Mediaboss Marketing

Dear Readers No country can yet claim to be a fully democratic society, because democracy calls for inclusivity and equal consideration of the rights and interests of all. This all includes not only its citizens regardless of race, tribe, caste, gender, age and religion but all other species, plant and animal, especially those we consume and others we are driving to extinction. It also requires responsible care for the natural environment we all share.

From my perspective as a veterinarian and advocate of the One Health concept, our own health and the ultimate well-being of future generations are dependent upon a healthful environment, growing plant and animal populations and natural communities. The call for animal rights and eco-justice, too long ignored, now means that planetary CPR conservation, protection and restoration needs to be immediately implemented. Our commerce with the Earth must become one of mutually enhancing relationships, rather than relentless exploitation, destructive invasion and human infestation.

Climate change, ocean acidification, loss of cultural and biological diversity and pandemic diseases are evidence enough that democracy must become all-inclusive. When we take care of the Earth, the Earth will take care of us, a Pennsylvania Dutch farmer once told me, adding, and that includes caring for the animals.

Dear Dr. Fox For people like me who are up in age and worried about who will take care of their animals when they pass away three rescue dogs, in my case there is a need for a solution.

My local Humane Society has not made a commitment. No-kill sanctuaries have said no.

What am I to do? Any suggestions are welcome my family cannot help. C.S., Bethesda, Md.

Dear C.S. You have my sympathy, and I embrace you for considering the fate of your beloved canine companions, who may outlive you. I understand that your family cannot or chooses not to help, but I am dismayed that your attempts to find peace of mind and assurance that your dogs will be well cared for if you die before them bore no fruit within your community.

I would advise the executor of your estate to go online to find nonprofit organizations dedicated to finding foster homes and forever homes for companion animals especially for those belonging to people with terminal illness or having to go into a retirement or nursing home. There are many such networks of dedicated volunteers in most metropolitan areas across the U.S.; some take animals into their own homes on a temporary basis while the pet owners are hospitalized or sent abroad for military or other reasons.

I have urged active retirees to consider dedicating their time and effort to providing temporary foster homes and forever homes for animals in need in their communities by joining with other volunteers associated with legitimate charities dedicated to this humane purpose. I would have a person you trust visit any no-kill operation or animal sanctuary that may promise to take your dogs to determine how well the resident animals are being cared for, including veterinary attention as needed.

Blue Ridge Beef of Eatonton, Ga., is voluntarily recalling one lot of its Turkey with Bone raw frozen product due to its potential to be contaminated with listeria monocytogenes. The affected product is sold in 2-pound chubs. Visit dogfoodadvisor.com for more information.

Visit Dr. Foxs website at DrFoxVet.net. Send mail to animaldocfox@gmail.com or to Dr. Michael Fox in care of Universal Uclick, 1130 Walnut Street, Kansas City, Mo. 64106.

Original post:
Non-humans and the environment in our democracy - STLtoday.com

Does democracy require journalists and educators to strive for political balance? I'm hardly alone in thinking the answer is "yes." But it also requires them to present the facts as they understand them and when it is not possible to be factual and balanced at the same time, democratic institutions risk collapse.

Consider the problem abstractly. Democracy X is dominated by two parties, Y and Z. Party Y is committed to the truth of propositions A, B and C, while Party Z is committed to the falsity of A, B and C. Slowly the evidence mounts: A, B and C look very likely to be false. Observers in the media and experts in the education system begin to see this, but the evidence isn't quite plain enough for non-experts, especially if those non-experts are aligned with Party Y and already committed to A, B and C.

Both psychological research and commonsense observation of the recent political situation (I think you'll agree with this, whatever side you're on) demonstrate the great human capacity to rationalize and justify what you want to believe. The evidence against A can be very substantial compelling, even, from a neutral point of view without convincing people who are emotionally invested in the truth of A.

The journalists and educators who live in X now face a dilemma. They can present both sides in a balanced way, or they can call the facts as they see them. Either choice threatens the basic institutions of democracy.

If they present balanced cases for and against A, B and C, they give equal time to the false and the true. They create the misleading impression that the matter is still in doubt, that opinion is divided, that it's equally reasonable to believe either side. They thereby undermine and discredit their own assessment that A, B and C are very likely to be false. This is dangerous, since democracy depends on a well-educated, informed voting public, aware of the relevant facts.

In the long term, journalists and educators will likely turn against balance, because they care intensely about the facts in question and don't wish to pretend that the evidence is unclear. They understand that they cannot routinely promote false equivalencies while retaining their integrity.

So ultimately they will tell the truth, mostly, as they see it. And this, too, is likely to harm democracy. Since the truth in our example happens to disproportionately favor Party Z over Party Y, and since the members of Party Y are understandably unready to abandon their prior commitments despite the evidence, Party Y will begin to see the media and academia as politically aligned with Party Z. And Party Y will be correct to see things that way. Journalists and scholars will tend to prefer Party Z, because Party Z has got it right about the facts they care about.

Thus begins a vicious cycle: Party Y attacks and undermines academia and the media for perceived bias, pushing the experts further toward Party Z. Members of Party Y become even less willing to listen to expert argument and opinion.

Being human, experts will have their biases. This worsens the cycle. Originally, they might have been more neutral or evenly split between the parties. But now, given their bad treatment by Party Y, they much prefer Party Z the party that supports, respects and believes them. Party Y's charges of bias thus find firmer footing: On this point, at least, Party Y is factually correct.

Party Y's followers react the same way. They believe, partly for good reason, that academia and the media are biased toward Party Z. They begin to perceive Party Y and its allies as the only trustworthy source.

Party Y and its supporters can now appeal to both real and perceived bias to justify suppressing and discrediting educators and the media or even replacing objective scholars and journalists with partisan stooges unmoved by the evidence, worsening and intensifying the cycle.

If the cycle continues too long, the end result is destruction of the free press and transformation of the education system into an organ of state propaganda.

In weak democracies, we've seen this cycle repeated over and over again.

Aspiring politicians advocating false or mistaken views are called out by academics and the media. Academics and the media thus become their enemies. The battle is fought in the political or military arena, where scholars and journalists rarely have much skill. Public education and freedom of the press can only be saved if Party Z proves stronger.

This is all general and oversimplified. But it's clear in the abstract and in the real world that knowledgeable people can be forced by the evidence to disproportionately favor one political party over another, creating a vicious cycle of bias and partisan alignment.

We might be entering this cycle in the United States. To fight against it, we must allow journalists, educators and researchers to speak freely. Political leaders and their supporters must not rush to the conclusion that experts who disagree with them even systematically are their enemies.

Eric Schwitzgebel is a professor of philosophy at the University of California at Riverside and the author of "Perplexities of Consciousness." He blogs at The Splintered Mind and wrote this for the Los Angeles Times.

Here is the original post:
Teeter-tottering ideas: What happens to democracy when experts can't be both factual and balanced? - Winona Daily News

This column first appeared in the Victoria Daily Times on Feb. 11, 1941. The Rowell-Sirois Report in 1940 recommended significant changes in the financial relationship between the federal and provincial governments. Many recommendations were not adopted, and some others were introduced piecemeal.

Democracy, like all growing things, has its periods of decline when the sap runs back into the roots and the blossoms fall. This figure of speech has its limitations, of course, for the plants in their resting time are not in danger but merely gathering strength for a fresh blooming, and there is nothing to be done about it.

However, when democracy pauses and trembles on the brink, it is a time of real danger when something must be done and done with decision.

We have been shocked to find that three of Canadas premiers, without consulting their people, have been able to set aside, for the time at least, one of the most progressive projects of this decade, the implementing of the Rowell-Sirois Commission.

We thought the war had united us. We thought it had kindled all our heroic instincts and made us ready to sacrifice for freedom. We thought we were all Canadians now. Certainly our armed forces were drawn from the whole of Canada, city and country, east and west, French and British and many others. Even the German population in western Ontario and parts of Nova Scotia is represented on the fields of battle; and that thought of a united Canada in the face of the Nazi menace has heartened us and given us great comfort to Britain in her hour of need.

But now like an ugly snake lifting its head in a garden of flowers, comes up the old poisonous spites and phobias and provincialism. Of course, we always knew we had thin spots in our national garment the industrial east and the agricultural west have many points of divergence, but surely in this hour of trial and testing we should be big enough to make the necessary adjustments and reconciliations, and that is just what has been put before us by the five well-qualified men, five of our finest citizens, who have patiently, laboriously collected evidence all across the country and considered every angle of Canadas problems.

Surely such well-considered recommendations cannot be brushed aside by three men, clothed in a little brief authority.

As a resident now of British Columbia, I am disturbed and disappointed that the premier of this province should be one of the disrupters. British Columbia is a rich province, with lumber and mines, fish and fruit, mountains and rivers, two transcontinental railways and the sea at her door. Because of the mild climate, tourists come in large numbers from other parts of Canada as well as from other countries.

No province of the nine has profited as much from the money spent by the Dominion in tourist advertising as this one. People come here when they are through working, bring the money they earned in other provinces, so it is no wonder that British Columbia can balance her budget.

The mild weather, which is one of her great attractions, is a gift from heaven, and so are the beauties of garden and mountain and sea. British Columbia, of all provinces, remembering these blessings, should be glad to co-operate in a plan that is calculated to help the other provinces, and Ibelieve the people of British Columbia, if they had a chance to speak, would say so.

When the premier said in Ottawa at the conference called by the prime minister to discuss the Sirois report, that he did not propose to have his province ham-strung and hog-tied, he was using exactly the same reasoning advanced by the countries that withdrew from the League of Nations they were afraid they might lose something. Are we never going to learn that no country can live for itself alone?

The Detroit Quill at New Years carried a story that shows that this spirit of selfishness and isolation, by some evil power seems to be growing on this continent. It says the States of the Union are beginning to set up barriers at the boundaries in little outbreaks of self-interest. The fruit growers of one section try to gain an advantage by not allowing their neighbours fruit to come over the state line.

Those of us who are interested in trying to get cheaper freight rates between the prairie provinces and British Columbia to the advantage of these localities will remember that we met opposition by the short-sighted policy of some of those we were trying to help. There were people here in British Columbia who feared the shipping in of Albertas freed-grain would lower their market.

Naturally, we are alarmed to find our unity broken by three men, who by three different routes, arrived at the same decision, which was that they would not even discuss the recommendations of the Sirois report. They knew that these recommendations could be altered, amended, enlarged or curtailed. They knew that discussion would be free and uncensored, but they had their minds made up they would not even consider them. And that three men could destroy the most important conference since Confederation reveals a weak spot in our constitution which should at once be remedied. The fence needs mending.

Much has been written about the Sirois report, much that I would like to repeat here, to show its fairness and the favourable comment it has received from all classes of people, but I am convinced the root of this trouble goes deeper than arguments or statistics. Canada will never be a nation until we are able to lay the old ghosts and forget the old enmities and that must be a work of grace. I feel that the breaking up of this conference puts us in a very bad light which we do not deserve.

The people of Canada, as I know them, are willing to take risks in freedoms cause. I lifted this phrase from a speech of Herbert Morrisons as recorded in arecent Listener. This is the quotation:

Political schemers, sailing under all sorts of official sounding names, who seek to destroy our will to take risks in freedoms cause are, whether they know it or not, playing Hitlers game as their friends played it in the disintegration of Germany and France.

These are strong words biting words, but not too strong. Any appeal to sectionalism, or selfishness of class-hatred or religious antipathies, fits well into Hitlers rule for domination, Confuse! Divide! Conquer!

But we are not going to accept this. The Rowell-Sirois report is still before us. The road does not end here. It is merely a detour.

I have been reading a book, written by an American doctor, Rosalie Slaughter Morton, about the country we used to call Persia, which is now called Iran. In 1906, she says, a crisis arose in the country and it looked as if parliament would not be able to stand out against the influence of Russia, and then occurred a phenomenon that is without parallel.

The women in the harems rose up in protest, resentful that the men should be unable to preserve the freedom of the country. At the peak of the excitement out they marched, 300 of them, with pistols in the folds of their sleeves, straight to the Mejlis (parliament) and demanded of the president that he admit them. What the grave deputies thought of this strange visit is not record But the Mejlis, faced by the militant women, did not sell their countrys birthright.

And that was the women of Persia, in 1906.

Read more here:
Nellie McClung: When democracy is at stake, it's time to mend the fences - Times Colonist

The American solution to the problem of religious conflict in politicsthe First Amendment and the religious test clause of Article VI of the Constitutionis not well understood today. Much of the time, in fact, liberals deliberately distort the meaning of these clauses to imply a hostility toward religion. Recovering the rightful understanding can begin with a close look at Thomas Jeffersons Virginia Statute of Religious Liberty.

But readers really interested in a deeper dive into this whole subject should take in Giorgi Areshidzes new book, Democratic Religion from Locke to Obama: Faith and the Civic Life of Democracy. Its out recently from University Press of Kansas, which is unusual among academic publishers for producing books that are actually readable and interesting, even toperhaps especially tothe non-specialist. Dont be scared by the title here. Much of the book discusses the religious aspects of familiar figures such as Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King, Jr., along with some analysis of the problematic approach to religion by the grand vizier of modern liberalism, John Rawls. Areshidze is appropriately skeptical of the coherence of Barack Obamas religious profile, as he explains in this short conversation we had a few weeks back (2:42 long):

Go here to see the original:
The Problem of Religion and Democracy - Power Line (blog)

With major media featuring fake news, Net Neutrality is key to keeping the Internet free and open, letting users access all content without restrictions, limitations, or discrimination, an online level playing field for everyone.

First Amendment rights depend on it. Without Net Neutrality, consumer choice will be lost, stolen by corporate predators, making the Internet look like cable TV, letting communication giants decide what web sites, content and applications are available at what cost.

Net Neutrality is essential to assure no content is favored over others. Electronic Frontier Foundations (EFF) legal director Corynne McSherry expressed concern about Trumps new FCC director Ajit Pai taking steps to undermine Net Neutrality protections, adding:

If so, we, and millions of Internet users, will do what is necessary to defend a free and open Internet. Separately, EFF raised concerns about FCC opposition to encryption under Pai, urging tech companies to defend and preserve it along with Net Neutrality and privacy rights.

FreePress.net said everything (it) fought for at the FCC is in jeopardy under Pai. Previously he was a corporate lawyer for Verizon Communications, involved in regulatory and broadband issues, among others.

At the FCC, he held several positions in its Office of General Counsel, most prominently as deputy general counsel. He also practiced law at Washington-based Jenner & Block, specializing in communications practice.

In 2011, Obama named him an FCC commissioner. He strongly opposes regulations, prioritizes their removal. In 2015, he opposed the FCCs Open Internet Order. Last December, he said Net Neutralitys days are numbered.

In January, Free Press CEO Craig Aaron blasted Pai, saying hes been on the wrong side of just about every major issue that has come before the FCC during his tenure.

Hes never met a mega-merger he didnt like or a public safeguard he didnt try to undermine. Hes been an inveterate opponent of Net Neutrality, expanded broadband access for low-income families, broadband privacy, prison-phone justice, media diversity and more.

He looks out for corporate interests exclusively. Their lobbyists are thrilled about his appointment.

Millions of Americans from across the political spectrum have looked to the FCC to protect their rights to connect and communicate and cheered decisions like the historic Net Neutrality ruling, and Pai threatens to undo all of that important work.

Digital democracy is at risk with him as FCC chairman. Net Neutrality is a defining issue, preserving it vital.

Its the last frontier of free and open communication space.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached atlendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

His new book as editor and contributor is titled Flashpoint in Ukraine: How the US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site atsjlendman.blogspot.com.

Listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network.

The rest is here:
Online Digital Democracy at Risk: Trump's FCC Chairman Threatens Net Neutrality - Center for Research on Globalization