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Regulate the Internet as a public utility

4/30/2020

There have been multiple stories of tech giants censoring content on the internet. The latest is from You Tube and a story from the Daily Mail states that Elon Musk and a host of critics have slammed YouTube for removing a video of two doctors suggesting COVID-19 death tolls are being boosted and urging an end to lockdowns because they do more harm than good. The site took down the video of news conference featuring Drs. Dan Erickson and Artin Massihi, who run a private urgent-care clinic in Bakersfield, California, on Monday because they claim it violated their user policy by disputing health officials.

What insulates these companies from Charter challenges and civil rights challenges or actions under the US Code for deprivation of rights is that these corporations are private and not public entities nor are they public utilities. I do not agree with this, by the way, as when the founders codified freedom of the "press", they meant the actual press that printed paper. Each person should not be restricted from the use of the "press" to disseminate opinions. In practice the internet and that includes YouTube and even blogs such as Weebly which hosts this site, are the latter-day "press". People just cannot invent their own sites although alt sites such as BitChute and Gab are proliferating but none have the reach of Twitter or You Tube.

In my view, the only way to ensure that free speech is protected online is by making the internet and companies such as YouTube and Twitter public utilities. There will always be arguments around what constitutes violations of Terms of Service but this can be adjudicated more fairly in courts.

Other arguments to support regulating the internet as a public utility are in circulation and easy to find but, in my view, the speech issue is a compelling reason.

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The economy and the Covid 19 Response

4/9/2020

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It is important and essential to question prevailing orthodoxies, particularly when the contours of those orthodoxies impact public policy and create massive and potentially irrecoverable economic devastation. There is a chorus of experts and immunologists who are proferring policy alternatives based on science and informed analysis, two of whom are Canadians, here and here.

We need to also avoid uncritical dualities and Manichaean styled juxtapositions such as those “good” people who care about the health of the people more than economy and those “bad” people who only care about the economy and are insensitive to the health care needs of the most vulnerable. As Ramin Mazaheri, writes, “Mary Waitress has no income, no job, no health care and a mortgage, condo dues, two kids in day care, an underemployed ex-husband, a Mom in a nursing home and a government which couldn’t have cared less about any of that. Where has your conscience been for poor paycheck-to-paycheck Mary, I fairly ask?”

To the extent that we can avoid Draconian restrictions of movement that severely frustrate economic vitality, we should. I liked Mazaheri’s analysis primarily because he invites us to consider the broader horizon of our world. As F. Scott Fitzgerald said, "the test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function. One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise"

While I do not claim to have the answers, I am using my time to research and reflect. And yes, all of us should observe social distancing, handwashing, and follow public health measures as I continue to do. But that does not mean a suspension of our critical faculties. As I posted in an earlier post, nationalizing the banks is a good start following the end of this crisis. While I do not agree with every prescription offered by Mazaheri, I am completely on board with many of his ideas moving ahead including “ending banker rule, move on to ending lawyer-bureaucracy, go on lockdown only to have a massive national discussion (on the value of civil liberties) and ensuring that these are foundational values in any policy direction, access to timely health care, informed responses based on a considered view of available data), etc.

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Billie Holiday - Solitude

4/7/2020

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The incomparable Billie Holiday swoons, bends, and touches the soul in a way few can. She recorded a few versions of this Duke Ellington classic but this is my favourite, and obviously, fitting given the global quarantine we are all facing!

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Time is up: National Public Banking for Canada

4/5/2020

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Back in 2012, Ellen Brown wrote a piece in Global Research arguing that it was time for Canada to reassert national public banks. In her piece, she argues that:

Between 1939 and 1974, the government actually did borrow from its own central bank. That made its debt effectively interest-free since the government owned the bank and got the benefit of the interest. According to figures supplied by Jack Biddell, a former government accountant, the federal debt remained very low, relatively flat, and quite sustainable during those years. (See his chart below.)

Her argument tracks with similar arguments in the USA to end the Federal Reserve. Brown summarizes the Canadian legal advocacy efforts in this regard. Constitutional lawyer Rocco Galati filed an action on behalf of William Krehm, Ann Emmett, and COMER (the Committee for Monetary and Economic Reform) to restore the use of the Bank of Canada to its original purpose, including making interest free loans to municipal, provincial and federal governments for “human capital” expenditures (education, health, and other social services) and for infrastructure. The plaintiffs state that since 1974, the Bank of Canada and Canada’s monetary and financial policy have been dictated by private foreign banks and financial interests led by the BIS, the Financial Stability Forum (FSF) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), bypassing the sovereign rule of Canada through its Parliament.

If by an act of parliament, we abolished the current central bank, we could cut the debt by borrowing from the government’s own bank, which returns its profits to public coffers. Cutting out interest has been shown to reduce the average cost of public projects by about 40%.

Given the concern over the Trump administration blocking 3M's sale of masks to Canada due to shortages, we could invest in manufacturing and move the economy forward making us, as a nation, as strong as we were between the years 1939 and 1974.

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April is the cruellest month

4/3/2020

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T.S. Eliot famously wrote in The Waste Land that "April is the cruellest month". In our present context, it is quite literally true for those of us in North America. We hope and long, in this month, for a summer of hope arising out of the "dead land" of our current pandemic experience. The primordial, psychic impulses of both hope and despair co-exist in our consciousness. Eliot writes that the season of winter "kept us warm covering the earth in forgetful snow". Just last winter, in a literal historical sense, our collective lives were so much different with most of us making plans and goals that have been dashed with the emergence of this global pandemic.

Now, here in the beginning of April, we witness "shelter in place", more sickness, restrictions of visitations and public gatherings, and massive unemployment. In our city alone, 1/3 of the city work force has been laid off. Contrasted with the past winter, the current situation is bleak. Yet, we look forward to an end to this crisis and a return to some degree of normalcy symbolized seasonally, metaphorically, and historically by "summer". In between these poles stands April.

While Eliot can be depressing, his insights can give voice to modern problems and are paradoxically soothing. Ultimately, Eliot's critique is a critique of the modern world devoid of spirituality and the creativity that springs from depth of our consciousness based on a connection with the transcendent source of our being. Both capitalism and communism neglected this dimension of the human person which has led to a malaise and diminution of depth in journalism, popular media, and politics.

The entire poem, The Wasteland, is a critique of the contemporary world narrated and brought to life wonderfully by Alec Guiness in the clip below.

This crisis is an opportunity to change the trajectory of history and usher in a new era of compassion, spirituality, and an expanded consciousness that can alter and change our economic and political landscape in a truly revolutionary movement. One thing is certain, we cannot, as Einstein said, solve the problems of today by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.

April is the cruellest month, breeding

Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing

Memory and desire, stirring

Dull roots with spring rain.

Winter kept us warm, covering

Earth in forgetful snow, feeding

A little life with dried tubers.

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The Philosopher King in the time of Covid-19

4/2/2020

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In Plato’s Republic, Plato has Socrates develop his idea of justice and the ideal republic. Plato’s point, in advancing "the philosopher king" is not specifically related to philosophers as a class or discipline but the kind of mind that the ruler should ideally possess.

The core quality of the philosopher (etymologically meaning lover (philia) of wisdom (Sophia)) is that they want to understand the truth and not the illusions that are cast on the cave wall by shadows (see Plato’ allegory of the cave).

In this regard the philosopher cultivates a particular habit of mind, a particular discipline, and even a particular form of asceticism. Plato writes, “the philosopher is not to be confounded with the connoisseur, nor knowledge with opinion. The philosopher is that person who has in their mind the perfect pattern of justice, beauty, truth; theirs' is the knowledge of the eternal; they contemplate all time and all existence”

Asceticism is necessary to promote virtue – another necessary pre-condition. And these are rare qualities.

In the present crisis, the West has largely turned governance over to health authorities. Health authorities have particular expertise and their counsel is absolutely necessary to guide public policy. But there are many other factors, the ruler must consider – these include the economy, and the impact to the common good as well as individual human rights. And the ruler must also have the critical means by which to evaluate that information provided to them.

Classically, and scientifically, this is achieved by way of thesis and then an anti-thesis and finally a synthesis. The problem today is that with panic spreading about the virus, our collective cortisol levels are surging, leaving us compromised when it comes to political judgements. The resulting impulse is a tendency to eschew dissenting views through censoring online content. The issue of free speech versus compelled speech is an important human rights issue that can be discussed in later posts.

As a citizen, I have a duty to listen to and respect my local and national civil and health authorities in the judgments they make. And I do just that by practicing all the recommendations made; that is part of my duty in the social compact.

And this from Sweden:

The Science Behind Sweden's 'Relaxed' Coronavirus Strategy

I have no control in the decision-making process. And as a citizen, all that I can do is make these views known in my small corner of this planet to the small number of people who may actually read my blog.

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Regulate the Internet as a public utility

The economy and the Covid 19 Response

Billie Holiday - Solitude

Time is up: National Public Banking for Canada

April is the cruellest month

The Philosopher King in the time of Covid-19

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