in this thread we will discuss several concepts it will be an open conversation. on the state of Western Civilization with multiple points so feel free to jump in with observations you care to make

we will discuss  cultural hegemony, globalism, local surveillance , international purveyance and how this effects us all.


the release of the DNC emails by an anonymous source  really are a great start point.  the DNC is furious over the release they have no idea what happened who did it , and lash out at Russia.  but not assange the haker known to do things like this and usually associated with wkileaks and England.
this is interesting because for the first time in history the elite political class's personal thoughts were fully transparent.  they panicked because they are being monitored.

The Panopticon:

"The Panopticon is a type of institutional building designed by the English philosopher and social theorist Jeremy Bentham in the late 18th century. The concept of the design is to allow all (pan-) inmates of an institution to be observed (-opticon) by a single watchman without the inmates being able to tell whether or not they are being watched. Although it is physically impossible for the single watchman to observe all cells at once, the fact that the inmates cannot know when they are being watched means that all inmates must act as though they are watched at all times, effectively controlling their own behaviour constantly. The name is also a reference to Panoptes from Greek mythology; he was a giant with a hundred eyes and thus was known to be a very effective watchman."

Why is this important in the modern age:

The looming interconnectivity between objects in our homes, cars and cities, generally referred to as the internet of things, will change digital surveillance substantially. With the advent of wider networked systems, heralded by the likes of Google’s Brillo and Apple’s HomeKit, everything from washing machines to sex toys will soon be able to communicate, creating a vast amount of data about our lives. And this deluge of data won’t only be passed back and forth between objects but will most likely wind its way towards corporate and government reservoirs.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jul/23/panopticon-digital-surveillance-jeremy-bentham

Emphasis is mine....

It encourages you to watch your actions & thought more and more.out of fear of never knowing when you are being monitored or knowing you always are.


in the classic version/concept  you never knew if you were being monitored. in today's modern world  you c assume  the guard never blinks. but it does the NSA ONLY MONITORS ABOUT 12% OF DAILY INTERNET ACTIVITY.  

I think in concept it is easy to say the modern panopticon(the physical tower itself) is now a one story complex in Utah

website to NSA HEADQUATERS




YES IT IS A CRAZY LONG VIDEO BUT IF YOU CARE  enough all the information you might want is in this video.

Steven Coughlin mentions "The Abuse of Language The Abuse of Power" by Josef Pieper  I think this folds or connects into this discussion, but don't know how - yet.

the panopticon is a great example of the way foucault examined tools of social control.  now, foucault was far left, but his work seriously disrupts our current conversations about big-gov left against laissez-faire right.  in fact, some of his stuff winds up sounding distinctly american-right, and we on the right should be familiar with it. his 'security, territory, population' lectures make an excellent entry point.

a continuing refrain in foucault is social discipline, or how dominant power poles condition us (the population) to behave in certain ways.  think of discipline less in terms of coercion at the muzzle of a gun, and more like discipline in a primary school: now we hang up our jacket on the lower peg, now we take a nap, and please don't eat the paint.  the panopticon serves this role admirably, since it doesn't require direct intervention--it forces us to modulate our own behavior.  language is also quite useful.  if you control the language used in a discussion, you control the whole conversation (by controlling which terms are accepted as having meaningful content).  this is all relevant to what we're seeing every day on the news.

i'm not trying to be coy, but there really isn't anything specific for me to respond to yet.  but to give you an example of how foucault can be used, my current research is based on the discursive (foucault) 'production of space' (lefebvre).  in short, how did urban advocates control language used to describe territory that would be involved in the construction of a dam/reservoir complex, such that it could be controlled by the city and state.  the next phase of this research will be how the people in this space would be controlled by the intervention.  IOW, controlling space = controlling people, even if there isn't a gestapo. it's colonial in nature.  zoning and environmental regulations discipline the lives of rural people, even though they (the rural people) have little political voice (since numbers count when it comes to voting, the city rules everything).

bump--finally posted something.

that is a perfect segway into cultural hegemony. a theory proposed by  antonio gramsci

in a nutshell cultural hegemony is that culture is ever changing yet controlled by "the elites" who stay hidden just outside  the system of government.
MY THOUGHT this is why t"the Panopticon of modern observation & social media i so alarming to them.
he provides the royal courts as an example. he noted "the elites" control language and therefore culture by controlling.: 1. the media 2. the church 3. political conversation,4. education. he goes on to define the press as education for adults.

MY THOUGHT  take the Panopticon concept and apply it to modern surveillance techniques especially email and phone hacking
suddenly the elites are under the watch of the panopticon & they do not seem to know how to respond.
 this is why t"the Panopticon of modern observation & social media i so alarming to them

they are unable to adapt and the elites  are currently not hidden. the limit of information is only  populations' will to know the truth

so back to the video. where truth once viewed past the individual's belief system can effect power by enforcing terms.

It is absolutely colonization. Space is seized so that resources or labor may be removed or utlized by a technologically superior invader.

It is done in stages I refer to space as "the colonial contact area"
first the initial confrontation- it cannot occur until a settlement or claim is made  in "the colonial contact area. It will be disputed by the native population.

2nd the colonizer creates a new "elite class" in the colonized population  by creating collaborators through threats  bribes,employment, promises of technology or trade.
those who refuse I call nativist."

3rd the collaborators and the "nativist"will come into conflict here is where language and laws are used siren. it is identifiabel by rapid and drastic changes in laguage and temperment.   it is the beginning of hegemonic change.

4th if colonization continues successfully the nativist will go through a major religious or cultural change. on large scales it will often be militaristic and involve making men feel invulnerable to death or bullets. in smaller scales it will involve sabotage,lawsuits, or  more use of language & power here the older hegemony is being replaced  

finally  there will be one last major attempt to stop colonization.  incorporating much of the colonizers customs and technology adapted or stolen  as needed and the zeal and desperation of the remaining nativst and the new belief system.

this pattern repeats itself at  all scales, in all cultures, in all geographic environments.  unless the native population wins.

Western Civilization led by America  is the colonizer in today's world

b4MARSOC in your video hthe peaker mentions 2 names as the leaders of the "arab spring- they are hidden elites, and nativist.

ISIS.  Yemen, Al baghdadi,  terrorist ,and  Iranians are  examples of  nativist

Baharain , Kuwait,Qatar, and Saudi Arabia are large  collaborators  

You can get a list of named Arab collaborators right now through the modern panopticon. of the press.  Any donator to the Clinton Foundation  that is  located in the Levant. is a collaborator. Ironically Hillary & Obama are likley  collaborators in the colonization of Europe & the United States. by the Arabs we are colonizing.

hezbolla , PLO, hamas was stage2 at the regional scale

the creation of ISIS & alq'ueda are stage 3 at a global scale

stage 4 The major push with a religious/cultural change is happening right now.
 
We are being attacked at home, Europe itself is being colonized by Syrians & Europe is being divided.  the britexit is a major example of nativist separation

that means collaborators are in place.in Europe. I bet you can name them.

siren your language study is Trump's wall and THIS ELECTION.  The hacked emails from the soros global open foundation.   the hacked dDNC emails

MarSOC the Panopticon is the modern hacker,internet & press including this thread,

And you can analyze the situation, to me it's all just mental masturbation.  S. Hagar.

Nice explanation Sirensong.

Txl

this is a really interesting take on the panopticon/surveillance state, which is normally oriented the other way (at least in my branch of geography).  the orthodox view is that the panopticon is used by the powerful to discipline the population, but you're inverting the perspective here, which i really like.  what you're saying suggests that the powerful are only powerful because they're behind the one-way glass.  surveillance (AKA 'transparency' via something like wikileaks) threatens that power, by limiting the freedom of action of the powerful.

so it's really a matter of who is watching whom.  there's an isaac asimov short story about universal surveillance, but i can't remember the title.

it's increasingly relevant to your field.  you won't like her, but karen bakker's nexus is really important reading for those of us in the water/energy field.

yeah, you're right in my wheelhouse here.  this is franz fanon territory.  my advisor laughs that i'm the only human being in the world who can use fanon to help make right-wing points.  he's primarily concerned with extractive colonialism, but my focus is settler colonialism--check out mikdashi.

So where do I find the reading material?

Txl

i'm having trouble digging up the stuff specific to energy, but here's an overview of her conceptual model:

http://www.kysq.org/docs/Bakker_Biz.pdf

this is something you energy guys are going to have to deal with more and more.

siren what is your fAREA  in geography ?

I am into colonization conflict geography, and cultural geography.  AS Carl O Sauer  DEFINED IT

HERE IS MY MASTERS THESIS

great abstract!  i may read that on my upcoming trip.

i do critical resource geography, particularly the political ecology of water.  amusingly, my conceptual models draw on a wide spectrum of marxist geography, both in general (neil smith, harvey, peet, castree, lefebvre, etc.) and water-specific (swyngedouw, bakker, kaika, etc.).  i analyze the urbanization of water as a kind of settler colonialism, which results in, for example, LA and san francisco ruling all of california (dominating conservative areas).

here's a draft i'm currently working on:

are you aware of the sun valley studies showing g that the current lawns use less water tan the older ag based economy?

I must encourage you to looki nto John Frasier Hart of U of Minnesota for any ag related  research.

also SDSU has a number of legacy projects on the Sahel's water use . not urban but still important.

I knew that I was over my head.  Thank you!

If you do remember please let me know.  

We saw a little of the two-way surveillance when the names and addresses of the California legislators who signed all the recent firearm restrictions were published.  But the legislators were able to coerce the removal of their personal information.  

ost

If you want access to the internet in your pocket at any time you must agree to the EULA. Sure, you can find anything you need to know, but it's pay to play. You give up your location, privacy, etc. You can try to limit your exposure, but the company you give that info to has it for their purposes. In order to avoid hassle or whatever, the reasons are truly theirs and no business of ours as we agreed to the EULA our data is now theirs, they turn that info over to the government upon request or after being given a warrant which was legally or illegally obtained and now the State has it.

The funny thing it, I don't think things are even that bad here... yet. If people are arrested over what amounts to thoughtcrime, that will truly be a scary day.

link to a thread showing the results of the new information order

this thread is about hackers who are looking through the glass and now are in fear of reprisal. & instead are trying to attack.

tag

story is 'the dead past'.

So the elites realize that the one way glass of anonymity has flaws. This essentially is the only thing that keeps them at an elite status in the US, therefore it must be protected. So what is the next logical move to keep more people from look in?  Not everyone knows of the flaw but word is spreading. Is it spreading to fast for them to contain? Have we hit a sort of reset? Or is there a way for the elites mend the glass?

¿Que?

well the DNC  elites have resorted to the old play book to ""mend the glass". Blame the republicans & accuse the Russians

the press has forgotten their role in America they are suppose to educators for adults. They have become cheerleaders for political parties. to the point the DNC is actually writing & editing the stories daily.(proved in leaked emails)


We do not have a free press today they are not , any more independent than a child is free from her parents. the DNC is the oppressive overbearing guilt tripping mother of the media.

Gorgon Stare

so the batman DarkKnight spy  tech is real. that is unethical and not uprising