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AMY GOODMAN: Here on Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The Quarantine Report, Im Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh. You can watch, listen and read transcripts using our iOS and Android apps. Download them for free from the Apple App Store or Google Play Store today.

Former President Trumps Facebook account will remain suspended at least for now. On Wednesday, an Oversight Board set up by Facebook upheld the January 7th ban, saying Trumps rhetoric created a, quote, serious risk of violence. But the board said Facebook should review whether the ban should be indefinite.

For more, we go to Shoshana Zuboff, professor emerita at Harvard Business School, author of the book The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power.

Professor Zuboff, welcome back to Democracy Now! Your reaction to the Facebook-appointed boards decision?

SHOSHANA ZUBOFF: Well, you know, it looks like this so-called Oversight Board, which of course, everyone should understand, was set up by Mr. Zuckerberg with a $130 million endowment and really is a device to help keep him free of public law, help keep him free of regulation. So, we know that Mr. Zuckerberg didnt do a very good job taming political speech. He allowed political speech to go free of fact-checking. And the worst example of this, of course, was Mr. Trump, who became a clear and present danger to our democracy. So, rather than grappling with that, this decision was given to this so-called Oversight Board, and now it looks like theyve kicked it back to Facebook.

The real issue here, though, Amy, is that in kicking it back to Facebook, theyve actually kicked it back to the Biden administration. And heres why Im going to say that. First of all, why did Mark Zuckerberg indulge and appease Donald Trump for so many years, and especially in that last year of election season as things became more bizarre, inflammatory and dangerous? Well, there were the key reason was political appeasement. Just as the Oversight Board, so-called, is set up to keep him free of regulation, he showed that he was willing to do just about anything to appease Trump, appease the Trump administration, appease the conservative allies, to keep regulation at bay. And in appeasing Trump, all that Zuckerberg really had to do was not intervene in his economic machine, surveillance capitalism, which is programmed, engineered to maximize engagement and data extraction by circulating and amplifying what turns out to be the most inflammatory, the most bizarre, the most dangerous, the most threatening, the craziest content. So, by keeping Trump going, he satisfied his political goals, and he also satisfied his economic goals.

Now, as we saw yesterday, very, very quickly, Trump is back on his microphone not on Facebook, not on Twitter, but hes got plenty of other outlets. And what was the first thing he started to do? Threaten Zuckerberg with regulation. Threaten Zuckerberg with Republican retaliation. Right? So, now we are back in the political arena. And this means that the Biden administration, that team, is going to have to take a stand, because the thing thats going to keep Mr. Trump off Facebook and save American democracy is going to be a situation where Mr. Zuckerberg fears the Democrats as much as he fears the Republicans. And so far that has not been the case. So, we are now back into a political power match. And thats going to really change the dynamics of these next few months.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Professor Zuboff, could you respond to those who have criticized the decision by Facebook to indefinitely suspend Trumps account? Its not just conservatives in this country, but also several European leaders who have said that tech companies have no place in making decisions like this; this decision and decisions like it should be in the hands of governments.

SHOSHANA ZUBOFF: Well, that is absolutely true. You know, Mr. Zuckerberg and his so-called Oversight Board are running around the rim of a donut chasing each others tails, looking for solutions, when the solution space is in the hole. And the problem is that surveillance capitalism, companies like Facebook that depend upon the secret extraction of behavioral data, which gets turned into targeting and targeted ads, you know, this is a very pernicious, extractive, dangerous, anti-democratic economics that has taken hold in the last 20 years, the last two decades.

And its done so because democracy has failed to act. And its not only true in America, but the liberal democracies around the world have failed to develop a distinct vision of how do you design and deploy and apply the digital world, digital technology, in a way that advances democracy and allows democracy to flourish. So, were not China, but instead weve allowed these private companies to create a different kind of surveillance state in our surveillance society in America and in the West that operates under private capital.

So, we are long overdue for the same kind of period of tremendous creativity and invention that we saw in the 20th century. You know, the first part of the 20th century, the employers, the owners of the great industrial enterprises, they had all the power. They had all the decision rights. Everything that happened, happened based on their private property rights. Thats the same situation were in today. And in the 20th century, you know, we created these huge behemoths, the monopolies, the cartels, the trusts, and it looked like ordinary citizens, and even democracy itself, had no chance. And we were looking forward to a century of extreme inequality and serfdom. But, ultimately, beginning in the third and especially the fourth decades of the 20th century

AMY GOODMAN: We have 10 seconds.

SHOSHANA ZUBOFF: democracy fought back. And we created the rights, laws and institutions we needed to tame industrial capitalism, tether it to democracy. We can do the same thing today. This third decade is now. Our opportunity for citizens and lawmakers to come together, we need to bring the digital into democracys house. And

AMY GOODMAN: Professor Zuboff, were going to do Part 2 of this discussion, post it online at democracynow.org. Her book, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism. Im Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh.

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Shoshana Zuboff: Facebook's Oversight Board Is Not Enough. The Government Has to Regulate Big Tech - Democracy Now!

Greenfield is contemplating a charter amendment that will hinder initiative access. Such a decision would be tragic. Why? There has been no confusing flurry of initiatives that I have seen. Placing increased hurdles in front of the peoples voice is clearly wrongheaded.

Humanity stands at the brink of extinction. Survival requires more input from more people. We need to hear and discuss as many good ideas as possible. Creating obstacles that block wisdom gained from ordinary peoples wide ranging experience is a dangerous impediment to survival of life as we know it.

Examine briefly how weve come to be in this insecure national condition. Start with democracy as a concept. What is it? This subject needs to be discussed.

Representative democracy is different from plain democracy. Democracy itself needs no descriptive adjective and grows with human advances. Representative democracy is a form of government that tends to concentrate wealthy people at the top since a major function of representative democracy is to represent capital. Election campaigns compete with plans to grow the economy and jobs, from this capitalists earn a profit. It all seems straight-forward but theres a major hitch: Capitalism is designed to grow faster and faster forever and Earth does not grow.

Believe it or not; Earth has already reached its limit of pollution recycling capacity. The result is human life is facing extinction. Representative democracy alone cannot solve the problem it makes by supporting a compounded capitalist growth rate.

A new form of democracy is needed to be standing in the wings and ready to begin work on survival. The peoples referendum is one part of the model from which future government forms may develop. Representative democracy is not something to discard, it is a functional companion in a dynamic nuanced relationship with popular referenda decided upon by we the people acting on our own initiative.

Americas founding fathers had no models to follow other than royalty, a hint of democracy for rich English businessmen, and the ancient slave-powered democracy of Rome. Women were considered second class citizens, at best; personal property at worst.

The yoke of slavery was removed from white males and placed on women and people with brown skin. Economic wage slavery was a different story; it continues to this day for everyone but the rich. Benefits to wealth from wage slavery remain the underlying reason to limit democracy.

The continuing struggle by wealthy people to limit democracy is not taught in school. If we continue formal education, one required course is economics. There we are indoctrinated into believing unregulated free markets tend toward equilibrium by balancing supply and demand.

Economics is not based on facts or science; It posits people as consuming units possessing all the facts about every product and choosing what to buy rationally based on a price tending toward equilibrium set by supply and demand. This entire economic picture taught to millions of students is management propaganda.

In reality, privatized resources are extracted from our planet, a small bubble of life zooming through space nestled inside our galaxy. Commercial and public waste is dumped into oceans and air and onto lands of spaceship Earth.

We are taught that somehow an unregulated free market will magically settle into equilibrium that grants maximum health and happiness to our species. Really? All we need to do is think of Hans Christian Andersons naked king seen through the untrained eyes of a child to see equilibrium is not even possible. Imagine driving on an unregulated freeway and one is fairly close to understanding global unregulated free market economics.

We approach the abyss of extinction and need to honestly examine representative democracy as what has governed to this point. None of us but the truly weird want to continue on the path of war with a long list of fictional enemies. Eternal war, chemical pollution, plastic molecules mixed in with our protein molecules and global climate collapse are happening now during governance by representative democracies that mostly represent capital.

In closing, so you may know me, I was one of those who tried to save the people of Greenfield from todays curse of plastic molecules in our bodies, by using an initiative. Response was fun and heartening. But rules were changed by town hall midstream. That kept your health off the ballot and you now have plastic molecules floating around inside you with your protein molecules.

Explore constituentassembly.org to learn and think about modern ideas of democracy. The peoples initiative is one option for avoiding disaster but it cannot govern without representative deliberations. We need both. Reject unnecessary schemes to make popular initiatives more difficult.

Garrett Connelly is a resident of Greenfield.

The rest is here:
My Turn: Start with democracy as a concept - The Recorder

The Daily Show has released the second installment in its new profile series, The Daily Showography, this time examining the life and times of Ted Cruz, not-so-endearingly referred to as The Booger on the Lip of Democracy. (That sub-title is a nod to a nod to a 2016 Republican presidential debate, during which a small object ostensibly a booger dangled from Cruzs lip as he spoke. And then he swallowed it, on national television, for all to see.)

The clip traces Cruz rise from a Texas teen obsessed with boobs and world domination to an irritating Princeton student to a new husband whose first act after returning from his honeymoon was to buy 100 cans of Campbells Chunky Soup. After all that, he became a high-powered attorney, arguing in front of the Supreme Court for the right to execute mentally ill prisoners and to ban the sale of sex toys.

Thats right, the segments narrator quips, in a show of selfless devotion to the law, Ted Cruz defended a ban on sex toys, even though he himself is a complete dildo.

The segment goes on to discuss Cruzs 2012 Senate run and his rise during the Tea Party era, while it also pays tribute to his rather unfortunate penchant for doing bad impressions of everyone from Yoda to Ned Flanders. And then, of course, it revisits Cruzs failed 2016 presidential bid, where Donald Trump brushed him aside by calling him a liar and his wife ugly while implying that his father had a role in the John F. Kennedy assassination. After briefly standing up for himself at that years Republican National Convention, Cruz was soon phone-banking for Trump.

The segment ended with a parade of voices from across the political spectrum noting how unlikable Cruz is. It also showed Cruz uneven attempts to rehabilitate his image, helping to stoke the January 6th insurrection and then taking an ill-advised trip to Cancun while his home state, Texas, was facing a historic winter storm. But these are just small bumps on the road to his ultimate goal: world domination, the narrator says. To Ted Cruz, the Earth is a mere booger dancing on his lips, tantalizing, mesmerizing, repulsive, waiting until the day when he can swallow us whole and hope that no one saw it.

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The Daily Show Tells the Story of Ted Cruz, The Booger on the Lip of Democracy - Rolling Stone

EU Commissioner for Values and Transparency Vra Jourov addresses the EU Parliament in Brussels, Belgium, on March 25, 2021. Photo by Yves Herman/Pool via Reuters.

The challenges of economic upheaval and threats posed by China and Russia, common to both the European Union (EU) and the United States, are increasing the urgency on both sides of the Atlantic of proving to citizens that democracy is the ticket to a better lifea notion that is no longer a given, according to Vra Jourov, vice-president for values and transparency at the European Commission, and US Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT). Doing so will require a more robust social-safety net, Murphy argued, along with an aggressive defense against misinformation, Jourov said.

Jourov and Murphy were speaking at the Atlantic Councils EU-US Future Forum during a session moderated by Fran Burwell, a distinguished fellow at the Councils Europe Center, on how to defend democracy in turbulent times.

Below are some of the key takeaways from the conversation.

Daniel Malloy is the deputy managing editor at the Atlantic Council.

Tue, May 4, 2021

The forum, which runs from May 5 through May 7, intends to provide a new platform to discuss trade, tech, energy, space, defense and security, and the recovery from COVID-19.

New AtlanticistbyBenjamin Haddad

Mon, May 3, 2021

Russian and Chinese threats all seek to exploit gaps in Western cyber defenses and digital and information governance. To close these gaps as a part of its defense strategy, the United States should develop a strong collaborative relationship with the European Union in the digital and information sphere.

Seizing the advantagebyHarry I. Hannah

Fri, Feb 5, 2021

For French President Emmanuel Macron, the number-one priority in relations with the new US administration is clear: to boost results-oriented multilateralism.

New AtlanticistbyKatherine Walla

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The urgent task before the US and EU: To craft democracy that 'delivers' - Atlantic Council

Those of us who see these as dark times for Indian democracy can take heart from the recent elections, not only because of the way regional parties stood up to the Centres ruling party machine but also because of the highly unusual nature of their win in the key battleground state.

In surviving the BJP onslaught in West Bengal, Mamata Banerjee also beat overwhelming odds. She became only the 10th CM to win a third term in more than 200 major state elections held since the mid-1970s when India became a true multi-party democracy. BJP had many advantages from voter hostility towards a long-serving incumbent to the brute power of its heavily financed machinery but still fell short.

Indias problem right now is not a broken democracy, it is a broken state. In the late phases of the balloting in West Bengal, BJP lost more momentum as the pandemic started spinning out of control. This turn is likely explained at least in part by growing popular anger at the central governments handling of the rising caseload.

In recent weeks India has suffered one of the biggest surges of any country so far. Cases rose roughly twelvefold, according to official figures, and the real toll may be considerably higher. A crisis of this magnitude would stress even the worlds best healthcare system. In India, it has exposed pre-existing frailty a broken state.

A few developed countries, such as France and Italy, also suffered rapid second waves but managed to lower death rates from the first wave. Their health systems had readied for the shock. In India, the second wave has brought with it scenes of devastation reminiscent of the dark ages.

When I watch overwhelmed hospitals turning away patients at the gates, leaving them to die at home or suffer in the streets, I am haunted by thoughts of my grandfather. He died of a heart attack under similar circumstances, turned away from a public hospital in Uttar Pradesh, where there was no doctor on night duty and an orderly tried but failed to install a pacemaker. That was 1993. Indias underlying tragedy is how little progress has been made since.

Among the worlds 25 biggest emerging markets, India ranks last for the number of hospital beds per 1,000 citizens, fifth from last for doctors, fourth from last for nurses and midwives. Even if you drop richer emerging markets and compare India to other large countries with per capita incomes between $1,000 and $5,000 which includes Pakistan and Bangladesh India still looks mediocre on these basic healthcare measures.

Government spending generally rises as a share of the economy as countries grow richer. Indias government spends the equivalent of about 30% of GDP, which is roughly in line with other nations in its income class. So the problem is not the size of Indias state, but how it spends.

When Modi brought BJP to office in 2014, he mocked the welfare populism of his predecessors. Yet soon he was vying with them in his promises of generous freebies, from gas to food and pucca homes. Today, welfare spending accounts for 9% of GDP far higher than the miracle economies India would like to emulate, like South Korea and Taiwan, when they were at similar levels of development.

The government has meanwhile done little to modernise the basic structure of Indias state, which harks back to British rule. Many of Indias laws, and the structure of its federal ministries, including home and finance, dating back to the late 1800s. The corruption in public works that author Munshi Premchand was vividly described in his novels a century ago has yet to abate.

Our healthcare system was supposed to be revamped along lines described by the Bhore commission of the 1940s, but its comprehensive blueprint for hospitals and clinics throughout the country has yet to be realised. Instead, we have the sad reality of underfunded clinics, featuring operating rooms without surgeons, x-ray machines without radiologists. Some have beds without nurses, others have nurses without beds to attend. Economists who say India needs to spend more often have little to say about how badly our resources are currently deployed.

It is no surprise this unfinished and uncoordinated health system would falter in the face of a global pandemic. What was promised was minimum government, maximum governance, but rather than reforming Indias outdated state, power has been centralised to a greater degree than in a long time.

The PM set himself up as the nations saviour, who would solve its every problem. But it was a tall order, even a Formula 1 driver would not have made much progress in an Ambassador. The reality is that BJP can no longer claim to offer a superior model of governance, and that reality is starting to catch up to it at the polls.

The good news is that private groups, as they have before, are rushing in to provide what the government does not. Expats are sending money and medical resources from abroad. Residential associations are providing whatever assistance they can muster to ailing neighbours. So far, the Indian stock market has barely flinched over the rising death toll, perhaps reflecting a collective intuition that India will survive this crisis too despite its broken state.

Views expressed above are the author's own.

END OF ARTICLE

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Sickly state, healthy democracy: Elections held during deadly pandemic surge expose Indias real flaws and s - The Times of India Blog