[Peace-discuss] Notes

[J.B. Nicholson]

Some notes to spur discussion on News from Neptune and AWARE on the Air. 
I'll be looking forward to seeing the next shows guys.

-J




Censorship needs workers: The human cost of being a censor (pardon me, 
"moderator") at Facebook apparently includes horrible working conditions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-h8Ny4SAjr0 -- Facebook censors (called 
"moderators") describe their working conditions:

- "You always see death every single day. You see pain and suffering. And 
it just makes you angry. Because they're [Facebook] not doing anything!" 
one moderator says.
- Seeing 200 graphic videos daily including videos of animal cruelty and 
violence.
- Unsanitary conditions including bed bug infestations, "regular 'bodily 
waste' at workstations", and "numerous verbal and physical fights".
- There was unspecific mention of "sexual harassment cases".

Facebook employs about 15,000 people worldwide including contractors. 
Facebook replied:

> There will inevitably be employee challenges or dissatisfaction that
> call our commitment to this work and our partners' employees into
> question. When the circumstances warrant action o nthe part of
> management, we make sure it happens.

This all comes after pressure from multiple groups (including US and UK 
governments) to stop various posts from being republished. Some groups want 
their political adversaries' posts to be censored (such as the US/UK 
governments who disguise their desire for censorship as stopping "election 
meddling" ala the ongoing baseless Russiagate conspiracy theory). Others 
saw the Christchurch footage of murders being committed in real-time and 
want that recording (and others like it) to not be available.

My commentary: There is no technology that will accomplish this censorship 
other than humans picking what to allow to be republished, a task which 
requires a lot of "moderators" (censors) to even attempt to be effective in 
this in a timely fashion. Some of the problem is that what is to be 
censored is impossible to define in terms that are actionable on a computer 
-- if one can't define precisely how to identify what needs to be kept from 
being republished (censored), then one can't write software to do that job.

Google (Alphabet) is facing similar pressure with YouTube and recently 
YouTube's reps have said the task is not possible (CNBC's corporate news 
hosts disagree but they offer no coherent reason for their disagreement). 
RT's so-called "debate" in this segment is comparable to CNBC's complaint: 
a call to "take more responsibility for their contractors" is unclear both 
in terms of what that means for censorship and how to improve the working 
conditions of an essentially shitty and possibly unnecessary job.

Facebook has responded to recent criticism with health care for staff and 
salary increases.

Another problem is that so much of what social media organizations censor 
is not in line with any country's speech laws. Private organizations are 
free to make whatever terms they want, users are free to not sign up or use 
the service and seek publication elsewhere.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JixEyhgC53k -- "Going Underground" 
interview with Jordan Peterson
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCLmpyZ-CTA -- RT report on Thinkspot

A new so-called "anti-censorship" social media service will soon begin; 
Canadian psychologist and best-selling author Jordan Peterson is starting 
up "Thinkspot", a subscription-based publisher which claims:

Jordan Peterson said:
> Once you're on our platform, we won't take you down unless we're ordered
> to by a US court of law. That's basically the idea. So we're trying to
> make an anti-censorship platform.

My commentary: This approach sounds reasonable to me and (if the site lives 
up to Peterson's claim) it will take US free speech laws at face value, 
particularly law that holds a publisher blameless so long as it obeys court 
orders (including title 2 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the 
Online Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act which creates a 
"safe harbor" for online service providers against copyright infringement 
liability). It will be interesting to see how close one can come to living 
up to Chomsky's description of free speech ("Goebbels was in favor of free 
speech for views he liked. So was Stalin. If you’re really in favor of free 
speech, then you’re in favor of freedom of speech for precisely the views 
you despise. Otherwise, you’re not in favor of free speech.") and 
increasing the scope of allowable debate while at the same time complying 
with US law which disallows emergencies such as immediate threats of harm 
against people (such as a speaker instructing a crowd to "get" a specific 
individual identified to the crowd).



Food: "Boycott GMO Impossible Burger. Make tofu. Cook Dal." recommends Dr. 
Vandana Shiva

https://www.independentsciencenews.org/health/fake-food-fake-meat-big-foods-desperate-attempt-to-further-industrialisation-food/
https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/06/21/fake-food-fake-meat-big-foods-desperate-attempt-to-further-the-industrialisation-of-food/

> The “Impossible Burger “ based on GMO, Roundup sprayed soya is not a 
> “safe” option, as Zen Honeycutt and Moms across America just announced:
> 
> “that the Impossible Burger tested positive for glyphosate. Thelevels
> of glyphosate detected in the Impossible Burger[1] by Health Research 
> Institute Laboratories[2] were 11 X higher than the Beyond Meat Burger.
> The total result (glyphosate and it’s break down AMPA) was 11.3 ppb.
> Moms Across America also tested the Beyond Meat Burger and the results
> were 1 ppb.
> 
> “We are shocked to find that the Impossible Burger can have up to 11X 
> higher levels of glyphosate residues than the Beyond Meat Burger 
> according to these samples tested. This new product is being marketed
> as a solution for “healthy” eating, when in fact 11 ppb of glyphosate 
> herbicide consumption can be highly dangerous. Only 0.1 ppb of 
> glyphosate has been shown to destroy gut bacteria[3], which is where
> the stronghold of the immune system lies. I am gravely concerned that 
> consumers are being misled to believe the Impossible Burger is 
> healthy.”
> 
> Recent court cases have showcased the links of Roundup to cancer. With 
> the build up of liabilities[4] related to cancer cases, the investments
> in Roundup Ready GMO soya is blindness to the market.
> 
> Or the hope that fooling consumers can rescue Bayer/Monsanto.

[...]

> Fake food is thus building on a century and a half of food imperialism
> and food colonisation of our diverse food knowledges and food cultures.
> 
> Big Food and Big Money is behind the Fake Food Industry. Bill Gates[5]
> and Jeff Bezos are funding startups[6].
> 
> We need to decolonise our food cultures and our minds of Food
> imperialism
> 
> The industrial west has always been arrogant, and ignorant, of the
> cultures it has colonised. “Fake Food” is just the latest step in a
> history of food imperialism.
> 
> Soya is a gift of East Asia, where it has been a food for millennia. It
> was only eaten as fermented food to remove its’ anti-nutritive factors.
> But recently, GMO soya has created a soya imperialism[7], destroying
> plant diversity. It continues the destruction of the diversity of rich
> edible oils and plant based proteins of Indian dals that we have
> documented.
> 
> Women from India’s slums called on me to bring our mustard back when GMO
> soya oil started to be dumped on India, and local oils and cold press
> units in villages were made illegal[8]. That is when we started the
> “sarson (mustard) satyagraha“ to defend our healthy cold pressed oils
> from dumping of hexane-extracted GMO soya oil. Hexane is a neurotoxin.
> 
> While Indian peasants knew that pulses fix nitrogen, the west was
> industrialising agriculture based on synthetic nitrogen which
> contributes to greenhous gases, dead zones in the ocean, and dead soils.
> While we ate a diversity of “dals” in our daily “dal roti“ the British
> colonisers, who had no idea of the richness of the nutrition of pulses,
> reduced them to animal food. Chana became chick pea, gahat became horse
> gram, tur became pigeon pea.

[1] 
https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/yesmaam/pages/8069/attachments/original/1557958339/COA_S0004900_Impossible_Burger_and_Beyond_Meat_patty_-_glyphosate.pdf?1557958339
[2] https://hrilabs.org/
[3] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23224412
[4] 
https://www.wsj.com/articles/bayers-roundup-woes-send-investors-fleeing-11558266059?mod=hp_lead_pos3
[5] 
https://www.forbes.com/sites/zackfriedman/2017/08/25/why-bill-gates-richard-branson-clean-meat/#7b5670dcaf27
[6] 
https://vegnews.com/2019/2/jeff-bezos-bill-gates-and-richard-branson-lead-90-million-investment-to-create-next-vegan-impossible-burger
[7] 
https://www.amazon.com/Stolen-Harvest-Hijacking-Global-Culture/dp/0813166551
[8] 
https://www.independentsciencenews.org/health/indias-colourless-revolution-replacement-of-traditional-oils-by-soy-and-palm-oils/




Water: Prosecutors drop criminal charges against those who ruined Flint, 
Michigan's water (which remains unpotable).

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/13/us/flint-water-crisis-charges-dropped.html 
-- Prosecutors claim: they're dropping charges so they can charge more 
people later, this will help collect "the evidence they need to be able to 
hold them accountable and throw away the key", and that "[e]verything we 
did was for the people of Flint".

> Prosecutors stunned the city of Flint, Mich., on Thursday by dropping
> all pending charges against officials accused of ruining the community’s
> drinking water and ignoring signs of a crisis, casting doubt on what
> some residents had seen as a small but tangible step toward justice.
> 
> Fifteen state and local officials, including emergency managers who ran
> the city and a member of the governor’s cabinet, had been accused by
> state prosecutors of crimes as serious as involuntary manslaughter.
> Seven had already taken plea deals. Eight more, including most of the
> highest-ranking officials, were awaiting trial.
> 
> On Thursday, more than three years after the first charges were filed,
> the Michigan attorney general’s office, which earlier this year passed
> from Republican to Democratic hands, abruptly dropped the eight
> remaining cases. Prosecutors left open the possibility of recharging
> some of those same people, and perhaps others, too.

[...]

> Flint’s mayor, Karen Weaver, said she took the prosecutors at their word
> and hoped they would follow through with new charges. She said that
> there was some confusion and frustration in her city about the decision
> to drop charges, but that she believed it could ultimately be a
> positive.
> 
> “It is frustrating, but I’d rather be frustrated at this end and know
> that they’re going to do a deep dive into what happened,” Ms. Weaver
> said in an interview. She added: “I think this way, they may have the
> evidence they need to be able to hold them accountable and throw away
> the key.”
> 
> Efforts to speak with Mr. Flood, the former lead prosecutor, and Mr.
> Schuette, the former attorney general, on Thursday were not immediately
> successful. Mr. Schuette defended his team’s work on Twitter. “We had an
> experienced, aggressive and hard-driving team,” he wrote. “Everything we
> did was for the people of Flint.”
> 
> Among the officials whose charges were dropped: the former director of
> the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, a state
> epidemiologist, a former Flint public works director, and emergency
> managers who had been appointed by Governor Snyder to oversee the city.
> The decision to drop charges did not affect seven officials who had
> already accepted deals with prosecutors and entered no-contest pleas,
> but who had not yet been formally convicted by a judge.
> 
> James White, a lawyer for Howard Croft, the former Flint public works
> director, who was charged with involuntary manslaughter and has denied
> wrongdoing, said the attorney general’s decision validated his concerns
> about the investigation. Mr. White said his client, who was first
> charged in 2016, was “carefully, cautiously elated” about the news.
> 
> “I give a lot of the credit to the attorney general for having the
> courage to do this,” Mr. White said.
> 
> Juan A. Mateo, a lawyer for Darnell Earley, the former emergency manager
> who made the decision to switch the water source, said his client had
> always maintained his innocence.
> 
> “This is an unprecedented decision,” Mr. Mateo said of the choice to
> drop charges. “It is evidence of the real problems that plagued the
> underlying investigation.”
> 
> Ronald F. Wright, a criminal law professor at Wake Forest University,
> said it was not uncommon for newly elected prosecutors to drop cases
> brought by their predecessors. But it was far more unusual, he said, for
> them to suggest that they might file new charges.
> 
> “You inherit the file, you start looking through it, and the deeper you
> get in the file, the more you realize there are possible weak spots in
> your case,” Mr. Wright said. “I view this as a natural process of a new
> chief prosecutor becoming familiar with the details of the case.”
> 
> Ms. Nessel, the new attorney general, defended her prosecutors’ decision
> to drop the charges, but she also sought to reassure Flint residents. “I
> want to remind the people of Flint that justice delayed is not always
> justice denied,” she said.




Software/Control: Washington Post recommends Firefox for reasons that won't 
compel people to stick with free software

https://digitalcitizen.info/2019/06/22/leaving-out-software-freedom-means-missing-the-point/ 
-- my essay about why Geoffrey Fowler's Washington Post article about 
switching away from Google Chrome to Firefox is good advice as far as it 
goes, but the advice gives Chrome users no reason to stick with Firefox (or 
any other free software browser) in the long run because the article never 
teaches the user about software freedom -- the freedom to run, inspect, 
share, and modify published computer software. Fowler's framing of the 
relevant issues comes down to a relatively minor issue that is easily 
solved with a browser add-on to control which cookies are deleted and when.

There are more important fundamental issues left undiscussed which get to 
how Chrome (or any proprietary -- non-free -- program) undermines a user's 
privacy.




War/Citizenship: Is the US right in detaining anyone forever without 
charge? How about detaining a US citizen without charge?

https://theintercept.com/2019/06/21/guantanamo-bay-indefinite-detention/ -- 
Murtaza Hussain's piece for The Intercept reminds us of the power of these 
AUMFs (Authorization for Use of Military Force) and how many of our 
liberties we have given up by allowing them.

> For over 17 years, Moath al-Alwi has been held at Guantánamo Bay without
> charge. A Yemeni citizen, al-Alwi is one of Guantánamo’s “forever
> prisoners,” those whom the U.S. government has not charged with a crime
> but is unwilling to release. On June 10, the Supreme Court declined to
> hear an appeal in his case, the latest setback in al-Alwi’s long effort
> to obtain due process rights. Even though the court wouldn’t take
> al-Alwi up, Justice Stephen G. Breyer wrote that it would only be a
> matter of time before the court had to grapple with the forever
> prisoners and the scope of the government’s power to hold them.
> 
> The Supreme Court rejection — and Breyer’s comments — briefly brought
> al-Alwi’s case back to national attention. Little noted, however, were
> the eyebrow-raising assertions that the government has made in this case
> about its powers to indefinitely detain not just al-Alwi, but anyone —
> including U.S. citizens.
> 
> In a filing with the Supreme Court this April, lawyers for the Justice
> Department argued that the United States can continue to hold al-Alwi
> indefinitely without charging him. They also embraced the power to
> detain a U.S. citizen as an “enemy combatant”, an assertion they haven’t
> advanced openly since the era of President George W. Bush. Notably, the
> lawyers seemed to indicate, for the first time in a filing with the
> Supreme Court, that the government could even detain a U.S. citizen for
> as long as it has held al-Alwi, 17 years and counting, without charge.”
> 
> “There is no bar to this Nation’s holding one of its own citizens as an
> enemy combatant,” the filing read. Were al-Alwi a citizen, they argued,
> he “would pose the same threat of returning to the front during the
> ongoing conflict.” There were no “constitutional questions” raised by
> this hypothetical, they maintained.
> 
> The continued detention of al-Alwi has been justified by the government
> under the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force, a law passed in
> the days after 9/11. That AUMF entered the country into a state of war
> that seems to have no particular endpoint. It has also allowed the
> creation of a permanent state of legal exception that opens the door to
> practices like indefinite detention without trial. These legal powers
> are now being asserted by government lawyers almost 18 years after the
> law was passed to ensure that they extend even to Americans potentially
> detained as enemy combatants in the future.




https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIjWzBObnhc -- Russia says it has evidence 
that the US drone downed by Iran did violate Iran's airspace.

Representatives from Russia, Israel, and the US met in Jerusalem and 
Nikolay Patrushev, Russian Security Council Secretary, said this:

> Nikolay Patrushev: I have evidence from the Russian Ministry of Defense 
> that the drone was in Tehran's airspace. We did not receive any other 
> evidence.

My commentary: It'll be interesting to see this evidence, but this would 
hardly surprise any serious analyst of US warmaking because the way the US 
has been dealing with Iran (sanctions -- which are war on the poor -- and 
heated rhetoric pushing for war) are right in line with how the US foments 
war with other countries.

-J