The Intercept has the article Screen New Deal: Under Cover of Mass Death, Andrew Cuomo Calls in the Billionaires to Build a High-Tech Dystopia.

Democracy Now has the interview Screen New Deal: Naomi Klein on How Companies Like Google Plan to Profit in High-Tech COVID Dystopia.

In her new report for The Intercept on the “Screen New Deal,” Naomi Klein looks at how the coronavirus pandemic is more high-tech than previous disasters — and how the future we’re being rushed into could transform our lives into a “living laboratory for a permanent — and highly profitable — no-touch future.” She joins us to discuss what she found, and says, “I think we’re going to see very incomplete so-called solutions … that massively benefit private tech interests.”

About the hysteria that China is getting ahead of us in AI, let me remind you that in 1982 Japan embarked on what it called Fifth Generation computing. It turned into a blind alley. AI did not evolve in the direction that Japan bet the farm on.

At Digital Equipment Corporation, my group was dabbling in massively parallel computing. I even have a patent with Gabriel Bischoff in parallel computing that was not massive. Method and apparatus for circuit simulation using parallel processors including memory arrangements and matrix decomposition synchronization.

MasPar was a spinoff of the hardware development of a massively parallel computer at Digital Equipment Corporation. Gabriel Bischoff, in my group, worked on software development of an application on this computer while the hardware development was still at Digital. Gabriel and I worked several levels down the hierarchy from Jeff Kalb.

The Real News Network has the interview The Nina Turner Show: No Is Not Enough with Naomi Klein,

At the 2017 People’s Summit, Naomi Klein explains why fighting Trump requires political imagination.

Naomi Klein has a very important message that goes beyond resistance. She makes the point that I often mention that you cannot beat something with nothing. If you want to win power, you need to have a positive vision of what you want to build instead of what exists that you oppose.

I made this point in a post in June of 2011, The White House Needs a Real Jobs Plan.

As I have tried to make it clear to Democratic politicians before, you cannot beat something with nothing. Rather than merely explain what is wrong with the Republican plan, the Democrats have to come up with an obviously better plan. If they have an obviously better plan, they don’t even have to talk about the Republican’s plan. Staying positive was a lesson that Obama taught us all in his campaign for the Presidency.

I first found this video on The Real News. This interview starts with Naomi Klein explaining some of the things that the Occupy movement has already accomplished.

There is much, much more in this video than the initial topic of the interview.

The Guardian has the article We were told Joe Biden was the ‘safe choice’. But it was risky to offer so little.

But I think that after days of gnawing our fingers down to the quick, it’s fair to say that Biden was not safe at all, as we always knew. Not safe for the planet, not safe for the people on the front lines of police violence, not safe for the millions upon millions of people who are seeking asylum, but also not even safe as a candidate.

Here is the video starting at Naomi Klein’s part. You can watch the other parts at YouTube if you are so inclined.

Remember the idea of the inside/outside pincer. I prefer to work from the outside part.

The Intercept has the Naomi Klein article The Battle for Paradise: Puerto Ricans and Ultrarich “Puertopians” Are Locked in a Pitched Struggle Over How to Remake the Island.

He had long warned of the risks associated with Puerto Rico’s overwhelming dependence on imported fossil fuels and centralized power generation: One big storm, he had cautioned, could knock out the whole grid — especially after decades of laying off skilled electrical workers and letting maintenance lapse.

Emphasizing the often ignored benefits of decentralization. Libertarians should be all for this benefit.

The Independent has the story America denies Puerto Rico request for waiver to bring vital fuel and supplies to island.

The Trump administration on Tuesday denied a request to waive shipping restrictions to help get fuel and supplies to storm-ravaged Puerto Rico, saying it would do nothing to address the island’s main impediment to shipping, damaged ports.

Naomi Klein has written a book to describe the type of thing Trump is doing. The book is titles The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism.

I have written a number of posts about this book as far back as 2008 – The Shock Doctrine in 2010, The Shock Doctrine in 2008, Trump’s Shock Doctrine in 2017, Harvey Didn’t Come Out of the Blue. Now is the Time to Talk About Climate Change in 2017. You can search this site for Naomi Klein to find more posts.

Below is Naomi Klein’s video that was an afterthought in the previous post Harvey Didn’t Come Out of the Blue. Now is the Time to Talk About Climate Change.

The Intercept has Naomi Klein’s article Harvey Didn’t Come Out of the Blue. Now is the Time to Talk About Climate Change.

Talking honestly about what is fueling this era of serial disasters — even while they’re playing out in real time — isn’t disrespectful to the people on the front lines. In fact, it is the only way to truly honor their losses, and our last hope for preventing a future littered with countless more victims.

Naomi Klein didn’t even mention that absence of any zoning laws in Houston exacerbated the flooding tremendously. There are no rules preventing developers from paving over wetlands that would have sopped up a lot of this water. I am not saying that zoning laws could have prevented Harvey, but I am saying that it could have lessened the damage. Or do we now think that lessening the damage is not a proper function of government?

To back up my comment about zoning, you have to read the Green News Update article Hell and High Water Predicted Houston Disaster.

First, it’s important to know that Houston – the fourth largest city in the U.S. –has no zoning. Yes, that’s right. Developers have a basically free hand in acquiring sites and installing subdivisions or commercial development in the burgeoning Houston region. There are virtually no development regulations, and developers often sue successfully to get their way!

Houston’s lack of zoning laws has been notorious since I lived in Dallas in 1969. We knew back then that this lack of zoning would come back to bite them someday. We just didn’t know how.

Truth Out has the article Cutting Off Capital: How to Resist Trump’s Corporate Collaborators.

Instead of it being an isolated battle, it was Trump’s job czar actually involved in cutting wages, benefits and outsourcing work. This is one of the pieces that I think is the most critical, which is showing that the people that Trump has put in charge, like Wilbur Ross, are actually job destroyers. We want to completely change the story by putting the spotlight on them by saying, “These are actually the people that got rich destroying good jobs. It is not evil foreigners or immigrants. It is these guys.” That lets you raise a whole set of issues in terms of showing who they are and then, all the different ways that they gamed the system to enrich themselves at the expense of workers.

I thought I had been following the issues even before I started writing this blog. However, what is in this article is a far more sickening exposure what is going on. Since I already read Naomi Klein’s Shock Doctrine, I wasn’t made quite as badly physically ill as when I read her books. I guess she immunized me a little.

The Dallas News has the opinion piece How we Americans can turn the tables on Steve Bannon’s shock event.

What Steve Bannon is doing, most dramatically with the ban on immigration from seven predominantly Muslim countries — is creating what is known as a “shock event.”

Such an event is unexpected and confusing and throws a society into chaos. People scramble to react to the event, usually along some fault line that those responsible for the event can widen by claiming that they alone know how to restore order.

For “corroboration” of this take on events, I hark back to some earlier posts of mine The Shock Doctrine. In her book and lectures, Naomi Klein gives a thorough exposition of the shock doctrine. It is shocking.