Intimidation of Australia a small insignificant country by Facebook not acceptable.
This is Big Tech colonisation
Australians awoke to find their news sources cut off, government information, fire service, information on coronavirus, charities, but left untouched fake news. From outside Australia it was not possible to access Australian news sources.
Facebook is a cesspit of fake news. Facebook enabled Trump, enabled the storming of Capital Hill on 6 January 2020.
Facebook is a parasite on the work of creators. The content of facebook is not created by facebook, it is created by its users, by hard working journalists, by news organisations, by musicians, artists, friends sharing pictures. None of this information has been created by faceboook but facebook profits from all these content creators.
Facebooks claims ownership of our data, of the data trails we leave behind.
Facebook is controlling the flow of information.
Marc Zuckerberg a thug.
Facebook must be broken up, stripped of WhatsApp and Instagram.
When G7 meets, must agree a revenue tax on Big Tech, levied where the revenue is generated. But G7 needs to go much further, there has to be international regulation of Big Tech.
We can all act.
do not use instagram or whatsapp
overwrite and delete all personal data
never tag friends
never quiz game survey
Facebook is a threat to democracy.
Were Facebook a state, Facebook would be seen to have declared war on Australia. And that is how it should be viewed, an act of aggression by facebook against a sovereign democratic state.It does not matter what we think of Australia, Australians or the government of Australia, this is an attack on democracy. Australia today, which country next?
We just had a violent mob assault the US capitol … No question the President formed the mob, the President incited the mob, the President addressed the mob. He lit the flame. — Liz Cheney
Yesterday afternoon, a formality to certify Presidential Election results, astonishing scenes as a mob stormed the Capitol Building. A mob incited by President Trump.
This was not a coup. But why was it allowed to happen?
It was known a mob was descending, egged on by Trump.
Why was the building not guarded?
Reminder fo what capitol "security" in full military-grade riot gear looked like for Black Lives Matter protests this summer. pic.twitter.com/x2H3E13VPd
On January 20, 2017, the day of Trump's inauguration, police kettled 217 anti-Trump protesters in the freezing cold and arrested them after sixteen hours.
Prosecutors then tried to put them in prison for 70+ years, on the accusation that all of them collectively broke a window.
When Trump leaves office there must be an investigation of Trump, his family, his cronies, those who funded, and Facebook that enabled.
Those who stormed the building genuinely believed the election had been stolen even though no evidence to support their delusions. Why therefore do they labour under these delusions? Delusions spread and regurgitated on Facebook.
Republicans who tried to block certification of election result should be expelled. They are unfit to hold public office. They have failed their sacred oath to uphold the Constitution.
What we saw, was not a coup, not domestic terrorism. But what it shows is how fragile democracy. Never to be taken for granted.
Liz Cheney: "We just had a violent mob assault the US capitol … No question the President formed the mob, the President incited the mob, the President addressed the mob. He lit the flame." pic.twitter.com/Mk0laFbQRo
Ed board of the biggest paper in Hawley's state weighs in:
"No one other than President Donald Trump himself is more responsible for Wednesday’s coup attempt at the U.S. Capitol than one Joshua David Hawley, the 41-year-old junior senator from Missouri"https://t.co/qBhapXpVQw
Earlier, Trump standing behind a glass bullet proof screen urged his supporters to march on the US Capitol.
Trump incited a mob.
Twitter has suspended Trump for twelve house with the threat of permanent suspension.
The twitter account of Trump should be suspend until he leaves office.
The only modern parallel to what has happened was when the Spanish Parliament was stormed by fascists.
More recent past, storming of German Parliament by fascists, the Kapp Putsch in 1920. It was defeated by a general strike.
To call the last four years Trumpism is wrong. It implies a philosophy. There was no philosophy other than Brand Trump, insatiable greed of Trump and his cronies.
Now the Russian dirty money will dry up, what will Trump do as he will be of no further use.?
Let Trump set up a TV channel, and organise a boycott of every businesses that advertise on the channel.
We must now act against the enablers, especially facebook.
If we fail to act, where it ends is Auschwitz.
Video shot by Rep. Dan Kildee (D-Flint) and sent to me as he and other members took cover in the House gallery. You can hear them tell each other to take off their identifying Congressional pins so the terrorists would not know who was a member of Congress. pic.twitter.com/ELtdk7WV04
👉🏿 Officials say the Capitol is secure and one person fatally shot after pro-Trump mob breached the building and forced lockdown https://t.co/SYu5BZ5HoY
— Bianca Jagger Nicaraguense por gracia de Dios 🇳🇮 (@BiancaJagger) January 7, 2021
Attacks against journalists and media outlets, including destruction of their equipment by pro-Trump protesters have been reported. Authorities must protect journalists informing what’s happening in D.C.. All forms of violence must be condemned! 🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/4KJ87iEUp4
As commentators try to blame this coup on extremists or unstable Trump, don’t forget bigger structural issues. Today would not have been possible without fossil fuel funds and white supremacist violence. My earlier take. https://t.co/CMi04fWAd5
8/ The Kapp Putsch 1920 was defeated by a general strike. take a look at the imagery. It was less frenzied than the chuds in the Capitol…. US organised labor needs to put mass strike on the agenda tonight… pic.twitter.com/wIdTTuNBZd
THREAD on the DC coup: 1/ It's a few thousand people, inadequately policed, but they pose a danger to life and limb for US lawmakers and currently control the Capitol…
4 years ago I was among anti-Trump protesters in DC. They were met with more weaponry and force than this, and there were just 1000, with no intent to go near the WH… the DC police are in general useless but this has to be negligence at best
I believe the Republican members of Congress who have incited this domestic terror attack through their attempts to overturn the election must face consequences. They have broken their sacred Oath of Office.
We, anti-war activists, have been protesting at the US Capitol for decades, getting arrested over and over again for peaceful speech against violent war. If we had done ANYTHING like this, we’d be dead right now. pic.twitter.com/Y2wuzBgusK
Why not midnight? Even the time of departure dictated by EU.
Finally free of the EU yoke, a cartel for Big Business, a democracy-free-zone.
To Leave, people held their nose and voted Tory, which bodes ill for the country, but at least we can kick out Pepsi Trump.
A sad loss, not a country led by Jeremy Corbyn, but a malicious smear campaign put paid to that, and sabotage by Labour MPs who thought they had a sinecure for life.
When it was decided to Leave, there should have been open public meetings to decide the future. Instead contempt for democracy by an EU Fifth Column, we must have another vote, you people were too stupid to vote correctly.
Labour made a huge mistake not backing Brexit during the election paid a very heavy price for not backing Brexit. The blame must be placed squarely at the door of Keir Starmer, disaster as Shadow Brexit Sec, a Blair, Cameron, Clegg clone who undermined the leadership.
If we look at the election results, Labour fared badly, Joe Swindle led LibDems from oblivion to oblivion, and Green Party managed to retain their one and only seat.
Being member of EU was never a great idea, even from the perspective of trade. You do not trade with people who have what you have, you trade with people who have something you do not have.
What happens next? No one knows.
Look to Greece. Greece was destroyed to serve as example to others.
EU is already trying to dictate our laws post-Brexit. No we do not have to have same legalisation as EU. If export to a market, then yes, have to comply with their standards, but that is true of any market.
It is not necessary to have a trade agreement to trade.
I have spoken with businesses dependent on supplies from EU. They see no problems, their suppliers see no problems they already trade outside the EU. Similarly when in the past have spoken to businesses who export to EU. They saw no problems as were already exporting out of EU.
Remember Project Fear? World would end if we left EU. Notice the panic on the streets, the supermarket shelves stripped bare, collapse of the pound. Were it not for the media hype, leaving would have passed unnoticed.
We have to be on our guard that Pepsi Trump does not devalue our employment rights, food standards, environmental legislation.
No chlorinated chickens from EU, no GMOs.
And no privatisation of NHS or education, though to a large extent has already happened.
UK should position itself as head of a non-aligned movement. Not part of EU, China, US or Russia. We now have seats at the top table.
Trade with EU is in everyone’s interest and no reason cannot continue as today. As continuing membership of (which should be independent of EU):
– ESA
– Europol
– Erasmus
– EHIC
What never ceases to amaze, the level of ignorance of EU Fifth Column. They cannot see the difference between EU and Europe, and still cannot.
The EU will break up. Across Europe Fascists are seizing power as response to EU, fascist governments in Poland and Hungary, fascists attack people in Catalonia, in Athens.
When the EU breaks, it it will be very nasty unless we plan for an orderly break up and replace with something better, a network of cooperating democratic sovereign states, with no requirement for an EU overlord.
But what I have seen since 2008 crash does not leave me with much hope. We have brain-dead corrupt politicians fiddling whilst the planet burns, a failing airline bailed out, a gas fire power station approved.
The forest was shrinking, but the trees kept voting for the Axe, for the Axe was clever and convinced the Trees that because his handle was made of wood he was one of them. — Turkish proverb
Thursday night exit polls showed a massive swing to the Nasty Party. As the results poured in, exit poll confirmed. I turned off the coverage, it was too depressing.
A nightmare.
A decade of the Nasty Party — zero hours employment, pay less than living wage, poverty, mass closure of libraries, food banks, serfs working for apps, human robots in Amazon warehouses, class warfare, mass transfer of wealth to the rich, tax dodging on an industrial scale, austerity, neo-liberalism, shock doctrine, NHS on point of collapse, disintegration rail infrastructure.
Labour offered a radical progressive future, a green new deal.
But hey what the fuck, let’s vote for Pepsi Trump.
What went wrong? Why did people on the doorstep say No Jeremy Corbyn.
Why?
Wherever Jeremy Cobyn went, he was greeted to rapturous applause, he related to people, in debates he was calm and measured, had good grasp of the issues.
The problem therefore was not Jeremy Corbyn. The problem was the perception of Jeremy Corbyn.
We had the most vicious smear campaign against Jeremy Corbyn. And it was not only the usual suspects, Murdoch and The Scum. It was fake-Left Guardian, too often the originators of the smears.
Then we had back bench MPs who thought they had a sinecure for life, wanted to back to the good old days of corrupt Labour, who spent their time sabotaging Labour, aided and abetted by the media, especially BBC News and fake-Left Guardian only too willing to grant them a soapbox.
Again we have to ask why?
Those in poser were scared shitless of radical change. The Deep State was under threat.
Had Labour a leader who would tinkle at the edges, policies that were businesses as usual, the choice of Tweedledum or Tweedledee but no real change, they would have been happy.
Therein lies the dilemma. Labour must not lose sight of the prize, dealing with tax dodgers, bringing in a fairer society, a green new deal.
In the meantime, take to the streets, direct action, form the resistance.
To those who say it was democracy, I suggest visit an exhibition in Berlin at the foot of the Berlin Wall which drawing upon Nazi archives shows how Adolf Hitler and the Nazis rose to power. Adolf Hitler was elected.
In Hungary and Poland, Fascists have been elected. They are shutting down a free press, destroying the judiciary.
When Pepsi Trump failed to attend the Channel 4 Climate Debate and in his place a block of melting ice, unnamed Tory sources threatened to remove the broadcast licence of Channel 4.
We have had Laura Kaunsberg and Robert Peston act and still acting as Pepsi Trump propagandists, drip drip drip of propaganda from unnamed sources. If not on record then do not regurgitate as news. Otherwise being played like a fiddle.
What of the climate?
Five more years of no action on climate. We have seen COP25 collapse with no firm commitment to cut carbon emissions by the levels required, zero carbon by 2030. The climate will not wait, the planet burns whilst corrupt politicians fiddle. What we can guarantee is cataclysmic chaos, brought about by climate change and the rapid deep cuts in carbon emissions that will have to be made.
The longer we leave action, the greater the impact, the deeper the cuts will have to be. How much more flooding, when do we act, do we wait until London is flooded?
I fear for this country. I also feel ashamed.
I know how they felt in US when Donald Trump was elected.
Fools with a table urging people to support a Second Referendum, only they lack the integrity and honesty to call it a Second Referendum and call it a People’s Vote.
A second referendum could destroy public trust in politics | Ian Lavery | Opinion | The Guardian https://t.co/wWj6U76Rhd
Already at rock bottom, the trust in politicians would sink even lower, lead to riots in the streets, hand to Fascists on a plate.
No surprise, entirely clueless the EU and having a hard time gaining any support and deservedly so.
The EU a cartel for Big Business, a democracy free zone, was created by the US, by the New Dealers post WWII.
Towards the end of WWII, what sent the fear of God into the New Dealers was not WWIII, it was a return to the Great Depression.
Europe lay in ruins, the currencies worthless.
US had a choice, Monet and his cronies or Communists. Monet was seen as lesser of two evils.
Monet had contempt for democracy. Contempt that is writ into the EU.
Europe was designed to transfer wealth from southern Europe to Germany. There is no mechanism for recycling the surplus.
Neo-liberalism and austerity is writ in stone of EU Treaties.
It has been obvious for the last couple of years that the EU is about to implode, sooner rather than later.
Rise of fascism across Europe, Fascist governments in Poland and Hungary, political prisoners in Spain, Greece destroyed and turned into a debt colony as a warning to other vassal states.
"The problem with Europe today is not that it benefits Germans over Greeks, but that it benefits the transnational tax-evading elite over the many — all over Europe." @l_marsilipic.twitter.com/bJf3kKPh2q
At local level, create a network of commons, open coops, autonomous markets, local currencies, use FairCoin too. Again, network across Europe.
An article in fake-Left Guardian intellectuals not happy with direction of EU is usual pro-EU drivel. They still do not get it why there is a rise across Europe of fascism, that it is a direct response to EU and dictatorship by elites. There is nothing democratic about EU, a cartel for Big Business, a democracy free-zone. It is about saving EU not dismantling EU and creating a better Europe.
I came across the same Guardian parroted nonsense with this tiny gathering of fools trying to force a second EU Referendum because they cannot accept that UK voted to Leave.
We are Leaving.
Where though I would agree, two years wasted whilst politicians play their infantile games, and extending the cut-off date for Brexit will not help.
We should have had open public meetings to decide where UK post-Brexit, to draw up a consensus.
The Bad Deal dumped on Theresa May by EU was not acceptable and no amount of tinkering is going to change that.
Parliament has to take control, agree a Consensus which is taken to the EU. If EU will not accept, then Leave with No Deal.
If Consensus not possible, then draw up a range of options that are put to a Referendum.
Minimum
delete Irish Clause
same trade as today
membership of EIII, ESA, Erasmas, Europol
open skies to British aviation
We will not tolerate dictats from the Irish. If need be, a border.
EU vassal states need to take control, or are they going to sit idly by whist EU destroys their economies?
We spent $1m harvesting millions of Facebook profiles. — Christopher Wylie
We couldn’t have done it without them [AIQ]. — Dominic Cummings, Vote Leave campaign manager
I voted Leave for reasons of sovereignty and democracy. Isn’t it ironic that this is exactly what we’ve now lost? — Shahmir Sanni
Facebook exists to collect and abuse personal data.
Facebook apps, surveys, quizzes, games, harvest that data.
Cambridge Analytica used a facebook app to harvest the data of 50 million facebook users then used that data to manipulate them.
Two weeks ago, Channel 4 News broke the news of what Facebook and Cambridge Analytica were doing with the data, the lengths to which Cambridge Analytica was prepared to go to rig elections. The Channel 4 scoop of the decade has subsequently reverberated around the world, US, UK, India, Sri Lanka, Kenya, Mexico.
‘Find Christopher Wylie.” That instruction – 13 months ago – came from the very first ex-Cambridge Analytica employee I met. He was unequivocal. Wylie would have answers to the two questions that were troubling me most. He could tell me about Facebook. And he would know about Canada.
What Christopher Wylie knows about Facebook, the world now knows. Facebook certainly knows – its market value is down $100bn. But the Canadian connection remains more elusive. What it is. Why it matters. And why it triggered my search for Wylie.
Did this alleged criminal activity sway the Brexit result? I think not, despite the persuasive testimony from Christopher Wylie.
In total, £3.9m of leave campaign funds were spent with AIQ. Four different groups used the firm, even though all these campaigns were supposedly separate and could only “work together” if they shared their spending limits. Vote Leave spent £2,697,000. There was the £675,000 via BeLeave. A sum of £100,000 that Vote Leave donated to Veterans for Britain, which Veterans for Britain then paid to AIQ. AIQ also received £32,750 from the Democratic Unionist party. Whichever way one looks at it, AIQ would seem to be fundamental to the data-driven targeting of “persuadables” in the final days of the campaign.
These four campaign groups mysteriously and independently found the same tiny data analytics firm, located in a sleepy town on an island off the west coast of Canada, 5,000 miles away.
In April 2017, Dominic Cummings told me by email that Vote Leave had found the firm “on the internet”. Darren Grimes told the Electoral Commission the same thing. The only problem? Online archives show that AIQ’s website didn’t show up in Google searches until after the referendum. “I looked at the time,” says Sanni. “I was, like, ‘Who is AIQ?’ And there was nothing. No website. Nothing.”
Both sides lied to swing the result. From what little we have seen, IAQ told the truth.
European Union was established as a cartel for Big Business, a democracy-free zone. And nothing has changed. An Empire that centralises power, that brutally crushes any dissent on the periphery, as we have seen with Greece.
Where though I do agree with Christopher Wylie, is where there was cheating, those involved must be held to account. And that also applies to the overspending by Tory candidates in the last but one General Election uncovered by Channel 4 News for which there has still to be criminal prosecutions.
— Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee (@CommonsCMS) March 27, 2018
Deathly silence from Mark Zuckerberg until Facebook stock valuation started to crash. He is still showing contempt for facebook users by his refusal to testify before a House of Commons Select Committee.
Facebook must be regulated to stop the collection and abuse of personal data, broken up, stripped of Instagram and WhatsApp, and ultimately handed to over to its users to function as global commons and open coop.
No one disputes the value of facebook as a social network, what is at issue is the collection and abuse of personal data.
The activities of companies like Cambridge Analytica, a threat to democracy, must not be permitted to operate.
Facebook users must also take personal responsibility for the safeguarding their personal data. They would not hand personal data to a stranger in the street, leave cash lying around, why therefore so careless with personal data.
Facebook users need to act now. Overwrite then delete all personal data, never post live links where you are, disable all facebook apps, disable location, do not use Instagram, do not use WhatsApp.
The most valuable data on facebook, is your personal data, where you are.
Facebook apps, games, surveys, quizzes, harvest personal data.
Instagram is owned by facebook. Pictures posted act as bait to draw into the Facebook walled garden. Instagram claims ownership rights to the pictures. The pictures are not visible on twitter. If you wish pictures to be visible post direct to twitter.
There are superior alternatives to WhatsApp, for example Skype.
In London yesterday, we saw the march of the deluded, Green Party that has lost its way, LibDems who will jump on any passing bandwagon, an assorted rag tag, all united in their support of the EU.
The usual false claims made, prosperity, peace, democracy, betrayal of young people. They could not even differentiate between EU and Europe, the two are not the same.
Spoke to 16-17 year olds at Derbyshire school last week. One out of more than 100 was pro Brexit. A generation's future being stolen
War criminal Tony Blair spin doctor Alastair Campbell claimed 16–17 year olds supported EU. Maybe he failed to tell them the number of children died in his illegal Iraq War, that it is young people in southern Europe who are bearing the brunt of EU austerity, in Athens young unemployed wander the streets looking lost, in Cyprus the young are a lost generation, no future thanks the the EU.
Yes, there was prosperity, that was across Europe, post WWII, whether in EU or not. UK saw creation of welfare state, expansion of universities, a growing economy, environmental legislation, before Edward Heath took UK into the EU.
Post-2008, post-capitalism, the EU has stagnated, if not gone backwards.
In Greece, the people dared challenge the EU, for that Greece had to be destroyed.
Peace in Europe, for that we have Nato to thank, not EU.
And are we forgetting the bloody break up of Yugoslavia, the criminal networks now based in the former Yugoslavia spreading their tentacles across Europe, the people traffickers?
Are we forgetting the civil war in Ukraine, the seizure of Crimea, the West almost brought to the brink of WWIII, a direct result of meddling by EU in Ukraine?
Похоже, толпы людей из десятков городов страны сегодня мы будем видеть бесконечно! Это – явно всероссийская акция протеста против коррупции! pic.twitter.com/QMQmuU7J41
Police presence in central Moscow unprecedented: thousands in full riot gear, paddy wagons, helicopters. Protest 100% peaceful. pic.twitter.com/j0A3Zdq5ZB
It's not just Moscow, of course. Similar protests are now held in dozens of cities & towns across Russia. People are quite pissed. pic.twitter.com/0PTtkl277n
In Belarus, a brutal crackdown against the people by a Fascist regime. The street protests are against what has been called a ‘parasite tax’, if you are unemployed you are to be taxed for being a burden on society.
Across Europe, we are seeing a rise in Fascism, as a direct response to the EU.
In London over 20,000 a year die due to air pollution. The main cause, diesel fumes. The EU pushed diesel. Why? Because they were lobbied by VW. The same VW that fiddled its pollution tests. Small diesel cars are more polluting than lorries. Small diesel cars are 12–13 times more polluting than top of the range diesel cars.
In Rome, protest against the EU.
In Rome the EU meet to celebrate. It is businesses as usual.
In parallel in Rome, DiEM25 are meeting to offer an alternative, radical vision for Europe. Note Europe not EU.
Skip the first hour and a half and go straight to Yanis Varoufakis. The first hour is an empty venue filling up, next half hour waffle, though interesting points are made.
Many criticised Yanis Varoufakis for touring the UK with Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell to support UK remaining in the EU. Is he not one of its strongest critics, does he not bear the scars on his back?
Almost as an aside, Yanis Varoufakis explained why. It was not because he supports the EU, it was because he wanted the British on the inside to help with the fight against the EU. But, unlike those who took to the streets in London on Saturday, he recognises why people voted to Leave, it was not because they were racist (though some were), it was because they were saying enough is enough.
Anti-EU is not anti-Europe. Those who voted Leave, are saying the three million EU citizens living in UK should be granted the right to remain, they should not be treated as a bargaining chip.
But unlike those on the streets of London, Yanis Varoufakis recognises what could happen, 2008 could be our 1929, a rise of Fascism across Europe, which is why we need a progressive alternative to the EU, a progressive alternative for all of Europe.
It is for these reasons that DiEM25 are proposing change.
A Green New Deal, money to be pushed to the maintainers of society, to the innovators.
The maintainers are the nurses, the doctors, the teachers, the carers, the road sweeper, people who without society could not function.
The innovators are those who will take us to a greener, fairer society. They will create open source, open coop platforms, to enable participation, to put out of business Uber and Deliveroo.
Is it fair, as a speaker before Yanis Varoufakis asked, that the head of Fiat in Italy earns more in one day, than the lowest paid worker at Fiat would earn in 20 years?
We have to, as an earlier speaker said, redefine what we mean by work. That someone is not paid, does not mean they are not doing useful work.
This leads directly to the need for a Universal Dividend. Not as we have at present, forced to work to earn a living, precarious low paid soul destroying McShit jobs, serfs working for apps as we see with Uber and Deliveroo, bullshit jobs.
Leads also, as the speaker who followed Yanis Varoufakis, to DiEM Voice, art to drive a new agenda.
EU can try to punish UK in which case all will suffer, the German car worker, the French wine producer. Or we can all agree the existing trade arrangements remain in place.
We're not here tonight to celebrate, but to demonstrate, sovereignity must be given back to the Europe's people: Marcelo Expósito #END_TINApic.twitter.com/37rWTlFA3L
We need democratic reform, power passed back to countries, that they recover their sovereignty, create a network of cooperating democratic sovereign countries, power passed down to cities and regions, as we see in Barcelona and Catalonia. Power passed down to ordinary citizens, participatory democracy, not the failed representative democracy. New political parties, as Podemos in Spain, or a reformed Labour Party as desired by the leadership and the new members, but blocked by the reactionary Labour Party Establishment.
EU is a cartel for Big Business, a democracy-free zone, a haven for tax dodgers and corporate lobbyists.
The EU experiment has failed. The EU is disintegrating.
What we have to ensure, is that it is replaced by something better, where all citizens are represented, where wealth is fairly distributed, where the environment is protected. We cannot for example deal with climate change at national level, or even European level, it has to be at global level, with countries cooperating.
If people across Europe, do not fight for this New Europe, you will be delivered into the hands of Nationalists and Fascists, delivered by the gullible fools we saw gather in London on Saturday, who should be fighting for change, not supporting the existing rotten system.
On Saturday morning 28 January 2017, at Conway Hall in Central London, long an important place for radical religious, philosophical, social and political thinking in the UK, DiEM25 held its UK organisational launch.
I have attended many interesting meetings at Conway Hall, unfortunately I was not at the UK launch of DiEM25 or at the meeting the evening before with Yanis Varoufakis.
Speakers from varied backgrounds included musician Brian Eno, Turkish author, columnist and academic Elif Şafak, from a Polish perspective Agnieszka Wiśniewska and Igor Stokfiszewski, and economics professor and former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis
Brian Eno is wrong, 1970s and onward not a period of growth.
Post-WWII, 1950s and 1960s were when we saw unprecedented growth. When Harold Macmillan told us ‘we had never had it so good’ and Tony Benn or was it Harold Wilson talked of ‘the white heat of technology’.
Brian Eno is though correct when he says we have seen accumulation of wealth by the 1%.
Where in the 1970s the head of a UK bank had a salary of 100 times the lowest paid, now it is in excess of three hundred times.
In US, wages have flat-lined since the 1970s, even though productivity has continued upwards at the same rate as post-WWII. In part explains the rise of Donald Trump.
Technology has given us in a post-capitalist world Uber, Deliveroo and now Wheelys, serfs working for an app.
It can also give us open platform coops, open source.
In Madrid, they have developed as Open Source Decide Madrid, a public participation platform. Being Open Source, it can be adopted by other citizen-controlled Town halls.
I agree with Elif Şafak, left v right has no meaning, it has had no meaning for at least a decade.
She has come from a dictatorship, Turkey, that could equally apply to the USA under Donald Trump.
Whilst I can sympathise with DiEM25’s “radical remain” position of being “in the EU against the EU” it is now dated and can no longer apply, and must change that position.
We have Donald Trump one side and Vladimir Putin the other, we need a strong Europe. A strong Europe of independent, democratic cooperating, sovereign states. This is not the EU, it can never be the EU. To believe can democratise the EU is a pipe dream. It is a brittle structure unable to adapt. It is built into the EU DNA to be a democracy-free zone, nothing will change that.
Build links across Europe, which is what DiEM25 is doing.
Build communities at local level, open coops, collaborative commons, then seize control of local Town Halls, then network these citizen controlled Town Halls.
This can be done, Madrid, Barcelona and A Coruña in Spain, Frome in Somerset in England, are showing the way.
Yanis Varoufakis is correct, there needs to be cooperation between parties, but that is not the same as forming formal alliances.
There is something ridiculous when Labour challenge Caroline Lucas in Brighton, especially when we look at the regressive Member of Parliament Labour has in Brighton, who uses every opportunity to attack Jeremy Corbyn.
Similarly, Labour should forget Scotland, if SNP remains a progressive party, the same could apply to Wales. Focus on England.
In Stoke, Labour are likely to lose because they put forward a useless candidate. A candidate who ranks alongside Owen Smith.
There has to be massive clear out of the Labour Party. No matter how good the policies put forward by Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell, they will count for nought when they are constantly undermined.
As I write, Caroline Flint granted a prime time media platform to attack Diane Abbott. And what was the sin Diane Abbott had committed? She had failed to attend the House of Commons Brexit vote. Would it have made any difference? Not one iota. It was a landslide to trigger Article 50 for UK to exit the EU.
But it is this type of infantile behaviour by Caroline Flint that turns people off politics, and loses Labour votes.
Jeremy Corbyn was wrong to tell his party how to vote on Brexit Article 50.
We are leaving the EU. The focus should now be on building a post-Brexit future. And that is for the people to decide, not politicians.
We need a Green New Deal. Investment in people, in green technologies.
For example, instead of capping energy prices, talk of nationalisation of Big Six, create community owned local energy grids. Into these local networks feed renewables guaranteed a fair price. Consumers pay a fair price. Any surplus generation fed to other local grids via a publicly owned National Grid. Any ‘profit’ ploughed back into the local network or used to fund local community projects. The Big Six would be unable to compete and would go out of business.
HS2, Heathrow Third Runway, Hinckley Point C, should all be scrapped. These are gravy trains for contractors, not job creation schemes, and as infrastructure projects offer little.
The railways should be brought back into public ownership as each franchise expires, or in the case of Southern Rail for bad performance. Ownership would be some form of cooperative structure not nationalisation.
The idea put forward by Yanis Varoufakis, a national dividend not a basic income is worth exploring.
CETA appears to have been derailed by Wallonia, a region of Belgium. Now joined by the Brussels region in opposing CETA.
The supreme irony, the people have revolted at the heart of the evil empire.
Enormous pressure is being put on Wallonia by the EU corporate thugs.
It is important Wallonia and Brussels stand firm as they are all that stands between CETA being ratified. By standing firm, they are acting for all of us.
Last week, the Wallonian prime minister, Paul Magnette, did what no other European leader had the courage to do, and declared his government won’t support CETA. He stood up for democracy and became the champion of the millions of Europeans opposing the deal.
The European Commission and the EU’s big member states aren’t willing to give up, and they are putting huge pressure on Paul Magnette to back down in time for a signing ceremony planned for later this week. Now only one thing stands in their way — Paul Magnette and the brave Belgian regions.
Paul Magnette stood up for democracy over corporate power – but he might buckle under the pressure from all sides, unless we can send him a huge show of support from people across Europe. But we don’t have long to act: the EU and Canada are hoping to force Wallonia to retreat in the next 48 hours. So we must stand with Wallonia now!
CETA is a huge trade deal bewteen EU and Canada that would hand corporations the power to overturn our laws in their favour. If all EU member states agreed it could mean that everything from environmental protection to consumer safety laws are under threat from greedy corporations.
Wallonia is being intimidated by the Commission and some big member states. Paul Magnette said he was receiving “thinly veiled threats” because he is trying to make sure CETA doesn’t override basic democratic values.
We need to show the unelected undemocratic EU that Paul Magnette has our support from all over Europe, and we won’t stand for the EU abusing its power.
Please sign the petition opposing CETA and supporting the stance taken by Wallonia.
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