Corporations are apolitical. They have a single purpose: maximize shareholder value. Every other goal is, by necessity and law, second to increasing wealth for those who own the business. Threaten that raison d’être and a corporation will take the fastest, most certain path to neutralizing that threat.

Want a corporation to pivot? Jam the brand.

Naomi Klein, in How To Jam The Trump Brand, for The Intercept, explains:

United’s stock plunges after video emerges of a passenger being violently dragged off an oversold flight. Pepsi yanks an ad that portrays police and Black Lives Matter-ish protestors making peace over a can of soda. Fox News faces an advertiser exodus after new revelations of massive payouts to settle sexual harassment and verbal abuse allegations against host Bill O’Reilly.

If there is one lesson that emerges from all these controversies it is this: Institutions organized around a powerful brand image—often understood as “a promise” from a corporation to its customers—are in big trouble when that image gets battered and the promise appears to have been broken. These facts make corporate brands intensely vulnerable to public pressure, particularly when that pressure is loud and organized.

President Donald John Trump, and all his family, view his presidency not as an opportunity to serve their nation, not a chance to give back to the country that has allowed them to accumulate so much privilege, but rather a golden-arched opening to grow more insanely wealthy from all the free publicity and influence being President of The United States of America entails.

Need proof? Consider First Lady Melania Trump’s successful suit against The Daily Mail in which she claimed she:

had the unique, one-in-a-lifetime opportunity as an extremely famous and well-known person, as well as a former professional model, brand spokesperson and successful businesswoman, to launch a broad-based commercial brand in multiple product categories, each of which could have garnered multi-million dollar business relationships for a multi-year term during which Plaintiff is one of the most photographed women in the world. …The product categories would have included, among other things, apparel, accessories, shoes, jewelry, cosmetics, hair care, skin care and fragrance.

By reaching a settlement, First Lady Trump confirmed that power and influence, not a desire to service, drove her husband to seek and win his position as the most powerful person in the world. Klein continues:

Journalists have pointed out these conflicts many times, and Trump and his spawn have responded with a defiant shrug. This is happening for very simple reason: Trump isn’t playing by the normal rules of politics, in which elected representatives are accountable to voters and to an agreed upon set of standards. He’s playing by the rules of branding, in which companies are only accountable to their brand image.

Klein’s solution, relying on a strategy that she first outlines in her 1999 book—No Logo—concludes:

ever since I started writing about brand-based pressure campaigns and boycotts in the mid-1990s, research that turned into my first book, No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies. What I learned is that any brand—no matter how seemingly amoral—can be significantly weakened with the right tactics.

So, with that in mind, here’s a quick-and-easy guide for doing battle with the president in the only language he understands—his own brand.

Unhappy with our Marketer-In-Chief? Jam the Trump brand.

I just learned about The Bernie Sanders Show this morning while reading Adam Gabbatt’s The Bernie Sanders Show is interactive TV talk for the era of Facebook activism piece in The Guardian.

Back on 28 March, in response to a Guardian Long Read by Rebecca Solnit, I wrote:

Occupy was to millennials, perhaps, what the anti-war movement was to me and my fellow boomers. In many ways we lost our way in the ’70s and ’80s, but even then protest, the desire to fight for that society in which everyone counts, smoldered and even, at times flared, as Solnit describes.

We work towards that perfect society by studying the past; by building on the strategies and organizing principles of others.

President Donald John Trump has galvanized a core of Americans who were first awakened by the Occupy Wall Street movement in ways I don’t think the billionaires thought possible. Consider how in the last 36 hours millions of Americans became so outraged by United Airlines brutality that the company’s stock dipped.

That is a good outcome. The better outcome will follow from that rage repeated again and again until the billionaires and their political puppets become very, very scared.

Ellen M. Gilmer, reporting in DAKOTA ACCESS: No end in sight for courtroom battle for E&E News, writes:

Lasting legal fallout over the Dakota Access pipeline remains to be seen, but other impacts of the conflict have already taken hold.

Chief among them: a greater sense among developers of the risks of rapid public organizing against a project.

“They don’t want to attract the attention of the protests more than anything else,” said Brandon Barnes, litigation analyst for Bloomberg Intelligence. “The companies are used to contending with permitting and legal challenges. These things happen all the time. But the new variable now is social media.”

Organizing and campaigning against projects that affect Indian Country may be more important than any courtroom battle, activist Chase Iron Eyes said.

“It’s pretty clear that United States jurisprudence doesn’t really have a grasp or a respect for Native nations,” he said. “We’re not going to win by hiring the best lawyers. That’s not how this works.”

No, Mr. Barnes, that is not how protest works in a world where news is no longer restricted to three national networks or even corporate-controlled broadcast media. In a world where the internet dominates, controlling the message becomes impossible and the resistance is no longer futile.

The Standing Rock protest is just the first of dozens? hundreds? of such examples of We The People exercising our constitutional right to assemble and protest peacefully.

We The People will recover what we’ve lost and push forward.

(And yes, we can, and do, have a sense of humor about all this.)

How can we all not be moved by the bravery of Saffiyah Khan?

Of course, Khan is far from alone…

In my day job I work with a range of students to help them more from their studies. While my work covers the gamut of topics, I probably spend more time on maths skills than any other subject. One of the messages I do my best to reinforce with my charges is that those who fail to understand how maths work are doomed to be conned (or, as I more often phrase the warning: played). Ignorant students grow up to be ignorant adults and our financial institutions whose very structure depends upon that ignorance are getting ever richer because they understand how to play their marks.

Ralph Nader, in The Savings and Stability of Public Banking writes:

As a society obsessed by money, we pay a gigantic price for not educating high school and college students about money and banking. The ways of the giant global banks—both commercial and investment operations—are as mysterious as they are damaging to the people. Big banks use the Federal Reserve to maximize their influence and profits. The federal Freedom of Information Act provides an exemption for matters that are “contained in or related to examination, operating, or condition reports prepared by, on behalf of, or for the use of an agency responsible for the regulation or supervision of financial institutions.” This exemption allows financial institutions to wallow in secrecy. Financial institutions are so influential in Congress that Senator Durbin (D-IL.) says “[The banks] frankly own this place.”

Although anti-union, giant financial institutions have significant influence over the investments of worker pension funds. Their certainty of being bailed out because they are seen as “too big to fail” harms the competitiveness of smaller, community banks and allows the big bankers to take bigger risks with “other people’s money,” as Justice Brandeis put it.

These big banks are so pervasive in their reach that even unions and progressive media, such as The Nation magazine and Democracy Now have their accounts with JP Morgan Chase.

The government allows banks to have concentrated power. Taxpayers and Consumers are charged excessive fees and paid paltry interest rates on savings. The bonds of municipalities are are also hit with staggering fees and public assets like highways and public drinking water systems are corporatized by Goldman Sachs Continue Reading »

I was, but I shouldn’t have been, surprised to see Michael Nelson, leader of the local Cleveland NAACP, appearing before City Council today as a cheerleader for the newest huge subsidy for Dan Gilbert and the Cavs.

The NAACP, I thought, was supposed to represent primarily those who have needs, not a white billionaire. A billionaire looking to take money from the people he’s supposed to represent.

Yet, it should be no surprise, especially when you understand that the NAACP chapter here will soon be honoring Jimmy Haslam, another billionaire and sports team owner. Seem to love billionaires. Wonder why.

It’s the way goes these days.

It’s sad for me. I remember when one of the powerful political voices for Cleveland blacks and others who needed representation was the 21st District Caucus. The late Carl Stokes’ creation.

I remember speaking at a meeting of the caucus to oppose the first flood of public money for sports back in the early 1990s. The sin tax vote. It lost in Cleveland (with some help from Rep. Mary Rose Oakar on the west side.) When are west side taxpayers going to wake up to the con? (I had to laugh to hear some unctuous comments in favor of the latest give-away by newly elected president of the National League of Cities Matt Zone. Says something about all cities doesn’t it?

The 21st Caucus was chaired by Rep. Louis Stokes then. But it was Carl’s show. You see Carl was the one who propelled the caucus as a political power for blacks here. But he had become a judge. Judges don’t do public political fights. So Lou had to chair the meeting. But it was definitely a Carl parade on the Establishment.

Boy, do we need a Carl Stokes now.

Nelson was actually testifying before City Council’s finance committee Continue Reading »

I may have been blessed by my father’s decision to not give any great deal of good advice. In my life I can only recall three times when we discussed what I might do. The first was between 8th and 9th grades when he told me that he would do all that he could to support me in my decision to take college prep courses in high school. The second time came when I joined the Navy (a decision I told him about but did not consult him on—a repeat, I would learn years later, of his own experience in enlisting in the Army) and he offered these two pieces of advice: first, if I decided to get a tattoo, I shouldn’t get a girl’s name; and second, to take at least one day in a foreign port to get away from the bars and see where and how people lived. The third, and final time came after I took Mary Jo to Marietta to meet the folks. We had dinner at The Levee House. My father was saddened when I told him that my marriage was over 1999, but he was happy when he met Mary Jo. After the meal he took me aside and told me: she’s a keeper. He was right.

So, I’ve followed my father’s advice so far because he never tried to make me in the imagined image of how he might have been. Kurt Vonnegut, in writing to his daughter, shows much the same wisdom.

Most letters from a parent contain a parent’s own lost dreams disguised as good advice. My good advice to you is to pay somebody to teach you to speak some foreign language, to meet with you two or three times a week and talk. Also: get somebody to teach you to play a musical instrument. What makes this advice especially hollow and pious is that I’m not dead yet. If it were any good, I could easily take it myself.

—to Nanny Vonnegut on 20 September 1972, p. 187 Kurt Vonnegut: Letters.

What we know, live…

The question for We The People, President Donald John Trump and indeed the World must be:

Does the manner of murder of children matter, or are the murders of all children equal?

It was like a bad dream. What was? The Ch. 20 viewing of some six hours of almost meaningless discussion of the city council’s give-away of millions of dollars to Dan Gilbert and his Quicken Arena gang. As if he needs it.

I’ve seen this movie before. Too many times. Up close.

This time it was another skimming of city taxes for a sports team.

Nothing unusual here, folks. Look the other way. Keep walking.

Council Chairman Tony Brancatelli proved to be as weak and unresponsive a chair as typical as he allowed testimony by the establishment’s front-men Fred Nance of Squire-Sanders and finance front-man (who had quickly quit Gateway to suggest clean hands) Tim Offtermatt of Stifel Nicolaus, and Cavs Caveman Len Komoroski. He was overseen by Council President Kevin Kelley, who put on a feeble show and left early.

Here’s Offtermatt’s take and bias on the last Gateway heist from his mouth:

The Cavaliers would have legal leeway to break their leases with the county and city, said Tim Offtermatt, chairman of Gateway Corp., the nonprofit that acts as landlord for the teams’ stadiums. He changes hats when there’s dough to be made and schemes to peddle.

Always the threats.

Earlier in the meeting—what I guess was supposed to be public comment—was limited and allowed a self-interested labor leader and a known front for minority construction hiring to share time with two actual community people.

What was so noticeable—except to the ill-observant Brancatelli—was the constant attempt to divert what the Greater Cleveland Congregation spokesperson Pastor Richard Gibson of the Elizabeth Baptist Church. The GCC is a coalition of church/community people organized to try to bring some participation in government by citizens. Obviously seen Continue Reading »

I pre-ordered my copy of Naomi Klein’s No Is Not Enough: Resisting Trump’s Shock Politics and Winning the World We Need this morning from my local, independent bookstore. This is, of course the way you should go. If you don’t have a local, independent bookstore, Mac’s Backs is more than happy to mail you a copy for a nominal fee. Please think of the human costs of your lower prices and free shipping before you go elsewhere.

Hannah Ellis-Petersen, writes in Naomi Klein to rush out new book taking on Trump administration for The Guardian:

Naomi Klein has revealed she is to publish a book taking on the Trump administration, arguing that a corporate political takeover got him elected and that a rise in activism can be utilised to resist his policies.

No Is Not Enough is the most rapidly written book by the acclaimed Canadian writer and activist, a respected political thinker with a huge following since her 1999 book No Logo. She only began writing it two months ago and it will be published by in June.

Klein said that while she usually spent at least five years researching and writing her books, she felt it was important to put a book out immediately to put Trump into the context of the ideas she has spent the past two decades researching.

“An unprecedented number of people are becoming engaged in movements and politics, which is the silver lining of Trump,” said Klein.

Don’t wait to get the book before you become one of that number. Engage now, read on 13 June.

So, I made phone calls and sent emailS regarding the impending passage of Trumpcare on 23 and 24 March encouraging my member of congress in the House of Representatives. I encouraged Rep. Jim Renacci, to stand up and not throw thousands of his constituents, including veterans, under the bus by replacing the Affordable Care Act with the Draconian Trumpcare monstrosity. Trumpcare did not come to a vote, which President Donald John Trump hilariously blamed on the Democrats, and Renacci was seemingly let off the hook. This evening I received this response:

April 5, 2017

Dear Jeff,

Thank you for contacting me regarding the American Health Care Act. Your views are important to me as I work to effectively represent you and Ohio’s 16th Congressional District.

Like you may have been aware, I was frustrated with the process behind The American Health Care Act and wanted to take some time to outline what happened with a failed vote.

The AHCA was introduced to repeal the Affordable Care Act and replace it with a patient-centered healthcare system. Most importantly, it would have repealed the punitive individual and employer mandate, enhanced and expanded the use of Health Savings Accounts, and replaced Obamacare’s subsidies with an age-based, advanceable, refundable tax credit for those who do not qualify for job-based coverage, Medicare, or Medicaid.

Now, what happened—We have 435 members who all believe they have a better idea or solution. Everyone thinks they have a better idea, but no one wants to agree on a solution. The President did a tremendous job negotiating with law Continue Reading »

Now we know where Jim Renacci has been hiding.

From the viewpoint of evolution, distraction is good. If you’re munching on a piece of fruit you really, really want to be distracted by that snapping twig because there might (probably is?) another animal desirous of munching on you. Sitting in your chair at home (unless you were cast in a George Romero film) footsteps or odd noises are very unlikely to be of any great concern. Yet, evolution still demands that we stop what we’re doing and look.

Snapping twigs have now gone electronic and instead of being an once or twice a day phenomenon, they come at us dozens of times an hour. Unless we put up the walls.

Oliver Burkeman, drilling down in How to find time to read for The Guardian, writes:

Sit down to read and the flywheel of work-related thoughts keeps spinning – or else you’re so exhausted that a challenging book’s the last thing you need. The modern mind, Parks writes, “is overwhelmingly inclined toward communication… It is not simply that one is interrupted; it is that one is actually inclined to interruption.” Deep reading requires not just time, but a special kind of time which can’t be obtained merely by becoming more efficient.

If you value an activity, like reading, then the only way to honor that value is to schedule significant blocks of time to immerse yourself in that reading and, make that time a big rock in your day. A big rock is a block of time that goes first into a jar that represents your day. You put the big rocks, that which is vital to your life—family, work, health, &c.—before you add the pebbles (the important) or the sand (the beneficial) because if added in reverse order there will never be sufficient room for the big rocks.

Burkeman continues:

Thinking of time as a resource to be maximised means you approach it instrumentally, judging any given moment as well spent only in so far as it advances progress toward some goal. Immersive reading, by contrast, depends on being willing to risk inefficiency, goallessness, even time-wasting. Try to slot it in as a to-do list item and you’ll manage only goal-focused reading—useful, sometimes, but not the most fulfilling kind.

Reading ought not to be a goal, I will read four books a month, but rather a time commitment like being in your office 40 hours a week. You have to schedule regular times for reading.

You’d think [scheduling regular times for reading] might fuel the efficiency mind-set, but in fact, [Gary] Eberle notes, such ritualistic behaviour helps us “step outside time’s flow” into “soul time”. (You can use space ritualistically, too: read in the same chair, on the same park bench.) You could limit distractions by reading only physical books, or on single-purpose e-readers. “Carry a book with you at all times” can actually work, too—providing you dip in often enough, so that reading becomes the default state from which you temporarily surface to take care of business, before dropping back down. On a really good day, it no longer feels as if you’re “making time to read”, but just reading, and making time for everything else.

What are you reading today?

Kirsten Dunst makes the message a bit more blatant…

One of the lessons I learned in my 20s by watching James Burke’s Connections was that everything new has, by necessity, roots in that which already exists. Creativity, as I understand the process, involves seeing what is in front of you in a different way, of adding one to one and getting three. Nothing is created ex nihilo.

Oliver Burkeman, writing in Your next big idea is still out there for The Guardian concluded:

Focus on shaking up some existing institution, and you’ll inevitably end up thinking in its terms, stuck in old grooves. The same’s true in personal life: trying to be “unconventional” still means letting conventional wisdom dictate your actions. “The basic challenge,” Thiel concludes, “is to find things that are hard but doable. You want to find a frontier. But don’t simply accept others’ definitions of the frontier.” Whether you’re trying to solve interstellar travel, world poverty or a relationship problem, don’t fall into the trap of assuming that, if an idea were any good, someone would already have had it. That’s what everyone else is thinking, too.

Growing up I used to spend hours and hours in my family basement reading back issues of Popular Science (My grandfather’s collection stretched into the ’20s) and pawing through the boxes and boxes of my grandfather’s treasures. That time filled my head with connections that still provide insights today.

#JeffersonBeauregardSessionsIIIsowhite?

Sean Spicer is not the Trump administration press secretary burning down the system. Ralph Nader, writing in Self-Censored Questions by Career Questioners, encourages journalists to do their damn jobs:

I’ve always been intrigued by the major questions not asked by reporters at press conferences, not asked by legislators at public hearings or even the questions citizens at town meetings don’t ask public officials. It’s not that they do not know about or could not easily become informed enough about a given issue and ask substantive questions. It’s just that so many taboos are packed into these questioners’ ideological mindset, career goals or concern with what other people over them might think. Maybe it is a culturally-rooted fear of challenging entrenched power brokers.

Decades ago, I noticed that press conferences, symposia and formal studies and reports on the toll of highway traffic fatalities never mentioned the role of motor vehicle design and construction.

The focus was almost entirely on the driver, or what some auto bosses called “the nut behind the wheel.” What the drivers were driving—vehicles without seatbelts, padded dash panels, rollover and side protection from collisions, but with faulty tires and brakes or poor handling—never came up. Construction defects in vehicles were never formally recalled to be fixed by the culpable manufacturers.

Questions never asked assure that answers, solutions and public awareness will not emerge.

Today, reporters who go to the Pentagon press briefings rarely, if ever, ask about dubious test results from the unproven ballistic defense project costing taxpayers over three decades, rising to nine to ten billion dollars a year. Or when the Department of Defense is going to obey a 1992 law and provide auditable data to the Congress’s Government Accountability Office so that DOD’s massive budget, with its waste Continue Reading »