Democracy gone Astray: Monday, July 23, 2018

Democracy Gone Astray

Democracy, being a human construct, needs to be thought of as directionality rather than an object. As such, to understand it requires not so much a description of existing structures and/or other related phenomena but a declaration of intentionality.

This blog aims at creating labeled lists of published infringements of such intentionality, of points in time where democracy strays from its intended directionality. In addition to outright infringements, this blog also collects important contemporary information and/or discussions that impact our socio-political landscape.

All the posts here were published in the electronic media – main-stream as well as fringe, and maintain links to the original texts.

[NOTE: Due to changes I haven't caught on time in the blogging software, all of the 'Original Article' links were nullified between September 11, 2012 and December 11, 2012. My apologies.]

Monday, July 23, 2018

Equifax Is Trying To Make Money Off Its Massive Security Failure

UPDATE: Sept. 11 ― In a reversal, Equifax said in a statement Monday morning that the company wouldn’t require credit card information from victims of the company’s data breach who sign up for its free service.

“We are not requesting consumers’ credit card information when they sign up for the free credit file monitoring and identity theft protection we are offering to all U.S. consumers,” the company said in a statement on its website. “Consumers who sign up for TrustedID Premier will not be automatically enrolled or charged after the conclusion of the complimentary year of TrustedID Premier.”

Bill Bader is Missouri’s largest peach grower, supplying produce to retailers throughout the mid-South. But the last two years have found him struggling to save his farm. Thousands of his trees have defoliated limbs and walnut-size peaches not worth the picking, with 30,000 trees irreparably damaged.

Bader is not alone. Over 2,200 other farmers growing soybeans, tomatoes, melons, grapes and other crops across 20 states have reported crop damage on more than three million acres, slashing harvests by a third or more. Losses are estimated in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

The 2016 Democratic Primary — like a bad relationship in the rearview mirror — is long dead. But a group of jilted progressives won't move let the past stay in the past, no matter how hard they try.

Politico reported Friday that Bernie Sanders supporters are trying to infiltrate and purify the Democratic Party by lobbing attacks at anyone who seems to move to the center.

A Nobel Peace Prize winner once hailed as her country’s Nelson Mandela has stood by as ethnically motivated violence and mass atrocities tear apart her country.

Democracy activist Aung San Suu Kyi spent 15 (out of 21) years under military house arrest in Myanmar, the country formerly known as Burma. Largely locked away for chunks of time from the end of the 1990s through the early years of this century, she earned a global reputation for quiet strength in the face of a brutal military junta. Suu Kyi refused to leave her country, even though it meant forgoing a life with her sons and husband, who lived overseas.

Lately, Russia appears to be coming at the United States from all kinds of contradictory angles. Russian bots amplified Donald Trump during the campaign, but in office, Kremlin-backed media portray him as weak. Vladimir Putin is expelling U.S. diplomats from Russia, limiting options for warmer relations with the administration he wanted in place. As Congress pushes a harder line against Russia, plenty of headlines declare that Putin’s gamble on Trump has failed.

Confused? Only if you don’t understand the Gerasimov Doctrine.

Prominent Democrats are increasingly riled by attacks from Bernie Sanders' supporters, whose demands for ideological purity are hurting the party ahead of the 2018 midterms and 2020 presidential election, they say.

But it’s not just the outside agitators that Democratic lawmakers, operatives and activists are annoyed with: They’re tired of what they see as the Vermont senator’s hesitance to confront his own backers, either in public or through back channels.

Even as the world continues to reel from Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris climate accord, another environmental disaster is already looming. In September, construction is scheduled to begin on a massive expansion of the Trans Mountain Pipeline, a project that will create a dramatic spike in planet-warming pollution by transporting oil extracted from Canada’s tar sands, one of the world’s dirtiest and most energy-intensive sources of crude. The supersize pipeline, stretching along a 715-mile route from Alberta to the Pacific Ocean, will pump 890,000 barrels of oil to the coast each day—more than doubling the current carbon emissions from tar sands. In climate terms, that’s the equivalent of putting another 3.6 million cars on the road.

In his eight months in office, Marco Minniti, the austere Italian interior minister, has overseen a huge reduction in the number of African migrants and refugees reaching Italian shores from Libya.

At the last count in August, the figure was 87% down on the previous year.

A former communist with deep connections with Italian intelligence and the levers of the Italian state, Minniti is one of the most controversial politicians in Europe. His success in reducing migrant flows has won him praise and popularity on the right and notoriety on parts of the left.

More than a dozen people were lining up in anxious silence at the reception counter of the JobCenter in Berlin’s Pankow district, though it was 8 am and the place had only just opened. In response to a question, a middle-aged man said, “Why am I here? Because if you don’t come when they summon you, they take away what little they give you.” He thought the JobCenter would have little to offer him, except perhaps a job that had nothing to do with his skills. An unemployed teacher had recently received a letter inviting her to apply for a job as a sales assistant in a sex shop—or be sanctioned. In response, she posted online: “I’ve put up with all sorts from my JobCenter, but this is too much,” adding that she intended to file a complaint against the agency for abuse of authority.

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Facebook Inc <FB.O> said on Wednesday it had found that an influence operation likely based in Russia spent $100,000 on thousands of ads promoting divisive social and political messages in a two-year-period through May.

Facebook, the dominant social media network, said that many of the 3,000 ads promoted 470 “inauthentic” accounts and pages that it has now suspended. The ads spread polarizing views on topics including immigration, race and gay rights, rather than backing a particular political candidate, it said.

What role is Russia playing in the difficulties the United States, Europe, and other countries are experiencing?

Does the Kremlin reject the existing world order and aspire to a new division of the world?

Did Moscow's political kitchen deliberately help to concoct the loathsome dish of domestic and international terrorism, the tsunami of refugees, and political destabilization in many countries?

Since the late 20th century, Silicon Valley has been so closely associated with the concept of innovation that the very notion of unionization has seemed almost anachronistic. We embody the new economy, you could practically hear the region's defenders proclaim. Unionization is so passe!

Apparently not.

On August 24, Apple CEO Tim Cook made a joint announcement with the governor of Iowa and the mayor of Waukee that the small town had been chosen as the site for a new $1.3 billion data center. At a time when struggling Midwestern towns and cities are trying to present themselves as emerging innovation hubs in an attempt to attract a sliver of Silicon Valley’s wealth, the photo op gave the politicians fodder for their inevitable reelection campaigns. But what made Waukee attractive to Apple?

It’s easy for me to remember what happened in June 25, 26 and 27, 2010, for the G20 Summit demonstrations in Toronto when the city was taken over by thousands of police officers -- and their overreactions, mistakes and mass kettlings. The impact of these days of action are still being felt.

While the acute trauma from the demonstration, especially for people who had contact with the police that led to their mistreatment by way of detention, arrest or incarceration at the infamous Eastern Avenue Detention Centre.

The world is more dangerous today than it has been in a generation, the head of Nato has said, days before the mobilisation of an estimated 100,000 Russian troops on the EU’s eastern borders, and as a nuclear crisis grows on the Korean peninsula.

Jens Stoltenberg, secretary general of the military alliance, said the sheer number of converging threats was making the world increasingly perilous.

At a court hearing on Wednesday, a federal judge agreed to delay accused leaker Reality Winner’s trial until March. The delay will allow Winner’s lawyers and expert witnesses to acquire the required security clearances needed to access classified information the government may use against her in court.

A potentially critical pretrial battle, however, is brewing right now, according to court documents filed Tuesday. Winner — the 25-year-old Air Force veteran and ex-National Security Administration contractor indicted under the Espionage Act for allegedly leaking a top-secret document — has accused the FBI of violating her Miranda rights. Winner’s lawyers are arguing that any alleged confession should be barred from a jury trial.

JOHANNESBURG ― The contrast couldn’t be starker. As U.S. President Donald Trump’s government continues to champion isolationism and undermine decades-old international relationships, China is rolling out its Belt and Road Initiative, or BRI, a project to build a new “Silk Road” that could change the meaning of globalization itself. Africa is at the margins of both of these developments, but its future will be determined by them.

As someone who grew up in Africa, the project stirs a tangle of emotions. While it will directly affect East and North Africa, there is the chance that it could spur desperately needed development all along Africa’s eastern seaboard, where countries are still trying to recover from the proxy conflicts of the Cold War.

The couple from Quebec City, two children in tow and taking a snap at the Jack Layton memorial, wanted to know if there was a “parc d’amusement” nearby. She was wearing a hijab. He, an Expos baseball cap. I directed them to the nearby ferry docks taking tourists to the Islands. Then, I asked if I could take a photo of them. I shared it on Twitter. I don’t know why exactly, except that I may have been feeling a bit sentimental as it was the Monday after the "alt-right" violence in Charlottesville. And it seemed a good place to contemplate the idea that hope is better than fear in these charged times.

It’s been more than 70 years since we’ve seen a broad-based citizens movement against the power of monopoly. It’s long past time for one, and the following story is why.

In late June, the European competition authority handed down a decision against Google for monopolizing the search market and suppressing rivals. It was a classic case of anti-competitive behavior, and the EU made the right decision. What’s interesting, however, is not the decision, but what happened next across the ocean in Washington, D.C.

Emmanuel Macron’s government has announced a “major and ambitious” transformation of France’s complex labour laws aimed at tackling mass unemployment and making the country more competitive in the global market.

Five decrees have been issued, containing what ministers said were “concrete and major measures” to overhaul and simplify the weighty Code du Travail, which covers every aspect of working life in France.

WASHINGTON — Defying U.S. safety protections for human trials, an American university and a group of wealthy libertarians, including a prominent Donald Trump supporter, are backing the offshore testing of an experimental herpes vaccine.

The American businessmen, including Trump adviser Peter Thiel, invested $7 million in the ongoing vaccine research, according to the U.S. company behind it. Southern Illinois University also trumpeted the research and the study’s lead researcher, even though he did not rely on traditional U.S. safety oversight in the first trial, held on the Caribbean island of St. Kitts.

A 15-minute Uber ride or a 30-minute transit ride? For affluent city dwellers who increasingly prefer comfort and convenience, this choice is a no-brainer. However, this choice is a privilege that remains out of reach for those who live in transit-dependent low-income communities, who face many barriers to accessing ride-hailing services.

Uber competing with taxis is old news, but many now worry that ride-hailing services like Uber and Lyft compete with public transit for riders. Not only can ride-hailing service be incredibly convenient, nowadays it can be dirt cheap, increasing the appeal of simply opening the mobile app. This trend may come as no surprise to cities with limited and inefficient transit that are losing their poor, transit-dependent riders in droves to gentrification.

As Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh, an Indian sect leader, made his way to a court in India's northern Haryana state on the morning of August 25, some news channels ran live coverage of the 200-car cavalcade, that included several black SUVs, as it made its nearly 250km journey from Sirsa to Panchkula in Haryana.

That Singh had been accorded Z-plus security - usually reserved for prominent politicians - was testimony to the level of political influence this controversial sect leader wielded.

Shock and anger were common feelings for most Americans who followed the recent tragic events in Charlottesville, Virginia.

To Jack Rosenthal, the hate-filled imagery was something he never thought he’d see again, at least not in the United States.

Rosenthal is one of 10,000 Romanian refugees who came to America after World War II. At 88 years old, he still mourns the loss of seven family members who died in the Auschwitz death camp. He was the only one to survive.

A report released yesterday by the Abortion Care Network, the national association for independent community-based, abortion care providers and their allies, details an alarming trend of mass independent reproductive health clinic closures that is threatening access to care across the country.

According to “Communities Need Clinics,” 145 independent abortion clinics have closed since 2012, reducing the total number of independent providers by nearly one-third to 365. Ten clinics have closed already this year. Sixty percent of people who have abortions seek out that care at independent clinics (non-Planned Parenthood, standalone facilities not housed in a hospital that specialize in reproductive health care). Without access to independent providers, access to non-hospital abortion care after 16 weeks would drop by 76 percent.

Anxious to find precedents for the frightening and ultimately deadly white nationalist, “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, some media outlets have likened the images of the recent mayhem in Virginia to the chilling ones of the German-American Bundrally that filled Madison Square Garden on February 20, 1939, with 22,000 hate-spewing American Nazis.

That rally, the largest such conclave in U.S. history, shocked Americans at the time. They had seen the press accounts and newsreel footage of the Nazis’ massive Nuremburg rallies; they had read about Kristallnacht, the murderous, two-day anti-Semitic pogrom of November 1938, which the Bund — the fast-growing, American version of the German Nazi party, which trumpeted the Nazi philosophy, but with a stars-and-stripes twist — had unabashedly endorsed.

NORTHAMPTON, England ― In the wake of the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia on Aug. 12, there has been a growing public interest with the anti-fascist movement. Anti-fascism is as old as fascism, and it can be defined simply as activity that opposes fascist and extreme right-wing politics. Labels such as “alt-left” are now being used by U.S. President Donald Trump, among others, to describe, and deride, something that has a long, complex history. In order to understand today’s anti-fascist groups ― and where they might succeed and fail ― we need to revisit the ones that came before.

OTTAWA — The federal government is facing increased pressure from Indigenous advocates to confront how historical figures are celebrated in Canada following the passage of a motion by an Ontario teachers' union calling for the removal of Sir John A. Macdonald's name from elementary schools in the province.

A bigger conversation needs to unfold nationally about the role of historic figures in the "dark realities of colonialism", NDP MP and Indigenous affairs critic Romeo Saganash said Friday, adding it is the responsibility of Ottawa to begin this dialogue "in the spirit of reconciliation" with Indigenous Peoples.

A high-level Russian official is unimpressed with Canada's war games in the Baltics.

"There is no other way to interpret what's going on in the Baltic republics [than] as a very provocative action," Maria Zakharova, chief spokesperson for Russia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said in an interview with CBC News.

Two weekends ago, the world watched with horror while white supremacists, neo-Nazis, Ku Klux Klan members and other elements of the so-called alt-right rampaged throughout the city of Charlottesville, Virginia. Their orgy of hatred against Jews, Muslims, gays and lesbians, liberals, African-Americans and other people of color would culminate in a terrorist-style attack that killed Heather Heyer and injured dozens more.

Condemnation and disgust at the white supremacist thuggery in Charlottesville should be universal; instead the response has largely been processed through a partisan lens.

Democracy gone Astray