Memo 20: Speeching
As always, I have not known rest since setting foot into the hazardous wastelands of the internet, but I have been particularly unable to relax since I saw a video with a very clickbait-y title that the US has not had democracy since 1976. The idea of the US not being a true democracy did not catch my attention — just look outside, or pay attention to any recent event ever — but the specificity of the year did. And there’s a reason for it that I had no awareness of at all.
1976 was the year that the Buckley v. Valeo case occurred. The rundown of the case is as follows: Senator James L. Buckley of New York — a Presidential candidate and former Senator from Minnesota — and some others filed a suit against the FEC, including Secretary of the Senate and FEC member Francis R. Valeo. Buckley and crew thought that FECA (under which the Commission was formed) and the Presidential Election Campaign Fund Act were unconstitutional for many reasons.
What happened? The ruling out of that case was that “limiting political spending improperly restricts speech because it restricts the quantity of expression.” Yeah, it’s as bad as it sounds. Political spending — and the insidious, shady parts of it — can never be capped through this logic that money = speech. Even the current FEC chair thinks that Buckley v. Valeo should be overturned.
It gets even worse when you realize that this ruling “allowed no restrictions on contributions from individuals and groups, so long as they were independent of any official election campaigns.” What rose outta this? The hellhole that is political action committees (PACs).
The links between speech, money and politics are not new. Nor is the insidious ways that legal wins allow large institutions and groups to leverage money to gain power — or leverage power to gain money, such as how corporations are technically considered people and given rights in light of that.
But there are more nuanced, recent ways in which these three themes combine that I want to explore here. Before diving any deeper, I want to give a shout-out to Rohun’s Bitcoin or Stupid Shit? website, also made with his roommates Angel and Matt. It’s an ingeniously simple site that shows the changing value of money in this day and age through some funny examples. Very talented bunch o’ guys over there!
Another recent phenomenon that hits all three themes smack-dab in the middle is Clubhouse, the app you love or hate.¹ For those who do not know, Clubhouse is an invite-only app where people can follow each other and congregate in moderated rooms. In those rooms, only audio is played — it’s like live podcasting in a social media app. It’s had an interesting progression so far, as more people have gotten onto the app and the culture around it has built up.
One recent-ish development of Clubhouse are rooms in which people pitch their ideas — series and feature ideas, startup ideas, etc — to “professionals”² in said fields. The catch? You gotta pay to pitch. This trend of people inside a specialized, exclusive field paying for people to pitch to them has been occurring for a while, but usually in more business, festival or corporation settings.
Having it occur on Clubhouse, a social media app, feels like it crosses a line of sorts. It’s an app with no ads so far, so this is actively bringing a money element to casual speech. In a way, it’s the opposite and same thing as the Buckley v. Valero case. While the case fights against restriction in the name of fair speech expression, these Clubhouse professionals seek restriction in how speech is said to them in the name of what they view as far. But both align over the ways that money is a means to bypass the rules and unfairly allow things in the name of speech.
Speech and money in 2021 is a whole rabbit hole to go down, if that rabbit hole was connected to a collapsed mine shaft that was also connected to a bunch of confusing, unending underground tunnels. Suffice to say, they are concepts that should have never crossed but have long ago. And though it’s hard to fight against, it should be done — or at least closely monitored. Because 1976 created a dystopian world far closer to us than 1984 will ever be.
And because there is always more to consume, here are some LINKS from this past week:
Great News, America: Cheese Isn’t Bad for You. Honestly? Unironically, I needed to hear this. It’s great to hear that cheese isn’t terrible for you...
.. but traffic noises are? Sounding the alarm: How noise hurts the heart explains how noises mess you up. Another win for the suburbs.
I Was Your Fave Is Problematic. Y’all have no idea how truly excited I am about this article, as yourfaveisproblematic carried the entire Tumblr community at times in my bloodthirsty teen youth.
With the news of how the Lucas brothers are making a feature with Apatow based on their lives, the rabbit hole lead me to this article they wrote last June 2020 that mentions their life growing up. It’s a very interesting piece and makes me all the more excited about the upcoming feature.
Can a robot pray? Does an automaton have a soul? AI and theology meet. It’s not a Jouissance without a metaphysical exploration of technology!
Dish of the week goes to this African peanut soup (maafe in some regions) and this avgolemono recipe, both vegan-ized versions (so don’t come at me that it’s not fully authentic because this bro is working within some restrictions here). Both of them were very delicious, especially thanks to ingredients in the broth that I have not used before — peanut butter in the maafe and tahini in the avgolemono. Big fan of both.
Or have no opinion on because you’ve never heard of it, which is fair.
“Professionals” in quotes because even though they are probably/usually not lying about being professionals, it’s not super professional — in my humble opinion — to do such an activity.