IP

One of the more brilliant bits of marketing language is "Intellectual Property." "Property" conveys the notion of permanence, while "Intellectual" conveys the sense of of seriousness.

Here is what the Constitution says (pdf) about copyright and patent:

To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.

As always, the Founders recognized that times change, and that it is best to draw broad guidelines rather than precise definitions of stuff like how long monopolies on developments in science and useful arts should be in place. But they did clearly say "limited."

Current law doesn't reflect any notion of "limited" times.

The duration of copyright in these works is generally computed in the same way as for works created on or after January 1, 1978: the life-plus-70 or 95/120-year terms apply to them as well. The law provides that in no case would the term of copyright for works in this category expire before December 31, 2002, and for works published on or before December 31, 2002, the term of copyright will not expire before December 31, 2047

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So Mickey is good until 2048, at which time Disney will have gotten another renewal.

The entire point of having patents and copyright exist for a limited time is so that the work can eventually enter into the public domain, that the creators get a period of time where they exploit their ideas in a monopolistic environment, but, at some reasonable time after their invention or creation, the work becomes publicly available. The idea of copyright and patent is to protect innovation, for long enough that it encourages such innovation, but not so long that it remains out of the public sphere.

This idea has been lost. Walt Disney is long dead. He isn't around to take advantage of his ability to develop a new Mickey Mouse character. The corporate inheritors of his legacy of genius are stifling innovation, in violation of the intent of the Founders. But they are well-funded, and fund their legislators to keep Mickey, and every other work that took place after Mickey, out of the public domain.

Shilling 2.0

Every so often, one hears of these flacks and operatives that supposedly go through commentary in establishment media sites, and will post agenda-advancing comments posing as ordinary readers. I hadn't seen one for myself until today.

This is one of these shills in action up at Swampland, in an important lobby-busting post from Karen Tumulty on a Times article on corporate influence called "Our Chatty Cathy Congress" (the hyperlink to the post is given the helpful URL "swampland.blogs.time.com/2009/11/15/drug-industry-pulls-the-strings-in-congress"):

Why is the headline linking to this story entitled "How the Drug Industry Pulls Congress's Strings? Once you review the actual article it becomes a discussion of the standard operating procedure of lobbyists and elected congressional representatives. Nothing in the story raises even a hint of an industry wide scheme of manipulation, never mind anything untoward at all.

The industry isn't perfect, but then I challenge you to find one that is, and I'd ask you to start with the profession of journalism. I long for someone to merely present me with the relevant facts so I may make my own judgments and conclusions, and weary of a focus on the sensational to the complete absence of presenting all sides of the issue.

Why has the Times chosen to denigrate an industry? Can I trust media if they don't present all sides of a story? You are supposed to present information, not simply tar industries, groups, individuals, with a brush and a label such as the one leading into this article. Don't you understand, I can't tell the difference between you and Fox; neither of you will give me the facts without bias or even give me all the facts.

Time, prove yourself journalists, and write an article about the good in this industry and the people who labor in it, rather than just focus on the negative aspects. The costs of prescription medications gets loads of press, but have any of you ever stopped to calculate and compare the annual costs of blood pressure medication vs the cost of treating a stroke. If you don't write this story, please change your tabloid, sensational tactics.

Give me Joe Friday and just the facts please.

Posted by: mdfstx
November 15, 2009
at 5:30 pm

Wow...What naked propaganda. How fucking stupid do these jackals think we, the politically engaged public, are?

This was my response:

The industry isn't perfect, but then I challenge you to find one that is...

If by "perfect" one means "unwilling to subvert through material influence the democratic processes our nation has preserved with the blood of patriots", then no, there doesn't seem to be a "perfect" industry in sight.
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The challenge isn't to find an industry that's "perfect", but to find and implement the system through which industry influence is minimized, and public influence is raised to its proper level. To do so necessarily means to weaken the power of corporations.
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...and all the yelling of "Bias! Bias!" is so much cheap working of the refs. The press should be biased --biased toward the public interest where it conflicts with industry's. Dutifully presenting "all sides of the story" has no public value whatsoever when one side is the public interest, and the other is industry interest. Only a shill or a fool would demand that the tobacco companies' point of view be given equal time and emphasis along side lung surgeons' in a piece on the dangers of smoking.

Time, prove yourself journalists, and write an article about the good in this industry and the people who labor in it, rather than just focus on the negative aspects.

That's a truly ridiculous demand, completely at odds with what the problems of journalism actually are. Balance for balance's sake (or to satisfy the criticisms of industry PR shills) isn't synonymous with presentation of the truth. Real journalists don't "balance" negative aspects of a story for the sake of deflecting criticism. There either is significant equivalence, or there isn't. The industries themselves are more than capable of buying advertising time and public relations expertise testifying as to "the good in this industry and the people who labor in it", something of which ordinary folks are well aware.
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Luckily for the institution of journalism, this kind of bogus criticism can now be countered by so many more engaged news consumers demanding an end to He Said-She Said. Luckily for us, most of us see this kind of demand for fake balance for what it is, and can tell journalists directly to reject it on our behalf --which they are starting to do.

I've always thought that this sort of sock-puppetry was more urban mythology than everyday reality, but I'm starting to reconsider.

Here's some video of mdfstx expressing another honest opinion at an "Americans For Prosperity" rally (he's the man in the top hat passing out fliers):



If you see bogus calls for "balance" and silly invective involving "bias" that doesn't emanate from the rightist "liberal media"-bashing crowd, it might make some sense to take thirty seconds to add your two cents about how journalism that seeks refuge from criticism in balance is useful to public relations shills --and nobody else.

From the Beltway Pundits' Mindreading Textbook Comes...

This post by Swampland's newest "contributor" Amy Sullivan almost perfectly illustrates the chattering class' inability to distinguish facts from their own imaginations:

Showing he's still really good at thinking things all the way through, Blago has picked Roland Burris no doubt in part because he thinks Senate Democrats would have a tough time refusing to seat a man who would be the Senate's only African-American member. He's right to think they wouldn't be thrilled about it. But they're even less thrilled about lending any legitimacy to Blago himself or accepting a replacement for Obama who would have an uphill battle retaining the seat in 2010.

Although Burris was the first African-American elected to statewide office in Illinois as the state's comptroller, he has struggled in campaigns as well, losing races for governor, U.S. Senate, and mayor of Chicago. Even Blago has expressed concerns about Burris' electability. In a 2002 radio interview on V-103's Cliff Kelley Show, after Blagojevich defeated Burris in a primary contest for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination, Blago said that the color of Burris' skin "hurt him" at the polls.

It's a quirky strategy, appointing a candidate you don't think can win. But I'm sure it will turn out just as well as Blago's other creative efforts.

As I say to Amy Sullivan in my commentary, that sure is a lot of mind reading going on. Does this person truly believe that these simple conjectures are actually verifiable in any way? Yes, if what constitutes "verifiable" in your world is the merely plausible as represented by your colleagues' cocktail party chatter/cable news show round-table.

A cursory reading of her blather prompted this comment from me:

Amy Sullivan:

That's sure a lot of mind-reading in this post.

Is there any information to be had out there for some intrepid political reporter to discover that might indicate why Roland Burris has had a less-than spotless win track record in Illinois? Might that information have something to do with less-than-pure factors in Illinois pushing back against Burris' clean politics? Or maybe the races in which he ran had more to do with demographics issues?

After reading your post, I don't know the answer to these questions, and apparently you don't even care to know. Perhaps you might be so good as to provide something more in the way of background and insight than this rather facile cable news-talk segment.

Thanks in advance for not settling for the least insightful, most easily repeated storylines, Amy Sullivan.

What I didn't mention in my comment was the particularly egregious conflation of Burris' gubernatorial primary defeat with "Burris' electability" in general. Let's set aside for a moment an examination of the sheer ludicrousness of Amy Sullivan's quoting Governor Pay-to-Play McConflict-of-Interest in support of any candidates' prospects at the polls. If we look squarely at this post's message, we get to see an incredible sleight-of-hand take place: Burris' defeat in the Illinois Democratic machine's primaries somehow morphs into "electability" in general.

When Amy Sullivan writes "losing races for governor, U.S. Senate, and mayor of Chicago", she somehow neglects to mention that these were Democratic primaries, and not actual statewide races for these offices between a Republican and a Democrat. Perhaps she doesn't know. I have no idea.

In the possibility that she doesn't appreciate the difference in Illinois between a Democratic primary and any other race, let's look at who won these primaries, shall we?

From 1979 to 1991, Burris was elected to the office of Comptroller of Illinois. He was the first African American to be elected to a statewide office in the state of Illinois. Burris was an unsuccessful candidate for the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate in 1984, losing to Paul Simon who went on to defeat incumbent Senator Charles Percy.

From 1991 to 1995, he was Attorney General for the State of Illinois, where he supervised over 500 lawyers. There, he was the second African American elected to a state office of Attorney General in the United States.

In 1994, he was an unsuccessful candidate for the Democratic nomination for Governor of Illinois. While Burris had been favored for much of the primary campaign, he and Cook County Board President Richard Phelan were both defeated by State [Comptroller Dawn Clark Netsch, who had a strong late showing in the final weeks of the campaign despite being seen as the underdog. Netsch would go on to defeat the following November against incumbent Republican Governor Jim Edgar in an election where Democrats lost every single race for statewide office.

In 1995, he ran for mayor of Chicago, losing to incumbent Richard M. Daley. In 1998 and 2002, he again unsuccessfully sought the Democratic Party nomination for Governor of Illinois, running in 2002 against, among others, Rod Blagojevich. In 1998, Burris famously caused a controversy by referring to his Democratic primary opponents -- Jim Burns, Glenn Poshard (who eventually won the nomination) and John Schmidt -- as "nonqualified white boys."[6] While arguably true, the statement was considered racist by many and backfired politically.

OK now, if Wikipedia has this right, Burris lost the US Senate primary in 1984 to one of the most revered of Illinois' Senators, then won Attorney General over the Republican, then lost a three-way primary for governor in an election in which no Democrat won their election, lost an unwinnable primary to Chicago's reigning Daley Machine heir, then lost another primary to Blagojevich, perhaps because of the racial overtones in his/the campaign (to which the Governor alluded in his radio interview).

In my mind, none of this speaks to Burris' "electability" whatsoever. I'm from Chicago, and believe me, this track record says a lot more about politics in Illinois over the past few decades to me than it does about Burris' capability of winning that US Senate seat in an upcoming election.

Beyond even the silly mind-reading parlor tricks on display, Amy Sullivan's post captures the rank ignorance of the storylines upon which our pundit class settles in order to create consensus around their own inane readings of our nation's politics. She apparently just couldn't be bothered to consider actual facts and actual history before weighing in with a regurgitation of the Village consensus that Burris shouldn't be capable of winning a contest should his appointment stand.

None of this is remarkable in any way, apart from that it serves to demonstrate just how little thought, research or context goes into these peoples' formulations of their inane opinions about our politics. Amy Sullivan is not necessarily the worst offender, nor this post the worst example of this tabloid clique's collective guilt, but nevertheless we should be reminded of how much public push-back we need to do on an ongoing basis to correct their ongoing failure.

Welcome to Swampland, Amy Sullivan.

I wanted to make sure Jay Saw this!

people don't hold a special place here on the planet, nor in the universe
Another spot where we disagree (slightly)

I like to say:

The Universe should be given as least as much credit for consciousness as its contents. We are part of the Universe and conscious therefore, in that sense, the Universe itself is conscious.

Anything past that however is belief in magic.

Michael Scherer's Swampland post The Silent Change to Section 382 addresses only a small part of the secret billion dollar spending sprees. Bloomberg News is filing a lawsuit to force the Federal Reserve to release details on the nearly 2 trillion dollars in emergency loans it has given to unknown financial institutions:




Members of Congress, taxpayers and investors urged the Federal Reserve to provide details of almost $2 trillion in emergency loans and the collateral it has accepted to protect against losses... Bloomberg News has sought records of the Fed lending under the U.S Freedom of Information Act and filed a federal lawsuit Nov. 7 seeking to force disclosure... In a separate FOIA request, Bloomberg asked for details of the collateral the Fed accepted against a $29 billion loan to facilitate the merger between JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Bear Stearns Cos. to prevent the investment bank's collapse. The bank rejected that request in a letter dated Nov. 7.



We're talking about trillions of dollars. I'm not an economist and I have no idea how much of this is necessary, and what kind of collateral is appropriate in this situation. But do the Feds know any better? Their actions have contributed to the economic collapse, and now they're asking for carte blanche in cleaning up the mess.

Rahm

Lot of discussion in Swampland comments about the selection of Rahm Emmanuel as Chief of Staff. Emmanuel is seen by many in the netroots as an enemy--a DLCer, insider, opponent of the 50 state strategy, worse, trying to win purple seats by choosing candidates who don't support progressive principles, and, worst of all, supporting incumbents is solid blue seats who don't support progressive principles.  In some ways, the "better Democrats" formulation is directed against Emmanuel and others of his ilk in the Congress.

Others (I fall more into this camp) are happy to see him out of the Congressional leadership, and in a staff role. This is, in part, because of the effect he has had in selecting and funding Congressional candidates, and in part because he seems to be a natural fit for the role of a tough-minded chief of staff in what will be  a hostile, hard-knocks political environment.

There are other positives. It's good, in my opinion, to see Obama turning to people he was worked with along the way, to see a Chicago axis running through his key appointments, to know that he will dance with who brung him.  It reinforces the image that Obama has cultivated of a president comfortable in his own skin.

But like so much else in this incipient presidency,  it's pretty much impossible to know what this  means.  Is Obama's chief of staff going to play a policy role?   Most of us are confident that the  era of policy subjugated entirely to politics is finally over, but Obama's support for ethanol subsidies, "Clean coal," the FISA and other politically expedient positions leaves room for doubt of the impact of having a chief of staff for whom political expediency is a watchword.

Or is Emmanuel going to be an enforcer, leaving policy decisions to the President and his specialized advisers?  The presence of Axelrod and Gibbs in the group of advisors suggests that Emmanuel's political role may be in a circle somewhere outside the center.  Obama's "Team of Rivals" theme, would also indicate a minimal policy role for Emmanuel.  

In every administration, the slots in which the most influential advisers will occupy is pretty much impossible to predict.  The Chief of Staff slot has been filled by the leading adviser in the past,  but the leading adviser has been found in any number of slots from ranging from the head of the NSA (Kissinger) to Attorney General (RFK) to seemingly insignificant offices (Rove).

So does Emmanuel pick really does us much of anything about what we can expect from the new administration?  As with Obama's comment that people see him as a mirror, I think much of the reaction to Emmanuel's selection is projection.  The only thing we can say for sure is that this is more evidence that Obama is not afraid to choose challenging personalities,  rather than sycophants, for key roles.  That alone is  a welcome development.

Shelter from the Storm

Just a post to create space for lonely hearts unable to comment at swampland.