Aside from endless profit, this country excels in two other things - violence, and death.
That last one is key -
Funny thing about even this - the 'Spanish' flu actually started in the US.
Gotta love that growth mindset, eh?!
2021-10-30
Key US milestone.
2021-10-28
Almost anything can be used by the establishment in the pursuit from capitalism to fascism.
Even man hate. You have some people practice double think in that on the on hand they claim it doesn't exist, while at the same time reading books that treat misandry as some sort of feminist fantasy of revenge. If you're into fantasy that's one thing, but don't claim it's not hatred, or that the practice of hating doesn't also exist.
That's essentially what metoo was. It was using a legitimate issue and (what's the term used these days?) 'weaponizing' it in support of the establishment's relentless drive to punish Julian Assange and Wikileaks for being you know, and actual journalist, and doing actual journalism.
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/10/28/pers-o28.html
Assange was the first and most significant victim of the gender-based politics of political witch-hunting, in which accusations of sexual crimes are elevated to the status of unchallengeable fact and used to destroy due process and the presumption of innocence. Issues of class and political principle are drowned in a tide of denunciations by those claiming to speak on behalf of the rights of women but advance the interests of imperialism and the affluent middle class.
In August 2010, with successive WikiLeaks revelations shaking world imperialism, an investigation—a transparent fraud and now totally discredited and subjected to a devastating dissection by UN Special Rapporteur on Torture Nils Melzer—was begun by Sweden into Assange’s alleged sexual assault of two women. This action gave grounds for his seizure by the British police and was used to keep him arbitrarily detained in the Ecuadorian embassy in London for close to seven years.
And there's some terms I'll now refer to to describe people who like the call themselves 'liberal' but who really espouse and support a neo-liberal/right-wing/capitalist-driven agenda, which of course benefits the rich and powerful -
Shit-lib or psuedo-left
Here are a few -
- Marina Hyde (UK's Guardian )
- Luke Harding (UK's Guardian ) - this guy's a real winner. Russiagater to the extreme.
- Suzanne Moore (New Statesman)
- Katha Pollitt (US' Nation)
- Tom Walker (Socialist Workers Party (SWP))
- Lindsey German (Counterfire)
Other organizations to watch out for include
- Jacobin
- Socialist Alternative
- International Socialist Organisation in America
- Socialist Alternative in Assange’s native Australia
2021-10-27
Quote of the day - 10-27-2021.
Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor and columnist:
Reports then started to circulate that the proposal for two free years of community college was going to be eliminated. Paid family leave would be cut from 12 weeks to as low as 4 weeks, and child tax credit would be extended by only one year. Inclusion of dental care under Medicare to be scaled back to an $800 voucher and vision and hearing eliminated. Medicare negotiations with Big Pharma to cut prescription drug prices, while still on the table, looks pretty doubtful in light of the enormous pressure being exerted by the pharmaceutical companies. It looks like that the funding for elderly home care and public housing will be slashed and any substantial increase in taxes on the wealthy is off the table.
Even at $3.5 trillion, the capitalist oligarchy understood that the ameliorative measures in the bill were not meant to address the deepening economic crisis facing workers. Yet, there were elements in the bill that would have represented policies that still would have provided some material advantages to workers, particularly to Black women workers who now make up the majority of the Black labor force.
But the Democratic Party, along with its array of allied social forces — labor unions, feminist groups and NGOs — were not prepared to fight for those changes. In fact, these groups were told to stand down.
Context here: https://blackagendareport.com/biden-no-fdr-and-build-back-better-legislation-proves-it
Never ever forget: the establishment only wants two things from you -
- Your vote/aquiesence/obedience/subservience.
- Or to go the fuck away.
2021-10-26
You know things are bad for the Habs.
When you are getting your asses handed to you repeated by the newest team in the league, you know there's trouble.
Release the Kraken!
2021-10-24
So the Kraken had their 1st home game last night.
Truly memorial day in sports history here in the Puget Sound. Great to see an NHL team finally here.
Also phenomenal to see Anne Wilson belt out - still has the sexiest voice in rock.
As to the game -> well ...
They got the lead in the 3rd period, then took a bad penalty that not only cost them said lead. It lost them the game.
C'est la vie. You live. You learn. You try again.
2021-10-19
Colin Powell: a war criminal whose victims never got justice against. Turn this image into the Powell meme.
I agree with Caitlin:
It stops the conversation in its tracks, using a single image that doesn’t even contain any words. Now the conversation is about what it should be about: the indisputable fact that U.S. officials lie. They lie brazenly. They lie even if it can lead to the deaths of millions of people. Any narrative about any empire-targeted government that is backed by U.S. officials must be presumed false unless and until it has been backed by mountains of independently verifiable evidence.
2021-10-17
One of the hallmarks of crapitalism is a bought-off union leadership.
Another is multi-tiers of workers.
This situation has both: https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/10/16/pers-o16.html
The UAW-Deere contract repudiated by workers included a wage increase of 11–12 percent over six years, about two percent per year, resulting in a major cut in real wages when taking inflation into account. It would have also ended pensions for workers hired after November, adding a de facto third tier of workers to the current hated two-tier system accepted by the UAW in 1997.
2021-10-16
A very good primer and summary about all that's going on w/respect to Taiwan.
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/10/16/taiw-o16.html
Spoiler: It involves the meddling of the American Empire.
2021-10-15
2021-10-14
Well it was a nailbiter...
... The Kraken finally have their 1st win.
One shot in the 3rd period, but at least it counted.
These are NOT seedless grapes, Samsons!
I don't care if you've been in business since 1950, my eyes and my phone camera work!
The establishment REALLY wants to make an example of Assange and Wikileaks.
This isn't a small coincidence:
https://consortiumnews.com/2021/10/14/the-assassination-of-julian-assange/
Watch out - anything this purveyor of disinformation creates should be treated with skepticism at best, and outright propaganda all else.
2021-10-13
Survived another six-day week.
Now at least I have a four-day week.
Such is working in IT. Such is working in a large corporation.
That's crapitalism for you.
2021-10-10
You really need to watch this in its entirety.
You can really learn a lot from people when you listen to learn and understand.
2021-10-09
In Israel, “Let off Steam” means allowing the colonial thugs continue their bullying of the native Palestinians.
You know, that land that's been occupied since 1967, and a brutal apartheid rule has been in place since.
Another term to describe this kind of right-wing brutality is slow-motion genocide.
https://consortiumnews.com/2021/10/08/report-spike-in-israeli-settler-violence-against-palestinians/
Settlers motivated by Zionist colonial projects call the Palestinians “encroachers” and attack them to expand the Israeli settlements causing further displacement of Palestinians. Members of settler groups like Hilltop Boys and Price Tag have even been prosecuted in some cases of murder of Palestinians.
Though the settlements are illegal, successive Israeli governments have provided them full security. The country has recently started following a policy of minimum interference during the violent attacks on Palestinians.
According to the Haaretz report, the security forces called it a “Let off Steam” policy to create a “permissive atmosphere” to minimize their confrontation with the settlers.
2021-10-06
Meanwhile, the killing goes on.
https://blackagendareport.com/thousands-police-killings-are-unreported
According to a report in the Lancet , between 1980 and 2018 police in the U.S. killed an estimated 30,800 people. This number is 17,000 more than reported by the National Vital Statistics System (NVSS), which is a misclassification rate of 55%. The deaths of Black people are the most likely to be undercounted, with 5,670 deaths missing out of an estimated 9,540.
2021-10-05
A book I'm looking forward to reading.
http://www.easterbrook.ca/steve/2021/10/nobel-prize-for-climate-modeling/
The book will be called -“Computing the Climate”
2021-10-03
2021-10-02
Several errors in that report about Assange => no surprise.
https://consortiumnews.com/2021/10/02/what-the-yahoo-assange-report-got-wrong/
Never forget, this is what it's all about:
Biden was vice president when the Obama administration decided against indicting Assange in 2011. Biden himself told Meet the Press in December 2010 that only a computer intrusion charge was on the table and not the Espionage Act. So what changed that is making Biden go ahead with the Trump administration’s indictment?
2016.
Though Assange was only indicted for publishing activity in 2010 and not for the release of Democratic Party emails in 2016, there can be little doubt that the embarrassment of Clinton and damage to her campaign (because of her own and her campaign’s exposed actions) is behind the Democrats continuation of the prosecution.
Up close with salmon at Cedar River
They so close to the river edge. No masks or social distancing for them!
2021-10-01
Think the journey the American establishment is taking all of us on to fascism is paved with any degree of rationality?
Think again.
Never forget what this is really all about-
"As I face sentencing on Day 787 of house arrest, never forget what this
case is really about," Donziger tweeted Friday morning. "Chevron caused
a mass industrial poisoning in the Amazon that crushed the lives of
Indigenous peoples. Six courts and 28 appellate judges found the company
guilty. Fight on."
The kinds of things to - to this day - I still am fascinated over.
Related to both my past and current lives -> namely engineering, and testing.
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