personal spaces but are also, via high-speed digital connectivity, our schools, our doctor’s offices, our gyms, and, if determined by the state, our jails. Of course, for many of us, those same homes were already turning into our never-off workplaces and our primary entertainment venues before the pandemic, and surveillance incarceration ‘in the community’ was already booming. But in the future under hasty construction, all of these trends are poised for a warp-speed acceleration.

Another glimpse into a high-tech dystopia revealed itself in Toronto, where citizens smartly made an uproar about turning part of the waterfront area known as Quayside into a “smart city” constructed by an innocuous sounding company, Sidewalk Labs. Of course, it turns out that Sidewalk is affiliated with Google, and concerned citizens and privacy advocates shot it down for obvious reasons, such as privacy and surveillance violations which would undoubtedly occur.

A similar idea has been introduced recently in Nevada, which goes by the innocuous name of the “Innovation Zone”. The Governor has been preparing to allow private corporations to buy land, develop cities, and form private governments, courts, police, and essential services to residents, who would live under private law which would have the same weight as county laws in the state. A company called Blockchains LLC, part of a holding company with very little transparency, has bought a ton of land outside of Reno and is all in on forming a new “smart city” there. This sort of techno-libertarian dystopia is ostensibly being introduced to raise tax revenue and boost economic growth. Yet for a governor to hand over sovereignty to an unaccountable corporation, it begs a number of questions, no? Especially since the company has donated to the Nevada governor, one would think the obvious conflict of interest would be enough to kill the project. Something much larger than the petty corruption of a US governor and the greed and opportunism of a technology company are at play here. As we shall see below, these private-public partnerships and deceitful collaborations are signs from a possible future of total social control and surveillance.

Online Labor and Value

If a free market economy plus intellectual property leads to the “underutilization of information”, then an economy based on the full utilization of information cannot tolerate the free market or absolute intellectual property rights. The business models of all our modern digital giants are designed to prevent [access to] the abundance of information.

– Cryppix, “The End of Capitalism Has Begun”, Blog Post from Medium.com, 2019

People understand that essential jobs are the only ones who really matter in our economy: food production, construction and housing, keeping store shelves stocked and life-sustaining services running, nurses and surgeons, those kinds of jobs. The rest of the economy falls into the category of what the late David Graeber rightly called “bullshit jobs”. These are jobs that exist solely for the sake of making corporations more profit, and provide no tangible material benefits in terms of food, housing, clothing, making domestic and communal life easier, and even art and culture for humanity.

White collar jobs (the extremely online included, at least those who benefit considerable or have a career closely related) in the US mainly exist to sell tangential perks and benefits for rich elites and the affluent; whether it’s fancy gadgetry and high technology, or either to reduce their own labor within their households, or to manufacture false consumer needs in the wider populace, or to exploit labor forces domestically and abroad. The modern West increasingly does not physically make or manufacture anything of value. The tech-heavy jobs of the future, as well as the new high technology and extremely online jobs of today, whether it is mainstream jobs in media, journalism, graphic designers, computer coders and software developers, engineering and science in service to the military industrial complex, Ad and PR firms, political consultants, armies of middle managers and think tanks wonks all reinforce and re-circulate narrow-minded and ignorant neoliberal economics and conservative cant about how the US is a shining beacon of freedom and democracy, and not a capitalist-imperialist authoritarian oligarchy bent on world domination and driving the world towards ecological annihilation. This is connected to too much time spent on digital devices. Upper-middle class white collars are “making bank” and have gotten intellectually lazy and morally corrupted by their ill-gotten wealth and they have effectively substituted online life for local community. They decry gentrification and white privilege even as they are the ones pushing minority and working class communities out of desirable inner city areas.

One of the reasons this happens, whether its liberals or libertarian Silicon Valley acolytes on the coasts or conservative tech-savvy suburbanites in the Midwest and breadbasket of the US, is because the upper-middle class thinks of itself as a meritocracy. What they’ve created of course, is a bougie neo-Victorian aristocracy of wealth, social status, and cultural capital, a “New American Aristocracy” as one Matthew Stewart explained in The Atlantic. What is interesting about Stewart’s piece is that he is at least cognizant of his own position in what he calls the “upper 9.9%”, and how the people and families in this class all slavishly service, idolize, strive towards, and navel-gaze at the top 0.1%. Reading his essay one can feel his consternation, as he acknowledges his complicity:

But that is not to let the 9.9 percent off the hook. We may not be the ones funding the race-baiting, but we are the ones hoarding the opportunities of daily life. We are the staff that runs the machine that funnels resources from the 90 percent to the 0.1 percent. We’ve been happy to take our cut of the spoils. We’ve looked on with smug disdain as our labors have brought forth a population prone to resentment and ripe for manipulation. We should be prepared to embrace the consequences.

Of course, as Stewart states, “running the machine” is a euphemism for improving the bottom line, and the only way that’s done today is to make blue-collar people work harder for less money, to deregulate industry, to smash labor rights, and to transfer production offshore to countries using essentially slave labor and indentured servitude. We do not live in a Taylorist-Fordist manufacturing economy anymore and even the ruling elites acknowledge that producing more for the sake of more is insane, as most affluent and upper-middle class people just binge on a steady diet of useless mass-culture goods, cycles through endless perks that the service economy provides, and consumes digitally-based mainstream lowbrow entertainment. Anyone who tells you different is mostly likely either a snake-oil salesperson or a sycophantic brown-noser for the ruling class.

The white collar professional milieu now functions mainly to create make-work jobs to sop up the millions of university educated indoctrinated into the capitalist world order, who otherwise would find  their fields outsourced just as the working class jobs have been for the past forty-odd years. Elite overproduction does present a problem, insofar as late-stage neoliberalism no longer affords the opportunities for obedient, conforming middle-class workers who feel entitled to a slice of the American pie that in the postwar period was more equitable divided — at least towards white, educated citizens. These educated, professional class individuals ostensibly would prefer a modicum of social democracy, but today instead are bribed with aforementioned bullshit jobs in the corporate world, who are eventually psychically broken down and assimilated into “normal” capitalist relations, become inured to human suffering, and begin to accept the self-fulfilling prophecy of capitalist realism.

The Normalization of Technocratic Language

The world is awash in bullshit. Politicians are unconstrained by facts. Science is conducted by press release. Higher education rewards bullshit over analytic thought. Startup culture elevates bullshit to high art. Advertisers wink conspiratorially and invite us to join them in seeing through all the bullshit — and take advantage of our lowered guard to bombard us with bullshit of the second order. The majority of administrative activity, whether in private business or the public sphere, seems to be little more than a sophisticated exercise in the combinatorial reassembly of bullshit.

– Carl Bergstrom and Jevin West, Callingbullshit.org

Paeans to productivity and a smarter, more efficient economy while doing nothing to alleviate poverty, homelessness, environmental problems, etc. also reinforces the striving, overachieving, smarmy, centrist white-collar dweebs in the professional classes and political wonks of the world whose smugness and arrogance only increases as they delude themselves into believing they are the winners in a fair meritocracy.

The milieu of the extremely online crowd are the ones occupying these “bullshit jobs” and whose role it is to filter and mediate who, what, when, where, why, and how issues are framed and discussed in the media. This explains some of the sneering dismissal and resentment from the right about the “coastal liberal elites”: the conservatives understand that media liberals have no real expertise and are not serious thinkers, and they doubly resent them because they see in liberals the same moral relativism and nihilism they see in themselves. This can be made clear when one considers who the modern far-right respects and fears among world leaders more: effete neoliberal elitists who peddle bullshit, such as Obama, Clinton, Macron, and Trudeau; or staunch socialists of the recent past and present like Morales (and now Arce), Lula, Chavez, Castro, etc.

As for what increases in productivity in material terms even means anymore at work for white-collar jobs in 2020, it’s laughable on its face, as our economy has become so divorced from reality. I’m not even referring to small businesses offering tangible, physical products here, but rather professional class jobs which exist solely to make money for giant corporations, aka more bullshit jobs, without any actual corporeal objects to sell.

What we do know is that, besides tech and computer workers, the only people who talk about increasing productivity and GDP in glowing terms are sadist executives and managers in soulless corporate America, delusional mainstream economists, Wall Street sociopaths, real estate speculators displacing the poor and gentrifying inner cities, CEOs who rely on slave labor overseas, people who work for pyramid schemes, tech moguls destroying middle class jobs and transmuting them into a precarious gig economy, hedge fund managers who instigate hostile takeovers of companies and lay off loyal employees, military contractors who build more drones and bombs, etc.

Simply put, only the most craven and bougified people used to talk like this about economic issues, but with the emergence of online culture and the double expansion of the financial and computer-centric sectors of the economy, this sort of Orwellian PR-speak has expanded to the “attention economy” and is becoming normalized, internalized, and disseminated by tech entrepreneurs, the culture industry and Hollywood/web influencers, “lean-in” liberals, and social media-addicted journalists, who then feign responsibility for the type of hyper-fast, work all the time environments and disposable culture and entertainment that they help to cultivate and profit off of.

Essentially, the denizens of the extremely online normalize liberal, bourgeois ideology by couching their ideas in the “woke”, “hip”, rhetoric of identity politics and neoliberal economics, which they interpret as somehow being “progressive”. They normalize an ever-shrinking political discourse which excludes radical thinkers and promotes an updated, social media-savvy version of Orwellian corporate-speak, which Pierre Bourdieu dubbed as “NewLiberalSpeak” in 2001.

Screen-Captured Subjectivity: Digital Interpellation and Algorithmic Control

Hence the exclamation ‘another world is possible’ today seems to be confronted with the riddle, ‘would another digitality be possible?’

– Jan de Vos, “Fake subjectivities: Interpassivity from (neuro)psychologization to digitalization”, Continental Thought and Theory, Vol 2. Issue 1

Regardless of the many brilliant complex analysis of social ills, either on social platforms or digital media more broadly, it appears that the web and social media provides a very strong new avenue for what we might term digital interpellation. Users of the web and social media are constantly hailed, as in Althusser’s famous example, and continually modulated and nudged by algorithms to conform to bourgeois ideology, and endlessly diverted by the mass culture industry. Again, this constant feedback loop of being online only gives the ruling classes more power — simply logging into social media and posting does this. Academics have even attempted to calculate the monetary values of posts, retweets, and photos shared online: we are literally making money for tech corporations when we post on social media. The only real option is to stop feeding the beast and boycott these monopolies altogether; finding ways to bring people off these platforms onto non-monetized, secure, non-surveilled services, or at the very least use them sparingly — to instigate revolutions, for example.

Whereas in Althusser’s example it was the policeman doing the “hailing” in the physical environment, today we have moved to the digital plane: and it’s the thought-police and propagandists peddling mainstream narratives that define the new enemy. Jan de Vos describes this evolution from the Althusserian “discourse of the master”, to the modernist “discourse of the university”, and now we are faced with what I’d call a “discourse of the algorithm.” Power is being displaced onto the micrological level, where absent causes have real life devastating effects. In the internet panopticon, which stretches beyond the confines of spatio-temporal planes into the digital ether, not only do we self-censor what we post and share but also annihilate the processes by which we are able to think critically.

Not only do we take for granted what we know, but how we know what we know ceases to be a domain of contestation: the economic and power relations of how knowledge is constructed and wielded by the ruling class isn’t questioned, and the ways in which invisible actors and algorithms decide what is “popular” and newsworthy are assumed to be neutral and balanced. Whereas Althusser’s concept stemmed from interpellation as the discourse of the master, clearly now this archetypal ruling class figure has dissolved and seeped into the social body with no central character — we now enter the age of the discourse of the serpent, where algorithms and thus viewpoints on subjects as disparate as “science” or “international relations” which guide “professional” mainstream journalism and polite, acceptable thought which conforms with the demands of capitalism.

Why are these new forms of control so important and relevant in today’s times? Simply put, the national security state and corporations care very much about what we think, and how we feel. As late capitalism lurches towards semi-controlled collapse and contraction due to its internal contradictions, the old model of the corporate state’s indifference to the masses, the “f*** your feelings” approach, is no longer realistic for the goals of social control, especially after the mass outcries against the travesties of Vietnam and the second Gulf War in Iraq. Modern institutions care very much about our feelings nowadays, and are heavily invested in our collective emotional reactions; not only for monetary reasons, but to gauge policy decisions, for psychosocial mass monitoring of dissent, for biopolitical control of birth and death rates, and to market the imperial national security state to the public, among just a few examples. For instance, we know the CIA and intelligence community has been seeding itself into Silicon Valley and Hollywood for decades now, with shadowy agents literally rewriting movie scripts and tech executives making regular trips to Langley and DC to discuss integration and public-private partnerships.

The new tools of social control involve not only the hard aspects of indoctrination into nationalism and imperialism, but also the “soft” underbelly of manipulating our emotional states, and programming our tastes to like or at least accept aspects of our society that are crass, barbaric, camp, kitsch, trendy and faddish. The culture industry has evolved over the past fifty years to anticipate and channel public discontent into consumption patterns and “acceptable” resistance. The next stage invariably involves the immaterial realm of molding minds: of pacifying the unrest of the gig economy precariat, service economy workers, and unpaid household domestic laborers; of offering endless streaming services and apps to modulate and condition the populace to accept whatever technological mediated and biosecurity-centered “new normal” is coming, and of substituting “cyberspace” for local, grounded, in-person relations.

“Cruel Optimism” and “Ugly Feelings”: Affect Theory and Interpassivity in Relation to Digital Media

As a judgement, however, the gimmick contains an extra layer of intersubjectivity: it is what we say when we, unlike others implicitly evoked or imagined in the same moment, are not buying into what a capitalist device is promising. Robert Pfaller refers to this structure of displacement as a ‘suspended illusion’: beliefs like the superstitious ritual of the sports fan that ‘always belong to others, that are never anyone’s own [beliefs].’

– Sianne Ngai, Theory of the Gimmick: Aesthetic Judgment and Capitalist Form

It would be a disservice to understanding the extremely/terminally online without applying the lens of two heavyweights of cultural criticism, Lauren Berlant and Sianne Ngai. Berlant became prominent after her book, Cruel Optimism, managed to thread the needle of accessibility and scholarly erudition: her notion of cruel optimism can be succinctly defined as follows: “when something you desire is actually an obstacle to your own flourishing”. There is hardly a better way to explain the effect of social media today on individual psyches and the body politic. As Berlant aptly points out, her idea is connected to the notion of the “American Dream”: a delusional belief system fraught with contradictions; and one increasingly predicated on insecurity and ever-looming economic precarity. In the context of the digital age, social media use is mostly just another escape and addiction for the growing precariat — we know too much web use is bad for us, a way to pass the time with pop-media pablum and ignore the reality that our lives are being wasted on performing pointless rote work — as internet users learn experientially as the addiction takes hold and spirals.

The figure of the internet/computer addict and the ambivalence the subject has towards the object; the computer or social media account- simultaneously attracted and repulsed by it- provides a good segue towards understanding the work of Sianne Ngai. As Ngai and Berlant point out, these contradictory reactions towards commodities and media at large in some sense determine what the late Raymond Williams called the “structure of feeling” in late capitalist society.

Ngai builds on this model through a brilliant examination of cultural affect and “aesthetic categories”. Spanning decades now, her work analyses categories of emotion endemic to late capitalism: the “cute” consumer creature-comforts and the dark side of how cuteness is used to manipulate; the “zany” which can represent, among other things, the precarious hyper-active work environment, emotional labor and super-productive demands of the service economy; and the “interesting”, which can stand in for withholding judgment: here the interesting is an invitation towards a discourse with another; how aesthetic judgment comes from shared understandings and mimesis. Ngai’s varied and textured analysis leaves room to show how political subjects today can enact many categories simultaneously — the “cute” always smiling, ever-happy disposition of the service worker and the emotional labor expended performs alongside the zany ever-increasing demands of a super-fast paced retail store.

There can be no doubt that alongside social media’s hacking of our neurobiology, the systematic playing off on citizen’s mental states and emotionality represents the new “dark arts” in politics. This is why Berlant and Ngai are so prescient, because they foresaw this decades ago, just as, for example, the novelist Octavia Butler was able to foresee the slogan “Make America Great Again” in 1998.

Ngai’s most fascinating concept is her notion of “stuplimity” — a combination of shock and boredom — of the sublime with the stupid. Really, there is hardly a more apt word to describe being online today, or on social media. The incessant chatter and news headlines may at the same time excite, titillate, awe, bore, and depress us- again, the blended attractive and repulsive nature of which, like capitalism itself, is ingrained into the structure of our everyday lives.

In her most recent work, Ngai analyses the nature of the “gimmick”, and strikingly reveals the economic undercurrents of how and why we critique commodities as such. Not only do gimmicks simultaneously entertain and annoy us, they show labor and value are at the core of how we judge and develop tastes for consumer goods as well as art (here is a good interview with Ngai to explain).

To tie back to modern technology — media outlets, social media, and many overproduced devices (computers, cars) as well as superfluous ones (smartphones, tablets, private jets) well, these are all modern gimmicks of an extractivist capitalist economy. They are not capable of being produced sustainably in the long-term. Not only are these objects not built to last, trendy and faddish in a cultural sense, they are built by supply chains and manufacturing techniques which require mass exploitation, coercion, and environmental degradation. The laptop one uses for create surplus value for one’s employer is still just a softer version of accepting a blood diamond — the “cost of doing business”. Laptops with which rare earth elements are mined by child labor and victims of human trafficking in Africa, manufactured into circuit boards under unsafe and extreme conditions in East Asia, and shipped and sold by precarious laborers in transport, big-box stores and online retailers worldwide. If society is in fact unaffected, indifferent, and ignorant of such things, it does in fact reveal that our aesthetic judgments — our interior worlds of emotions as well as discernment of what constitutes truth, beauty, and various affective states has been hijacked by a culture that is hell-bent on advancing technological progress at all costs — even if it means the collapse of our web of life and the enslavement of humankind.

As the epigraph for this section points out, Ngai reminds us that the gimmick has a fungible quality — one person’s gimmick is another’s useful, or even adored good — and vice versa. The gimmick can also slip between pretentious and useless to utilitarian and labor-saving: Ngai likes to point out how the Google Glass morphed from a fad that was (appropriately) derided by consumers into a workplace device for hands-free smart-device used in industrial work.

Ngai’s work on the gimmick can be compared to Robert Pfaller’s (with an assist from the inimitable Slavoj Zizek) notion of interpassivity: the delegation of enjoyment. With social media we delegate positive experiences to the “anonymous other” — when we post, we trick ourselves into believing another is viewing and enjoying our content — even if, in fact, there is no one observing. This faces us with prospects of staging “illusions without a subject”; no one may be watching but we take pleasure in the illusion someone is doing so, in Pfaller’s examples of the TV fanatic who records shows without watching them, or of the academic who photocopies books at a library where no one else is watching. Whereas the gimmick relies on the subject who believes someone is being “duped” into buying a trivial kitsch consumer item with no “value” to most people, while they can see through the gimmick; the interpassive subject may be staging an illusion, but either no one is there to question the motive, or there is a perceived “naïve observer” in the mind of the stager.

Yet with the delegation of enjoyment, and more broadly, life experiences, are transposed in our age from material consumer goods to the immaterial realm of the internet, what passes as a gimmick becomes even trickier to define. Also, just as endless signifying chains can mutate, fold, or implode upon themselves, interpassive subjects can infinitely delegate, one to the other, feeding memes, art (which now has been degraded into “content”), videos, and journalistic forays through endless cycles. Thus the progression of an economy based on production to one based on reproduction and circulation that we find today in the West, solipsistic and self-generating, with varying degrees of simulation and hyperreality.

Technological Salvation: The Religion of the Ruling Class

Left ‘accelerationist’ ideas of a post-work society based on state-supported ‘4th industrial revolution’ development, with a UBI to pacify surplus populations, could well be enabler of, rather than alternative to, large scale capitalist AI development. Ecosocialists might also suggest that the idea that human emancipation is identical with the advance of a high-production, high-technological networked society is precisely what is thrown into question by global heating and other environmental-crises…

– Nick Dyer-Witheford, “Left Populism and Platform Capitalism”, tripleC: Communication, Capitalism & Critique, Vol. 18 No. 1

As we have seen above, the profit motive is not the only thing being served by social media. Driven by individualized “feeds”, web and screen-based news/commentary are being unleashed with additional benefits — one of which being that it is an updated model for social cohesion and mass obedience, based on elements of what Gilles Deleuze described as a “Society of Control.”

As the epigraph to this section suggests, many within progressive and even socialist spaces favor the expansion of modern technology into nearly every aspect of our lives, in order to supposedly make labor easier and alleviate undue suffering. These “left-accelerationist” and “Fully Automated Luxury Communism” (FALC) promoters have a lot of overlap with green capitalist and eco-modernist thought.

To use clumsy and obscure analogy, just as twenty years ago it was written that “Empire can be read as the Lexus and the Olive Tree of the Far Left”, today we can confidently say that FALC and its promotional grifters can be viewed as the Al Gores, Steward Brands or Alvin Tofflers of the far left. Indeed, in a sense the FALCists continue in the starry-eyed idealist vein, in the sense that the technological salvation the former believe in can be juxtaposed with the supposedly inevitable deterritorializing process of “Empire” for the latter: both presuppose and give preeminence to very Western notions of social change and the role of technology.

Why is FALC delusional, exactly? In part because the technology required to create these notions of automated communism (never mind full or luxurious) would have huge carbon and environmental footprints. Also, an AI driven 5G and eventually 6G smart grid would make even today’s omnidirectional surveillance states look like child’s play. Compounding these delusions of grandeur is the uneven development between the advanced industrial economies and the exploited postcolonial states. Where do the Western FALC advocates believe the physical infrastructure and manufacturing power will come from? From poorer developing nations of course, as there is no real desire of organizational understanding of how to revolutionize an international working class among those hoping for technological salvation. This sort of pseudo-leftism desires the comfort and security of an advanced industrial system without taking into full consideration the levels of sacrifice necessary to create an eco-socialist economic model.

These are just a few examples of how semi-radical thought reproduces and reinforces capitalist hegemony, but the wider trend has been visible for decades now. As Baudrillard wrote in Simulacra and Simulation:

It is the justice of the left that reinjects an idea of justice, the necessity of logic and morals into a rotten apparatus that is coming undone…the system puts an end one by one to all its axioms…all the objectives of the historical and revolutionary Left that sees itself constrained to revive the wheels of capital in order to lay siege to them one day…everything that is disappearing, that the system itself, in its atrocity, certainly, but also in its irreversible impulse, has liquidated, must be conserved.

The Ouroboros Economy

All corporations become increasingly organized around the worship and control of information. Control over the value chain through ownership of the information vector extends even into life itself…through monitoring its states, through modifying its functions with drugs that alter chemical signals, through patenting aspects of life as design. What is at stake is neither a bios nor a polis but a regime of property in information extending into the organism. The novel forces of production as they have emerged in our time are also forces of reproduction and forces of circulation.

– Mckenzie Wark, Capital is Dead: Is This Something Worse?

When Debord noted, and rightly so, that the spectacle is a “social relation among people, mediated by images”, it was understood that we all participate in and collectively make up the spectacular worldview. Yet that is not how many people today think, and when it is casually mentioned, spectacle is situated outside the self, not a set of social relations. Unfortunately, being able to detect vacuously transparent and craven corporate advertising as well as political rhetoric mostly is not sufficient for the second-level effects on the unconscious. As “desiring machines” integrated into late stage capitalism, the prison is not longer only physically constructed around us- and not only have we become both inmate and warden, oftentimes we take it on ourselves to perform the labor, both at work and in leisure time, that entrenches the powers of corporations and the national security state.

Here, it helps to have a grasp of a few key basic concepts from thinkers such as Debord, Foucault, Baudrillard, Deleuze and Guattari, and also Bourdieu, and even Latour. As many have noted, the pandemic has conveniently set the stage for capital and computer technology to fully absorb nearly all facets of everyday life, which reinforces the arguments of the terminally online and their worship of technology, and thus, American empire.

For Baudrillard a metaphor of simulation could be visualized as the Mobius strip, and for Deleuze describing the society of control it was the serpent. Today we can conjoin the concepts into the archetype of the ouroboros — a self-contained system of simulation and hyperreality, embedded to an immanent, infinite process of death and rebirth, one that contains within it seeds of destruction and the potential for renewal and societal transformation. The ouroboros encapsulates our era: from cybernetics, to algorithmic feedback loops of code, to cosmology, and even evolutionary anthropology, to the financialization and cannabilization of economies, the circuital globe-spanning nature of capital, the ineffable mimetic nature of cultural transmission and (re)production.

The consolidation of media narratives into social media outlets performs one unique function insofar as it renders the “official” establishment narrative into the only possible reasonable, logical way of seeing the world. Analogically, one can see this as a digital version of what Deleuze and Guattari called “state philosophy”, the incorporation and transmutation of “proper” stories and events into those which uphold state hegemony and corporate control. Of course, there can never be a totalization of these views online, just as there could not before in the age of print, or before in oral traditions. Reality cannot be consolidated into a tweet, just as it could not before in a newspaper editorial. What comes out of the void are “post-truths”, “alternative facts”, and other unruly features foreseen decades ago by Bruno Latour, when he undertook that could be called an anthropological study of modern science. Thus, what used to be called misinformation or half-truths have been reified by mainstream media, as objects with viral properties that must be censored before they can “infect” the populace.

What seems to be happening over and over again on the media satured/technophilic left is the refusal, the blind spot which keeps repeating the mantra that media monopolization and social media misuse by tech elites is somehow only driven by money and profit motives. The elites already have all the money. Certainly, their greed is a huge driving force, but what’s another billion to someone with a net worth of 50 or 100 billion. At a certain point one has to concede that there are deeper, more sinister agendas, which involve shaping reality and perception, and total social control. As one can easily see with a healthy degree of skepticism towards technological progress, lockdowns and restrictions due to Covid-19 are a perfect excuse for the nascent authoritarian biosecurity state, just as the legitimate protests against police brutality will be used by the state to implement more curfews and police state measures.

Social media and digital media are in the midst of a totalizing process in which all dissent will be censored, shadow-banned, or posts that differ from official narratives “throttled” by tech algorithms. The age of book-burning may be over but a new age of technological authoritarianism is emerging. To assuage the worst aspects of this emerging techno-feudal society, where “the economy” has fully replaced society and monetization of content and followings has replaced spontaneous and anarchic/communistic web interaction are the extremely online celebrities, influencers, and the corporate cut-outs and shills who fund them: and they strive towards and imitate tech owners and executives, bankers, lawyers, doctors, and various professional class snake-oil salespeople who offer escapist fantasies, slavish devotion to modern technology and overconsumption.

Since the upper and upper-middle classes are surrounded by corporate and state propaganda like fish in an ocean, which conforms to varying degrees to Bordieu’s notion of habitus; they are the most likely to “buy in” to the new prison system mediated by new repressive technology apparatuses, which is in line with Herman and Chomsky’s findings in Manufacturing Consent.

Like the sirens of Greek mythology, the job of the influencer, backed and financed by the ruling class, is to hypnotize the masses, and lull us back to sleep — “be like us” they intonate, we’re rich, successful, famous, powerful. While the vast majority toil away working for technological advancement and capital, the tech tyrants and web celebrities succeed by making internet technology and monopolized media work for them. Since the ruling class and new media elite earn passive income from conglomerate platforms, algorithms, and computing power, they have no interest in discovering how they have become the new architects of inequality and mass immiseration. It’s up to us to show them.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by William Hawes.

Americans, rich or poor, now live in a culture entirely perceived through simulacra-media images and illusions. We live inside a self-referential media hologram of a nation that has not existed for quite some time now. Our national reality is held together by images, the originals of which have been lost or never existed. The well-off with their upscale consumer aesthetic, live inside gated Disneyesque communities with gleaming uninhabited front porches representing some bucolic notion of the Great American home and family. The working class, true to its sports culture aesthetic, is a spectator to politics … politics which are so entirely imagistic as to be holograms of a process that has not existed for decades in America, if ever. Social realism is a television commercial for America, a simulacrum republic of eagles, church spires… and ‘freedom of choice’ between holograms. America’s citizens have been reduced to balkanized consumer units by the corporate state’s culture producing machinery. We are all transfixed on and within the hologram and cannot see one another in the living breathing flesh.

— Joe Bageant, from a 2005 interview with my late friend, Richard Oxman

We need to understand that technology is not simply a relation between humans and their natural environment, but more fundamentally a way of organizing global human society.

— Alf Hornborg, “Technology as Fetish: Marx, Latour, and the Cultural Foundations of Capitalism”, Theory, Culture & Society, vol. 31, no. 4

Note to readers: This is an impromptu, long overdue, unsolicited, and frankly incomplete second attempt at describing aspects of digital media and “extremely online” culture and ideology. You can read my first essay “Questioning the Extremely Online” by clicking the link. There are conservative, liberal, and leftist variants of the extremely online crowd; what unites them are social media as well as internet and screen addictions, a lack of class analysis, and technological fetishism.

The Psychology of the Terminally Online

It is not enough to change the world. That is all we have ever done. That happens even without us. We also have to interpret this change. And precisely in order to change it. So that the world will not go on changing without us. And so that it is not changed in the end into a world without us.

– Günther Anders, The Obsolescence of Man, Volume II

There are a few very inconvenient truths about the internet, digital media, and technological “progress” that Western societies have largely failed to account for. They are as follows: the technology and mediums are addictive, alienating, manipulative, exploitative, and violate privacy. Also, the glut of information that the internet and online media stores no longer seems to be able to advance any coherent cultural education or socio-economic framework for change that corresponds to what is necessary to avoid the devastating effects of climate change and various forms of collapse that are on the horizon.

One of the obvious and pernicious aspects of social media is its addictive and manipulative nature. As we have known for awhile now, social media amplifies negatives news and posts that anger and/or irritate us through algorithms designed to capture and hold our attention. As Silicon Valley guru Jaron Lanier explains in a British TV interview, our social media feeds are designed using behavioral modification techniques to serve an attention economy; where data is sold off to third parties to hook the user on products and/or digital services. This represents a new era for humankind, based on full-scale data accumulation and manipulation of our digital selves, one that Shoshana Zuboff details in her work The Age of Surveillance Capitalism. As Lanier and Zuboff aptly point out, the addictive and manipulative elements inherent to social media leads to degradation of the self and society.

The nature of time spent on computers and smartphones necessarily involves the lack of use of one’s material body. By atrophying our senses, we no longer question what it “feels like” to be online, allowing the alienating “manipulation engine”, as Lanier puts it, that is social media and web advertising to distort one’s neurobiology: the corporeal biochemical and physiological makeup of each person, and part of what makes an individual unique. Then comes addiction: as Lanier points out in the same interview, the addict is hooked to both the positive and negative aspects of the addiction: in this case the social media addict experiences positive emotions from validation, exposure and pseudo-solidarity and in the best cases deep connections, but also a perverse enjoyment from diving into the swamp of “rancor and abuse” that posting inevitably stirs up. Furthermore, fighting (in this case posting) for a cause becomes an end-in-itself and rationalized as worthy of the time spent: one cannot just give up, as the “sunk costs” of obtaining an outlet, platforms and followers self-justifies the “need” to always be broadcasting one’s unique or even brilliant ideas as well as inane and banal trivia and gossip.

One main and obvious critique regarding digitally-based sociopolitical manipulation is that people increasingly confuse, if only on subconscious levels, digitally-based “virtual” and “cyber” interaction, friendship, and activism with in-person connections and organizing. Certainly, a great many people fall into this category, as the substitution of virtual life for face-to-face offers a palliative to the endemic depression, anxiety, and host of psychosocial issues caused by the reactionary nature of capitalism and the hollowing out of communal life and civil society. Social media has become the new center of spectacle for post-modern society. As Guy Debord wrote in 1967, “the spectacle is not a collection of images, but a social relation among people, mediated by images.”

Capitalism has managed to thrive in our screen-driven world, even with the forces of production being shifted to the developing world, by profiteering off humanities’ sharing/cooperative communal ties: through harvesting personal data, then using targeted advertising to get users to buy and thus hook them on the platform and its products, and also selling one’s digital profile to third parties. Not only that, but mainstream capitalist ideology has managed to insinuate itself into every corner of the internet, and drive public narratives of events, through a process of regimenting the public on every issue, instantaneously, all the time.

Still, not many are going to readily admit that they believe most mainstream news sources verbatim, or even that advertising is particularly useful or accurate online. In terms of activism, most people still understand that signing online petitions has very little impact compared to in the street protest movements. Many people can see through the “bad faith” inherent to social media. Even taking into account the addictive nature of the medium and the resulting physiological manipulation that social media use causes, on both the conscious and subconscious levels, this still does not explain the immense forces behind internet and social media addiction and its hegemonic position within the cultural landscape.

What is taking place is quite broader in scope than a “substitution” of communal face-to-face activism and social connection with virtual, internet-based networks. While quite a lot of people fall into the first category above, as somehow ignorant and oblivious to the alienating and exclusionary nature of social media, there is another large group that needs analysis: the ruling class “winners” of social media, those with large platforms and significant followings, as well as those among the “extremely online” who engage in non-stop socio-economic and political commentary.

The Disintegration of the Digital Commons

On the floors of Tokyo
down in London town’s a go go,
with the record selection,
And the mirror’s reflection,
I’m dancin’ with myself

— Billy Idol, “Dancing with Myself”

This second group — one that explicitly acknowledges the inequalities and injustices baked into digital media — may indeed have more education and wealth, and some of whom even readily understand what has been lost; yet still view the new world of social media and digital engagement as the only game in town, and therefore the only way to gain new adherents/followers, or in the case of the extremely online left and right, political power.

Sadly, many on the left appear to be resigned to LARPing: playing an online game where they do not make the rules, do not have any leverage, power, or any money for that matter, and cannot possibly win. There is not any significant need for liberal/left journalists providing day-to-day “hot take” commentary, using platforms and influencer methods to gain followers and viewership, if the goal in mind is revolutionary change and/or attaining political power. If the goal in mind is likes, shares, streams of revenue, and even new forms of social capital, then the actions of these users makes more sense. What is needed is organizing skills and the ability to bridge gaps between classes and cultures in order to activate a working class base, and that is sorely lacking.

The terminally online in this second category can perceive that notions like the community, a social contract, and democratic consensus based on a shared culture of trust and reciprocity have been demolished in the Western world. They mostly fall into liberal-left/progressive camps but there are certainly conservative and even isolationist/anti-war libertarian variants. The common thread is that even with the implicit acknowledgment that “local community” and even face-to-face interaction is waning (especially in light of the technocratic and authoritarian reaction to the pandemic) the urge remains to put internet technology to work for the good of their own brands and content promotion.

So a new digital hierarchy of opinion and commentary is becoming entrenched, and has been for over a decade now, controlled by the ruling class and its mainstream media mouthpieces with the ability to censor and shadow-ban dissenting voices. The significant followings of online political commentators have created its own monopoly on user engagement and viewership — whether through a Google search, Youtube stream, or social media account, the masses are herded to the opinions of the same tiny group of influencers by the invisible algorithm. It was always easy to discredit a cable news commentator as biased and untrustworthy, but now the personalized feeds of social media give a new sheen of legitimacy and respectability — even if digital commentators with large viewerships are simply parroting mainstream lies and distortions (which they mostly do).

A related issue that has come to the fore is that the virtual nature of online “work” and digital influencing models simply mimic the wider mainstream capitalist model of capturing attention; through clicks, “likes”, advertising, and hawking merchandise. This certainly doesn’t take away from the valuable educational and activist networks that are coerced into adopting these models, but simply to point out that the most facile, vapid, compromised, lowest-common-denominator political analysis and trends will float to the surface, and become the most popular, in this environment. It’s no surprise, then, that the serious alternative media on the left has been taking a beating from Google’s adjustment of search algorithms, social media censorship, “shadow-banning” and “throttling” on platforms, as well as being ignored as usual by the mainstream.

Of course, just taking a wider lens of how most of the non plugged-in world and the poor (in the West and worldwide) views the often bitter, internecine factionalism and sometimes irrelevant controversies within social media would be helpful. When the usual posturing, identity politic culture wars, and cos-playing in online turf squabbles are put ahead of the material needs of the people, open-minded individuals who could be potential allies and comrades check out of the milieu and view socialism as an arcane subculture. Within the maelstrom of fighting for more reach, subscribers, and content promotion, nothing becomes more relatable in a narcissistic culture than endlessly talking about oneself.

This debased charade of public discourse has been allowed to fester, with basically no resistance, precisely because it suits late-stage capitalism — not only is the profit motive of targeted advertisement too lucrative, but the mechanisms of social control and surveillance too tantalizing, as it enters an era of semi-controlled collapse and corporate consolidation of the entire planet. There are alternate “post-truth” realities (Q-Anon, Russiagate), bubbles of echo-chamber subcultures preaching to the choir, the labeling of any ideas contrary to mainstream media as conspiracy theory (a term invented by the CIA to discredit anyone questioning the official story of the JFK assassination), ego-trippers taking pot-shots and “dunking” on those less knowledgeable, and sections of an overzealous cancel culture which all contribute to dividing, disempowering, and disincentivizing a populace from understanding how the dominant mode of production on the planet, capitalism, is holding the world hostage for the sake of short-term monetary profit.

The privileges of the extremely online (coming from mainly middle class backgrounds) create insular echo-chambers which keeps them sheltered from the realities of daily labor; it also alienates working class people who might otherwise be attracted to anti-capitalist thinking. The lack of blue-collar life experience and organizing skills from the self-proclaimed “leaders” in online discourse face problems relating to the cultural and aesthetic styles of the working classes, in terms of social capital, personal affect, to how theories and obscure references are flaunted, as well as artistic taste.

Connected with this notion are a perceived lack of authenticity and dedication; in this context, it is understandable how it is hard to take successful bloggers, podcasters, journalists, and even academics seriously because many do come from more privileged backgrounds, with all of the blind spots of class that this usually entails. This would not be as much of problem if the nexus of the extremely online was not nearly always targeting content towards their own white-collar milieu and focusing on fringe aesthetic pretensions and/or nice forms of cultural capital: instead, if the animus was focused against the ruling classes consistently, the snarky and cringe-worthy cultural signaling, non-stop commentary careerism, and thin gruel of cosmopolitan affects could be dropped.

Since much of the terminally/extremely online is middle class, they invariably come off as out-of-touch at best; dilettante, effete, or “soft” to put it politely: some re-create bubbles of professional class affluence and gate-keeping hierarchy online; others mimic the non-profit bureaucracy and the pseudo-organizing principles of white-collar NGOs; and more ape serious civic groups, community organizations, subversive ideology, serious strategies of resistance and protest, all the while staying within the confines of their self-imposed defanged and declawed liberal “progressivism”.

The Memeification of Society

The spectacle is the moment when the commodity has attained the total occupation of social life. Not only is the relation to the commodity visible but it is all one sees: the world one sees is its world.

— Guy Debord, Society of the Spectacle

It would be remiss if we did not mention one of the dominant forms of expression on social media: the meme. The function of the meme: a pictogram, is telling insofar as it reminds us that people not only do not want to read anymore, but also often don’t have time to invest in watching a short video, essay or novel, or even examine worthy works of art, either. Memes have become a form of postmodern hieroglyphs for screen-addicted Westerners. The meme acts as a floating signifier par excellence; when there is very little common ground or shared reality inherent in the online world, users (netizens is one cute name scholars like to use) pass along memes and interpret them to fit into prefabricated narratives and beliefs.

Not only that, certain extremely online media “poison the well” of nuanced online discourse by using the same generic tropes and stereotypical styles borrowed from memes and mass culture, and endlessly regurgitating one-dimensional thinking. Posters then inevitably adopt the same styles of humor from memes, and appear in the form of pre-packaged personalities: there’s the preening virtue signaler; the petit bourgeois influencers hawking a channel, brand, or merchandise; the bipartisan shrieking about the perils of socialism; the self-deprecating very earnest posters with endless commentary; the low-key spiritualist humble-bragger; the perpetual oversharer; the haranguing trolls and snarky “edgelords” who get off on other’s misery; the cantankerous self-appointed ideology police who admonish everyone who deviates from their purity politics; and many other prefabricated templates of virtual personality types to follow and waste one’s time “engaging” with.

“Posting wars” have taken the mantle from the culture wars that began heating up in the early 2000s: everyone can engage in their own lame version of liberal, conservative, or radical punditry; everyone can be their own asinine Jon Stewart, Rush Limbaugh, Alex Jones, Bob Avakian — whatever skin one wants to try on for the day; parroting the same tired tropes, shuffling through the never-ending news cycle, applying embarrassingly childish levels of critique, and usually stoking nationalistic fervor on all sides. Through algorithms that amplify the most simplistic, most milquetoast, most authoritarian, and frankly the most enraging and ignorant voices, social media performs a key element of social engineering and low-level psychological warfare: it keeps the population in perpetual angst, disorientation, and even fear; just off-kilter enough to be swayed by authoritarian demagogues, and just desperate and delusional enough to be assuaged by the liberal “resistance” that “democracy” will be restored soon.

This is just more Hollywood: we can find the same types of styles of media personalities, the same shows and movies promoting US foreign policy, the same jokes and narratives online as in mass consumer culture. Even if the “content” is likeable, or wholesome, or whatever, we often find the same tedious set-ups, the same formulaic variations to get to the punchline, the exact same references online that one might see in a lame superhero movie.

Again, there certainly is worthwhile work and even political education being done within online culture, but some of the problems with posting are the inexorable rise of the hyperreal blurring of truth and illusion, the layers of shellacking with ironic distance to make things “funny” or acceptable to an audience. Much like the sadistic overseer at one’s job who confuses “being the boss” with having a personality, the new cadres of the extremely online misunderstand that simply having an online presence, significant following in terms of numbers, or a media platform does not confer experience, brilliance, uniqueness, the ability to lead or be a role model about, well, anything. Much like politicians and modern celebrities (who are increasingly becoming the same thing), the extremely online are simply popular for being popular.

Through the Cyborg Looking Glass

It’s not an experience if they can’t bring someone along
They hang on emotions they bottle inside
They peck at the ground
And strut out of stride

— Phish, “Birds of a Feather”

Another issue that establishment commentators cannot seem to wrap their heads around is the liberal-dominated kitsch and camp social media behavior, attitudes, and posts that appeal to specific subcultures and make things go “viral” within small communities, but face the same echo-chamber issue when confronted with going beyond the “target audience”. By pandering towards in-groups, many internet-savvy influencers (even socialist and radical-minded ones) unconsciously adopt the same tactics as PR and marketing firms relying on focus groups to target audiences. Developing a following now consists of who can shout the loudest, report the fastest, and spurt out the most ridiculous and sensationalist click-bait. In other words, socio-economic control no longer simply functions with capitalist monopolization of the means of production — as many astute observers have pointed out, non-waged labor, leisure time, biopower, and cultural reproduction now are absorbed into the nascent “new world order” of global capitalism; which is in turn reshaping human consciousness in totally unforeseen ways.

Apparently variations of the above happens among leftists quite often on social media: the retweet/sharing of another’s post followed/captioned by a snappy or poignant comment to provide context, an added emphasis,  an angry denunciation and disavowal of the concept, or a gentle nudge to offer clarity. Certainly this is necessary in some cases, but the idea of becoming each other’s constant 24/7 news aggregators, soundboards, and amplifiers…in order to accomplish what exactly? Is there an unconscious desire to carry on with this quasi-forced show, which is obviously coercive due to social pressures, in order to meet the perceived need to regularly signal one’s beliefs and develop monetization models?

Another way of framing the question is to what extent are the flurry of posts about daily “news” and critiques of current events required, and to what extent do individuals yearn for and crave the never-ending spectacle of discourse to feed egos, get a dopamine rush, and/or gain popularity? To what extent is the drive to secure social capital an excuse to develop a liberal-left version of having “credentials”, and to what extent are those involved softening the edges of critiques, compromising values, and slowly becoming assimilated into a virtual world where technological power is worshipped and fetishized? Is there an engaged and dedicated minority of revolutionaries ready, willing, and able to storm the barricades physically, or do our online connections consist of a simulacra of ally-ship, and represent the dying embers of a burnt-out husk of a public sphere masquerading as serious discourse?

Putting aside the ignorance and vitriol all over the web for a minute, and there’s plenty of that, what comes to the fore is the quite boring and tedious background to online discourse. Not only is it incredibly lonely, nearly everyone is in some important sense going through the motions, performing in service of whatever fad or niche subculture, instantly sucked into commentary on any media narrative and scratching the itch; in this environment, political commentary in the West resembles sports news, or movie reviews, or fashion advertising; a running conversation on trendy, stupefying, salacious current events where no serious response to the power structure or the money system is offered. Not only are we faced with online/digital ennui, but internet commentary has become downright predictable- running the gamut from “influencers” who are demagogic authoritarians, to establishment types pandering to centrist neoliberal notions of “bipartisanship”, to libertarian pseudo-spiritual grifters, to tech moguls and celebrities incessantly reminding us “we’re all in this together”.  Pretty soon we will have algorithms and AI writing TV and movie dialogue as well as political news, if it’s not already happening, in order to gauge and profiteer off of what machine learning tells us is “fun” and “likeable” to the public.

The common thread is that high technology will somehow save us and make the world a more interesting and enjoyable place, which is a technophilic worldview: only the vast arrays of screens, robots, AI, internet of things, smart-grids, ever-watching and listening surveillance, and multinational corporations can solve the problems they themselves have created. No one stops to think — and this is another part of the equation, the lack of free time in the always-online world — maybe, just maybe, modern technology is diverting us from coming together, forming community-level mutual aid groups, organizing the working class, protecting the environment, and many other deadly serious issues.

As for the reasons why we keep diving head-first into the toxic stew of social media, here’s a quote from one Jay Hathaway at the Daily Dot to ponder over:

Why do we continue to lap at this useless, mean trickle of garbage juice? Even worse, why do we seek out more of it? Is it because we hate ourselves? Quite possibly, yes. Is it because we’re lonely, and we’re hooked on this simulacrum of human connection even as it makes us less relatable to the real people around us? There’s definitely some of that… At some point, you have to admit that you’re Extremely Online because you want to be. Or because you once wanted to be, and now it’s part of your identity. Who would you be if you weren’t Extremely Online?

We’re all liable to badger on about whatever pet issue we stand up for, and sometimes rightfully so; but the majority don’t really want to take action or even think through the implications of what would be needed to change our cultural momentum or our personal inertias. This is because, through the money system and the vagaries of an extreme social hierarchy, mainstream liberals and conservatives have become so beaten down that they adopt fatalistic and nihilistic mentality. Part of the reason they despise each other so much is that they recognize so much of themselves in each other. On varying levels of cognition they despise themselves. Being told their entire lives that more money and technology will bring more happiness and progress, and yet not being able to partake in any tangible culturally enriching activities or soul-expanding journeys, many become schizoid.

Social media and the denizens of the extremely online compound this problem. The loudest, meanest, crudest of the bunch are amplified in our social media feeds by algorithms designed to capture our attention, most obviously for ad revenue. Of course this is how the game got started in Silicon Valley, so we are ostensibly told that this whole racket is all about the money, no other nefarious “agendas”. Unfortunately the extremely online liberal and soft-left has swallowed this hook, line, and sinker that the only motive driving these companies is profit.

Yet, Facebook and Google are known to have taken start-up money from In-Q-Tel, a CIA created venture capital firm, and intelligence agencies are known to use backdoors through every browser, operating system, social media app, etc. Further, just thinking through what an “attention economy” and Shoshana Zuboff’s notion of “surveillance capitalism” really entails brings up rather unpleasant truths. One of which is that the national security state is monitoring the web at large not to play “defense” but to actively plant and stir up counterrevolutionary ideology not only in the mainstream but in the furthest recesses of online discourse. In short, there are now intelligence operators whose job is to act as an online COINTELPRO.

Beyond that, the full-scale push for more time spent in online communities as well as the wide availability of broadband internet connected to nascent “digital identity” technologies in the developing world will only allow for the wider use of cyber-based, psychological warfare, propaganda, and counterinsurgency techniques. Even pushing further, establishment narratives and media stories can be amplified through algorithms that favor “trusted sources”. The fact is that the public is not aware of the full capabilities of the national security state, and that social media can operate to create the same sorts of conditions that the CIA program “Operation Mockingbird” used to bribe journalists and editors into printing mainstream-favored news over dissident opinions.

We’ve already seen Facebook manipulate individuals media feeds as a social experiment to see if it would provoke more positive and negative emotions, and it worked as they readily admit. If, in previous generations mass propaganda worked through the model of “manufacturing consent”, today we are faced with perhaps an even more intractable situation: the normalization of consent and the amnestic erasure of the social, erosion of community, and destruction of a slower type of deliberative discourse, and of history. The regiments of mainstream liberalism and co-opted progressives are stirred into action to promote the interests of the status quo. Take two glaring recent examples from the US and the UK: Bernie Sanders’ supposed misogyny and Jeremy Corbyn’s so-called anti-Semitism.

Driven by an absurd, relentless media narrative, both messages were amplified and both candidates tarred and feathered in public because of an inane social media discourse. 2016 may have been the year that Twitter became relevant for national politics because of Trump; four years later, things have gotten even more absurd. To cite just one example in the 2020 election race, Elizabeth Warren became incensed about Bernie Sanders’ supporters being mean to her online- this become somehow debate-worthy and relevant enough to provoke national discussion. So not only has mass media become fixated on reactions to bad jokes or distasteful references on Twitter, but it now parrots the same maudlin sentimentality and priggishness as the denizens of the extremely online world.

Similarly, across the pond Corbyn was smeared over little more than insinuations and hyperbole; again amplified by ridiculous anti-socialist social media influencers, liberal and conservative alike. Then there was the mother of all the liberal delusions and overreactions the past four years: Russiagate. While the mainstream media played the dominant role, social media trolls, bots, and liberal officialdom continued to hammer away at collusion, becoming the mirror image of the nascent conservative post-truth fake news era. Narratives are now almost entirely driven by the profit-motive, money values and celebrity click-bait begin to exclusively dominate discourse, gossip becomes the main focus in a doomed capitalist economy where its leaders can no longer alter its course.

The fact is that this intentional manipulation of human nature serves the ultra-rich classes through more than their bank accounts. It’s not just about advertising money and profit, and not just about surveillance, or a new form of attention economy. It’s all of that and much more, much darker and dystopian. Social media, the web, and streaming services are the new fuels that run the alienation and atomization engine of our culture. They have become the dominant form of online expression, and through ads, codes, and algorithms have found their way into our collective unconscious. Not only do these pervasive media elements divide those with obvious ideological differences; the intricacies of the algorithms stir up unconscious impulses and polarize those with largely overlapping interests.

Of course we all know this phenomenon well (the narcissism of small differences) and it predates the internet age, but what is novel here is not its reappearance on a bigger “stage” but its targeted, precise, insidious deployment into our social newsfeeds. Individuals are made to feel the need to keep up with internet flame wars, memes, and obscure references or else the feeling of being “left out” and/or uninformed begins to creep up out the recesses of one’s consciousness. Social isolation and stigmatization for not being able to “keep up with the facts” (Fear of Missing Out-FOMO) and events in our modern world is a very real thing, just as ruthless on social media as the various hierarchies in the corporate world, civic life, and academia, just to name a few instances.

Further, the lack of being able to have one’s opinion heard or validated online in the maelstrom of discontent it has sown often gives young people, especially those with low self-esteem, the idea that their thoughts and opinions don’t matter and are somehow unworthy of attention. This is compounded for those that, due to propaganda uncritically filtered from others or simply naiveté, believe that the best art, theory, and culture rise virtuously to the top in the great “democratic” marketplace of ideas that the internet and social media has come to represent.

Unfortunately the trend of the extremely online is to uphold the hegemony of the insulated, college-educated, the mostly liberal but also conservative petit bourgeoisie. Working class leftists and anti-capitalists, and even the very minor celebrities in the international left, will continue to be marginalized, censored, and their work ignored because they do not bear the stamps of officialdom: the Twitter blue check-mark or “verified” Google news.

All of these trends and addictive technologies converge into a dystopic framework: one that will attempt to enslave humanity in some form of digital prison; one where real-time sensors, AI driven and smart-grid internet hyperconnectivity will be able to drive human behavior on an unprecedented scale. Our “docile bodies” are being reprogrammed and conditioned to accept this, one ad, TV show, one scroll through the feed, one dopamine hit at a time. In order to accomplish this nightmare, the ruling elites need to “data-fy” us by hooking us up — by merging man and machine. Hence, this is why wearable technologies have been marketed so hard: it is not enough for a smartphone or external biosensors to do the job of extracting surplus value from our bodies. The falling rate of profit will eventually force the “data is the new oil” tech oligarchs to police our thoughts, modulate our pleasures and pains, and keep up the façade of a world of obedient workers, even if it means resorting to dystopian totalitarian tactics such as implants, virtual reality gaming systems, cheap or even free housing for those who live where they work, and a host of unforeseen emerging concepts as global civilization continues down the glide path towards oblivion.

Techno-Feudal Oligarchy

Bill Gates’ and Paul Allen’s BASIC-MS operating system, which they sold to IBM and ended up dominating the global market for many years, was written in BASIC computer language. This language was developed by professors at Dartmouth in 1964 with funding from the National Science Foundation…The PARC research facility, from which Steve Jobs obtained the basics of the graphic user interface that became the Mac and later all computer interfaces, had several former ARPA researchers working on these display concepts…Facebook’s deferential corporate biographer David Kirkpatrick admits, ‘Something like Facebook was envisioned by engineers who laid the groundwork for the internet. In a 1968 essay by J.C.R. Licklider and Robert W. Taylor, ‘The Computer as Communication Device,’ the two essentially envisioned Facebook’s basic social network. They worked for ARPA… Google itself, considered the most academically inspired of the megacaps, was originally google.stanford.edu, where it was developed through the state and federal tax funding of California and the United States…Page’s first research paper included the note, ‘funded by DARPA’.

— Rob Larson, Bit Tyrants

One thing to remember is that Western governments are never going to willingly reign in the monopoly transnational corporations that dominate the internet. The five biggest (Apple, Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon) form an internet oligopoly, as Nikos Smyrnaios explains. Through a process of the convergence of IT, web, media, intellectual property rights domination, deregulation of the digital sector, tax avoidance, and a never-ending slush fund from the biggest banks, as well as the “network effect” that herd consumers to a very few web conglomerates, the big five have managed to create basically a private internet cartel, based on inventions and achievements made with public funding, which have been effectively stolen and privatized using intellectual property and patent laws.

As Rob Larson explains in his book Bit Tyrants, the network effect occurs because the very few big social media networks offer increased connections and usefulness for people as more people flock to the platform. This makes the Big Five and a few other platforms virtual monopolies that can exert leverage; whether through algorithms, censorship, banning, and other opaque measures to destroy competition.

Naomi Klein pointed out in The Intercept in her piece “Screen New Deal” that the tech oligarchs are prepared to use the pandemic as an excuse to push their business model onto the world. As she writes:

It’s a future in which our homes are never again exclusively personal spaces but are also, via high-speed digital connectivity, our schools, our doctor’s offices, our gyms, and, if determined by the state, our jails. Of course, for many of us, those same homes were already turning into our never-off workplaces and our primary entertainment venues before the pandemic, and surveillance incarceration ‘in the community’ was already booming. But in the future under hasty construction, all of these trends are poised for a warp-speed acceleration.

Another glimpse into a high-tech dystopia revealed itself in Toronto, where citizens smartly made an uproar about turning part of the waterfront area known as Quayside into a “smart city” constructed by an innocuous sounding company, Sidewalk Labs. Of course, it turns out that Sidewalk is affiliated with Google, and concerned citizens and privacy advocates shot it down for obvious reasons, such as privacy and surveillance violations which would undoubtedly occur.

A similar idea has been introduced recently in Nevada, which goes by the innocuous name of the “Innovation Zone”. The Governor has been preparing to allow private corporations to buy land, develop cities, and form private governments, courts, police, and essential services to residents, who would live under private law which would have the same weight as county laws in the state. A company called Blockchains LLC, part of a holding company with very little transparency, has bought a ton of land outside of Reno and is all in on forming a new “smart city” there. This sort of techno-libertarian dystopia is ostensibly being introduced to raise tax revenue and boost economic growth. Yet for a governor to hand over sovereignty to an unaccountable corporation, it begs a number of questions, no? Especially since the company has donated to the Nevada governor, one would think the obvious conflict of interest would be enough to kill the project. Something much larger than the petty corruption of a US governor and the greed and opportunism of a technology company are at play here. As we shall see below, these private-public partnerships and deceitful collaborations are signs from a possible future of total social control and surveillance.

Online Labor and Value

If a free market economy plus intellectual property leads to the “underutilization of information”, then an economy based on the full utilization of information cannot tolerate the free market or absolute intellectual property rights. The business models of all our modern digital giants are designed to prevent [access to] the abundance of information.

– Cryppix, “The End of Capitalism Has Begun”, Blog Post from Medium.com, 2019

People understand that essential jobs are the only ones who really matter in our economy: food production, construction and housing, keeping store shelves stocked and life-sustaining services running, nurses and surgeons, those kinds of jobs. The rest of the economy falls into the category of what the late David Graeber rightly called “bullshit jobs”. These are jobs that exist solely for the sake of making corporations more profit, and provide no tangible material benefits in terms of food, housing, clothing, making domestic and communal life easier, and even art and culture for humanity.

White collar jobs (the extremely online included, at least those who benefit considerable or have a career closely related) in the US mainly exist to sell tangential perks and benefits for rich elites and the affluent; whether it’s fancy gadgetry and high technology, or either to reduce their own labor within their households, or to manufacture false consumer needs in the wider populace, or to exploit labor forces domestically and abroad. The modern West increasingly does not physically make or manufacture anything of value. The tech-heavy jobs of the future, as well as the new high technology and extremely online jobs of today, whether it is mainstream jobs in media, journalism, graphic designers, computer coders and software developers, engineering and science in service to the military industrial complex, Ad and PR firms, political consultants, armies of middle managers and think tanks wonks all reinforce and re-circulate narrow-minded and ignorant neoliberal economics and conservative cant about how the US is a shining beacon of freedom and democracy, and not a capitalist-imperialist authoritarian oligarchy bent on world domination and driving the world towards ecological annihilation. This is connected to too much time spent on digital devices. Upper-middle class white collars are “making bank” and have gotten intellectually lazy and morally corrupted by their ill-gotten wealth and they have effectively substituted online life for local community. They decry gentrification and white privilege even as they are the ones pushing minority and working class communities out of desirable inner city areas.

One of the reasons this happens, whether its liberals or libertarian Silicon Valley acolytes on the coasts or conservative tech-savvy suburbanites in the Midwest and breadbasket of the US, is because the upper-middle class thinks of itself as a meritocracy. What they’ve created of course, is a bougie neo-Victorian aristocracy of wealth, social status, and cultural capital, a “New American Aristocracy” as one Matthew Stewart explained in The Atlantic. What is interesting about Stewart’s piece is that he is at least cognizant of his own position in what he calls the “upper 9.9%”, and how the people and families in this class all slavishly service, idolize, strive towards, and navel-gaze at the top 0.1%. Reading his essay one can feel his consternation, as he acknowledges his complicity:

But that is not to let the 9.9 percent off the hook. We may not be the ones funding the race-baiting, but we are the ones hoarding the opportunities of daily life. We are the staff that runs the machine that funnels resources from the 90 percent to the 0.1 percent. We’ve been happy to take our cut of the spoils. We’ve looked on with smug disdain as our labors have brought forth a population prone to resentment and ripe for manipulation. We should be prepared to embrace the consequences.

Of course, as Stewart states, “running the machine” is a euphemism for improving the bottom line, and the only way that’s done today is to make blue-collar people work harder for less money, to deregulate industry, to smash labor rights, and to transfer production offshore to countries using essentially slave labor and indentured servitude. We do not live in a Taylorist-Fordist manufacturing economy anymore and even the ruling elites acknowledge that producing more for the sake of more is insane, as most affluent and upper-middle class people just binge on a steady diet of useless mass-culture goods, cycles through endless perks that the service economy provides, and consumes digitally-based mainstream lowbrow entertainment. Anyone who tells you different is mostly likely either a snake-oil salesperson or a sycophantic brown-noser for the ruling class.

The white collar professional milieu now functions mainly to create make-work jobs to sop up the millions of university educated indoctrinated into the capitalist world order, who otherwise would find  their fields outsourced just as the working class jobs have been for the past forty-odd years. Elite overproduction does present a problem, insofar as late-stage neoliberalism no longer affords the opportunities for obedient, conforming middle-class workers who feel entitled to a slice of the American pie that in the postwar period was more equitable divided — at least towards white, educated citizens. These educated, professional class individuals ostensibly would prefer a modicum of social democracy, but today instead are bribed with aforementioned bullshit jobs in the corporate world, who are eventually psychically broken down and assimilated into “normal” capitalist relations, become inured to human suffering, and begin to accept the self-fulfilling prophecy of capitalist realism.

The Normalization of Technocratic Language

The world is awash in bullshit. Politicians are unconstrained by facts. Science is conducted by press release. Higher education rewards bullshit over analytic thought. Startup culture elevates bullshit to high art. Advertisers wink conspiratorially and invite us to join them in seeing through all the bullshit — and take advantage of our lowered guard to bombard us with bullshit of the second order. The majority of administrative activity, whether in private business or the public sphere, seems to be little more than a sophisticated exercise in the combinatorial reassembly of bullshit.

– Carl Bergstrom and Jevin West, Callingbullshit.org

Paeans to productivity and a smarter, more efficient economy while doing nothing to alleviate poverty, homelessness, environmental problems, etc. also reinforces the striving, overachieving, smarmy, centrist white-collar dweebs in the professional classes and political wonks of the world whose smugness and arrogance only increases as they delude themselves into believing they are the winners in a fair meritocracy.

The milieu of the extremely online crowd are the ones occupying these “bullshit jobs” and whose role it is to filter and mediate who, what, when, where, why, and how issues are framed and discussed in the media. This explains some of the sneering dismissal and resentment from the right about the “coastal liberal elites”: the conservatives understand that media liberals have no real expertise and are not serious thinkers, and they doubly resent them because they see in liberals the same moral relativism and nihilism they see in themselves. This can be made clear when one considers who the modern far-right respects and fears among world leaders more: effete neoliberal elitists who peddle bullshit, such as Obama, Clinton, Macron, and Trudeau; or staunch socialists of the recent past and present like Morales (and now Arce), Lula, Chavez, Castro, etc.

As for what increases in productivity in material terms even means anymore at work for white-collar jobs in 2020, it’s laughable on its face, as our economy has become so divorced from reality. I’m not even referring to small businesses offering tangible, physical products here, but rather professional class jobs which exist solely to make money for giant corporations, aka more bullshit jobs, without any actual corporeal objects to sell.

What we do know is that, besides tech and computer workers, the only people who talk about increasing productivity and GDP in glowing terms are sadist executives and managers in soulless corporate America, delusional mainstream economists, Wall Street sociopaths, real estate speculators displacing the poor and gentrifying inner cities, CEOs who rely on slave labor overseas, people who work for pyramid schemes, tech moguls destroying middle class jobs and transmuting them into a precarious gig economy, hedge fund managers who instigate hostile takeovers of companies and lay off loyal employees, military contractors who build more drones and bombs, etc.

Simply put, only the most craven and bougified people used to talk like this about economic issues, but with the emergence of online culture and the double expansion of the financial and computer-centric sectors of the economy, this sort of Orwellian PR-speak has expanded to the “attention economy” and is becoming normalized, internalized, and disseminated by tech entrepreneurs, the culture industry and Hollywood/web influencers, “lean-in” liberals, and social media-addicted journalists, who then feign responsibility for the type of hyper-fast, work all the time environments and disposable culture and entertainment that they help to cultivate and profit off of.

Essentially, the denizens of the extremely online normalize liberal, bourgeois ideology by couching their ideas in the “woke”, “hip”, rhetoric of identity politics and neoliberal economics, which they interpret as somehow being “progressive”. They normalize an ever-shrinking political discourse which excludes radical thinkers and promotes an updated, social media-savvy version of Orwellian corporate-speak, which Pierre Bourdieu dubbed as “NewLiberalSpeak” in 2001.

Screen-Captured Subjectivity: Digital Interpellation and Algorithmic Control

Hence the exclamation ‘another world is possible’ today seems to be confronted with the riddle, ‘would another digitality be possible?’

– Jan de Vos, “Fake subjectivities: Interpassivity from (neuro)psychologization to digitalization”, Continental Thought and Theory, Vol 2. Issue 1

Regardless of the many brilliant complex analysis of social ills, either on social platforms or digital media more broadly, it appears that the web and social media provides a very strong new avenue for what we might term digital interpellation. Users of the web and social media are constantly hailed, as in Althusser’s famous example, and continually modulated and nudged by algorithms to conform to bourgeois ideology, and endlessly diverted by the mass culture industry. Again, this constant feedback loop of being online only gives the ruling classes more power — simply logging into social media and posting does this. Academics have even attempted to calculate the monetary values of posts, retweets, and photos shared online: we are literally making money for tech corporations when we post on social media. The only real option is to stop feeding the beast and boycott these monopolies altogether; finding ways to bring people off these platforms onto non-monetized, secure, non-surveilled services, or at the very least use them sparingly — to instigate revolutions, for example.

Whereas in Althusser’s example it was the policeman doing the “hailing” in the physical environment, today we have moved to the digital plane: and it’s the thought-police and propagandists peddling mainstream narratives that define the new enemy. Jan de Vos describes this evolution from the Althusserian “discourse of the master”, to the modernist “discourse of the university”, and now we are faced with what I’d call a “discourse of the algorithm.” Power is being displaced onto the micrological level, where absent causes have real life devastating effects. In the internet panopticon, which stretches beyond the confines of spatio-temporal planes into the digital ether, not only do we self-censor what we post and share but also annihilate the processes by which we are able to think critically.

Not only do we take for granted what we know, but how we know what we know ceases to be a domain of contestation: the economic and power relations of how knowledge is constructed and wielded by the ruling class isn’t questioned, and the ways in which invisible actors and algorithms decide what is “popular” and newsworthy are assumed to be neutral and balanced. Whereas Althusser’s concept stemmed from interpellation as the discourse of the master, clearly now this archetypal ruling class figure has dissolved and seeped into the social body with no central character — we now enter the age of the discourse of the serpent, where algorithms and thus viewpoints on subjects as disparate as “science” or “international relations” which guide “professional” mainstream journalism and polite, acceptable thought which conforms with the demands of capitalism.

Why are these new forms of control so important and relevant in today’s times? Simply put, the national security state and corporations care very much about what we think, and how we feel. As late capitalism lurches towards semi-controlled collapse and contraction due to its internal contradictions, the old model of the corporate state’s indifference to the masses, the “f*** your feelings” approach, is no longer realistic for the goals of social control, especially after the mass outcries against the travesties of Vietnam and the second Gulf War in Iraq. Modern institutions care very much about our feelings nowadays, and are heavily invested in our collective emotional reactions; not only for monetary reasons, but to gauge policy decisions, for psychosocial mass monitoring of dissent, for biopolitical control of birth and death rates, and to market the imperial national security state to the public, among just a few examples. For instance, we know the CIA and intelligence community has been seeding itself into Silicon Valley and Hollywood for decades now, with shadowy agents literally rewriting movie scripts and tech executives making regular trips to Langley and DC to discuss integration and public-private partnerships.

The new tools of social control involve not only the hard aspects of indoctrination into nationalism and imperialism, but also the “soft” underbelly of manipulating our emotional states, and programming our tastes to like or at least accept aspects of our society that are crass, barbaric, camp, kitsch, trendy and faddish. The culture industry has evolved over the past fifty years to anticipate and channel public discontent into consumption patterns and “acceptable” resistance. The next stage invariably involves the immaterial realm of molding minds: of pacifying the unrest of the gig economy precariat, service economy workers, and unpaid household domestic laborers; of offering endless streaming services and apps to modulate and condition the populace to accept whatever technological mediated and biosecurity-centered “new normal” is coming, and of substituting “cyberspace” for local, grounded, in-person relations.

“Cruel Optimism” and “Ugly Feelings”: Affect Theory and Interpassivity in Relation to Digital Media

As a judgement, however, the gimmick contains an extra layer of intersubjectivity: it is what we say when we, unlike others implicitly evoked or imagined in the same moment, are not buying into what a capitalist device is promising. Robert Pfaller refers to this structure of displacement as a ‘suspended illusion’: beliefs like the superstitious ritual of the sports fan that ‘always belong to others, that are never anyone’s own [beliefs].’

– Sianne Ngai, Theory of the Gimmick: Aesthetic Judgment and Capitalist Form

It would be a disservice to understanding the extremely/terminally online without applying the lens of two heavyweights of cultural criticism, Lauren Berlant and Sianne Ngai. Berlant became prominent after her book, Cruel Optimism, managed to thread the needle of accessibility and scholarly erudition: her notion of cruel optimism can be succinctly defined as follows: “when something you desire is actually an obstacle to your own flourishing”. There is hardly a better way to explain the effect of social media today on individual psyches and the body politic. As Berlant aptly points out, her idea is connected to the notion of the “American Dream”: a delusional belief system fraught with contradictions; and one increasingly predicated on insecurity and ever-looming economic precarity. In the context of the digital age, social media use is mostly just another escape and addiction for the growing precariat — we know too much web use is bad for us, a way to pass the time with pop-media pablum and ignore the reality that our lives are being wasted on performing pointless rote work — as internet users learn experientially as the addiction takes hold and spirals.

The figure of the internet/computer addict and the ambivalence the subject has towards the object; the computer or social media account- simultaneously attracted and repulsed by it- provides a good segue towards understanding the work of Sianne Ngai. As Ngai and Berlant point out, these contradictory reactions towards commodities and media at large in some sense determine what the late Raymond Williams called the “structure of feeling” in late capitalist society.

Ngai builds on this model through a brilliant examination of cultural affect and “aesthetic categories”. Spanning decades now, her work analyses categories of emotion endemic to late capitalism: the “cute” consumer creature-comforts and the dark side of how cuteness is used to manipulate; the “zany” which can represent, among other things, the precarious hyper-active work environment, emotional labor and super-productive demands of the service economy; and the “interesting”, which can stand in for withholding judgment: here the interesting is an invitation towards a discourse with another; how aesthetic judgment comes from shared understandings and mimesis. Ngai’s varied and textured analysis leaves room to show how political subjects today can enact many categories simultaneously — the “cute” always smiling, ever-happy disposition of the service worker and the emotional labor expended performs alongside the zany ever-increasing demands of a super-fast paced retail store.

There can be no doubt that alongside social media’s hacking of our neurobiology, the systematic playing off on citizen’s mental states and emotionality represents the new “dark arts” in politics. This is why Berlant and Ngai are so prescient, because they foresaw this decades ago, just as, for example, the novelist Octavia Butler was able to foresee the slogan “Make America Great Again” in 1998.

Ngai’s most fascinating concept is her notion of “stuplimity” — a combination of shock and boredom — of the sublime with the stupid. Really, there is hardly a more apt word to describe being online today, or on social media. The incessant chatter and news headlines may at the same time excite, titillate, awe, bore, and depress us- again, the blended attractive and repulsive nature of which, like capitalism itself, is ingrained into the structure of our everyday lives.

In her most recent work, Ngai analyses the nature of the “gimmick”, and strikingly reveals the economic undercurrents of how and why we critique commodities as such. Not only do gimmicks simultaneously entertain and annoy us, they show labor and value are at the core of how we judge and develop tastes for consumer goods as well as art (here is a good interview with Ngai to explain).

To tie back to modern technology — media outlets, social media, and many overproduced devices (computers, cars) as well as superfluous ones (smartphones, tablets, private jets) well, these are all modern gimmicks of an extractivist capitalist economy. They are not capable of being produced sustainably in the long-term. Not only are these objects not built to last, trendy and faddish in a cultural sense, they are built by supply chains and manufacturing techniques which require mass exploitation, coercion, and environmental degradation. The laptop one uses for create surplus value for one’s employer is still just a softer version of accepting a blood diamond — the “cost of doing business”. Laptops with which rare earth elements are mined by child labor and victims of human trafficking in Africa, manufactured into circuit boards under unsafe and extreme conditions in East Asia, and shipped and sold by precarious laborers in transport, big-box stores and online retailers worldwide. If society is in fact unaffected, indifferent, and ignorant of such things, it does in fact reveal that our aesthetic judgments — our interior worlds of emotions as well as discernment of what constitutes truth, beauty, and various affective states has been hijacked by a culture that is hell-bent on advancing technological progress at all costs — even if it means the collapse of our web of life and the enslavement of humankind.

As the epigraph for this section points out, Ngai reminds us that the gimmick has a fungible quality — one person’s gimmick is another’s useful, or even adored good — and vice versa. The gimmick can also slip between pretentious and useless to utilitarian and labor-saving: Ngai likes to point out how the Google Glass morphed from a fad that was (appropriately) derided by consumers into a workplace device for hands-free smart-device used in industrial work.

Ngai’s work on the gimmick can be compared to Robert Pfaller’s (with an assist from the inimitable Slavoj Zizek) notion of interpassivity: the delegation of enjoyment. With social media we delegate positive experiences to the “anonymous other” — when we post, we trick ourselves into believing another is viewing and enjoying our content — even if, in fact, there is no one observing. This faces us with prospects of staging “illusions without a subject”; no one may be watching but we take pleasure in the illusion someone is doing so, in Pfaller’s examples of the TV fanatic who records shows without watching them, or of the academic who photocopies books at a library where no one else is watching. Whereas the gimmick relies on the subject who believes someone is being “duped” into buying a trivial kitsch consumer item with no “value” to most people, while they can see through the gimmick; the interpassive subject may be staging an illusion, but either no one is there to question the motive, or there is a perceived “naïve observer” in the mind of the stager.

Yet with the delegation of enjoyment, and more broadly, life experiences, are transposed in our age from material consumer goods to the immaterial realm of the internet, what passes as a gimmick becomes even trickier to define. Also, just as endless signifying chains can mutate, fold, or implode upon themselves, interpassive subjects can infinitely delegate, one to the other, feeding memes, art (which now has been degraded into “content”), videos, and journalistic forays through endless cycles. Thus the progression of an economy based on production to one based on reproduction and circulation that we find today in the West, solipsistic and self-generating, with varying degrees of simulation and hyperreality.

Technological Salvation: The Religion of the Ruling Class

Left ‘accelerationist’ ideas of a post-work society based on state-supported ‘4th industrial revolution’ development, with a UBI to pacify surplus populations, could well be enabler of, rather than alternative to, large scale capitalist AI development. Ecosocialists might also suggest that the idea that human emancipation is identical with the advance of a high-production, high-technological networked society is precisely what is thrown into question by global heating and other environmental-crises…

– Nick Dyer-Witheford, “Left Populism and Platform Capitalism”, tripleC: Communication, Capitalism & Critique, Vol. 18 No. 1

As we have seen above, the profit motive is not the only thing being served by social media. Driven by individualized “feeds”, web and screen-based news/commentary are being unleashed with additional benefits — one of which being that it is an updated model for social cohesion and mass obedience, based on elements of what Gilles Deleuze described as a “Society of Control.”

As the epigraph to this section suggests, many within progressive and even socialist spaces favor the expansion of modern technology into nearly every aspect of our lives, in order to supposedly make labor easier and alleviate undue suffering. These “left-accelerationist” and “Fully Automated Luxury Communism” (FALC) promoters have a lot of overlap with green capitalist and eco-modernist thought.

To use clumsy and obscure analogy, just as twenty years ago it was written that “Empire can be read as the Lexus and the Olive Tree of the Far Left”, today we can confidently say that FALC and its promotional grifters can be viewed as the Al Gores, Steward Brands or Alvin Tofflers of the far left. Indeed, in a sense the FALCists continue in the starry-eyed idealist vein, in the sense that the technological salvation the former believe in can be juxtaposed with the supposedly inevitable deterritorializing process of “Empire” for the latter: both presuppose and give preeminence to very Western notions of social change and the role of technology.

Why is FALC delusional, exactly? In part because the technology required to create these notions of automated communism (never mind full or luxurious) would have huge carbon and environmental footprints. Also, an AI driven 5G and eventually 6G smart grid would make even today’s omnidirectional surveillance states look like child’s play. Compounding these delusions of grandeur is the uneven development between the advanced industrial economies and the exploited postcolonial states. Where do the Western FALC advocates believe the physical infrastructure and manufacturing power will come from? From poorer developing nations of course, as there is no real desire of organizational understanding of how to revolutionize an international working class among those hoping for technological salvation. This sort of pseudo-leftism desires the comfort and security of an advanced industrial system without taking into full consideration the levels of sacrifice necessary to create an eco-socialist economic model.

These are just a few examples of how semi-radical thought reproduces and reinforces capitalist hegemony, but the wider trend has been visible for decades now. As Baudrillard wrote in Simulacra and Simulation:

It is the justice of the left that reinjects an idea of justice, the necessity of logic and morals into a rotten apparatus that is coming undone…the system puts an end one by one to all its axioms…all the objectives of the historical and revolutionary Left that sees itself constrained to revive the wheels of capital in order to lay siege to them one day…everything that is disappearing, that the system itself, in its atrocity, certainly, but also in its irreversible impulse, has liquidated, must be conserved.

The Ouroboros Economy

All corporations become increasingly organized around the worship and control of information. Control over the value chain through ownership of the information vector extends even into life itself…through monitoring its states, through modifying its functions with drugs that alter chemical signals, through patenting aspects of life as design. What is at stake is neither a bios nor a polis but a regime of property in information extending into the organism. The novel forces of production as they have emerged in our time are also forces of reproduction and forces of circulation.

– Mckenzie Wark, Capital is Dead: Is This Something Worse?

When Debord noted, and rightly so, that the spectacle is a “social relation among people, mediated by images”, it was understood that we all participate in and collectively make up the spectacular worldview. Yet that is not how many people today think, and when it is casually mentioned, spectacle is situated outside the self, not a set of social relations. Unfortunately, being able to detect vacuously transparent and craven corporate advertising as well as political rhetoric mostly is not sufficient for the second-level effects on the unconscious. As “desiring machines” integrated into late stage capitalism, the prison is not longer only physically constructed around us- and not only have we become both inmate and warden, oftentimes we take it on ourselves to perform the labor, both at work and in leisure time, that entrenches the powers of corporations and the national security state.

Here, it helps to have a grasp of a few key basic concepts from thinkers such as Debord, Foucault, Baudrillard, Deleuze and Guattari, and also Bourdieu, and even Latour. As many have noted, the pandemic has conveniently set the stage for capital and computer technology to fully absorb nearly all facets of everyday life, which reinforces the arguments of the terminally online and their worship of technology, and thus, American empire.

For Baudrillard a metaphor of simulation could be visualized as the Mobius strip, and for Deleuze describing the society of control it was the serpent. Today we can conjoin the concepts into the archetype of the ouroboros — a self-contained system of simulation and hyperreality, embedded to an immanent, infinite process of death and rebirth, one that contains within it seeds of destruction and the potential for renewal and societal transformation. The ouroboros encapsulates our era: from cybernetics, to algorithmic feedback loops of code, to cosmology, and even evolutionary anthropology, to the financialization and cannabilization of economies, the circuital globe-spanning nature of capital, the ineffable mimetic nature of cultural transmission and (re)production.

The consolidation of media narratives into social media outlets performs one unique function insofar as it renders the “official” establishment narrative into the only possible reasonable, logical way of seeing the world. Analogically, one can see this as a digital version of what Deleuze and Guattari called “state philosophy”, the incorporation and transmutation of “proper” stories and events into those which uphold state hegemony and corporate control. Of course, there can never be a totalization of these views online, just as there could not before in the age of print, or before in oral traditions. Reality cannot be consolidated into a tweet, just as it could not before in a newspaper editorial. What comes out of the void are “post-truths”, “alternative facts”, and other unruly features foreseen decades ago by Bruno Latour, when he undertook that could be called an anthropological study of modern science. Thus, what used to be called misinformation or half-truths have been reified by mainstream media, as objects with viral properties that must be censored before they can “infect” the populace.

What seems to be happening over and over again on the media satured/technophilic left is the refusal, the blind spot which keeps repeating the mantra that media monopolization and social media misuse by tech elites is somehow only driven by money and profit motives. The elites already have all the money. Certainly, their greed is a huge driving force, but what’s another billion to someone with a net worth of 50 or 100 billion. At a certain point one has to concede that there are deeper, more sinister agendas, which involve shaping reality and perception, and total social control. As one can easily see with a healthy degree of skepticism towards technological progress, lockdowns and restrictions due to Covid-19 are a perfect excuse for the nascent authoritarian biosecurity state, just as the legitimate protests against police brutality will be used by the state to implement more curfews and police state measures.

Social media and digital media are in the midst of a totalizing process in which all dissent will be censored, shadow-banned, or posts that differ from official narratives “throttled” by tech algorithms. The age of book-burning may be over but a new age of technological authoritarianism is emerging. To assuage the worst aspects of this emerging techno-feudal society, where “the economy” has fully replaced society and monetization of content and followings has replaced spontaneous and anarchic/communistic web interaction are the extremely online celebrities, influencers, and the corporate cut-outs and shills who fund them: and they strive towards and imitate tech owners and executives, bankers, lawyers, doctors, and various professional class snake-oil salespeople who offer escapist fantasies, slavish devotion to modern technology and overconsumption.

Since the upper and upper-middle classes are surrounded by corporate and state propaganda like fish in an ocean, which conforms to varying degrees to Bordieu’s notion of habitus; they are the most likely to “buy in” to the new prison system mediated by new repressive technology apparatuses, which is in line with Herman and Chomsky’s findings in Manufacturing Consent.

Like the sirens of Greek mythology, the job of the influencer, backed and financed by the ruling class, is to hypnotize the masses, and lull us back to sleep — “be like us” they intonate, we’re rich, successful, famous, powerful. While the vast majority toil away working for technological advancement and capital, the tech tyrants and web celebrities succeed by making internet technology and monopolized media work for them. Since the ruling class and new media elite earn passive income from conglomerate platforms, algorithms, and computing power, they have no interest in discovering how they have become the new architects of inequality and mass immiseration. It’s up to us to show them.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by William Hawes.

Over the last few months, Apple has taken a couple big swings. In June, the technology company announced a $100 million Racial Equity and Justice Initiative that supports more people of color in STEM fields and pushes for criminal justice reform, among other ambitions. Then, in July, it unveiled a big climate plan, with the goal of going carbon neutral by 2030.

At the center of both these efforts is Lisa Jackson, Apple’s vice president of environment, policy, and social initiatives. From 2009 to 2013, Jackson headed the Environmental Protection Agency, where she led programs around reducing greenhouse gas emissions and made environmental justice a top priority. At Apple, Jackson has already helped the company hit net-zero emissions for its global corporate operations. The new climate plan extends the net-zero goal to the rest of Apple’s operation, including its supply chain.

Throughout her career, Jackson has often been a “first” or an “only.” She was the first Black person to serve as EPA administrator, and she’s the only Black executive on Apple’s leadership team. Fix recently spoke to Jackson about leading racial-justice work in the current moment, the role a mega-company like Apple can play in large-scale change, and the next generation of fearless leaders like herself.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity and length.

Q.What is it like to lead right now?

A.I think leadership right now feels urgent, feels action-oriented, feels almost like a moral imperative. Whether you’re talking about climate, racial equity, criminal justice, environmental justice, or some intersection of all those things, the moment is sending us all the signs that we don’t have time to waste. We cannot afford the luxury of complacency.

It also feels urgent in the sense that there’s so much to do. There’s a lot that we all have to tackle aggressively, and it’s going to take collaboration in a big effort to make any dent. It feels like a great responsibility when you look at people like John Lewis and you realize that [he was part of a] generation of incredibly transformational leadership. He saw in this generation the same type of movement, and you realize that we have a responsibility to keep on going.

Q.How do you balance urgency with intentionality? Particularly within the corporate sector?

A.I think there’s a need for both. There is the need for leaders in the private sector to recognize the moment. That’s something that hasn’t always happened. In the case of the recent spate of murders — George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery — I think the fact that corporate leaders felt they had to say something is still good news, even in light of the fact that that’s just the beginning. It is a milestone.

Part of leadership is also integrity, which is to not simply give in to the moment of, “I have to say something, but now let’s move on.” This new plan we just announced, for example, to go carbon neutral by 2030, is the culmination of years of work by lots of people across Apple to make an announcement that’s that transformative. And I think that’s the same level of work it will take to make a truly transformative announcement on something like criminal justice reform or racial equity initiatives.

The world’s not going to wait for folks to put plans in action. Part of what you have to do is communicate about what you are doing, so that you start to build a dialogue with the community that cares about the set of issues you’re working on.

Q.How do you approach solving for environmental justice at a technology institution like Apple?

A.I think we can shine lights on places where information has been previously lacking. There’s tons of work around citizen science — the idea of empowering communities to not only have data, but make people aware of it. Apple also runs Apple News; we are storytellers as well to our customers. And then there’s the opportunity around things like our Impact Accelerator, which is to change representation in terms of who the problem solvers are, who in the community is able to aid in the transition to clean energy or in the transition away from, say, food deserts or any environmental injustice.

Q.It sounds like you’re intentionally creating opportunities for the next generation of leaders. Has your personal experience informed this idea of future leadership? Are you trying to make sure there are more Lisa Jacksons in the world?

A.First off, I do believe there are lots of Lisa Jacksons out there; they just haven’t maybe had the opportunity to be seen and heard. They don’t have the seat, they don’t have the microphone. I believe that there’ll be even more, if people know that this is a path that’s open and available to them.

I always tell the story that, when I was growing up, I wanted to be a doctor. I didn’t know what an engineer was. I couldn’t dream about it, because I didn’t know it existed!

I don’t buy into the fact that we’re not qualified to have a job. I just don’t think we have access. And I don’t think that the system has recognized our expertise. Growing up in the Black community, seeing racism play out and rear its ugly head, seeing the way women are treated differently than men in workplaces, I believe that part of the job was to kick the door open and leave it open, so people can come behind you or come alongside you.

Q.What do you think about the next generation of leaders? Do you notice any generational differences?

A.This generation is fierce and coming. Because they have come up in the information age, transparency and communication are really important to them. They don’t want to just know what you say — they want to know what you’re doing. That’s why one of the more popular things we’ve done is put out an environmental report on every product we make and an environmental progress report every year on what the company is doing. Because we know people have a tendency to say, “That’s nice. That’s great words, Apple. But we also want to see the evidence of the work you’re doing.”

I also think this is a very collaborative generation. They grew up on social media, on tools that allow for very, very simple collaboration around the world. And I’ve been very inspired by how, whatever the fight is, [the younger generation] is recognizing privilege. Because, if you don’t have it — if you don’t have representation, if you don’t have that voice — you’re not in the room, by definition, where the changes are going to be made.

Q.I wanted to talk a bit about the EPA. What has it been like to witness all the environmental rollbacks that have come out of the current administration?

A.I started at EPA in 1987. I was in government almost 25 years before leading from the administrative position at EPA. I happen to believe that EPA is an incredibly important part of our government. It’s the only government entity dedicated to protecting human health and the environment together. It doesn’t have a constituency in industry. There is no company that EPA is supposed to be taking care of, no sector. It’s supposed to be taking care of public health and human health and the environment.

Some of the strongest tools that EPA has are around transparency — letting communities know where pollution is coming from and where it’s ending up. What’s happening with your local body of water? What is that factory over there emitting? Why does it smell a certain way, a certain time of day? All those are incredibly powerful tools. One of the first things I did when I got to EPA was say that science would be the backbone of everything we do, and that we would operate transparently, so that no special-interest group could come in and try to tap the EPA agenda. I think that is incredibly powerful and important to the sound functioning of the agency.

Q.Do the federal rollbacks increase the urgency for private-sector solutions?

A.At Apple, we believe you have to lobby on behalf of the environmental protections that we think are needed. We do have someone on my government-affairs team whose job it is to lobby for clean energy and climate-change laws.

Part of the other obligation we have is standing up for what we believe not just in the U.S., but around the world. For example, if we want clean energy, we want all of our suppliers to run on clean energy. Part of what we have to do is use our voice alongside them to lobby for more clean energy in their countries. It’s really important to do both.

Q.What’s giving you hope right now?

A.The younger generation. Their fierceness and determination. We’re at a point where people are getting good at demonstrations. We have to come together to solve certain problems, or we’re all going to suffer. We might not all suffer at the same rate, but we can’t be prosperous and leave really big concerns unaddressed.

And environmental justice is, I think, having its moment, where people are finally connecting the fact that you can’t talk about climate change and not talk about environmental justice. We were working on environmental justice for decades. Suddenly, I think it’s clear that that is inseparable from the largest set of issues in front of us. That gives me hope.

This article originally appeared on Salon.

Editor’s note: The following post contains spoilers for Rian Johnson’s “Knives Out.”

Rian Johnson reveals in a new video interview with Vanity Fair an interesting mandate Apple has on movie productions: Bad guys and villain characters in films are not allowed to be seen using iPhones. The reveal was made as Johnson was breaking down a pivotal scene from his most recent directorial effort, “Knives Out.” The scene is when Ransom Drysdale (Chris Evans) arrives at the Thrombey household and all of the main characters converge for the first time. Several characters are seen holding iPhones, including Jamie Lee Curtis’ Linda Drysdale, but the one person without an Apple product is Ransom. “Knives Out” viewers know that Ransom is the killer at the center of Johnson’s murder mystery, which means the character was prohibited from being featured in “Knives Out” with an iPhone.

“I don’t know if I should say this or not,” Johnson says in the Vanity Fair video. “Not because it’s lascivious or something, but because it’s gonna screw me on the next mystery movie that I write. But forget it, I’ll say it, it’s very interesting. Apple, they let you use iPhones in movies, but, and this is very pivotal, if you’re ever watching a mystery movie, bad guys cannot have iPhones on camera. Every single filmmaker who has a bad guy in their movie that’s supposed to be a secret wants to murder me right now.”

“Knives Out” opened in theaters November 27 and became a breakout hit at the box office, grossing $163 million in the U.S. and $306 million worldwide. These totals are more than impressive for a feature film based on an original idea, and the success of “Knives Out” has launched a new franchise for Lionsgate. The studio has announced it’s moving forward on a “Knives Out” sequel to once again be written and directed by Johnson. The sequel will find Daniel Craig’s detective Benoit Blanc investigating a new murder. Johnson’s “Knives Out” script was nominated for the Best Original Screenplay Oscar.

NEW YORK — U.S. stocks fell sharply Monday, following a sell-off in overseas markets, as a surge in virus cases and a worrisome spread of the disease outside China sent investors running for safety.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average slumped 866 points, or 3%, to 28,127, giving up all of its gains for the year. The S&P 500 index skidded 2.7%. The Nasdaq fell 3.1%as of 11:07 a.m.

More than 79,000 people worldwide have been infected by the new coronavirus. China, where the virus originated, still has the majority of cases and deaths. But, the rapid spread to other countries is raising anxiety about the threat the outbreak poses to the global economy.

South Korea is now on its highest alert for infectious diseases after cases there spiked. Italy reported a sharp rise in cases and a dozen towns in the northern, more industrial part of that country are under quarantine. The nation now has the biggest outbreak in Europe, prompting officials to cancel Venice’s famed Carnival, along with soccer matches and other public gatherings.

There are also more cases of the virus being reported in the Middle East as it spreads to Iran, Iraq, and Kuwait, among others.

Germany’s DAX slid 4% and Italy’s benchmark index dropped 5.9%. South Korea’s Kospi shed 3.8% and markets in Asia fell broadly.

Investors looking for safe harbors bid up prices for U.S. government bonds and gold. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note fell sharply, to 1.37% from 1.47% late Friday. Gold prices jumped 1.8%.

“Stock markets around the world are beginning to price in what bond markets have been telling us for weeks – that global growth is likely to be impacted in a meaningful way due to fears of the coronavirus,” said Chris Zaccarelli, chief investment officer for Independent Advisor Alliance.

The viral outbreak threatens to crimp global economic growth and hurt profits and revenue for a wide range of businesses. Companies from technology giant Apple to athletic gear maker Nike have already warned about a hit to their bottom lines. Airlines and other companies that depend on travelers are facing pain from cancelled plans and shuttered locations.

Crude oil prices plunged 4.4%. Aside from air travel, the virus poses an economic threat to global shipping.

Technology companies were among the worst hit by the sell-off. Apple, which depends on China for a lot of business, slid 4.3%. Microsoft slumped 3.3%.

Banks were also big losers. JPMorgan Chase fell 2.7% and Bank of America fell 3.9%.

Utilities and real estate companies held up better than most sectors. Investors tend to favor those industries, which carry high dividends and hold up relatively well during period of turmoil, when they’re feeling fearful.

Gilead Sciences rose 4.4% and was among the few bright spots. The biotechnology company is testing a potential drug to treat the new coronavirus. Bleach-maker Clorox was also a standout, rising 2%.

The sell-off is hitting the market as companies near the finish of what has been a surprisingly good round of earnings. About 87% of companies in the S&P 500 have reported financial results and profits are expected to grow by more than a half-percentage point when all the reports are in, according to FactSet.

In the eyes of some analysts, Monday’s tank job for stocks means they’re just catching up to the bond market, where fear has been dominant for months.

U.S. government bonds are seen as some of the safest possible investments, and investors have been piling into them throughout 2020, even as stocks overcame stumbles to set more record highs. A bond’s yield falls when its price rises, and the 10-year Treasury has been in such demand that its yield has plunged to 1.36% from roughly 1.90% at the start of the year.

The 10-year yield on Monday touched its lowest point in three years, falling from 1.47% late Friday, and it’s close to its intraday record low of 1.325% set in July 2016, according to Tradeweb. The 30-year Treasury yield fell further after setting its own record low, down to 1.82% from 1.92% late Friday.

Traders are increasingly certain that the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates at least once in 2020 to help prop up the economy. They’re pricing in a nearly 95% probability of a cut this year, according to CME Group. A month ago, they saw only a 68% probability.

Of course, some analysts say stocks have been rising in recent weeks precisely because of the drop in yields. Bonds are offering less in interest after the Federal Reserve lowered rates three times last year — the first such cuts in more than a decade — and amid low inflation. When bonds are paying such meager amounts, many investors say there’s little real competition other than stocks for their money.

The view has become so hardened that “There Is No Alternative,” or TINA, has become a popular acronym on Wall Street. Even with Monday’s sharp drops, the S&P 500 is still within 4.2% of its record set earlier this month.

___

AP Business Writer Stan Choe contributed.

DAMIAN J. TROISE / The Associated Press

It is nearly impossible to live in today’s world without having come across mention of the legendary Noam Chomsky. His work as a linguist, historian, political activist and philosopher, which spans nearly a century, has had an immeasurable impact on contemporary world views. Not only have his more than a hundred books become the basis for a vast milieu of modern thought, but he himself has become a widely admired public figure whose thoughtful take on current events is as crucial as ever in our increasingly hostile, chaotic sociopolitical climate.

While he and Robert Scheer, the renowned left-wing thinker and Truthdig’s award-winning editor in chief, are both well known in progressive circles for their lifelong work challenging systems of oppression and false narratives about American exceptionalism, until now, the two had never a public conversation. In a remarkable two-part interview, Chomsky and Scheer meet to discuss topics ranging from the type of dystopian future we face to the unfortunate, brutal success of the U.S. empire.

Basing his first question on Chomsky’s immense body of work, Scheer focuses on the well-known texts by Aldous Huxley and George Orwell—“Brave New World” and “1984,” positing that there is “an amalgam of these two totalitarian, dystopian models emerging.”

“I think we can start with the assumption [that] we have to be concerned about a dystopian future. Which model do you see emerging?” Scheer asks.

Chomsky offers a detailed response based on the novel “We,” by Yevgeny Zamyatin, and Shoshana Zuboff’s “The Age of Surveillance Capitalism,” which, in his view, best predict and outline the techno-surveillance system that has already begun to take hold in the U.S. and beyond, as companies such as Google, Amazon and others find novel ways to exert control over humankind.

“The kind of model towards which society is moving is already illustrated to a substantial extent in China, where they have very heavy surveillance systems and … what they call a social credit system,” Chomsky says. “You get a certain number of points, and if you, say, jaywalk, violate a traffic rule, you lose points. If you help an old lady across the street, you gain points. Pretty soon, all this gets internalized, and your life is dedicated to making sure you follow the rules that are established. This is going to expand enormously as we move to what’s called the internet of things, meaning every device around you—your refrigerator, your toothbrush and so on—is picking up information about what you’re doing, predicting what you’re going to do next, trying to control what you’re going to do next, advise what you do next.”

Perhaps most alarmingly, Chomsky asserts that “Huxley was kind of right” in positing that “people may not see [this form of surveillance] as intrusive; they just see it as that’s the way life is, the way the sun rises in the morning.”

In perhaps the most harrowing portion of the interview, Scheer asks Chomsky a question on many people’s minds nowadays as a variety of manmade factors threaten humanity’s very existence. “Is this the end of time for our species?” he asks. “I reread your book, ‘Hegemony or Survival,’ [and firstly,] you mentioned there that the typical life of a species is 100,000 years [and] that we may be coming to the end of this disfavor. And secondly, it’s an open question whether being smart, as we define smart, is an important way of averting disaster and preventing the disintegration of the species.

“The reason it’s a relevant question right at this moment,” Scheer continues, “is because we had the best and the brightest, as David Halberstam had described them, who gave us the Cold War and gave us Vietnam and gave us Iraq and everything else and, you know, gave away the money from Main Street to Wall Street, and all that. And now we have somebody who people like to think of as very crude, boorish, ill-mannered, which is Donald Trump. And we have Trump-washing. Suddenly the smart, liberal people who created much of this mischief are now whitewashed, or Trump-washed, by this buffoon.”

“[‘Hegemony or Survival’] begins with the discussion by the great biologist Ernst Mayr, who [makes the point] that intelligence seems to be a kind of lethal mutation,” Chomsky explains. “If you look through what’s called biological success, what allows the species to survive and proliferate, turns out as you move up the scale of what we call intelligence, capacity to survive declines. So the species that are really very successful are beetles, for example, which have a fixed niche; they never change. Everything changes, the whole world changes, but they stick to their niche and keep reproducing and they’re fine. … As you move up to … bigger mammals—their capacity to survive declines. What about when you get to humans? Well, you could argue that … we are now proving Mayr’s thesis. Not so much for the reasons you mentioned, which are bad enough, but we are racing to destroy the possibility of organized human life. And it’s a cooperation of those who call themselves the best and the brightest, and the Trumpian boors … all racing towards disaster, perfectly consciously, a great testimonial to human intelligence. And that’s only the beginning.”

Chomsky discusses the incredible global failure to address the climate crisis, as well as the nuclear arms race, which are both leading humanity to a precipice that may be impossible to walk away from. The conversation later moves into a discussion of American empire and what Chomsky views as its little-understood but undeniable success. While Scheer approaches the question from a military standpoint, in which the U.S. has led a series of bellicose failures that have ushered in an era of immense global instability, Chomsky takes an economic approach.

“The imperial model, which succeeded, [has] prevented other countries from moving towards independent development, and therefore led to a situation in which U.S. multinationals dominate the world,” he says. “It’s led to a situation in which [the U.S. empire is] primarily designed for the benefit of U.S. capital, which has succeeded beyond belief.”

Listen to the first part of the remarkable discussion between Scheer and Chomsky, and tune in next week for the second installment, which will delve into the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and its global impact. You can also read a transcript of the interview below the media player and find past episodes of “Scheer Intelligence” here.

—Introduction by Natasha Hakimi Zapata

Robert Scheer: Hi, this is Robert Scheer with another edition of Scheer Intelligence. And in this case–I always say the intelligence comes from my guests; in this case, I’m saying it with great respect and awe. My guest is Noam Chomsky. And actually, this is my first real encounter with this man. But I obviously, as many people throughout the world, know him through his writing.

And I’m a little bit intimidated, frankly. And I thought back to an earlier moment in my journalistic career, when I was the editor of Ramparts magazine, and the New York Times savagely attacked Bertrand Russell for his anti-war work, his concern about nuclear disarmament, and in particular for his opposition to the Vietnam War. And Russell had had a reputation as a strong critic of communism, and was rather well known for that. So it was particularly disturbing to the mass media that wanted to support this war. And the New York Times–now we talk a lot about fake news and real news–invented the fake news that Russell sort of had lost his rational capacity. And they actually engaged in character assassination, in an editorial and in reporting.

So I thought, well, I’m going to go to Wales–where he was living–and he was willing to be interviewed. And I went there, and I found an [incredibly]–frail, yes; he was then 94, turning 95. And this was–we published it in ’67, so I did it a month or two before. And Norman Rockwell, who was a great fan of Russell, was so offended by the character assassination, he volunteered his talent to do the cover of Ramparts, this wonderful drawing of Bertrand Russell. And I found this man–who was as lucid as you can be; frail physically, but very clear–and we did a marvelous interview.

Now, I have this [Laughs]–people have criticized Noam Chomsky, but they did it when he was a vigorous young man, and no more so now. But I do see the parallel between you and Russell. You know, great intellectuals who were willing, as you have been, to be also an activist, or play an active role, and so forth.

And I want to begin with an intellectual question. And that concerns a letter that Aldous Huxley wrote to Orwell on the occasion of the publication of 1984, and they were–this was a post-World War II publication, in the late forties, and [Huxley] had written Brave New World in 1931. And I hope everyone listening to this–

Noam Chomsky: Huxley had.

RS: Huxley had, yes. Sorry. And I hope everyone listening to this is, obviously, familiar with these books. One, Orwell’s, is very bleak–totalitarian, sadism and so forth of the totalitarian state; and Huxley presents a view that is also a reflection of the work that Noam Chomsky has written about the advertising society, the manipulative society, the consumer society. Manufacturing Consent, the drug effect of sports and consumerism, lulling people into acceptance. And in his letter to Orwell, and by an accident of history, Huxley had been, in 1917, Orwell’s French teacher at Eton, and knew him. And the publisher had sent it to Huxley thinking Huxley would just embrace it. And Huxley said some nice things, but he said: I think you missed the point; it won’t be so overt, because the ruling classes that want to hold on to their power will find that more subtle, manipulative means much more effective. That was Huxley’s rejoinder to Orwell.

Now, your own work has sort of talked about all of it. And when I look at the current situation in the United States now, it seems to me we have an amalgam of these two totalitarian, dystopian models emerging. We, in the words of Neil Postman, we amuse people to death, we distract them; in your writing, you’ve talked about those distractions. But we’re also a militarized state. We have punitive surveillance, and we use the espionage law. We have the boots on the ground; we have 800 bases.

So take it from there. Which–I think we can start with the assumption we have to be concerned about a dystopian future. Which model do you see emerging?

NC: Actually, I could add a third one. The first of this series of dystopian novels was Zamyatin, his book We, around 1920, Russian, gave a very vivid picture of a dystopian society that kind of amalgamates the kinds of pictures that Huxley and Orwell were developing. But we are very clearly moving to a tight surveillance society. There’s interesting work on this: Shoshana Zuboff, whose work you’ve probably seen, a Harvard professor, has a book called, I think, Surveillance Capitalism, which is about the techniques that are being developed to influence, control behavior, control people through the use of modern technology.

So as I’m sure you know, when you drive a car, the car is picking up a ton of information about you, going back to the auto to some central source, we don’t know exactly where. And so if you’re driving down the main street in Tucson, where we are now, and the information that’s been collected indicates that you like Chinese restaurants, then if you’ve got the right kind of gadgets in your car there’ll be an ad saying, you know, a half-mile from here there’s a Chinese restaurant you might like. And this is not just being used to flood you with information, but also to control you. So for example, the insurance companies are observing what you’re doing, if you’ve got your car wired up right. And if they see you go through a traffic light, they can send you an instant message saying you better be careful or you’re going to raise your insurance rates. They can even get to the point of locking your car, you know. But there’s a combination of sort of punishment and shaping, trying to direct you in certain directions. You see it every time you look something up on Google, you know; then you get a bunch of things saying you’d like this, or wanted to do this, and so on.

All of this goes, is moving on to controlling people at work. So by now, there’s the beginning–actually it began in Sweden, but it’s now expanded here–of placing chips in working people with an inducement. If you agree to have a chip inserted then you get, you know, free access to the coffee machine, and you can do all these interesting things, so people do it. But it also controls your actions. Like if you’re in an Amazon warehouse, they already have systems–which is backbreaking work–they’ve worked out the quickest routes between this spot and that spot. And if you’re one of these people racing to try to keep up with a schedule, and you deviate from the route, you get a discredit immediately. You get an instant warning if you take off a little time to say hello to a friend, you get a warning. UPS is using it to control truck drivers. So if you back up when you shouldn’t have, you get a warning. If you stop for a cup of coffee when that wasn’t on your schedule, you get a warning. They’ve, in fact, they claim they’ve increased efficiency; these people internalize all this, and you race to keep to the commands, and they can claim they can now have more deliveries with fewer drivers, and so on.

This is being–the kind of model towards which society is moving is already illustrated to a substantial extent in China, where they have very heavy surveillance systems–cameras, you know, the devices that keep track of you, and so on. And you get a–they have what they call a credit system, social credit system. You get a certain number of points, and if you, say, jaywalk, violate a traffic rule, you lose points. If you help an old lady across the street, you gain points. Pretty soon all this gets internalized, and your life is dedicated to making sure you follow the rules that are established. This is going to expand enormously as we move to what’s called the internet of things. Meaning every device around you–your refrigerator, your toothbrush, and so on–is picking up information about what you’re doing, predicting what you’re going to do next, trying to control what you’re going to do next, advise what you do next. And in a way, Huxley was kind of right. People may not see it as intrusive; they just see it as that’s the way life is, the way the sun rises in the morning.

RS: Well, go further than that: they define freedom as consumer sovereignty. And they think of having choices about shoes to buy or the best bargain–that’s what Amazon specializes in–is a very shriveled notion of freedom. Because if you actually think of political freedom, or social activism, or being involved in the moral life of your community, then you will be a little wary of this information being out there. But I just want to make one point about this. What Edward Snowden revealed more than anyone else–and something I think you would be very familiar with, being at the sort of center of a lot of this technology at MIT for so many years–there’s a close connection between what the private sector can get and what the government has. And Snowden’s great revelation was that there’s no wall between Google and Amazon and the government. In fact, we now know Amazon is developing the cloud to keep all this information for the government, for the CIA, for the intelligence agencies.

So getting back to these dystopian models, we actually have the situation where people, in the manner of Huxley, give up their information because they’re taking the drug, consumerism, or whatever it is. But we also have the Orwellian image of Big Brother knowing everything, because we know the NSA and the CIA and every other agency has gotten all this information from Google. And so the question I want to put to you, is this the end of time for our species? And is this a reflection–and I know this is going to sound alarmist, but I reread your book, Hegemony or Survival, which was I think 2003. So by the standard of the internet, it was very early. And you mentioned there that the typical life of a species is 100,000 years. That’s one thing I got from it. And that we may be coming to the end of this disfavor, of however it happens. And secondly, it’s an open question whether being smart, as we define smart, is an important way of averting disaster and preventing the disintegration of the species.

And you leave it as an open question. The reason it’s a relevant question right at this moment is because we had the best and the brightest, as David Halberstam had described them, who gave us the Cold War and gave us Vietnam and gave us Iraq and everything else and, you know, gave away the money from Main Street to Wall Street, and all that. And now we have somebody who people like to think of as very crude, boorish, ill-mannered, which is Donald Trump. And we have Trumpwashing. Suddenly the smart, liberal people who created much of this mischief are now whitewashed, or Trumpwashed, by this buffoon. So I would like to ask you, first of all, are we in the end of times in that sense? And what is this battle, as I will define it, between Clintonism and Trumpism?

NC: Well, you raise a lot of points. I should say there’s a kind of a subtle structure to the book that you mentioned, which may be too subtle for anyone to notice. It begins, the book begins with the discussion by the great biologist Ernst Mayr, who pointed out that–he did mention that the average life of a species–it’s been tens of billions of species–is about 100,000 years; that’s not far from us, we’re maybe 200,000 years. But the point he was making is that intelligence seems to be a kind of lethal mutation. If you look through the–what’s called biological success, what allows the species to survive and proliferate, turns out as you move up the scale of what we call intelligence, capacity to survive declines. So the species that are really very successful are beetles, for example, which have a fixed niche; they never change. Everything changes, the whole world changes, but they stick to their niche and keep reproducing and they’re fine. In fact Julian Huxley, Aldous’s brother, who was a great biologist, was asked once what biology had taught him about God. And he said what he had [been] taught was that God loves beetles. Because there’s a huge number of species that are all over the place, they do great. Another species that does fine is bacteria, the dumbest of all, but they mutate very quickly. So they adapt to whatever comes along.

As you move up to, say, mammals–say bigger mammals–their capacity to survive declines. What about when you get to humans? Well, you could argue that–and this is, let me just say at the very end of the same book, there’s a quote from Russell. Russell is asked, when will there be peace on earth? And he says, there will be peace on earth after all higher organisms have disappeared, and we’re back to the bacteria, and so on; then, there will be peace. That’s basically the structure. Now, if you think about it, we’ve been around for a couple hundred thousand years, we’re supposed to be the most intelligent species–we are now proving Mayr’s thesis. Not so much for the reasons you mentioned, which are bad enough, but we are racing to destroy the possibility of organized human life. And it’s a cooperation of those who call themselves the best and the brightest, and the Trumpian boors, and–all doing it. So I’m sure the CEOs of ExxonMobil and JPMorgan Chase know as much about global warming as we do. But they are–and they know, certainly, that continuing to do what they do–maximize the use of fossil fuels, pour money from the banks into development of fossil fuels–they know for certain that that’s going to destroy the possibilities of organized human life, not in the very distant future.

Go to the other end, Trump cares about nothing but himself. I don’t think there’s another idea in his mind, just me. What is he doing? Well, he’s following what’s good for me: keep his main constituency happy, the rich and the powerful, and somehow control the others. And one way to do it is by saying, let’s maximize the use of fossil fuels. Let’s use more coal, let’s use more energy, let’s be the greatest country in the world. We now are again the major producer of fossil–of oil, surpassing Saudi Arabia. It’s wonderful, let’s all cheer.

Does he know what’s going to happen? Well, even he knows. So he knows, for example, that sea levels are rising, it’s dangerous. In fact, he’s appealed to the government of Ireland to allow him to build a wall–you know, he loves walls–to protect his golf course in Ireland from rising sea levels. His administration came out with one of the most amazing documents in human history. The transportation administration came out with a long, I think, several hundred page environmental assessment study, which predicted that by the end of the century, temperatures will have risen seven degrees Fahrenheit. That’s what climate scientists describe as cataclysmic, about twice the level at which organized human society can survive. And they drew a conclusion from that. The conclusion is we should not put any more emissions controls on automobiles and trucks. Why? Sound argument. We’re going over the cliff anyway, so why not have fun?

So here you have the spectrum, all racing towards disaster, perfectly consciously, a great testimonial to human intelligence. And that’s only the beginning. There’s something else, which–at least this, some people are talking about–there’s another danger, at least as extreme, which is barely discussed. And that’s the greatly increasing threat of nuclear war. Greatly increasing. Not only the nuclear–the new nuclear strategy study, which is bad enough; Obama’s before it was also pretty awful. But also the dismantling of the entire arms control system which has kept us, more or less, barely alive. Anyone who looks at the history of the nuclear weapons period knows that it’s kind of a miracle that we’ve survived this long. Well, there was an arms control regime. One core part of it was the ABM Treaty, which George W. Bush dismantled. The second major part was the INF Treaty, negotiated by Reagan and Gorbachev, that reduced sharply the threat of nuclear war for 20 years. Trump has just abandoned it, and there’s barely a word about it. And furthermore, immediately after abandoning it, the Pentagon carried out a test, obviously long-planned, of a missile that violates the treaty. Just pleading with the Russians and others, please make up, develop missiles to destroy us. The Open Skies treaty, initiated by Eisenhower–it was a different world then–that’s the next one on the chopping block, won’t do that. The New START treaty is next; the administration’s already said they’re not going to sign it. That ends the arms control regime; we are now free to create more and more destructive weapons to ensure that others do the same. If you read the announcements from Lockheed Martin and other arms control producers, they’re ecstatic, getting huge contracts to figure out ways to destroy us all and to make sure that others do it, too. Hardly a word said about this.

This is intelligence across the board, OK. So maybe Ernst Mayr is right, and human beings will demonstrate that [it’s] untrue that it’s better to be smart than stupid. We’re supposed to be smart; look at what we’re doing. That’s quite apart from the systems and surveillance and control that you’re talking about. These are the major issues in all of human history. There’s never been a moment in human history when we had to make a decision whether the species is going to survive in any recognizable form. And other species with it; we’re now destroying species at a rate that’s never been seen before. In fact we’re getting to the point, if you look at the temperature rise and the percentage of particles in the universe, we’re going back to periods hundreds of thousands or even millions of years ago, when the sea level might have been 25 or 30 feet higher. What does that tell you about human life? What are we doing about it? Maximizing the effort, with the United States in the lead. Every other country in the world is trying to do at least something; the United States alone has pulled out of even the weak Paris agreement, and is now dedicated to maximizing these twin disasters. Other countries are bad enough, but we’re in the lead–the most powerful, richest country in history. This is something–there are no words to describe this.

RS: Well, this is exactly what caused Bertrand Russell to be considered controversial, and then smeared, when he pointed out the obvious: that the mutual assured destruction strategy of nuclear warfighting–in fact, he used the example not so much of the beetles, but of the survival of the cockroaches, another dumb species. That if you had this great policy that came out of very enlightened administrations, mutual assured destruction, all-out nuclear war and so forth, that it would be the cockroaches and the beetles that survived. And intelligence came into it as a way of more effectively rationalizing, or to use a word you’ve written a lot about, propagandize the public. It’s very skilled. So we argued, our best and brightest, for example, as–and it’s interesting, we’re doing this recording on a day when the Washington Post revealed that they had gotten through the Freedom of Information Act, basically, the Pentagon Papers of the Afghan war. That this war has been a lie, just as the Vietnam War was a lie. We didn’t, we’re not doing it for any of the reasons that were shared with the public. That basically, you know, lives were squandered, and resources, for no purpose. And as we know, in Vietnam, the ignominious loss of the Vietnam War by the U.S.–they always said “you can’t just get out”–when we lost in the most ignominious defeat, communist China and communist Vietnam went to war, and it did not increase the security threat to the United States.

So the best and the brightest–and that’s why Halberstam used that title–used their intelligence to lie more effectively, to propagandize and so forth, and to tell the public stuff they knew was untrue. In fact the Secretary of State under Trump, who is now seen as a good guy, was the head of Exxon, Tillerson. And he could just–he wanted to be a more effective liar. It’s not that he was going to really do anything about global warming.

So my point, really, is this is distinction without a difference between so-called liberals and conservatives. I mean, you have the Democratic Party, now is basically a warmongering party. They want to be even tougher. Instead of saying–for instance, it was Ronald Reagan who was quite a warmonger, but nonetheless he made the agreement with Gorbachev. It was Ronald Reagan who said that at Reykjavík in Iceland: we can step back. You know, after calling them monsters–oh no, we can. We can do some of this. And in fact now, for all kinds of irrelevant reasons, we want to have a new Cold War with Russia, we want to have red-baiting without reds. It’s an exercise in madness. We’ve given up any idea of arms control. And ironically, Trump actually from time to time makes more sensible comments about getting along with some of these people.

And at the core of it is something you have written about effectively. It’s the notion–I don’t know if you use that word–of American innocence, American exceptionalism. And you know, this global warming started when, way back when you were writing and we were–they used to say 6% of the world’s population using 60% of its resources. And the waste that was built into the advertising society, and so forth. And it just–I think if I were to take your wisdom in a nutshell, it would be: beware of the people of power, and avarice, and wealth. Because the more intelligent they are, the better they’ll be at distorting reality and convincing us that what’s good for them is good for the world when it’s just the opposite.

NC: Well, you raise a great number of points. [Laughs] Be good to go after them point by point. But let’s start for a minute with the Pentagon Papers. The way the Pentagon Papers is interpreted, almost universally, is exactly the way you interpreted it. The Pentagon–I remember an article by Hannah Arendt in the New York Review, calling Washington “city of lies”–the Pentagon Papers showed they were lying to us. I don’t think that’s what the Pentagon Papers showed. The focus of discussion about the Pentagon Papers is almost entirely on the 1960s. If you look at the New York Times selection from it, it’s the 1960s. And yes, there was a lot of distortion and deceit, and self-deceit and so on in the sixties. But the Pentagon Papers go back to the 1940s. And if you look back at the early part–which I did writing about it at the time, in fact–you see a rational picture.

And in fact if you look at that picture, the idea that the U.S. failed in Vietnam becomes much muddier. Why did we get into Vietnam? Well, you look back around 1950. A major–in the late forties, the United States was kind of ambivalent about how to deal with the imperial systems. On the one hand, it wanted to support its allies–actually clients, by that time–Britain, France, Holland, and so on, which would have meant supporting their imperial systems. On the other hand, the United States was dedicated to what it called an open world in which U.S. multinationals, which were just developing at the time, would be free to exploit, to gain resources, to invest without any impediments. So no closed regions, all open regions, which we would expect to dominate. That meant opposing the imperial systems.

So there’s a quandary. And different decisions were made in different cases, by thinking about what the best way to do it was. When we got to Vietnam, this was right after what’s called the fall of China. The loss of China, a very interesting term; the assumption is we own it, we lost it. That was a huge event that led to McCarthyism and so on. At that point, U.S. policy towards Vietnam changed. Before that, it had been ambivalent. But the decision was made to support France in its effort to reconquer its former colony. And there was a reason. It’s the reason that underlies, that runs all through history. It’s ridiculed as the domino theory, but though it’s ridiculed, it’s never abandoned, because it’s correct. So therefore you go back to it, time after time. The idea was put nicely by Henry Kissinger: when there’s a virus that spreads contagion–the virus is independent development, out of control of the United States. If that spreads contagion to others, we’re in trouble. Others will follow the same rule; the system of domination and control will erode. How do you deal with a virus that’s spreading contagion? Well, you kill the virus and inoculate the victims so they won’t be infected. That’s exactly what was done in Vietnam. Vietnam was smashed. It’s not going to be a model to anybody. Surrounding countries were inoculated by imposing vicious, brutal military dictatorships. No infection there; they’re going to be controlled.

And it worked. In fact, the telling point was Indonesia. They didn’t care much about Vietnam, but Indonesia they did care about; very rich in resources and so on. When Suharto took [power] in 1965, that was just killing hundreds of thousands of people, instituting a vicious regime of torture and murder, all described pretty accurately, with euphoria. It was a “gleam of light in Asia,” as the Times’ liberal correspondent James Reston described. You know, hope where there was none, and so on. Why? Because it ended the threat of contagion. In fact, in later years McGeorge Bundy, who was National Security Advisor for Kennedy and Johnson, he reflected that they probably should have ended the war in 1965, the Vietnam War. Because it had already been won. Vietnam was already smashed. The surrounding countries were now safe.

And what they were really worried about in 1950 was Japan. The Asia historian John Dower, famous Asia historian, called Japan the super domino. They were concerned that if Indonesia and Burma and Thailand accommodated to move in a path of independence, Japan might join this system as its industrial commercial center, and they would be, the rest of Southeast, East Asia would be the surrounding resource area. What’s that? That’s what Japan tried to construct during World War II. That’s the new order in Asia. In 1950, U.S. planners were not ready to lose the Pacific War. This was disgraceful, but rational planning. And if you think about the consequences, it pretty much worked.

Now, you look at Afghanistan, the papers that came out this morning–notice what they’re focused on. Incompetence. Stupid decisions. We didn’t know what we were doing, and so on. You go back to, take Russia in the early 1980s. If we had internal documents from Russia in the early eighties, I’m sure we would find the generals, political analysts saying what we’re doing in Afghanistan is incompetent. We don’t know what we’re doing. It’s a mistake, we should do it differently, and so on. Is that the problem with the Russian invasion of Afghanistan? No. Is it the problem with the American destruction of Indochina, that there were lies and it was incompetent? No. All of this is deep-seated propaganda, internalized. We’re looking at the wrong thing, because that supports American innocence. If you say we were stupid, we made mistakes, and so on–well, we can still be the most idealistic, wonderful place in the world; anybody can make mistakes. If you look at the actual planning, and the reasoning–which was not silly, and in fact is duplicated over and over. The comment I quoted from Kissinger was about Allende. He said Chilean social democracy is a virus that might spread contagion. How is it dealt with? By installing the Pinochet dictatorship to kill it at its heart, to kill the virus. Installing brutal, vicious military dictatorships throughout the entire region. That’s pretty much duplicating the same reasoning. And you can give case after case. And it goes back way before in the history of imperialism; you go back to King George the Third, time of the American Revolution. His concern was that this rise of republicanism in the British colonies could be a virus that would lead to a call for republicanism elsewhere, and the whole British Empire would erode. This is standard imperial history. We’re right in the middle of it. It’s not American exceptionalism. It’s American conformity to standard imperial history, along with the propaganda of innocence, exceptionalism, and so on. And interestingly, the best and the brightest are accepting the propaganda. That’s what they’re focusing on. Not the rational imperial planning; the implementation of it, which unfortunately is pretty successful. Many millions of people are paying for that. That’s what we should be thinking about.

RS: OK, you’re going to have to go, and we’re going to have to tie it up. But I want to get to what we were going to talk about at the beginning, the question of Israel. So I’m going to cut this short. I’m not disagreeing with anything you said. And by the way, the value of the Pentagon Papers was it showed we lied about the very reason for going in, and putting Diem in–

NC: They didn’t lie about it. If you look, about the early years, it’s described accurately. In the sixties, they were lying about it, that’s true. Because they were stuck and didn’t know what to do.

RS: OK, but when they had–I don’t want to go through the whole history, but when they had Tom Dooley and the Catholics fleeing, and they presented Vietnam as a totally Catholic–I mean, we can go through the tissue of lies. But I do want to make one point here, I don’t want to drop it, and I think it’s an interesting point. If we think, yes, imperialism is an outmoded model, or it’s a model that’s difficult to defend; it’s not the model that, say, Tim Cook of Apple would favor, or Sergey Brin of Google, or many of the people who have come out of MIT or Stanford or other places. They believe, actually, in a kind of virulent capitalism, including having dominance in particular industries and so forth. And that model–just as communism turned out not to be nationalist, turned out to be highly–I mean, turned out to be highly nationalist, not internationalist. The Vietnamese really cared about Vietnam, and they had their own grievances with China; the Sino-Soviet Dispute was a reality going back to the 1920s. Tito was really the model we should have studied rather than, you know, some notion of communist imperialism, which is a fiction. And in fact, the communists turned out to prove Karl Marx right, which is capitalism was a stage that comes before socialism. It doesn’t replace socialism, and it ends the idiocy of rural life and builds big cities, et cetera, as he said in the manifesto. So the real issue was, was the Cold War necessary? Could we have had American economic dominance and trade and so forth in a more truly open society, where they could do it with one form or another, and one degree or another of state involvement–and China is a perfect example. It’s now very a successful capitalist, state capitalist country, up to the point where it is now; Vietnam is following in that. And so all I’m saying is that they were irrational in trying to hold to an imperialist model at the very time when England and France knew it was not economically viable, and you have to abandon it. So, but leaving that–

NC: I don’t agree with that. England and France were trying to sustain their imperial model. And in fact, the imperial model that was developed was very successful. Suppose that the United States had really, in the forties and fifties, had allowed countries to go their own way. Suppose that they’d said, OK, Vietnam, you want to develop independently, out of our control–fine, go ahead and do it; you’ll be successful. Thailand followed, Burma followed, Indonesia followed; Japan joined in and became the center of this system. Would U.S. multinationals be able to dominate the world? Take a look at today’s world, OK. There’s a kind of a–when we look at national power, what people look at typically is GDP, gross domestic product. And you look at U.S. share of GDP–it’s declined. It was maybe 40% in 1945, then maybe 25% by 1970, maybe 17% today. It looks like a decline. But take another measure. Take a look at the–here I’m quoting very interesting work by a young political economist, Ken Starr’s. Suppose you look at the dominance of the economy by U.S.-based multinationals. It’s spectacular. U.S. multinationals control about 50% of the global economy, own–own 50% of it. In just about every area–manufacturing, retail–

RS: That’s my point. My point is it’s a more effective model than sending the troops–

NC: No, this is the imperial model, which succeeded. It prevented other countries from moving towards independent development, and therefore led to a situation in which U.S. multinationals dominate the world. If they had moved to independent development, we’d see exactly what we’re seeing with China today. It’s moving towards independent development; U.S. is trying to prevent it. The policies, shared bipartisan policies are to try to prevent Chinese [independent] development. So if China, for example–you know, the mantra is “China’s stealing our jobs.” Is China stealing our jobs? They don’t have a gun to the head of Tim Cook, saying invest here. The U.S. multinationals are losing our jobs. But we don’t want China to develop as an economy. That’s why the bipartisan programs are to attack China from doing the things that make the economy successful–like industrial policy, to have a state industrial policy. We see that that’s successful; we want them to stop it. Kind of interesting, because that’s–economists and others, if they believe a word they’re saying, ought to be cheering. According to their theories, if the state intervenes in the economy, it’s going to harm the economy. But everyone knows the opposite is true. In fact, we ourselves have a massive state industrial policy. That’s why you have things like computers and the internet and so on, it’s mainly public funding. But we don’t want China to have that, because they’ll be successful, they’ll be out of our control; that we don’t want. That’s what the kind of concern was in the fifties. So I think the imperial model has been very successful. It’s led to a situation in which it’s primarily designed for the benefit of U.S. capital, which has succeeded beyond belief.

RS: Well, I think that’s absolutely true. The question is whether in this multinational world–and again, I need to get to these other points–but whether–and we’ll see; this is a real test with the whole argument about holding China back. Because for the individual companies, Apple makes a lot of money from China. China delivers a docile workforce; you know, it’s stable. And so the Chinese so-called communist model has turned out to be much better than if we had conquered China or returned Chiang Kai-shek to power, who controlled it.

NC: That’s right. But as soon as it’s beginning to get out of control, there’s a bipartisan agreement, backed by capital, to try to prevent their development. Now on a much smaller scale that happened in Vietnam, happened in Chile. It’s happened over and over again, even happened with Grenada if you want to look at it. And that’s a standard imperial model that goes back way before we picked it up. And overall, it’s been pretty successful. There were things that didn’t work out. But for the main drivers of American policy, which is concentrated capital, it’s been a pretty successful system.

The S&P 500 finished with a gain of 28.9% for the year , while the Nasdaq composite rose 35.3%. For both indexes it was the best annual performance since 2013. Technology stocks helped power those gains by vaulting 48%.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 22.3%, led by Apple.

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Along the way, the three major indexes set more record highs than in 2018 and kept the longest bull market for stocks going.

“We had a remarkable year of returns in the stock market,” said Keith Buchanan, portfolio manager at Globalt Investments. “Things are much different going into 2020 than they were going into 2019.”

Wall Street’s record-shattering ride in 2019 was not without its bumps.

The market got off to a roaring start in January after Federal Reserve Chairman Jay Powell said the central bank would be “patient” with its interest rate policy following four increases in 2018. That encouraged investors who had been worried the Fed would continue hiking rates. Those concerns helped fuel a sell-off in the final quarter of 2018 that knocked the S&P 500 nearly 20% lower by December of that year.

January’s rally helped set the tone for a year in which the market responded to every downturn with a more sustained upswing. Along the way, stocks kept setting records — 35 of them for the S&P 500 index, 22 for the Dow and 31 for the Nasdaq.

By the end of the year, the Fed had completely reversed course and cut rates three times in what Powell called a pre-emptive move against any impact a sluggish global economy and the U.S.-China trade war might have on U.S. economic growth.

The market also overcame a late-summer slump caused by fears that the U.S. economy could be headed for a recession. Those concerns eased as investors drew encouragement from surprisingly good third-quarter corporate earnings and data showing the economy was not slowing as much as economists had feared.

“You fast-forward 12 months and now we’re going into 2020 and the sentiment seems like it’s fairly the opposite,” Buchanan said. ”There are fairly rosy expectations and there’s not a consensus that a recession is coming in a very near term.”

A truce in the 17-month U.S.-China trade war helped keep investors in a buying mood through the end of the year. Washington and Beijing announced in December they reached an agreement over a “Phase 1” trade deal that calls for the U.S. to reduce tariffs and China to buy larger quantities of U.S. farm products.

On Tuesday, President Donald Trump tweeted that he will sign the initial trade deal with China at the White House next month. He also said he plans to travel to Beijing at a later date to open talks on other sticking points in the U.S.-China trade relationship that remain to be worked out, including Chinese practices the U.S. complains unfairly favor its own companies.

A last-minute burst of buying reversed an early dip the major indexes Tuesday. Stocks ended the day broadly higher, led by gains in technology, health care and financial companies. Industrial stocks and household goods makers lagged the most. Bond prices fell, sending yields higher. Gold rose and crude oil fell.

The S&P 500 rose 9.49 points, or 0.3%, to 3,230.78. The Dow gained 76.30 points, or 0.3%, to 28,538.44. The Nasdaq climbed 26.61 points, or 0.3%, to 8,972.60.

Smaller company stocks fared better than the rest of the market. The Russell 2000 index picked up 4.32 points, or 0.3%, to 1,668.47. The index ended the year with a gain of 23.7%.

Trading volume was lighter than usual ahead of the New Year’s Day holiday. U.S. markets will be closed Wednesday and reopen on Thursday.

Bond prices fell. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note rose to 1.92% from 1.89% late Thursday.

In a year when most of the 11 sectors in the S&P 500 finished with gain of more than 20%, technology stocks led the way higher.

“Technology performed well,” said J.J. Kinahan, chief strategist with TD Ameritrade. “There was a huge fear going into the year that technology was going to suffer considerably because of tariffs, yet at the end of the year Apple is the leading stock in the Dow.”

Apple did in fact precipitate one of the biggest sell-offs of the year on Jan. 3 with a warning of slowing demand for iPhones. After that, however, it was mostly good news for Apple shareholders and the stock finished with an annual gain of 86%, its best year since 2009.

Financial sector stocks, especially big banks, also posted strong gains in 2019, despite a sharp pullback in interest rates.

The sector ended with a 29.2% gain for the year, while JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Citigroup climbed over 40%.

Benchmark U.S. crude oil lost 62 cents to settle at $61.06 per barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, gave up 67 cents to close at $66 per barrel.

In other commodities trading, wholesale gasoline fell 3 cents to $1.70 per gallon. Heating oil slipped a penny to $2.03 per gallon. Natural gas was little changed at $2.19 per 1,000 cubic feet.

The price of gold rose $5 to $1,519.50 per ounce. Silver fell 8 cents to $17.83 per ounce. Copper dropped 3 cents to $2.79 per pound.

The dollar fell to 108.64 Japanese yen from 108.83 yen on Monday. The euro strengthened to $1.1217 from $1.1202.

European markets closed mostly lower. In Asia, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index lost 0.5%.

This content originally appeared on Ralph Nader Radio Hour and was authored by Ralph Nader Radio Hour.