Exclusive: The Military Knew Years Ago That a Coronavirus Was Coming | Ken Klippenstein
▻https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/covid-military-shortage-pandemic
The Pentagon warned the White House about a shortage of ventilators, face masks, and hospital beds in 2017—but the Trump administration did nothing. Source: The Nation
How Trump Is Going to Get Away With a Pandemic, by Sonia Shah | The Nation
▻https://www.thenation.com/article/society/trump-hiding-covid
There are lots of ways for the Trump administration to cook the data to hide the extent of the coronavirus outbreak—in fact, it already is doing so.
(...) Wide use of at-home Covid-19 self-testing kits could have a similar effect. Critics say users are unlikely to get an accurate result with such kits, since doing so requires an uncomfortable swab deep into the back of the nose or throat where the virus lurks. More likely, users will take a shallow swab, miss the virus, and obtain a happy but false negative result—contributing to a rosy and politically expedient underestimate of the epidemic. Along with hastily approving such self-testing kits, the administration’s top officials have touted the discomfort of more accurate lab tests. Vice President Pence called his “kind of invasive.” If hospitals were to muzzle their staff by, say, preventing them from sharing their work experiences—as anecdotal reports suggest some are—they might help conceal the extent of the outbreak, too, by obscuring the carnage unfolding in their wards.
Bill Gates Gives to the Rich (Including Himself) | The Nation
►https://www.thenation.com/article/society/bill-gates-foundation-philanthropy
Une sérieuse critique du système #FBMG entre #business et #charité
Bill Gates’s outsize charitable giving—$36 billion to date—has created a blinding halo effect around his philanthropic work, as many of the institutions best placed to scrutinize his foundation are now funded by Gates, including academic think tanks that churn out uncritical reviews of its charitable efforts and news outlets that praise its giving or pass on investigating its influence.
In the absence of outside scrutiny, this private foundation has had far-reaching effects on public policy, pushing privately run charter schools into states where courts and voters have rejected them, using earmarked funds to direct the World Health Organization to work on the foundation’s global health agenda, and subsidizing Merck’s and Bayer’s entry into developing countries. Gates, who routinely appears on the Forbes list of the world’s most powerful people, has proved that philanthropy can buy political influence.
#philanthropie #philanthrocapitalisme
Merci @fil
How New York Real Estate Became a Dumping Ground for the World’s Dirty Money | The Nation
▻https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/how-new-york-real-estate-became-dumping-ground-worlds-dirty-money
Il est #illégal que l’argent sale aille ailleurs qu’aux #Etats-Unis,
The Patriot Act, passed after the 9/11 attacks, requires that banks, securities houses and other financial firms follow stringent anti–money laundering rules and report suspicious transactions to law enforcement. Real estate and escrow agents were included on the list, but a loophole in the law gave an opening for the US Treasury to “temporarily” exempt the real estate industry from these requirements. A dozen years later, the exemption still stands.
The Global Garbage Economy Begins (And Ends) In This Senegalese Dump | The Nation
▻https://www.thenation.com/article/garbage-china-senegal-economy
The polypropylene container, or jerrycan, is a familiar sight across Senegal. Savvy businessmen sell pilfered petrol from it, hawking it to drivers waiting in long queues for fuel. The women who run salons carry it to their businesses, ensuring they can still run their generators should the electricity go. It can be a vessel for water or palm oil; a child can use it as a makeshift chair. So can a saleswoman, as a weight to hold down the plastic tarp that threatens to take-off. The swimming instructor ties one around his pupils; an empty jerrycan makes a pretty good makeshift flotation device.
Secret US Intelligence Files Provide History’s Verdict on Argentina’s Dirty War.
▻https://www.thenation.com/article/argentina-dirty-wars
This past spring, nearly 42 years after Hidalgo Solá’s disappearance, the Trump administration declassified some 47,000 pages of secret US intelligence files on the “Dirty War” that Argentina’s military government waged against its own people. More than 7,000 CIA, FBI, Pentagon, and National Security Council (NSC) records—now posted on a specially created US government website at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence—shed considerable light on the state of terror that existed in Argentina from 1976 to 1983, when the military held power. The detailed documents provide extensive new evidence on the infrastructure of repression, Argentina’s role in the international terrorism campaign known as Operation Condor, and most important, the fate of hundreds of desaparecidos who were kidnapped, tortured, and murdered—among them Hidalgo Solá.
“Suspicion will fall on military hardliners who were upset last year when Hidalgo Solá received at his embassy a labor leader ousted after the March 24, 1976 coup,” states one secret intelligence assessment filed just eight days after the ambassador disappeared. FBI sources believed he had been eliminated because the military suspected him of providing passports to exiled opponents of the regime in Venezuela, according to another report. “Hidalgo Solá was kidnapped and assassinated by a special group which has worked for the State Intelligence Secretariat (SIDE),” asserts a secret CIA intelligence cable, which identified the agents responsible and provided an address for the secret torture center where he was allegedly held.
Recently declassified documents constitute a gruesome and sadistic catalog of state terrorism.
New Files Tie U.S. to Deaths Of Latin Leftists in 1970’s - The New York Times
▻https://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/06/world/new-files-tie-us-to-deaths-of-latin-leftists-in-1970-s.html
2001
A recently declassified State Department document shows that Latin American officers involved in #Operation_Condor, the joint effort in the 1970’s by right-wing governments to crush left-wing opposition, used an American communications installation to share intelligence.
[...]
If Latin American officers did use American facilities to transmit intelligence, this would have provided United States officials the opportunity to monitor Condor activities closely.
Declassified U.S. Documents Reveal Details About Argentina’s Dictatorship - The New York Times
▻https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/12/world/americas/argentina-dictatorship-cia-documents.html
2019
Trump’s Greatest Dereliction of Duty—His Disgraceful Denial of Climate Change | The Nation
▻https://www.thenation.com/article/trumps-greatest-dereliction-of-duty-his-disgraceful-denial-of-climate-cha
The Trump administration’s announcement that it would withdraw the United States from the Paris climate agreement is a largely symbolic move, but it is nevertheless another reminder of President Trump’s greatest folly: his disgraceful denial of the threat posed by catastrophic climate change. No matter who wins the Democratic presidential nomination, Trump’s open hostility toward any action on climate will elevate it to a defining issue in the 2020 campaign. Voters will choose between a president and Republican Party proud of systematic resistance to any action on climate, and a challenger and Democratic Party dedicated to historic efforts to limit the already costly threat to life as we know it.
The Problem With Dressing Up as a Witch for Halloween | Alice Markham-Cantor
▻https://www.thenation.com/article/witch-costume-halloween
There is a rebellious power in the idea of being a witch, but it is not a cosmetic rebellion. Source: The Nation
The Perils of Billionaire Philanthropy | The Nation
►https://www.thenation.com/article/philanthropy-charity-inequality-taxes
At this year’s World Economic Forum at Davos, billionaire Michael Dell, the 25th-wealthiest man in the world, weighed in on new proposals to tax the very wealthy. Dell said he was “much more comfortable” giving through his private foundation “than giving…to the government.” He’s not the first billionaire to confuse his obligations to society and conflate charitable giving with paying taxes.
Indeed, the discussion about solutions to most social problems are too often sidetracked by stories of beneficent billionaires and their charitable deeds. Lost in a fog of generosity is the recognition that philanthropy is not a substitute for a fair and progressive tax system and robust public investments in poverty alleviation, infrastructure, economic opportunity, and social protection.
PUBLICITÉ
To be sure, there is strategic philanthropy in the United States that sustains a vibrant independent sector. But that sector is in jeopardy, thanks to the increasingly top-heavy nature of philanthropy and the ways that the super-wealthy are creating a taxpayer-subsidized extension of their private wealth and power.
Philanthropy mirrors the wealth inequality trends of society overall, with more wealth and therefore more giving clout concentrating in the hands of billionaires like Dell. Charitable giving vehicles, such as donor-advised funds, are now part of the menu of tax avoidance strategies that the ultra-rich use to stash their wealth. The risk in this increasing inequality is not only to the independence of the nonprofit sector, but also for our democracy and society as a whole.
At its root, fixing philanthropy is vital for the future of our democracy. For every dollar a billionaire donates to charity, we the people chip in anywhere from 37 to 57 cents in the form of lost tax revenue, depending on how aggressive the donor’s tax avoidance strategies are. In other words, taxpayers effectively provide matching funds for the donation priorities of private donors, whether for a new wing of an art museum or a brand-new performing arts center at a private high school. The public interest in charity oversight rests on this partnership; if a donor doesn’t want government oversight and public accountability of their charitable giving, they should simply forgo the charitable deduction.
As the donor base shrinks to the wealthy and affluent, the resulting philanthropy reflects the social priorities of advantaged groups. As Catholic University law professor Roger Colinvaux warns, “Philanthropy will increasingly become a self-serving vanity project for one segment of society, and less worthy in a true philanthropic sense.”
The Perils of Billionaire Philanthropy
►https://www.thenation.com/article/philanthropy-charity-inequality-taxes
Lost in a fog of generosity is the recognition that philanthropy is not a substitute for a fair and progressive tax system and robust public investments in poverty alleviation, infrastructure, economic opportunity, and social protection.
J’avais eu une grande discussion avec mon beau-frère américain qui est fundraiser, c’est-à-dire qu’il trouve des philanthropes pour les fondations, des trucs qui organisent l’optimisation fiscale sur fond de charité et qui tient lieu aux USA de système social. Pour lui, la solidarité gérée par l’État (la redistribution, donc) est de l’ordre de la dictature insupportable, car l’État est contraire à l’esprit de liberté et d’entreprise (les deux ayant l’air très entremêlés dans son esprit américain). Pour lui, le social par les fondations, c’est mieux, parce plus démocratique puisque ce sont directement les gens qui décident où va l’argent, sans boulet technocratique. Bien sûr, la discussion se crispe assez vite quand je lui fais remarquer que ce sont surtout les riches qui décident dans son système, qu’ils sont probablement très déconnectés des besoins réels sur le terrain et que ce système a déjà un nom… #ploutocratie. Et que le problème, c’est qu’ils n’agissent qu’en fonction de leurs intérêts qui, par définition, sont antagonistes à ceux du plus grand nombre, et que ça risque plutôt de ne pas très bien finir pour la majorité de la population…
Amazon Doesn’t Just Want to Dominate the Market—It Wants to Become the Market
▻https://www.thenation.com/article/amazon-doesnt-just-want-to-dominate-the-market-it-wants-to-become-the-mar
To think of Amazon as a retailer, though, is to profoundly misjudge the scope of what its founder and chief executive, Jeff Bezos, has set out to do. (...)
Instead, it’s that Bezos has designed his company for a far more radical goal than merely dominating markets; he’s built Amazon to replace them. His vision is for Amazon to become the underlying infrastructure that commerce runs on.
In the left-behind towns and neighborhoods, the despair that has set in stems from more than just economic hardship. There is a pervasive sense of powerlessness that is toxic to democracy. (...)
The cities that possessed a degree of local economic power had a bigger middle class and a greater variety of jobs, Mills and Ulmer found. But their most important findings had to do with civic health. The cities with a robust local economy invested more in public infrastructure and services, and their residents were involved in community affairs in greater numbers.
via an interview with the author on “On The Media”: ▻https://www.wnycstudios.org/story/making-america-antitrust-again-on-the-media
▻https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/audio.wnyc.org/otm/otm060519_cms940786_pod.mp3
La surveillance, stade suprême du capitalisme ?
▻https://www.lemonde.fr/idees/article/2019/06/14/la-surveillance-stade-supreme-du-capitalisme_5476001_3232.html
Bientôt un autre regard critique sur le concept de capitalisme de surveillance : parution à l’automne du livre de Christophe Masutti qui fait l’archéologie du concept et replonge dans l’évolution sur cinquante ans du traçage informatisé. Chez C&F éditions, évidemment ;-)
Depuis vingt ans, un capitalisme mutant mené par les géants du Web s’immisce dans nos relations sociales et tente de modifier nos comportements, analyse l’universitaire américaine Shoshana Zuboff dans son dernier ouvrage. Mais son concept de « capitalisme de surveillance » ne fait pas l’unanimité.
Shoshana Zuboff a été l’une des premières à analyser la manière dont l’informatique transformait le monde du travail. Cette pionnière dans l’étude détaillée des bouleversements du management s’est félicitée, au départ, de l’arrivée de « travailleurs du savoir ». Elle a perçu très tôt que l’extension d’Internet et la généralisation des ordinateurs personnels permettraient de fonder une « économie nouvelle » capable de répondre aux besoins des individus et de renforcer le pouvoir des consommateurs.
Puis elle a été terriblement déçue. En janvier, Shoshana Zuboff a résumé ses craintes dans The Age of Capitalism Surveillance (Public Affairs, non traduit).
La presse anglo-saxonne, du libéral Wall Street Journal au très à gauche The Nation, du Guardian à la New York Review of Books, mais aussi l’anticapitaliste Naomi Klein et le professeur de communication Joseph Turow, ont salué ce livre comme un essai majeur.
« Chef-d’œuvre d’horreur »
Le titre, « L’Age du capitalisme de surveillance », en annonce le concept : en vingt ans, « sans notre consentement significatif », un capitalisme mutant mené par les géants du Web – Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon et Microsoft (Gafam) – s’est immiscé dans nos relations sociales et introduit dans nos maisons – « de la bouteille de vodka intelligente au thermomètre rectal », résume Shoshana Zuboff.
Un de ses concepts centraux est, assure l’universitaire dans son essai, la notion de « surplus de comportement » : les Gafam, mais aussi les opérateurs de téléphonie comme AT&T ou les sociétés de l’Internet des objets et de la « smart city », ne se contentent pas de collecter les données d’usage et de service : ils intègrent dans les pages en réseaux et dans les machines intelligentes des dispositifs d’espionnage invisible. Ils repèrent ainsi, grâce aux algorithmes, nos habitudes les plus intimes. Ils reconnaissent nos voix et nos visages, décryptent nos émotions et étudient leur diffusion grâce à l’« affective computing » afin de capter « la totalité de l’expérience humaine en tant que matière première gratuite ».
Ces masses de données comportementales sont revendues comme des « produits de prévision » extrêmement lucratifs. « Vous n’êtes pas le produit, résume Shoshana Zuboff, vous êtes la carcasse abandonnée de l’éléphant traqué par des braconniers ! »
« Un contrat faustien »
La logique de cette traque mène à ce qu’elle appelle l’« instrumentarianism » (« l’instrumentalisation ») : la capacité de modeler les comportements en vue d’obtenir « des résultats rentables », voire d’« automatiser » les conduites.
« Il est devenu difficile d’échapper à ce projet de marché dont les tentacules s’étendent des innocents joueurs de Pokémon Go dirigés vers les bars et les magasins qui paient pour les attirer à l’impitoyable exploitation des profils Facebook à des fins d’orientation de comportement individuel » – et ce « en cliquant oui à l’achat de nouvelles chaussures de sport proposé après votre jogging du dimanche matin », ou en ciblant « votre vote de fin de semaine », comme on l’a vu pendant l’affaire Cambridge Analytica, la société de conseil dont le slogan proclame « Data drives all we do » (« Les données déterminent tout ce que nous faisons »). « Ils veulent notre âme, conclut Shoshana Zuboff. Nous avons signé avec eux un contrat faustien. »
Depuis sa sortie, « L’Age du capitalisme de surveillance » reçoit une volée de critiques. Dans The Nation, Katie Fitzpatrick, professeure de pédagogie à l’Université d’Auckland, estime que le « sombre constat » de Shoshana Zuboff est justifié mais qu’elle « échoue dans son analyse politique » car elle est aveuglée par la confiance qu’elle accorde aux capacités démocratiques du libéralisme. « Nous n’avons pas besoin d’une nouvelle théorie politique alarmiste pour comprendre ce qui se passe », conclut-elle.
Pour le spécialiste du numérique Evgeny Morozov, auteur du Mirage numérique (Les Prairies ordinaires, 2015), l’analyse de Shoshana Zuboff, qui est d’autant plus dérangeante qu’elle a travaillé pour « deux bastions du techno-optimisme », Fast Company et BusinessWeek, insiste trop sur la surveillance et pas assez sur le capitalisme : « En considérant le capitalisme de surveillance comme notre nouveau Léviathan invisible, elle rate la manière dont le pouvoir fonctionne depuis plusieurs siècles : le Léviathan invisible est avec nous depuis longtemps. »
Les deux critiques sus-mentionnées :
. ▻https://www.thenation.com/article/shoshana-zuboff-age-of-surveillance-capitalism-book-review
. ▻https://thebaffler.com/latest/capitalisms-new-clothes-morozov
(et un avant-goût du livre à venir peut-être ? ▻https://golb.statium.link/post/20190607fuckapital )
Noam Chomsky at 90 : On Orwell, Taxi Drivers, and Rejecting Indoctrination | The Nation
▻https://www.thenation.com/article/noam-chomsky-90th-birthday
Chomsky recalled a preface that George Orwell wrote for Animal Farm, which was not included in the original editions of the book.
“It was discovered about 30 years later in his unpublished papers. Today, if you get a new edition of Animal Farm, you might find it there,” he recalled. “The introduction is kind of interesting—he basically says what you all know: that the book is a critical, satiric analysis of the totalitarian enemy. But then he addresses himself to the people of free England; he says: You shouldn’t feel too self-righteous. He said in England, a free country—I’m virtually quoting—unpopular ideas can be suppressed without the use of force. And he goes on to give some examples, and, really, just a couple of common-sense explanations, which are to the point. One reason, he says, is: The press is owned by wealthy men who have every reason not to want certain ideas to be expressed. And the other, he says, essentially, is: It’s a ‘good’ education.”
Chomsky explained: “If you have a ‘good’ education, you’ve gone to the best schools, you have internalized the understanding that there’s certain things it just wouldn’t do to say—and I think we can add to that, it wouldn’t do to think. And that’s a powerful mechanism. So, there are things you just don’t think, and you don’t say. That’s the result of effective education, effective indoctrination.
If people—many people—don’t succumb to it, what happens to them? Well, I’ll tell you a story: I was in Sweden a couple years ago, and I noticed that taxi drivers were being very friendly, much more than I expected. And finally I asked one of them, ‘Why’s everyone being so nice?’ He pulled out a T-shirt he said every taxi driver has, and the T-shirt had a picture of me and a quote in Swedish of something I’d said once when I was asked, ‘What happens to people of independent mind?’ And I said, ‘They become taxi drivers.’”
Danke, sehr geehrter Herr Chomsky.
» Noam Chomsky, 90 ans : A propos d’Orwell, des chauffeurs de taxi, et du rejet de l’endoctrinement. Par John Nichols
►https://www.les-crises.fr/noam-chomsky-90-ans-a-propos-dorwell-des-chauffeurs-de-taxi-et-du-rejet-d
Il dit qu’en Angleterre, un pays libre – je cite presque littéralement – les idées impopulaires peuvent être réprimées sans avoir recours à la force. Et il poursuit en donnant quelques exemples, et, en fait, seulement deux explications rationnelles, qui vont droit au but. La première raison, dit-il, c’est que : la presse appartient à des hommes riches qui ont toutes les raisons de ne pas vouloir que certaines idées soient exprimées. Et l’autre, dit-il, est essentiellement : une “bonne” éducation. »
Chomsky explique : « Si vous avez une “bonne” éducation, vous avez fréquenté les meilleures écoles, vous avez intériorisé le concept qu’il y a certaines choses qu’il ne serait pas bien de dire – et je pense que nous pouvons ajouter, qu’il ne faudrait pas penser. Et c’est un mécanisme puissant. Donc, il y a des choses qu’on ne pense même pas et qu’on ne dit pas. C’est le résultat d’une éducation efficace, d’un endoctrinement efficace.
Si les gens – beaucoup de gens – ne s’y laissent pas engluer, que leur arrive-t-il ? Et bien, je vais vous raconter une histoire : j’étais en Suède il y a quelques années, et j’ai remarqué que les chauffeurs de taxi étaient très sympathiques, bien plus que ce à quoi je m’attendais. Et finalement, j’ai demandé à l’un d’eux : “Pourquoi tout le monde est-il si gentil ?” Il a sorti un t-shirt que, d’après lui, tous les chauffeurs de taxi possèdent, et sur le t-shirt était imprimée une photo de moi avec une citation, en suédois, de quelque chose que j’avais dit une fois quand on m’avait demandé : “Qu’arrive-t-il aux gens qui ont un esprit indépendant ?” Et j’avais répondu : “Ils deviennent chauffeurs de taxi.”
Comment s’attirer le vote raciste sans paraître soi-même raciste : dire qu’on va baisser les impôts... Lee Atwater’s Infamous 1981 Interview on the Southern Strategy (archive 2012) :
▻https://www.thenation.com/article/exclusive-lee-atwaters-infamous-1981-interview-southern-strategy
It has become, for liberals and leftists enraged by the way Republicans never suffer the consequences for turning electoral politics into a cesspool, a kind of smoking gun. The late, legendarily brutal campaign consultant Lee Atwater explains how Republicans can win the vote of racists without sounding racist themselves:
You start out in 1954 by saying, “Nigger, nigger, nigger.” By 1968 you can’t say “nigger”—that hurts you, backfires. So you say stuff like, uh, forced busing, states’ rights, and all that stuff, and you’re getting so abstract. Now, you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is, blacks get hurt worse than whites.… “We want to cut this,” is much more abstract than even the busing thing, uh, and a hell of a lot more abstract than “Nigger, nigger.”
More Than 90 Percent of Americans Have #Pesticides or Their Byproducts in Their Bodies | The Nation
▻https://www.thenation.com/article/pesticides-farmworkers-agriculture
Leo Trasande, director of environmental pediatrics at New York University’s Langone Health and author of the new book Sicker, Fatter, Poorer, says many of these pesticides act at extremely low levels that mimic our body’s response to our own hormones. “These synthetic chemicals were not designed with hormonal biology in mind.”
Why Are Democrats Trying to Torpedo the Korea Peace Talks? | The Nation
▻https://www.thenation.com/article/north-korea-democrats-peace-talks
There is a growing split between #liberal US politicians and South Korean progressives on the peace process.
The Climate Wall: Q&A With Todd Miller | The Nation
▻https://www.thenation.com/article/the-climate-wall-qa-with-todd-miller
Despite the 35-day partial government shutdown, President Trump is still dead-set on his border wall—and he hasn’t ruled out declaring a national emergency to fund it. In such a scenario, the White House has suggested it would divert money from disaster funds intended to help rebuild places like Puerto Rico, which have faced “natural” disasters in era marked by man-made climate change.
In his 2017 book, Storming the Wall: Climate Change, Migration, and Homeland Security, Todd Miller argues that there is an inextricable link between border militarization and climate change. I spoke with Miller about how borders are expanding, and how the market projections for the homeland-security industry are projected to be significantly larger than anticipated even two years ago.
#paix, #guerres : les vies qui comptent et celles qui ne comptent pas
▻https://www.thenation.com/article/cold-war-killing-fields-paul-chamberlin
The Yale historian John Lewis Gaddis, writing in the late 1980s, confirmed Orwell’s prediction: The Cold War had been a time of great perceived danger, yet it had also been a time of impressive international stability. For all the bluster, there had been no World War III. Weapons of stupefying destructive power had been built but never used. Perhaps, Gaddis suggested, we should understand the period not as the Cold War but as the Long Peace.
[...]
Paul Chamberlin’s eye-opening The Cold War’s Killing Fields offers us a precise, painful account of the Cold War as narrated from the Changchuns of the world rather than the Berlins. His focus is not on the capitals where grand strategies were spun, as in Gaddis’s telling, but on the blood-soaked locales where those strategies took their greatest toll. By Chamberlin’s calculations, more than 20 million people died in conflicts related to the Cold War. Of course, not every one of those conflicts had its origins in the superpower rivalry. But even when Washington and Moscow had little to do with starting a war, they nearly always had a hand in finishing it—by sending troops, advisers, weapons, or cash.
It’s a Disgrace to Celebrate George H.W. Bush on World AIDS Day | Steven W. Thrasher
▻https://www.thenation.com/article/george-hw-bush-world-aids-day-obit
The 41st president’s “civility” hid the vast nature of American state violence. Source: The Nation