After a weekend of watching college athletics, the Olympic Closing Ceremonies, and reading online, our staff members were all struck by how far physical technology has come in just our lifetimes. At the same time, some not-so-modern realities have begun to make us wonder how much real progress we've actually made, especially in the United States.
From the anti-union vote in Tennessee last week - which is now being officially contested because of improper interference by Republican lawmakers - to the 'Jim Crow'-style anti-gay bill now sitting on the desk of Arizona Governor Jan Brewer, many Americans find themselves having to re-fight many of the same battles small-minded extremist conservatives lost forty and fifty years ago.
From the corrupt actions of Wisconsin's Republican Governor Scott Walker and New Jersey's Republican Governor Chris Christie, to the class warfare being waged against workers, to the modern-day version of slavery the one-percent seem to want to reinstate, it seems that both the workers and the wealthy have forgotten the lessons America learned in the post-World War II period, often driven by labor unions.
Sadly, it appears America may be about to repeat some of those same kinds of Stone Age mistakes on a global platform, specifically the internet.
Over the weekend, streaming content giant Netflix finally agreed to pay the ransom demanded by telecom giant Comcast, so that Netflix customers could finally watch their videos smoothly. Under the net neutrality law Congress signed in 2010, and under the longstanding de facto net neutrality rules, there shouldn't have been any problems for either Netflix or its customers.
Long before the right-wing activist Supreme Court struck down the net neutrality law, telecom companies like Comcast were already illegally throttling internet speeds for some kinds of content and some providers, while speeding it up for others. In short, under their unethical rules of conduct, if your internet service provider doesn't agree with your opinion? Too bad for you, they have the right to make getting to your personal or business website brutally, painfully slow for your customers. And if the Comcast/Time Warner merger is allowed to go through? Companies like Comcast will likely swallow up most of their competitors, creating only three or four massive companies that own nearly all the access to the internet in the U.S. - and leaving you even less choice for internet than you already have.
For those of you who might be confused by arguments about technology, consider this situation in terms of media. In the United States, there is no law about who can say they are a "news" provider. There are so many outlets, all across the ideological spectrum, that call themselves "news" organizations, but are very far from legitimate news organizations.
Americans looking for an unbiased perspective - which the news is supposed to provide - may be surprised indeed to hear about how the Russian-backed, now-former government of Ukraine recently paid U.S. conservative "news" websites to push their anti-western propaganda.
That, by the way, is one of the reasons the FCC wanted to do a survey of newsrooms and journalists across the nation - to make sure Americans were getting a true diversity of opinions, as well honest, unbiased news. Sadly, the FCC gave in once again to the cries of right-wing radio and Fox "News", and decided to back off on their survey, pointing Americans back down the road of corporate media censorship.
Humans, in general, tend to welcome new technology while at the same time decrying some of the changes it brings. However, there are some things that should be obsolete and forgotten. Bigotry, segregation, indentured servitude, and oligopoly are all ideas that need to go the way of the dodo bird, slavery, or even manually building pyramids.
In contrast, the principles of justice, honest pay for honest work, and competing fairly in the marketplaces of both business and politics, are ideas that are anything but ancient artifacts.
Monday, February 24, 2014
Friday, February 21, 2014
Celebrating Vision & Patience
From nearly the beginning of this publication, over six years ago, we've occasionally given both credit and blame where due. We've also paused to count moments of successes and failures.
This week, the number of successes we've been counting has been much greater than normal.
There were plenty of successes at the Winter Olympics this week, even as the games head to a close this weekend. There were national political successes too, like President Obama pulling Chained CPI out of his 2015 budget plans, or California beating their Obamacare sign-up goal nearly six weeks early.
There were personal successes for our staff too, as our editor Amy celebrated the birthday of her eldest daughter, even as we celebrated having her input back among our staff. Our webmaster Shawn & his wife celebrated getting a brand new Ford Fusion Energi by getting nearly 80 miles per gallon this week. Of course, we all celebrated the decision by Nebraska Judge Stephanie Stacy, that a 2012 Nebraska law is unconstitutional, meaning the Keystone XL pipeline is at a standstill in Nebraska, at least for the time being.
None of these successes happened overnight, and they all took an enormous amount of patience, dedication, hard work, and vision. For example, Meryl Davis and Charlie White, America's first gold medal-winning ice dancing team ever had been working for seventeen years on the success they finally achieved this week.
The Keystone pipeline fight has gone on for a good number of years too, and it doesn't look to be over anytime soon. Because of the delays caused by a lack of vision by some Keystone XL pipeline supporters like Gov. Heineman and Republicans in the Nebraska Legislature, a majority of U.S. voters are now asking important questions about the pipeline. Some of those questions include wanting to know where the oil will go, and what their lawmakers actually know about the pipeline.
The same lack of vision that seems to have Americans outside of Nebraska finally paying attention to the pipeline battle has also brought more attention to fuel efficiency standards in the U.S.
After a banner 2013 for hybrid and pure electric cars, sales of those kinds of vehicles for manufacturers like Ford, Tesla, and Toyota have stayed strong so far this year. President Obama also used his executive authority this week to raise the federal fuel standards for heavy-duty trucks over the next few years.
This positive focus on renewable energy was also easily seen in the most recent report by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, pointed out to us by journalist Michael Grunwald on Twitter. "Of the 325 MW of new US power generation in January, only 324 MW were renewable," Grunwald noted.
That's not perfect - but it's a good way to start the year, especially when there are plenty of horrendous news stories happening all over the world.
From the violent revolutions happening in both the Ukraine and Venezuela, to the ongoing environmental disasters in North Carolina and West Virginia, to yet another nasty winter storm in parts of the Midwest and Ohio Valley - not every story in life is a gold medal-winning success.
If you take the time, put forward the effort, have the patience and the vision though…
Like we said: There are plenty of reasons to celebrate this weekend. We hope you find some of your own.
This week, the number of successes we've been counting has been much greater than normal.
There were plenty of successes at the Winter Olympics this week, even as the games head to a close this weekend. There were national political successes too, like President Obama pulling Chained CPI out of his 2015 budget plans, or California beating their Obamacare sign-up goal nearly six weeks early.
There were personal successes for our staff too, as our editor Amy celebrated the birthday of her eldest daughter, even as we celebrated having her input back among our staff. Our webmaster Shawn & his wife celebrated getting a brand new Ford Fusion Energi by getting nearly 80 miles per gallon this week. Of course, we all celebrated the decision by Nebraska Judge Stephanie Stacy, that a 2012 Nebraska law is unconstitutional, meaning the Keystone XL pipeline is at a standstill in Nebraska, at least for the time being.
None of these successes happened overnight, and they all took an enormous amount of patience, dedication, hard work, and vision. For example, Meryl Davis and Charlie White, America's first gold medal-winning ice dancing team ever had been working for seventeen years on the success they finally achieved this week.
The Keystone pipeline fight has gone on for a good number of years too, and it doesn't look to be over anytime soon. Because of the delays caused by a lack of vision by some Keystone XL pipeline supporters like Gov. Heineman and Republicans in the Nebraska Legislature, a majority of U.S. voters are now asking important questions about the pipeline. Some of those questions include wanting to know where the oil will go, and what their lawmakers actually know about the pipeline.
The same lack of vision that seems to have Americans outside of Nebraska finally paying attention to the pipeline battle has also brought more attention to fuel efficiency standards in the U.S.
After a banner 2013 for hybrid and pure electric cars, sales of those kinds of vehicles for manufacturers like Ford, Tesla, and Toyota have stayed strong so far this year. President Obama also used his executive authority this week to raise the federal fuel standards for heavy-duty trucks over the next few years.
This positive focus on renewable energy was also easily seen in the most recent report by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, pointed out to us by journalist Michael Grunwald on Twitter. "Of the 325 MW of new US power generation in January, only 324 MW were renewable," Grunwald noted.
That's not perfect - but it's a good way to start the year, especially when there are plenty of horrendous news stories happening all over the world.
From the violent revolutions happening in both the Ukraine and Venezuela, to the ongoing environmental disasters in North Carolina and West Virginia, to yet another nasty winter storm in parts of the Midwest and Ohio Valley - not every story in life is a gold medal-winning success.
If you take the time, put forward the effort, have the patience and the vision though…
Like we said: There are plenty of reasons to celebrate this weekend. We hope you find some of your own.
Thursday, February 20, 2014
Bigfoot-ing The Facts
Even while our staff members were cheering Wednesday - both for the Olympics and for the legal decision blocking the Keystone pipeline in Nebraska - we once again noticed a disappointing media phenomenon.
Facts are like Bigfoot to those in the right wing media today. To them, facts don't exist, and even if facts do walk right up and introduce themselves, the right-wing ideologues who work in so-called conservative media don't believe any facts they don't like.
That much was blisteringly clear on Wednesday, as the right-wing dominated media crowed about only a small part of the latest report by the CBO, on how a nationwide minimum wage hike would really affect the economy in America. Of course, if anyone at Fox or at any of the right-wing radio talk shows had any intellectual integrity, they would have also mentioned what we and others pointedly noted Wednesday: That the CBO also said raising the minimum wage would generate little to no negative effect on the numbers of jobs lost, while creating a $2 billion boost to the U.S. economy.
That's a mighty big fact for any legitimate media organization to overlook - a fact that proves how illegitimate many right-wing media organizations really are.
For those people who believe that actions speak louder than words, they needed only to look at the actions of major U.S. clothing retailer Gap, Inc. on Wednesday, when they announced they will raise their hourly minimum wage companywide to $10 per hour. 65,000 U.S. workers will be earning more money for the work they do, a major change that earned the retail giant an official statement of support from President Obama.
As Aviva Shen pointed out on Wednesday, other major brands like Costco, Whole Foods, and In-N-Out Burger have already done the same. While Wal-Mart now denies rumors that popped up Wednesday that they might join that group of respectable companies, that there were even legitimate rumors that Wal-Mart might join the ranks of employers who provide a living wage is a very good sign indeed.
As Lydia Depillis at The Washington Post noted, it makes solid business sense for Wal-Mart to support a higher minimum wage for a very simple reason: Some of Wal-Mart's most reliable customers are their own employees. If Wal-Mart's workers had more money in their paychecks, they'd spend more of it in their own stores. As Depillis noted, it wouldn't even be out of character for Wal-Mart to do, as the massive retailer backed a significant minimum wage hike just seven years ago.
Our key gripe with how the right-wing media handled the CBO study isn't that they pointed out some jobs may be lost. The CBO themselves made that fact clear from the moment they released their study.
No, our problem is that the coverage of this important piece of news was so incredibly slanted that anyone who only paid attention to the right-wing media would be misinformed about what Americans clearly recognize as the biggest problem our nation now has.
Maybe that's why we were so excited when we heard that the FCC appears to be going ahead with their nationwide multi-market study of America's "Critical Information Needs", the so-called CIN Study. In short, the FCC is finally going to investigate if there's a serious bias problem in our American media - and if so, how they can fix it.
That's the kind of monster investigation we think should have been done in the media long ago - a sizable action we don't think the right-wing will be able to deny the existence of.
Facts are like Bigfoot to those in the right wing media today. To them, facts don't exist, and even if facts do walk right up and introduce themselves, the right-wing ideologues who work in so-called conservative media don't believe any facts they don't like.
That much was blisteringly clear on Wednesday, as the right-wing dominated media crowed about only a small part of the latest report by the CBO, on how a nationwide minimum wage hike would really affect the economy in America. Of course, if anyone at Fox or at any of the right-wing radio talk shows had any intellectual integrity, they would have also mentioned what we and others pointedly noted Wednesday: That the CBO also said raising the minimum wage would generate little to no negative effect on the numbers of jobs lost, while creating a $2 billion boost to the U.S. economy.
That's a mighty big fact for any legitimate media organization to overlook - a fact that proves how illegitimate many right-wing media organizations really are.
For those people who believe that actions speak louder than words, they needed only to look at the actions of major U.S. clothing retailer Gap, Inc. on Wednesday, when they announced they will raise their hourly minimum wage companywide to $10 per hour. 65,000 U.S. workers will be earning more money for the work they do, a major change that earned the retail giant an official statement of support from President Obama.
As Aviva Shen pointed out on Wednesday, other major brands like Costco, Whole Foods, and In-N-Out Burger have already done the same. While Wal-Mart now denies rumors that popped up Wednesday that they might join that group of respectable companies, that there were even legitimate rumors that Wal-Mart might join the ranks of employers who provide a living wage is a very good sign indeed.
As Lydia Depillis at The Washington Post noted, it makes solid business sense for Wal-Mart to support a higher minimum wage for a very simple reason: Some of Wal-Mart's most reliable customers are their own employees. If Wal-Mart's workers had more money in their paychecks, they'd spend more of it in their own stores. As Depillis noted, it wouldn't even be out of character for Wal-Mart to do, as the massive retailer backed a significant minimum wage hike just seven years ago.
Our key gripe with how the right-wing media handled the CBO study isn't that they pointed out some jobs may be lost. The CBO themselves made that fact clear from the moment they released their study.
No, our problem is that the coverage of this important piece of news was so incredibly slanted that anyone who only paid attention to the right-wing media would be misinformed about what Americans clearly recognize as the biggest problem our nation now has.
Maybe that's why we were so excited when we heard that the FCC appears to be going ahead with their nationwide multi-market study of America's "Critical Information Needs", the so-called CIN Study. In short, the FCC is finally going to investigate if there's a serious bias problem in our American media - and if so, how they can fix it.
That's the kind of monster investigation we think should have been done in the media long ago - a sizable action we don't think the right-wing will be able to deny the existence of.
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