“The real truth of the matter is, as you and I know, that a financial element in the larger centers has owned the Government ever since the days of Andrew Jackson.” — FDR (21-Nov-1933)
Anti-Circumvention Legislation
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act and the European Union Copyright Directive: Next Steps academic paper.
Citizens United v Supreme Court ruling in favour of plutocracy.
More money, less transparency: A decade under Citizens United on opensecrets.org website.
Citizens United v Federal Election Commission argued: 24-Mar-2009 decided 21-Jan-2010. Opening the floodgates for corporate money in politics (including lobbying, campaign finance, etc) by 5-4 judgment equating corporate spend with First Amendment (free speech) for the first time.
"Under the First Amendment there is no such thing as a false idea. However pernicious an opinion may seem, we depend for its correction not on the conscience of judges and juries but on the competition of other ideas."
Although the erroneous statement of fact is not worthy of constitutional protection, it is nevertheless inevitable in free debate. As James Madison pointed out in the Report on the Virginia Resolutions of 1798: "Some degree of abuse is inseparable from the proper use of every thing; and in no instance is this more true than in that of the press." A rule of strict liability that compels a publisher or broadcaster to guarantee the accuracy of his factual assertions may lead to intolerable self-censorship. Allowing the media to avoid liability only by proving the truth of all injurious statements does not accord adequate protection to First Amendment liberties.
The First Amendment requires that we protect some falsehood in order to protect speech that matters. Per Supreme Court Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc. 418 U.S. 323 (1974).
Gillick v West Norfolk and Wisbech AHA [1985] passed by UK House of Lords (17-Oct-1985)
H.R.748 - CARES Act [2020] legislated by the 116th House of Congress (2019-2020)
"Speech that is obscene and thus lacking First Amendment protection must be without serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value. It also must appeal to the prurient interest in the view of an average person according to community standards, and it must describe sexual conduct or excretory functions in an offensive way."
To sustain a claim of defamation or libel, the First Amendment requires that the plaintiff show that the defendant knew that a statement was false or was reckless in deciding to publish the information without investigating whether it was accurate.
The First Amendment as it relates to libel laws, is that seditious libel – criticism of government and public officials – falls beyond the police power of the State [273-276]. In a democratic society such as ours, the citizen has the privilege of criticizing his government and its officials.
The OSRA of 1998 eliminated a system that had kept shipping relatively stable through booms and busts. Prior to the OSRA, the U.S. regulated ocean shipping as a public utility, based on the Shipping Act of 1916.
Merchant Marine Act of 1920 aka ‘the Jones Act,’ both designed to protect the domestic ship production industry.
With destructive competition, entire high fixed cost industries first over-invest in capacity. Then firms become unprofitable as they undercut one another, undermining safety standards, system reliability, and worker pay. Eventually there are mass bankruptcies of weaker firms, and consolidation as the strong buy the weak and establish pricing power. That’s what happened with railroads in the 19th century and airlines in the 1980s. The remaining firms became monopolistic, cut less trafficked routes, raised prices, and discriminated against different classes and regions.
John L. O'Sullivan on Manifest Destiny, 1839 Excerpted from "The Great Nation of Futurity" in the United States Democratic Review, Volume 6, Issue 23
The Constitution “demands that content-based restrictions on speech be presumed invalid . . . and that the Government bear the burden of showing their constitutionality.” Content-based restrictions on speech have been permitted only for a few historic categories of speech, including incitement, obscenity, defamation, speech integral to criminal conduct, so-called “fighting words,” child pornography, fraud, true threats, and speech presenting some grave and imminent threat the Government has the power to prevent.
“So much of political thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don’t even know that fire is hot.” George Orwell
“If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of everyone, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it.” Thomas Jefferson
"We have got to stop sending jobs overseas. It's pretty simple: If you're paying $12, $13, $14 an hour for factory workers and you can move your factory south of the border, pay a dollar an hour for labor, ... have no health care—that's the most expensive single element in making a car—have no environmental controls, no pollution controls and no retirement, and you don't care about anything but making money, there will be a giant sucking sound going south. ... when [Mexico's] jobs come up from a dollar an hour to six dollars an hour, and ours go down to six dollars an hour, and then it's leveled again. But in the meantime, you've wrecked the country with these kinds of deals."
Adam Smith FRSA (5-Jun-1723 to 17-Jul-1790) was a British economist, philosopher, pioneer of political economy, and a key figure during the Scottish Enlightenment.[5] Also known as ''The Father of Economics'' or ''The Father of Capitalism,'' Smith wrote two classic works, The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759) and An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776). The latter, often abbreviated as The Wealth of Nations, is considered his magnum opus and the first modern work of economics. In his work, Adam Smith introduced his theory of absolute advantage.
Friedrich August von Hayek (8-May-1899 to 23-Mar-1992) was a British-Austrian economist and philosopher who is best known for his defence of classical liberalism. Hayek shared the 1974 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences with Gunnar Myrdal for their work on money and economic fluctuations, and the interdependence of economic, social and institutional phenomena. His account of how changing prices communicate information that helps individuals coordinate their plans is widely regarded as an important achievement in economics, leading to his prize.
Gustavus Myers (20-Mar-1872 to 7-Dec-1942) was an American journalist and historian who published a series of highly critical and influential studies on the social costs of wealth accumulation. His name has been associated with the muckraking era of US literature, somewhat erroneously, since his work was not journalistic, did not aim at popular magazine publication, and took a scholarly, investigative and documentary approach to its subjects.
John Maynard Keynes, 1st Baron Keynes, (5-Jun-1883 to 21-Apr-1946) was an English economist, whose ideas fundamentally changed the theory and practice of macroeconomics and the economic policies of governments. Originally trained in mathematics, he built on and greatly refined earlier work on the causes of business cycles. One of the most influential economists of the 20th century, his ideas are the basis for the school of thought known as Keynesian economics, and its various offshoots.
Ludwig Heinrich Edler von Mises (29-Sept-1881 to 10-Oct-1973) was an Austrian School economist, historian, logician, and sociologist. Mises wrote and lectured extensively on the societal contributions of classical liberalism. He is best known for his work on praxeology, a study of human choice and action. Mises emigrated from Austria to the United States in 1940. Since the mid-20th century, libertarian movements have been strongly influenced by Mises's writings. Mises' student Friedrich Hayek viewed Mises as one of the major figures in the revival of classical liberalism in the post-war era. Hayek's work "The Transmission of the Ideals of Freedom" (1951) pays high tribute to the influence of Mises in the 20th century libertarian movement.
Murray Newton Rothbard (2-Mar-1926 to 7-Jan-1995) was an American heterodox economist of the Austrian School, economic historian and political theorist. Rothbard was a founder and leading theoretician of anarcho-capitalism, a staunch advocate of historical revisionism and a central figure in the 20th-century American libertarian movement. He wrote over twenty books on political theory, history, economics, and other subjects.
Richard Wolff (born 1-Apr-1942) is an American Marxian economist, known for his work on economic methodology and class analysis. He is Professor Emeritus of Economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and currently a Visiting Professor in the Graduate Program in International Affairs of the New School in New York. See Richard D Wolff Wikipedia Entry.
Walter Bagehot (3-Feb-1826 to 24-Mar-1877) was a British journalist, businessman, and essayist, who wrote extensively about government, economics, literature and race. He is known for co-founding the National Review in 1855, and for his works The English Constitution and Lombard Street: A Description of the Money Market (1873).
Larry Summers (born 30-Nov-1954) is an American economist, Secretary of the Treasury 1999-2001 and Director of the National Economic Council 2009-2010. Former Harvard President (2001-2006) and director of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. Leading American plutocrat, architect of financial deregulation since the early 1990s, deep state connected. Sociopath.
Janet Yellen (born 13-Aug-1946) is an American economist and senior civil servant. Treasury Secretary from 26-Jan-2021. Democratic Party, chair of Federal Reserve 2014-2018. High-ranking professor at Berkeley, fellow of Brookings Institute, graduate of Brown/Yale.
National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) is an American private NGO directing US economic policy, training high-ranked economic civil servants (Treasury, Federal Reserve) and safeguarding medium-long term major stakeholders in US GDP.
Brookings Institution is an American deep-state government crossover research group. Ostensibly publishing studies on social sciences and economic policy, Brookings is a major training centre and revolving door nexus for American plutocracy (security, international hegemony).
CGDEV.ORG with NYC/London crossover capital funds, neoliberal professional spin-capitalists and deal-with-the-devil patrician public servants.
CGD was founded in November 2001 by Edward Scott Jr (technology entrepreneur, philanthropist, and former US government official), C. Fred Bergsten (director emeritus of the Peterson Institute for International Economics), and Nancy Birdsall (former head of the World Bank research department and executive vice president of the Inter-American Development Bank). Credentials a-plenty.
2036 Bancroft Way, Berkeley, CA 94704
Artificial intelligence and neuropsychology research in close proximity to Uni Berkeley. Mission Statement from the rationality.org website.
Millennial non-profit in the UK with global outreach and SF, CA mailbox @ centreforeffectivealtruism.org website. Community of students and professionals acting on EA principles, by creating and sustaining high-quality discussion spaces. Running EA Global conferences and supporting community-organized EAGx conferences.
London How To Academy website. How To Academy is an organisation for people who think big. From Nobel laureates to Pulitzer Prize winners, we invite the world’s most influential voices to London to share new ideas for changing ourselves, our communities, and the world.
"We host leading artists and thinkers in an unrivalled programme of public talks, debates and conferences – from Yuval Noah Harari to Natalie Portman, Emma Watson to Eric Schmidt. We help businesses discover transformative new strategies, anticipate the future, and inspire their staff with keynotes and workshops by internationally-acclaimed economists, psychologists, politicians, and thought leaders. We offer masterclasses live and online with experts in essential twenty-first century skills, like leadership, public-speaking, decision-making and resilience. And we make books, podcasts and films to share insight and innovation around the world."
Our Team:
Secretariat of the Organisation of Transparency International headquarters in Berlin. Transparency International was number 9 of 100 in the Top Think Tanks Worldwide (non-U.S.) category and number 27 of 150 in the Top Think Tanks Worldwide (U.S. and non-U.S.) category.
Elite business bias engine and greenwashing front. Mostly funded by the US, the UK and a scatter of EU countries. Up to 1M euro a year "cash" into Russia. 25M euro a year operating. Controversies: non-Anglosphere chapters proposed support for Edward Snowden vetoed by US/UK chapters. Refused to meet Snowden in Moscow. TI ended the USA chapter in 2017 due to its corporate capture including the censoring of the report by Independent Ethics Panel (May-2020) detailing lack of transparency and corruption at TI 😉 Per leftover placeholder: INDEPENDENT REVIEW INTO ALLEGATIONS OF ETHICAL MISCONDUCT AT THE TRANSPARENCY INTERNATIONAL SECRETARIAT CONCLUDED (2-Jun-2020) and Frankfurter Allgemeine article by Corinna Budras (19-Jun-2020) gently summarising the bullshit. See Wikipedia: TI broken links re: deletion.
In 2021, former CEO Cobus de Swadt wrote Silencing a Whistleblower: A Story of Hypocrisy revealing the breakdown of whistleblower protection in detailed case study on the abuse of power at the world’s most influential anti-corruption NGO, including chronology of what it means to be a whistleblower in the post-technofeudal age.
See also:
UNESCO is the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. It seeks to build peace through international cooperation in Education, the Sciences and Culture. UNESCO's programmes contribute to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals defined in Agenda 2030, adopted by the UN General Assembly in 2015.
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