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Ethericat 42 posts |
Edited May 14, 2017, 08:15
May 14, 2017, 08:11
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Spot on analysis there re. Neo Liberalism and the current Russia angle in the majority of the MSM. I totally agree.
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thesweetcheat 6209 posts |
May 14, 2017, 10:27
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While Trump and Bannon appear to have meddled in the UK's referendum: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/may/07/the-great-british-brexit-robbery-hijacked-democracy https://amp.theguardian.com/technology/2017/may/14/robert-mercer-cambridge-analytica-leave-eu-referendum-brexit-campaigns |
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phallus dei 583 posts |
Edited May 14, 2017, 16:31
May 14, 2017, 16:30
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thesweetcheat wrote: While Trump and Bannon appear to have meddled in the UK's referendum: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/may/07/the-great-british-brexit-robbery-hijacked-democracy https://amp.theguardian.com/technology/2017/may/14/robert-mercer-cambridge-analytica-leave-eu-referendum-brexit-campaigns I don't think the articles persuasively show that Trump meddled in the Brexit election, or that the UK's democracy has become "hijacked" (as the title of the first article suggests). The articles are about how two data mining firms, Cambridge Analytica and Aggregate IQ, devised strategies to target voters for the Leave Campaign. I don't know the specifics of British laws; but certainly in America hiring outside firms to plot election strategies is common. Steve Bannon used to be on the board of Cambridge Analytica. In August 2016 he stepped down to become chair of the Trump campaign. At the time of working on the Brexit campaign, Cambridge Analytica had been providing data mining services for the Ted Cruz campaign in the US; when that fizzled out, it started to work for the Trump campaign in summer 2016 (the same time Bannon joined). Maybe Bannon deserves some of the credit / or the blame for the UK referendum result, but I don't see how Trump was involved. In any case, unless Cambridge Analytica / Aggregate IQ were able to alter the actual votes, it's an overstatement to claim that they "robbed" British democracy. At the same time that British voters were exposed to the views of the Leave camp, they would have been exposed to the views of the Remain camp. It's the voters themselves who bear responsibility for how they voted (or if they voted), not some data mining firm that tried to persuade voters to vote a certain way. Although campaigns employ such firms, it's unclear to what degree such data mining tactics contribute to a campaign win. The New York Times in March 2017 ran an article suggesting that Cambridge Analytica did not significantly help Trump win: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/06/us/politics/cambridge-analytica.html?_r=0 One area where I do agree with the article lies in the danger of having our data gathered and then sold by major social media platforms. I would love to see Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, and Google each broken up into smaller companies, and strict internet privacy laws put into place. Until that happens though, it's to be expected that campaigns will use whatever tools they can. |
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thesweetcheat 6209 posts |
May 14, 2017, 17:37
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You're probably right about Trump not necessarily being directly involved, but the people involved are closely linked to him and his election campaign. Bannon certainly has his fingerprints on it. As for the UK, what they did appears to have been a breach of electoral rules i.e. illegal. If so, that's serious and I don't think the articles are overstating the issue by saying that this is a threat to our democratic system. I'm under no illusions that the system has always been rigged in favour of the rich and powerful. Trump is simply the latest rich person to take control, although anyone thinking a billionaire was there to champion working people (any more than Farage was here) against a different set of the rich and powerful was naive at best. |
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phallus dei 583 posts |
May 15, 2017, 14:52
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thesweetcheat wrote: As for the UK, what they did appears to have been a breach of electoral rules i.e. illegal. If so, that's serious and I don't think the articles are overstating the issue by saying that this is a threat to our democratic system. I'm under no illusions that the system has always been rigged in favour of the rich and powerful. Trump is simply the latest rich person to take control, although anyone thinking a billionaire was there to champion working people (any more than Farage was here) against a different set of the rich and powerful was naive at best. Certainly, if any of the groups that took part in the Referendum vote did anything illegal, they should be penalized, and - depending on the scope of such illegal activity - the results of the election may need to be reconsidered. Not knowing the intricacies of British law, and having had a hard time deducing what exactly was "illegal" in the articles you shared, I will leave it at that. As for Trump, I think it's an overstatement to dismiss those who thought he would bring positive change as "naïve at best". (And ignorant at worst, I guess?) I stand by my belief that he was the best option America had in November '16. Although he is a billionaire, he wasn't a venture capitalist or IT guy. His wealth was tied to manufacturing, which was the sector that brought relative prosperity to American workers in the 50s - 80s. And although he was a member of the elite, he seemed to genuinely piss off the majority of the establishment, as well as the establishment media. It wasn't a sign of ignorance to hope that Trump would bring real change, considering that the status quo was so adamantly against him. It's also important to remember the alternatives. There was no viable independent mass movement like in the late 60s, where one could pin one's hopes in lieu of voting. And there was no other viable anti-establishment candidate - Sanders had already dropped out and endorsed Hilary. And Hilary was clearly at home with the elites, and praised by them. Even if Trump was a complete fraud from the beginning, his campaign accomplished two wonderful things - it interjected a semblance of class consciousness to millions of American workers, and it exposed how the media is not "independent", but simply a mouthpiece for the elites. Now that more and more Americans are realizing that their interests are not reflected in Washington, and that the media is designed to control them, two of the dominant myths used to legitimate the system are starting to erode. Waking up is the first step toward building a genuine counterhegemonic movement, one that truly reflects peoples' interests.
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