{"id":14597,"date":"2020-05-14T09:38:33","date_gmt":"2020-05-14T16:38:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=14597"},"modified":"2020-05-14T09:38:39","modified_gmt":"2020-05-14T16:38:39","slug":"the-future-is-up-for-grabs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2020\/05\/14\/the-future-is-up-for-grabs\/","title":{"rendered":"The Future Is Up for Grabs"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

May 13, 2020 by Common Dreams<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

History is made, not decreed, which is why on May 11th, activists from dozens of different countries launched Progressive International, a global initiative with a mission to unite, organize and mobilize progressive forces.<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

by Laura Flanders<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

 6 Comments<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The future is up for grabs. Let\u2019s not let the kingpins be the only ones reaching for it. (Photo: Screenshot)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

When it comes to cashing in on Covid-19, the race has just begun. Whether you\u2019re talking about education or contact tracing or medicine or mind control, an anti-democratic, dystopian future is being charted while we the people are locked down, locked up and locked out.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Google is grabbing our data, Microsoft is coming for our classrooms and Amazon wants to be our one-stop, only shop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Naomi Klein\u2019s latest piece, \u201cScreen New Deal\u201d in the Intercept<\/a>, describes in chilling detail the way that a no-touch, no accountability pandemic economy has been being divvied up among corporate kingpins since Covid Shock hit in March.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Google is grabbing our data, Microsoft is coming for our classrooms and Amazon wants to be our one-stop, only shop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pandemic panic is making possible fast what the hurdle of popular consent made slow. As Klein reminds us, until recently, public pushback against companies like Amazon, Google and Microsoft was surging.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPresidential candidates were openly discussing<\/a> breaking up big tech. Amazon was forced to pull<\/a> its plans for a New York headquarters because of fierce local opposition. Google\u2019s Sidewalk Labs project was in perennial crisis<\/a>, and Google\u2019s own workers were refusing<\/a> to build surveillance tech with military applications,\u201d writes Klein.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, the very same companies that the public chased out the front door are walking in the back, repackaged no longer as a threat, but as the solution to our personal and national woes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The future could certainly be bleak, but as Naomi acknowledges, we\u2019re not there yet. It\u2019s also important to remember that the present as we know it was not always thus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1994, for example, India had a different set of patent laws, which positioned it to become the global supplier of affordable AIDS drugs. It was only the birth of the World Trade Organization and Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) that held them back. In the years that followed, an Indian drug maker and international activists used Indian law to force Big Pharma to cave. A cheap generic drug was able to save millions of lives<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s not inevitable that our future is dystopic. History is made, not decreed, which is why on May 11th, activists from dozens of different countries launched Progressive International<\/a>, a global initiative with a mission to unite, organize and mobilize progressive forces. The Laura Flanders Show has joined as a media member.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The future is up for grabs. Let\u2019s not let the kingpins be the only ones reaching for it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Laura<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Laura Flanders<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0is the award-winning host and executive producer of\u00a0The Laura Flanders Show<\/a>, a nationally-syndicated TV and radio program that looks at real-life models of shifting power in the arts, economics and politics. Flanders founded the women\u2019s desk at media watch group Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR) and produced and hosted the radio program CounterSpin for a decade. She is also the author of six books, including The New York Times best-seller\u00a0BUSHWOMEN: Tales of a Cynical Species<\/em>. Flanders was named Most Valuable Multi-Media Maker of 2018 in The Nation\u2019s Progressive Honor Roll, and was awarded the Izzy Award in 2019 for outstanding achievement in independent media.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License. Feel free to republish and share widely.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

May 13, 2020 by Common Dreams History is made, not decreed, which is why on May 11th, activists from dozens of different countries launched Progressive International, a global initiative with a mission to unite, organize and mobilize progressive forces. by Laura Flanders  6 Comments The future is up for grabs. Let\u2019s… Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14597"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14597"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14597\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14598,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14597\/revisions\/14598"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}