Michael D. D. White, Co-founder of CDL Talks With Glasgow Loves EU About Control of Information and Privatization of Everything- Libraries and Court Prosecution of Steve Donziger Included

[Note: This post may get updated with additions]

On November 15, 2021 Michael D. D. White, Co-founder of Citizens Defending Libraries talked with Glasgow Loves EU as part of their regular series of interviews shared by Facebook and Zoom.  The conversation was about the control of information and the privatization of virtually everything, privatization of libraries as our library defenders well know, but also much more. . .

. . .  The conversation started out talking about privatization of the federal court `prosecution' of environmental justice lawyer Steve Donziger written about at Citizens Defending Libraries here:   What Library Defenders Need To Know About The Imprisonment of Environmental Attorney Steve Donziger Because He Obtained a Judgment Against Chevron For Its Pollution of The Amazon.
 
There is an absolute relationship and linkage between the control of information and privatization: The former is one reason you don’t hear about, or what’s bad about, the latter, and the latter is often a means to achieve the former.

We Tweeted a link to the talk where you can view video here.


You can also go directly to view it on Facebook.

Eventually it should be up at the archives.

This is the archive of the Glasgow Loves EU livestreams:

In discussing the privatization of everything Mr. White referred to the forums Citizens Defending Libraries have had about selling off public assets.  See, for example: Fourth Forum on Selling Off Public Assets, Presented by First Unitarian Congregational Society of Brooklyn's Weaving the Fabric of Diversity & Citizens Defending Libraries, April 8, 2017

During the chat, Mr. White said that he had been giving some thought to the theory of the “Tragedy of the Commons” and what would be its opposite.   You can find writing about the “Tragedy of the Commons” all over the place.  It gets enormous coverage, almost ad nauseam and almost too much despite the theory having its validity.  The “Tragedy of the Commons” is advanced as an argument for privatizing public property, privatizing property that is owned and shared in common.  The theory is that when everyone, all the public, has equal, unrestrained access to assets that are commonly owned, there is an incentive to use those assets to the point of depleting exhaustion.  Examples include the over-fishing of the oceans, or the race of landowners competing against each other to use, as fast a possible for their personal benefit, the ultimately limited water in the Ogallala Aquifer that lies under the lands in eight great plains states where we once saw the Oklahoma dust bowl.  That dustbowl area was retrieved from desolation, in part from newer technology pumping that aquifer water up from below.

Mr. White suggested what is likely the rightful opposite of the “Tragedy of the Commons” is rarely talked about although it’s a concept possibly just as valid, or even more so, than the “Tragedy of the Commons.”  Maybe the other theory doesn’t get equal play with the “Tragedy of the Commons,”  because the other theory argues against, rather than for privatized ownership.  In fact, you are unlikely to find the other theory that Mr. White presented articulated anywhere.  If you dig, you will be able to find what is referred to as the “Tragedy of the Anticommons.”  That theory is about what is lost when people sit on, and don’t share and combine, patents; when they keep information secret (like with the mediaeval guilds of old) so that others can’t similarly benefit from knowing things.  It is the kind of thing that was expressed well and talked about by Lewis Hyde in his book “Common as Air,” where he notes how a young America, departing from Britain, flourished as information was shared and experimented with disregarding British patents rights that encroached on the "cultural commons" and free experimentation. . .

. .  As a better opposite to the “Tragedy of the Commons,” Mr. White offered another, different theory of how decisions that privatize a world that’s better shared can be destructive.  He suggested that it was perfectly demonstrated by what environmental lawyer Steve Donziger had litigated against: The Chevron/Texaco takeover of Amazon rain forest lands as if those lands were that oil company’s private preserve to exploit and despoil at will.  He said that when one entity (or maybe just a few) was allowed to own an entire environment, an entire ecosystem, that the complex, multi-faceted, broadly inhabited environment would then be seen for only the limited value that the owning entity could see in it, not for the value that all of those dwelling in the environment, human and non-human could perceive in and glean from the environment.  (As fewer and fewer monopolies own more and more of the world this is more and more a problem.)  As Mr. White was speaking to a largely Scottish audience, you’ll see he mentioned that another possible example of this in Scottish history could be the private ownership (by Lairds) that led to the depopulation of Scotland in the 1700s when a new kind of sheep were introduced; it was something that Jane Jacobs wrote about in her “Cities and the Wealth of Nations” book.        

In other parts of the interview, Mr. White reprised things he has said in other interviews, for instance on the Project Censored Show.  See: Latest Project Censored Radio Show Features Interview With CDL Co-Founder Michael D. D. White On Dismantlement of Libraries- (And Another Interview With Investigative Reporter Dave Lindorff), May 22, 2019.
   
We furnished useful associated links at the time of that interview and furnish some of them again here:

The following are links you may want to us to delve deeper into some of things you’ll hear discussed in the interview:

Main Citizens Defending Libraries page

Of course, our our current main Citizens Defending Libraries page, which, with lots of links, takes you in any direction you would like to research more about the dismantling of NYC libraries.  In all, it provides a very good overview, fairly parallel to the interview, but with even more information, of what we are up against broken down by topics.

It's Not Just The Real Estate Industry Threatening Libraries: Examining The Panoply of Other Threats

Our CDL page on Digital vs. Physical books:  Physical Books vs. Digital Books.

Articles About Library Privacy and Surveillance In Libraries

Interesting to Think That it All Began With BOOKS? Except That Amazon and World’s Wealthiest Man (As We Know Jeff Bezos Today) Didn’t Exactly Begin That Way. . .

Amazon Headquarters Lands In Long Island City: What Happens When Our Elected Officials Hand The Task of Governing Over To A Private Sector Corporation

Citizens Defending Libraries has covered suppressed books, including here:
Books As Catalysts In A World Where Information And Points of View Are Often Suppressed

Biography of Washington Post publisher Katherine Graham, one example of a suppressed book.

As for Pacifica stations getting more content out and the possibility of HD radio (and you can think about the parallels between why it's important to preserve traditional libraries and why terrestrial radio is similarly important, there's a bit written about HD radio here:

Feeling Constrained By Your Digital `Liberation’? Speaking Personally, I Am

Interestingly, what that article mentions about our doorbells no longer being zones of privacy became a NY Times op-ed subject (Time To Panic About Privacy) in the special Sunday Review privacy project (but the way the Times has it set up on line is creepy and may turn your brain off).

Michael White reported a little bit of Esprit de l'escalier (spirit of the staircase) after his Project censored interview-  He said that when co-host Chase Palmieri asked about implication of Amazon Prime's reach (and he couldn't answer that exactly), he should have one-upped the conversation respecting such concerns with a jump to mentioning Alexa.  And when it comes to Alexa, our YouTube channel has a short Alexa video that's funny in a creepy, black humor sort of way.  See:

We think you will enjoy this video: Alexa Explains Surveillance Valley (+ Siri on Alexa)

The video:
Alexa Explains Surveillance Valley (+ Siri on Alexa)

The Alexa video is also embedded in a CDL post about Yasha Levine's book (Levine could be a good Project Censored guest):

Reading on the Internet vs. Reading a Book You Picked Up Browsing In Your Library: Yasha Levine’s “Surveillance Valley- The Secret Military History of the Internet”

There is another immediate followup Citizens Defending Libraries post to the above Yasha Levine book post (below), but the implications of it are very layered, nuanced and frightening, offering an uncomfortably challenging perspective.  It would have been, a real "rabbit hole," to get into-- It's basically another angle on where Levine gets around to for the end of his book.  Levin was even interviewed about it on WNYC's "On The Media":

Self Proclaimed As Fighting Surveillance, Library Freedom Project Is Tied to Tor Service With Its Deep Ongoing Connections, Including Financing, To The U.S. Government

The article mentioned by Michael White at the end about the interview about the non-representation of super-majorities of the public on major issue after major issue  (including not giving us the libraries we can afford):

Everybody’s Realizing It Now: The Political Establishment Is Not Willing To Give The Public The Things The Vast Majority Of Americans Want And That We Could Easily Have

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