Free Is A Lie

Click here if you wish to access directly the YouTube 32:34m video presentation of a talk given by Indie Phone founder and lead designer, Aral Balkan.

Balkan argues that Google, Facebook, and other corporations are just following their business model (a capitalist plan for profitability) by offering "free" services. But he also makes clear that by offering "free services" that you are essentially a quarry that is being mined for data to be sold to whoever. It is a con (confidence trick) to obtain data from you to be sold in the data market. They have discovered that your private information is just another commodity that is highly profitable--especially with government being one of the biggest customers. 

It appears that the people at Independent Technology realize that without privacy, we do not have civil rights; and they are determined to develop "beautifully designed and easy to use free and open consumer products that empower people to own their own tools and data."

It's time for a design revolution in open technology. Companies like Google and Facebook that dominate the Internet promise us free services in exchange for the right to watch and study us; to mine and farm us. Like quarries, like livestock, we are natural resources to be exploited in a brave new digital world of corporate surveillance that threatens our most fundamental freedoms. 

There are open alternatives but they are too difficult for most of us to use.

It is time to bring design thinking to open source and build beautiful, seamless open consumer products that are easy to use and which respect our fundamental freedoms.

Pirate Radio Station for $55 Could Help Decentralize Big-Telecom

Click here to access article by Tony Cartalucci from Land Destroyer Report.

...accessible pirate radio transmitters built from Raspberry Pi boards can join projects like PirateBox, Project Byzantium, Serval, and other tools to create local communication networks. While PirateBox and Project Byzantium create localized Internets and Serval connects mobile phones without the need for network coverage, pirate radio stations create localized radio content that can be used to connect us to our neighbors and greater community for entertainment and useful information - and help during dire emergencies when centralized infrastructure fails. 

While many appear frozen in perpetual fear of Internet "kill switches," the growing surveillance state, and a creeping Orwellian control grid, others are building alternatives that circumvent, undermine, and will eventually replace the increasingly unappealing nature of big-telecom. Indeed "kill switches" and invasive surveillance are problems, which is precisely why communities must unite and build alternatives that eliminate dependency on compromised infrastructure in the first place. 

Freedom of the Press Foundation Launches SecureDrop, an Open-Source Submission Platform for Whistleblowers

Click here to access article by Trevor Timm and Rainey Reitman from Freedom of the Press Foundation.

There are occasionally small victories that activists achieve in the growing police state called the USA. This is one of them. The San Francisco based group has developed a means of securely and anonymously supplying information to media outlets that use their software program. Now that the government is on a rampage to persecute dissidents who reveal state crimes against the people (see this and this), this internet activist group is fighting back.

YouTube Censors Anti-Oil Videos

Click here to access article by Andy Rowell from The Price of Oil.

This report illustrates how big corporations will on occasion use outright censorship to protect and support each other and their system of capitalism. Because they "own" the means of communication of information, they control the content, and to a considerable extent the minds of their subservient populations. This ethos has infected even parts of the internet which many young people have seen as offering a "bastion of...freedom":

The website, which is owned by Google, argues it “provides a forum for people to connect, inform, and inspire others across the globe and acts as a distribution platform for original content creators and advertisers large and small.”

But that distribution platform only goes so far as activists and film makers have recently found out.

Restricted web access to The Guardian is Armywide, officials say

Click here to access article by Phillip Molnar from The Herald (Monterey County, California) 

The Army admitted Thursday to not only restricting access to The Guardian news website at the Presidio of Monterey, as reported in Thursday's Herald, but Armywide. 

Oh, but it's all a matter of good hygiene as reported by "Gordon Van Vleet, an Arizona-based spokesman for the Army Network Enterprise Technology Command". Why restrict it to only the soldiers? Shouldn't all Americans be protected from this infection of information? Hmm...maybe they are planning to. US media is already not reporting much of what is happening in the world. Isn't it wonderful that Big Brother is not only protecting us by reading our emails etc, but is concerned that we are not contaminated with the wrong information?

See also this RT report and interview with a political analyst:

Post PRISM: Encrypted communications boom after NSA leaks

Click here if you wish to access source of this 4:09m video from RT via YouTube.

The Propaganda System That Has Helped Create a Permanent Overclass Is Over a Century in the Making

Click here to access article by Andrew Gavin Marshall from his blog.

Although my academic background was in sociology (BA), by reading this article I still managed to learn a lot about its role in the ideological engineering of the masses. 

I entered the field of sociology as a very naive student with idealistic notions of the pursuit of truth which I assumed universities provided. I initially performed my studies very well and was rewarded by my professors. But, eventually when I began to use some Marxist intellectual tools to critique the writings of the "godfathers" of established sociology, I suddenly met with a very negative reception by the same professors. This academic process of screening out those who refuse to be indoctrinated has been well covered by Jeff Schmidt in his book Disciplined Minds.

Ironically this experience really accelerated my informal education. I began to see the strong ideological component of it and began to study this phenomenon further, but independently. In the course of my independent studies, I began to realize that US institutions of high learning were used effectively to indoctrinate people whom the One Percent ("owners" of the economy) needed in order to manage their economic enterprises and to work in other important institutions without questioning the purposes of their work, the policies of the One Percent, or any significant aspect of the organization of society imposed by the "owners" of the economy on the 99 Percent.

Information about the pervasive uses of class-based ideological manipulation and control, for obvious reasons, has always been difficult to obtain. Marshall, in this piece, offers a valuable contribution toward our understanding of the subject so that we can effectively counter the efforts of the One Percent to manipulate us to serve their interests instead of our interests. Intellectuals like Marshall, who must function outside the One Percent's institutions of higher learning, cannot continue to do this by themselves. Thus, we simply must support them with funding because they are one of us and fighting for us in this class war.

Who’s Faking It? Pentagon “Cyber-Warriors” Planting “False Information on Facebook”

Click here to access article by Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich from Global Research (Canada).

On November 22, 2012, the Los Angeles Times published an alarming piece of news entitled “Cyber Corps program trains spies for the digital age”. The “cyber-warriors” who are headed for organizations such as the CIA, NSC, FBI, the Pentagon and so on, are trained to stalk, “rifle through trash, sneak a tracking device on cars and plant false information on Facebook [emphasis added]. They also are taught to write computer viruses, hack digital networks, crack passwords, plant listening devices and mine data from broken cellphones and flash drives.”

Because the misuse of information is such a powerful weapon in the Empire's arsenal, and recognizing the increasing sophistication of communication technology, it is more important than ever to examine all electronic communications with a critical eye.

Calling all Pessimistic Optimists

Click here to access article by Mickey Z. from World News Trust.

I often find it difficult to talk about political issues with my fellow Americans who have been subject to so many decades of indoctrination and propaganda. Mickey Z. seems to have mastered this task while staying committed to activism.

Throughout my time with Occupy Wall Street, I’ve encountered the FAQ (e.g. What are your demands? Who are your leaders? Why don’t you get a job?). However, enduring a predictable litany of questions is nothing new to anyone involved with radical activism. To follow are some of my favorites from over the years -- along with my answers.

Can we talk? In a meaningful way, that is…

Click here to access article by Cecile Andrews from Seattle City Living via Energy Bulletin. 

In the fragmented, alienated societies we now live in, mainstream media owned by the One Percent has played a major role in substituting their communications for person-to-person communications that previously had been a main feature of community life. By describing an ordinary conversation she had with local workers, this author from my Seattle area explains that right-wing media has largely replaced these communal communications with communications crafted by corporations to separate and divide us. This has resulted in something like artificial communities under the control of corporations that has fractured organic communities across the country.

We wear the hood but "hood" remains unchanged

Click here to access article by Sylvester Brown, Jr. from OpEd News.

The author is worried about instant, shallow activism that may substitute for long range strategic thinking that is necessary to really change the neighborhood and the world.

This old school journalist...is...leery of social media. Like the youth who drive it, there's a flighty, faddish feel to viral jornalism. It's a bittersweet sphere where tweets, pings and postings dictate the relevance of information. Its news in a hurry for hurried people conditioned to sound bites and under 500-word summaries. Social media can instantaneously motivate millions to action but that figurative moment also allows people to superficially adopt a cause or respond to a crisis without really understanding or addressing root causes or the bigger realities of societal issues.

Net-neutrality talks resume in DC without the FCC or Google

by Sara Jerome from The Hill. 

Private interests are circling the internet like vultures honing in on their prey. This does not bode well for open access to the internet for views that capitalists disagree with. If these corporations and their lobbyists succeed, the internet will be transformed into what radio and TV has become--information and cultural wastelands. 

Media Access Project, a net neutrality proponent, panned the development.

"These ‘negotiations’ are illegitimate. They do not involve representatives of people who use the Internet for free expression and commerce, and they lack representation from the infant businesses that depend on an open Internet to build the future Ciscos, Microsofts, and Skypes," said MAP senior vice president Andrew Jay Schwartzman.

Save the Internet, But Start a Social Movement (4:12m audio & script)

from Black Agenda Report. 

A federal court has put the FCC’s version of “internet neutrality” in question, encouraging corporate forces that would turn the Net into a toll road. But real activists don’t rely on courts and legislatures to achieve social and institutional progress. “Until we return to genuine grassroots and radically political social movement no technology can be used for liberation."

On Pop Clarity: Public Intellectuals and the Crisis of Language

by Henry Giroux from Truthout. Some deep thoughts about the role of intellectuals in our society, the use and misuse of language, and corporate media.

The International Unemployment Day

from The Economic Populist. The author contrasts the Tea Party activists of today with activists in the 1930s.

...you have to wonder if these people [Tea Party activists] know ANYTHING at all about how their unemployment insurance and social security checks came into being. I'm only guessing, but I bet they probably believe that the federal government "imposed" these new laws on the people of America. The idea that the federal government fought the concepts tooth and nail, and were forced by a nationwide grassroots movement to approve it, is probably not something that has occurred to these people.

Of course, the Tea Party activists are not from the organic grass roots--they were created by Fox News Corp. Yes, corporations are clever enough nowadays to create their own activists by exploiting the misery of working people whose minds are controlled by the TV set.  Fortunately for working people of the 1930s, TV didn't exist. The ruling class had radio stations and newspapers, of course, but nothing that had the power of TV to fill the minds of working people with distractions and disinformation. On the other hand, we have the internet.

Blogs: Crucial or a Waste of Time?

from Washington's Blog. This astute blogger takes a close look at the question he poses and asks you what you think.

Will Facebook Remake the World?

by John Feffer from the Institute for Policy Studies.  An interesting look at the impacts of the latest communications technologies on society--it's a very mixed bag, particularly with regard to a "deliberative democracy".

Deliberative democracy involves substantive discussion of issues through community meetings, conflict resolution mechanisms, and in-depth polls. According to the Civic Practices Network, the aim is to “cultivate a responsible citizen voice capable of appreciating complexity, recognizing the legitimate interests of other groups (including traditional adversaries), generating a sense of common ownership and action, and appreciating the need for difficult trade-offs.”

Beyond Orwell: The Electronic Police State, 2010

by Tom Burghardt from Dissident Voice. The author appears to argue that the net effect of the new communications technologies are, and will continue, to have very negative effects.

Consumers Are Sleeping With the Enemy

 from Toward Freedom

In the same way consumers have become captive to the social networking industry, we have likewise become captive to the telecommunications, satellite television, pharmaceutical, fossil fuel, fast food and credit card industries (to name a few). We may not like the ways in which these corporate behemoths treat us, but we’re too addicted to their products to do much about it. Those addictions to everything corporate may offer the only cogent explanation of why we remain paralyzed in the face of apparently unlimited corporate power. 

How to Reach A Larger Audience

from Washington's Blog. The blogger is concerned about how to communicate with a large audience such as the American public, and delves into the research findings on public communications. It is clear to me that this research has been used mainly by the ruling class to manipulate the public, to engineer or "manage consensus". The blogger argues that such techniques must also be used by progressives to get their views across to larger audiences. (Yuck!) I think the basic problem is that public education, by design, has failed to teach critical thinking and have left the public so vulnerable to such techniques. But is he right? You decide.