Food Politics reports that Rick Friday, a long time cartoonist for Farm News, was dismissed for offending "a large company affiliated with one of the corporations mentioned in a cartoon." The political cartoon is critical of Big Ag CEOs, which earned more than 2,000 Iowa farmers combined.
In a Facebook post the cartoonist, Rick Friday, explained:
I am no longer the Editorial Cartoonist for Farm News due to the attached cartoon which was published yesterday. Apparently a large company affiliated with one of the corporations mentioned in the cartoon was insulted and cancelled their advertisement with the paper, thus, resulting in the reprimand of my editor and cancellation of It's Friday cartoons after 21 years of service and over 1090 published cartoons to over 24,000 households per week in 33 counties of Iowa.
I did my research and only submitted the facts in my cartoon.
That's okay, hopefully my children and my grandchildren will see that this last cartoon published by Farm News out of Fort Dodge, Iowa, will shine light on how fragile our rights to free speech and free press really are in the country.
The Des Moines Register explains further:
The CEOs at the ag giants earned about $52.9 million last year, based on Morningstar data. Monsanto and DuPont, the parent of Johnston-based Pioneer, are large seed and chemical companies, and Deere is a large farm equipment manufacturer.
Profits for the three companies, all with large operations across Iowa, also have declined as farm income has been squeezed. After peaking in 2013, U.S. farm income this year is projected to fall to $183 billion, its lowest level since 2002.
It seems like in the U.S. you free to say what you like, but if you offend the wrong people you're free to lose your job despite the protections you are provided and encouraged to use.
Related Stories
Monsanto announced that it has received an unsolicited purchase offer from Bayer AG. The offer is under consideration by Monsanto's board of directors. The companies are both major sellers of pesticides and of seeds for crops. Monsanto's market capitalisation on 18 May was $42.43 billion.
According to Dow Jones Business News via NASDAQ:
Folding Monsanto's world-leading seed franchise and its trademark Roundup herbicide business into Bayer would create a company with a combined $68 billion in annual sales, marketing products ranging from Aspirin pain-relief pills to crop genetics that enable plants to withstand bugs and weedkillers. The combination would sell about 28% of the world's pesticides and about 36% of U.S. corn seeds and 28% of soybean seeds, according to Morgan Stanley estimates.
Coverage:
- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
- Reuters
- Motley Fool
- New York Times (older story)
- Bloomberg (older story)
- USA Today (older story)
- Fierce Pharma (older story)
- St. Louis Post-Dispatch (older story)
- MarketWatch (older story)
related story:
Cartoonist Fired for Criticizing Big Agriculture
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 05 2016, @03:17PM
It seems like in the U.S. you free to say what you like, but if you offend the wrong people you're free to lose your job despite the protections you are provided and encouraged to use.
What? Advertiser funded media will fire you if you piss off their thin-skinned funders. What did you expect?
But when mozilla fires their CEO for actions that conflict with the organization's ideals, that's a terrible affront to all right thinking people.
Liberty!!!!
(Score: 5, Insightful) by GungnirSniper on Thursday May 05 2016, @04:05PM
Which editor approved this cartoon, and will he be fired for it? Too often we let the safety-valves get away with failure and solely blame the content originator.
Tips for better submissions to help our site grow. [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by physicsmajor on Thursday May 05 2016, @04:33PM
His Facebook post (which is viewable without an account, from a sandboxed browser) states the chain went:
- Cartoon published
- CEO butthurt
- Ad cancelled
- Editor reprimanded
- Cartoonist fired
To me, the breakdown happened at step 4 in the editorial process. The paper should have stood firm and backed content their editors, writers, and cartoonists created AND which they approved for publication. In fact, they should have gotten angry themselves and written some longer form pieces detailing exactly what happened, pointing directly at the specific company, and stating they are standing firm.
That would have been the correct approach. In the short term, it seems scary because you might lose ad revenue. Long term, though, they probably just signed their death warrant - because farmers are an independent bunch that value integrity. If I were a subscriber, I'd cancel immediately due to ample evidence of compromised journalistic and editorial process.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Lester on Thursday May 05 2016, @06:20PM
The magazine is not NGO, it's a company that wants (needs) profits.
Next step should be subscribers cancel subscriptions, so magazine steps back. But that is not going to happen.
And that's the whole problem. That's why corporations win, they are few and committed to reach their ends and we are a lot and we don't want not even the slightest annoyance. This product costs 0,05$ less, let's not wonder why or who manufactures and how. Just buy it
We complain, but we don't do any thing. Why in the earth should the editor be a hero?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Thursday May 05 2016, @11:28PM
"Farm News," an advertising supported publication takes a stand against Big Agriculture.
"Farm Report," an advertising supported publication takes the side of Big Agriculture.
Which one goes on to report the news next year?
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 05 2016, @04:36PM
Solution.. we're going to run this cartoon every day in farm news until you reinstate our contract.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Thursday May 05 2016, @07:12PM
What did you expect?
What did I expect? Well,I expected a Mighty Buzzard to appear out of nowhere, saying: "Noooo one expects the Mighty Buzzard!" And: "Wherever speech is threatened, where censorship occurs, when Polticial correctness or SJWs are oppressing the free expression of libertarian ideas, I'll be there!" But then he would probably say (I could be wrong about this, I am just making it up), "Oh, it was not the government, but a corporation that merely requested that another corporation no longer enable a certain cartoonist to publish? That's the market, it is not Censorship! My work here is done! " [Buzzard lazily flies off into the sunset. Fin.]
That's what I expected to happen. But, I am used to disappointment.
(Score: 2) by JNCF on Thursday May 05 2016, @11:00PM
Both are censorship, only one is government censorship. To prevent corporate censorship we must have government mandated speech, which might not be censorship (I can see arguments that silence should be considered speech) but it's still pretty scary. Not that corporations aren't. I'm not happy with any of these institutions, but model the most powerful governments as currently being scarier than the most powerful corporations. I get that the lines between those things are hazy.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by darnkitten on Friday May 06 2016, @02:15AM
...and lately, I consider the large corporations, particularly the multinationals, to be a new and different kind of government-without-territory.
If corporations can override local economies and laws, negotiate with national, provisional and local governments, and enact their own internal laws and apply their own internal coercions to their constituents, even outside of work, then those corporations sound very much like governments (Walmart, for instance, has a "population" greater than Iceland, Macedonia, Botswana, or Slovenia, among others).
(Score: 2) by JNCF on Friday May 06 2016, @02:49AM
The part where they influence laws is where the division between one beast and another gets hazy. I totally agree there. I disagree about the importance of setting internal rules in the defining of a government. In general these internal "laws" are not in conflict with government laws, and when they are the government can either collect bribes or enforce their laws using their police. The defining feature of a government is that they claim the authority to use force within a geographic area. They may allow others to use force sometimes, but they control the allowed circumstances. Once a corporation reaches that point, I would argue them to be a government. I could see a corporation being more powerful than any government, but I don't think we're there yet (I will happily concede that I could be wrong, given the nature of power and secrecy). It seems blatantly obvious that there are corporations more powerful than some governments.
(Score: 2) by darnkitten on Friday May 06 2016, @05:41AM
Good response--I'm having to think a bit to defend my comment-- :)
I would argue that a government that is unable to set internal rules, be they called "rules," "laws," "regulations" or "ordinances," cannot be a government. The ability to enforce or at least the perception of the ability to enforce those rules, is also fundamental (and, incidentally, the consent of the governed to either the imposition of the rules or their enforcement is not required).
In theory, true; in practice:
A. The corporations have often had a hand in drafting those laws, or, in some cases, have coerced governments into drafting laws favorable to their desired practice.
B. Reporting depends on people being independent, angry or desperate enough to be willing to whistle-blow and a media that is independent from the corporations they are reporting on and from their allies.
C. Enforcement depends on governments not colluding with the corporations or on governments not looking the other way when they break the law.
A. If you define "force" as "extreme or lethal force," you are right--companies are different from governments in that respect; however, if you, as an employee--and your family--are dependent on the income from a job and an employer's goodwill in obtaining other employment, economic coercion can be construed as functionally equivalent to force.
B. The corporation's practical power to regulate the employee's behavior/lifestyle etc. outside of the job/off the premises (territory), as we have seen in news reports since the internet became ubiquitous, indicates at least the perception of the ability to coerce compliance, and, incidentally, is one of the reasons I classify them as a new type of government, one not tied to territory.
C. We already see them exercising a form of extraterritoriality in financial matters, in materials sourcing, in off-shoring and in other areas, just by exploiting international law and the differences between the laws of various sovereignties.
D. See A, B and C under the "rules" section, above.
And that's the point. My town's council is as much a government as the government of my country, though it is subject to and must comply with the laws of that government, and though the national government (sometimes) complies with international law. The government of Fiji, despite its lack of size and influence, is as much a government as that of China. Companies, while having power inside their own structure and enormous economic power outside themselves, while being subject to the laws of the places in which they operate, are often able to subvert or flout the intent of the laws of those places, by virtue of having parallel structures in other places where those laws don't apply, much as colonial powers could avoid contravening the laws and mores of the mother country by the simple expedient of operating in colonies where those concerns could be functionally ignored.
-
I agree with you that the boundaries between government and corporation is really hazy here; and maybe I should classify corporations as, maybe, proto-governments, as extra-governmental-neo-colonial-structures, or as entities-evolving-governmental-powers; and, now that I think of it, maybe I have been more than a little influenced by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling; but I do tend to think of them as new kinds of governing structures that are becoming, if they aren't already, as dangerous to our personal and economic liberty/freedom/independence, whatever you want to call it.
And I admit that using the idea "corporation=government," while inaccurate, is intended to make people react, possible think, and, maybe even, talk about it. Because I also think we need to think about the concept and discuss it before they become powerful enough to be governments-in-fact rather than just in-theory.
(Score: 2) by JNCF on Friday May 06 2016, @04:20PM
I'm pulling quotes from your post out of order, homie.
I disagree about the importance of setting internal rules in the defining of a government.
I would argue that a government that is unable to set internal rules, be they called "rules," "laws," "regulations" or "ordinances," cannot be a government. The ability to enforce or at least the perception of the ability to enforce those rules, is also fundamental (and, incidentally, the consent of the governed to either the imposition of the rules or their enforcement is not required).
You're right of course, this is a necessary precondition. I meant (and phrased poorly) that it is not sufficient; if the rules you make are subject to greater laws, you aren't a sovereign state. This is sort of me pulling the tablecloth out from under our conversation, and I hope that I can manage it without upsetting the dishes; a municipal government is certainly a government of some sort, but they aren't a sovereign state. This is the language I should have been using all along, but wasn't. It's what I was talking about, but perhaps failed at communicating.
My town's council is as much a government as the government of my country, though it is subject to and must comply with the laws of that government, and though the national government (sometimes) complies with international law.
The international laws we have are really just agreements that anybody can break, and the only repercussions that can happen are either agreements between other sovereign states (such as embargos) or war. If this is the same thing as federal law trumping state and municipal law, we must view federal policing as an act of war against state and municipal governments.
If I live to see international laws reach beyond this, and there really is a UN police force that enforces laws on national governments, I will argue that we have a world government. I think the EU may be in the process of metamorphosing into a sovereign entity, [telegraph.co.uk] though I really don't keep up to date with it.
If you define "force" as "extreme or lethal force," you are right--companies are different from governments in that respect; however, if you, as an employee--and your family--are dependent on the income from a job and an employer's goodwill in obtaining other employment, economic coercion can be construed as functionally equivalent to force.
I'm not trying to downplay the impact that economic harm can have on somebody, but I think it is still ultimately being allowed by the sovereign state. Sovereign states can expropriate property at any time, and some of them do. They could force the corporation to keep paying you, and sometimes they do.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by khallow on Thursday May 05 2016, @09:53PM
But when mozilla fires their CEO for actions that conflict with the organization's ideals,
No, they didn't. They illegally fired their CEO because of some bad publicity surrounding a legitimate political expression of his beliefs. Such dumb moves can destroy non profits and you should consider Mozilla lucky that it still exists after playing such a game.
(Score: 2) by julian on Friday May 06 2016, @08:16PM
I don't think he should have been fired but his political beliefs were not legitimate. There's no legitimate argument against marriage equality. There are religious objections, but we live in a secular nation so religious arguments are automatically illegitimate. You're free to make them of course, but they hold zero weight.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday May 06 2016, @11:20PM
There's no legitimate argument against marriage equality.
And obviously he felt differently. What makes your feelings more legitimate than his feelings?
(Score: 3, Funny) by art guerrilla on Friday May 06 2016, @01:19AM
so, advertiser-funded = korporate-kontrolled with the 'right' to spike any/all stories ? ? ?
are you recognizing that as reality, or saying that is just how 'journalism' should be: pay to play ? ? ?
we DO have -for 90-95% of the generally available media- korporate-kontrolled media... which is THE major reason why we have endless 'natural' disaster stories, cats in trees, etc, and NOTHING about small town or big town or capital town corruption, korporate fraud, much less banksters hijacking the economy etc...
a FUNCTIONING media actually interested in journalism would follow the general guidelines which have guided good journalism since it began:
afflict the comfortable, and comfort the afflicted...
but this lionizing of the 1% as the ultimate expression of WORSHIPPED kapitalist imperialism, is SICK, in a perverted sense that SHOULD make all right-thinking people recoil in disgust, rather than hope to be like them...
SUPPOSEDLY, 'our' (sic) small dee democracy is ABSOLUTELY dependent upon the free and unfettered flow of information, and transparent oversight of ALL gummint, in order to make fully informed decisions/votes...
is there ANY part of that we have available to us now ? ? ?
on ANY level ? ? ?
how does this korporate-sponsored 'journalism' square itself with those basic principles for the survival of small-dee democracy...
well, it doesn't, does it ?
and
THAT is the fucking plan, isn't it ?
and
The They (tm) have the money, power and influence to enforce that, and we ain't got shit...
and
power NEVER devolves voluntarily...
(Score: 3, Insightful) by darnkitten on Friday May 06 2016, @01:46AM
I normally don't do this, but...
Could you please reformat your post with an eye to readability?
In its present form, it comes off as so much visual cacophony. I'm sure it makes good points, but I am having difficulty getting more than a sense of anger/outrage and the occasional keyword out of it, and I suspect most people will skip it, rather than attempt to decode the message.
Your shorter posts are easier to navigate, and read more like free verse. :)
Thanks!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 06 2016, @01:00PM
it probably doesn't make any good points because the first sentence makes it clear the author's sarcasm detector functions are impaired
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 06 2016, @02:54AM
You're new to this entire 'civilization' thing, aren't you?
(Score: 5, Informative) by Phoenix666 on Thursday May 05 2016, @03:22PM
For those who are interested in non-corporate, non-modified seedstock, there are non-profit seed banks you can get seeds from like SeedSavers.org [seedsavers.org] or SurvivalSeeds.org [survivalseedbank.com]. It's not going to challenge the Monsantos and DuPonts of the world, but you can at least grow excellent fruit and vegetables at home (assuming you have a house with a yard). They taste so much better than even the stuff you can get at the farmer's market, and you feel better after eating them (which I suppose means they have better nutrients). If you care about matters like having a low carbon footprint and being self-reliant, it's about the best thing you can do, too.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 05 2016, @03:36PM
Until Monsanto sues them out of business for seeds that blew across the road.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 05 2016, @04:22PM
Which will stop when.. Say nice office you got there, too bad....
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 05 2016, @04:20PM
you feel better after eating them (which I suppose means they have better nutrients)
Or you know, post-purchase rationalization.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 05 2016, @04:26PM
Thanks for the links! I never knew there were so many different kinds of cucumber, but I suppose why not, of course there would be just like any other plant.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Gaaark on Thursday May 05 2016, @04:31PM
The TPP wants to end the saving AND sharing of seeds
http://www.iatp.org/blog/201511/tpp-fine-print-biotech-seed-companies-win-again [iatp.org]
http://www.naturalnews.com/050151_farmers_TPP_biotech_patents.html# [naturalnews.com]
[T]he new TPP language will prohibit farmers from saving and exchanging many varieties of seeds -- a practice vital to the livelihood and welfare of traditional farming communities -- and most likely increase multinational control of the farming industry in TPP nations," reads a review of TPP's provisions published in the Harvard Law School Human Rights Journal.
We need to f°ck Monsanto and it's little dog TPP, too!
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by EvilSS on Thursday May 05 2016, @06:30PM
I don't think most people grow field corn or soybeans at home anyway. Sweet corn maybe but that's a totally different beast from what most of the corn you see growing on farmers fields is.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Phoenix666 on Thursday May 05 2016, @07:28PM
there's nothing that says you can't. the indians grew the "three sisters," which consisted of beans, corn, and squash. the three grow together harmoniously and together yield a complete protein. anyone can do the same. if we master the production of terra preta we might even be able to grow more than we need on small plots of land.
there are also other grain crops you grow to make flour like quinoa or ameranth. many of those are better for you than wheat. people can grow more of their own food than they do. during the blitz or the great depression they did.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by EvilSS on Thursday May 05 2016, @08:45PM
You could but why would you? Do you even know what field corn is? You would not really be growing field corn or soybeans from Monsanto (or anyone else) for your home garden. Those are industrial crops, not direct food crops. The seeds from your local store are not GMO to begin with.
(Score: 1) by dak664 on Friday May 06 2016, @12:39AM
Quite true but needs a lot of good quality soil, and if the tribe is to have any kind of growth, a fish buried under each corn seed to provide the growth-limiting nitrogen.
GMO crops can grow in any sterile sun-lit soil through the scientific usage of fertilizer, weed killers, fungicides, and insecticides. Without them many people would starve. Ironically, existing organic farmers and their children are the most vulnerable.
(Score: 3, Informative) by jdavidb on Thursday May 05 2016, @03:26PM
You have freedom of speech, and the rest of us have freedom, too. I don't have to like what you say, and I don't have to let you use my resources to exercise your freedom at my expense. You can go right on saying what you like, and are clearly doing so here on the Internet. Thankfully in this day and age the cost of speech (the cost of a "printing press") is cheap.
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 5, Insightful) by TheGratefulNet on Thursday May 05 2016, @03:32PM
you totally failed to see the real issue.
just like in software, the company owners call ALL the shots and since it seems that the farmers and ranchers are not unionized to fight against the HUGE corps that pretty much own them, they are in the same boat as many of us.
no collective bargaining and when the 'owner' gets so big and powerful they are like a government, you are simply their serf or you lose. many times you have ONE choice on who you sell to and if you piss off the wrong guy you lose it all. again, just like software work.
the whole notion of balance of power is to stop one group from getting too strong that it becomes a corrupt force.
the republicans have done their 'work' by shooting down unions for the last 40 or so years; and so we have serfs who work in various jobs and cannot really speak up or they will lose their jobs and income.
that's not freedom. no one is going to KILL you for speaking up (not directly, anyway) but market forces will make your life miserable if you dare challenge established authority.
monsanto, dupont and that other company are corrupt and too powerful for their own good.
basically, capitalism is broken. we allow companies to grow ever larger and with no bounds or limits. is it any wonder that they ALL become corrupt and continue to seek more power with mergers and such? and the US just smiles and allows it. I blame the US for not taking care of its PEOPLE and, instead, only taking care of corporations.
trickle down never worked. and I hate when people piss on my leg.
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 05 2016, @03:45PM
That, combined with "At-will employment", where you can be fired for anything or nothing at all and you have zero recourse whatsoever.
(Score: 2) by jdavidb on Thursday May 05 2016, @04:03PM
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 4, Informative) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday May 05 2016, @04:43PM
Sure, but you see...certainty is an emotion, not a data point. For the longest time people "failed to agree" with the germ theory of disease, but guess fuckin' what? That didn't make it false.
You can "fail to agree" all you want, but you're still wrong. The facts are not on your side. I realize that, as you've stated in other threads, you are not capable of reason, but I'm gonna keep following you around and doing this for the sake of everyone else who has to deal with your presence on the webbytubes.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 05 2016, @05:28PM
Keep it up, but keep it factual. Helpful to bookmark the posts of some of his greatest hits so you can refer to them in the future. Not that it will change his opinion of his randian uberman libertariat self, but so anyone else who doesn't realize the full extent of his uncompromising nutjobbery in the face of facts can easily see exactly who he is.
(Score: 2) by jdavidb on Thursday May 05 2016, @05:52PM
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 3, Funny) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday May 05 2016, @06:08PM
It's not a very long list.
1) You're an historically-illiterate, perverted "Christian"
2) You're a completely disconnected-from-reality "Libertarian"
3) You suffer from (or rather, make everyone ELSE suffer from) the cognitive dissonance between 1 and 2
Talk about having the hernia and making everyone else wear the fucking truss.
Not to mention, 4) by your own admission you cannot be reasoned with.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 05 2016, @06:29PM
Without citations those accusations carry no weight. I'm sure you've seen them, but your audience, by definition, has not seen them. If they had, they wouldn't need to read your post.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Bot on Thursday May 05 2016, @05:36PM
> Sure, but you see...certainty is an emotion, not a data point.
what is this, the definition for "Female"? It makes many other data points fit.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday May 05 2016, @05:40PM
What the hell was that?
If you're making a riff on trans* folks, realize that "female" can be applied to several aspects of a person, i.e., female chromosome cohort (XX), female sex organs, female gender identity, female outward presentation, etc/, each of which has a varying degree of societal vs. physical roots...and some of which supervene on others.
For example, someone may have an X and a Y chromosome (nale cohort) but appear female including sex organs due to adrenal hyperplasia or other dysgenesis. A transwoman has a female gender identity and likely a female-looking brain (ratio of white to grey matter for example) but a male chromosome cohort and male genitalia.
Things aren't always simple, even though you yourself are.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by Bot on Thursday May 05 2016, @05:52PM
If you read the lines, instead of between them, I said you defined "Female", not whether you in particular are it or not, because the definition is elegant but not necessarily exclusive.
I have no chromosomes so I feel pretty above your peers' sexual tribalisms.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 05 2016, @06:33PM
No, you defined "female" not Azumi. And it is a weird ass definition too.
If you don't think certainty is an emotion, then what do you think it is?
Since you have no chromosomes, does that mean you think certainty does not exist?
Hhhm, gasbags don't have chromosomes. Does that make you a gasbag?
(Score: 2) by Bot on Friday May 06 2016, @12:34AM
> No, you defined "female" not Azumi.
Please read again, she made the phrase, I declared it defines female with many fitting data points.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 06 2016, @01:06PM
>> No, you defined "female" not Azumi.
>
> I declared it defines female
You literally wrote that you did something while simultaneously declaring you did not do it.
You are indeed a gasbag.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Friday May 06 2016, @04:46PM
SN user said: X
I said: X is the definition of "female".
Are you agreeing on that?
Are you sure the above implies the definition X is mine?
> You are indeed a gasbag.
This is an unusual data point.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Thursday May 05 2016, @07:04PM
I have no chromosomes so I feel pretty . . .
[cue Music!] " I feel pretty! Oh so pretty! So pretty, and happy, and Gay!" [/cut] My Fair Lady, based on Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Friday May 06 2016, @12:43AM
Nice citation. I guess you recently tried to debug systemd problems? It does things like this to people.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 5, Informative) by fubari on Thursday May 05 2016, @04:49PM
I totally fail to agree with you.
"fail to agree"?
These excerpts from a comment in the TFA [foodpolitics.com] sound like a power imbalance to me. Would you agree? Or fail to agree?
"A good friend blasted processor power in milk markets, only to get a call from his milk buyer that the milk truck would no longer stop at his farm. With the company being the only buyer in the area, his farm came to an end."
"Recently, a dairy farmer complained that a dairy processor did not portray its milk sourcing accurately. Shortly thereafter, the entire cooperative the farmer sells through was told that its contract to supply milk to the company was over. An outspoken farmer risks collective punishment for all of the farmers in their coop."
(Score: 3, Informative) by slinches on Thursday May 05 2016, @05:41PM
It sounds like someone should start a competing milk delivery service.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 05 2016, @06:05PM
Yeah, because I can do that in 1-2-3... easy-peazy!
(Score: 2) by Pino P on Thursday May 05 2016, @06:14PM
One ought to investigate starting a competing buyer as soon as the market contracts from two buyers to one.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by julian on Thursday May 05 2016, @06:08PM
And yet, this rarely happens for a lot of reasons. Competition doesn't serve as an effective check when the barrier to entry is sufficiently high--and "sufficiently" can be quite low. Neither can boycotts or informed consumer choice be counted on to pressure companies to improve and compete. Coca-Cola hires murderers to kill union organizers in South America, and this isn't even a secret anymore. Yet people can't be fucked to switch to Pepsi which is right next to it on the shelf. Consumers don't keep companies in check. Competition doesn't keep companies in check.
These are the broken promises of capitalism as a self-regulating system. It is rather a run-away chain reaction that eventually consumes itself and the sum total of every "rational actor" making individually prudent decisions creates an emergent reality that is clearly in everyone's disinterest. This isn't even a new idea. Philosophers have known about The Tragedy of the Commons, and coordination problems for hundreds of years, and thousands of years before it was explicitly given a name.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday May 05 2016, @07:15PM
Can...can I steal this? This is perfect I've never seen anyone articulate this so well! This is what I've been trying to say and just could not find the words for. JMorris, KHallow, JDavidB, FlightyBuzzard, and Runaway all need to see this.
At this point they, and everyone else who reads this, is without excuse.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 5, Informative) by julian on Thursday May 05 2016, @07:56PM
If you're interested, the owner of this website [raikoth.net] goes into much deeper detail. Most of my arguments are influenced by his very thorough deconstruction of libertarianism. It's a good distillation of the best (and virtually indestructible) anti-libertarian arguments. Deeper down the rabbit hole is this website. [std.com]
At this point, anyone still clinging to libertarianism is a shameless reprobate or hopelessly deluded. It's quite sad, really. It's like seeing someone still holding on to logical positivism even after you've shown them Karl Popper. Their ideology is dead and buried and they're standing around saying, "No, no, this is fine. There's really no problem at all here." People like the ones you mentioned are lost causes. They're never going to grieve for an appropriate amount of time over their disproven ideology, accept reality, and get on with it. Thankfully the rest of us can.
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Friday May 06 2016, @01:49AM
These are the broken promises of capitalism as a self-regulating system.
It is the problem when any system gets "true believers", those that have been brainwashed into believing they are supporting the one true god (figuratively). No pure economic system is viable, human nature will guarantee that advantages will be abused to perpetuate the rise of a privileged few. Ideally a government would blend together whatever parts of various systems, be they capitalism, socialism, communism or whatever, to best fit the needs of its constituents to make a better, sustainable life for as much of the citizenry as possible and be willing to change as necessary. In reality, those in power manipulate the "true believers" into bleating like Orwell's sheep against their own interests to push public policy in the direction that best benefits the myopic interests of those in power. Try to explain to capitalist "true believers" in the US that a large part of what they support government doing is funded through socialism (the military for the biggest one). You get met with comments like "That's funded by tax dollars, it's not socialism". They have been brainwashed into believing that socialism is giving money to poor people (really, they mostly mean minorities) so they can live "high on the hog instead of working for a living". Thus any helpful program gets tarred with the socialist label and we end up with a corporate "capitalist" takeover of our government and ultimately, the very wealth of the people.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 05 2016, @06:37PM
> An outspoken farmer risks collective punishment for all of the farmers in their coop.
Now you get it! That is exactly as jdavidb prefers it.
Collective action is the devil, but collective punishment is divine.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Friday May 06 2016, @08:48AM
Yes, exactly!
I totally fail to agree with you.
"fail to agree"?
I often "fail to agree" with the grandparent poster, but I often think this is a matter or incoherence rather than a dispute about facts or principles.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 05 2016, @06:02PM
I blame the US for not taking care of its PEOPLE and, instead, only taking care of corporations.
But... but... but... corporations are people... poor, poor people who need protection from individuals and other people. Quick, give them a tax-break before they move jobs to where the next subsidy is coming from...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 05 2016, @10:34PM
I question whether you understand unions. I had the pleasure of working for the AFSCME for a few years when I was a payment clerk for a state government. We received hundreds of invoices a day for three people. One of the three and I got into a competition on how many we could put out in one day while keeping a perfect accuracy. At year end we were managing between 250 and 350 per person while the third clerk didn't try and got 40. We did not care the other clerk didn't try, we were having a good time competing. We were both severely reprimanded for our "hostile work environment", lost steps, and nearly fired all at the request of the Union.
Non-union workers have to worry about a monopoly or oligarchy telling them what they can do. Union workers have union leaders telling them what they can do. Either way, you are a surf. Pay up to one or the other or you are not allowed to work.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 06 2016, @02:07AM
The plural of "anecdote" is not "data".
In addition, the Chinese have had a saying for millennia:
The nail that sticks up will be hammered down.
It sounds to me like those involved didn't learn how to work the system and are blaming others.
I also note that you didn't name the union.
This sounds to me like a third-hand story.
you are a surf
s/surf/serf
You were supposed to READ those textbooks, not eat them.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 06 2016, @01:27AM
the republicans have done their 'work' by shooting down unions for the last 40 or so years
True, but, sadly, temporally short-sighted.
There was a GIANT inflection point in 1947 when Reactionary Republicans took a majority in the Congress and enacted The Taft-Hartley Act, [wikipedia.org] sometimes called "The Slave-Labor Act".
No Liberal administration or Liberal-majority Congress since then has done anything to undo that abomination.
...in case anyone here was thinking about calling any Democrats "Socialist" or "Leftist" once again.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 06 2016, @04:37PM
I blame the US for not taking care of its PEOPLE and, instead, only taking care of corporations.
Well voters vote for issues they care about most which is typically stuff like "gay marriage", "abortion" and not stuff like this. Heck look at the huge number of US voters who were opposed to providing healthcare for the poor[1].
Then the Corporations fund the politicians for stuff they care about most, which is stuff like subsidies, extended monopolies, "friendlier" regulations etc.
There's usually not much conflict (most large Corporations don't care as much about "gay marriage" as they do about corporate subsidies and regulations , and most voters don't care as much about regulations on industries as much as "abortion" and similar - you'd hear more voters say "I'll never vote for him, he opposes/supports gay marriage" than "I'll never vote for him, he opposes/supports lengthening/shortening/strengthening copyrights").
So the majority of the voters get what they want the most (abortion or not in their state), and the Corporations get what they want the most, and the politicians get their $$$$ and votes. Win-win for everyone right?
Democracy at work.
[1] Despite healthcare _already_ being provided to the poor in far more expensive ways like the poor waiting in ER, committing crimes to get $$$ or even robbing banks for a buck to get into prison for treatment. I know rich supposedly intelligent people who were against giving healthcare to the poor. All despite there being plenty of evidence that it's cheaper and better to provide healthcare to the poor and everyone else in the way that's already done in many other countries. Ah but many of the very rich can avoid taxes right? So it might be a smart selfish choice for them but how about the richer but not quite so rich who can't avoid those taxes? Those bunch are pretty stupid have fought universal healthcare (obamacare is not universal healthcare it's an abomination- you shouldn't have to waste time and money to register people for stuff and build stupid websites to do so, people should be covered automatically).
(Score: 2) by Bot on Thursday May 05 2016, @05:31PM
Technically, it is not a matter of freedom of speech.
It's a matter of "Mass media are not there to disseminate information, but to control it, don't bother trusting their fairy tales".
Account abandoned.
(Score: 5, Informative) by EvilSS on Thursday May 05 2016, @03:26PM
It seems like in the U.S. you free to say what you like, but if you offend the wrong people you're free to lose your job despite the protections you are provided and encouraged to use.
Those protections are from GOVERNMENT interference in speech. Except in very narrow instances. they do NOT protect you from any private repercussions, as is the case here. There is a tradition (fragile, but still) of news outlets protecting their reporters/editorialists from consequences of negative reporting or opinions of advertisers, but it's not the law of the land by any stretch.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by ikanreed on Thursday May 05 2016, @03:58PM
Which is why we need guiltiness for these rich douches yesterday, not tomorrow. They're gaining more de facto power over our lives than our government.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 06 2016, @04:19AM
I think they have plenty of guiltiness already. Did you mean guillotines?
/clippy mode
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 05 2016, @04:19PM
Yep, just like with Brendan Eich....
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Thursday May 05 2016, @04:26PM
To reiterate ikanreed's point: at what point point should we consider the mega-corporations part of the government?
The Trans-Pacific Partnership was negotiated in secret for 5 years. Elected representatives did not have access to the drafts, but corporate representatives sure did.
There is also the problem of regulatory capture where people regulating industry, later get hired by the same industry (and vice versa). That particular problem is not even easy to avoid, because you want regulators to have some industry experience.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by MrGuy on Thursday May 05 2016, @05:13PM
To reiterate ikanreed's point: at what point point should we consider the mega-corporations part of the government?
When they start using the machinery of the government to enact their private revenge, we can talk. Otherwise, this is anti-government "big corporations are never in the right!" partisan bullcrap.
The cartoonist did not suddenly get audited by the IRS, or get pulled over for going 3 miles over the speed limit, or have a "mistaken" SWAT raid on his house. There's no indication - absolutely none - that any government or even government-like pressure was instituted.
If I make loud, public statements that criticize my employer, and they fire me, that's not them acting like they're part of the government. That's them acting like my employer. Yes, they have the right to fire me. Free speech does not and has never implied you can say whatever you want, and no one is allowed to attach any consequences to that speech.
In this case, the cartoonist isn't criticizing his employer, but his employer's clients. And those clients did not go to the FBI, or the city council to try to take revenge. Instead, those companies decided to complain to the published, and pulled their advertising. This is completely private action. Does this imply the corporation has a lot of power over the companies that carry their advertisements? Sure does. But that's not a government issue. That's a private enterprise issue.
If you want to criticize an industry, you're free to do so. If the cartoonist had published this as a private citizen, there's no indication that the corporations criticized would "act like a government" and try to criminalize those actions. You can say "Well, maybe they would have!" but that's a discussion about our respective opinions on what a corporation WOULD do. Not what they did.
When you take someone's money for a platform, you shouldn't be entirely surprised if they don't like your criticism and decide not to keep funding you. That's always been an issue with the notion of advertising-supported journalism.
(Score: 2) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Thursday May 05 2016, @05:21PM
I guess where I was going was a lot of infrastructure is privately owned. We are told that the government can't provide services such as telecommunication because that would be "inefficient"; never mind that it is a natural monopoly.
There is also not much of a social safety net to speak of in the US. You can lose your livelihood if you upset the wrong person.
(Score: 1) by quintessence on Thursday May 05 2016, @08:51PM
Free speech does not and has never implied you can say whatever you want, and no one is allowed to attach any consequences to that speech.
This is disingenuous in the extreme, as if the only people compelled not to act like asshats regarding free speech is the government. It's an inability to differentiate being fired for saying "fuck you" to customers who walk in, and being fired because you have a Republican bumper sticker on your vehicle, let alone the notion the government often operates through proxies (ECHLON for starters to required to report statues).
Categorically the days of slavery ended a while ago. Just because you pay a wage doesn't give you cart blanch to impose yourself on your employees. If the cartoonist wanted to push the issue, he could probably mount a wrongful dismissal suit. But this "it wasn't censorship because it wasn't the government, yuck, yuck" is just uninformed, misguided, and distasteful.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Thursday May 05 2016, @08:30PM
The lack of a legal obligation does not imply the lack of a moral or ethical obligation.
(Score: 2) by EvilSS on Friday May 06 2016, @04:17PM
True, but it still doesn't changed the fact that there is no legal "protection" in this case.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 05 2016, @03:35PM
The protection afforded by constitution apply to protection from the government. Was he employed by the government? Was it the government that fired him? No.... If you want an amendment that will extend the protections to also protect individuals from corporations, that may require another revolution.
Most likely the paper for which this individual works gets tons of advertising revenue from the very companies that were lampooned by his cartoon. If someone holding a million dollar advertising contract calls you up and tells you to get rid of this guy or lose the contract... you are likely to do it, as I know I would.
While I may agree that the protections provided by the constitution are rather flimsy when you consider the dis-appropriate power private interests have in daily lives of individuals as compared to government, nonetheless that is how things are.
(Score: 4, Informative) by quintessence on Thursday May 05 2016, @03:37PM
This has already been a long time in the making:
February 2003 came down in favor of WTVT, who successfully argued that the FCC policy against falsification was not a "law, rule, or regulation", and so the whistle-blower law did not qualify as the required "law, rule, or regulation" under section 448.102 of the Florida Statutes.[5] ... Because the FCC's news distortion policy is not a "law, rule, or regulation" under section 448.102 of the Florida Statutes,[5] Akre has failed to state a claim under the whistle-blower's statute.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Akre [wikipedia.org]
It was game over from that point on, with every news agency free to distort to their heart's desire.
More pertinent in the cartoonist's case was that his speech was directly related to his employer. Sucks, but this is a job performance issue, and sometimes there is a high cost to speaking your mind.
(Score: 2) by black6host on Thursday May 05 2016, @05:15PM
As much as I dislike companies like Monsanto I agree with you. Perhaps the cartoonist would have been better off publishing elsewhere, anonymously.
I also think that the one who approved the cartoon for publishing should have been the one fired. Just my 2 cents.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 05 2016, @05:30PM
> Perhaps the cartoonist would have been better off publishing elsewhere, anonymously.
And starving. Definitely better off starving.
(Score: 2) by JeanCroix on Thursday May 05 2016, @04:00PM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 05 2016, @04:46PM
Good catch, this storyline was a staple of old TV sitcoms. The do-gooder who took on the wrong folks.
(Score: 2) by CHK6 on Thursday May 05 2016, @04:07PM
I believe some cartoonists have had far worse consequences for their drawings. A few unfortunate souls in France come to mind.
(Score: 2) by bitstream on Thursday May 05 2016, @04:27PM
Which ones are you thinking of?
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 05 2016, @06:14PM
There's at least Charb [wikipedia.org], Cabu [wikipedia.org], Philippe Honore [wikipedia.org] and Tignous [wikipedia.org] and those are just the cartoonists.
But there's also Kurt Westergaard [wikipedia.org] who had to basically live hidden away from everyone (Rushdi-esque).
(Score: 2) by bitstream on Thursday May 05 2016, @08:53PM
I thought someone had criticized the agricultural subsidies in France, which are BIG and thus big interests at play. Those people you mention are of course part of another conflict.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by bitstream on Thursday May 05 2016, @04:30PM
I think this article proves in a very good way why anonymity is a necessity where there's a real power asymmetry. And thus by extension why all this crypto outlawing is inherently bad.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday May 05 2016, @04:42PM
Anonymity needs a platform. Farm News is unlikely to provide one. Corporate media are still the influencers in the online age.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by black6host on Thursday May 05 2016, @05:47PM
They have no influence here... ACs can post whatever they want, whether it offends the big corporations or not. Surely there must exist a platform that would accept cartoons of this nature. Somewhere.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 05 2016, @06:16PM
AC stands for Agricultural Corporation
(Score: 3, Funny) by tibman on Thursday May 05 2016, @06:28PM
Here we have moderation that removes the wheat from the chaff. In order to harvest the best comics, some censoring and weed removal might be necessary.
SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
(Score: 2) by black6host on Thursday May 05 2016, @07:30PM
Well played, sir.
(Score: 2) by bitstream on Thursday May 05 2016, @06:38PM
Which is likely why official magazines etc will never really be free in the real sense. And may feel the competition from online discourse.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Thursday May 05 2016, @05:47PM
Two executives at a restaurant's table, with their fancy ultra-thin tablets.
The first says "I wish there were more profit in IT".
The second says "There is: systemd".
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Thursday May 05 2016, @05:57PM
If you are talking about deliberately fragile design, Microsoft has that market locked down with the Protected Media path.
(Score: 1) by nitehawk214 on Thursday May 05 2016, @11:56PM
While I am against censorship and big agriculture, who did this guy think was signing his paychecks with a name like "Farm News"? I don't even need to look at it to know where their funding comes from. It is terrible, but it isn't terribly surprising.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 06 2016, @02:54AM
Yeah, well fuck you. See? I can say that stuff. I can point out what an ignorant stupid fuck you are. Unlike 90% of the world, I can say this shit and not get thrown in jail, have my feet held to the fire. Even our comedians can say stuff like this without getting arrested [theguardian.com].
And if you think upsetting rich people gets you in trouble is a US-only thing, than you really are a complete fucktard who is drawing down the gene pool. We've got THOUSANDS of bloody years of kings, popes, czars, emperors, and pharaohs who have killed and tortured for FAR less offenses of disagreement, most of it before there even was a US.
It seems like in the rest of the world, freedom of speech is not a valued asset.