Ian Welsh

The horizon is not so far as we can see, but as far as we can imagine

Month: July 2023

Is The Police’s Right Wing Bias A Problem For Them?

By

On July 7, 2023

Comments

This piece is a comment, by Purple Library Guy, elevated from the comments with their permission.

You know, it occurs to me that the cops, both in France and North America, are headed for a problem similar to Israel’s. That is, they’ve gradually shifted from being bipartisan supporters of the establishment in general to partisan supporters of the hard right, and other parts of the establishment are gradually noticing.

So like, time was Israel had massive and unbreakable bipartisan support in the US from both Republicans and Democrats alike. And Israel was generally fairly nonpartisan in how it interacted with the US. As Israel’s own politics shifted right, the Labour party died and so on, while in the US there was a rise of the religious far right with their massive enthusiasm for Israel, Israel’s politics have increasingly shifted to outright support of the Republicans, and this is one of the sources of Democratic politicians’ support for Israel fracturing. Not that there is now zero support for Israel among Democratic politicians, but it’s weaker; some continue with status quo strong Israel support, some have weaker and more critical support, and some get away with being basically anti-Israel in a way that would have killed their political careers once upon a time. And this is an ongoing process which has not seen its end point, and which seems likely to end up causing Israel significant political trouble.

A similar thing is happening with the cops; as significant sections of the establishment and middle class feel the cops do not have their backs but are instead standing with the politics of the far right not just in terms of racism but in various other ways such as opposition to “wokeness”, sections of the centre-left and even centrist establishment are ceasing to take the police for granted and starting to see them as a problem. The police are narrowing the societal base they depend on. It could come back to bite them.

Sure, nobody’s going to “defund the police” in the sense of totally get rid of them. But there seem to be quite a few options floating around for handling most things that currently involve police in other ways; once you start doing those pilot projects and then expanding them and then you do a study saying cops are only called out a quarter as much as before because so much is handled by social workers and mental health experts, the political cover for cutting them way back gets a lot more solid, and if everyone knows they’re a bunch of alt-right bastards who cannot be trusted by the centrist establishment (let alone progressives of any stripe), there’s gonna be motive to do it.

This is a donor supported site, so if you value the writing, please DONATE or SUBSCRIBE.

The Necessary Legal Changes To Deal With Deep Fakes

By

On July 6, 2023

Comments

A deep fake is a picture or video of someone doing or saying something they didn’t. In the old days pictures and video were considered “proof”, it was easy to tell if they had been altered, as with the laughable removal of out-of-favour leaders from Soviet pictures.

With the advent of useful “AI’ making deepfakes has become easy, and it is destroying one of the ways we know the truth. In addition it is putting people into positions they never took, having them say things they did not say and so forth. The common general use is for pornography, but putting words into someone’s mouth is potentially just as bad.

The law will need to be changed to deal with this.

  1. Making a deep fake of someone without their legal authorization must be both a criminal and civil offense, with jail time, not just fines, since in fines don’t work if someone expects to make more money than the cost of the fine.
  2. Consent must be active. No contracts of adhesion, never in a EULA, always requiring an individual specific contract which is compensated.
  3. No long term contracts. Five years at most; nothing which is open-ended or forever.
  4. If required for employment, this cannot last longer than the employment without a separate contract signed after the person is no longer employed. Some exceptions may be put in place for actors and whatnot.
  5. All deep fakes must prominently say, in a way that cannot be missed (no fine print or credits) that they are deep fakes, probably a banner at the top or bottom of every part of the video where they appear, except in movies and tv shows, but even then they must start with a prominent announcement and end with one.
  6. Ideally, though unlikely in the current environment, a person should receive a payment every time the deep fake is shown, there should not just be a one time fee. This should be done similarly to the residuals or radio play laws of the late 20th century. There are some technological hurdles to this, but they are not insurmountable.
  7. This must apply to dead people as well. Either the estate’s approval must be given and a contract signed, or people must have been dead a long time, perhaps fifty years and the requirement for a prominent disclosure that what is being seen is a deep fake.
  8. Anyone who uses a deep fake must keep the disclosure that it is a fake.

We have been very bad about law keeping up with technology, and when we have not (as with the DMCA) we have mostly created very bad law. It would be nice, for once, to get on something in a timely and fair manner.

If you think there are any other ways the law should be formatted, or if you disagree, says so in comments, with your reasoning.

This is a donor supported site, so if you value the writing, please DONATE or SUBSCRIBE.

The January 6th Fools & Basic Coup Lessons

By

On July 5, 2023

Comments

The January 6th invasion of Congress included people with zip ties and paramilitary equipment. While there were a lot of idiots there, there was a core which had a plan of capturing important people like Pelosi, and they came fairly close. There’s no question that Trump abetted it, but the Secret Service refused to drive him to the capital and the effort failed.

As it happens, I know and like someone who was there, though obviously they have different politics than I do. I talked to them briefly about it and one thing was clear.

They genuinely believed and believe the election was stolen. Now both sides cheat, though as far as I can tell the Republicans do so more, and Democratic election finangling is primarily meant to exclude progressives and left-wing populists from running. But the point is that if you believe an election was stolen, and you take steps, even violent steps, to fix that you, consider yourself a patriot trying to save democracy.

Now, of course, the people who encouraged the occupation of Congress may well not have believed that the election was stolen (we’ll leave Trump out, he’s delusional and there’s no way to know what he really thinks.) But a lot of the people who were there genuinely believed it was.

These people didn’t understand Trump. The main thing I pointed out to my acquaintance, was that Trump betrayed them. He could have pardoned them before he left, and he didn’t. They were loyal to him, and he was not loyal to them. He was also a fool, because if he had pardoned them, they’d be there for him in his next attempt, and most of them now won’t be, in large part because most of them are going to prison.

You come for the king, you’d best win. If you’re going to invade Congress, well, you’d better succeed. These people didn’t think things thru, and neither did Trump. As I wrote early in Trump’s reign, he might want to do a coup, but he was too incompetent to pull it off, and so it was. The only chance of it happening is if it was run by someone more competent under him, but Trump had a habit of getting rid of his most able lackeys, like Bannon.

There needed to be a plan to call in paramilitary forces who would have wanted another Trump term, and a chance to reform America. The most (dis)loyal of these are the border guards, who are brutal brownshirt thugs and there needed to be more doubt about the election to give cover to politicians and business leaders.

Some work has been done on this since 2001. A lot of electoral officers were replaced by Trump loyalists who will certify based on politics, not vote counts, and judges, likewise, have been systematically replaced when possible.

But bottom line, Trump didn’t have enough enforcer class or elite backing, and he didn’t have enough right wing radical support either. There should have been much more simultaneous action at the state level. The goal would be to force the issue to a supreme court controlled by Republicans and get some legitimacy, as was done in 2000 (which, according to the numbers I saw and ran back in the day, was a Democratic victory.)

Trump’s a boob in many ways. He has (non moral) virtues, but he’s fundamentally scattered and somewhat stupid. That doesn’t mean he isn’t effective, however, and thinking that smart and effective a synonyms is a mistake too many people continue to make.

You don’t need a majority to succeed at a coup, 70% of the population can be against you, but you do need a chunk of the enforcer class on your side with the rest unwilling to stop you or so much of a minority they can be crushed. You do need support from an elite faction, and you do need about 30% of the population on your side.

I leave it to readers to decide what the risk is in the US.

This is a donor supported site, so if you value the writing, please DONATE or SUBSCRIBE.

France Isn’t In A Civil War Yet, But It Is Close

By

On July 4, 2023

Comments

So, the main police unions in France put out this rather deranged statement:

Now that’s enough…

Facing these savage hordes, asking for calm is no longer enough, it must be imposed!

Restoring the republican order and putting the apprehended beyond the capacity to harm should be the only political signals to give.

In the face of such exactions, the police family must stand together.

Our colleagues, like the majority of citizens, can no longer bear the tyranny of these violent minorities.

The time is not for union action, but for combat against these “pests”. Surrendering, capitulating, and pleasing them by laying down arms are not the solutions in light of the gravity of the situation.

All means must be put in place to restore the rule of law as quickly as possible.

Once restored, we already know that we will relive this mess that we have been enduring for decades.

For these reasons, Alliance Police Nationale and UNSA Police will take their responsibilities and warn the government from now on that at the end, we will be in action and without concrete measures for the legal protection of the Police, an appropriate penal response, significant means provided, the police will judge the extent of the consideration given.

Today the police are in combat because we are at war. Tomorrow we will be in resistance and the government will have to become aware of it.”

So. The bolded part is important: it’s a declaration that the police unions won’t obey the orders of the government if they don’t agree. This is something I’ve been expecting (and seeing) for a while. During the Trucker Convoy in Canada, the police refused to enforce the law and arrest the protestors. That’s why, in the end, the government froze the bank accounts of protestors, because they couldn’t get the cops to enforce the law against people they liked and agreed with.

The same sort of thing happens over and over in the US, where right wing protestors aren’t arrested, often even when they commit violence, but are protected by the police.

Now the riots in France are largely Muslim, though not entirely. The Muslim immigrants have been pushed into suburbs and left to rot, with no effective way to move up in society, and at the same time social services have been repeatedly cut and money has, in France, as in all neoliberal nations, been funneled to the top. This bleeding ulcer is old, about 50 years old, and everyone has noted that it was bound to cause problems. These aren’t the first riots, they’re just the worst.

France has had a lot of riots and protests over the past few years, notably related to Macron’s increase of the pension age and rules, which means that many people will have to work into their 70s. (Theoretically one can retire before then, but for most people, the pension will not be enough without more years of work.) Those protests and riots were mostly white.

One of the topic categories on this blog is “the age of war and revolution”. I put it up in 2000, to indicate what was to come.

The current riots will be defeated. They’re large, but not serious. The rioters are not marching on the government and government officials, which is what would be required to actually overthrow the government. It isn’t a civil war.

But the police indicating they won’t accept legal orders, not just by passive resistance (as in Canada) but in outright defiance of the government is a very dangerous sign. The usual requirements for a successful revolution are an elite faction in support, a popular protest and the defection of at least some of the enforcer class.

France is very close to meeting those requirements: part of the elite agrees with the cops, there is a right wing primarily white conservative populist movement and the police are now showing clear defiance.

So, France isn’t in a civil war yet, but it could be soon.

As for the left, this is a fulcrum point. They need to strike and strike hard as soon as possible, because France’s Fifth Republic appears to be on its last legs. If the right overthrows it, the left will be in exile for at least two generations. It’s the right or the left, and right now the right seems most likely.

More on this and the general situation soon.

This is a donor supported site, so if you value the writing, please DONATE or SUBSCRIBE.

Utilities As Mutual Companies

By

On July 3, 2023

Comments

One of the big constant news stories recently has been about UK water utilities constantly flushing untreated sewage into the rivers and oceans near the UK, while raising prices, paying huge salaries to their executives and massive dividends. One solution is to take them back into public ownership.

But another possibility is to make the mutual companies. I worked for a mutual insurance company for a while, and helped it de-mutualize, at which point its prices went up, employees were treated worse, executives made more money and so on.

In a mutual companies, customers own the company. Dividends are paid to the customers. Prices tend to be lower than in stock companies (there’s plenty of research on this), employees are treated well and executives make less. Since customers own the company, they have a say in what the company does, and since customers of, say, water companies wouldn’t want sewage in the water or forest fires (for electrical companies like California’s PG&E) they might prove better for environmental concerns and also for customer service. Also a lot less likely to get situations where the customers water is full of lead and other pollutants.

There used to be a lot of mutual companies, but most of the de-mutualized because executives wanted to pay themselves more, especially thru stock grants and so on, but if a law was put in place that utilities and other public companies like railways and public transit are either public or mutual and can’t be stock companies, that might cure a lot of problems, especially if the owners(customers) have to approve executive salaries.

Worth a try, at any rate, though I’m aware of the political problems.

This is a donor supported site, so if you value the writing, please DONATE or SUBSCRIBE.

Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – July 2, 2023

By

On July 2, 2023

Comments

by Tony Wikrent

War

The Darkness Ahead: Where The Ukraine War Is Headed

John Mearsheimer [via Naked Capitalism 7-1-2023]

The real casualties of Russia’s ‘civil war’: the Beltway expert class 

Max Blumenthal [The Grayzone, via Naked Capitalism 6-29-2023]

FSB spooked the CIA on Prigozhin coup 

[Indian Punchline, via Naked Capitalism 6-29-2023]

THIS Is How NATO’s War On Russia Has FAILED w/ Scott Ritter 

[YouTube, via Naked Capitalism 7-1-2023]

[Yves Smith: “Worth the listen even though long. Revealing opening section on Iraq.” Ritter explains, for the first time to my satisfaction, why Iraq invaded Kuwait in August 1990. And why no weapons of mass destruction were found: because the UN inspection teams Ritter had been a member of had found them and forced their destruction before the war. ]

Further thoughts on the lessons of the Prigozhin armed rebellion 

Gilbert Doctorow, via Naked Capitalism 7-1-2023]

All aboard the gravy train: an independent audit of US funding for Ukraine 

[The Grayzone, via Naked Capitalism 6-28-2023]

The War Between My Two Words 

[Between Two World: The “Art” of an American Surviving in Small Town Russia, via Naked Capitalism 6-28-2023]

The Americans were wrong about Russia militarily and politically. There is no qualified Russian expert among the advisors to President Biden. The sanctions and the war prove that. I know from watching the U.S. news. Their descriptions of the impact the war has had on life in Russia are so far from reality that I really cannot believe these people get paid to fabricate such news.

My fear, as I have expressed in many contexts, is that the powers-that-be in the U.S. will not have the moral courage to admit they were wrong and they were lying. These are not people of strong convictions and integrity at the helm in America. I had two friends who posted two videos on my Facebook “wall” yesterday. One was the testimony of an FBI official, whose name I did not get, in a congressional hearing. The two representatives questioning him under oath caught him lying and evading their questions time after time. He just could not muster the courage to admit they had lied in reports which had been filed and then concealed those non-classified documents from Congress and the American public.

Read More

Open Thread

By

On July 1, 2023

Comments

Use to discuss topics unrelated to recent posts.

Page 3 of 3

Previous

Powered by WordPress & Theme by Anders Norén