Clay Shirky on PIPA and SOPA

Excellent overview of where these bills are coming from and what we should expect going forward, at TED.

Update Re- Genetically-Modified Foods

As explained in a 2009 post and by others before me, "insect-resistent" GM plants have in fact been engineered to produce food that's literally full of poison.

Lately I'm hearing stories on public radio (the only traditional-media news product I regularly consume) about "good" GM – how spider genes have enabled silkworms to create stronger silk, and how sunflower seeds have been engineered to produce more cooking oil.

I hope this surfacing of the GM discussion results from an independent, journalistic initiative on the part of public radio – that seems possible, since I believe I also heard mention that the use of environmentally-hazardous pesticides or other chemicals has actually increased with the use of GM crops. Alternatively, the coverage may arise from a p.r. initiative on the part of the GM industry.

Regardless, I welcome the discussion, since I think genetic engineering is here to stay and does in fact offer the potential to help us build a better world quicker than natural selection might otherwise do.

But for purposes of the discussion, it would seem useful to distinguish between GMOs that deploy different kinds of strategies – e.g., for starters, to distinguish between poisonous and non-poisonous GMOs (since creating organisms that produce intrinsically poisonous food would seem more obviously likely to give rise to undesirable consequences).

To do that, we need new, clear terms – and we should expect that any terms the industry might propose will not be clear.

So let's propose some ourselves. Here's an initial attempt:

"Poisonous GMO": a GMO engineered to cause death or illness in any living organism, or to impair or inhibit the reproductivity or functioning of otherwise healthy, normal or typical living organisms.

"Non-Poisonous GMO": a GMO which is not a Poisonous GMO, as defined above.

Alternative or additional suggestions welcome.

The Larger Economic/Political Cycle

"Book V of Aristotle’s Politics describes the eternal transition of oligarchies making themselves into hereditary aristocracies – which end up being overthrown by tyrants or develop internal rivalries as some families decide to 'take the multitude into their camp' and usher in democracy, within which an oligarchy emerges once again, followed by aristocracy, democracy, and so on throughout history."

That's the first paragraph; it gets even better. E.g., after an incredibly succinct yet enlightening history of economic/political evolution through the ages, he explains,

Democracy involves subordinating financial dynamics to serve economic balance and growth – and taxing rentier income or keeping basic monopolies in the public domain. Untaxing or privatizing property income “frees” it to be pledged to the banks, to be capitalized into larger loans. Financed by debt leveraging, asset-price inflation increases rentier wealth while indebting the economy at large. The economy shrinks, falling into negative equity.

The financial sector has gained sufficient influence to use such emergencies as an opportunity to convince governments that that the economy will collapse they it do not “save the banks.” In practice this means consolidating their control over policy, which they use in ways that further polarize economies. The basic model is what occurred in ancient Rome, moving from democracy to oligarchy. In fact, giving priority to bankers and leaving economic planning to be dictated by the EU, ECB and IMF threatens to strip the nation-state of the power to coin or print money and levy taxes.

The resulting conflict is pitting financial interests against national self-determination. The idea of an independent central bank being “the hallmark of democracy” is a euphemism for relinquishing the most important policy decision – the ability to create money and credit – to the financial sector. Rather than leaving the policy choice to popular referendums, the rescue of banks organized by the EU and ECB now represents the largest category of rising national debt. The private bank debts taken onto government balance sheets in Ireland and Greece have been turned into taxpayer obligations. The same is true for America’s $13 trillion added since September 2008 (including $5.3 trillion in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac bad mortgages taken onto the government’s balance sheet, and $2 trillion of Federal Reserve “cash-for-trash” swaps).

By Michael Hudson at Counterpunch; much more here.

Rightlessness Creep

Ok, we need a better term. The basic idea is, the fundamental rights recognized by the Founding Fathers, such as the right not to be killed without due process of law, belong to ALL people, not just US citizens; and that when we acquiesce in violations of that right of others, we should expect soon to suffer the same ourselves.

Per WaPo,

[N]o president has ever relied so extensively on the secret killing of individuals to advance the nation’s security goals. . . . CIA and military strikes this fall killed three U.S. citizens . . . . It is a measure of the extent to which the drone campaign has become an awkward open secret in Washington that even those inclined to express misgivings can only allude to a program that, officially, they are not allowed to discuss. . . . Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence, described the program with a mixture of awe and concern. Its expansion under Obama was almost inevitable, she said, because of the technology’s growing sophistication. But the pace of its development, she said, makes it hard to predict how it might come to be used.

(More at the link.) A.k.a. "extrajudicial killings" – a fancy name for murder.

The Wedding Project

You may have seen an earlier post in which I warned I'd be on hiatius for while in order to work on a big project.

Well, Phase 1 of The Wedding Project was a participatory/performance/screenings event, in which a real wedding occurred (my own).

I made two one-hour videos for the project, one for guests to watch and the other to be projected onto their backs, and I and my sig. other and 80+ friends made or scavenged costumes, props (including 200 wedding veils and more than 650 flat paper flowers) and set decor (including thousands of yards of used videotape), shot lots of video and photos of the event, and threw a big party.

I'm interested in, among other things, the blending of the real and the artificial. In this project, a real marriage between two individuals serves as a metaphor to explore larger historical, sociological, psychological, epistemological, and metaphysical contexts – including the bond that, for better or worse, has in some sense always existed among all of humanity but that now, by virtue of the internet, is becoming much more intense, or at least more quickly and thickly interconnected.

There's a website for the project with a lot more info here, and I've just put some photos of the event here.

I'm now engaged in Phase 2, which means editing the video shot at the event and otherwise mashing up product for an exhibition.

So I'm afraid I need to make myself sparse here again for the next month or two. Thank you for your patience!

The Eurozone Crisis

. . . is not about market "discipline," according to Dean Baker:

The people who gave us the eurozone crisis are working around the clock to redefine it in order to profit politically. Their editorials – run as news stories in media outlets everywhere – claim that the euro crisis is a story of profligate governments being reined in by the bond market. This is what is known in economics as a "lie". The eurozone crisis is most definitely not a story of countries with out of control spending getting their comeuppance in the bond market. Prior to the economic collapse in 2008, the only country that had a serious deficit problem was Greece. In the other countries now having trouble financing their debt, the debt to GDP ratio was stable or falling prior; Spain and Ireland were actually running budget surpluses and had debt to GDP ratios that were among the lowest in the OECD. . . . The crisis changed everything. It threw the whole continent into severe recession. This had the effect of causing deficits to explode, since tax revenues plummet when the economy contracts and payments for unemployment benefits and other transfer programmes soar. . . .

* * * * *
People should recognize this process for what it is: class war. The wealthy are using their control of the ECB to dismantle welfare state protections that enjoy enormous public support. This applies not only to government programs like public pensions and healthcare, but also to labour market regulations that protect workers against dismissal without cause. And of course, the longstanding foes of Social Security and Medicare in the US are anxious to twist the facts to use the eurozone crisis to help their class war agenda here. The claim that the countries in Europe are just coming to grips with the reality of modern financial markets is covering up for the class war being waged on workers across the globe. The assertion that this crisis is about market discipline should not appear in a serious newspaper, except on the right side of the opinion page.

More at Al Jazeera. (Dean Baker was among the first observers to identify a US housing bubble in 2002. He was a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute and worked as a consultant for the World Bank and the Joint Economic Committee of the US Congress, and authored weekly commentaries for the NYT and WaPo.)

UPDATE: Other recent headlines of economic interest:

The Four Companies that Control the 147 Companies that Own Everything (re- the 147 cos., see here).

Iceland is Our Modern Utopia (rejecting a bailout for their banks, the citizens of Iceland took control of their now-resurgent economy).

Germany Builds 2X the Cars & Pays Workers 2X the Wages

Evidence of Market Manipulation in the Financial Crisis

Is Bank of America Holding the US Hostage? (referring to the fact that BoA just moved its derivatives business into its FDIC (i.e. taxpayer) -insured depositary).

Too Big to Stop: Why Big Banks Keep Getting Away with Breaking the Law (the industry has captured the regulators, so the fines are too small to deter).

Love is . . .

Note that one tends to attribute the lead to the tallest, front-center guy; he's got the best, most robotic look.

"All the Other Kids"

A parody; but I'm pretending it just augments the original, 'cuz I think together they constitute more, better:

Johnie on xbox live
fending off the newbs as he's claimin 'bout a screw.
What's missing from this awesome jive?
is the fact the girl's someone that he never really knew.
He tries to be tough in school
but really he crawls home... as he's crying in his drool.
He calls himself impressive guy
when he dresses like his sister and his ego is a lie.

[Chorus x2:]
All you other kids know that you suck (censored), you better run better run.....cause you are done!
All you other kids know that you suck (censored), you better run better run.....back home to your mother!

Out came these two guys
with their pants to their knees like their begging for a breeze.
They don't seem that shy
when in prison it means that they are looking for guy.
While facing probation
they spend their time tagging on a police station.
They think their so cool
when their half way retarded and their nothing but a tool.

[Chorus x2:]
All you other kids know that you suck (censored), you better run better run.....cause you are done!
All you other kids know that you suck (censored), you better run better run.....back home to your mother!

"Original" lyrics (quote marks to be read advisably):

Robert's got a quick hand.
He'll look around the room, he wont tell you his plan.
He's got a rolled cigarette.
Hanging out his mouth, he's a cowboy kid.
Yeah! He found a six-shooter gun.
In his dad's closet, in the box of fun things,
I don't even know what.
But he's coming for you, yeah! He's coming for you!

All the other kids with the pumped up kicks, you better run, better run, outrun my gun.
All the other kids with the pumped up kicks, you better run, better run, faster than my bullet.
All the other kids with the pumped up kicks, you better run, better run, outrun my gun.
All the other kids with the pumped up kicks, you better run, better run, faster than my bullet.

Daddy works a long day.
He be coming home late, and he's coming home late.
And he's bringing me a surprise.
'Cause dinner's in the kitchen and it's packed in ice.
I've waited for a long time.
Yeah the sleight of my hand is now a quick-pull trigger.
I reason with my cigarette,
Then say, "Your hair's on fire, you must have lost your wits, yeah?"

All the other kids with the pumped up kicks, you better run, better run, outrun my gun.
All the other kids with the pumped up kicks, you better run, better run, faster than my bullet.
All the other kids with the pumped up kicks, you better run, better run, outrun my gun.
All the other kids with the pumped up kicks, you better run, better run, faster than my bullet.
(Run, Run, Run, Run. Run, Run. R-Run, Run, Run. R-Run. R-Run, Run, Run. R-Run. Run, Run. Run, Run. Run, Run, Run.)
All the other kids with the pumped up kicks, you better run, better run, outrun my gun.
[Etc.]