Monday, August 22, 2022

Upcoming WBAI Town Halls

Library defenders may remember that for much the same reason that Citizens Defending Library co-founders Michael D. D. White and Carolyn McIntyre have been fighting to defend our libraries, they have similarly gotten involved with WBAI radio, 99.5fm, the only truly listener supported radio station in New York City.  (The both went on WBAI's local station broad.)  Free speech radio WBAI can also be called, as it sometimes is, "radio for the 99.5%."

 As part of WBAI's grassroots celebrating governance tradition, WBAI holds Town Halls for public discussion and input.  Library Defenders may want to get involved with these as Michael and Carolyn have.  As you will see from the descriptions below for prospective featured Town Hall topics, the concerns to be grappled with in the WBAI community and the Pacifica free speech radio network of which it is a part, tend to have a lot in common with concerns involved in defending libraries.  This includes concerns like censorship and narrative control, what happens when our traditional analogue has to contend with the arrival sometime dubious benefits of digital revolution, and finally having to fend off skulking would-be privatizers.

Our next Town Hall has been decided upon and will be held by Zoom on Sunday, August 28th at 4:00 PM (see below).  Library Defenders are invited and welcome.

You may also want to give input on what Town Halls you'd like to see prioritized to be held next or may have ideas for additional topics or coverage to what appears below.

To get information about attending email Michael White at MDDWhite [[at]] aol.com. 

UPCOMING WBAI TOWN HALLS

Debating Debates, Particularly On The Most Divisive Issues, Probably Starting With Covid.  (Sunday, August 28th at 4:00 PM-  Listen to or watch the Recording HERE using the Passcode: uq@$8Uam:) Will debates improve and help make the WBAI and Pacifica environment healthier?  Can debates increase audience and bring in revenue?  Can debates create a more unified, free and exploratory thinking free speech radio audience and valuable listener membership?  Perhaps the best and most topical example, which is up for discussion, is the way that Covid questions  divide and fracture the cohesion and unity of political cultures that, once upon a time, self identified regarding themselves as anti-corporate, anti-monopoly, pro-health and anti-big Pharma, and anti-authoritarian (and possibly as Left).  At least two sides in Covid discussions are claiming that they are “following the science,” while others absolutely don’t.  Anthony Fauci has announced that he is “science,” and he along with those of whom are Fauci followers say that to doubt Fauci is an “attack on science,” moreover an attack on “truth.”  If shows on Pacifica showcase Fauci while describing invermectin as a “horse dewormer” that is spuriously “touted in right-wing media” as a beneficial treatment for Covid, if Pacifica stations run government PSAs about Covid safety, should the slant of that `reporting’ and air time use get debated?  If so, by whom? Some serious money has been talked about as flowing in connection with the prospect of Covid issue debates: Multi-millionaire and activist Steve Kirsch has issued multiple million dollar backed challenges for qualified people just to show up and debate the Covid issues, but some people parry that because people like Fauci “are science” it would be undignified for them to debate, or they feel that only those who have credentialed themselves by receiving money from Fauci and the Big-Pharma should be allowed offer opinions as to what may be the facts respecting Covid, vaccines, and best health practices.  NOTE: Attendees of this Town Hall are also invited to play a social justice and debate game of chance– To play this game take any three of the last four digits of your phone number, and arrange them into a number between 23 and 894 and then submit that number together with your name when you attend.  

WBAI and Pacifica Decisions- Competing Successfully With the Internet vs And/or Becoming Internet Successful.  (Sunday, September 18th at 4:00 PM- Zoom information to attend is in the Pacifica/WBAI calendar-click on the date- and the CDL Calendar) Listen to or watch the Recording HERE using the Passcode:!0b0MppY  The Pacifica Network originated as a network of terrestrial radio stations.  It’s no secret that the internet has brought a lot of “creative destruction” to all businesses, but particularly to virtually all forms of media, terrestrial radio included.  Just as the Craig’s list usurpation of classified ads worked to defund and financially starve newspapers, terrestrial radio’s business model has been challenged as audiences are siphoned off by an ever greater multiplicity of internet-based challengers supplying huge varieties of content, listening experiences included, that frequently seem even more convenient to access.  Most people now carry a smart phone in their pocket. Those phones easily access the internet providing podcasts or other forms of available listening streams, but those ubiquitous phones don’t provide terrestrial radio connections (although they easily could have that added feature).   Search engines and algorithms readily (and censoriously) direct people to internet-based content, but not, per se, without added effort, to terrestrial radio.  Terrestrial radio has understandably seen its audiences diminished.  This doesn’t mean that the audience for alternative media is diminishing: Alternative media on the internet is flourishing.  It is flourishing despite Big Tech’s exercise of considerable censorship.  Its audiences are growing to increasingly dwarf the audience of the Big Tech promoted legacy and corporate media.  But the Pacifica network stations, that once were the sine qua non in providing definitive alternative media, have not participated in that audience growth and shift to alternative media.  Is that because of Pacifica’s lack of internet savvy and presence?  Is internet savvy and slickness what’s needed to keep pace and similarly outpace corporate narratives?  Maybe, but as the recent spectacularly ignominious demise of CNN+ demonstrates, internet slickness alone means nothing in terms of capturing audience.  Also, as we reposition ourselves, reinventing ourselves in this internet world, might it not also be important to recognize characteristics of the internet from which audience might want to escape?: the data scraping, and regular surveillance, Big Tech’s curation and constant steering of what you see there along with censorship that includes the evanescence with which what’s on the internet can disappear when censored.  While we probably want to do both, what takes priority: for WBAI and Pacifica to compete with the internet on our own terrestrial radio terms, or to become internet successful with all the tools associated with success in that realm?

Recognizing The Methods By Which Public Assets Are Targeted, Taken Over, or Otherwise Neutralized (And Goals of Those Doing So).  Sunday, October 30, 2022 at 4:00 PM- Listen to or watch the Recording HERE using the Passcode:9?gHZPw4.   WBAI and all its sister stations in the Pacifica Network are part of our public commons.  They are publicly owned and controlled public assets.  Anyone can listen.  There are no bars to access, no user fees are demanded.  It exists through public contributions donated to freely benefit, without restriction, the entire larger community.  It therefore stands in contradistinction to and it competes with privately owned entities, including the corporately owned mainstream and legacy media.  Those other entities exist for different purposes pursuing different goals.

More and more frequently, we see the private sector targeting public assets and the commons for privatization, or sometimes just working toward its destruction, neutralization and/or possible replacement.  An explanation sometimes given is that, as capital continues to build up, it exhausts traditional investment opportunities and is forced to seek new, less traditional assets to acquire and monetize.  Or is it partly just what happens when there’s so much of this money sloshing around?  Quite importantly, it is important to remember that the competition from the Pacifica stations is a threat not only just to the goals and purposes of the corporately owned media, but also to the agenda of all the corporate expires and the rest of the establishment institutions with which corporate owned media is so fearsomely and completely interlocked.  Also efforts are always made to quash, any examples that model alternatives to the profit based capitalism (e.g. how we relentless impose sanctions of socialist countries, then declare the systems don’t work).

There is substantial overlap, but public assets may be privatized, or public entities that own and control such assets may also be taken over accomplishing the same thing. Similarly public purpose organizations may be targeted, or political parties, political movements, or causes may be targeted for takeover, redirection or ineffectualizeation.

In learning to recognize the tactics that used it is probably important to discern the goals of those acting to commandeer public realm assets and enterprises.  Those goals can be multiple: To monetize or privately profit from the changed ownership or control (e.g. privatized road for toll collection, library real estate turned into luxury condos); elimination of alternative models of success; squelching competition; thwarting an anti-corporate mission or promulgation of any anti-corporate narratives; while intending that good work of an entity should cease, it may also be the goal to use the accumulated prior good work and built up good will and trust of a captured entity to send the public off in wrong directions (e.g. captured environmental groups touting fracking as a “clean transitional fuel”); the captured entity can be used as a resource drain or suck (e,g. a captured public purpose entity political faction that continues to seek donations so that donated money is sidelined, not going to productive use; similarly, a takeover may be slow or incomplete, existing for a long time as a battlefield to drain the financial strengths, talent and available man hours of those fighting for pubic goods– much as the U.S. lured the Soviet Union into Afghanistan intending to sap its resources); lastly when privatization shifts functions away from the government (.e. the internet, the Post Office, surveillance agencies) to private entities, those private entities may have a freer hand (decision making included) to do that, which the Constitution (or voter control) might prevent the government from doing.

In this context, can we identify and discuss some of tactics used when targeting the public commons?  They include draining and starving the entity of funding (creating an argument that someone else or alternatives are better), creating crises, undervaluing the assets, working in stealth to formulate top-down takeover plans, infiltrattion of decision-making processes with people who are unsympathetic to the public and to public goals; dismissing, avoiding and interfering with workable alternatives and ways to keep public assets robust and self-sustaining; sending in disrupters who may engage in obvious power plays (“steering committee” grabs) and divide and conquer techniques (they may also use the CIA/FBI COINTELPRO tactics of promoting unworkable bureaucracy), and, for the longer term, sending in “pivot people” (and information collectors) who will be regarded as helping until their numbers build sufficiently for a flip in tactics/board control/etc; buy influence and position within the entity with appreciable donations, co-opting the goal-and-purpose language of the entity, which can also include redefining that language into less meaningful watered down expressions of purpose; set up astro-turf alternatives and competition.  We leave this list open for more thought and additions.

Effective Directing of Resources For Good Influence.
  (Part 1- Saturday, February 25th at 4:00 PM-  Listen to or watch the Recording HERE using the Passcode:*+G&6Z8* Part 2- Will be Sunday March 26th at 4:00 PM,  see the CDL Calendar for March 26 for Zoom meeting sign on information.)
You are paying at your pharmacy’s cash register, and the screen to confirm your payment asks whether you want to ‘round up’ your payment to make a donation their charity. Answer: No!- Why would you want a pharmacy chain with probably too many connections to Big Pharma, corporations and the medical establishment to be directing your money to where they want it to go?  A candidate is running for office: Do you donate to their campaign?  Maybe, if it qualifies them to get into debates where they are going to force discussion of certain issues.  In a flood of emails you are asked to donate again to a political party: Do you do it?  And have your money be the tail on a dog funded by lots of mega-corporations? Don’t think so!  Similarly, stopped on the street, you are asked to donate to save animals, protect the environment, or children via a charity that’s backed by big business conglomerates while parking political operatives at high-profile salaries.  Where do you put your money to influence the world for the better? Jane Mayer reported that the Koch brother’s decided to put their money into causes first, rather than politicians who could flip on them. What about sending some of your money and resources to WBAI and Pacifica for the influence it can have on the world?  Next question, when resources come into WBAI and Pacifica, how can they best be directed within the Pacifica environment?; to improve programming attracting a bigger audience, or to promote the good shows already here?. . Maybe paying for social media promotion that might be quashed by Big tech algorithms?  There is a lot up for discussion in a two-part WBAI Town Hall.

Music Programming on WBAI and Pacifica Stations.  Sometimes some of our biggest radio listening audiences, often along with reliably sizable donations come in from music programs.  But music comes in such variety. .   what music should best make its way onto our airwaves and how much should be played of all varieties to make way for all the richness that is available?  Furthermore, isn’t music deeply imbued with cultural message?  In this regard, should we now ask: Where have all the anti-war songs gone?  The protest songs?  Are they still being written?  Or should music perhaps be a justifiable and carefree respite and refuge from the blocks of talk radio Pacifica programs where we assiduously exercise our consciences searching for solutions for the world’s societal problems and what own role should be in pursuing such solutions?  Other questions: Should we strive to feature, perhaps prioritize: local talent?; live performances?; new current era music vs. music that, like the oft revered American Song Book or the nostalgic oldies you hear played in supermarkets, have withstood the test of time becoming familiar airs?  
              
Improving WBAI and Pacifica Reputation and Brand. Do WBAI and Pacifica suffer from “reputational handicap.”  Do our stations have a reputation for lack of professionalism?  Does our democratic, grass roots governance structure mean we have reputations for destructive infighting, and if so, is this inevitable or available?   Do we undermine the free speech radio brand we seek to promote with signals that we only tolerate a narrow range of discourse?  Are we viewed as a welcoming home to, and reliable platform for, new, different and a wide range of voices that can provide alternatives to the corporate media?  Or are we hobbled by uncertainties about that?  If our reputation handicaps us, it can dissuade people, potential show hosts and producers, from bringing programs, messages and content to WBAI’s air.  Similarly, it can limit our pool of applicants for those who might work at the station or network.  It can drive away potential LSB board members or others who might be willing to contribute constructively in different ways to WBAI’s and Pacifica’s governance.  It can intimidate people who might step up to provide special fundraising premiums based on their work.  It can scare away potential contributors who could be making donations. Listeners may not then have a positive and clear perception of the WBAI brand, plus it may interfere with a full spectrum of good feelings about the station as a welcoming community. It can foster the idea that WBAI and Pacifica have no future.  Robust disagreement and debates between friends and allies is valuable.  It can even be friendly.  Alternative media can be a very big tent without ever retreading any of the corporate media narratives. But are we instead suffering from the effects of divide and conquer?  If so, what do we do to improve our brand and reputation.

WBAI and Pacifica Stepping Into The Breach As We Increasingly See More Internet Censorship.  If we are free speech radio, do we find that our most valuable content for the airwaves will be in inverse proportion to that which is censored?  Maybe that’s always been the case, but is it possible that the increasingly blatant censorship of the internet coming from Big Tech as an arm of government gives WBAI and Pacifica a perfect opportunity to strengthen, burnish and promote our brand?  And doesn’t it mean that the areas where there has been the most intense censorship is exactly where we should step in with flourish.  With the RT takedown much valuable alternative media programming was banished and disappeared, including our own “Chris Hedges On Contact” program.  Chris Hedges is one area where we stepped into the breach to broadcast a new resurrected version of Hedges’ weekly broadcast.  That’s something we can toot our horn about! It’s an age-old story with us that anti-war content, and content about promoting peace, have been intensely censored and squelched in our mainstream corporate media.  Likewise, criticism of capitalism and information about systematic racism, particularly the forms it takes with our police and in our prisons.  What else is high on the censorship list these days? It would seem at least the following: The conduct of the Israeli state in occupied Palestine, the topic of Big Pharma’s influence and the reliability of related Covid issue narratives, certainly now discussion about Ukraine and NATO, the topic of Big tech and authoritarian censorship itself, and now getting onto the list is the question of whether the U.S. is in a “recession.”  Participants in the discussion can probably add to the list.  Participants are also free to argue that they think certain points of view, or people they might identify, should be censored or “curated” off the air.  Most important is whether WBAI and Pacifica are stepping up to meet and take advantage of the challenges and opportunities here.

Tuesday, June 7, 2022

Brooklyn Public Library Opens Shrunken, Sunken Library At Downtown Brooklyn Site of What Was Once Brooklyn Second Biggest and Most Important Library

BPL President Linda Johnson there at the shrunken sunken library opening to greet the public

Today at exactly 1:00 PM the Brooklyn Public Library opened the shrunken, sunken library that at the site of what was once the downtown Brooklyn Heights Library.  The Brooklyn Heights Library, centrally located in Brooklyn’s downtown business district was Brooklyn second biggest and most important library.

The library that opened today will not be a Business Library, a Career Library, and Education Library, or a federal depository library, all of which the former library with many more books was.  The new library’s most toutable feature is that it has some very high ceilings.  These high ceiling serves to boost the luxury apartments in the tower above it up high above the homes of neighbors.  It’s a symbol and a message that some folk should be boosted up over others in the community.  That goes along with the reason that in this shrink-and-sink deal the library’s publicly owned real estate assets were sold off to create the luxury tower.

The air conditioning in the new library also works.  That’s something people will appreciate.  They refused to fix the air conditioning in the former library as an excuse to sell it.

When the old library was sold, the public was told a new library would “replace” it in three years.  The former library shut down back in July of 2016.  You could actually say that it was subject to a long slow gradual shutdown that started way before that, long before books were being removed by the truckload in June 2016.  The trees were removed from outside the closed library in February 2017.  Today’s date is June 8, 2022.  So how long a wait did it actually take to open this one?  That’s notwithstanding that the luxury tower in which the library is housed didn’t stop construction during Covid under the pretext that the luxury tower should be considered affordable housing according to the shutdown rules.

The public’s 1:00 PM admission to the library was after a 12:00 Noon Ribbon Cutting ceremony.  That Ribbon Cutting ceremony was private and just fro the invited.

When we asked developer David Kramer (picture below) if Bruce [Ratner] was there, he said, “Of course” and then went on to say that Ratner had not actually benefitted financially from the sale of the library as he said that Citizens Defending Libraries reported.  Ratner’s company owned the adjacent real estate, which had to participate in a combining of zoning lots that allowed the Saint Ann’s School to get a financial windfall selling its air rights for building of the new luxury tower.  We guess that what Mr. Kramer meant is that Mr. Ratner and his companies did a favor for the real estate industry here with no direct, discernible, and traceable quid pro quo. 

We heard that the button to operate the front door for exiting handicapped people was observed to be not working.  Oh, my,- . . .  maybe they will have to sell this library and downgrade to a smaller library to pay to have electronics for working buttons?





























When we asked developer David Kramer (picture above) if Bruce [Ratner] was at the private ribbon cutting, he said, “Of course” and then went on to say that Ratner had not actually benefitted financially from the sale of the library as he said that Citizens Defending Libraries reported.  Ratner’s company owned the adjacent real estate, which had to participate in a combining of zoning lots that allowed the Saint Ann’s School to get a financial windfall selling its air rights for building of the new luxury tower.  We guess that what Mr. Kramer meant is that Mr. Ratner and his companies did a favor for the real estate industry here with no direct, discernible, and traceable quid pro quo.



Monday, May 23, 2022

Forum, Wednesday, May 25th: Real Universal Suffrage – Voting Rights for the Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated

Want to really know about restoration of the voting rights that have taken from incarcerated? All of our forum panelists, are well versed in the subject and all, have had first hand experience being among the incarcerated- Names and bios below.

It’s about democracy!
That's why Citizens Defending Libraries is participating in bringing you this forum.  It is doing so with the Weaving Social Justice Committee of the First Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Brooklyn (in conjunction with which we have brought you other forums about, voting rights and disenfranchisement, privatization of public assets, and where we get our news and information), and working with New York for Full Restoration of Voting Rights Coalition who is providing the panelists and moderator for this event.  All of the panelists have experienced incarceration.

Here is the information:

* * * *

Virtual Forum – Wednesday, May 25, 2022 – 7:00 PM (on Zoom)
Real Universal Suffrage – Voting Rights for the Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated
Presented by the Weaving Social Justice Committee of the First Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Brooklyn in Conjunction with New York for Full Restoration of Voting Rights Coalition.

Zoom Meeting Information:  To attend the meeting live and perhaps partipate in a Q&A, please email Michael D. D. White at MDDWhite [@] aol.com for a link.  Pleas put in you email: xRequestForumLinkx.

In addition, afterwards, we expect to update this post to include a link recording on of the forum.
(This is a redo of this forum.  We halted our first attempt at this forum when it was Zoom bombed.)

In the 1800s, prior to the emancipation of enslaved people, New York State changed its laws to take away the voting rights of those it incarcerated.

Incarceration has traditionally been used in the US as a means of removing voting rights from a substantial number of American citizens – particularly Black, Latinix and Indigenous people. And with the current state of mass incarceration this disenfranchisement has profound and unconscionable effects of democracy. What can be done to restore voting rights and create greater equity?  

In New York State: What are the current rules for people on parole or released? What are the rules now for people currently in prison? What changes do we want to see? How can this be accomplished? Who is working for change – and how? How can you become involved?

Join us on Wednesday, March 2nd when we will hear from New York for Full Restoration of Voting Rights Coalition -and from the personal experience of those involved in the struggle.

For the Zoom link please contact rpearl112@gmail.com 

“The power to vote is critical for all citizens, but particularly those who are formerly or currently incarcerated, as it: 1) enables participation in our democracy, 2) allows them to stay integrated into society and, 3) reduces recidivism rates. Felony disenfranchisement has been included in New York State law ever since the 1821 NYS Constitution. Two hundred years of this racist law is enough!” (quote from the AFJ-NY website)

Moderator


Aqirah Stanley, Deputy Director of Alliance of Families for Justice- Aqirah Stanley, has been an active member of Alliance of Families for Justice since January 2018. She started out as AFJ’s first Shirley Chisholm Fellow, and then became AFJ's Project Manager before stepping into the role as Deputy Director. As a directly impacted person, Aqirah fully understands the trauma and challenges of incarceration on families and children and wholeheartedly supports the use of collective action as a driving force of change, healing, and empowerment. Aqirah has been a passionate visionary and an asset to AFJ since day one, and looks forward to continuing to create opportunities for AFJ to unite and empower directly-impacted families and friends, as well as allies and volunteers.
Panelists (All of the panelists, knowledgeable about the subject of voting rights for the incarcerated, have had the first hand experience of being one of the incarcerated):

Victor Pate, New York Campaign For Alternatives To Isolated Confinement Statewide Campaign Organizer - Victor Pate brings years of organizing experience into his role as a NY statewide organizer and a formerly incarcerated individual. He is a founding member and chairman of the National Action Network NYC Chapter Second Chance Committee, and an active coalition member of several criminal justice, prisoner advocacy and legislative reform organizations. He has and is overcoming the many barriers and hurdles systemically in place that prevent people with current and previous criminal justice involvement from fully and completely reintegrating into society.

Angel Solis, is the Project Coordinator for the Youth Empowerment Project at the Alliance of Families for Justice. The Youth Empowerment Project is a youth community leadership training program. Mr. Solis was born and raised in the Bronx and was previously incarcerated for a total of ten years. While in prison, Mr. Solis was fortuitously placed in a prison with a college program and took advantage of a free education. In 2016, Mr. Solis, desirous of a college degree, was released from prison and was accepted at Columbia University. He graduated in 2021 with a B.A. in Sociology. Mr. Solis is a firm believer in the revolutionary power of education and truth and it is because of this belief that he has committed his life to its proliferation

Uwimana Aisha Radellant,  Currently, attending John Jay College of Criminal Justice, a full-time student in the Public Administration in Public Policy, Master’s Program specializing in Criminal Justice Reform. Began a second specialization in Management and Operations in the fall of 2021, to be completed December of 2022.  David Rockefeller Fund Fellow. Won the Victor Hassine Memorial Award. Mentor at the Institute for Justice and Opportunity, formerly known as the Prison Reentry Institute, and Mentor for both the Justice Institute and College and Community Fellowship. Former participant of the College and Community Fellowship WISH Policy Program. A survivor of the American criminal injustice system. “My traumatic first-hand interactions with the misrepresentation cloaked in the falsehood of American justice infuriated me into action. I felt I had no choice but to dedicate my life’s work to addressing this shameless, unrelenting system of inequality systematically designed to forever suppress and subjugate all people of color. My personal experience of `innocent until proven guilty’ proved this phrase is simply that, nothing but hollow words that only applies to the wealthy.

Elder Louis D. Rodriguez, MPS, A native Brooklynite who served 26 years of a 20 years to life sentence. Past Lead Mentor, Edenwald Arches, FEDCAP Rehabilitation Services, Past vice president of Jefferson & Sons LLC, a real estate management firm, Ruling Elder & Clerk of Session, The Church of Gethsemane, (PCUSA), General Board, New York City Presbytery, Co-Chair, Self-Development of People (SDOP) committee, New York City Presbytery, Lifetime Member, Uptown Democratic Party, New York City Election Poll Worker, New York County Board of Elections


 

Tuesday, February 22, 2022

Forum, Wednesday, March 2nd: Real Universal Suffrage – Voting Rights for the Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated

Want to really know about restoration of the voting rights that have taken from incarcerated? All of our forum panelists, are well versed in the subject and all, have had first hand experience being among the incarcerated- Names and bios below.

It’s about democracy!
That's why Citizens Defending Libraries is participating in bringing you this forum.  It is doing so with the Weaving Social Justice Committee of the First Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Brooklyn (in conjunction with which we have brought you other forums about, voting rights and disenfranchisement, privatization of public assets, and where we get our news and information), and working with New York for Full Restoration of Voting Rights Coalition who is providing the panelists and moderator for this event.  All of the panelists have experienced incarceration.

Here is the information:

* * * *
Virtual Forum – Wednesday, March 2nd 2022 – 7:00 PM (on Zoom)
Real Universal Suffrage – Voting Rights for the Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated
Presented by the Weaving Social Justice Committee of the First Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Brooklyn in Conjunction with New York for Full Restoration of Voting Rights Coalition.

Zoom Meeting Information
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85867660790?pwd=WVBDSnJxalFrU0p4WjBWRmpDZm5pUT09

Meeting ID: 858 6766 0790
Passcode: 939784
One tap mobile
+16465588656,,85867660790#,,,,*939784# US (New York)
+13017158592,,85867660790#,,,,*939784# US (Washington DC)
In the 1800s, prior to the emancipation of enslaved people, New York State changed its laws to take away the voting rights of those it incarcerated.

Incarceration has traditionally been used in the US as a means of removing voting rights from a substantial number of American citizens – particularly Black, Latinix and Indigenous people. And with the current state of mass incarceration this disenfranchisement has profound and unconscionable effects of democracy. What can be done to restore voting rights and create greater equity?  

In New York State: What are the current rules for people on parole or released? What are the rules now for people currently in prison? What changes do we want to see? How can this be accomplished? Who is working for change – and how? How can you become involved?

Join us on Wednesday, March 2nd when we will hear from New York for Full Restoration of Voting Rights Coalition -and from the personal experience of those involved in the struggle.

For the Zoom link please contact rpearl112@gmail.com 

“The power to vote is critical for all citizens, but particularly those who are formerly or currently incarcerated, as it: 1) enables participation in our democracy, 2) allows them to stay integrated into society and, 3) reduces recidivism rates. Felony disenfranchisement has been included in New York State law ever since the 1821 NYS Constitution. Two hundred years of this racist law is enough!” (quote from the AFJ-NY website)

Moderator


Aqirah Stanley, Deputy Director of Alliance of Families for Justice- Aqirah Stanley, has been an active member of Alliance of Families for Justice since January 2018. She started out as AFJ’s first Shirley Chisholm Fellow, and then became AFJ's Project Manager before stepping into the role as Deputy Director. As a directly impacted person, Aqirah fully understands the trauma and challenges of incarceration on families and children and wholeheartedly supports the use of collective action as a driving force of change, healing, and empowerment. Aqirah has been a passionate visionary and an asset to AFJ since day one, and looks forward to continuing to create opportunities for AFJ to unite and empower directly-impacted families and friends, as well as allies and volunteers.
Panelists (All of the panelists, knowledgeable about the subject of voting rights for the incarcerated, have had the first hand experience of being one of the incarcerated):

Victor Pate, New York Campaign For Alternatives To Isolated Confinement Statewide Campaign Organizer - Victor Pate brings years of organizing experience into his role as a NY statewide organizer and a formerly incarcerated individual. He is a founding member and chairman of the National Action Network NYC Chapter Second Chance Committee, and an active coalition member of several criminal justice, prisoner advocacy and legislative reform organizations. He has and is overcoming the many barriers and hurdles systemically in place that prevent people with current and previous criminal justice involvement from fully and completely reintegrating into society.

Angel Solis, is the Project Coordinator for the Youth Empowerment Project at the Alliance of Families for Justice. The Youth Empowerment Project is a youth community leadership training program. Mr. Solis was born and raised in the Bronx and was previously incarcerated for a total of ten years. While in prison, Mr. Solis was fortuitously placed in a prison with a college program and took advantage of a free education. In 2016, Mr. Solis, desirous of a college degree, was released from prison and was accepted at Columbia University. He graduated in 2021 with a B.A. in Sociology. Mr. Solis is a firm believer in the revolutionary power of education and truth and it is because of this belief that he has committed his life to its proliferation

Uwimana Aisha Radellant,  Currently, attending John Jay College of Criminal Justice, a full-time student in the Public Administration in Public Policy, Master’s Program specializing in Criminal Justice Reform. Began a second specialization in Management and Operations in the fall of 2021, to be completed December of 2022.  David Rockefeller Fund Fellow. Won the Victor Hassine Memorial Award. Mentor at the Institute for Justice and Opportunity, formerly known as the Prison Reentry Institute, and Mentor for both the Justice Institute and College and Community Fellowship. Former participant of the College and Community Fellowship WISH Policy Program. A survivor of the American criminal injustice system. “My traumatic first-hand interactions with the misrepresentation cloaked in the falsehood of American justice infuriated me into action. I felt I had no choice but to dedicate my life’s work to addressing this shameless, unrelenting system of inequality systematically designed to forever suppress and subjugate all people of color. My personal experience of `innocent until proven guilty’ proved this phrase is simply that, nothing but hollow words that only applies to the wealthy.

Elder Louis D. Rodriguez, MPS, A native Brooklynite who served 26 years of a 20 years to life sentence. Past Lead Mentor, Edenwald Arches, FEDCAP Rehabilitation Services, Past vice president of Jefferson & Sons LLC, a real estate management firm, Ruling Elder & Clerk of Session, The Church of Gethsemane, (PCUSA), General Board, New York City Presbytery, Co-Chair, Self-Development of People (SDOP) committee, New York City Presbytery, Lifetime Member, Uptown Democratic Party, New York City Election Poll Worker, New York County Board of Elections

Monday, February 21, 2022

Next Citizens Defending Libraries Meeting, Sunday, March 6th, On Zoom- Subject: Censorship


To all of our Library Defenders: Our next Citizens Defending Libraries meeting, will be Sunday, March 6th, 5:00 PM, On Zoom.

Of course, we will talk about a lot of things as usual, but the prime topic for conversation?: Censorship.

This page will be updated (including possibly with suggestions from you?) with some suggested links to read before you come to the meeting.

(or maybe you want to read some of our past CDL posts on the subject here.)

[Added After The Meeting: For those who did not make it to the meeting a recording of it is currently available here.  Plus, at the end of this post there are even more links about censorship that have now also been added post meeting.]

Here is the information to come.  

Topic: Citizens Defending Libraries Zoom Meeting On Censorship
Time: Mar 6, 2022 05:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)

Join Zoom Meeting
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Meeting ID: 863 8639 2509
Passcode: 766485
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Here is recent stuff about censorship:

People may know that when Joe Rogan was being criticized, Spotify took down his episodes about the Saudi Regime and Julian Assange.

This is new from Caitlin Johnstone- 

Spotify Purges Dissident Voices In Latest Censorship Escalation, Caitlin Johnstone, March 3, 2022.

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There is a new fascinatingly funny video out that's about censorship.  If you watch it, and think for a minute you''l realize how very much about censorship it is, how censorship has become ingrained, part of the air we breath so much so that we've almost stopped noticing it, and notice it more via its sudden absence whenever that is the case.  Hence, it's something the video demonstrates in more ways than one, meta included. 

Some of us, myself as one, may go back long enough to remember Saturday Night Live when it first started airing and to have tracked, more or less, the show's transitions through various phases over the years.

Although we took SNL to have a more healthy irreverence in earlier days, in recent years many of us have observed that it became very unfunny as it dutifully aligned itself with the rest of corporate and NBC propaganda.  This included unfair ad hominum attacks on Julian Assange accusing him of being a Russian asset; it promoted Russigate conspiracy thinking in general.  Was a new low just reached when the standard comic opening skit was ditched in favor of opening somberly with a choral group of blue-eyed blonds in Ukranian garb singing a hymn?

Clearly, SLN was once able to be transgressive, so much so that in 1998 it produced an animated song skit about media consolidation and control by our militaristic corporate overlords that NBC immediately excised from any rebroadcast or availability and has been vigorously swatting from the internet ever since.  (The 1998 Robert Smigel animated short film "Conspiracy Theory Rock," part of a March 1998 "TV Funhouse" segment is embedded here.)

The question about this brand new, remarkable, genuinely funny, and important video is why was it allowed to be produced and aired given that SNL humor is now so tightly policed and this seems so counter to what is supposedly the official narrative?

Here is the video:

Saturday Night Live COVID Dinner Discussion
Published February 27, 2022

* * * *

We have strongly advocated against not getting suckered into what we see as the divide-and-conquer  RedTeam/Blue Team trap.

Now, if we do get sucked into seeing the world in RedTeam/Blue Team divisions, and lots of people partisanly enlist as members of the "Blue Team," then we may now be sunk or at least have a real uphill battle in terms of free speech.  People who favor free speech might be immediately in the minority, with the majority in favor of having the government and/or Big Tech censor our news and define our narratives.

See chart below:


This chart was included in Glenn Greenwald's article: Media Do Not Want to Weaken Facebook, Just Commandeer its Power to Censor "Whistleblower" Frances Haugen is a vital media and political asset because she advances their quest for greater control over online political discourse. By Glenn Greenwald, October 5, 2021.

Our opinion? Government and the Big Tech monopolies are only fictively different, they are really melded and operating as one of the same.

Things are happening very fast.  Facebook has recently advocated for new censorship rules to apply to the entire internet.  Canada is now looking at legislation that would do exactly that.

Another example of where we are going is that the New York Times ran a piece recently that:

•        Proposes to redefine censorship out of existence (as we once did "torture"?)

•         Seeks to create a we/they division amongst the populace, the people who `very sensibly' understand that only the mainstream corporate narrative should be believed, and the `bad,' 'inferior' people who are necessitating harm-reduction information control that the rest of 'us' don't actually need, because the inferior people are so susceptible to crazy ideas 'we' would never consider.

See: YouTube’s Ban on Misinformation- And why it isn’t about us.- Restrictive Rules Are Less about Censorship and more about Thwarting Real World Harm, By Shira Ovide, October 5, 2021



This NY Times piece advocating that we redefine censorship out of existence actually proposes some false information as fact within its text.  It is also very similar in several ways to the presentation propaganda-meister Cass Sunstein made when he came on WBAI's air cloaking his real identity and associations.  See:  Jeff Simmons interviewing censorship advocate Cass Sunstein who was saying that we should change our Constitution to allow for greater censorship.


Not everyone leaning to the left is in favor of censorship as Glenn Greenwald is warning about.  When one Friday morning Democracy Now recently ran what was widely viewed as another pro-censorship story, after running others tilting that way, by Sunday evening there were over 2,700 comments (far more now) on the YouTube version of that segment excoriating Democracy Now for losing its compass and betraying its original brand and mission.

Censorship or Achieving Its Equivalent With “Cancel Culture,” “Kill The Messenger” (Various Means Used), Or Toxifying The Messenger And/Or Debate And Message-  

Cancel Culture Censorship

One reason we keep recommending episodes from Pacifica's "Project Censored Show" (where Citizens Defending Libraries has been covered) is because there are so many of them that are really good. 

We recommend this recent discussion of censorship and efforts at information and public discourse control that can hit closest to home for us-  The kind of censorship we ourselves often author and potentially launch from the left, so-called “Cancellation Culture”:
   
Dan Kovalik Speaks About his Latest Work, Cancel This Book: The Progressive Case Against Cancel Culture, July 20, 2021

There is also an earlier, shorter, worthwhile Project Censored Show segment with anti-war activist Dan discussing his book: Shahid Buttar and Dan Kovalik,  April 7, 2021 (Dan's interview starts the second half hour of the program at the halfway mark: 28:50)

Kill The Messenger

The precepts and practices of “Cancel Culture” placing certain thoughts out of bounds, bleeds over into a time honored method of narrative control: “Kill The Messenger.”  While “Cancel Culture” involves a narrowing orthodoxy  of what is permissible to think or say and how to express it, kill the messenger is directed at keeping what might be said unheard and unconsidered, precluding those then unheard thoughts and ideas from surviving based on their own merits.

“Kill the Messenger” can take many forms including actually assassinating important spokespersons like Fred Hampton, Malcolm X, or Martin Luther King, Jr.

It can involve locking people up and holding them incommunicado, cut off from normal means of communication, like Journalist and peace pursuer Julian Assange, anti-war whistleblower Daniel Hale, Journalist and former UK ambassador Craig Murray who was covering the Assange trial.

It can involve ad hominem vilification and often maliciously false or unfairly prejudicial discrediting attacks like those against Greta Thunberg (derided for being, like Assange, on the autism spectrum), Ralph Nader (responsible for some of the most important legislation in the 1970 and 80s- including Clean Air and Clean Water acts), tobacco industry whistleblower Jeffrey Wigand (the film “The Insider” documents this along with how the tobacco industry caused CBS news to censor and skew its reporting of a story harmful to the industry), Gary Webb, and environmental justice lawyer Steve Donziger.  In the entertainment realm personages attacked this way include: Charlie Chaplin, Josephine Baker (another civil rights threat), John Lennon and Paul Robeson.  We won’t include the attacks on the Dixie Chicks, because, instead of being ad hominem, they were attacked so vigorously specifically for what they said: Expressing sentiments against the US going to war in Iraq.

Such vilification and malicious discrediting attacks can be punishing enough, but “Kill The Messenger” can also involve simple outright efforts to punish, as with environmental justice lawyer Steve Donziger now imprisoned for over 900 days the only real reason being that he won a case against Chevron for oil company pollution of the Amazon.  The imprisonments that keep people incommunicado also effect such punishing. When such punishings are high profile enough to be well known within a profession then they also serve as examples that will cause others to self-censor and refrain the professional integrity of actually doing their job.  That’s even the case when any outrage associated with such punishings goes widely unreported to the public by the corporately owned mainstream media as is the case with Steve Donziger and journalist Julian Assange.  But after seeing the kind of psychological torture to which Julian Assange has been subjected, what journalist would not think twice about whether to follow his footsteps in being so bold and forthright in speaking truth to power and revealing its secret crimes?

Toxification of Messengers and Messages

Closely related to “Killing The Messenger” is toxification of the messenger.  After that, the message itself my be toxified.

One way to toxify messengers is to use agent provocateurs.  For instance, a nonviolent Black Lives Matters demonstration after the murder of George Floyd might be infiltrated by poseurs who provoke and engage in violence and behavior that will viewed as objectionable.  In much the same way, someone who is not entirely sincere might try to distract from certain legitimate theories by proposing a deliberately inane variation on the thinking that can be mocked.  Or they might even be sincere in their inane thinking (or just trying to be sensational to grab a quick buck), and get propped up by moneyed interests insincerely trying to promote the inane alternative for for purposes of confusing and toxifying the message.

The same way that a Black Lives Matters demonstration can be discredited if infiltrated by nonlegitimate participants, a parallel sort of thing can probably be done at the financial level, where amounts of money, not necessarily large, can be sent to support a legitimate demonstration or movement, while carefully laying a trail of breadcrumbs back to a perhaps illegitimate financier with a reputation than can be attacked.

The divide and conquer divisions of the country in all sort of various ways, one of the biggest and most important being the Red Team/Blue Team divisions in politics, sets the country up for wholesale toxification of messages.   Despite the fact that, cutting across the dividing duopoly party lines, supermajorities of American agree and want the same thing with respect to more than a score of the most important issues, we are not supposed to be talking across party lines and/or divisions and agreeing about things.  And that means thoughts and ideas should not stand and be considered on their own merit.  Why? because they are toxified by the division.  If Trump said something, then for some people it automatically meant the opposite must be true, even if Trump were to say something that was right.

So, for instance, we know of a sermon/homily given by a certain Catholic priest that eloquently expresses a warning and caution based on the well documented history of Big Pharma companies and the U.S. government experimenting grievously on our citizens without their knowledge or consent.  Yet as eloquent or accurate as that social justice oriented sermon is, it cannot be readily shared because that priest has positions about abortion and labor unions that are unacceptably right wing to too many people.     

In that case the message is toxified because the particular speaker has other idea viewed as unacceptable.  As with the Red Team/Blue team divisions we've been coaxed into, ideas and messages can also be toxified by their association with groups that tend to hold other ideas.  And, just as conclusions of guilt by association can readily apply to our conclusions about people, ideas, messages and beliefs can be toxified via guilt by association: One idea or message can be toxified by associating it as frequently being in the same company of another idea viewed as toxic.

One of the sets of ideas that our government is now working feverishly to toxify is any idea that our government or establishment media can label as a "conspiracy theory."   In basic terms, a conspiracy theory is that powerful people may have gotten together in secret to make plans for their own benefit, the public benefit or harm perhaps being largely disregarded.  Now, with power increasingly concentrated in just a few people around the world (during Covid the wealth, and presumably power, of the ten wealthiest men in the world doubled), the powerful want to tell us that such things just don't happen. .  at least not whenever they choose to label them "conspiracy theories."   

The Department of Homeland Security tells us that the "United States remains in a heightened threat" because of "false or misleading narratives and conspiracy theories," which it now labels with a shorthand acronym ("MDM") standing for "mis- dis- and mal-information."  These, they say come from "threat actors" who can "exacerbate societal friction to sow discord and undermine public trust in government institutions to encourage unrest."  That, it is important to note, they say can lead to "violence."  They say the threat of violence is presented and heightened because "false or misleading narratives, and conspiracy theories" converge with "violent extremist ideologies." 

Their for instances?  It threatening when the public believes in "election fraud" (like in Bush v. Gore?), and threatening when the public doesn't believe what the government and Fauci tells it about Covid (which is a problem since Fauci has been so inconsistent, changing his story, often wrong, and has admitting to lying more than once.)

DHS says it "is working with public and private sector partners, as well as foreign counterparts, to identify and evaluate MDM, including false or misleading narratives and conspiracy theories spread on social media and other online platforms that endorse or could inspire violence."

DHS tells the public that it should "recognize and build resilience to false or misleading narratives," and that the the public will be exercising "media literacy" if it works to listen mainly to the corporately owned mainstream media, which it characterizes as "well-known" and "trusted," and maybe like NBC as the example DHS gives.

Unlimited Hangout- Technocracy: The Operating System For The New International Rules-Based Order - The International Rules-Based Order (IRBO) is under threat and global power is shifting. As East and West rekindle old enmities we are led to believe that this struggle will determine the future of international relations and the direction of nation states. However, the global transformation is not led by national governments but by a global network of stakeholders and global technocracy is their goal. by, Iain Davis, February 22, 2022

. . . Recently the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) stated that undermining trust in the government was achieved by individuals spreading “false” narratives and that this was tantamount to terrorism. In other words, no US citizen has any right to question government policy. If they do, they are spreading disinformation. Consequently, the DHS suggests that not trusting the government should be prosecuted as a crime.

This is the claimed justification for the focus of the new domestic terrorism unit working alongside the US Justice Department’s National Security Division. Assistant Attorney General Matthew Olsen told a Senate Judiciary Committee that the unit was created to combat the growing threat of “extremism,” which apparently includes “anti-government and anti-authority ideologies.”

To question either “authority” or “government” is an extremist position, according to the US Justice Department and the DHS. There is no room for freedom of speech in the government’s extremist ideology. Without freedom of speech, US democracy is finished.

* * * *

The democratic tradition of sovereign individuals, exercising their rights and coming together to pursue their shared interests is what the UK government call the “democratic deficit.” Their intention, with their proposal for their new Bill of Rights, is to allow those who comply with their diktats some “elbow room” to live a relatively “normal” existence.

However, by defining what is in the “broader public interest,” they will curtail the liberties which they deem to be useless or harmful. “[T]he individual cannot be the judge, but the State only.” For example, the explanatory notes for the imminent Online Safety Act, The UK government announced:
    “The Online Safety Bill establishes a new regulatory regime to address illegal and harmful content online, with the aim of preventing harm to individuals.”
The current Bill defines whatever the government deems to be disinformation or misinformation as “content that is harmful to adults.” Freedom of speech and expression online will effectively be terminated by the forthcoming legislation. The UK state will not allow social media users to share any information without official approval. This is equivalent to the current situation in China.

PS:  Everything below is being added after the meeting we held, but is all quite relevant to what we talked about.

DuckDuckGo announces it will change its algorithms with respect to Ukraine and becomes #DuckDuckGone.  There is a huge amount of discussion about the situation in Ukraine going on right now.  In fact, to a large extent it is supplanting other significant discussions.  Infused into that Ukraine discussion is a vast amount of propaganda and misinformation that includes propaganda and misinformation from the United States and NATO countries and from Russia.  The DuckDuckGo search engine, an alternative to Google, has long marketed itself as having the benefit that searches conducted through DuckDuckGo are theoretically private and not tracked.  However, people have also been particularly attracted to using the alternative search engine because its searches weren't skewed like Google's increasingly are to eliminate narratives and information that may be more antiestablishment in nature.

DuckDuckGo may therefore have really hobbled is business prospects, disappointing those who were drawn to it from the latter reason, because it just announced that it is adjusting its algorithms: Now the only Ukraine war propaganda it will let see when you search with it will be U.S. and NATO propaganda, and everything DuckDuckGo deems Russian propaganda or misinformation will be suppressed by its algorithm.  That's why we became aware of it when the #DuckDuckGone hashtag started trending on Twitter.  The search company was apparently responding to government initiatives on required information suppression that may similarly affect other tech companies.  Will a company that is so compliant about propaganda be resolute when it comes to privacy protection?  Here a link to a video with more analysis:     

One of the victims of a new round of censorship that YouTube is justifying for purposes of managing the narrative respecting the war in the Ukraine is Lee Camp.  Here are his tweets about having his being censored, about how YouTube deleted his years of anti-war and anti-corporate work in a matter of minutes, and how with Facebook, Spotify and YouTube all censoring him he is pretty sure he’s “the most censored comedian in America who hasn't sexually assaulted someone.”


 

Also censored and loosing 600 posted interviews and reports is ant-war journalist Abby Martin.  Here is her tweet about that:


Here is Jimmy Dore’s analysis of YouTube’s war censorship standards (`Would reporting that the Gulf of Tonkin Incident was faked have been banned under such a policy?’): YouTube Censoring Anti-Ukraine War Coverage, March 13, 2022.  Here's Dore's take on #DuckDuckGone: DuckDuckGo DESTROYS Brand By Embracing Censorship, March 13, 2022.

Meanwhile, in another arena of censorship. . . .Kim Iversen was censored.  Kim Iversen has risen on The Hill’s “Rising” show to become something close to the show’s regular centerpiece after the corporate media Washington D.C. show had to rejigger to replace hosts after Krystal and Saagar departed (to go independent- and less censored?- with “Breaking Points”).  The Hill ran a segment where Kim Iversen reported on the what the court ordered release of Pfizer documents (only the first tranche of many more documents ordered to be released over the next year) revealed about potential adverse effects from the company’s mRNA vaccine and what Pfizer and likely the FDA knew about them but had not been informing the public about.  Was it an an especially good Rising episode?: Because it was quickly censored! "Kim Iversen: Pfizer Vax Docs Released By COURT ORDER, Data Will Tell The STORY About Side Effects (after a 309K views 1 day ago (Now it's "private" and disappeared!)

Somehow the broadcast was preserved in a friend's Facebook post (interesting!), and from the segment's opening we learn that this censorship is the second time a version of this Iversen Pfizer vaccaine side effects segment was taken down so, last checked, you can still see it.

While there was no direct mention of the Hill’s censorship of the two versions of this segment, The Hill quite interesting published (two days after the censoring taking down of the last version) a segment (read between the lines?) where Iversen reported (“YouTube has struck again”- “Free Speech Dead?) on the suspension of her own YuoTube channel for violation of YouTube’s “medical misinformation policy” for reporting about Covid.  The Hill segment provides an insight into the intimidating structure of YouTube’s censorship.  See: Kim Iversen Is SUSPENDED From YouTube Over Segment On Covid Therapeutic Study, March 14, 2022

Here is another form of selective censorship we've noticed in the last several days.  If civilian causalities are reported as the result of Ukrainian shelling of eastern (ethnically "Russian") portions of the Ukraine, Twitter is labeling it "sensitive content" you probably don't want to view and won't be allowed to view without changing your Twitter settings, but if there are civilian causalities reported as the result of Russian shelling in the Ukraine, it will not get this "sensitive content" suppression treatment.