![[Valid Atom 1.0]](images/valid-atom.png "Valid Atom 1.0")
This is a valid Atom 1.0 feed.
This feed is valid, but interoperability with the widest range of feed readers could be improved by implementing the following recommendations.
line 31, column 0: (42 occurrences) [help]
<div style="background-color: #ddd; border-radius: 5px; padding: 0.5em 1.0em ...
<summary type="html"><![CDATA[]]></summary>
^
[help]
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><feed xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" xmlns:thr="http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0" xml:lang="en-US" xml:base="https://radgeek.com/wp-atom.php" > <title type="text">Rad Geek People's Daily</title> <subtitle type="text">official state media for a secessionist republic of one</subtitle> <updated>2024-12-11T20:00:27Z</updated> <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://radgeek.com" /> <id>https://radgeek.com/feed/</id> <link rel="self" type="application/atom+xml" href="https://radgeek.com/feed/" /> <generator uri="https://wordpress.org/" version="4.9.8">WordPress</generator><link rel="license" type="text/html" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/" /> <entry> <author> <name>Rad Geek</name> <uri>http://radgeek.com/</uri> </author> <title type="html"><![CDATA[Murdercare For All?]]></title> <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://radgeek.com/gt/2024/12/11/murdercare-for-all/" /> <id>https://radgeek.com/?p=10861</id> <updated>2024-12-11T20:00:27Z</updated> <published>2024-12-11T20:00:27Z</published> <category scheme="https://radgeek.com?taxonomy=category" term="Misc" label="Misc"/> <summary type="html"><![CDATA[Reading: J.D. Tuccille, The People Cheering Brian Thompson’s Murder Can’t Have the Medical Utopia That They Want, today’s issue of The Rattler, for Reason.com (11 December 2024). The assassin’s fans–and the legal system has yet to convict anybody for the crime–are moral degenerates. But they’re also dreaming, if they think insurance executives like Thompson are […]]]></summary> <content type="html" xml:base="https://radgeek.com/gt/2024/12/11/murdercare-for-all/"><![CDATA[<p><em><strong>Reading:</strong> J.D. Tuccille, <a href="https://reason.com/2024/12/11/the-people-cheering-brian-thompsons-murder-cant-have-the-medical-utopia-that-they-want/"><cite class="article">The People Cheering Brian Thompson’s Murder Can’t Have the Medical Utopia That They Want</cite></a>, today’s issue of <cite>The Rattler</cite>, for <cite>Reason.com</cite> (11 December 2024).</em></p> <div style="background-color: #ddd; border-radius: 5px; padding: 0.5em 1.0em; margin: 1.0em 3.0em;"><h3 style="font-size: 90%; text-transform: uppercase; margin: 0em; padding-bottom: 0.5em; text-align: center;">Shared Article from Reason.com</h3><div style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; min-height: 156px;"><a href="https://reason.com/2024/12/11/the-people-cheering-brian-thompsons-murder-cant-have-the-medical-utopia-that-they-want/"><img src="https://d2eehagpk5cl65.cloudfront.net/img/q60/uploads/2024/12/zumaamericasfortyfive100918-scaled.jpg" style="max-width: 200px; height: auto;" /></a></div><p style="margin: 0em; font-size: 1.1em;"><strong><a href="https://reason.com/2024/12/11/the-people-cheering-brian-thompsons-murder-cant-have-the-medical-utopia-that-they-want/">The people cheering Brian Thompson’s murder can’t have the m…</a></strong></p><p style="margin: 0em;">Making people more, rather than less, responsible for their own health care is far better than cheering the murder of others.</p><p style="margin: 0em; "><span style="color: #666; font-size: 90%; text-transform: uppercase;">J.D. Tuccille @ reason.com</span></p><br style="clear: both" /></div> <blockquote> <p>The assassin’s fans–and the legal system has yet to convict anybody for the crime–are moral degenerates. But they’re also dreaming, if they think insurance executives like Thompson are all that stands between them and their visions of a single-payer medical system that satisfies every desire. While there is a lot wrong with the main way health care is paid for and delivered in the U.S., what the haters want is probably not achievable, and the means many of them prefer would make things worse.</p> <h3><q>Unlimited Care… Free of Charge</q></h3> <p><q>It is an old joke among health policy wonks that what the American people really want from health care reform is unlimited care, from the doctor of their choice, with no wait, free of charge,</q> Michael Tanner, then of the Cato Institute, <a href="https://www.cato.org/commentary/what-americans-really-want-health-care-reform-impossible">quipped</a> in 2017.</p> <p>The problem, no matter how health care is delivered, is that it requires labor, time, and resources that are available in finite supply. Somebody must decide how to allocate medications, treatments, physicians, and hospital beds, and how to pay for it all. A common assumption in some circles is that Americans ration medicine by price, handing an advantage to the wealthy and sticking it to the poor.</p> <p><q>Today, as everyone knows, health care in the US can be prohibitively expensive even for people who have insurance,</q> Dylan Scott <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/390111/united-healthcare-ceo-shot-insurance-hospitals-doctors">sniffed</a> this week at <cite>Vox</cite>.</p> <p>The alternative, supposedly, is one where health care is <q>universal,</q> with bills paid by government so everybody has access to care. Except, most Americans rely on somebody else to pay the bulk of their medical bills just like Canadians, Germans, and Britons. And while there are huge differences among the systems presented as alternatives to the one in the U.S., third-party payers–whether governments or insurance companies–do enormous damage to the provision of health care.</p> <p><ins class="ellipsis editorial" title="[Elision by the editor.]">. . .</ins></p> <p><ins class="ellipsis editorial" title="[Elision by the editor.]">. . .</ins> Concerns about rising costs, demand, and finite resources apply just as much when the payer is the government. <ins class="ellipsis editorial" title="[Elision by the editor.]">. . .</ins> You have to wonder what those so furious at Brian Thompson that they would applaud his murder would say about the officials managing systems elsewhere. None of them deliver <q>unlimited care, from the doctor of their choice, with no wait, free of charge.</q> Some lack the minimal discipline imposed by what competition exists among insurers in the U.S.</p> <p><ins class="ellipsis editorial" title="[Elision by the editor.]">. . .</ins></p> <p><ins class="ellipsis editorial" title="[Elision by the editor.]">. . .</ins> <q>Policymakers need to understand that the key to <q>affordable health care</q> is not to increase the role of health insurance in peoples’ lives, but to diminish it,” Cato’s Singer concluded.<sup>[<a href="#murdercare-for-all-n-1" class="footnoted" id="to-murdercare-for-all-n-1">1</a>]</sup> <ins class="ellipsis editorial" title="[Elision by the editor.]">. . .</ins> Those examples point to a better health care system than what exists in the United States–or in most other countries, for that matter. They’re probably not the whole answer, because it’s unlikely that one approach will suit millions of people with different medical concerns, incomes, and preferences. But making people more, rather than less, responsible for their own health care, and getting government and other third-parties as far out of the matter as possible, is far better than cheering the murder of people who supposedly stand between us and an imaginary medical utopia.</p> <p class="attribution">— J.D. Tuccille, <a href="https://reason.com/2024/12/11/the-people-cheering-brian-thompsons-murder-cant-have-the-medical-utopia-that-they-want/"><cite class="article">The People Cheering Brian Thompson’s Murder Can’t Have the Medical Utopia That They Want</cite></a><br><cite>The Rattler</cite>, for <cite>Reason.com</cite> (11 December 2024).</p></blockquote> <ol class="footnotes"> <li class="footnote" id="murdercare-for-all-n-1"><strong><sup>[1]</sup></strong>[In a white paper that Tuccille referred to earlier in the article: <q>Jeffrey Singer, a surgeon and senior fellow with the Cato Institute, <a href="https://www.cato.org/commentary/health-cares-third-party-spending-trap">wrote</a> in 2013. <q>The third party payment system is the principal force behind health care price inflation.</q></q> —R.G.]<a class="note-return" href="#to-murdercare-for-all-n-1">↩</a></li></ol>]]></content> <link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="https://radgeek.com/gt/2024/12/11/murdercare-for-all/#comments" thr:count="0"/> <link rel="replies" type="application/atom+xml" href="https://radgeek.com/gt/2024/12/11/murdercare-for-all/feed/" thr:count="0"/> <thr:total>0</thr:total> </entry> <entry> <author> <name>Rad Geek</name> <uri>http://radgeek.com/</uri> </author> <title type="html"><![CDATA[We Took The “Copy” Out Of “Copyright”: Influencer Edition]]></title> <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://radgeek.com/gt/2024/12/09/we-took-the-copy-out-of-copyright-influencer-edition/" /> <id>https://radgeek.com/?p=10855</id> <updated>2024-12-09T22:37:03Z</updated> <published>2024-12-09T22:34:54Z</published> <category scheme="https://radgeek.com?taxonomy=category" term="Misc" label="Misc"/> <summary type="html"><![CDATA[This week in utterly deranged copyright maximalism: Just a reminder: Sydney Gifford is not claiming that Alyssa Sheil made a copy of any of her online content, not even one copy of one post or image. She’s claiming that Sheil’s inherently vague and indefinable je-ne-sais-quoi is just too similar to allow. The entire principle of […]]]></summary> <content type="html" xml:base="https://radgeek.com/gt/2024/12/09/we-took-the-copy-out-of-copyright-influencer-edition/"><![CDATA[<p class="first">This week in utterly deranged copyright maximalism:</p> <div style="background-color: #ddd; border-radius: 5px; padding: 0.5em 1.0em; margin: 1.0em 3.0em;"><h3 style="font-size: 90%; text-transform: uppercase; margin: 0em; padding-bottom: 0.5em; text-align: center;">Shared Article from New York Times</h3><div style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; min-height: 156px;"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/05/style/clean-girl-aesthetic-influencer-lawsuit.html"><img src="https://static01.nyt.com/images/2024/11/19/fashion/00AESTHETICS-TRIAL-top/00AESTHETICS-TRIAL-top-facebookJumbo.png" style="max-width: 200px; height: auto;" /></a></div><p style="margin: 0em; font-size: 1.1em;"><strong><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/05/style/clean-girl-aesthetic-influencer-lawsuit.html">Can You Copyright A Vibe?</a></strong></p><p style="margin: 0em;">One influencer is suing another, accusing her of copying her minimalist aesthetic on social media. It turns out there is a lot of gray area in shades …</p><p style="margin: 0em; "><span style="color: #666; font-size: 90%; text-transform: uppercase;">Sandra E. Garcia @ nytimes.com</span></p><br style="clear: both" /></div> <p>Just a reminder: Sydney Gifford <em>is not claiming</em> that Alyssa Sheil made a copy of any of her online content, not even one copy of one post or image. She’s claiming that Sheil’s inherently vague and indefinable <i lang="fr">je-ne-sais-quoi</i> is just too similar to allow.</p> <p><a href="https://radgeek.com/gt/2023/07/20/we-took-the-copy-out-of-copyright/">The entire principle of copyright, and so-called <q>intellectual property</q> broadly, is and always has been, basically obscene, censorious, tyrannical and absurd.</a> This lawsuit would be bad enough if it were a normal assertion of copyright against, say, someone copying images or text from her online lifestyle posts and trying to police the authorized use of those materials and set the boundaries of what is or is not allowed as <q>fair use.</q> But this lawsuit is ludicrous and contemptible <em>even if taken on copyright’s own terms</em>, even if you stipulate the whole silly pseudo-propertarian structure of intellectual, literary and photographic property rights. <a href="https://radgeek.com/gt/2023/07/20/we-took-the-copy-out-of-copyright/">Once again we have a lawsuit premised on the idea that copyright holders are entitled to forbid and censor</a> <em>works that aren’t even copies</em> of <q>their</q> material, on the maximalist view that intellectual property extends not only to controlling copies or direct derivative works, but even allowing free-ranging, open-ended censorship of completely distinct original works that the copyright holder deems to have a completely indefinable <q>vibe</q> or <q>aesthetic</q> <em>somehow or another influenced by</em> that of their own original work. Copyright law was supposedly about <em>controlling copying</em>; that’s a bad enough idea, but it takes some truly deranged copyright maximalism (and a credulous press, willing to indulge this self-promoting flight of fancy) to try to recast the whole mess as some sort of an open-ended prerogative to forbid, punish or shake down anyone who <em>consumes</em> the work the copyright holder produces, or to demand a veto over the basic fact of artistic and cultural <em>influence</em>. That’s bananas.</p> ]]></content> <link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="https://radgeek.com/gt/2024/12/09/we-took-the-copy-out-of-copyright-influencer-edition/#comments" thr:count="0"/> <link rel="replies" type="application/atom+xml" href="https://radgeek.com/gt/2024/12/09/we-took-the-copy-out-of-copyright-influencer-edition/feed/" thr:count="0"/> <thr:total>0</thr:total> </entry> <entry> <author> <name>Rad Geek</name> <uri>http://radgeek.com/</uri> </author> <title type="html"><![CDATA[Reading: Martin Glaberman on counterintuitive consequences of “social unionism,” “business unionism,” labor militancy and the welfare state in WARTIME STRIKES (1980)]]></title> <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://radgeek.com/gt/2024/12/03/reading-martin-glaberman-counterintuitive-consequences-social-business-unionism-labor-militancy-welfare-state-wartime-strikes-1980/" /> <id>https://radgeek.com/?p=10844</id> <updated>2024-12-03T21:40:20Z</updated> <published>2024-12-03T21:39:22Z</published> <category scheme="https://radgeek.com?taxonomy=category" term="Misc" label="Misc"/> <summary type="html"><![CDATA[From Taking the Pledge, Chapter 1 of Martin Glaberman’s Wartime Strikes: The struggle against the no-strike pledge in the UAW during World War II (1980). By way of context: in December 1941, in the weeks after the attack on Pearl Harbor and the U.S. declaration of war, the Roosevelt administration held meetings where a lot […]]]></summary> <content type="html" xml:base="https://radgeek.com/gt/2024/12/03/reading-martin-glaberman-counterintuitive-consequences-social-business-unionism-labor-militancy-welfare-state-wartime-strikes-1980/"><![CDATA[<p class="first">From <strong><cite class="article">Taking the Pledge,</cite></strong> Chapter 1 of <strong>Martin Glaberman’s <cite>Wartime Strikes: The struggle against the no-strike pledge in the UAW during World War II</cite></strong> (1980).</p> <p>By way of context: in December 1941, in the weeks after the attack on Pearl Harbor and the U.S. declaration of war, the Roosevelt administration held meetings where a lot of national union and labor federation leaders agreed to a no-strike pledge and major concessions on pay, hours and overtime — supposedly in exchange for no-lockout pledges from management, and for government imposing major regulatory restrictions on war industries, market prices and executive salaries. In most unions these concessions were made unilaterally by union leadership. The United Auto Workers provisionally adopted the measures through their Executive Board and then called a convention of their membership in April 1942 to ratify the program.</p> <blockquote> <p>The tactics used at the conference by the leadership included the implication that giving up premium pay for Saturdays and Sundays was conditional on acceptance of the whole program. The Equality of Sacrifice program included a prohibition of war profits, a $25,000 ceiling on salaries, control of inflation, rationing of necessities, and so on. Just before the vote a letter that President Roosevelt had sent to the conference was read a second time and then Richard Frankensteen, a Vice President of the UAW, shouted at the delegates, <q>Are you going to tell the President of the United States to go to hell?</q><sup>[<a href="#reading-martin-glaberman-counterintuitive-consequences-social-business-unionism-labor-militancy-welfare-state-wartime-strikes-1980-n-23" class="footnoted" id="to-reading-martin-glaberman-counterintuitive-consequences-social-business-unionism-labor-militancy-welfare-state-wartime-strikes-1980-n-23">23</a>]</sup> The program giving up overtime pay was adopted, with 150 delegates voting in the opposition.</p> <p>Relinquishing premium pay ultimately proved an embarrassment to the UAW and the CIO. The AFL was not quite as generous, and, as a result, in attempts to organize the aircraft industry, the UAW was having difficulty, losing elections to the AFL International Association of Machinists. The difficulties faced by CIO unions, attempting to organize plants against their AFL rivals, ultimately forced on Philip Murray, President of the CIO, the humiliation of having to demand thatt the government enforce a general ban on premium pay for Saturdays and Sundays, to equalize the situation. Nelson Lichtenstein writes:</p> <blockquote> <p>A 1942 contest between the UAW and the International Association of Machinists provides a graphic example of this wartime phenomenon. Under the prodding of Walter Reuther and Richard Frankensteen and at the request of the government, the UAW agreed to relinquish certain types of overtime pay in the interests of a general <q>Victory Through Equality of Sacrifice</q> program. UAW organizers thought this plan would help organize new war workers through its patriotic appeal. For example they [pg]8[/pg] told Southern California aircraft workers: <q>The best way (you) can speed up war production, and contribute even more to the war effort, is to join the CIO, which has made this business of winning the war its main objective.</q></p> <p>In contrast the machinists’ union emphasized wages and hours and the maintenance of overtime pay standards. The IAM attacked the UAW: <q>Can the CIO’s masterminds tell you why they know what’s good for the worker better than he knows himself? . . . the CIO sacrifices workers’ pay, workers’ overtime as the CIO’s contribution to the war effort. Big of them, huh?</q> In a series of 1942 NLRB elections the IAM decisively defeated the UAW on this issue. UAW and CIO leaders who had pitched their election campaigns on an exclusively patriotic level were stunned. In defeat they quickly appealed to the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_War_Labor_Board_(1942%E2%80%931945)" title="[War Labor Board]">WLB</a> and to the Administration, not to restore overtime pay, but to force the IAM and the rest of the AFL to give it up as well. This FDR soon did by issuing a special executive order on this problem.<sup>[<a href="#reading-martin-glaberman-counterintuitive-consequences-social-business-unionism-labor-militancy-welfare-state-wartime-strikes-1980-n-24" class="footnoted" id="to-reading-martin-glaberman-counterintuitive-consequences-social-business-unionism-labor-militancy-welfare-state-wartime-strikes-1980-n-24">24</a>]</sup></p> </blockquote> <p>It all pointed up to the stupidity of one of the arguments of the union leaders in this, as well as the giving up of the right to strike: the government will move against labor in wartime and legally restrict our overtime benefits and our right to strike. To prevent this, the remarkable strategy of surrendering these rights voluntarily was put forward.</p> <p><strong>This seeming contradiction between the supposedly conservative AFL versus the supposedly militant CIO exposes one facet of what has come to be called <q>social unionism.</q></strong> The concerns of union leaders (especially such as Walter P. Reuther) who went beyond the traditional bread and butter unionism of the AFL to deal with general social questions have often been misunderstood as a sign of greater militancy. More often, it was simply a tendency to move the labor movement in the direction of incorporation into the structure of the <q>welfare state.</q> Social unionism represented the demands of the state for the social control of the workers at least as much as it represented the generalized interests of the membership of the unions.</p> <p>The adoption of the no-strike pledge by the leaders of the major unions seems like a sharper turn in labor policy than it is in reality. The outbreak of war, the public demands of government officials for labor peace, the statements and [pg]10[/pg] resolutions of labor leaders, the fact that major strikes for union recognition were still taking place, all combine to exaggerate the degree of change involved in the no-strike policy.</p> <p>The conflict between militant unionists and UAW leaders seeking to limit the independent activity of the membership dates back to the organizing days of the union. <ins class="ellipsis editorial" title="[Elision by the editor.]">. . .</ins> [pg]13[/pg] <ins class="ellipsis editorial" title="[Elision by the editor.]">. . .</ins> Control of wildcat strikes had been a continuing problem before the outbreak of war. A discussion at a special meeting of the UAW International Executive Board in Detroit on February 7, 1941 is indicative:</p> <blockquote> <p>The next issue discussed by President Thomas was the various unauthorized strikes or so-called departmental sit-downs which were taking place in a number of the plants. He then related to the Board his recent experiences in the Briggs plant at which time one of the Chief Steward [sic] openly flaunted the fact that he just closed his department, without first consulting his superior officers or the International.<sup>[<a href="#reading-martin-glaberman-counterintuitive-consequences-social-business-unionism-labor-militancy-welfare-state-wartime-strikes-1980-n-1" class="footnoted" id="to-reading-martin-glaberman-counterintuitive-consequences-social-business-unionism-labor-militancy-welfare-state-wartime-strikes-1980-n-1">1</a>]</sup> In view of this instance and similar other minor occurrences Pres. Thomas informed the Board that a letter was issued from his Office stating very definitely that the International would not support or partake in any future unauthorized strikes. To date, President Thomas was happy to report that apparently the letter had some affect [sic] since no such trouble has been encountered in the plant.</p> <p>(Considerable discussion followed as to what policy the International Union should adopt in such instances and it was the consensus of opinion that the International had been too lenient and should in the future assume a firm stand on these matters.)<sup>[<a href="#reading-martin-glaberman-counterintuitive-consequences-social-business-unionism-labor-militancy-welfare-state-wartime-strikes-1980-n-27" class="footnoted" id="to-reading-martin-glaberman-counterintuitive-consequences-social-business-unionism-labor-militancy-welfare-state-wartime-strikes-1980-n-27">27</a>]</sup></p> </blockquote> <p>This discussion might support the suspicions that the leaders of the UAW welcomed government pressure on workers to back up their own attempts to maintain labor peace, despite their public opposition to government restrictions on labor. Interesting also in the above minutes is the phrase <q>superior officers,</q> which suggests a hierarchy in which power starts at the top and diffuses downward.</p> <p>In addition to their own bureaucratic need to control their members, the actions of CIO leaders were also governed [pg]14[/pg] by their desire to be incorporated into the state machine.<sup>[<a href="#reading-martin-glaberman-counterintuitive-consequences-social-business-unionism-labor-militancy-welfare-state-wartime-strikes-1980-n-28" class="footnoted" id="to-reading-martin-glaberman-counterintuitive-consequences-social-business-unionism-labor-militancy-welfare-state-wartime-strikes-1980-n-28">28</a>]</sup> Although this was presented as a desire to achieve labor representation in the government and on government boards, it quickly developed into governmental representation in the labor movement rather than the reverse. <ins class="ellipsis editorial" title="[Elision by the editor.]">. . .</ins> They would appear to their own members, not as leaders who had been elected to represent the interests of their members, but as politicians whose function it had become to get their members to sacrifice for the war effort. They viewed themselves as patriots first and unionists second. In contrast, with very few exceptions, business leaders never permitted patriotism to interfere with profits. <strong>The rush of the UAW and CIO officials to be absorbed into the wartime government bureaucracy was in partial contrast to the leaders of the AFL. AFL bureaucrats, in many ways more conservative than the CIO, nevertheless had an older tradition of avoidance of politics and governmental interference.</strong> In their simple business unionism way, they at times refrained from making concessions (such as on the premium pay issue) which seemed to benefit corporate profitability more than the war effort. It is [pg]15[/pg] not that they did not participate on government boards and play the role of government bureaucrats. It was that they were a bit more backward about it. Perhaps they were helped in this by the dictatorial nature of most AFL union constitutions and the fact that they needed less help from the government to control their own membership.<sup>[<a href="#reading-martin-glaberman-counterintuitive-consequences-social-business-unionism-labor-militancy-welfare-state-wartime-strikes-1980-n-34" class="footnoted" id="to-reading-martin-glaberman-counterintuitive-consequences-social-business-unionism-labor-militancy-welfare-state-wartime-strikes-1980-n-34">34</a>]</sup></p> <p class="attribution">— Martin Glaberman, <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/799229.Wartime_Strikes"><cite>Wartime Strikes: The struggle against the no-strike pledge in the UAW during World War II</cite></a> (1980), Chapter 1, pp. 8-15.</p></blockquote> <p>Glaberman was a hard Left labor historian, deeply influenced by Trotskyism, Grace Lee Boggs, C.L.R. James and radical industrial unionism in Detroit; but the lessons he draws here — about the perverse results of <q>social unionism,</q> the value of jurisdictional competition, or the relationship between labor and the state (or, by the by, about the role of labor organizers affiliated with the American Communist Party) — are not the ones I would necessarily have expected going in.</p> <ol class="footnotes"> <li class="footnote" id="reading-martin-glaberman-counterintuitive-consequences-social-business-unionism-labor-militancy-welfare-state-wartime-strikes-1980-n-23"><strong><sup>[23]</sup></strong>Preis, <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1866540.Labor_s_Giant_Step" title="Art Preis, LABOR'S GIANT STEP, New York: Pioneer Publishers, 1964, pages 152-153."><i lang="la">op cit.</i></a><a class="note-return" href="#to-reading-martin-glaberman-counterintuitive-consequences-social-business-unionism-labor-militancy-welfare-state-wartime-strikes-1980-n-23">↩</a></li> <li class="footnote" id="reading-martin-glaberman-counterintuitive-consequences-social-business-unionism-labor-militancy-welfare-state-wartime-strikes-1980-n-24"><strong><sup>[24]</sup></strong>Nelson Lichtenstein, <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/183/oa_monograph/chapter/2145931"><cite class="article">Defending the No-Strike Pledge: CIO Politics During World War II,</cite></a> <cite class="journal">Radical America</cite>, Volume 9, Numbers 4-5, July-August 1975, page 55. Footnotes in original omitted.<a class="note-return" href="#to-reading-martin-glaberman-counterintuitive-consequences-social-business-unionism-labor-militancy-welfare-state-wartime-strikes-1980-n-24">↩</a></li> <li class="footnote" id="reading-martin-glaberman-counterintuitive-consequences-social-business-unionism-labor-militancy-welfare-state-wartime-strikes-1980-n-1"><strong><sup>[1]</sup></strong>[The International Executive Board of the UAW. —R.G.]<a class="note-return" href="#to-reading-martin-glaberman-counterintuitive-consequences-social-business-unionism-labor-militancy-welfare-state-wartime-strikes-1980-n-1">↩</a></li> <li class="footnote" id="reading-martin-glaberman-counterintuitive-consequences-social-business-unionism-labor-militancy-welfare-state-wartime-strikes-1980-n-27"><strong><sup>[27]</sup></strong>Addes Collection 52A, Box 21, Folder: Minutes, WSULA.<a class="note-return" href="#to-reading-martin-glaberman-counterintuitive-consequences-social-business-unionism-labor-militancy-welfare-state-wartime-strikes-1980-n-27">↩</a></li> <li class="footnote" id="reading-martin-glaberman-counterintuitive-consequences-social-business-unionism-labor-militancy-welfare-state-wartime-strikes-1980-n-28"><strong><sup>[28]</sup></strong>For comparable developments in the different situation of Great Britain, see Angus Calder, <cite>The People’s War</cte>, New York: Pantheon, 1969, especially pages 393-396.<a class="note-return" href="#to-reading-martin-glaberman-counterintuitive-consequences-social-business-unionism-labor-militancy-welfare-state-wartime-strikes-1980-n-28">↩</a></li> <li class="footnote" id="reading-martin-glaberman-counterintuitive-consequences-social-business-unionism-labor-militancy-welfare-state-wartime-strikes-1980-n-34"><strong><sup>[34]</sup></strong>See Lichtenstein, <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/183/oa_monograph/chapter/2145931" title="Nelson Lichtenstein, "Defending the No-Strike Pledge: CIO Politics During World War II" in RADICAL AMERICA 9.4-5, July-August 1975"><i lang="la">op cit.</i></a>, pages 54-55.<a class="note-return" href="#to-reading-martin-glaberman-counterintuitive-consequences-social-business-unionism-labor-militancy-welfare-state-wartime-strikes-1980-n-34">↩</a></li></ol>]]></content> <link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="https://radgeek.com/gt/2024/12/03/reading-martin-glaberman-counterintuitive-consequences-social-business-unionism-labor-militancy-welfare-state-wartime-strikes-1980/#comments" thr:count="0"/> <link rel="replies" type="application/atom+xml" href="https://radgeek.com/gt/2024/12/03/reading-martin-glaberman-counterintuitive-consequences-social-business-unionism-labor-militancy-welfare-state-wartime-strikes-1980/feed/" thr:count="0"/> <thr:total>0</thr:total> </entry> <entry> <author> <name>Rad Geek</name> <uri>http://radgeek.com/</uri> </author> <title type="html"><![CDATA[What I’m Reading: “Jesse Walker, How the Political Spectrum Turned Inside Out”]]></title> <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://radgeek.com/gt/2024/11/04/what-im-reading-jesse-walker-how-the-political-spectrum-turned-inside-out/" /> <id>https://radgeek.com/?p=10838</id> <updated>2024-11-04T16:29:36Z</updated> <published>2024-11-04T16:29:36Z</published> <category scheme="https://radgeek.com?taxonomy=category" term="Misc" label="Misc"/> <summary type="html"><![CDATA[]]></summary> <content type="html" xml:base="https://radgeek.com/gt/2024/11/04/what-im-reading-jesse-walker-how-the-political-spectrum-turned-inside-out/"><![CDATA[<div style="background-color: #ddd; border-radius: 5px; padding: 0.5em 1.0em; margin: 1.0em 3.0em;"><h3 style="font-size: 90%; text-transform: uppercase; margin: 0em; padding-bottom: 0.5em; text-align: center;">Shared Article from Reason.com</h3><div style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; min-height: 156px;"><a href="https://reason.com/2024/10/26/how-the-political-spectrum-turned-inside-out/"><img src="https://d2eehagpk5cl65.cloudfront.net/img/q60/uploads/2024/09/10-feature-spectrum.jpg" style="max-width: 200px; height: auto;" /></a></div><p style="margin: 0em; font-size: 1.1em;"><strong><a href="https://reason.com/2024/10/26/how-the-political-spectrum-turned-inside-out/">How the political spectrum turned inside out</a></strong></p><p style="margin: 0em;">From 9/11 to the COVID-19 pandemic, crisis moments keep reshaping the political landscape.</p><p style="margin: 0em; "><span style="color: #666; font-size: 90%; text-transform: uppercase;">Jesse Walker @ reason.com</span></p><br style="clear: both" /></div> ]]></content> <link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="https://radgeek.com/gt/2024/11/04/what-im-reading-jesse-walker-how-the-political-spectrum-turned-inside-out/#comments" thr:count="0"/> <link rel="replies" type="application/atom+xml" href="https://radgeek.com/gt/2024/11/04/what-im-reading-jesse-walker-how-the-political-spectrum-turned-inside-out/feed/" thr:count="0"/> <thr:total>0</thr:total> </entry> <entry> <author> <name>Rad Geek</name> <uri>http://radgeek.com/</uri> </author> <title type="html"><![CDATA[What I’m Reading: Sakana, Strawberry, and Scary AI]]></title> <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://radgeek.com/gt/2024/10/26/what-im-reading-sakana-strawberry-and-scary-ai/" /> <id>https://radgeek.com/?p=10835</id> <updated>2024-10-25T21:18:25Z</updated> <published>2024-10-26T19:00:45Z</published> <category scheme="https://radgeek.com?taxonomy=category" term="Misc" label="Misc"/> <summary type="html"><![CDATA[Now we hardly dare suggest milestones like these anymore. Maybe if an AI can write a publishable scientific paper all on its own? But Sakana can write crappy not-quite-publishable papers. And surely in a few years it will get a little better, and one of its products will sneak over a real journal’s publication threshold, […]]]></summary> <content type="html" xml:base="https://radgeek.com/gt/2024/10/26/what-im-reading-sakana-strawberry-and-scary-ai/"><![CDATA[<div style="background-color: #ddd; border-radius: 5px; padding: 0.5em 1.0em; margin: 1.0em 3.0em;"><h3 style="font-size: 90%; text-transform: uppercase; margin: 0em; padding-bottom: 0.5em; text-align: center;">Shared Article from astralcodexten.com</h3><div style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; min-height: 156px;"><a href="https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/sakana-strawberry-and-scary-ai"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1200,h_600,c_fill,f_jpg,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep,g_auto/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ffb64800b-b539-40f3-96ff-b682d0d8d6d7_1257x753.png" style="max-width: 200px; height: auto;" /></a></div><p style="margin: 0em; font-size: 1.1em;"><strong><a href="https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/sakana-strawberry-and-scary-ai">Sakana, Strawberry, and Scary AI</a></strong></p><p style="margin: 0em;">...</p><p style="margin: 0em; "><span style="color: #666; font-size: 90%; text-transform: uppercase;">Scott Alexander @ astralcodexten.com</span></p><br style="clear: both" /></div> <blockquote> <p>Now we hardly dare suggest milestones like these anymore. Maybe if an AI can write a publishable scientific paper all on its own? But Sakana can write crappy not-quite-publishable papers. And surely in a few years it will get a little better, and one of its products will sneak over a real journal’s publication threshold, and nobody will be convinced of anything. If an AI can invent a new technology? Someone will train AI on past technologies, have it generate a million new ideas, have some kind of filter that selects them, and produce a slightly better jet engine, and everyone will say this is meaningless. If the same AI can do poetry and chess and math and music at the same time? I think this might have already happened, I can’t even keep track.</p> <p>So what? Here are some possibilities:</p> <p><em>First,</em> maybe we’ve learned that it’s unexpectedly easy to mimic intelligence without having it. This seems closest to ELIZA, which was obviously a cheap trick.</p> <p><em>Second,</em> maybe we’ve learned that our ego is so fragile that we’ll always refuse to accord intelligence to mere machines.</p> <p><em>Third,</em> maybe we’ve learned that <q>intelligence</q> is a meaningless concept, always enacted on levels that don’t themselves seem intelligent. Once we pull away the veil and learn what’s going on, it always looks like search, statistics, or pattern matching. The only difference is between intelligences we understand deeply (which seem boring) and intelligences we don’t understand enough to grasp the tricks (which seem like magical Actual Intelligence).</p> <p>I endorse all three of these. The micro level — a single advance considered in isolation — tends to feel more like a cheap trick. The macro level, where you look at many advances together and see all the impressive things they can do, tends to feel more like culpable moving of goalposts. And when I think about the whole arc as soberly as I can, I suspect it’s the last one, where we’ve deconstructed <q>intelligence</q> into unintelligent parts.</p> <p class="attribution">— Scott Alexander, <a href="https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/sakana-strawberry-and-scary-ai"><cite class="article">Sakana, Strawberry, and Scary AI</cite></a><br><cite class="journal">Astral Codex Ten</cite>, 18 September 2024</p></blockquote> <p>For what it’s worth, I don’t think it’s actually true that <q>intelligence</q> tout court is a <q>meaningless concept,</q> or that the predicament that he describes in the third response to the moving-goalposts problem really seems much like discovering that it might be a <q>meaningless concept.</q> (It might show that it’s a <em>complex concept</em> — I would go further to argue that it’s a complex, fuzzy-boundaried <em>family resemblance</em> concept — and one whose component parts just don’t always fractally exhibit the critically distinguishing features of the whole. But, well, big deal; there are lots of concepts like that, and it’s interesting to find out that a concept is like that, but it doesn’t mean you’ve found out the concept is meaningless. But I do think Scott’s right that the moving-goalposts problem is a big problem, and one that ought to provoke more thought amongst people proposing critical tests for what intelligence is or where it can and cannot be found.</p> ]]></content> <link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="https://radgeek.com/gt/2024/10/26/what-im-reading-sakana-strawberry-and-scary-ai/#comments" thr:count="0"/> <link rel="replies" type="application/atom+xml" href="https://radgeek.com/gt/2024/10/26/what-im-reading-sakana-strawberry-and-scary-ai/feed/" thr:count="0"/> <thr:total>0</thr:total> </entry> <entry> <author> <name>Rad Geek</name> <uri>http://radgeek.com/</uri> </author> <title type="html"><![CDATA[Technological Civilization Is Awesome (cont’d): Lost-Found Trade Cities in Central Asia Edition]]></title> <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://radgeek.com/gt/2024/10/25/technological-civilization-is-awesome-contd-lost-found-cities-in-central-asia-edition/" /> <id>https://radgeek.com/?p=10827</id> <updated>2024-10-25T17:10:25Z</updated> <published>2024-10-25T17:08:01Z</published> <category scheme="https://radgeek.com?taxonomy=category" term="Misc" label="Misc"/> <summary type="html"><![CDATA[What I’m Reading: Ancient Cities Unearthed in Mountains of Central Asia by Alexander Nazaryan, New York Times, 23 October 2024. The site was uncovered using lidar mapping of the site during a UAV drone flyover; excavations have turned up a central citadel, artifacts and fortifictations. The casual tip would lead Dr. [Michael] Frachetti, an archaeologist […]]]></summary> <content type="html" xml:base="https://radgeek.com/gt/2024/10/25/technological-civilization-is-awesome-contd-lost-found-cities-in-central-asia-edition/"><![CDATA[<p><em><strong>What I’m Reading:</strong> <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/23/science/silk-road-mountain-cities.html"><cite class="article">Ancient Cities Unearthed in Mountains of Central Asia</cite></a> by Alexander Nazaryan, <cite class="newspaper">New York Times</cite>, 23 October 2024.</em></p> <div style="background-color: #ddd; border-radius: 5px; padding: 0.5em 1.0em; margin: 1.0em 3.0em;"><h3 style="font-size: 90%; text-transform: uppercase; margin: 0em; padding-bottom: 0.5em; text-align: center;">Shared Article from New York Times</h3><div style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; min-height: 156px;"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/23/science/silk-road-mountain-cities.html"><img src="https://static01.nyt.com/images/2024/10/23/multimedia/23SILK-ROAD-01-fwjt/23SILK-ROAD-01-fwjt-facebookJumbo.jpg" style="max-width: 200px; height: auto;" /></a></div><p style="margin: 0em; font-size: 1.1em;"><strong><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/23/science/silk-road-mountain-cities.html">Ancient Cities Unearthed in Mountains of Central Asia</a></strong></p><p style="margin: 0em;">The discovery suggests that trade routes along the Silk Road were far more complex than previously understood.</p><p style="margin: 0em; "><span style="color: #666; font-size: 90%; text-transform: uppercase;">Alexander Nazaryan @ nytimes.com</span></p><br style="clear: both" /></div> <p>The site was uncovered using lidar mapping of the site during a UAV drone flyover; excavations have turned up a central citadel, artifacts and fortifictations.</p> <blockquote> <p>The casual tip would lead Dr. [Michael] Frachetti, an archaeologist at Washington University in St. Louis, to <a href="https://saielab.wustl.edu/all-projects/tugunbulak">Tugunbulak</a>, an enormous fortified city dating back to a medieval empire.<sup>[<a href="#technological-civilization-is-awesome-contd-lost-found-cities-in-central-asia-edition-n-29" class="footnoted" id="to-technological-civilization-is-awesome-contd-lost-found-cities-in-central-asia-edition-n-29">29</a>]</sup> He and his team would spend nearly a decade trying to map out the site, as well as the one he’d originally come to Uzbekistan to explore, known as Tashbulak.</p> <p>The results of their research, <a href="https://nlcontent.springernature.com/d-redirect/TIDP3359728X19B67A63599B452CBCDD2633A58F5D52YI4/?url=https%3a%2f%2fwww.nature.com%2farticles%2fs41586-024-08086-5&linksource=https%3a%2f%2fnemo-mail-monkey-live.springernature.app%2f15589138%2fpressReleases%2f%5bdossier-id%5d%3feditorialDomain%3dhttps%253A%252F%252Fpress.springernature.com%26publicationDomain%3dhttps%253A%252F%252Fdx.doi.org">published</a> on Wednesday in the scientific journal Nature, describe the two sites as <q>the largest and most comprehensive urban plans of any medieval city</q> in Central Asia situated at high altitude (defined here as about 6,500 feet above sea level).</p> <p><ins class="ellipsis editorial" title="[Elision by the editor.]">. . .</ins></p> <p>The willingness of medieval merchants to detour up the mountains suggests a complexity of trade routes absent from popular conceptions of the Silk Road. <q>Stereotypically, we think that it’s like a highway,</q> Dr. Maksudov said. <q>No — it’s very highly networked.</q></p> <p>Initiated by the Chinese explorer <a href="https://ejasonline.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Tao_Heavenly_Horses_of_Bactria_Updated.pdf">Zhang Qian</a>, who went in search of <a href="https://ejasonline.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Tao_Heavenly_Horses_of_Bactria_Updated.pdf"><q>heavenly horses</q></a> for the Han dynasty, the Silk Road eventually connected people living thousands of miles apart, in ways both predictable and not.</p> <p>Because of their position between East and West Asia, the Central Asian cities of Samarkand and Bukhara served as important Silk Road hubs. Much later, they became cities in the Soviet republic of Uzbekistan. Dr. Maksudov explained that the U.S.S.R. imposed a Marxist version of history on the region, celebrating large urban developments while downplaying the contributions of medieval nomadic peoples, like those who possibly settled Tashbulak and Tugunbulak.</p> <p><q>Scholars used to think about nomadic and sedentary societies as separate and distinct,</q> Dr. Frankopan said. <q>These sites show clearly that reality was much more complicated, with mobile communities not only creating settlements but large ones, too.</q></p> <p class="attribution">— Alexander Nazaryan, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/23/science/silk-road-mountain-cities.html"><cite class="article">Ancient Cities Unearthed in Mountains of Central Asia</cite></a><br><cite class="newspaper">New York Times</cite>, 23 October 2024.</p></blockquote> <ol class="footnotes"> <li class="footnote" id="technological-civilization-is-awesome-contd-lost-found-cities-in-central-asia-edition-n-29"><strong><sup>[29]</sup></strong>[The reporter is probably referring to the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kara-Khanid_Khanate">Kara-Khanid (Qarakhanid) Khanate</a>, a Turkic khanate that dominated the Central Asian steppe and Transoxiana from the 800s to the 1200s CE. —RG]<a class="note-return" href="#to-technological-civilization-is-awesome-contd-lost-found-cities-in-central-asia-edition-n-29">↩</a></li></ol>]]></content> <link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="https://radgeek.com/gt/2024/10/25/technological-civilization-is-awesome-contd-lost-found-cities-in-central-asia-edition/#comments" thr:count="0"/> <link rel="replies" type="application/atom+xml" href="https://radgeek.com/gt/2024/10/25/technological-civilization-is-awesome-contd-lost-found-cities-in-central-asia-edition/feed/" thr:count="0"/> <thr:total>0</thr:total> </entry> <entry> <author> <name>Rad Geek</name> <uri>http://radgeek.com/</uri> </author> <title type="html"><![CDATA[Cognitive Decline]]></title> <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://radgeek.com/gt/2024/10/08/cognitive-decline/" /> <id>https://radgeek.com/?p=10824</id> <updated>2024-10-08T21:07:03Z</updated> <published>2024-10-08T21:07:03Z</published> <category scheme="https://radgeek.com?taxonomy=category" term="Misc" label="Misc"/> <summary type="html"><![CDATA[The Medium Is The Message? Well no, not really, that’s not really right. But maybe to give the billboard slogan a tweak: The Limits of the Medium are the Limits of the Message. People will be naturally prone to focus most of their efforts on the medium through which they interact with the most people. […]]]></summary> <content type="html" xml:base="https://radgeek.com/gt/2024/10/08/cognitive-decline/"><![CDATA[<p><q>The Medium Is The Message?</q> Well no, not really, that’s not really right. But maybe to give the billboard slogan a tweak: The Limits of the Medium are the Limits of the Message.</p> <blockquote> <p>People will be naturally prone to focus most of their efforts on the medium through which they interact with the most people. A vast majority of people who interact with my work, for example, do so by reading my pieces, not by viewing my social media posts. My written work is the central focus of my professional life, while my social media posts are essentially an afterthought.</p> <p>But what if that balance is reversed? It bends a person (or a movement) around the attitudes of social media and away from the kinds of arguments that require the length of a column or essay. Social media creates not a marketplace of ideas so much as a gallery of takes, where you can spend hours doomscrolling through short videos and snappy retorts.</p> <p>That’s how a movement transfers its allegiance from the ideas of a man like William F. Buckley Jr. to an X influencer like @Catturd2 and his 2.4 million followers. It’s one reason a person like Tucker Carlson devolves from an interesting, idiosyncratic writer and thinker to an online shock jock and outrage merchant.</p> <p>This transformation has the effect of further radicalizing the right. There’s a <q>Can you top this?</q> dynamic to posting that pushes people to extremes. In the offline world, paranoia is a liability. It inhibits you from seeing the world clearly. In parts of the online world, you’re considered a rube if you’re not paranoid, if you’re not seeing a leftist plot around every corner, if you’re not believing that Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s romance is a Biden administration psy-op that culminated with rigging the Super Bowl.</p> <p class="attribution">— David French, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/03/opinion/musk-x-maga-trump.html"><cite class="article">Why Elon Musk Is The Second Most Important Person in MAGA</cite></a><br><cite class="journal">New York Times</cite>, 3 March 2024.</p></blockquote> ]]></content> <link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="https://radgeek.com/gt/2024/10/08/cognitive-decline/#comments" thr:count="0"/> <link rel="replies" type="application/atom+xml" href="https://radgeek.com/gt/2024/10/08/cognitive-decline/feed/" thr:count="0"/> <thr:total>0</thr:total> </entry> <entry> <author> <name>Rad Geek</name> <uri>http://radgeek.com/</uri> </author> <title type="html"><![CDATA[in mutually / programming harmony]]></title> <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://radgeek.com/gt/2024/09/30/in-mutually-programming-harmony/" /> <id>https://radgeek.com/?p=10817</id> <updated>2024-09-30T17:50:24Z</updated> <published>2024-09-30T17:50:24Z</published> <category scheme="https://radgeek.com?taxonomy=category" term="Misc" label="Misc"/> <summary type="html"><![CDATA[What I’m Reading: some poems by Richard Brautigan, a real weirdo of the San Francisco and Pacific Northwest counterculture. Here’s one that he first wrote in 1967, which was first distributed as a mimeo broadside circulated in Haight-Ashbury by the Diggers then republished in a series of chapbooks, newspapers and books. This copy’s from the […]]]></summary> <content type="html" xml:base="https://radgeek.com/gt/2024/09/30/in-mutually-programming-harmony/"><![CDATA[<p><strong>What I’m Reading:</strong> some poems by Richard Brautigan, a real weirdo of the San Francisco and Pacific Northwest counterculture. Here’s one that he first wrote in 1967, which was first distributed as a mimeo broadside circulated in Haight-Ashbury by the Diggers<sup>[<a href="#in-mutually-programming-harmony-n-29" class="footnoted" id="to-in-mutually-programming-harmony-n-29">29</a>]</sup> then republished in a series of chapbooks, newspapers and books. This copy’s from the paperback of his 1968 selected poems anthology.</p> <blockquote> <p>I like to think (and<br /> the sooner the better!)<br /> of a cybernetic meadow<br /> where mammals and computers<br /> live together in mutually<br /> programming harmony<br /> like pure water<br /> touching clear sky.</p> <p>I like to think<br /> <span style="padding-left: 1.0em">(right now, please!)</span><br /> of a cybernetic forest<br /> filled with pines and electronics<br /> where deer stroll peacefully<br /> past computers<br /> as if they were flowers<br /> with spinning blossoms.</p> <p>I like to think<br /> <span style="padding-left: 1.0em">(it has to be!)</span><br /> of a cybernetic ecology<br /> where we are free of our labors<br /> and joined back to nature,<br /> returned to our mammal<br /> brothers and sisters,<br /> and all watched over<br /> by machines of loving grace.</p> <p class="attribution">— Richard Brautigan, <cite class="poem">All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace</cite><sup>[<a href="#in-mutually-programming-harmony-n-30" class="footnoted" id="to-in-mutually-programming-harmony-n-30">30</a>]</sup><br>Reprinted in <cite>The Pill Versus the Springhill Mine Disaster</cite> (1968). New York: Dell Publishing Co. 1.</p></blockquote> <ol class="footnotes"> <li class="footnote" id="in-mutually-programming-harmony-n-29"><strong><sup>[29]</sup></strong>More specifically, by the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diggers_(theater)">Diggers’</a> mimeo publishing operation, the Communications Company. (Source: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_Watched_Over_by_Machines_of_Loving_Grace">Wikipedia</a>)<a class="note-return" href="#to-in-mutually-programming-harmony-n-29">↩</a></li> <li class="footnote" id="in-mutually-programming-harmony-n-30"><strong><sup>[30]</sup></strong>I went to find a copy of the poem because of its title-drop appearance in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_Watched_Over_by_Machines_of_Loving_Grace_(TV_series)">Adam Curtis’s 2011 BBC documentary series</a>. The Curtis documentary is artfully constructed, involving, and really watching on the whole, considered aesthetically as a sort of techno-dystopian cyber-socio-political collage made out of rambling thoughts and historical materials. But also, considered on the substance of its content and argument, it is a wrongheaded, deeply confused and soemtimes really deranged sort of random walk through Great Recession vintage artsy-progressive techno-paranoid conspiracy theorizing, or sub-theoretical conspiratorial musing, about intellectual pseudohistory and the international bankers and The Machines and the world-haunting Spectre of Neoliberalism. Anyway, I like the poems better.<a class="note-return" href="#to-in-mutually-programming-harmony-n-30">↩</a></li></ol>]]></content> <link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="https://radgeek.com/gt/2024/09/30/in-mutually-programming-harmony/#comments" thr:count="0"/> <link rel="replies" type="application/atom+xml" href="https://radgeek.com/gt/2024/09/30/in-mutually-programming-harmony/feed/" thr:count="0"/> <thr:total>0</thr:total> </entry> <entry> <author> <name>Rad Geek</name> <uri>http://radgeek.com/</uri> </author> <title type="html"><![CDATA[Just Another Brick]]></title> <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://radgeek.com/gt/2024/09/04/just-another-brick/" /> <id>https://radgeek.com/?p=10812</id> <updated>2024-09-04T18:23:13Z</updated> <published>2024-09-04T18:21:49Z</published> <category scheme="https://radgeek.com?taxonomy=category" term="Misc" label="Misc"/> <summary type="html"><![CDATA[There is no crisis on the border that is not the obvious and direct result of the crisis of the border. There is no social, economic or humanitarian problem that would not be immediately, near-instantaneously and forever wiped away just by letting people out, letting them be and letting them pass. There is no heavy-fisted […]]]></summary> <content type="html" xml:base="https://radgeek.com/gt/2024/09/04/just-another-brick/"><![CDATA[<div style="background-color: #ddd; border-radius: 5px; padding: 0.5em 1.0em; margin: 1.0em 3.0em;"><h3 style="font-size: 90%; text-transform: uppercase; margin: 0em; padding-bottom: 0.5em; text-align: center;">Shared Article from Axios</h3><div style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; min-height: 156px;"><a href="https://www.axios.com/2024/08/27/kamala-harris-flip-flops-border-wall"><img src="https://images.axios.com/ZQMZs7s0cYS8PtDSEl42bYWcP4A=/0x0:5568x3132/1366x768/2024/08/27/1724728935900.jpg?w=1366" style="max-width: 200px; height: auto;" /></a></div><p style="margin: 0em; font-size: 1.1em;"><strong><a href="https://www.axios.com/2024/08/27/kamala-harris-flip-flops-border-wall">Harris flip-flops on building the border wall</a></strong></p><p style="margin: 0em;">If she's elected president, Kamala Harris pledges to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on the wall along the southern border — a project she onc…</p><p style="margin: 0em; "><span style="color: #666; font-size: 90%; text-transform: uppercase;">Alex Thompson, Hans Nichols @ axios.com</span></p><br style="clear: both" /></div> <p><a href="https://radgeek.com/gt/2023/04/06/for-the-love-of-god-let-them-out/">There is no crisis on the border that is not the obvious and direct result of the crisis <em>of</em> the border.</a> There is no social, economic or humanitarian problem that would not be immediately, near-instantaneously and forever wiped away just by letting people out, letting them be and letting them pass. There is no heavy-fisted enforcement measure, no clever technical fix or gracefully-executed political or diplomatic pirouette that can fix the disastrous consequences of the past decade of rock-headed, mean-hearted, senseless and shambolic attempts at locked-down border policing and restrictive immigration policy. There is no policy solution to the crisis except for the urgent, simple, utterly obvious solution of allowing for massive, order-of-magnitude increases to the numbers of people legally allowed to immigrate openly to live, work or study in the United States, regardless of their nation of origin. That’s all.</p> <p>Instead, Congress has spent years debating bipartisan compromise bills to further fund border policing, and the Biden administration, whatever liberal sentiments it may preen itself for, has actually spent years now perpetuating and institutionalizing the most destructive features of Trump-era border enforcement and asylum policy. This has been utterly shameful in its conception and multidimensionally disastrous in its execution. The Harris campaign’s open and utterly cynical embrace of this record, and promises to escalate it with more and more of the same, is despicable and appalling.</p> ]]></content> <link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="https://radgeek.com/gt/2024/09/04/just-another-brick/#comments" thr:count="0"/> <link rel="replies" type="application/atom+xml" href="https://radgeek.com/gt/2024/09/04/just-another-brick/feed/" thr:count="0"/> <thr:total>0</thr:total> </entry> <entry> <author> <name>Rad Geek</name> <uri>http://radgeek.com/</uri> </author> <title type="html"><![CDATA[Bolivarian Process (cont’d): Lights Out In Venezuela]]></title> <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="https://radgeek.com/gt/2024/09/03/bolivarian-process-contd-lights-out-in-venezuela/" /> <id>https://radgeek.com/?p=10806</id> <updated>2024-09-03T13:17:26Z</updated> <published>2024-09-03T13:17:26Z</published> <category scheme="https://radgeek.com?taxonomy=category" term="Misc" label="Misc"/> <summary type="html"><![CDATA[Around 4:40 am on Friday, a national power outage hit Venezuela. More than ten hours later, electricity is still out in most of the country. After a small surge, the average nationwide connectivity levels have fallen to 17.9% according to VE Sin Filtro, a digital rights watchdog of NGO Conexión Libre y Segura. The situation […]]]></summary> <content type="html" xml:base="https://radgeek.com/gt/2024/09/03/bolivarian-process-contd-lights-out-in-venezuela/"><![CDATA[<div style="background-color: #ddd; border-radius: 5px; padding: 0.5em 1.0em; margin: 1.0em 3.0em;"><h3 style="font-size: 90%; text-transform: uppercase; margin: 0em; padding-bottom: 0.5em; text-align: center;">Shared Article from Caracas Chronicles</h3><div style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; min-height: 156px;"><a href="https://www.caracaschronicles.com/2024/08/30/another-nationwide-blackout-in-venezuela/"><img src="https://www.caracaschronicles.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/PHOTO-2024-08-30-13-36-44.jpg" style="max-width: 200px; height: auto;" /></a></div><p style="margin: 0em; font-size: 1.1em;"><strong><a href="https://www.caracaschronicles.com/2024/08/30/another-nationwide-blackout-in-venezuela/">Another Nationwide Blackout In Venezuela | Caracas Chronicles</a></strong></p><p style="margin: 0em;">Around 4:40 am on Friday, another national blackout hit Venezuela. Here's everything we know so far</p><p style="margin: 0em; "><span style="color: #666; font-size: 90%; text-transform: uppercase;">Caracas Chronicles @ caracaschronicles.com</span></p><br style="clear: both" /></div> <blockquote> <p>Around 4:40 am on Friday, a national power outage hit Venezuela. More than ten hours later, electricity is still out in most of the country. After a small surge, the average nationwide connectivity levels have fallen to 17.9% according to VE Sin Filtro, a digital rights watchdog of NGO Conexión Libre y Segura. The situation feels eerily similar to March 2019, when the country was plunged into darkness for a week amidst a political struggle for the presidency—traumatic days for many Venezuelans. While a short-timed outage had hit the country on Tuesday night, the reasons and geographic origin of this outage are not clear yet.</p> <p>Yet, according to experts, it was <a href="https://www.caracaschronicles.com/2019/03/10/nationwide-blackout-in-venezuela-faq/">a matter of time</a> before another nationwide blackout in Venezuela following years of disrepair, lack of maintenance and investment that destroyed the power grid—alongside repressive management, terrible wages, and unsafe working conditions.</p> <p><ins class="ellipsis editorial" title="[Elision by the editor.]">. . .</ins> Following a decade-and-a-half long Chavista tradition of blaming adversaries when facing power grid failures, Nicolás Maduro blamed the national power outage on a <q>fascist attack.</q> His Minister of Communications, Freddy Ñanez, had previously described it as an <q>electric sabotage</q> led by the opposition leaders María Corina Machado and Edmundo González. Diosdado Cabello, who is debuting as Minister of the Interior, also said that the <q>culprits will face justice.</q> González had been summoned for today, a third time this week, by General Prosecutor Tarek W. Saab as part of the case against the opposition’s dispute of the results. The summons threatened González if he tried to “run away” or obstruct justice.</p> <p>Amidst the outage, Minister of Defense Vladimir Padrino López says that the Armed Forces are being <q>deployed along the entire border of the national territory</q> and they are <q>in perfect civic-military and police union.</q> Padrino said military tactical and non-tactical vehicles are being deployed to transport and mobilize citizens as part of <q>Plan Centella.</q></p> <p class="attribution">— <cite class="journal">Caracas Chronicles</cite>, <a href="https://www.caracaschronicles.com/2024/08/30/another-nationwide-blackout-in-venezuela/"><cite class="article">Another Nationwide Blackout In Venezuela</cite></a><br>August 30, 2024</p></blockquote> <p><a href="http://radgeek.com/gt/2008/03/12/que_se/">Que se vayan todos.</a></p> <h3>See also:</h3> <ul><li><a href="https://radgeek.com/gt/2023/07/24/bolivarian-process-contd-there-is-not-enough-functioning-equipment-to-convert-the-gas-into-fuel/">GT 2023-07-24: Bolivarian Process (cont’d): There Is Not Enough Functioning Equipment To Convert The Gas Into Fuel</a></li><li><a href="https://radgeek.com/gt/2019/03/07/bolivarian-process-contd-900/">GT 2019-03-07: Bolivarian Process (cont’d): 900</a></li><li><a href="https://radgeek.com/gt/2017/07/08/bolivarian-process-contd/">GT 2017-07-08: Bolivarian Process (cont’d): Pro-government militias wielding wooden sticks and metal bars stormed congress on Wednesday</a></li></ul> ]]></content> <link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="https://radgeek.com/gt/2024/09/03/bolivarian-process-contd-lights-out-in-venezuela/#comments" thr:count="0"/> <link rel="replies" type="application/atom+xml" href="https://radgeek.com/gt/2024/09/03/bolivarian-process-contd-lights-out-in-venezuela/feed/" thr:count="0"/> <thr:total>0</thr:total> </entry> </feed> If you would like to create a banner that links to this page (i.e. this validation result), do the following:
Download the "valid Atom 1.0" banner.
Upload the image to your own server. (This step is important. Please do not link directly to the image on this server.)
Add this HTML to your page (change the image src attribute if necessary):
If you would like to create a text link instead, here is the URL you can use:
http://www.feedvalidator.org/check.cgi?url=https%3A//radgeek.com/feed/
