The Evening Blues - 8-31-20
Hey! Good Evening!
This evening's music features Little Johnny Taylor. Enjoy!
Little Johnny Taylor - Part Time Love
"I have a conspiracy theory that all these US protests were covertly orchestrated by a conspiracy between a brutal authoritarian police state, a political system that has failed Americans in every conceivable way, a civilization that was built on slavery, and end-stage neoliberalism."
-- Caitlin Johnstone
News and Opinion
Worth a full read:
The Thin Blue Line Between Violent, Pro-Trump Militias and Police
Heidi Beirich, the chief strategy officer at the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, said she was unsurprised when she woke up to the news of violence in Kenosha Wednesday morning. The summer of 2020 has already seen the targeting of Black Lives Matter protesters with a bomb plot in Nevada, the targeted killing of a federal court security officer and the murder of a sheriff’s deputy by a suspected right-wing extremist in California, and a Ku Klux Klan leader driving his car into a crowd of police brutality protesters in Virginia. “As we’re approaching the election and Trump is hyping fear over the protests and ginning these people on with all this of law order stuff, it’s going to get worse,” Beirich told The Intercept. “I don’t expect this, unfortunately, to be the end of it.”
At a press conference Wednesday, Kenosha County Sheriff David Beth offered no explanation as to why Rittenhouse was permitted to leave the scene of the shootings; in addition to being identified as a shooter out after curfew, the 17-year-old was not old enough to legally carry the weapon he did. “I don’t have a clue,” the sheriff told reporters, later adding, “I don’t even know the man’s name.” When asked why law enforcement gave armed vigilantes bottles of water, the sheriff said it was common practice. “Our deputies would toss a water to anybody.” Hours before the shootings took place, the Kenosha Guard, a local militia group, issued a “call to arms” on Facebook, amplified by the conspiracy theory website InfoWars, urging armed citizens to come out in defense of private property. At Wednesday’s press conference, Beth indicated that the group had sought to be deputized by his office — a request that the sheriff claims he rejected.
The events in Kenosha are the latest in a long line of cases in which self-styled vigilantes have gathered under the banner of the “thin blue line” — a flag and movement devoted to the defense of law enforcement and the president — and engaged in violence with counterprotesters while police stood back. ...
Mike German, a former FBI agent who went undercover in far-right groups in the 1990s and who is now at the Brennan Center for Justice, noted that law enforcement’s tendency to back off in the face armed right-wing protests was evident in altercations during Trump’s 2016 run for office, and has continued throughout his administration. “To see the police continuing to treat these far-right militants as friendlies is troubling,” he said. During the 1990s, German explained, law enforcement understood that the most violent members of right-wing groups, those with criminal records that exposed them to risk of arrest, did not show up at public protests. That’s no longer the case. “There are people who have been engaged in protests in Portland for years now,” German said. “They’re well identified. I know them and I don’t live in Portland. Several of them are under court orders not to attend another protest because of the violence they’ve already perpetrated. And yet, they can engage with the police as if they’re auxiliaries. It’s really astonishing — people can point guns at people in broad daylight and not be arrested.”
Data collected by the Center for Analysis of the Radical Right and shared with HuffPost Friday charted nearly 500 instances of right-wing extremists gathering in response to Black Lives Matter protests since the police killing of George Floyd in late May, leading to 64 cases of simple assault, 38 vehicle assaults, and nine cases of shots fired at demonstrators resulting in three deaths.
Among the myriad factors contributing to the political violence and unrest the country is now witnessing is an inversion of the relationship between some elements of the armed right and the federal government, Beirich argued. “The anti-government movement is no longer anti-government in the sense that the federal government is no longer its enemy,” she said. “Trump has changed that calculation — the militias, the larger anti-government world, is essentially a pro-Trump political formation.” German, who published a report this week on extremist infiltration of law enforcement agencies, described the increasingly public alignment of the far right, police on the ground, and the White House as “a widening of the umbrella” for extremist groups.
'We live in a right-wing country': Malaika Jabali on Kenosha, rebellions, and the election
Krystal Ball: America Is A Powder Keg As Social Fabric UNRAVELS
Fatal shooting in Portland as Trump supporters confront BLM protesters
Portland mayor Ted Wheeler on Sunday slammed Donald Trump, accusing the president of encouraging the kind of violence that erupted in the city overnight when a reported member of a rightwing group was shot dead after a group of Trump supporters confronted Black Lives Matter protesters.
“What America needs is for you to be stopped,” Wheeler said of Trump, after the president tore into Wheeler on Twitter in the hours after the death and retweeted video footage of his supporters in trucks firing paintballs and pepper spray at protesters downtown.
It wasn’t clear if the shooting was linked to fights that broke out as some from the procession of about 600 vehicles, many flying large “Trump 2020” flags, revved and honked their way through narrow downtown streets, seeming to taunt protesters in the city on Saturday night. Some of the demonstrators threw objects in response, especially after paintballs were fired towards the sidewalks. Later, an Associated Press freelance photographer heard three gunshots and then observed police medics working on the body of the victim, who appeared to be a white man. ...
According to police, the shooting happened at 8.46pm local time on Saturday. A video that appears to have captured the incident, taken from the other side of the street, shows a man wearing shorts approaching a car parking garage. Shots ring out and the man falls to the ground. Later it was reported that the man had been wearing a Patriot Prayer hat bearing the logo of a rightwing group. ...
Joey Gibson, head of the Washington State-based rightwing group, whose supporters have intermittently clashed with left-wing protesters in Portland, said the man killed was a “good friend.”
The big backlash going on in Portland cannot be unexpected after 95 days of watching and incompetent Mayor admit that he has no idea what he is doing. The people of Portland won’t put up with no safety any longer.The Mayor is a FOOL. Bring in the National Guard! https://t.co/bM6ypak94t
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 30, 2020
White Supremacist in the White House: Ibram X. Kendi on Trump's Calls for "Law & Order" in Kenosha
Kenosha: fears rise that Trump visit could inflame tensions amid protests
Concern was growing on Sunday that a tense but peaceful situation prevailing in Kenosha for the last four days and nights could be inflamed by a planned visit from Donald Trump this week, in the aftermath of the police shooting of Jacob Blake in the city last Sunday.
Blake, a Black 29-year-old father, was shot seven times in the back by a white police officer in the small Wisconsin city, and his family say he is now paralyzed from the waist down.
There was unrest the following night and then largely peaceful marches spiraled into chaos on Tuesday night when white armed agitators appeared on the streets and, after being praised and given water by police despite being out after curfew, appeared to confront protesters and begin shooting.
Since Tuesday night, marches and rallies in Kenosha have been calm.
On Saturday, Blake’s family spoke at an impassioned, peaceful rally in Kenosha. “We’re not going to stop,” Blake’s father, Jacob Sr, told the crowd. “We’re still suffering because there are two justice systems. There’s one for that white boy [Rittenhouse] that walked down the street and killed two people and blew another man’s arm off. Then there’s one for my son.”
The US president announced on Saturday a plan to visit Kenosha on Tuesday.
Portland Mayor to Trump: 'Stay the hell out of the way'
Video Shows Officers in Unmarked Vehicles Surround, Arrest Activists in Kenosha for the Crime of... Trying to Serve Free Food
Soon after their Wednesday arrival in Kenosha, Wisconsin, eight volunteers from Seattle-based Riot Kitchen who planned to distribute free food to protesters were arrested by law enforcement officials who emerged from unmarked cars, the Seattle Times reported.
Footage recorded by a bystander and widely shared on social media was featured in the Washington Post. The video shows law enforcement officers jump out of black SUVs and smash the window of a minivan before handcuffing both of the vehicle's occupants:
Riot Kitchen board member Jennifer Scheurle told the Post that off-camera, officers arrested six additional members of the nonprofit group.
"Our mission is to feed people for free—protesters and everyone in need," Scheurle told the Times. "We were from out of town—but that's not illegal."
On Thursday afternoon, Scheurle said four of members of the volunteer crew had been released and four remained in jail.
On Twitter, Riot Kitchen shared video of the incident and said, "We are currently trying to find our friends who were just there to feed people."
According to a statement made by the Kenosha Police Department, city police officers—assisted by U.S. Marshals—acting on information from a citizen tip about "suspicious vehicles with out of state plates," located a black school bus, bread truck, and tan minivan, and "took up surveillance."
After following the vehicles to a gas station, police say they observed occupants of the bus and bread truck filling fuel cans. The police say they suspected that "the occupants of these vehicles were preparing for criminal activity related to the civil unrest," and claim to have attempted to investigate after identifying themselves.
Police say they stopped the minivan after it tried to drive away. According to the police, the vehicles also contained helmets, gas masks, protective vests, illegal fireworks, and suspected controlled substances.
Scheurle told the Times that "any cans filled with fuel would have been for legitimate uses, such as generators used in serving meals."
Some observers found the arrests even more troubling compared to the treatment by local police towards Kyle Rittenhouse, the 17-year-old accused of murdering two protesters in Kenosha Tuesday after traveling from nearby Illinois with an AR-15 rifle.
House Democrats launch contempt proceedings against Mike Pompeo
Congressional Democrats have launched contempt proceedings against Mike Pompeo for his refusal to comply with subpoenas for documents connected to the Ukraine scandal that led to Donald Trump’s impeachment.
The move is the culmination of a long-running struggle over Congress’s authority to conduct oversight of government agencies. The secretary of state, who was a fierce advocate of congressional rights when he was a Republican representative from Kansas, has ignored a string of demands for documentation from the Democrat-controlled House foreign affairs committee (HFAC). ...
A state department spokesperson dismissed the contempt announcement as “political theatrics” and said the documents could be available to the HFAC, but gave a different version of the conditions attached from those laid down in a letter Pompeo sent to the committee on Thursday.
In that letter, the secretary of state said the documents would be handed over if Engel could confirm he was “substantively investigating” Ukraine’s alleged “corrupt influence” on US foreign policy – an apparent reference to a conspiracy theory that has been debunked by US intelligence agencies.
The spokesperson said on Friday the relevant documents would be produced to Engel on the “only condition being that he send a letter explaining what foreign policy issue he is investigating that requires these documents”.
Alarm as FDA willing to issue Covid-19 vaccine before stringent safety testing
Public health experts have reacted with alarm to remarks by the head of the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) that he might give the green light for a US Covid-19 vaccine before the normal clinical trial process had reached its conclusion.
As the US was on the verge of 6m coronavirus cases on Sunday, Stephen Hahn, the FDA commissioner, told the Financial Times in an interview published on Sunday that he was prepared to issue emergency use authorization for a Covid-19 vaccine before the end of Phase 3 human trials that put the drug through stringent testing for safety and efficacy.
He said the standard he would apply instead would be “that the benefit outweighs the risk in a public health emergency”.
Hahn told the newspaper that his decision would not be swayed by political pressure amid the febrile atmosphere of the upcoming US presidential election. “This is going to be a science, medicine, data decision. This is not going to be a political decision,” he said.
But several public health experts expressed their concern on Sunday about an apparent willingness to consider fast-tracking a vaccine outside what is considered the gold standard testing process.
'Everybody Is Going to Catch This Thing Eventually': Senior Trump Official Brushes Off Criticism of Maskless Crowd at RNC
A White House official's flippant response to concerns about the maskless crowds of attendees at the Republican National Convention—and the GOP's ignoring of the coronavirus's horrific toll—have sparked widespred outrage this week.
"Everybody is going to catch this thing eventually," a senior White House official told CNN's Jim Acosta Thursday.
Reporting on the fourth night of the convention, Acosta said, "We not only heard a lot of gaslighting tonight, we possibly saw and witnessed some superspreading from this event."
Approximately 4,000 Americans died of Covid-19 during the four-day Republican National Convention this week, and more than 180,700 Americans have perished from the virus since the pandemic began. Neither figure was mentioned during the RNC spectacle, which is also under scrutiny for potential violations of the Hatch Act.
US Sanctions Russian Research Institute that Developed COVID-19 Vaccine
Russia won the race to develop the first vaccine against the novel coronavirus. The United States has responded by slapping sanctions on a Russian research facility involved in creating it. The U.S. government has blacklisted several Russian scientific institutes, including the Russian Defense Ministry’s 48th Central Research Institute, which has worked with other non-military medical centers to develop and test the world’s first Covid-19 vaccine.
In the midst of the global coronavirus pandemic and a historic economic crisis, Washington has escalated its global campaign of economic warfare, imposing sanctions on foreign adversaries and announcing new punitive measures on a nearly daily basis. More than one-fourth of people on Earth live in countries that are suffering from U.S. sanctions. ...
The Russian government announced this August that it had registered the world’s first Covid-19 vaccine, called Sputnik V. Sputnik V was developed by the Russian Health Ministry’s Gamaleya Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology. This scientific facility created the vaccine in a joint research project with the Russian Defense Ministry’s 48th Central Research Institute.
On Aug. 27, the U.S. Commerce Department imposed sanctions on Russia’s 48th Central Research Institute, blacklisting the scientific body.
ANGRY-NOMICS! Jimmy talks to Economist MARK BLYTH!
Teachers Expect UFT to Vote on Whether to Authorize a Strike Over School Reopening
Amid a still active pandemic, decades of underfunded schools with poor ventilation, and poor planning by the New York City Department of Education, the United Federation of Teachers is taking its first steps toward something it hasn’t done for 45 years: strike. The UFT’s Executive Board is expected to vote Monday on strike action, teachers say, and the decision will be then voted on by the UFT’s Delegate Assembly on Tuesday.
Annie Tan, who teaches in Sunset Park where, she said, there is a 7 percent incidence rate of Covid-19, told The Intercept that the union has begun meetings on the ground to discuss the possibility of strike action over reopening. The UFT is specifically looking to ensure that all issues with ventilation in the schools are resolved, that every staff person and student be tested, and that there be an intermittent testing regime as the school year progresses. “An injury to one is an injury to all,” said Tan. “We’re pushing for ventilated schools, pushing for supplies, pushing for PPE, and pushing for testing for all staff and students.”
On Friday evening, UFT Press Secretary Richard Riley told The Intercept, “At this time the UFT has no strike vote scheduled.”
The UFT, with 180,000 members, is among the largest unions in New York City. UFT President Michael Mulgrew is a close ally of Mayor Bill de Blasio. The union has tried to avoid direct confrontations with either the mayor or the governor during the pandemic. ...At this moment, Tan reported that UFT members, which include teachers and paraeducators “are scared of reopening and rightly so, as we don’t want to spread coronavirus.” Basic questions surrounding reopening have been unanswered; there is currently no official scheduled date for a reopening, but the mayor has said that it will be September 10. ... On Friday, de Blasio told WNYC that “I do hear the concerns of the principals, and that answer is coming to them very, very shortly.” The principal’s union, generally considered to be more confrontational than the UFT, urged earlier in August for an all-remote reopening due to concerns about ventilation and preparation.
Chris Hedges -- Why We Must Break Away From Two Party System
Dem Convention Made No Mention Of Russiagate Or Impeachment, Because Those Were Fake Things
The only interesting thing about either of the conventions held by America’s two mainstream political parties this month was not anything that was said by the interminable parade of vapid speakers, but rather what those speakers did not say.
Despite their dominating mainstream news cycles for years on end, at no time during the four-day Democratic National Convention was the word “impeachment” ever uttered, nor was any mention made of the Mueller investigation into allegations of collusion between Trump and the Russian government.
Politico reports:
Eight months after Democrats mounted a historic effort to remove Donald Trump from office, not a single speaker uttered the word “impeachment” during their four-day convention.
…
For Democrats to completely omit impeachment from their convention was once unthinkable. Democrats had mounted a case that Trump had abused his power to blackmail Ukraine into investigating his political adversaries, including Biden. And they made an existential argument that without removing him from office, Trump’s behavior would get worse and democracy itself would be at risk.
…
Special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia — which Democrats once thought could topple Trump for obstruction of justice — also went unmentioned, even as it was a defining feature of Trump’s nearly four years in office.“The fact that Democrats couldn’t bring themselves to even mention Russiagate or Ukrainegate (the first-ever sequel to a flop?) at their convention should maybe hasten some reflection for those who made these issues the ‘defining feature of Trump’s nearly four years in office,'” quipped incisive Russiagate skeptic Aaron Maté of the omission on Twitter.
“Next on Unsolved Mysteries: Democrats and media allies accused Donald Trump of being a Russian agent for four years,” Maté added. “They chanted ‘All Roads Lead to Putin’ and ‘The Walls Are Closing In.’ But at their political convention, they forgot all about it. Did Russia give them amnesia?”
“I personally feel like if the President of the US seeking re-election is beholden to and controlled by an adversarial foreign power, the opposition party should find a few seconds to squeeze in a mention of it if, you know, it wasn’t utter bullshit,” tweeted The Intercept‘s Glenn Greenwald.
And, of course, it was utter bullshit. And that is indeed why the Democrats saw no need to mention it at their own four-day convention despite dominating news cycles with it for years. Russiagate and Ukrainegate were never the cataclysmic scandals that the Democrats and their allied media factions portrayed them as. They weren’t even actually about getting rid of Trump. ...
The cold warriors wanted their escalations, and they got them. From beginning to the end, that’s all this was ever about. They pushed the narratives, the media joined in because it was great for ratings, and the Democrats joined in because it took the focus off their 2016 scandals and gave them a kayfabe phantom to punch instead of pushing for actual progressive changes.
And now the slow motion third world war between the US-centralized power alliance and the loose collective of unabsorbed governments is right on schedule, with Biden all set and ready to carry the omnicidal torch forward. The 2016 scandals are well enough forgotten, no progressive changes have been made, and there is no need to talk about Russiagate or impeachment at the Democratic National Convention.
Because everyone already got what they wanted. Everyone except ordinary people, of course.
Heads EXPLODE as Michael Moore Predicts Another Trump Re-Elect
Michael Moore warns that Donald Trump is on course to repeat 2016 win
The documentary film-maker Michael Moore has warned that Donald Trump appears to have such momentum in some battleground states that liberals risk a repeat of 2016 when many wrote off Trump only to see him grab the White House.
“Sorry to have to provide the reality check again,” he said.
Moore, one of few political observers to predict Trump’s victory over Hillary Clinton in 2016, said that “enthusiasm for Trump is off the charts” in key areas compared with the Democratic party nominee, Joe Biden. ...
Moore identified opinion polling in battleground states such as Minnesota and Michigan to make a case that the sitting president is running alongside or ahead of his rival.
“The Biden campaign just announced he’ll be visiting a number of states – but not Michigan. Sound familiar?” Moore wrote, presumably indicating Hillary Clinton’s 2016 race when she made the error of avoiding some states that then swung to Trump.
Zephyr Teachout, RNC Highlights & the Myth of the Markey Bros | Useful Idiots
Rampant destruction of forests ‘will unleash more pandemics’
Scientists are to warn world leaders that increasing numbers of deadly new pandemics will afflict the planet if levels of deforestation and biodiversity loss continue at their current catastrophic rates.
A UN summit on biodiversity, scheduled to be held in New York next month, will be told by conservationists and biologists there is now clear evidence of a strong link between environmental destruction and the increased emergence of deadly new diseases such as Covid-19.
Rampant deforestation, uncontrolled expansion of farming and the building of mines in remote regions – as well as the exploitation of wild animals as sources of food, traditional medicines and exotic pets – are creating a “perfect storm” for the spillover of diseases from wildlife to people, delegates will be told.
Almost a third of all emerging diseases have originated through the process of land use change, it is claimed. As a result, five or six new epidemics a year could soon affect Earth’s population.
“There are now a whole raft of activities – illegal logging, clearing and mining – with associated international trades in bushmeat and exotic pets that have created this crisis,” said Stuart Pimm, professor of conservation at Duke University. “In the case of Covid-19, it has cost the world trillions of dollars and already killed almost a million people, so clearly urgent action is needed.”
As neighbours build dams, Iraqis watch Tigris and Euphrates rivers dry up
With its neighbours activating new dams, Iraq's historic twin rivers could run dry – unless new infrastructure projects and tense talks with Turkey and Iran bear fruit.
Nowhere is the effect on the country more palpable than in Basra, Iraq's only coastal province. Here, the Tigris and Euphrates – on which millions of Iraqis rely to farm – meet at the Shatt al-Arab waterway before spilling into the Gulf.
But with flows already heavily weakened, seawater is pushing back into the freshwater rivers, strangling wildlife and human settlements that have survived on these banks for millennia.
"Salinity has gone up in recent years and it's killing the farmlands," said Abu Shaker, a 70-year-old who has spent decades growing Iraq's famed date palms. Now, with such little fresh water, Abu Shaker and fellow farmers have left their ancient palms withering on cracked and salty earth, moving north in search of potable water.
"Before, we could sell our dates in the Gulf and as far as the United States," he said. "Now, you can see with your own eyes. This whole river died."
Iraq's water woes aren't new. But with increasing regional desertification and population growth, Turkey and Iran are keener than ever to keep precious water resources for themselves. Their new dams on the Tigris and Euphrates, and the tributaries that feed them, have reduced water flows into Iraq by half, said Baghdad's Water Minister Mehdi al-Hamdani.
23 AGs Sue Trump Council Over 'Reckless and Unprecedented' Gutting of Bedrock US Environmental Law
A coalition of 27 U.S. states, commonwealths, territories, counties, and cities filed a federal lawsuit on Friday challenging the Trump administration's "unlawful, unjustified, and sweeping revisions" to a 50-year-old law that the president claimed would "streamline" infrastructure projects by limiting environmental reviews.
After revealing plans to alter the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) in January, President Donald Trump announced what critics called "reckless and unprecedented" changes during a July campaign stop. The revisions, detailed in a final rule released by the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ), swiftly provoked legal threats from advocacy organizations.
The lawsuit (pdf) filed Friday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, led by California Attorney General Xavier Becerra and Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson, follows a similar challenge to the NEPA changes from national environmental groups, filed in the same court last month.
"NEPA is an unsung hero of environmental protection that protects our shared environment," Ferguson said in a statement. "NEPA allows our voices to inform public decisions, provides a tool for holding the government accountable, and builds transparency into the federal decision-making process to build trust."
"This administration's insidious attack on one of our most important environmental laws is an attack on the democratic process itself," the Washington attorney general declared. "I will fight to make sure the people are heard."
Becerra put the rollback and subsequent suit in the context of Trump's broader deregulatory agenda targeting environmental protections and how states and local governments—often led by Democratic elected officials—have fought against it.
"The Trump administration has spent the better part of four years trying to roll back critical protections and undo hard-fought progress, particularly when it comes to our environment, public lands, and natural resources," Becerra said. "But we haven't let this unlawful conduct go unchecked. We've fought back—and won."
"Today, we're filing our 100th lawsuit against the Trump administration," he noted. "With today's challenge, our goal is simple: preserve the public's voice in government decision-making as federal projects threaten to harm the health of our families in our own backyards."
Also of Interest
Here are some articles of interest, some which defied fair-use abstraction.
The Social Fabric of the U.S. Is Fraying Severely, if Not Unravelling
The Rotten Alliance of Liberals and Neocons Will Likely Shape U.S. Foreign Policy for Years to Come
Online lenders are preying on desperate borrowers and could trigger a new consumer financial crisis
Families of US Covid victims forced to crowdfund funerals
54 Million People in the U.S. May Go Hungry During Pandemic—Can Urban Farms Help?
JOHN KIRIAKOU: Know Your Rights. Don’t Talk to Cops at the Airport
The Democratic Party won’t be out-Israel’d this fall
US to Cut One Third of Troops in Iraq in Next Few Months
An Honest War Is As Rare As An Honest Politician: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix
Press Normalizes Trump’s Lawlessness as Use of ‘Tools of Presidency’ to ‘Broaden Appeal’
'DemExit': virtual convention aims to create US leftwing alternative
Jimmy Dore: Clinton's Labor Secretary Says We Need A Progressive Independent Party!
Jimmy Dore: PELOSI Says BIDEN Should Not Debate TRUMP!
Krystal and Saagar: CNN, Adam Schiff Say RUSSIA Is Manipulating BLM
A Little Night Music
Little Johnny Taylor - True Love
Little Johnny Taylor - My Heart Is Filled With Pain
Little Johnny Taylor - Somewhere Down The Line
Little Johnny Taylor - Stop Fooling Around
Little Johnny Taylor - I Got News for You
Little Johnny Taylor - Sometimey Woman
Little Johnny Taylor & Ted Taylor - Honey Lou
Ted and Little Johnny Taylor - Cry It Out Baby
Little Johnny Taylor - Everybody Knows About My Good Thing, Pt. 1 & 2
Comments
Good afternoon joe and the bluzers
Hell yeah the social fabric is unraveling. Tribal battle in the streets.
Did you catch any of the peoples convention yesterday?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t6u5xPJaW2s
Several good speeches. I enjoyed it anyway. At least it is something aligning with my views.
Busy season here. After lots of rain, just trying to keep the jungle from engulfing the place, and keep the garden picked and food processed. Got a new 40v weedeater that is great...battery last as long as I'm up for trimming.
So thanks as always for the blues and the news!
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
evening lookout...
i've been thinking about the social unravelling a bit and comparing it to my memories of the social unrest in the 60's and early 70's. i haven't reached any conclusions yet, but all of the same actors seem ready to have at it again, but this time the far right seems to have a far tighter grip on power centers.
i listened to bits of the convention on and off during the afternoon and while i am glad that they are going forward with the creation of a party, i was largely unimpressed with what i heard. i didn't feel like anybody that i heard really had a plan for meeting the moment, for dealing with the urgency, scope and scale of the existential problems confronting us.
glad to hear that the garden is going well. our garden appreciated the rain we've been getting for the last several days and is putting out fruits, too. yay!
Same here.
“ i listened to bits of the convention on and off during the afternoon and while i am glad that they are going forward with the creation of a party, i was largely unimpressed with what i heard. i didn't feel like anybody that i heard really had a plan for meeting the moment, for dealing with the urgency, scope and scale of the existential problems confronting us.”
Seems like the best we can hope for anymore is someone publicly saying what we all know is true.
Idolizing a politician is like believing the stripper really likes you.
evening dr jc...
it seemed to me that they were basically working on giving themselves permission to stand up on their feet and demand the right to create a responsive political unit - expecting the tidal wave of abuse that will be leveraged against a successful project by the corporate party.
well, Dems, why didn't you go for the 25th amendment?
“He was trying to get away from them, I guess ... and he fell,” Trump claimed, citing videos of the Rittenhouse attack. “And then they very violently attacked him.”
meanwhile, reluctant to say "Breonna Taylor" Trump made sure to say "Rest in peace, Jay" about the rightwinger who, after macing people, was killed in Portland.
So my choice is nutjob America or corporate America. It's one to ponder.
evening shahryar...
yep, if the dems really cared about trump, they could impeach him on real charges all day, every day. there's plenty, including war crimes to charge him with.
clearly, the dems really want trump in office. he's a great fundraiser for them.
i thought it was kind of amusing that trump characterized the morons in pickup trucks as peaceful protesters. he even retweeted a video of them driving through downtown portland spraying people on sidewalks with pepper spray and shooting them with paintballs.
i reckon we haven't seen the end of this escalation.
Trump is going to Kenosha
An assassination there would seal the election for Pence.
Then we will have the Christian Mahdi to replace the TV huckster. Hang onto your hat, it's going to get dangerous with the New Inquisition.
I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.
evening voice...
well, an assassination is something i sure hope that we don't wind up with. not only is it a bad thing in itself, but the fallout from something like that right now could create a sort of social havoc that we just don't need.
I'm not hoping, I'm predicting
Some #BLM schmoe will do it.
Or a Praetorian will do it an pin it on some #BLM schmoe.
I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.
My prediction failed.
No Oswald in sight.
I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.
Just as well...
I understand the place was an absolute armed camp and locked down hard, so somebody else had the same thoughts as did you.
I beleive it!
Trump doesn't seem like the type to risk his precious skin.
I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.
Evening all ...
I thought this was frightening: We Don’t Know How to Warn You Any Harder. America is Dying.
This was interesting: Anatomy of coup attempt in Belarus
And Dammit Caitlin ...
We wanted decent healthcare, a living wage and free college.
The Democrats gave us Biden and war instead.
evening azazello...
thanks for the links. umair joins the chorus of cassandras warning about the rise of fascism.
there are plenty of americans that are aware of what's going on and many are responding in various ways. none of it seems to be effective in putting down the fascists, though.
forget the system part for the moment. does the term capitalism refer to some real thing? if so, what is it?
I'm not sure that it does.
When you start looking at it, it's not all that easy to say what, exactly, the term capitalism refers to. You could go with the Marxist definition; private ownership of the means of production but that, too, breaks down once you start asking questions. It may be that the term is so vague that it's practically useless. It serves as a rhetorical device, a catch-all for everything that ails us. There is this thing called capitalism which is run by capitalists and they and their system are the cause of all our problems. Can it really be that simple ?
We wanted decent healthcare, a living wage and free college.
The Democrats gave us Biden and war instead.
heh...
i suppose one might ask if there is another extant means of organizing an economy that is manifestly different?
does, for example, placing ownership of the means of production in the hands of the the public (held in trust by the state) make a distinction with a difference?
or, should we just look at the populations of people in any state, determine that all of them are oppressed and the conceptual framework that organizes their political economy really doesn't matter.
everybody everywhere is fucked, except for a small group that controls the levers of the political economy?
Instead of systems, we can talk about legal environments.
Cumbersome, I know. We have legal jurisdictions, in this case nations, which have laws and a means of enforcing these laws. In short, politics. The laws, and their enforcement, may favor property rights or the general welfare. I think this is what we commonly mean by capitalism and socialism. Now comes the problem of the many and the few. In any "system", in any legal environment or nation, the greedy few will seek to bend the laws in their favor. It has always been this way. I reject the notion that we must have a revolution in order to replace our current "system" with some other, better "system". Revolutions are disruptive, they cause death and destruction and there are no systems.
We wanted decent healthcare, a living wage and free college.
The Democrats gave us Biden and war instead.
That’s what a lot of people in former E. Germany have concluded.
They went from Hitler to Allied occupation to Soviet-style socialism to West German / EU global capitalism. At no time did they ever have the feeling that they were in the driver’s seat except for that one brief shining moment in time when their peaceful mass revolt against the then-ruling communist elite turned the tide of history.
Part of the eastern German 99% see PEGIDA and Saturday’s anti-Covid-lockdown protest in Berlin as legitimate attempts to recreate that moment and have a say in what’s going on. Such attempts are vilified by the establishment and their obedient pundits and media, natch; then as now, siding with the 1% under whatever “system.” Some things never change.
evening lotlizard...
yep. an old co-worker of mine used to frequently comment at times when our bosses changed, "shit floats to the top."
Perhaps we shoulc go with
"socio-economic assholery"?
be well and have a good one.
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
I read Umar’s article earlier
and, not to discount his own personal experience, but I think he’s missing two major points.
1) Trump does not have the support of the military. The grunts may be more pro-Trump than the brass but if he was a true fascist, he’d be pulling the military in and consolidating his power with them. Instead, he’s openly gone against what they’ve wanted a lot of the time and pushed them away. Witness all the war hawks at the DNC.
2) Trump does not have, and will not have, the support of the intelligence agencies. The alphabet soup orgs have been trying to get him out since he was elected (Russiagate anyone?) These people would be essential to dictator for life Trump maintains power and he’s done about all he can to piss them off without getting himself assassinated.
This article, while being about the left’s case against Joe Biden, actually serves as a pretty good rebuttal to Umar:
https://benjaminstudebaker.com/2020/08/31/the-left-case-against-supporti...
The usual disclaimers apply. I don’t want Trump in office. He’s a bad person doing bad things and making the country worse. But people have been calling him Hitler since day one. I still contend he isn’t even the worst president of my lifetime, let alone all time, though I do acknowledge he still has at least a few months more to change that.
Idolizing a politician is like believing the stripper really likes you.
Thanks for that link.
A good antidote.
We wanted decent healthcare, a living wage and free college.
The Democrats gave us Biden and war instead.
Here’s something you don’t see every day
Shudder...
I read Umair article and thought that a lot of the things happening now have been happening for some time. And during previous administrations. Trump is not disappearing his opponent either. This isn’t to say that we’re not going in that direction. One thing it pointed out was that Trump could arrest anyone at any time. True. But who gave him that power? Obama where the move to fascism was just hidden better.
Got some real sad news tonight. My uncle is selling his house and moving to Salt Lake. This is the end of an era. Mom’s house gone and soon my aunt and uncle’s. This is hitting me hard. Now I’ll really be an orphan.
There were problems with running a campaign of Joy while committing a genocide? Who could have guessed?
Harris is unburdened of speaking going forward.
evening snoopy...
wow, you see some of the damndest things on the interwebs.
i'd note that one key difference between obama's fascism and trump's fascism is that trump is stirring up a movement of eager-beaver, gun-fondling, lame-brains to enact his fantasies.
sorry to hear that your uncle is packing up and heading out. i hope that you all find a way to stay connected and visit frequently.
Good evening Joe. Thanks for the EB.
The rest of the world real soon and declare the US to be a pariah nation and specifically that our sanctions are irrational, illegal, obscene and, as to them, null and void. They need to get out of our banks and out of the dollar and tell us to just suck on it. It's not like we produce anything here that folks elsewhere relly need except weapons. They could declare global peace and we'd have no leverage at all.
be well and have a good one
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
Mussolini's definition of fascism
IIRC he stole it from some economist.
"The blending of corporate interests and the State" or words to that effect.
Sounds like the DNC to me.
I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.
evening el...
yeah, if the rest of the world decided that it was really sick of the adolescent fantasies of american neoliberal jackasses and decided to stop using our brand of cabbage as a reserve currency, dropped out of swift and withdrew from the world bank and the imf - the u.s. would basically be screwed.
and our ruling elites (as opposed to the people) would deserve it.
But the people would pay, not the elites
They have their investments in China and Europe and South America plus deposits in Swiss banks. WE would bear the burden. If you have $10 billion one day and only one billion the next, does it really matter? No. If you make $30 an hour and $3 an hour the next does it matter? yes, it does!
I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.
Thar’s what’s so exasperating about NATO
The whole EU globalizing elite claims they hate Trump. Yet they’re still following every war-mongering policy initiative that comes out of Washington DC — if not actively pulling strings to get the US and NATO to destroy some country for personal reasons and/or Israel, as Sarkozy in France did in the case of Libya.
Two names only the Right seems to be talking about:
Michael Forest Reinoehl.
Cannon Hinnant.