Technocratic Abundance Technocracy and the ...

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by D Nelson - ‎1978 - ‎

Henry Elsner, Jr.'s, The Technocrats,. Prophets of Automation (1967) is the most comprehensive treatment; it traces the movement from its origins to the 1960s.

SEE  https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=TECHNOCRACY

The technocrats 1919-1967 : a case study of conflict ... - Core

https://core.ac.uk › download › pdf

by D Adair - ‎1970 - ‎

CANADIAN STUDY MASTERS DEGREE SFU
COVERS CANADIAN TECHNOCRACY AS WELL AS US
VANCOUVER HAD A BUILDING AND LARGE TECHONCRACY
FOLLOWING IN THE CITY PRE WAR AND POST WAR.

Technocracy and Democracy - African Journals Online

https://www.ajol.info › index.php › article › view

by FEA Owakah - ‎2009 - ‎Cited by 8 - ‎Related articles

Technocracy and Democracy: The Challenges to Development in Africa 87. Technocracy and ... In this definition, Wallace likens technocracy to a platonic meritocracy of the skilled. This analysis to some, ... Wallace , Andrew. 2007. Technocracy: Building a New Sustainable Society for a. Post-Carbon World. New York: NET ...

Trump Has Gone Full Authoritarian
By Jonathan Chait

Art: Stanley Whitney and Lisson Gallery

Alittle more than a year ago, President Trump made one of the most terrifying and prophetic statements of his presidency. “You know, the left plays a tougher game; it’s very funny. I actually think that the people on the right are tougher, but they don’t play it tougher,” he told Breitbart. “I have the support of the police, the support of the military, the support of the Bikers for Trump. I have the tough people, but they don’t play it tough — until they go to a certain point and then it would be very bad, very bad.”

There are two remarkable things about this statement. One is Trump’s casual conflation of the state security forces (police, military) with extremely unofficial political activists (“Bikers for Trump”). In his mind, they all blur together as a kind of private militia. The second is his view of violence as an extension of politics. The context of his statement was congressional oversight of his administration. The passage immediately following his threat to unleash bloodshed was “But the left plays it cuter and tougher. Like with all the nonsense that they do in Congress … you know, they do things that are nasty.” His mind moves seamlessly between peaceful, constitutional functions and violent repression, observing no demarcation.

Trump may not have been revealing a plan, exactly, but he was certainly revealing a general intention. The political conflict he has never stopped stoking would reach “a certain point.” Trump did not know what it would be. It turned out to be national demonstrations over the police murder of George Floyd and the culture of racism that allowed it, which created an atmosphere that Trump took as a personal humiliation. And now observe his prediction coming true: The response is very, very bad.

Trump’s view of the police as the armed wing of the MAGA movement is reasonably well founded. A 2017 Pew survey asked if this country “needs to continue making changes to give blacks equal rights with whites.” While 54 percent of white people agreed, only 6 percent of white police officers did. Investigations by government agencies and reporters have found deep links between networks of white police officers and anti-Islamist, pro-Confederate, or openly white-supremacist groups.

Trump has excited and cultivated the white-supremacist far right in ways no previous Republican president dared, and he has nurtured the pervasive sense of violent police impunity now on display in the streets. After the Obama administration built policies to repair the trust between police and urban communities, Trump tore them down contemptuously, restoring the practice of transferring used military equipment to police departments, which Obama had halted, and restricting the consent decrees Obama’s Department of Justice had signed with more than a dozen police departments. Appearing at a Trump rally this past fall, Minneapolis police-union president Bob Kroll gloated, “The first thing President Trump did when he took office was turn that around, got rid of the Holder–Loretta Lynch regime, and decided to start taking — letting the cops do their job, put the handcuffs on the criminals instead of us.”Trump is eager to incite disorder in the streets and defiance of the law on his own behalf.

The result of Trump’s unwinding of police reform was predictable. So too was the police response to the protests. The irony of meeting protests against police brutality with more brutality seems to be lost on the cops. And while many have shown restraint, empathy, and compassion, it is they, not the violent ones, who seem to be exceptions. The good apples have been overwhelmed by cops applying gratuitous force to peaceful demonstrators and, with suspicious frequency, journalists — or, to use the Trumpian lingo, “enemies of the people.”

Trump has used the same rationale to promote both the general policy of unshackling the police and the specific tactic of roughing up protesters: The law must be strictly enforced. Attorney General William Barr has denounced “district attorneys that style themselves as ‘social justice’ reformers, who spend their time undercutting the police.” Trump has seized upon the violence and looting that has sprung up around the protests to legitimize a broader crackdown.

There is no justification for instigating violence or destroying people’s neighborhoods, but Trump has not exactly devoted his life to the principle of strict legal compliance. Put aside his long history of criminal behavior and associations that alone would forfeit any moral standing he might have. (Trump has personally stolen millions and millions of dollars through what the New York Times described as “outright fraud,” in addition to numerous schemes that have been the subject of litigation, making him a far bigger thief than any looter.) Trump is eager to incite disorder in the streets and defiance of the law on his own behalf.

Just a little over a month ago, in Michigan, armed militias stormed the state capitol in a quasi-insurrection against public-health regulations, menacing the legislature into canceling its session. In the face of this blatant assault on law and order, Trump lectured the state’s governor to placate their demands. “The Governor of Michigan should give a little, and put out the fire. These are very good people, but they are angry,” he tweeted. “See them, talk to them, make a deal.” The only deal Trump wants to offer anti-cop protesters is a faceful of pavement.

Trump’s critics often psychoanalyze him from afar as an instinctive authoritarian incapable of grasping any relations except as a zero-sum contest of domination. The protests have brought that tendency to the surface like a scripted crescendo to his presidency. In a phone call with governors, Trump berated them as “weak” and promised, “We will activate Bill Barr and activate him very strongly,” signaling the return of a key accomplice in Trump’s past scandals. He even bellowed, “You have to dominate,” as if he had just stumbled onto his psychiatric diagnosis and was reading it aloud.

Even side character Vladimir Putin returned for an encore. Immediately before the call with governors, Trump spoke with the Russian president. After getting off the line, Trump told the governors that Minneapolis’s feeble response to the protest was “a laughingstock all over the world.” Overseas democracies have expressed sympathy for the protesters and horror at their treatment by police. But those are not the parts of the world whose perspective on handling anti-regime protests Trump values.

One of the features of authoritarian and quasi-authoritarian states is the use of security forces as regime tools. Anti-regime protests are curtailed, undermined, and, should they grow too large and threatening, violently suppressed. Pro-regime protests receive protection. Trump has harbored a belief all along that once he had gained control of the presidency, its security apparatus would be put at his disposal.

The forceful clearing out of a peaceful protest from Lafayette Park demonstrated the methods Trump has long had in mind. The operation was ordered by Barr, whose presence on the scene, reviewing the troops before battle, was its most chilling visual detail. Barr has spent years prosecuting a culture war as a legal war and was now, following the natural progression, waging a literal one. And just as Trump and Barr have bent the rules to protect Trump’s allies, they were bending them the other way to punish his enemies, evicting protesters well in advance of a city curfew.

Suppose this happens in November: the protests centered on a contested election, one whose results have been called into question by a second wave of the coronavirus, clunky ballot counting, or hacked voting equipment. And what if Trump and Barr again seize on sporadic acts of vandalism and violence to depict anti-Trump demonstrators as endemically criminal?

Events have gotten “to a certain point,” as Trump put it, compelling him to bring in the tough people. The unanswered question is, What points might lie beyond?

*This article appears in the June 8, 2020, issue of New York Magazine. 

FAUX NEWS PHUCK UP

Fox Compares Stock Market Performance After Cases Of Violence Against Black Men

Screengrab / @Acyn / Twitter

JakeThomas

Jun 5, 2020

A Fox News graph compared how the stock market performed after historic cases of violence against black men.

Fox News’ Susan Li ran down a list of stock market performances in the wake of high-profile cases of police brutality and violence against black men over the past several decades, striking a particularly insensitive tone as much of the country remains outraged by George Floyd’s death.

Appearing on Fox News' Special Report with Bret Baier on Friday, Media Matters reports that Li said:

Stock markets hitting new highs despite the nationwide protests this week. Historically, there has been a disconnect between what investors focus on and what happens across the rest of the country, for instance in 1968, the week after the tragedy of Martin Luther King, the S&P 500 rose over 2%. Also up the week after Rodney King ruling and Wall Street trading on the reopening instead this year in 2020.

The graphic displayed during the segment showed the S&P’s percentage change one week following each tragic incident, which also included the deaths of Michael Brown and George Floyd.

Li then rolled right into comments on the latest jobs report and economists’ rosier-than-expected view of America’s recovery amid the pandemic.

THIS STORY USES THE FOX GRAPHIC CLEANED UP FOR BROADCAST
IT HAS REMOVED THE BAR SAYING; 
"STOCKS SOAR, DOW SURGES AFTER PROMISING JOBS REPORT"
ONLY MAKING IT WORSE

Fox News Apologizes for Graphic Showing Stock Market Reactions to Violence Against Black Men

NOSEDIVE

Maxwell Tani

Media Reporter

Published Jun. 06, 2020 2:03PM ET 

Fox News

Fox News apologized on Saturday for airing a graphic showing the stock market reactions to historic incidents of violence against black Americans. During a segment on Special Report on Friday, the network discussed stocks rising after violent events including the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., the acquittal of LAPD officers who beat Rodney King, and the death of George Floyd. In a statement on Saturday shared by anchor Bret Baier, the network apologized, saying the segment was missing the appropriate context.

“The infographic used on FOX News Channel’s Special Report to illustrate market reactions to historic periods of civil unrest should have never aired on television without full context,” the network said in a statement. “We apologize for the insensitivity of the image & take this issue seriously.” Friday’s segment came amid jubilant coverage on the network of the surprisingly strong jobs report, which was touted by President Donald Trump and celebrated by many of Fox News’ and Fox Business Network’s most prominent personalities.

WTF  

Buffalo Mayor: Hospitalized 75-Year-Old Protester Was a ‘Major Instigator’ of Violence

‘AGITATOR’

GOOD TO KNOW BLACK OR WHITE THE STATE 
IS THE STATE DEFENDING ITS DEFENDERS

Maxwell Tani
Media Reporter
Updated Jun. 06, 2020 

Lindsay DeDario/Reuters

MAYOR, HE LOOKS LIKE A COACH

Buffalo’s mayor defended the police officers charged with second-degree assault for violent pushing a 75-year-old protester in video that has gone viral and sparked global outrage. In a press conference on Friday, Byron Brown said he was told that longtime peace activist Martin Gugino, who is in the hospital following the push, was a “key and major instigator” of activities such as vandalism and looting, and “was asked to leave numerous times” before the shove. “That individual was an agitator,” the mayor said. “He was trying to spark up a crowd of people.”

Brown, who had earlier said he was “deeply disturbed” by the video, said on Friday he was not calling for the cops to be fired. “There were conflicts between protesters, there was a danger of fights breaking out between protesters, and the police felt it was very important to clear that scene for the safety of protesters,” he said. But Erie County District Attorney John Flynn said on Saturday that the officers could have arrested Gugino if he was committing a crime. “You arrest him. You don’t take a baton and shove hi

THE OCCUPATION OF THE LINCOLN MEMORIAL

   

UNIDENTIFIED MILITARY UNIT PROBABLY 
FEDERAL PRISON RIOT SQUADS DEFEND 
LINCOLN  MEMORIAL FROM GRAFFITI 

PROTECTING THE PEOPLES BUILDINGS
FROM THE PEOPLE AND THEIR CONSTITUTIONAL 
RIGHT TO PROTEST




       

 "WHO ARE THOSE GUYS" 

PROTECTING THE PRIVATE PROPERTY
OF TRUMP THE TYRANT

THESE GUYS ARE AFRAID OF A BOTTLE OF WATER

THIS LITTLE BOTTLE OF WATER 

THREATENED THIS RIOT SQUAD

SO THEY CHARGED PEACEFUL 
PROTESTERS 

YOU JUST HATE TO GET ALL 
DRESSED UP AND NOT BE 
ABLE USE YOUR TOYS

DISARM THE POLICE

AMERIKAN POLICE 

BRITISH BOBBIES CARRY NO GUNS 

 RIOT COPS AT PROTESTS 

OR DEMONSTRATIONS 

 CAUSE THE RIOTS 

THEY ARE THE ONLY ONES DRESSED THE PART 

TRUMP'S PRAETORIAN GUARD

THEY BRUTALIZE PEOPLE BECAUSE THEY ARE IN (CHARACTER) ARMOUR 

HOW COME ANY OTHER TIME A WOMAN CAN ONLY 

BE ARRESTED BY A FEMALE COP 

IN THEIR ARMOUR THEY NO LONGER ARE LITTLE MEN 

AFRAID OF THEIR SHADOWS BUT THEY ARE THAT MONSTER IN THE SHADOWS

REINFORCED WITH A SENSE OF POWER

 THAT THEY GIVE THEMSELVES

TO BRUTALIZE PEOPLE 

LIKE TERRORISTS THE COPS DRIVE THEIR ARMOURED CARS 

INTO PEACEFUL PROTESTERS

DEMILITARIZE THE POLICE 

THE VET FACES THE WANNABE 

YOU DO THAT WHEN YOU

DEFUND THE POLICE

ABOLISH THE POLICE 

RECREATE COMMUNITY BASED POLICING TO SERVE AND PROTECT THE PEOPLE

 NOT THE STATE, OR ITS CAPITALIST LAWS FOR LANDLORDS, BANKERS, AND THE REST OF THE 1%

The Ecosystem Approach and Systems Thinking - Spectrum ...

https://spectrum.library.concordia.ca › EASTMOOCSOURCEBOOKfinal

by P Stoett - ‎2016 - ‎

systems and approach the world from a systems thinking perspective, but ... sectors of society view ecosystems in terms of their own economic, cultural ... Align incentives to promote biodiversity conservation and sustainable use; c. ... Programme's experience with post-conflict assessment (Ken Conca and Jennifer Wallace)

GREEN ANARCHIST

World Gone Mad

by DERRICK JENSEN


I DON’T KNOW about you, but whenever I attend some “green” conference, I know I’m supposed to leave feeling inspired and energized, but instead I feel heartbroken, discouraged, defeated, and lied to. It’s not the inevitable talk about farmers (re)discovering organic farming; about plastic forks made from cornstarch; about solar photovoltaics; about relocalizing; about the joys of simple living; about grieving the murder of the planet; about “changing our stories”; and most especially about maintaining a positive attitude that gets me down. It’s that no one, and I mean no one, ever mentions psychopathology.

Why is this important? Because those in power destroy sustainable communities – and not just sustainable indigenous communities. If people develop new ways to live on their land more sustainably, and those in power decide that land is needed for roads and shopping malls and parking lots, those in power will seize that land. This is how the dominant culture works. Everything and everyone must be sacrificed to economic production, to economic growth, to the continuation of this culture.

A few months ago I was watching a documentary on David Parker Ray, a serial killer from Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, who is suspected of killing up to sixty women. He kidnapped women and held them as rape slaves. He turned an entire tractor-trailer into a well-stocked torture chamber, where he videotaped what he did to them. In the documentary, an FBI profiler compared Ray’s attitudes toward his victims to those most people have toward tissues: Once you use them, are you concerned about what happens to them? Of course not, she said. And that was how Ray perceived – or rather didn’t perceive – his victims: simply as something to use and throw away.

When the profiler said this, my first thought was passenger pigeons. Then chinook salmon. Then oceans. How deeply do most members of this culture mourn passenger pigeons? Salmon? Oceans? This culture as a whole, and most of its members, gives no more consideration to the victims of this way of life than David Parker Ray gave to his victims. Blindness to suffering is one of this culture’s central defining characteristics. And it is a central defining characteristic of sociopathology.

The New Columbia Encyclopedia states that a sociopath can be defined as one who willfully does harm without remorse: “Such individuals are impulsive, insensitive to others’ needs, and unable to anticipate the consequences of their behavior, to follow long-term goals, or to tolerate frustration. The psychopathic individual is characterized by absence of the guilt feelings and anxiety that normally accompany an antisocial act.”

Um, how sensitive are members of this culture, on the whole, to the needs of native forests (98 percent gone), native grasslands (99 percent gone), ocean life (90 percent of the large fish gone)? How sensitive is this culture to indigenous land claims? How clearly are members of this culture able to anticipate the consequences of destroying forests, grasslands, oceans, or denying indigenous land claims? With sea level already rising and glaciers already disappearing, how capable are this culture’s decision makers of anticipating the consequences of global warming?

Dr. Robert Hare, an expert on sociopaths, states that “among the most devastating features of psychopathy are a callous disregard for the rights of others and a propensity for predatory and violent behaviors. Without remorse, psychopaths charm and exploit others for their own gain. They lack empathy and a sense of responsibility, and they manipulate, lie and con others with no regard for anyone’s feelings.” I’m reminded of something Red Cloud said: “They made us many promises, more than I can remember. They only kept but one. They promised they would take our land, and they took it.”

Hare also says, “Too many people hold the idea that psychopaths are essentially killers or convicts. The general public hasn’t been educated to see beyond the social stereotypes to understand that psychopaths can be entrepreneurs, politicians, CEOs and other successful individuals who may never see the inside of a prison.” They can be the president, a boss, a neighbor.

Let’s now consider the dominant culture in relation to the characteristics of sociopaths as listed in section F60.2 of The ICD-10 Classification of Mental and Behavioural Disorders, published by the World Health Organization, Geneva, 1992:

a) callous unconcern for the feelings of others. Where to start? Have members of this culture shown any concern for the feelings of the indigenous as they’ve stolen their land? How about the feelings of nonhumans being driven from their homes, or those being driven out of existence? Further, doesn’t the mainstream scientific community demand that emotion be removed from all scientific study? Aren’t we also told that emotions must not interfere with business decisions and economic policy? Do chickens in battery cages have feelings? What about dogs in vivisection labs? What about trees? Rain? Stones? The culture goes beyond “callous unconcern” for the feelings of these others to deny that their feelings even exist.

b) gross and persistent attitude of irresponsibility and disregard for social norms, rules and obligations. Is there an action more irresponsible than killing the planet? Now consider the norms, rules, and obligations of this culture. Norms: rape, abuse, destruction. Rules: a legal system created by the powerful to maintain their power. Obligations: to get as much money and power as possible.

c) incapacity to maintain enduring relationships, though having no difficulty in establishing them. I live on Tolowa land. The Tolowa had enduring relationships with their human and nonhuman neighbors for at least 12,500 years. When the dominant culture arrived here about 180 years ago, the place was a paradise; now the place is trashed. Exploitation is not an enduring relationship – whether with another animal or a landbase.

d) very low tolerance to frustration and a low threshold for discharge of aggression, including violence. The civilized have been eradicating the indigenous for ten thousand years. The United States is constantly “discharging aggression” against (i.e., invading) other countries. Individuals and corporations and governments discharge aggression daily toward coyotes, prairie dogs, sea lions, wetlands, coal-bearing mountaintops, and oil-bearing coastal plains.

e) incapacity to experience guilt and to profit from experience, particularly punishment. How much guilt do you believe timber company CEOs experience over the destruction of ancient forests? And the word profit here does not mean the financial profit they derive from killing forests, oceans, and so on, but profit in terms of hindsight. After deforesting the Middle East, all of Europe, much of the Americas, Africa, and Asia, does it seem at all plausible that those in charge are learning from their past mistakes? Are they learning anything from their decisions and policies that are altering the climate through unrestrained burning of coal, oil, and natural gas?

f) marked proneness to blame others, or to offer plausible rationalizations, for the behaviour. Do CEOs take responsibility for their violence? The average rapist for his? George Bush blamed forest fires for his urge to deforest. Clinton said it was all the beetles’ fault. And many still rationalize their denial of our rapidly warming planet every time a winter storm slams the East Coast.

Of course we don’t all act this way. But those of us who are not sociopaths, who are trying to live differently, need to step up and call out the larger culture for the way it behaves.

Sharing our finite planet with this culture is like being stuck in a room with a psychopath. There is no exit. Although the psychopath may choose other targets first, eventually it will turn to us. Eventually we’ll have to fight for our lives. And so if we want access to a landbase we can inhabit, and want our descendants to be able to live there long into the future, we need to organize politically to stop this lethal culture in its tracks.

Derrick Jensen is the author of over twenty books, including Endgame. He is a former Orion columnist and contributor to dozens of publications.

https://orionmagazine.org/article/world-gone-mad/