In Palestine, the Apartheid committed by Israel is more than racist and political.

It's Climate-based. And, mostly about water.

https://consortiumnews.com/2022/02/08/challenging-israels-climate-apartheid-in-palestine/

Re-politicizing the environment, and challenging discourses of peacebuilding and collaboration are crucial steps in centering climate justice within Palestinian popular mobilization. To do so: 

• The donor community should cease support for green normalization projects that ignore the political reality and power disparities between Palestinians and Israelis. 
• Palestinian leadership and the donor community should instead invest in the justice-based advocacy of Palestinian civil society organizations, such as PENGON and Al Haq, which are raising awareness and mobilizing for intersectional environmental, water, and climate justice. 
• Palestinian climate justice advocates should challenge the techno-managerial approaches of international forums like COP and its related climate funding mechanisms.
• Local and international climate change activists should focus on addressing historical climate and environmental injustices in Palestine in order to hold Israel accountable for its theft of Palestinians’ natural resources. 
• Palestinian leadership and the international community should support the mobilization of local, national, and international resources to pressure Israel to acknowledge and commit to adhering to Palestinian’s water and land rights.

A System Designed to Fail.

That phrase is tied very much to my recent post.

https://www.socialistalternative.org/2022/02/05/covid-rages-into-third-year-what-will-it-take-to-end-the-pandemic/

I am fortunate in this day and age that I have a roof over my head.

Cause I know it's harder and harder to get one, at least here.

https://www.statista.com/chart/19537/single-family-home-prices-in-the-us-by-price-category/

 

The scam of crapitalism: Duopoly.

Recently, a person by the name of Marc Cenedella (who you can find on Substack) wrote an editorial about redistricting in his state by one establishment brand over the other. Putting aside the reality that this sort of thing has been going on both at the state and federal level for a number of years (and I can only assume he's outraged himself into a diatribe about those past events just as much), this turd of a statement got pulled out of his ass ended up in my Inbox:

For our two-party system to work well, there needs to be a sense of good citizenship.  Fair play.  The knowledge that being civilized means not pressing every advantage just because you can. Restraining yourself from being a bully.  A desire to play nice in the sandbox with fellow citizens even when you disagree with them.

What a fucking idiotic thing to say.

'two-party system'? 

In this system, capitalism (or crapitalism - the late-stage of the late-stage of capitalism) differentiates itself from fascism by being a constantly unstable system (not that fascism is really any more stable, but more on that later). Capitalism is primarily about competitors trying to eliminate each other. The ever-present drive for private profit demands endless growth, greed, exploitation, and constant and perpetual extraction/consumption of resources, energy, and people. 

And while those things are there is fascism, in its drive for profit, the rich and powerful in capitalism have figured out that any source of money for their corporations and its shareholders is really a form of profit - if it puts one's competitors out of business. This includes getting any kind of money from public entities, like governments. This can be achieved in a myriad of ways - the most common are tax cuts, tax breaks, tax refunds, grants, no-bid contracts - all things that lock out others. 

But ... those things rely on the public (the majority) continually both buying supporting said governments via voting, along with continuing to pay their taxes and so forth to fund those very activities. So people need to perform their 'civic duty' and vote and pay up in order for that to happen. In effect - no votes, no money. Voting implies 'choices'. And in order for that to occur, they have to be given 'choices' for their votes. But capitalists here in the US (ever the cost-cutters that they are) look to keep that to the absolute minimum - the smallest number of 'choices' presented is two (2). And if the rich and powerful who control these capitalist entities like corporations figure out that both 'choices' can be controlled via a ton of lobbying and election-funding cash - both 'choices' aren't actual choices at all. So what ends up is what exists today - two brands ('Democratic Party' and 'Republican Party') owned by two different corporations (DNC Services Corporation or 'DNC' and 'GOP'), that are in reality controlled the by same rich and powerful. And they do their bidding. But the illusion of democracy has to be maintained in order to convince just enough people to be manipulated into handing over their votes in order to maintain the bought governments and all the upward transfer/theft of wealth.

So capitalism differs from fascism, in that it needs the illusion of democracy maintained to the public, in order for the support via votes and taxes continues to fuel the upward transfer of wealth. Once the competitors are eliminated, wealth transfer from masses are more seen as channels, and in fascism it's more about maintaining control over them. 

As to the rest of his paragraph:

There is no such thing as 'good citizenship' in capitalism - it's all about ever-constant private profit to the rich and powerful.

There is no such thing as fair play or playing nice with large corporations and capitalism - It is all about the maximum amount of profit in the minimum amount of cost, in the shortest time. 200+ years of history here.

This means taking every advantage wherever and whenever possible for these corporations. Being a bully is what is rewarded, along with greed. Playing nice is something that doesn't exist inside any corporation.

These two brands ('Democratic Party' and 'Republican Party') are the Duopoly. It's not a real set of choices and it's certainly not democracy in the United States. Anyone who doesn't realize this is truly ignorant, and anyone who pretends it doesn't exist serves to deceive.

The late Jerry Weinberg would've found this amusing.

https://www.geekwire.com/2022/commentary-how-homeowners-defeated-zillows-ai-ultimately-leading-to-zillow-offers-demise/

Simulated success on historical data does not imply success in buying from homeowners for a simple reason: many homeowners have a better sense of the value of their own home due to variables outside of Zillow’s model (e.g., the house has a strong odor or other idiosyncratic characteristics that repel would-be buyers).  

Israel - A system of Apartheid.

https://www.thelastamericanvagabond.com/amnesty-international-calls-for-ending-israeli-apartheid/

The mounting pressure on Israel from the human rights groups, as well as international legal efforts, namely from the ICC, is a very troubling development for Israel. This is especially the case at a time when Palestinians throughout historic Palestine are growing ever more agitated with their living conditions and are uniting in a way never seen before in the history of the conflict with Israel. If the Palestinians revolt and start a new Intifada, Israel could be in a very unstable position, and now the Palestinians have the legitimacy to argue for liberating all of their land, because they won the argument internationally.

Hey ZDNet and others in the establishment media.

While I certainly have issues with them, I'll stick with Spotify for now.

Crabapple and Scamazon are not alternatives.

And as for Neil Young, Joni Mitchell and others who want to leave Spotify - thank you for many years of your songs, your talents and the memories.

You won't be forgotten, nor will you be missed.