dynamic_generals

Lending some anecdotal support, the wireless network of the large flagship I went to (in the time spanning the late oughts to the early 10s) operated well enough for the the time while allowing students to plug their own wireless routers into the single Ethernet port they otherwise us to split. And this was back in 802.11g days; before all the channels of 5ghz.

Students had a DC++ service running on the campus MAN, fed it by downloading Linux isos over the onion network… it wasn’t just us nerds doing it either- nearly everyone had a Wi-Fi router.

As time marches on, more rules are made, none are repealed, and student freedom and innovation is stifled. Then those growing up in relative freedom grow grumpy as they watch things enshittify for the people who won’t have known an alternative. I usually apply this thought to privacy philosophy but I see it fits here too.

Would you mind expanding on this? The idea piqued my interest, but couldn’t find information on that connection when looking for myself.

Fun fact: several of the Obama-era oligarchs (Koch and his donor circle) had parents in the John Birch society. They, being kids, found it baloney and just played outside the meeting place together before growing up to shape the nation in their image, together again.

For anyone without a New Yorker subscription, these journalists are podcasters. This investigation is season 3 of In the Dark. I found it worthwhile and recommendable, which I admit understates the lengths they went to in unearthing the story.

This is the same AG that blocked the court ordered release of two people who had been wrongfully imprisoned for decades. This was like two people in as many weeks, just a month or so ago. What the hell is going on with Missouri?

They let him off easy. I couldn’t figure out how exactly they’re related, but Richard Mellon Scaife is a big part of the reason we’re in the political mess we are today day. Americans distrusted corporations in the 1970s - tobacco, Dow Chemical, Nader’s Unsafe at Any Speed… also low income inequality. In response, future SCOTUS Justice Powell - who was on the board of Philip Morris and close friends with GM’s general counsel wrote what was intended to be secret memo for members of the US Chamber of Commerce:

‘Attack on American Free Enterprise System’ was written to transform corporate America into a “vanguard.” Contents include “the American economic system is under attack… [enemies are] perfectly respectable elements of society…the college campus, the pulpit*, the media, the intellectual and literary journals, the arts and sciences, politicians.” Capitalists need to wage “guerrilla warfare” against those seeking to “insidiously” undermine them. “Capture public opinion by exerting influence over the institutions that shape it - academia, the media, the churches, and the courts - to control debate at its source.” Said donors should demand a say in university hiring and curriculum and “press vigorously in all political arenas.” Key to victory is “careful long-range planning and implementation” with a “scale of financing available only through joint effort.” The memo spurred the ultra-conservative foundations to weaponize their “philanthropic” giving to “fight a multi-front war of influence over American political thought.”

The Coors family heeded the call first, followed by Mellon Scaife who massively overshadowed the Coors’. These foundations, that only existed for inheritance tax avoidance, were weaponized right at this moment… two months before Powell was nominated to The Court.

That’s how close we came to living in a good timeline.

And I’m only 1/4 of the way through Jane Mayer’s Dark Money; maybe just a tip of an iceberg. I’d suggest it’s required reading for every American. I should add Mayer is also responsible for unmasking Clarence Thomas in Strange Justice, the source for nearly everything we know about his grotesque history. I haven’t read it.

*this was pre-Moral Majority, but not by much.

Does a news article contain a question mark? Then it’s not a news article.

How Right-Wing Billionaires Infiltrated Higher Education

The key, Pierson explained, was to fund the conservative intelligentsia in such a way that it would not ‘raise questions about academic integrity.’ Instead of trying to earmark a chair or dictate a faculty appointment, both of which he noted were bound to ‘generate fierce controversy,’ he suggested that conservative donors look for like-minded faculty members whose influence could be enlarged by outside funding.”

“They must be given grants, grants, and more grants in exchange for books, books, and more books. [To be clear, books written by the Ivy League professors Olin bought; not books for students]

They know their ideas are bad for us and they’re forcing them through anyway. I’m sure nothing we don’t already imagine, but the linked excerpt from Jane Mayer’s Dark Money brings receipts.

There’s a difference between consumer luxury goods and actual luxury goods which are typically unbranded and bespoke.

Hi, thanks for that. Im not an electrician but I work for the IBEW! In the given example, electricians in my state have years of training and on the job experience*. To a non-electrician like me, my thinking is that they can control their environment- cut off power, and have an idea of what they’re going into at a given time. You don’t know what is behind the door at a domestic violence call.

ETA: *before earning a license. And FWIW, I’m not the one downvote; I was the second upvote. People be out here voting their opinions, not discussions.