#civic-erosion

#civic-erosion

John Kaehny has written and successfully lobbied for the passage of state and New York City laws related to government transparency and accountability, including the first open data law in the world in 2012.

"We have a great opportunity in our movements to learn how to be opponents without being enemies," says Tanuja Jagernauth. This perspective emphasizes the importance of maintaining respect and understanding even amidst conflict.

66% of internet users live where political or social sites are blocked, and 78% are in countries where people have been arrested for online posts. New social media regulations have emerged in dozens of countries in the past year alone.

Keep state as close as possible to where it's actually used. Lift it when multiple components need it or you need to coordinate behavior between components.

"Trump's new library mock-up has an American flag with 56 stars. Is he just that stupid or does he really think he's going to make 6 more states in the next 2 and a half years?"

In the early 20th century, sociologist Max Weber noted that sweeping industrialization would transform how societies worked. As small, informal operations gave way to large, complex organizations with clearly defined roles and responsibilities, leaders would need to rely less on tradition and charisma, and more on organization and rationality. He also foresaw that jobs would need to be broken down into specialized tasks and governed by a system of hierarchy,

Last week- after the Wall Street Journal broke more news about the Trump family's dodgy crypto-business dealings and before the President shared a racist video of the Obamas depicted as dancing apes-the Amazon entrepreneur Jeff Bezos decided that one of his smaller properties, the Washington Post, has proved such a drag on his two-hundred-and-thirty-billion-dollar fortune that prudence required that he obliterate much of its newsroom.

They can't, he said. Pressed to explain, he continued: We are the pot of gold. We're the one that everybody wants. And they can retaliate, but it cannot be a successful retaliation. As Trump saw it, Europe was weak and feckless a minnow compared with the American economic juggernaut. When confronted with a US president prepared to throw his country's weight around, Europe would certainly cave.

The truth is that as a country we have often found one reason or another to let the powerful escape the consequences of their actions. Consider Jefferson Davis, the first and only president of the Confederate States of America, commander in chief of a rebellion that killed hundreds of thousands of people. Davis spent two years in federal custody after the end of the war. The indictment against him was dismissed following his release, and he spent the rest of his life a free man.

In the United States, we haven't yet seen rifles aimed at large crowds, but we do observe masked federal agents detaining protesters in unmarked vehicles, flashy ICE raids staged like military operations and pardons for political violence all clear warning signs. Ignoring this is the first step toward complacency, which can kill liberty. Fascism is often misunderstood. It is not just political oppression; it is a set of traits, as scholars and observers point out,