As protests erupt on the streets of America and the world, current power structures no longer feel tenable. Can this popular uprising break the neoliberal grip on the state and create lasting structural change that will empower the disenfranchised?
Join us as the Former Finance Minister of Greece and founder of the Democracy in Europe Movement 25 (DiEM25) explores what a restructured economic and political landscape might look like in a post pandemic era, and what it would take to harness state power in service of the masses rather than corporations.
Yanis Varoufakis is an economist, philosopher, and politician. He is a member of the Hellenic Parliament, Secretary-General of MeRA25, co-founder of DiEM25, and the former finance minister of Greece. Together with Bernie Sanders he co-founded Progressive International, to unite progressives around the world. He has taught economics at the University…
Racism refers to a variety of practices, beliefs, social relations, and phenomena that work to reproduce a racial hierarchy and social structure that yield superiority, power, and privilege for some, and discrimination and oppression for others.
It can take several forms, including representational, ideological, discursive, interactional, institutional, structural, and systemic
Racism exists when ideas and assumptions about racial categories are used to justify and reproduce a racial hierarchy and racially structured society that unjustly limits access to resources, rights, and privileges on the basis of race. Racism also occurs when this kind of unjust social structure is produced by the failure to account for race and its historical and contemporary roles in society.
It is about much more than race-based prejudice it exists when an imbalance in power and social status is generated by how we understand and act upon race.
So let’s look at its forms starting with representational racism which to mind is both the foundation and the root cause of its existence.
Depictions of racial stereotypes are common in popular culture and media, like the historical tendency to cast people of color as criminals and as victims of crime rather than in other roles, or as background characters rather than as leads in film and television.
This form encapsulates a whole range of racist ideas that imply inferiority, and often stupidity and untrustworthiness, in images that circulate society and permeate our culture.
The presence of such images and our interaction with them on a near-constant basis helps to keep alive the racist ideas attached to them.
Then you have ideological Racism.
This is a totally different kettle of fish.
Historically, this particular form of ideological racism supported and justified the building of European colonial empires and the U.S. imperialism through the unjust acquisition of land, people, and resources around the world. This form of racism has a negative impact on people of color as a whole because it works to deny them access to and/or success within education and the professional world, and subjects them to heightened police surveillance, harassment, and violence among other negative outcomes.
Next, you have Racial language. The actual words we use to describe people and places.
This kind of racism is expressed as racial slurs and hate speech, but also as code words that have racialized meanings embedded in them, like “ghetto,” “thug,” or “gangsta.”
Unfortunately using words like these rely on stereotypical racial differences to communicate explicit or implicit hierarchies perpetuates the racist inequalities that exist in society.
Next, we have Institutional Racism. Practice through society’s institutions.
This takes the form of everything from laws to Stop and search. Institutional racism preserves and fuels the racial gaps in wealth education, and social status, and serves to perpetuate white supremacy and privilege.
One more form. International racism.
When a person of color is verbally or physically assaulted because of their race, this is interactional racism.
Not forgetting Structural Racism.
Structural racism results in large-scale, society-wide inequalities on the basis of race. Its a combination of all of the above forms.
And that leaves us with Systemic Racism.
This means that racism was built into the very foundation of our society, and because of this, it has influenced the development of social institutions, laws, policies, beliefs, media representations, and behaviors and interactions, among many other things. By this definition, the system itself is racist, so effectively addressing racism requires a system-wide approach that leaves nothing unexamined.
To sum up.
While something may not appear obviously racist at first glance, it may, in fact, prove to be racist when one examines the implications of it through a sociological lens. If it relies on stereotypical notions of race and reproduces a racially structured society, then it is racist.
In the end, describing someone using race, is racist and all of us do that.
It’s not Black lives that matter its all lives matter.
All human comments appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.
It should come as no surprise that with the COVID 19 pandemic the internet has spawned a resurgence of fake news.
The term “fake news” has taken on its own life, referring not only to untrue reports but being increasingly used to dismiss reports that the user does not wish to agree with.
People prefer information that confirms their preexisting attitudes, view information consistent with their preexisting beliefs as more persuasive than dissonant information (confirmation bias), and are inclined to accept information that pleases them.
The problem is balancing community standards with free speech.
When it comes to Facebook and Twitter
Both are protected from the consequences of its users’ speech by a provision of the 1996 act that defines social media platforms as a “safe harbor” for speech. Ultimately, Facebook and Twitter must answer to its users.
Therefore Facebook and Twitter are under no obligation to write or enforce any censorship policies.
We don’t yet know it can be done at all.
There are an estimated 2.2 billion people worldwide using Facebook and over 200 million twits a day, so it is a monumental task.
So is there any solution?
Transparency is a step in the right direction and it has to be said that there are internal and external ongoing efforts to banning genuine toxic content and allowing people to vent frustrations in general but once you are in the business of private censorship, it’s hard to draw those distinctions.
Because censorship can be awfully vague and subject to misinterpretation if left to policies that are always fluid.
Any asserted claim made on Twitter or Facebook as news must be taken with a pinch of salt.
Why?
Because false news stories are 70 percent more likely to be retweeted than true stories.
Why retweet a post before you know whether it’s actually true?
They have more staying power.
Here is a solution.
Facebook and Twitter are digital written formates, not a conversation and as such, they have a duty to objectively separate truth from lies or mistakes.
Of course, it’s not possible to expect that every post or twitter should be subject to scrutiny but any that go Viral on any platform should be subject to scrutiny to ensure that they are not spreading dangerous, lies, or completely fabricated.
This scrutiny can be made a legal requirement subject to the same laws governing the legitimate of newspapers, ensuring ethics that are promoting objectivity and credibility.
Why?
Because the spreaders of fake news are using increasingly sophisticated methods.
HERE ARE A FEW SITES Devoted to fact-checking: factcheck.org, hoax-slayer.com, politifact.com, snopes.org, truthorfiction.com, and urbanlegends.about.com.”
All human comments appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.
A conversation has to start somewhere so let’s start by imagining that we are looking out of the window of the International space station at Earth.
We can see that it is enormous but have no real sense of its size in relation to the Universe.
We know that it is covered in living organisms but can see no evidence of life.
We know it is spinning and traveling at speed but have no sense of movement or gravitational balance.
We see that it is round with colors, blue-white, yellow, and green.
It conveys a sense of wonder. Earth is our home planet.
It’s a little bit heartbreaking that we are looking at it through defunct human-made objects that contain toxic and hazardous materials.
IT IS SAID TO UNDERSTAND WHERE WE ARE YOU HAVE TO LOOK INTO THE PAST AND LEAR FROM THE MISTAKES MADE.
THE ONE GLARING MISTAKE IS THE CONTINUING DISCONNECTION BETWEEN NATURE AND HUMANITY IT HAS CREATED A WORLD WHERE BOTH ARE STRUGGLING TO EXIST.
So lets with a broad brush look at the present position.
Before we arrived nature governed, then along came the farmer, nature was harnessed to serve ownership, power, wealth, for the few, leading to greed, wars, inequality, racism, countries, and politics you name it, with one little industrialized country wanting it all at any cost.
So we formed the United Nations to sort it all out.
So we ended up with a world of short term thinking, with long term prospects getting worse. After decades of verbal an invisible virus has brought us to an impasse either continue inflicting suffering, or change course to a sustainable world.
Unfortunately, sustainability is misunderstood as it can only come if the world act as one. The likely hood of that happing is zero.
You only have to look at the differences in the ambition of countries with no vaccine on the horizon, to reopen their economies which are all heading into the biggest economic shock since the Great Depression.
So to avoid influences like panic and fear over the imperfections in our socio-economic realities we must first get a grip on Media platforms to tell the truth as their factuality paralyzes decision-makers.
There will be no quick solutions as here is going to be financial uncertainty for months if not years.
Governments up to now have and are spending billions to stave off the inevitable which is millions unemployed, and businesses small and large going bust.
With stimulus packages drying up, things will get worse before they can get better.
Obviously, we can’t simply re-open things all at once, or you’ll be sending off all us out to re-expose themselves to the threat and the likelihood of the second wave of COVID-19, and this might happen sooner than later with countries lifting restrictions both on movement and opening businesses.
Downplaying the severity of COVID-19 does nothing to help the problem, which is a very real threat to the health and safety of us all. Governments should not let economics become the prime driver, especially if it means risking people’s health and lives, which are far more important than their livelihoods.
We need to save people’s lives to keep the economy running. If economics remains our focus, everything will die.
We need a detailed plan.
Not something that’s hinted at. Not “as soon as we can.” Not “we have a good idea.”
WE NEED CREATIVITY. NOT DIGITAL SLAVERY.
What is the plan?
The European Union has laid out a vision for a green future with a financial package to promote it.
The USA Donald Dump is slashing environmental protections.
While China can’t wait to return to Manufacturing.
All aware of the fact that about half the world’s poor reside in fragile and conflict-affected situations today. If current trends continue, by 2030, areas that are fragile/hit by conflict will account for just 10% of the global population but as many as two-thirds of the world’s poor…where COVID -19 has only just started to spread.
All aware of the fact that climate change is ticking time bomb. Fiercer weather and worsening wildfires drove more than 20 million people a year from their homes over the last decade. (The next climate change world meeting is postponed until 2021 with little time left to avert climate catastrophes, with the whole question now not urgent with countries reverting to domestic problems, reducing international cooperation. Greenhouse gasses emissions will increase as they pivot back to burning fossil fuels.)
All aware that global emissions need to fall by 7.6% every year until 2030 to limit global temperature rises to 1.5° C.
All aware that pollution continues unabated. In 2016, 44.7 million metric tonnes of e-waste was generated. This is equivalent to almost 4,500 Eiffel Towers!
All aware that more than 470 million people worldwide are currently unemployed or underemployed.
All aware that the world resources such as – freshwater, fresh air are finite.
All aware that 212.4 million suffering from diabetes worldwide unaware of their condition.
All aware that the digital age is widening inequalities.
All aware that the next pandemic is only around the corner.
All aware that current conflicts/wars are a combination of a lack of resources fueled by the connectivity of the internet.
All aware that rising sea levels will result in mass immigration.
All aware that almost half of the world’s wealth is now owned by just one percent of the population. 65 times the total wealth of the bottom half of the world’s population.
All aware that this is the only planet humans can live on.
All aware of the need for social safety net programs.
All aware that I am all right jack does not work.
Its no wonder we want to go to where the sun does not shine but watch out for the tracking APP>
In the end, the only way to effect change that has to be invisible is the creation of a World AId Fund. (See previous Posts)
All human comments appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.
We all know that with the technology that we have today that we and our habits are been constantly monitored.
What we don’t appreciate is that this data is non-regulated, its use, and by whom it is all but invisible.
When Governments introduce a tracking App surely it should ring alarm bells to the erosion of Democracy.
There is no argument to saving lives is a given but the argument here is that with so safeguards, transparency, or legal rights over the storage and eventually removal of this data. (Centrally as in the case of England.)
It will turn us into digital slaves.
Since the arrival of the internet power has become invisible, with corporate-owned software running everything from the stock exchanges, to regime change.
Facebook and Twitter are partly responsible for the election of a USA president Mr. Donald Dump, the Arab Rising, the Brotherhood in Egypt, the false news, etc.
Surely to many of our forebears gave their lives for us now to throw away what is left of our freedom to create an autocratic regime.
If we want to live in a society like China these tracking Apps will get us there sooner than you think.
If you look at China its Communist Party is planning to implement a single citizen score using opaque algorithms that are largely political.
In fact, China’s social credit scoring is best understood not as a single system but as an overarching ideology: Its government agencies compile and share data on judgments against individuals or companies.
Default on your debts, and you will be put on the “List of Untrustworthy Persons.” Blacklisted individuals cannot make “luxury purchases,” such as high-speed rail and air tickets or hotel rooms.
The ripple effect on every part of your life becomes a multiplier on punishments. Warning, these people who are on the blacklist. When a blacklisted person crosses certain intersections in Beijing, facial-recognition technology projects their face and ID number on massive electronic billboards.
As you see in Hong Kong the government eager to quash free speech and root out dissenters.
The tracking apps may well help to break the chain of infections, but with dedicated watchers to record deeds and misdeeds it will lead to socially engineer behavior by ascribing a number to citizens.
Good deeds gain points; bad deeds lose them, with perks and hardships attached and it won’t be long before they take a broad range of behaviors both financial and social, all underwritten by an invisible web of Big Data.
Everything becomes negotiable, no one will make a decision.
Businesses need to keep in constant touch with the government in order to stay in the business.
What harm could there be?”
Where will it extend to next?
Now it the time to ensure that your hard-won freedom is not sacrificed but protected.
All human comments appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.
Boris Johnston Ministerial message to battle COVID-19 is now Stay alert.
This is how to do it.
Stay:
active bright careful intelligent observant perceptive sharp vigilant wary watchful wired wise hip jazzed quick ready spirited all ears cagey circumspect clever fast on the draw good hands heads up heedful on guard on one’s toes on the ball on the job on the lookout on the qui vive psyched up switched on wide-awake with it.
As with any software, there’s no foolproof way to know whether an app is malicious.
Pay attention to permissions, the number of times an app has been installed, the reviews, and the general reputation of the developer.
Be sure to keep an eye on permissions when installing apps. If an app you don’t trust much requires too many permissions, that’s a red flag that the app will potentially abuse those permissions.
It’s normal to come across apps that require too many permissions, but it’s often because that app actually is using your phone number, address book, and location to an advertising network’s servers so they can track you and serve ads to you.
For example, if an App requires permission to read your address book, access your location, and connect to the Internet, this is awfully suspicious.
Most malicious Android apps come from outside the Google Play Store. If you download a pirated app from a shady website, you shouldn’t be surprised if it brings malware onto your system.
I have come across ‘world-changing’ technologies more times than I care to mention.
While all of this changed something, it really changed nothing.
Until now.
Social inequality is characterized by the existence of unequal opportunities and rewards for different social positions or statuses within a group or society.
It contains structured and recurrent patterns of unequal distributions of goods, wealth, opportunities, rewards, and punishments.
Inequality of opportunities refers to the unequal distribution of life chances across individuals. This is reflected in measures such as level of education, health status.
Functionalist theorists believe that inequality is inevitable and desirable and plays an important function in society. While conflict theorists, on the other hand, view inequality as resulting from groups with power dominating less powerful groups.
COVID-19 ignores both.
What will be the impact? The truth is nobody knows. Human nature, however, will not have changed even if there is a big change in the way we live.
The Coronavirus is a dress rehearsal for what awaits us if we continue to ignore inequality not to mention the laws of science- ie climate change.
Unfortunately, governments and policy authorities seem incapable of accepting or listing to the clear warnings or to plan strategically long term, and to plan for how to avoid and or manage a series of catastrophic risks that are mounting and threatening our lives and in the end our survival.
We continue to threaten significant harm to ourselves and to the planet by prioritizing economic growth while ignoring its social, political, and environmental consequences.
We are exhausting scarce resources, wasting food, polluting the seas and atmosphere, diminishing resilience to disease, disadvantaging poor countries with trade deals, fostering military and economic competition, collapsing our ecosystems, while allowing unregulated technologies to plunder the world for profit, eroding public trust, destroying transparency,, removing accountability, turning a blind eye to corruption in and out of governments, BECOMING GOVERNED BY APPS.
Only one of these risks recognizes national boundaries-trade.
So with that off my chest, it is up to all of us to become proactive than just reactive.
How do we become proactive?
BY follow COVID-19 example, spreading ourselves with reprussions.
Today, social media plays a large role in social reform campaigns. It allows citizens to be the source of ideas, plans, and initiatives.
We are now using it for every part of our lives – in our personal relationships, for entertainment, at work, and in our studies. It is not just changing the way we communicate – it’s changing the way we do business, the way we are governed, and the way we live in society.
However, no matter how much we howl on social media if we don’t back it up with our buying power nothing much will change.
When the economy of the world reopen we will have Bio Corna free products been promoted by unsustainable advertising, supported by unregulated online profit-seeking algorithms.
As we see with Oil when the demand disappears the price tumbles.
Before the dawn of social media, governments, along with the traditional media, were the gatekeepers of information. Nowhere is this now been challenged more acutely than in the world of international affairs and conflict, where the rise of digitally native international actors has challenged the state’s dominance.
It is now commonplace for people around the world to use social media during emergencies, and the volume of online information coupled with its rapid arrival is becoming increasingly overwhelming to humanitarian organizations.
Seeking a way to “do something,” more and more people are answering the call to action on social media after each emergency. There are numerous platforms to post petitions for support, but none that are really proactive.
The fact is that every day there is a local or global emergency happening somewhere.
However, the surge for action is chaotic. Humanitarian organizations and the citizens they serve are overwhelmed by the speed of change and the onslaught of information.
People who create user-generated content are often considered outliers and have not yet gained the trust of leaders within official institutions.
Across the world, there are branded hubs, labs, fellowships, meetings, conferences, and research. Governments, international non-governmental organizations (INGOs), and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are all working on various projects.
How can these voices and communities become part of the humanitarian apparatus?
In times of crisis, data becomes the lifeblood of managing humanitarian operations.
But as access to data increases, how will people safeguard the privacy and security of those who need help?
What role should the main social platforms play during disasters?
Can these social networks work together more closely to coordinate their responses?
The thing no one can predict is always a good indicator of a fundamental we have missed. Coronavirus and Social media have provided it.
I can here, get a little banal, and explain how social media connects people and brands, it allows companies to become more responsive to their customers and it empowers consumers to interact with the companies they like.
All of this we know and much of it we had forecast.
It is not why social media is changing the world.
Social change of the type we are witnessing in our times does not happen unless there is an accumulation of detail at a personal level which can bring about a tipping point that can reach critical mass in a national pool.
A true break down of national borders and cultural barriers. It allows connection across billions of lives on a one-to-one basis.
Social media has been instrumental in creating cohesion amongst disparate rebel groups in Libya and it has been used to communicate and get organized by the demonstrators in Syria.
It has kept news and images coming out in real-time, appearing on Twitter and Google+ and has maintained the world’s attention and momentum in movements which might otherwise have fizzled or been squashed by their own governments.
For world leaders and governments, it represents a genie that has granted their wish for communicating with their people during election campaigns and the current Pandemic.
For the individual social media represents a challenge when it comes to filtering out ‘noise’ and finding out what’s real.
The true impact of social media in marketing, communications, and gradual social change is something which I think we will not see until we see it.
As the last scene of The Matrix: “I know you’re out there. I can feel you now. I know that you’re afraid. You’re afraid of us. You’re afraid of change. I don’t know the future. I didn’t come here to tell you how this is going to end. I came here to tell you how it’s going to begin. I’m going to hang up this phone, and then I’m going to show these people what you don’t want them to see. I’m going to show them a world … without you. A world without rules and controls, without borders or boundaries; a world where anything is possible. Where we go from there is a choice I leave to you.“
COVID-19 HAS CLAIMED AND IS CLAIMING MANY INNOCENT LIVES AND IS EXPOSING THE INEQUALITIES OF LIFE. BUT MORE IMPORTANTLY, IT IS ARMING SOCIAL MEDIA SO THAT THERE IS NO LONGER ANYWHERE TO HIDE.
Finally: What I am looking for here is the creation of an App that we can all support to effect change.
All serious suggestions considered provided they are nonprofit making.
All human comments appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.
