As I get older I worry — really worry — about the world my daughter and her children might inherit.
Though many questions remain about how the military would apply such technology, the reasonable fear should be perfectly clear. "Persona management software" can be used to manipulate public opinion on key information, such as news reports. An unlimited number of virtual "people" could be marshaled by only a few real individuals, empowering them to create the illusion of consensus.
...the one-sided class war is over. Unions in Wisconsin are fighting back--and they're doing so across union lines that have traditionally divided and weakened them. Around the Capitol, it's common to hear conversations from veteran unionists that they'd never seen anything like this from the labor movement--and they couldn't be happier.
But the struggle is far from over--and despite the powerful mobilizations, victory is by no means assured in Wisconsin. Walker has a Republican majority in both houses of the legislature to rely on if he can get a vote. "If this passes, it's going to be nationwide" said Dahnert, the highway worker. "You're going to see the quality of life go way down."
Asked if that means workers have to be prepared to escalate their action, he said: "I believe that's the only choice we have."
Buses and cars arrived from Illinois and Minnesota and as far away as Kansas, as teachers and public employees from those states showed up at what American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees union president Gerald McEntee says is “ground zero“ in the struggle for labor rights in America.
...the Kochs are determined to make Wisconsin a laboratory of corporate oligarchy. Nationwide, the war on public workers -- and government in general -- is not simply a facet of an ideological notion about the virtues of small government. The war on government is a war against the labor movement, which has much higher rates of union membership in the public sector than it does in the private sector.
Labor is seen by corporate leaders as the last strong line of resistance against the wholesale takeover of government (and your tax dollars) by corporations. So, by this line of thought, labor must die.
International cartels now use their control over the global food supply to make huge profits. There are six major corporations that control the purchase and sale of agricultural products: Cargill, Kraft, Bunge & Born, ADM (Archer Daniels Midland), Nestlé and General Mills. Food prices are set at exchanges in Chicago, New York and London.For a more thorough explanation of this speculation thesis, view/listen/read this excellent interview [22:15m] on Real News with two economists.
Unlike in neoliberalism, in the new Latin American “progresismo” or “21st Century Socialism” the state has much more participation in the economy and directs part of the foreign exchange funds into social programs, and also China has replaced the United States as the main importer of raw materials. But little else has changed. Instead of post-extractivism now there is neo-extractivism. Extractive activities and the export of raw materials continue as before, but are now justified with a progressive discourse.It seems, once again, that the more things change, the more they remain the same. Perhaps this is why the Empire has blunted its attacks on the progressive movements in South America.
If an American citizen can't even sue political officials who lawlessly imprison and torture him in his own country -- if political leaders are vested with immunity from a claim of this type -- what rational person can argue that the rule of law or the Constitution binds our government officials?
We’ve repeatedly said that offshoring and outsourcing are often not the big cost-savers that the industry promoting them, Wall Street, and the stenographers among the business press would have you believe.I live near Seattle and thus I hear a lot about Boeing's problems with cost overruns and delays which the author elaborates in this article. She attributes the cause to "hubris".
The iron fist that has kept a tight grip on Egypt’s labour movements for nearly six decades relaxed this week, unleashing a wave of wildcat strikes that is testing the resolve of the country’s new military rulers.
"I've never seen anything like it. It wasn't just teachers and union members from the University of Wisconsin (UW), where I work. There were Steelworkers, Teamsters, Pipefitters, building trades unions and more--unions I've never seen at a rally in 10 years," he said. "The most amazing thing is when the firefighters came in a delegation. Along with police, Walker has exempted firefighters from the legislation, but they came with signs that said, 'Firefighters for workers' rights.' People were crying."
A few weeks ago, we all learned that the Justice Department had obtained an order demanding that Twitter turn over private information about several of its users in connection with the government’s investigation of WikiLeaks.
During that speech Ray McGovern, a veteran who also served for 27 years as a CIA analyst, exercised his freedom of speech by standing and silently turning his back on Secretary Clinton. He was protesting the ongoing wars, the treatment of Bradley Manning and the militarism of U.S. foreign policy. He did not shout at the Secretary of State or interrupt her speech. He merely stood in silence.There are few people in the US who know more about the war crimes and human rights abuses of the Empire than Ray McGovern. While the Empire's public relations people such as Hillary Clinton sermonize about civil and human rights abroad, this great clip illustrates how the Empire cannot tolerate the mildest form of dissent at home.
Two studies in Wednesday's issue of the journal Nature link heavy rains to increases in greenhouse gases more than ever before.
Egypt's revolution is in danger of being hijacked by the army, key political activists have warned, as concrete details of the country's democratic transition period were revealed for the first time.
Revolutions are schools of profound self-education. They destroy submission and resignation, and they release long-repressed creative energies--intelligence, solidarity, invention, self-activity. In so doing, they reweave the fabric of everyday life. The horizons of possibility expand. The unthinkable--that ordinary people might control their lives--becomes both thinkable and practical.
In this book, her most recent, Marcia Angell explores pharmaceutical research, deplores the rapidly expanding involvement (and distortion of truth) of Big Pharma, and implores us all (physicians, patients, politicians) to do something about it.See also this piece entitled, "Why Almost Everything You Hear About Medicine Is Wrong". Notice that this capitalist publication carefully avoids connecting the issue of false medicines with profit-obsessed capitalism.