Backlog of too many things to do

And just getting to understand this work after a decade of trying

Here is some parts of it that may be of interest

I posted it in a comment on BNR (Bernie News Roundup) which is a daily update of Bernie's campaign

Here it is

"no issues, no politics" (13+ / 0-)
I was in central Asia for the last two weeks and off the web. The remote places seldom had a TV that worked. I happened to be in Turkey and saw the end of the debate and then a CNN international talking head spent his time on the most important topic in his mind: will Joe Biden enter the race now that Hillary did so well in the debate.

I am reading a book on political philosophy and it had an important insight related to Bernie's campaign. Namely, "no issues, no politics"

That means that the "political" discussion we have had in the USA and Europe for the most part has been depoliticized. The CNN talking head was talking about what passes for politics, namely personalities, and on top of that, our larger current framework finishes off the job of depoliticizing politics with the focus on morality and economics added to the personalities.

This involves very complex issues of ontology and political philosophy that I am finally getting to understand.

The important thing for me is that Bernie has made the campaign political.

And in the book, politics is necessary when the institutions cannot solve a complex problem and it is necessary to construct and engage various associations around issues.

That is what Bernie is doing with his, and our work, to bring millions into politics.

Another point from the book: it is a false ideal to expect perfect knowledge from complex issues. Politics can not be judged with criteria like scientific truth in the same way that we cannot expect a modem to make toast. (the latter is a paraphrase from the book). Politics is a different mode of existence. (the books is about Bruno Latour's work and whose newest book "An Inquiry Into Modes of Existence")

I know that this comment is only a sampling of insights that struck me and I hope that it triggers some thoughts in others.

The book is by the philosopher Graham Harman and is titled "Bruno Latour: reassembling the political"

by Don midwest on Fri Oct 16, 2015 at 07:24:26 AM EDT

Here is the link

http://www.dailykos.com/comments/1433413/57952363#c18

link

The double whammy to exports from the stronger dollar and cooling overseas markets was bound to hit employment in the world's largest economy. JPMorgan Chase & Co. has put numbers to the damage.
Export-oriented industries have been losing about 50,000 jobs a month for most of this year, after adding 9,000 a month on average in 2014, according to JPMorgan economist Jesse Edgerton. Recent manufacturing surveys hint the impact could worsen, and the employment erosion may extend into the first half of 2016, he predicts.

So...no cola for us greedy takers on social security this year. Well, naturally if gas prices fell we surely don't need it~

Insurrection Erupts at the Democratic National Committee

Of two dozen Democratic insiders with whom I spoke this week, including several DNC vice chairs, not one defended Wasserman Schultz’s treatment of Gabbard. Most called it ridiculous, outrageous, or worse. Many argued, further, that the debate plan enacted by the chairwoman is badly flawed—an assessment shared by many party activists, left-bent supporters of Bernie Sanders and Martin O’Malley, and those candidates themselves, all of whom see it as a naked effort to aid and comfort Hillary Clinton. And they maintained that the plan was a clear reflection of Wasserman Schultz’s management style, which many of them see as endangering Democratic prospects in 2016 and beyond.

This is Debbie Wasserman Schultz setting things up for her (and many within the DNC) preferred candidate, Hillary Clinton. It's so blatantly obvious that if anyone denies it they look ridiculous.

I swung by the GOS for a spell today, and now it's all about Clinton won the debate (which is ridiculous on its face), HRC taking a slim lead (still in the margin of error) in New Hampshire, and of course the DNC drama (which is really bad timing for everyone involved). The spin is annoying. Feels like The Empire Strikes Back over there today. Might have to detox myself with some of this site, Democracy Now, and NetFlix.

Last night I ran into some old friends that I haven't seen in a long while at Big Belly Brewery (2nd floor of the Chillers/Big Belly/Latitudes bar/club gestalt). We all used to hang out at Pine Street Bar & Grill...the local watering hole and before it shuttered its doors, the best dive bar in Downtown Orlando (Tangueray's is still there and is the last dive off of Orange Avenue). That place was our second living room, a dodgy old place with a wild assortment of characters, some larger than life. It was the place where everyone knew your name.

It had the typical dive bar stables--dart board, a pool table from the 1980s (and just as rickety), Touch Tunes, the Crackbox (that's what we called the touch screen games, with Photo Hunt and other puzzle games), and a half falling apart ping pong table. The food was excellent--best burgers you could get without going to a restaurant or Five Guys.

You could run a tab, skip out on it, and return the next day to settle up and no one would bat an eye. That's just how they rolled. When Pine Street closed, it was replaced by the Basement, another one of those paint-by-numbers douche bro bars--where the pretty people and trust fund babies hang out at. I consider it a small tragedy.

At Big Belly, we were playing poker. I ended up winning the whole thing this time. $100 bucks cold hard cash. Our buddies and I sauntered over to the Harp & Celt Irish Pub, which has the distinction of having President Obama visit twice when he visited Florida--in 2008 & 2012. If you're in town and are going to watch a soccer match, this is the place to be. The staff there is excellent and the menu is on point. I didn't blow the winnings on drinks, but put a slight dent in it. Round of shots. Simple and simple.

link

Federal agents were still cataloging the classified information from Hillary Rodham Clinton’s personal email server last week when President Obama went on television and played down the matter.
“I don’t think it posed a national security problem,” Mr. Obama said Sunday on CBS’s “60 Minutes.” He said it was a mistake for Mrs. Clinton to use a private email account when she was secretary of state, but his conclusion was unmistakable: “This is not a situation in which America’s national security was endangered.”

Those statements angered F.B.I. agents who have been working for months to determine whether Ms. Clinton’s email setup had in fact put any of the nation’s secrets at risk, according to current and former law enforcement officials.
Investigators have not reached any conclusions about whether the information on the server had been compromised or whether to recommend charges, according to the law enforcement officials. But to investigators, it sounded as if Mr. Obama had already decided the answers to their questions and cleared anyone involved of wrongdoing.

The White House quickly backed off the president’s remarks and said Mr. Obama was not trying to influence the investigation. But his comments spread quickly, raising the ire of officials who saw an instance of the president trying to influence the outcome of a continuing investigation — and not for the first time.

A spokesman for the F.B.I. declined to comment. But Ron Hosko, a former senior F.B.I. official who retired in 2014 and is now the president of the Law Enforcement Legal Defense Fund, said it was inappropriate for the president to “suggest what side of the investigation he is on” when the F.B.I. is still investigating.

“Injecting politics into what is supposed to be a fact-finding inquiry leaves a foul taste in the F.B.I.’s mouth and makes them fear that no matter what they find, the Justice Department will take the president’s signal and not bring a case,” said Mr. Hosko, who maintains close contact with current agents.

about one of my favorite artist's Shepard Fairey at the Guardian. It's hooked into politics in a strange way.

http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2015/oct/16/shepard-fairey-my-go...

Shepard Fairey: 'My goal was to make art by any means necessary'
The street artist, famous for his Obama image, could get a 10-year jail sentence for vandalism in Detroit, but meanwhile has a New York gallery exhibition

When the artist Diego Rivera arrived in Detroit in April 1932 – at the behest of auto magnate Edsel Ford – to create the Detroit Industry murals, he entered an industrial colossus laid low by the great depression and amplified by a chorus of conservative critics, who called his mixed-race, humanistic portrayal of the working class, “coarse in conception … foolishly vulgar, and a slander to Detroit workmen”.

More than 80 years later, street artist Shepard Fairey turned up in Detroit – at the invitation of billionaire fringe banking mogul Dan Gilbert – to paint several murals in the demolished and demoralised city. He also put up some illegal posters, which city officials described as vandalism. Now he faces 10 years in prison and fines exceeding $10,000.

The vandalism he is being charged with in Detroit are his famous Obey posters. He has a 'fine art' show of his work that opened in NYC called On Our Hands.

On Our Hands also demonstrates the disillusion Fairey – best known for his “Hope” poster co-opted by the 2008 Obama presidential campaign – has experienced in an era of promise beginning with the United States’ election of its first black president. Citing his dismay over Obama’s use of drones in Pakistan and the Middle East, as well as the administration’s continuation of the domestic surveillance programs, Fairey said he has “come to realise that the problems are not dependent on the actions of one person” but are largely symptoms of a broken system where corporations and oligarchs corrupt democracy.

Sometimes I wonder where are the artist's who in the past stepped up when the world went this dark.

“Americans need to stop being obsessed with personalities and start looking more closely at the principles that are at play within the dynamics of our system. The players change but the problems stay the same.” Shepard Fairey

Rivera, said in reflection of his life and controversies, including Detroit, that an artist is “above all a human being, profoundly human to the core”. If the artist “won’t put down his magic brush and head the fight against the oppressor, then he isn’t a great artist”.