Orwell and Fascism Come to America

At the risk of sounding like a screaming conspiracy theorist...

Held at the New York Public Library, Here We Go Again: Orwell Comes to America was a recent conference focusing on propaganda in today's America—right here, right now—and how it hogties our public freedoms.

I tried to view the webcasts, in which some great academic minds debate what might be the most important issues of our contemporary society, but I couldn't get the video to work properly (I'm on a Mac, and I believe they use Windows Media Player or whatnot). Maybe you'll have better luck.

Another riveting lecture (no, seriously), is Naomi Wolf's discussion of American fascism and our current administration's echoes of previous dictatorships. It's quite well-reasoned and frighteningly enlightening. Instead of watching the latest episode of Lost or 24, watch this:

Pennsylvania Says Information is the Enemy

If you're one of the thousands of consumers who likes to know what chemicals go into your food, Pennsylvania has a big screw you for ya:

"Effective Jan. 1, dairies selling milk in Pennsylvania, the nation's fifth-largest dairy state, will be banned from advertising on milk containers that their product comes from cows that have never been treated with rBST, or recombinant bovine somatotropin."

That's right—dairies are no longer allowed to let their customers know that they don't give rBST to their cows. The result is that customers will have no way of knowing which dairy products they buy are hormone free (unless they buy certified organics).



The law is likely going to spread (New Jersey and Ohio are next) as Monsanto, the country's largest producer of agro-chemicals used on our nation's food supply, lobbies state governments to increase the ban. Their logic? Letting customers know what's not in our milk "implies that competitors' milk is not safe."

There is something excruciatingly perverse about this ruling, and it's not just that agribusiness and government are trying to keep information from consumers. What's really perverse is that dairies are labeling their milk "rBST free" because consumers want them to; it adds value to the product. Monsanto recognizes this, and instead of adapting their business paradigm to meet this dramatic shift in consumer demand, they are forcing consumers to conform to their standards. That's not really how the free market is supposed to work, though, is it?

Update [11.28.07]: "...early last week Gov. Ed Rendell's office initiated a review of the decision...Chuck Ardo, press secretary for Mr. Rendell, said the governor's office heard complaints from elected representatives of rural districts and agriculture lobbyists, prompting the review." [full story via The Ethicurian]

Update [01.17.08]: The ban's been reversed! [References via The Ethicurian]


Further reading:
Full story from STLtoday.com
Bovine growth hormone information from the Organic Consumers' Association
List of rBST free dairy producers

Street Art: Stop War

When a neighbor recently traced the shadow of a parking sign onto our sidewalk using spray paint, it struck me as a fun way to play with light; the sign's shadow would fill up the spray-painted outline only at the exact moment of the day that the painter had done his work.

Then I came across this play on sign shadows:



[via Worst Weather Ever]

Spreading an Ideavirus

Seth Godin makes a very interesting point when he talks about how best to respond to the virus that is fundamentalist terrorism:

"The best way to counter an ideavirus, any ideavirus, is not by challenging the medium in which it spreads. It didn't stop pirate radio or salacious TV shows or online porn. What has always worked the best is countering one ideavirus with another one. To use the same medium to spread a different, better, more powerful ideavirus. You don't counter racism by making the act of uttering racist statements against the law. You do it by spreading an idea (racism is hateful, wrong and stupid) that keeps the racist from expressing his ideas because all his friends will shun him if he doesn't.

If you want moderate ideas to spread in a community, promote the people who are spreading those ideas. Make them heroes. Amplify their message and help it spread..."

A Serious Blow to Internet Censorship?

Right on the heels of my recent post about internet censorship comes what might very well be a solution. Picidae is an project created to bypass governmental spying and censorship via the internet. The project has seen a mild flurry of publicity across the internet as it nears release, and now as I try to load the site once again, I get an internal server error. Uh-oh.

The program (which, I believe, was developed by someone in Germany) is based on the technique used by governments like China in which a user's internet habits are tracked as they enter information online. Typically, censoring governments log search engine entries and URL entries, and if the offending site is restricted the user either is denied access to the site or gets their internet connection shut down completely. So, for example, Googling "Tiananmen democracy movement" might either return very few results, or shut down your internet connection.

Picidae allows you to enter an URL via their servers, and returns an image map of the target URL, as opposed to an html page. The links remain clickable and simple forms can still be filled out (so you could search Google all day long).

It's a brilliant concept, a potentially revolutionary system. I can only hope that the inability to access picidae.net at this moment is due more to some kind of access overload than to something more insidious.

[Edit: The Picidae site appears to be up and running now.]

Internet Without Borders? Think Again.

Technology has broken down global barrier after global barrier, bringing the outside world into some of the most geographically obscure localities. American TV shows are exported to countries still jonesing for our brand of "culture" and products cross oceans both ways, scratching that consumerist itch that continues to spread like a rash over the earth's surface (the number of Chinese products, for example, imported to the U.S. more than tripled in the last twenty years¹). China would seem to be reciprocating the favor, opening the mainland to U.S. imports as well.² But some borders will not be breached no matter the price paid by the country's citizens.



China has the dubious distinction of joining a dozen other countries in enforcing an internet "black hole." The above map, produced by Reporters Without Borders, shows us who is not allowed to freely surf the net throughout the world. Some of these countries filter out sites that disagree with the ruling government, some monitor and log users' internet activity, others ban private service providers and still others go as far as to imprison those who use the internet to freely express themselves.

While it strikes me as unforgivably unjust that our global economy continues to support such political oppression, maps like the one above remind me how deeply graphic depictions of this kind of injustice can strike a chord. With so much visual clutter bouncing off our retinas, it's nice to see some meaningful messages being sent through the airwaves and internet tubes, too.

(Don't forget to ask yourself: how does the U.S. fare in all of this?)

[via Strange Maps]

Take a Propagander

Although the idea of an art show at a San Francisco nightclub featuring propaganda posters from around the world freaks me out to no end (honey, let's get our politics on while sipping cosmos by the pool, shall we?), I am truly fascinated by this collection of propoganda posters pulled together by the organizers of Propaganda III. You can check out the growing collection of posters on Flickr but remember: these are propaganda posters and are full of anger, hate and resentment.

Rock on!

Imagine a Billboard Cemetary

Imagine a city with no outdoor advertising: the billboards become naked skeletons, bare taxicabs and buses drive past leaving you with no final message, there are no posters, or flashing neon, or cardboard cutouts begging from you and teasing you and screaming for your wallet/mind/soul. When you close your eyes and imagine this new city, does it look something like this?











Welcome to Sao Paulo, Brazil, where the mayor has outlawed all outdoor signage. He's been called a fascist for doing so, hailed as a visionary, and generally gotten a whole lot of publicity. But will it work? Will stripping the city bare really mark a "victory of the public interest over private, of order over disorder, aesthetics over ugliness, of cleanliness over trash," as writer Roberto Pompeu de Toledo described the new law?

I can think of three possible arguments against the ban:

1. It restricts free speech.
2. It ignores the possibility that advertising might actually add to the public good.
3. It will put an industry out of work and affect the livelihood of thousands of small businesses.
   

Of course, the first argument goes without saying. But the government knows this already: one city councilman admitted that "some people are going to have to pay a price" for what he described as a "complete change of culture."

And what about the second argument? Is it possible that advertising isn't all evil? (Bill Hicks is rolling over in his grave as I type.) Gustavo Piqueira is a designer who "worries that much of the 'vernacular' lettering and signage from small businesses—'an important part of the city's history and culture'—will be lost." I think this is a valid point. Hand painted signs, storefronts and artisan vendor advertising all add to a visual language that is inevitably unique to the community that produces it. Can it be ugly? Sure. Should it be banned? Not so sure.

And, of course, there is the final question of money; only time will tell if the law will put people out of work and negatively impact Sau Paulo's economy. I suspect it will cause more problems than it solves, although the government does expect to slowly allow a more regulated advertising industry back on the streets.

But more importantly, it raises some interesting questions about what is and what isn't culturally worthwhile. Will stripping away ads while leaving the physical framework really look better? And will it impact consumer habits? I have to admit that I'm excited that a city as large as Sau Paulo has actually taken such a dramatic step to find out, regardless of whether or not it's the right step. Some questions you just can't answer without actually acting first.