Resource:
Your Empire At Work
Does anybody know if our honorable client-state, Saudi Arabia, has crucified (sic) Ali al-Nimr, the teenager so sentenced last year?
He was only 17 years old when he was condemned to death by crucifixion (sic) for participation in an illegal demonstration and for a large number of other offences, including “setting up a page on his Blackberry with over 800 people, naming it ‘The Liberals,' with the goal of inciting demonstrations by way of sending pictures of the demonstrations, their time/locations and inviting people to participate"?
I can't find any follow-up coverage in the press, although there are plenty of happy and not-so-happy stories about Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and his efforts to "stabilize" the Saudi monarchy.
For instance, have they yet chopped the head off Mujtaba al Sweikat, the 17-year-old arrested, at the airport on his way to matriculate at the University of Western Michigan, for “supervising” a group on Facebook and “photographing the demonstrations, which is punishable according to the cybercrime bill”? And has the disabled teenager Munir Al-Adam been beheaded yet for his participation in Arab spring protests?
All these executions would be crimes under international law, by the way. Any word from Turtle Bay or The Hague?
--
Postscript: Despite a deadly war he is waging against neighboring Yemen, Saudi Arabia's King Salman has been awarded 'Personality of the Year' for his role in “uniting and protecting” the Muslim community.
He was only 17 years old when he was condemned to death by crucifixion (sic) for participation in an illegal demonstration and for a large number of other offences, including “setting up a page on his Blackberry with over 800 people, naming it ‘The Liberals,' with the goal of inciting demonstrations by way of sending pictures of the demonstrations, their time/locations and inviting people to participate"?
I can't find any follow-up coverage in the press, although there are plenty of happy and not-so-happy stories about Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and his efforts to "stabilize" the Saudi monarchy.
For instance, have they yet chopped the head off Mujtaba al Sweikat, the 17-year-old arrested, at the airport on his way to matriculate at the University of Western Michigan, for “supervising” a group on Facebook and “photographing the demonstrations, which is punishable according to the cybercrime bill”? And has the disabled teenager Munir Al-Adam been beheaded yet for his participation in Arab spring protests?
All these executions would be crimes under international law, by the way. Any word from Turtle Bay or The Hague?
--
Postscript: Despite a deadly war he is waging against neighboring Yemen, Saudi Arabia's King Salman has been awarded 'Personality of the Year' for his role in “uniting and protecting” the Muslim community.
When you hear the word "reform"...
...reach for your gun.
The most pointed irony of the DCCC/DNC interventions in California, specifically, is that here the party leadership is being hoist on its
own petard. They colluded in a "reform" effort led by then-governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to lock insurgents and independents out of general elections by limiting the final contestants to the top two vote getters in open primaries, assuming they would be the establishment picks from each party. Now the party bosses are forced to intervene to protect their pre-washed, pre-shrunk, pre-approved, corporate-friendly choices from an army of progressive challengers and angry Democratic voters.
The rest of the story:
✓ Fearing Chaos, National Democrats Plunge Into Midterm Primary Fights by Alexander Burns (New York Times).
✓ Democrats consider attacking their own California candidates to win back Congress by Emily Cadei (Sacramento Bee).
Reading list:
✓ Unintended consequences of California’s open primary by Martin Wiskol (Orange County Register).
✓ California GOP should embrace open primary system: Orange County Register editorial 2017/10/22.
✓ The political parties would like voters to kill California's top-two primary system in 2018 by John Myers (Los Angeles Times).
✓ The defining characteristic of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee for too many years has been its well-honed ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory: Texas Progressive Laura Moser Is Beating Democratic Insiders by John Nichols (The Nation).
✓ While this article is mostly true, it would be fairer to say that, after 30 years of Democratic missteps, the chickens came home to roost during Obama's stay in office: The Democratic Party Got Crushed During The Obama Presidency. Here's Why by Mara Kiasson (NPR).
✓ Instead of campaigning on issues that reform-minded voters care about, the DCCC is going after a GOP “culture of corruption.” Once again, elect us because we're not them. It worked then. But not since. Will it work now?: Democrats Look To Their Successful 2006 Messaging In Bid To Retake The House by Amanda Terkel (Huffington Post).
Extra credit:
✓ Maybe they can hire the lawyers who won the Citizens United case: DNC Lawyers Argue ‘Primary Rigging’ Is Protected by 1st Amendment (Liberty Headlines).
The most pointed irony of the DCCC/DNC interventions in California, specifically, is that here the party leadership is being hoist on its
 |
| Drew Shebeman—Tribune Media |
"The approach is laced with peril for a party divided over matters of ideology and political strategy, and increasingly dominated by activists who tend to resent what they see as meddling from Washington. A Democratic effort to undercut a liberal insurgent in a Houston-area congressional primary in March stirred an outcry on the left and may have inadvertently helped drive support to that candidate, Laura Moser, who qualified for the runoff election next month."The same thing is happening across CA where the party establishment's chronic distrust of voters is leading them to make the same mistakes that have cost them countless seats in local, state and congressional races (not to mention Al Gore, John Kerry and Hillary Clinton) since the 1990s.
The rest of the story:
✓ Fearing Chaos, National Democrats Plunge Into Midterm Primary Fights by Alexander Burns (New York Times).
✓ Democrats consider attacking their own California candidates to win back Congress by Emily Cadei (Sacramento Bee).
Reading list:
✓ Unintended consequences of California’s open primary by Martin Wiskol (Orange County Register).
✓ California GOP should embrace open primary system: Orange County Register editorial 2017/10/22.
✓ The political parties would like voters to kill California's top-two primary system in 2018 by John Myers (Los Angeles Times).
✓ The defining characteristic of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee for too many years has been its well-honed ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory: Texas Progressive Laura Moser Is Beating Democratic Insiders by John Nichols (The Nation).
✓ While this article is mostly true, it would be fairer to say that, after 30 years of Democratic missteps, the chickens came home to roost during Obama's stay in office: The Democratic Party Got Crushed During The Obama Presidency. Here's Why by Mara Kiasson (NPR).
✓ Instead of campaigning on issues that reform-minded voters care about, the DCCC is going after a GOP “culture of corruption.” Once again, elect us because we're not them. It worked then. But not since. Will it work now?: Democrats Look To Their Successful 2006 Messaging In Bid To Retake The House by Amanda Terkel (Huffington Post).
Extra credit:
✓ Maybe they can hire the lawyers who won the Citizens United case: DNC Lawyers Argue ‘Primary Rigging’ Is Protected by 1st Amendment (Liberty Headlines).
On Hanging Together
Some claim I'm a pessimist.
Not true.
I'm an optimist.
Things always turn out worse than I predict.
This is a post from 2015, titled "Block the Kochs":
Not true.
I'm an optimist.
Things always turn out worse than I predict.
This is a post from 2015, titled "Block the Kochs":
When Dylan sang "Your old road is rapidly agin'/Please get out of the new one if you can't lend your hand/For the times they are a-changin'," he was sending out a warning to the establishment of the day, the old order, the holders of the reins of authority, the guardians of business-as-usual.2015 seems like a long time ago.
And the times changed all right, just not the way he predicted. Now, it is we the people who need to heed the warning. The counter-revolution is nearly over. The oligarchs' final victory is around the next turn of the road. Despite the valiant resistance of individuals all over the planet, there are still too few willing to lend a hand. Difficult as it will be, we have to find the way to collective action.
"We must all hang together," Franklin said, "or assuredly we shall all hang separately."
Potted history, episode #947
We exited WWII with the most powerful military in the world and didn't demobilize, making a quick and seamless transition to neocolonialism and Korea. Surely, the existence of the Soviet Union was a boon, but the Reds were more of an excuse than a threat; in accounts of the Cold War it is clear that the Kremlin was usually playing catch-up when it came to escalation. A world map of the 1950s shows the Soviets surrounded by American bases and surrogates, not the other way around (Russian screwing with Cuba was an example of playing catch-up, however feebly). Long before the fall of The Wall and collapse of the Soviet Union, we were engaged in military adventurism around the globe, the sorriest example being Vietnam. Luckily for the military-industrial complex, 9/11 and The War of Terror arrived in time to keep the global network of military outposts and franchises thriving.
Rule of Law
Ex-CIA chief Mike Pompeo says the president has authority launch missile strikes without congressional action: "I don't think that has been disputed by Republicans or Democrats throughout an extended period of time."
Sen. Rand Paul: "Actually, it's disputed mostly by our Founding Fathers."
Sen. Rand Paul: "Actually, it's disputed mostly by our Founding Fathers."
Experience
“I use those skills every day.” -- deputy minority leader Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA), on being the only former preschool teacher in the Senate.
Budget deficit. So what.
Liberals and progressives need to think twice about making an issue of deficits. The federal debt, per se, is not a problem. If the government uses deficit spending to invest in the nation's future prosperity, as it must and should, we would not have a complaint. What needs to be attacked is our retrogressive tax system, corporate welfare, and military waste and adventurism. Deficit funding -- of efficient and economically competitive infrastructure; health care; lifetime education (not just pre-K to college and technical school, but skill-maintenance and retraining to avoid obsolescence); housing; and guaranteed basic income -- would be a bargain in the long run. Fetishizing the federal deficit runs the risk of making needed spending too expensive politically.
Bookkeeping
Spend like there is a tomorrow.
Liberals and progressives should be wary of making an issue of deficits, despite the imbalance resulting from the GOP's hypocritical tax cuts. The federal debt, per se, is not a problem. If the government used deficit spending to invest in the nation's future prosperity, as it must and should, there would be no occasion for complaint. What needs to be attacked is our retrogressive tax system, corporate welfare, and military waste and adventurism. Deficit funding -- on efficient and economically competitive infrastructure; health care; lifetime education (not just pre-K to college and technical school, but skill-maintenance and retraining to avoid obsolescence); housing; and guaranteed basic income -- would be a bargain in the long run.
Israeli troops shoot 750 Palestinians at Gaza border
Ready-made movie pitch, spotted in Harper's.
A clinical lecturer in surgery at Imperial College London proposed a scenario wherein “an Oedipus-like individual exposed to a Gödel closed timelike curve would sire a child during his maternal fertilization cycle. As a consequence of heteropaternal superfecundation, he would father his own dizygotic twin and would therefore generate a new class of autofraternal superfecundation, and by doing so creating a ‘twin-father’ temporal paradox."
Netflix will grab it in a New York minute. You're welcome.
Must read: If MLK were alive today, his words would threaten most of those who now sing his praises
A radical man deeply hated and held in contempt is recast as if he was a universally loved moderate.
"The major threat of Martin Luther King Jr to us is a spiritual and moral one. King’s courageous and compassionate example shatters the dominant neoliberal soul-craft of smartness, money and bombs.
"In this brief celebratory moment of King’s life and death we should be highly suspicious of those who sing his praises yet refuse to pay the cost of embodying King’s strong indictment of the US empire, capitalism and racism in their own lives."
Martin Luther King Jr was a radical. We must not sterilize his legacy by Cornel West (Guardian).
The Party of Hope and Change -- or the new Whigs?
If you look at today's Democratic Party and wonder, how did we get here?, consider words Bill Clinton uttered on April 7, 1993: "'I hope you're all aware we're all Eisenhower Republicans,' he said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. 'We're all Eisenhower Republicans here, and we are fighting the Reagan Republicans. We stand for lower deficits and free trade and the bond market. Isn't that great?'" (from The Agenda: Inside the Clinton White House by Bob Woodward).
Though he spoke those words in frustration, what he said was true. The party of FDR and LBJ had become -- and in many ways remains -- the party of Ike: on some issues, on support for Labor and protection of Social Security, for example, on economic policy and national security, the Democratic Party today stands to the right of 1950s Republicans.
It is because the party leadership has been doing Wall Street's bidding for so long, now going on four decades, that Democrats have lost much of their following among the middle and working classes; nor will the voters return unless in the next two election cycles the party changes direction as radically as it did in the 1990s.
At the grassroots level, Democratic voters, and people who would vote Democrat if the party were true to its roots, are organizing: fighting pipelines and fracking; pushing for a living wage or a guaranteed income; demanding gun control; defending the Dreamers; shoving back against free trade; marching in defense of the environment; calling for Medicare for All. Even the general public sides with the left on a number of key issues that reflect on the size and purpose of government: hefty majorities support higher taxes on the wealthy and the corporations and think the government should be actively reducing the growing gap between the rich and the rest; want legislation to significantly increase in the minimum wage; and look to Washington to create jobs by making urgently needed repairs to our neglected infrastructure.
What nearly all Americans crave most, though, is leadership.
Part of Donald Trump's appeal as a candidate -- his only appeal, really -- was in his promise to do something, even if that something was just to break up the furniture. Doing something was more appealing than poking along the road to ruin, as the Democrats seemed to intend on doing.
The elections of 2018 and 2020 together will mark a turning point in our history. Another round of defeats for the Democrats, and the party will fade into irrelevancy. There is still a chance that the Democrat Party will again take the lead in the struggle for social and economic justice. If it does, the party will be invincible. If it doesn't, a new Liberal party will arise from its ashes as surely as tomorrow will dawn.
Though he spoke those words in frustration, what he said was true. The party of FDR and LBJ had become -- and in many ways remains -- the party of Ike: on some issues, on support for Labor and protection of Social Security, for example, on economic policy and national security, the Democratic Party today stands to the right of 1950s Republicans.
It is because the party leadership has been doing Wall Street's bidding for so long, now going on four decades, that Democrats have lost much of their following among the middle and working classes; nor will the voters return unless in the next two election cycles the party changes direction as radically as it did in the 1990s.
At the grassroots level, Democratic voters, and people who would vote Democrat if the party were true to its roots, are organizing: fighting pipelines and fracking; pushing for a living wage or a guaranteed income; demanding gun control; defending the Dreamers; shoving back against free trade; marching in defense of the environment; calling for Medicare for All. Even the general public sides with the left on a number of key issues that reflect on the size and purpose of government: hefty majorities support higher taxes on the wealthy and the corporations and think the government should be actively reducing the growing gap between the rich and the rest; want legislation to significantly increase in the minimum wage; and look to Washington to create jobs by making urgently needed repairs to our neglected infrastructure.
What nearly all Americans crave most, though, is leadership.
Part of Donald Trump's appeal as a candidate -- his only appeal, really -- was in his promise to do something, even if that something was just to break up the furniture. Doing something was more appealing than poking along the road to ruin, as the Democrats seemed to intend on doing.
The elections of 2018 and 2020 together will mark a turning point in our history. Another round of defeats for the Democrats, and the party will fade into irrelevancy. There is still a chance that the Democrat Party will again take the lead in the struggle for social and economic justice. If it does, the party will be invincible. If it doesn't, a new Liberal party will arise from its ashes as surely as tomorrow will dawn.
Learning from the past
Ben Ferencz, 98, was a prosecutor the Nuremberg trials.
What does the last surviving prosecutor at Nuremberg think the trials achieved? Listen to a BBC interview here.
What does the last surviving prosecutor at Nuremberg think the trials achieved? Listen to a BBC interview here.
Must read: The Left ascendant
"With his primary election victory last week, Illinois Congressman Dan Lipinski -- a Blue Dog and cultural conservative -- won the first major 2018 battle between the Democratic Party's establishment and progressive wings. But don't be confused about what it means. The war is already over, and the establishment lost.
"Even though only two states have actually voted so far this primary election season -- Texas, a red-state redoubt, and Illinois, a blue-state stronghold -- the battle for supremacy this primary season is all but complete. In state after state, the left is proving to be the animating force in Democratic primaries, producing a surge of candidates who are forcefully driving the party toward a more liberal orientation on nearly every issue.
"These candidates are running on an agenda that moves the party beyond its recent comfort zone and toward single-payer health care, stricter gun control, a $15 minimum wage, more expansive LGBT rights and greater protections for immigrants. In the surest sign of the reoriented issue landscape, they're joined by some of the most prominent prospects in the 2020 Democratic presidential field -- Cory Booker, Kirsten Gillibrand and Kamala Harris among them -- who are embracing the same agenda."
The rest of the story:
Forget about Conor Lamb and Dan Lipinski. The progressive wing has already beaten the establishment in 2018: How the Bernie Wing Won the Democratic Primaries by Charlie Mahtesuian (Politico).
When Algorithms Go Bad
Ask Google almost any question about the U.S population and it will give you an answer that involves "The Foreign-Born Population in the United States."
We do have questions that have nothing to do with immigrantion.
Really.
A story with 140 characters
Fiction on Twitter: From short short story to endless stream
It is said that Ernest Hemingway once bet that he could write a complete short story in six words. He was Twitter-ready a half century before anyone conceived of tweeting.
In 2012, before it descended into wordy 240-character journalistic one-upmanship and tribal warfare, Twitter hosted a five-day Twitter Fiction Festival (#twitterfiction), “a virtual storytelling celebration held entirely on Twitter,” inviting creative experiments in storytelling from authors around the world.
According to Twitter, it had hosted great experiments in fiction already, from Jennifer Egan’s “Black Box” to Teju Cole’s “Small Fates” to Dan Sinker’s @mayoremanuel. And Twitter bragged it has even inspired some literary criticism.
To get into the spirit of things, and without delving into the whole business of streaming and interaction as components of twitter-fiction (working within the limitations of the classic tweet, you could say), I came up with this 140-character, short story:
Reading list:
✓ Nanoism is an online publication for twitter-fiction: stories of up to 140 characters.
✓ Craig Taylor, Charlotte Mendelson, Louise Doughty, John Niven, Victoria Hislop, Val McDermid...Top writers try their hand at writing a story with only Twitter's 140-character limit to play with (Guardian).
✓ Well-known writers – from Ian Rankin and Helen Fielding to Jeffrey Archer and Jilly Cooper – come up with a tweet-length story: 21 authors try their hand at 140-character novels (Guardian).
✓ 13 Beautiful Pieces of Twitter Fiction Remind Us How Powerful Reading Can Be by Anne Charlton (Mic).
✓ Twitter Fiction: "No Constraints, No Joy" by Isaac Fitzgerald (Buzzfeed).
✓ Twitter Fiction Reveals The Power Of Very, Very Short Stories by Maddie Crum (HuffPost).
✓ Consider Twitter Fiction by Anthony Santulli (The Review Review).
It is said that Ernest Hemingway once bet that he could write a complete short story in six words. He was Twitter-ready a half century before anyone conceived of tweeting.
In 2012, before it descended into wordy 240-character journalistic one-upmanship and tribal warfare, Twitter hosted a five-day Twitter Fiction Festival (#twitterfiction), “a virtual storytelling celebration held entirely on Twitter,” inviting creative experiments in storytelling from authors around the world.
According to Twitter, it had hosted great experiments in fiction already, from Jennifer Egan’s “Black Box” to Teju Cole’s “Small Fates” to Dan Sinker’s @mayoremanuel. And Twitter bragged it has even inspired some literary criticism.
To get into the spirit of things, and without delving into the whole business of streaming and interaction as components of twitter-fiction (working within the limitations of the classic tweet, you could say), I came up with this 140-character, short story:
On the desiccated, recalescent planet, barren at last, the desolated creature, a cockroach, grief-maddened, devoured the corpse of its mate.Hemingway won the bet, by the way. As the story goes (and the anecdote itself may be fiction), he scribbled “For sale: baby shoes, never used” to take home the pot.
Reading list:
✓ Nanoism is an online publication for twitter-fiction: stories of up to 140 characters.
✓ Craig Taylor, Charlotte Mendelson, Louise Doughty, John Niven, Victoria Hislop, Val McDermid...Top writers try their hand at writing a story with only Twitter's 140-character limit to play with (Guardian).
✓ Well-known writers – from Ian Rankin and Helen Fielding to Jeffrey Archer and Jilly Cooper – come up with a tweet-length story: 21 authors try their hand at 140-character novels (Guardian).
✓ 13 Beautiful Pieces of Twitter Fiction Remind Us How Powerful Reading Can Be by Anne Charlton (Mic).
✓ Twitter Fiction: "No Constraints, No Joy" by Isaac Fitzgerald (Buzzfeed).
✓ Twitter Fiction Reveals The Power Of Very, Very Short Stories by Maddie Crum (HuffPost).
✓ Consider Twitter Fiction by Anthony Santulli (The Review Review).
Switzerland has a lot of guns.
So why don't they have a lot of shootings?
Because, unlike us, they have universal weapons' training from a young age and mandatory universal military service, so everyone is familiar with the proper handling of weapons. All guns are registered and almost all guns require permits. The police conduct background checks and make psychological assessments before issuing permits: by law, anyone who "expresses a violent or dangerous attitude" is not permitted to own a gun and people who've been convicted of a crime or have an alcohol or drug addiction problem aren't allowed to buy guns. A gun owner who wants to carry for "defensive purposes" has to prove s/he knows how to load, unload, and shoot their weapon properly and must pass a test to get a license. Also, though they have a lot of guns compared to most countries, they have about 1/4 the number per capita that we do.
All this before you consider that their social services head off the kind of alienation and desperation so widespread in the US.
Worst Things First
The thing I fear about the anti-gun campaign -- which I support wholeheartedly -- is that it will distort our national priorities. Universal affordable health care would save countless more lives than gun control, for example, as would social programs addressing malnutrition, educational deficiencies, homelessness, joblessness, drug addiction, mental health and suicide (any and all of which also would have positive impacts on gun violence if they were to be addressed). I hope the federal legislature comes to grips with the gun problem. But if they do, we mustn't allow that accomplishment to obscure all that remains to be done.
Headline O' The Day:
"Stormy Daniels says Trump told her 'you remind me of my daughter' after she spanked him with a magazine" -- Business Insider
From the What-Could-Possibly-Go-Wrong Desk:
Four nuclear waste canisters with a potentially defective design have been loaded with spent fuel and buried in a “concrete monolith” yards from the beach at the shuttered San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station. With the seas rising, it shouldn't be long before Southern Californians won't need to rely on the sun to get a tan. (The Orange County Register)
Rhythm and Jews:
"Catholics basically believe the same teachings that Baptists believe. We just do it without the rhythm. But we try. We are not as without rhythm as some of our Jewish brothers and sisters." ~ Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Roman Catholic, speaking ecumenically at a Baptist church in Harlem.
Trump's immigration crackdown was supposed to be good for American workers.
Trump's immigration crackdown was supposed to be good for American workers. But on California farms, it's creating a desperate labor shortage.
Wages rise on California farms. Americans still don’t want the job by Natalie Kitroef and Geoffrey Mohan (Los Angeles Times)
Wages rise on California farms. Americans still don’t want the job by Natalie Kitroef and Geoffrey Mohan (Los Angeles Times)
Don't think we need a radical change in political leadership?
Consider this:
The US House of Representatives voted Thursday afternoon to approve the federal budget for the current fiscal year, including a record $695 billion for the Pentagon, the largest amount ever, and more than half the total. The budget passed by a bipartisan vote of 256-167, with majorities of both Republicans and Democrats supporting it.
Ask not what your country can do for you?
The primary political questions are societal and aspirational; not how high are my taxes going to be or what benefits I can grab. Not, what's in it for me?
But:
What kind of country do I wish to live in?
Certainly not one where millions are imprisoned for petty crimes then denied reentry to society when their penalty has been paid; not one where people are put at a crippling disadvantage for the color of their skin, their beliefs, or the place they came from; not a country where the common wealth of the people is despoiled and pirated so that a fractional minority can prosper.
No, we want to live in a country where no one is forced to live in squalor; where if you work hard you can afford a decent life, where a worker receives a living wage; where no one suffers and dies because there is no affordable health care; where people have a reasonable prospect of advancing their own lives and where the lives of their children can be even better than their own.
The United States has been on the wrong road for forty years. Before our decline is irreversible, we must decide what kind of country we want to be. Freedom is meaningless without opportunity.
But:
What kind of country do I wish to live in?
Certainly not one where millions are imprisoned for petty crimes then denied reentry to society when their penalty has been paid; not one where people are put at a crippling disadvantage for the color of their skin, their beliefs, or the place they came from; not a country where the common wealth of the people is despoiled and pirated so that a fractional minority can prosper.
No, we want to live in a country where no one is forced to live in squalor; where if you work hard you can afford a decent life, where a worker receives a living wage; where no one suffers and dies because there is no affordable health care; where people have a reasonable prospect of advancing their own lives and where the lives of their children can be even better than their own.
The United States has been on the wrong road for forty years. Before our decline is irreversible, we must decide what kind of country we want to be. Freedom is meaningless without opportunity.
Our Feckless Democrats
Ten Democrats thwarted the (albeit mild) effort of Sen. Bernie Sanders and his allies to tap the brake on the permanent war machine.
Note that the celebrated Alabama Dem Doug Jones is on this list of shame, so that was a big win. And look what the people of Rhode Island contributed to this defeat. The ten warmongers are
On the other hand, five Republicans voted for the bill -- Collins (Me), Daines (Mont), Lee (Utah), Moran (Ks) and Paul (Ky), so there's that.Menendez (NJ)
Coons (Del.)
Masto (Nev.)
Donnelly (Ind.)
Heitkamp (N.D.)
Manchin (W.V.)
Nelson (Fla.)
Reed (R.I.)
Jones (Ala.)
Whitehouse (R.I.)
quote unquote: Bill Hicks
...All drugs should be legal.
The rich get richer.
The poor get poorer.
Thank you.
I'll be here all week. -- Bill Hicks
What's gonna take to get rational gun control?
This student spoke in front of the Capitol today during the National School Walk Out, slamming Congress for their lack of action on gun control.
"Their right to own an assault rifle does not outweigh our right to live."
"Their right to own an assault rifle does not outweigh our right to live."
Lucy Aharish: Humanity Made Irrelevant
“The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don’t do anything about it.” ~ Albert Einstein
quote unquote: John Quincy Adams
On the the search for "monsters to destroy."
"And now, friends and countrymen, if the wise and learned philosophers of the elder world, the first observers of nutation and aberration, the discoverers of maddening ether and invisible planets, the inventors of Congreve rockets and Shrapnel shells, should find their hearts disposed to enquire what has America done for the benefit of mankind? Let our answer be this: America, with the same voice which spoke herself into existence as a nation, proclaimed to mankind the inextinguishable rights of human nature, and the only lawful foundations of government. America, in the assembly of nations, since her admission among them, has invariably, though often fruitlessly, held forth to them the hand of honest friendship, of equal freedom, of generous reciprocity. She has uniformly spoken among them, though often to heedless and often to disdainful ears, the language of equal liberty, of equal justice, and of equal rights. She has, in the lapse of nearly half a century, without a single exception, respected the independence of other nations while asserting and maintaining her own. She has abstained from interference in the concerns of others,
"[America's] glory is not dominion, but liberty. Her march is the march of the mind. She has a spear and a shield: but the motto upon her shield is, Freedom, Independence, Peace. This has been her Declaration: this has been, as far as her necessary intercourse with the rest of mankind would permit, her practice."
John Quincy Adams in 1821,
presciently warning against the Long War.
presciently warning against the Long War.
Saturday Catchup 2018-03-03
After a long absence, Saturday Catchup is back!
Social democracy is all the rage in the U.S. (and neoliberalism under assault) since Sen. Bernie Sanders' late run for president. In this video, radical journalist, author and film-maker Paul Mason; Dr. Faiza Shaheen, economist, writer, activist and director of the Centre for Labour and Social Studies; writer Anthony Barnett, co-founder of openDemocracy; economist Dr. Johnna Montgomerie; and Laurie Macfarlane, senior economist at the New Economics Foundation discuss whether radical social democracy offers a way out of the crisis of neoliberalism, and what this means for economic policy over the next decade. The debate is part of a new series of essays by Paul Mason exploring what radical social democracy means during the next decade:
Extra credit:
The word has become a rhetorical weapon, but neoliberal properly names the reigning ideology of our era -- one that venerates the logic of the market and strips away the things that make us human: Neoliberalism: the idea that swallowed the world by Stephen Metcalf (Guardian).
The mission of radical social democracy must be to rekindle hope in a simple idea -- that life in your community will get better: Neoliberalism has destroyed social mobility. Together we must rebuild it by Paul Mason.
I’m not a neoliberal. Maybe you aren’t either. by Laurie Macfarlane (Medium).
Eljeer Hawkins is a community, labor and antiwar organizer, and for 23 years has been a member of Socialist Alternative, the US affiliate of the Committee for a Workers' International, a global Trotskyist
Aestheticist Adolph Hitler doesn't care for gentrification:
"The right to be heard is crucially important. But I want to think more generally about how we have learned to look at women who exercise power, or try to; I want to explore the cultural underpinnings of misogyny in politics or the workplace, and its forms (what kind of misogyny, aimed at what or whom, using what words or images, and with what effects); and I want to think harder about how and why the conventional definitions of ‘power’ (or for that matter of ‘knowledge’, ‘expertise’ and ‘authority’) that we carry round in our heads have tended to exclude women." -- Mary Beard, Women in Power.
For the text of this talk, go to Women in Power by Mary Beard (London Review of Books).
The resemblance of zoos to prisons aside: At the Stock Island Detention Center, a jail in Florida, prisoners care for a zoo of their own. Curator Jeanne Selander runs the prison zoo with the inmates, who benefit not only from the responsibility, but also from experiencing reciprocal love and care --often for the first time. Operations like this one shouldn't be news, they should be standard.
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A song-story from country singer-songwriter Paul Overstreet
Finally, in a spirit of resistance not nostalgia, here is the last installment of the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, never broadcast at the time. The brothers, Tommy and Dick Smothers, waged a war against network censorship for a couple of years in the late 1960s, a fight they lost when they were fired for inviting comedian David Steinberg back on the show, despite complaints from some viewers over a previous booking. Nancy Wilson and Dan Rowan were also guests.
quote unquote: William James
Common sense and a sense of humor are the same thing, moving at different speeds. A sense of humor is just common sense, dancing. -- William James
From the Windfall Profits Desk:
"The $65 billion gain is...real-rest assured of that. But only $36 billion came from [our] operations. The [other] $29 billion was delivered to us in Dec when Congress rewrote the U.S. Tax Code." -- Warren Buffett, Annual Letter, Berkshire Hathaway
Red to Blue?
The NRCC outraised the DCCC in January, hauling $10.1 million compared to the House Democrats’ $9.3 million. Both hauls broke their previous January records. The NRCC ended with $50.6 million in cash on hand, while the DCCC ended with $43.8 million (HuffPost/Washington Times). The DCCC named six more candidates to its Red to Blue program, bringing the total number in the program to 24: former State Department adviser Lauren Baer in FL-18; state Sen. Jeff Van Drew in the open NJ-02; former Obama administration official Andy Kim in NJ-03; attorney Xochitl Torres Small in the open NM-02; retired Naval commander Elaine Luria in VA-02; and former state Senate Majority Leader Lisa Brown in WA-05 (RollCall).
$$$$
If you're keeping count, J.B. Pritzker, the venture capitalist who is attempting to buy his way into the Illinois statehouse, gave his campaign another $7 million last week, putting him at more than $56 million in self-funding for the Democratic primary fight against Bobby Kennedy's son, philanthropist Chris Kennedy.
Classic NRA-owned hypocrite:
House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy of Bakersfield offered this tweet on the Florida massacre: "The heart of our nation breaks with the senseless and tragic loss of these young students. Our prayers are with them and their families." In the meantime, he continues to sock away gun-lobby contributions*.
* bribes
* bribes
A dozen here, a dozen there, pretty soon it adds up to mass murder.
The Second Amendment is not a paragraph in a suicide pact.
"The current FBI definition of mass murder, commonly accepted by the media as a proxy for 'mass gun violence', is three or more people murdered in one event. We believe this does not capture the whole
Using this definition, there have been 41 mass shootings in the United States since January 1, 2018.
Stalking Horse?
I don't have an opinion yet on the campaign for governor between Gavin Newsom, Antonio Villaraigosa, John Chiang and Delaine Eastin, but the entry into the race of Amanda Renteria, a former Hillary Clinton campaign staffer, is suspicious at the go. Who enters a major race 30 days before the filing deadline with no campaign infrastructure, no staff, no website, no endorsements, and no cash? It's not a stretch to think that Renteria will be on the ballot to suppress support of Newsom's chief rival Villaraigosa among Latinos. Is this another attempt by the party poobahs to rig a primary outcome? Shouldn't the voters get to hear from the candidates before the fix is in?
College dropouts
The next time someone starts talking about the constitutional sanctity of the Electoral College, think about the image below. The EC, as we all know, is a work of political genius. Because, you know, the Founders.
Getting rid of the Electoral College is another one of the many things that's "too hard" or "too complicated" in present-day America. But surely a nation that succeeded in ridding itself of slavery,
Of course, even after the Electoral College is gone, there will be a lot of work left to do if we are to live up to our ideal of one person, one vote: gerrymandering will need to be tackled; other barriers to voting, such as onerous identification requirements, will have to be eliminated; nor will suffrage ever be universal until felons and ex-felons are guaranteed the right to vote. Much more difficult, admittedly perhaps "too hard" and "too complicated," will be democratizing the Senate (possibly by abolishing the upper chamber and replacing the Congress with a unicameral legislative body -- there is no reason, beyond historical accident, why the residents of a state with, say, 360,000 citizens should have the same representation as a state with, say, 36,000,000 -- and the runaway imperial presidency must be reduced to its original role as executor of the legislature's intentions -- the Founders, royalists though most of them were, never intended to create a serial king.
But first things first. If the constitutional requirement can't be met to amend it out of existence, there are other ways to upend it, such as the National Popular Vote interstate compact already adopted by 11 states and the District of Columbia and close to passage in 11 more, a solution as jerry-rigged as the problem it is attempting to fix but at least a step in the right direction until we're able to solve our political issues like grown-ups.
Extra credit:
✓ Former secretary of labor Robert Reich warns that hundreds of thousands are being disenfranchised: Jim Crow Is Making a Furious Comeback by Robert Reich (AlterNet).
✓ After the 2010 election, state lawmakers nationwide started introducing hundreds of harsh measures making it harder to vote. The new laws range from strict photo ID requirements to early voting cutbacks to registration restrictions: New Voting Restrictions in America by The Brennan Center for Justice.
✓ 6.1 million citizens will be barred from voting on election day: Why Prisoners and Ex-Felons Should Retain the Right to Vote by Gregg D. Caruso PhD (Psychology Today).
✓ The upper house is a malapportioned, anti-democratic embarrassment: The United States Senate is a failed institution by Ian Millhiser (Think Progress).
✓ Congress is too dysfunctional to act as a check on executive power: Abolish the Senate. It's the only way to rein in modern presidents. by John Bicknell (Washington Post).
✓ The President's threats against North Korea expose the many dangers of the White House's post-9/11 powers. Here's what Congress must do: Don’t Just Impeach Trump. End the Imperial Presidency by Jeet Heer (New Republic).
Addendum:
Neil Freeman redrew the state borders in another attempt to help us think about the undemocratic nature of our federal system as currently organized. Currently, "[t]he largest state is 66 times as populous as the smallest," Freeman explains on his site, "and has 18 times as many electoral votes." His map is based on 2010 Census data, which records a population of 308,745,538 for the United States. Divided up among 50 equal states, that's a little over six million people per state. Made equal by population, they might look like this:
And:
The Long War drags on:
In "Julius Caesar," Brutus argues that "Th'abuse of greatness is when it disjoins / Remorse from power." Thus Lincoln, in whose character cohabited forcefulness, caution and morality, will be honored through generations, long after Bush, Obama and now Trump, the facilitators of endless war and apologists for the slaughter of innocents, are mercifully -- and justly -- consigned to oblivion.
With apologies to dictionary.com
INTERSECTIONALITY
[in-ter-sek-shuh-nal-i-tee] noun
1.
the theory that the overlap of various social identities, as race, gender, sexuality, and class, contributes to the specific type of systemic oppression and discrimination experienced by an individual (often used attributively): Her paper uses a queer intersectionality approach.
2.
the oppression and discrimination resulting from the overlap of an individual’s various social identities: The intersectionality of oppression experienced by black women.
3.
the antidote to identity politics: The intersectionality or “parallel problems” of economic disparity, gender inequality and institutional racism was the idea underpinning the presidential candidacy of Sen. Bernie Sanders.
Antonyms: capitalism, patriarchy, white supremacy, empire.
See, also: class consciousness, class struggle.
Extra credit:
"There will be no economic or political justice for the poor, people of color, women or workers within the framework of global, corporate capitalism. Corporate capitalism, which uses identity politics, multiculturalism and racial justice to masquerade as politics, will never halt the rising social inequality, unchecked militarism, evisceration of civil liberties and omnipotence of the organs of security and surveillance. Corporate capitalism cannot be reformed, despite its continually rebranding itself. The longer the self-identified left and liberal class seek to work within a system that the political philosopher Sheldon Wolin calls 'inverted totalitarianism,' the more the noose will be tightened around our necks. If we do not rise up to bring government and financial systems under public control—which includes nationalizing banks, the fossil fuel industry and the arms industry—we will continue to be victims." The Bankruptcy of the American Left by Chris Hedges (Truthdig)
A cross-racial and class conscious movement is the only foundation for effective freedom: Against National Security Citizenship by Aziz Rana (Boston Review)
"In the worlds of politics and nonprofits intersectionality has become a sneaky substitute for the traditional left notion of solidarity developed in the process of ongoing collective struggle against the class enemy. Intersectionality doesn't deny the existence of class struggle, it just rhetorically demotes it to something co-equal with the fights against ableism and ageism and speciesism, against white supremacy, against gender oppression, and a long elastic list of others. What’s sneaky about the substitution of intersectionality for solidarity is that intersectionality allows the unexamined smuggling in of multiple notions which directly undermine the development and the operation of solidarity. Intersectionality means everybody is obligated to put their own special interest, their own oppression first – although they don’t always say that because the contradiction would be too obvious." Intersectionality is a Hole. Afro-Pessimism is a Shovel. We Need to Stop Digging (part 1) by Bruce A. Dixon (Black Agenda Report)
"In the context of the real left, the community of those aiming to overthrow capital, patriarchy, white supremacy and empire—not two or three out of four but all four, the term intersectionality has become a kind of brood parasite. It mimics just enough of left feminist rhetoric and branding to deceive the unwary and ensnare many bright, serious and sincere leftists into defending and promoting its fundamentally hostile project." Looking Down That Deep Hole: Parasitic Intersectionality and Toxic Afro-Pessimism (part 2) by Bruce A. Dixon (Black Agenda Report)
"My enemy's enemies...?"
 |
| Юлий Ганф |
A Soviet-era cartoon from the 1950s satirizing American politics.
Well, here's a thing!
"In Missouri’s deep-red 97th General Assembly district, Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton by a 61-33 margin in 2016. Republican State Representative John McCaherty won reelection in the same year with almost 75 percent of the vote. McCaherty crushed a Libertarian candidate in that race; Democrats didn’t even bother to contest the seat.
"So when McCaherty quit the seat last year to focus on a campaign for Jefferson County Executive, Republicans had little reason to fear they would lose it in a special election. They slated the son of a popular former legislator from the region and he ran on a conservative platform that, local media pointed out, mirrors that of other Republicans in the Show-Me State.
"Then, the 'sure-thing' Republican lost.
"Democrat Mike Revis, a 27-year-old Anheuser-Busch employee who said he was inspired to run because of his frustration with Republican policies that serve 'multi-millionaires who buy influence with elected officials,' swept to victory Tuesday night with a 52-48 margin. That represented a 31-point swing from the 2016 presidential race numbers, and a 37-point swing from the last time a Democrat sought the seat."
The rest of the story:
A pro-union Democrat just won a seat in Missouri that Trump won by a landslide: 35 and Counting! Democrats Flip Another Republican Legislative Seat by John Nichols (The Nation)
"So when McCaherty quit the seat last year to focus on a campaign for Jefferson County Executive, Republicans had little reason to fear they would lose it in a special election. They slated the son of a popular former legislator from the region and he ran on a conservative platform that, local media pointed out, mirrors that of other Republicans in the Show-Me State.
"Then, the 'sure-thing' Republican lost.
"Democrat Mike Revis, a 27-year-old Anheuser-Busch employee who said he was inspired to run because of his frustration with Republican policies that serve 'multi-millionaires who buy influence with elected officials,' swept to victory Tuesday night with a 52-48 margin. That represented a 31-point swing from the 2016 presidential race numbers, and a 37-point swing from the last time a Democrat sought the seat."
The rest of the story:
A pro-union Democrat just won a seat in Missouri that Trump won by a landslide: 35 and Counting! Democrats Flip Another Republican Legislative Seat by John Nichols (The Nation)
To whom it may concern
Dear nonprofits, interest groups and political parties:
Please stop sending hundreds of return-address labels with each of your fund-raising appeals. No one but you mails anything anymore. There are these new things called email and texting that people are using instead. Spending huge amounts to produce useless promotional items does not build trust in your fiscal judgement.
The shopping bags and windbreakers are very nice, though.
Thank you for you attention.
Please stop sending hundreds of return-address labels with each of your fund-raising appeals. No one but you mails anything anymore. There are these new things called email and texting that people are using instead. Spending huge amounts to produce useless promotional items does not build trust in your fiscal judgement.
The shopping bags and windbreakers are very nice, though.
Thank you for you attention.
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