The Face of America to Come? Facebook, AFP and the Koch Brothers

I recently found a magazine from 1955. It brought up the image of a world so peaceful in comparison to this one and I’m not talking about war and physical bloodshed. I’m talking about visual advertising. The ads in the magazine are so simple in delivery and the psychology behind them is psych kindergarten. In the 50’s understanding of psychology was pretty rudimentary. People were still having lobotomies and shock treatment for depression.

Between then and now understanding of psychology has gone way beyond psych kindergarten, and of course the advertising industry capitalized. Their understanding of psychology graduated into sociopathic. Baser instincts, fear, paranoia, vulnerability were all targeted. So were children. So were mothers. And fathers. And siblings. And grandparents. The poor, the wealthy, the in-between. Nobody escaped. If you had half a brain you knew how much your capacity to choose was affected. You had to work hard to maintain independence of mind. Some people never did and died victims of the advertising industry, none the wiser. May they rest in peace.

The sociopathic targetting still happens. It’s still impossible to live in a city, having access to TV and the internet, and be in touch with what’s going on around you, without being barraged with the clamoring of thousands wanting your attention and/or your money and having no compunction about how they get it. 

But get too much of anything that intrudes on peace of mind and we develop blocks. Anybody sensitive to sound who lives on a noisy city street will attest to that. You just don’t hear it after a while. Ironically, in a world where the advertising industry still punts ‘new and improved’ as the biggest marketing advantage, it’s lost its own edge. There’s nothing new about the concept of new and improved, so advertising gets noisier and more invasive in a desperate attempt to fulfill its promise to individuals who pay for it, and exponentially less effective. Their victims are now their clients, who are the slow ones. They haven’t realized that the advertising industry’s greatest success now is conning them into believing advertising still works as well as it did back in the day when astute understanding of psychology was used so effectively as an exploitation tool.

Take Facebook. How many ads appear on your homepage? Ever clicked on one? Do you even notice them anymore? And most ironic of all, as Catherine Rampell pointed out in the Washington Post the algorithms that Facebook and Google et al use to measure what we’d be interested in are so rudimentary it’s laughable. These tech, megalomaniac giants, that’s all they can do with all their brilliance? I guess they haven’t found a way to measure when a person likes something out of sarcasm.

CNN anchor Ali Velshi once said what’s all the fuss about Facebook ads? We get Facebook for free, so to have a few ads on a page is a small price. Stop whining, he said, and block them out. And that’s the beauty about it all. When things get annoying we block them out.

Facebook’s success lies in its capacity to retain members, garner new ones and deliver advertising to clients. I wonder how truthful the stats are about that so-called capacity. I wonder how long it’s going to take before investors realize that.

But that’s all about what we can see. What about the stuff we can’t see? We place a lot of trust on privacy policies that assure us our data is only used to deliver ads to us of products we’re likely to want. But this is a global monopoly. Zuckerberg didn’t have the greatest ethics when he was a student, so the idea that he’d have developed integrity as he’s amassed massive power is beyond a joke. 

FaceBook is a megalomaniac giant that has exploited our most vulnerable aspect - the need to be connected – and very cleverly. We may not respond to ads as much as FB likes to tell its investors, but we do now all kind of feel that unless we expose ourselves to the nth degree to as many people as possible we're isolated. And if we’ve got friends, we can’t control our privacy because every time they sign up through Facebook onto a new site to comment or just belong they give away their friends’ data. And their friends don’t get asked. Courtesy FaceBook’s privacy policy.

The problem isn’t what we can see; it’s what’s hidden and how much escapes us because we still inherently trust and because we want to be connected. And now FaceBook has turned conservative. Ostensibly because Zuckerberg is angry at President Obama for NSA invasive activities. If ever there was a pot calling the kettle black it’s Zuckerberg in this.

Facebook recently sponsored CPAC, which represents and backs the most conservative political element in the US. Along with the billionaire Koch brothers, who’s mouthpiece is Americans For Prosperity (AFP). According to Mother Jones they sank $411 million dollars into trying to block Obama from being re-elected in 2011. AFP is working hard to ‘persuade’ Americans that anything Obama is ruinous for the US, particularly Obamacare. The ads they’ve put out have no truth, which makes a thinking person, well, think. Unfortunately they’re not targeting us. They’re targeting the unthinking, the paranoid, the fearful, the prejudiced. 

And their message succeeds. Imagine how much better AFP and the Koch brothers can do if they join hands with Mark Zuckerberg. All that data. And people worry about the NSA?

The Power of Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon et al

When a megalomanic dynasty falls apart I celebrate. What about Google, Apple, Facebook et al? The megalomaniac seems pretty appropriate. We think of them as being just massively creative, but when creativity is used to accumulate power and control it gets another name: greed. The greed that drives the eWorld isn't a beautiful thing or a strength, it's an inner monster that strips people of their humanity. 

What does a company need to monopolize the world for? Because companies are about people, right? How much money can an individual spend in a day on things that they can actually use?

Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon et al run roughshod over whoever is in their way. Remorseless, relentless. But we idolize them - because they make billions by producing bright toys and using brilliant PR to convince us we need them? Because they work incessantly to evade responsibility and to increase their control over us?

Accumulating, accumulating. Meanwhile, the middle class in the US fights for survival; around the world children are sold into forced labor; women are sold as sex slaves. There's a lot that these companies could do if they really applied themselves but they don't. 

Celebrity-corporate individuals call themselves philanthropists and get mega strokes for donating a million here, a million there. But it's chump change to them.

It’s hard to imagine now what the world would be like if Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple fell off the face of the earth. But I guess a few years before Gaddaffi was tossed out it was hard for Libyans to imagine what life would be like living free of him. 

Too much power corrupts. Not because power in itself is a bad thing, but because anybody who wants that much power is inherently weak, not strong.

Monopoly, Abundance and Fulfillment for Jeff Bezos and Amazon with Help from DOJ

The US Department of Justice has announced that it will block a huge proposed merger deal between American Airlines and US Airways that would have given them almost a monopoly in the country, free to do what they want with prices and services. In this case, there’s no doubt that Attorney General Eric Holden is acting to protect the consumer. 

But it’s not always so simple. A month ago the Department of Justice took on and won against Apple and five of the largest publishers for colluding to keep book prices higher. In this case, publishers, including giant Barnes and Noble, weren’t colluding to screw the consumer, they were desperately trying to stay alive. It’s no news to anybody that publishers are struggling to compete against the ebook industry, and in particular against Amazon. Barnes and Noble recently lost its CEO who it isn’t going to replace. Pretty soon it will probably break up. 

There’s only one winner and that’s Amazon. Anybody who reads loves Amazon. It’s fabulous that they drive prices down so you can have a whole library and pay very little for it. What people who read but don’t write don’t know about Amazon is that as a writer you get your biggest royalty – 70% - if you keep your price below $9.99. Anything above that and you only get 35%.

Everybody knows about books like Shades of WTF as a friend of mine called it. The author could have sold them for a few bucks apiece and still made a fortune, and that’s Amazon’s argument for keeping prices low. You sell more and there are no big megalomaniac control freak publishers telling you your book isn’t good enough. It costs you nothing to format it and load it onto Amazon. Anything you sell is money for jam. 

But here’s the real catch; Amazon doesn’t market your books. They leave that to the authors. Who, because they make so little per book, are desperate to make something. And bingo, Amazon has free marketing. No wonder Jeff Bezos has such a huge fortune.

Most writers who start out think that marketing on the internet will be a breeze but it isn’t, because there’s no barrier to entry and you’re literally competing against millions trying to sell something. Most people who have succeeded with selling ebooks advise writers to give their first one away for free. So what, you say? It didn’t cost you anything. Apart from the time that it took you to write. Very few non-writers who love to read take that into account. That writers often have to work for nothing so that readers can read.

So from the writer’s side of the fence, for once the big giants colluding was a good thing. It helped to stabilise prices for writers and keep some reality alive. Ebooks are always cheaper than paper books, but at least there’s something to correlate prices against. If paper books disappear Amazon will have total control over the whole book industry. World-wide. Scary thought.

Harder for writers? Definitely. Pretty good for people who know how to manipulate the internet marketing-wise, regardless of the quality of what they’ve written – which actually is nothing new, so it’s barely worth mentioning. Great for readers? Maybe. For now. Until Jeff Bezos’ lust for power consumes him. Who knows what he’ll do with prices then. Wonderful for Amazon shareholders? Oh yes. For now. Until the book industry or Amazon implodes. So the Justice Department’s decision in this case actually worked to enable a monopoly that will become a stranglehold in the book industry.

Consumer protection is supposed to protect the consumer in the short and the long term. But if it leaves the manufacturer so exposed that manufacturing either stops or produces worse and worse quality, then nobody is protected. Writers need to live, a fact that anybody who doesn’t write but loves to read happily ignores. The harder it gets for writers to earn, the more they’re forced to write highly marketable but utterly unoriginal crap.  And that's good for readers how?

Amazon’s global monopoly doesn’t bode well in the long term for readers, and for writers it spells slave labor on a global scale.Thanks a lot, Jeff. BTW, have fun with the Washington Post.

MugabeGod

Long ago I was warm, charming and generous. Passionate about justice. I led my country to freedom from the worst kind of tyrany. Everybody believed I was the good guy. Time and time again you voted me in. We had the world at our feet and everything going for us.

Over time I surrounded myself with friends who wouldn’t challenge me. I do it even more now. I pay their bills, I buy them nice things, I give them land and important positions. I institute new laws which give me total control. I do what I want. I have the power. I can make up laws and I can break them as I want. If you challenge me I can kill you, throw you in jail, destroy your life. I can hurt you as much as I want, until you learn your lesson. Don't challenge Me. I am MugabeGod.

I can lie, cheat and steal, blame the consequences of my own stupidity on others; I can meddle with lives, destroy property, destroy an economy, create starvation, empty shelves in stores. Then deny that I did it. What are you going to do? Nothing. You have no power. I have it all.

I can do whatever I want with your money and your property. I can do what I want with this whole country. What’s anybody going to do about it? Nobody can touch me. Of course I could step down and let somebody else fix the mess I’ve made but why should I? I like pushing people around. I like the power, it makes me feel big. What are you going to do? Tell me I can't? Start a new party? Write indignant articles in the press? I will just shut you down.

I know how to intimidate you. I know how to kick up so much dust that reality is obscured. I know how to make your life a nightmare. I can do whatever I want. To those who are blind to my evil ways I'm charming, and disarming. They believe me. Because I have power over them. I capitalize on their innate decency. Because I can. I don't give a damn about the truth. I lie when I feel like it. I break the law if I feel like it. If you break my law I’ll break your neck. What are you going to do about it? I'm MugabeGod. I can do what I want. I always have. You can't stop me. I'm the one with the power. You want some of this power? How’re you going to get it? I can rig elections.

But in the dark hours before dawn, I live in terror. Terror that I'm hated, that my enemies are growing in number, that my control is slipping away from me, that my power and money can't keep my soul-consuming paranoia at bay. 

I loathe the sycophants who live like parasites off me and compromise themselves despicably so that I'll keep them in power. Disgusting slugs. Even though they're doing what I demand of them I hate them. I'm fully aware that if they had  any courage they'd admit that they despise me. They might even kill me. They think I don’t know that but I do. 

I see everything. Every glance between conspirators, every whispered conversation. I know they encourage me in my evil ways to increase my dependency on them. I know they are waiting for their chance.

I withdraw further and further into myself, trusting nobody, afraid of everybody, my body being eaten up by cancer, my mind slipping away from me into darkness, as my paranoia grows like a rank tumor in my brain. In the dark hours before dawn I can't keep my terrors at bay. Because no matter what I say to the contrary I know I am a murderer and a thief. I know that I’m evil. I know that I have betrayed and cruelly destroyed innocent people. I know I have single handedly ravaged my beautiful country, the country I so passionately fought to free from injustice. I know that my enemies are getting stronger. And I am getting weaker.

In the dark hours before dawn I know I am condemned and that my punishment is coming and all the power in the world cannot save me. No place to run. No place to hide.

I am a hunted man.

Edward Snowden - Playing Superman in a World He Doesn't Fully Comprehend

Truth is sometimes hard to find. Wikileaks lately published information, courtesy Edward Snowden, about the US spying on the EU. Nobody has reported the whole context or extent of that spying, or what information was gathered, or to what end. There are plenty of dramatic headlines but very few specifics. Also absent is information supplied by human rights activists from other countries about the spying their governments indulge in. 

So it looks as if the US is the only big bad wolf in the world. And that’s the real story. Which is a lot more dramatic than a scenario where EU, African and Latin American countries are all spying on each other and China and Russia are spying on everybody. 

Does it justify what the US has done? I have no idea, because I don’t know enough about what they’ve done and what is generally accepted at those levels in all countries. John Kerry, when asked to comment on allegations that the US has spied on the EU, refused to comment specifically until he had studied all the evidence, which was refreshing to hear. But he did say “every country in the world that is engaged in international affairs of national security undertakes lots of activities to protect its national security.” 

As for Edward Snowden, he continues to vilify the US, yet seeks asylum in Russia and China, amongst other countries. It’s clear what China’s position is. Vladimir Putin stayed out of the fray for a while, but he’s recently said that he’ll grant asylum if Snowden stops publishing damaging information about “our American partners”. Which he acknowledged would never happen as Snowden sees himself as a human rights activist.

Ecuador has backed right off. President Correa granted Snowden temporary travel documents to get out of Hong Kong and fly to Russia. He initially said Ecuador would decide the asylum request on its own merits and make a decision independent of foreign influence. Then he said that Snowden had to be in the country to start the process and there were no guarantees as to the outcome. He followed that up with an acknowledgment that he’d spoken to Joe Biden who was very polite and respectful. I’d love to have been listening in on that conversation. Perhaps Mr. Biden reminded him of how dependent Ecuador is on US trade.

Whatever was said, Correa’s latest statement was an admission that he acted rashly in granting those temporary travel documents. And he now says that to even process the asylum request could take months.

The net seems to be closing in on Snowden. He appears to be well under Assange’s wing now and speaks about how his life is in danger, just as Assange always has. I always thought there was a tinge of paranoia in that. 

Assange had a lot of connections and power but even he is mostly forgotten now. And what did he achieve? Meanwhile, those assault charges in Iceland still hang over his head. He says they were trumped up and it was all a conspiracy plot to get him back to the US. Maybe he’s right, but it doesn’t totally ring true. Men who did it always say they didn’t. He speaks about being a hero but he isn’t really. He’s just a sad man who never gets enough sun who’s on the run.

Snowden has nobody. He’s in the limelight now and a lot of the world thinks of him as a hero but his actions probably won’t lead to any change either. And much of the world isn’t convinced that what he did was heroic. 

It’s hard not to have compassion for him, though. The leaders of the countries he’s turned to who happily betray their own people don’t give a damn about him or about truth. At heart he believes he’s freeing the world but he isn’t really. This isn’t about the pursuit of truth or impacting on infringement of human rights. If it was, Snowden would have spoken out loudly against Russia and China. But he happily turned a blind eye to their behaviour - because he thought they might be useful to him, I guess. 

So it’s about the pursuit of half the truth. Which is no truth at all and speaks more of an agenda than anything else. I believe this is really about a young man with a childishly naïve understanding of international relationships playing Superman. Not fully comprehending that in the real world he’s entered, his cloak, more a fantasy for him than an absolute reality, can’t protect him.

Further reading: 

New York Times: Snowden applies for asylum in Russia

Reuters: Snowden threatens new US leaks; asks numerous countries for asylum

CBS News: Former NSA, CIA director: "the USA does conduct espionage"