The Weekly Watch
Incompetence are U.S.
Some combination of intention, greed, and buffoonery is at the root of this nation's inability to deal with the current rash of pressing problems. From COVID to forever wars to ecosystem destruction to our sick care system to disputed elections and the transfer of power...almost every dimension of national interests look very much like failure. The headless empire dances not knowing it is dead. Unemployment is at record highs, small business closure topping the charts, 4000 US citizens a day dying of COVID, the Capitol invaded to thwart an election,...and the stock market reaches record highs. Pretty obvious to see where the priorities lay.
The U.S. has been warring with someone most of my life. It was the Vietnam war which first entered my conscious in part because I was nearing draft age and sweated out two years of the lottery. In retrospect it is obvious Vietnam never was a threat to the US or its way of life. If anything we would be better off emulating them. They have a COVID death rate of 0.4 per million. The US is 1,142 per million, much, much higher. The US has bungled its response from the start. Australia a country similar to ours, is impressive with only 35 per million (which limited flights and required a two week supervised quarantine). Venezuela's 37 per million death rate may be one reason we need to take over their country. Another perpetual enemy (which is no threat to the US) Cuba has only 13 COVID deaths per million, and New Zealand manged to limit deaths to 5 people per million. We can't forget evil China with a COVID death rate of 3 per million. My point being these folks both allies and those we call our "enemy" handled this pandemic much better the the US.
Stats here
Things are not going well. Here's yesterday's update from John Campbell. He finishes up with Australia's approach. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arODi9gBZOE (25 min)
With 4000 deaths per day in the US you would think they would at least give folks a choice of taking a likely effective drug.
https://scheerpost.com/2021/01/04/medical-alliance-urges-officials-to-ok...
Funny how inexpensive available labeled drugs and supplements are not recommended.
If you've been reading that ivermectin doesn't work you should watch this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YlcyGDuFFU (10 min)
Big Pharma has reps on the boards of the MSM outlets. If you watch commercial media you know most commercials are for drugs...just ask your doctor.
Even Vitamin C is shunned despite known efficacy for months.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfnIkDwrjw8&t=10m (12 min)
Notice how the science can be misrepresented.
The vaccine roll out isn't going too well either. The super frigid temperatures required to keep the fat droplet stable around the mRNA vaccines have crippled the roll out. The FDA in its corporate big pharma wisdom isn't even going to review the AZ/Oxford vaccine that just requires regular refrigeration until April...despite the peer reviewed scientific studies delineating it efficacy and the global acceptance else where. Wonder why the delay on the $2/dose non-profit vaccine? I'll let you answer that.
So much of our mishandling of the COVID crisis is to maximize profit not minimize disease. I continue to think we will control COVID with these vaccines, but long after the ravages of the pandemic are over, we will still be coping with the economic fallout which we answered with the CARES act and the December relief bill which has proven to increase the wealth gap by funneling vast amounts to the the oligarchs and elite.
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/as-the-u-s-stock-market-surges-in-2020...
Small business have been devastated, and unemployment is worse than the great depression.
https://www.bls.gov/charts/employment-situation/civilian-unemployment-ra...
Wouldn't it be nice if we used this opportunity to create worker owned coops to restore the people and the economy. Let's just say I'm not holding my breath, but that would be my strategy if I was the US Czar.
Many people are struggling to set a new strategy moving forward. Bros Cornel and Hedges ponder the path forward in America's existential crisis (26 min)
Briahna, Virgil, and Thomas Frank also ponder what's next for the left and Trump's right-wing workerism. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GCDRst2Ugs (16 min)
Against the backdrop of domestic chaos are the The Forever Wars...
Designed to provide profit at the expense of the lives of poor brown and black people. We are a war based economy, not a people based one.
This year will mark the 20th anniversary of the war on terror, including America’s undeclared conflict in Afghanistan. After that war’s original moniker, Operation Infinite Justice, was nixed for offending Muslim sensibilities, the Pentagon rebranded it Operation Enduring Freedom. Despite neither a clear victory, nor the slightest evidence that enduring freedom had ever been imposed on that country, “U.S. combat operations in Afghanistan ended,” according to the Defense Department, in 2014. In reality, that combat simply continued under a new name, Operation Freedom’s Sentinel, and grinds on to this very day.
Like the 2003 invasion of Iraq, known as Operation Iraqi Freedom, Enduring Freedom and Freedom’s Sentinel failed to live up to their names. Nor did any of the monikers slapped on America’s post-9/11 wars ever catch the public imagination; the battlefields spread from Afghanistan and Iraq to Yemen, Somalia, the Philippines, Libya, Syria, Niger, Burkina Faso, and beyond — at a price tag north of $6.4 trillion and a human toll that includes at least 335,000 civilians killed and at least 37 million displaced from their homes. Meanwhile, those long promised clear victories never materialized even as the number of terrorist groups around the world proliferated.
https://tomdispatch.com/will-they-ever-be-over/
And it goes on and on...
According to African Command, the US carried out an airstrike against Saaxa Weyne on the Somali coast Thursday, killing at least five people, all of whom were labeled suspects. They insist no civilians were slain.
https://news.antiwar.com/2021/01/08/us-airstrike-kill-five-in-somalia/
A US State Department official told reporters on Friday that a contract for the sale of F-35 fighter jets to the UAE is expected to be signed before President Trump leaves office.
https://news.antiwar.com/2021/01/08/uae-f-35-deal-expected-to-be-signed-...
Not only drones dropping bombs, but the use of sanctions, the modern day siege.
Carpenter begins by explaining that economic sanctions are both ineffective and inhumane. For one thing, the theory that when a population is pressed hard enough they will rise up and overthrow their government has never been successfully borne out in practice. What’s more, it is never the ruling class that suffers under a sanctions program, since they will be able to ensure security and comfort for themselves no matter how desperate things get—instead, it is only the most vulnerable civilians who end up suffering from poverty, famine and deprivation. Carpenter takes us through the examples of Yemen, North Korea, Libya and Cuba to drive home his point about how disastrous America’s policies in this area have been.
https://scotthorton.org/interviews/12-21-20-ted-carpenter-on-the-futilit...
Not to mention the cold war with China...
An Aggressive China Policy Is a Recipe for More Endless Wars
The problem is straightforward: Any effort to characterize China as an existential threat to the United States necessarily implies a level of conflict that will (as it did during the Cold War) provide justification for US intervention anywhere in the world. The solution for a less interventionist foreign policy is not to play up the threat of Beijing in the hopes the US will stop intervening elsewhere, but rather to carefully rethink what constitutes a threat to US core values, and what the United States must sacrifice to meet that threat.
Perhaps worse than our forever wars is the destruction and devastation of our ecosystem
The pivotal issue for our survival is the stability of our ecosystem and it is in terrible flux. 2020 was a terrible year for so many reasons, including that it tied with 2016 for being the warmest year on record. "It took over 200 years for [atmospheric CO2] levels to increase by 25%, but now just over 30 years later we are approaching a 50% increase."
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/01/08/climate-emergency-persists-...
Would that we would unite and restore ecosystems providing employment and perhaps delay our own extinction.
John Liu has lent his knowledge to countless ecological restoration efforts across the globe. In the numerous projects he's been involved in, amazing and seemingly impossible things have happened. Through a combination of physics, chemistry and ecology we can see the pattern that has led to the degradation of ecosystems across the globe - specifically (but not limited to) the massive "highlighter mark" of degraded desert across the Middle East and Northern Africa. This pattern can be (and has been) reversed by a collective intention to turn the physics on its head - reducing evaporation and desiccation, restoring ground cover, re-carbonizing and re-hydrating soils. It is totally possible, if we work together, to help nature restore balance, geting to the other side of the thermodynamic breakdown and back to a regenerative climate cycle.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pD-o8unEMh0 (30 min)
There's so much news from the week. The Assange ruling, the Georgia senate elections, the "force the vote" fallout and reflection, the invasion of the capital to impede congress approving the electoral college results, all make for a heady news week.
Let's start with the Assange Case.
Chris writes about Julian and his US lawyer Michael Ratner, and the background of the case.
“WikiLeaks and you personally are facing a battle that is both legal and political,” Weinglass told Assange. “As we learned in the Pentagon Papers case, the US government doesn’t like the truth coming out. And it doesn’t like to be humiliated. No matter if it’s Nixon or Bush or Obama, Republican or Democrat in the White House. The US government will try to stop you from publishing its ugly secrets. And if they have to destroy you and the First Amendment and the rights of publishers with you, they are willing to do it. We believe they are going to come after WikiLeaks and you, Julian, as the publisher.”
“Come after me for what?” asked Julian.
“Espionage,” Weinglass continued, according to the memoir. “They’re going to charge Bradley Manning with treason under the Espionage Act of 1917. We don’t think it applies to him because he’s a whistleblower, not a spy. And we don’t think it applies to you either because you are a publisher. But they are going to try to force Manning into implicating you as his collaborator. That’s why it’s crucial that WikiLeaks and you personally have an American criminal lawyer to represent you.”
Ratner and Weinglass laid out potential scenarios.
https://scheerpost.com/2021/01/04/chris-hedges-the-empire-is-not-done-wi...
Threat to Journalism Remains, Warn Critics, After Assange Extradition Rejected Solely Due to Brutal US Prison System
"That a British court has ruled that the U.S. prison system is too barbaric to guarantee the safety of Assange tells its own story. But this is about something much bigger than Assange: it's about journalism, the free press, and... the ability to expose atrocities committed by the world's last remaining superpower."
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/01/04/threat-journalism-remains-w...
Glenn writes this week, Julian Assange’s Imprisonment Exposes U.S. Myths About Freedom
That is what makes the ongoing imprisonment of Julian Assange not only a grotesque injustice but also a vital, crystal-clear prism for seeing the fundamental fraud of U.S. narratives about who is free and who is not, about where tyranny reigns and where it does not.
https://greenwald.substack.com/p/the-kafkaesque-imprisonment-of-julian
Matt Taibbi also wrote an insightful piece about Julian's situation.
Assange has not been outside since 2012. He seems destined to end up sharing the fate of those Gitmo prisoners in head-bags whose condition was one of the first Wikileaks scoops: kept in a kind of legal nowhere forever, unable even to escape through suicide.
https://taibbi.substack.com/p/wednesdays-other-story
Why persecute Julian? He revealed our war crimes and that must not be allowed.
The Election
Biden wants to forgive and forget. The forget part will be easy for him.
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/01/09/pers-j09.html
Ironically I agree that impeachment is silly at this time. Some sort of admonishment would be appropriate.
There are countless lessons to learn from the Trump insurrection, as well as from the legendary Georgia Senate victories of Rev. Warnock and Jon Ossoff.
...we must take on both White nationalism and economic injustice....
The seditious racists who invaded the Capitol are the tip of the spear of the Trump coalition. They don’t make it into the building without a much broader base of Republicans behind them.
https://scheerpost.com/2021/01/07/we-have-our-call-to-arms/
Details emerge of high-level state involvement in Wednesday’s coup attempt. The minimal police presence at the Capitol building on Wednesday was not a mistake or oversight, as the corporate media has claimed, but part of a high-level conspiracy.
This may just be the start...
Online, fascist militias are now preparing for an even larger event on Inauguration Day. Militia members are also making plans for protests at various state capitols in the days leading up to the inauguration. Stall added that while Wednesday’s demonstration in Washington DC was largely unarmed, this may change on January 20.
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/01/09/plot-j09.html
No doubt we are a deeply divided nation.
There was some fall out after the failure of Jimmy's push to force the vote.
Nick Branna and Jimmy discuss the implications.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mvveu4jxJAk (23 min)
The DSA arrives a day late and a dollar short..sadly they didn't support "force the vote" when the squad had leverage. The members had to push the leadership and they are late to the party so to speak.
In the last hour or so is a good conversation/debate about Force the Vote and Jimmy's approach with the grayzone crowd. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBPDfbPkTlU
I didn't think I would listen to it all but I did easily...pretty interesting takes.
Folks we live in interesting times. It is easy to let the chaos get to you. My technique is to step into nature and let the forest soak up the confusion and stress. We all need to find strategies to deal with the tsunami of problems cascading from the collapse of the US empire. I wish I saw an effective strategy to hasten the end of empire before some catastrophic war with China or Russia or both. It is ironic that the answer we all recognize, ending the forever wars and using those funds to help the citizens and the ecosystem, isn't even mentioned. I hope that becomes the central plank of the people's party, because it is the first step toward a peaceful productive society. Well, I'll wrap up saying it was indeed a wild week. I hope it inspires some sort of reflection.
I look forward to your thoughts in the comments below.
Comments
“What REALLY happened in DC + why”—Fiorella Isabel / Convo Couch
[video:https://youtu.be/IGIOJcOfT7o]
Fiorella Isabel is awesome here, worth watching all the way to the end.
And:
The Swamp swallowed Trump
The boot is coming down hard and fast
Thanks for the clip...
I'll check it out this AM. Hope you're doing well and things are good in your world.
Edit to add:
All three links were interesting. Thanks.
Convocouch (new to me) Makes good points about our voting systems.
AutoEarth link...speaks the truth
From Caity: she warns -
Whatta world indeed! Thanks again for the links.
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Awesome indeed, LL - thank you!
More truth than most can handle - loads of respect for this woman
and the Convo crew.
The whole color revolution thing is about dividing people and, ultimately, getting
them to beg for authoritarianism. Unfortunately, it's working all too well on most people.
No guarantee you won't get stomped down if you stand up against the techno-fascism, but a lot of people who think that they are going to be rewarded keeping their head down and going along to get along are going to end up sorely disappointed.
A wild, wild week
Thanks for the recap Lookout.
Now I'm being just a cut-up and paster.
- maximize profit not minimize disease
- we are a deeply divided nation
- both allies and those we call our "enemy" handled this pandemic much better the the US
- who is free and who is not
- a peaceful productive society
- the ability to expose atrocities committed by the world's last remaining superpower
- perhaps delay our own extinction
- carefully rethink what constitutes a threat to US core values
- economic sanctions are both ineffective and inhumane
Quite the challenge to build a healthy, stable society from the debris of a dying empire.
Good luck
nice to "see" you this AM
Are you knee deep in snow? We may get a dusting tomorrow AM.
Yes, I think we are gazing into the embers of a dying empire. I just hope the wind doesn't pick up and create a wild fire.
Thanks for the synopsis!
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
No snow now
frozen grounds, so burning embers in the wood stove for warmth
Cheers!
Good Sunday morning, Lookout ~~
Moving through 2021 we will find that there will still be much unrest and difficulty with the economy. The virus is trying to wake up people and they are resistant, they want their "normal" back. However, humanity has been crying out for change for a long time. They don't recognize that their call is being answered.
Humanity wanted something different – people’s lives needed to change and people have been calling for the change. People’s lives needed to be enlivened. They hate their jobs, they want something different. This is an opportunity for a different energy to come upon planet earth that people have been calling for. This will help us raise our consciousness. This will help to waken us up, to look at how we speak to one another - why are you wearing masks right now? It’s hard to understand people or watch their mouths as they speak, especially for deaf people, can be impossible to understand people speaking through a mask, but the mask is really asking what I am putting to the world? Where do I need to take my mask away and be real, be authentic, be true? Can I say nice things to people or am I only ever going to say nasty things? What am I thinking in my mind?
You see, all of these things need to be cleaned up. This is the toxin, the toxicity.
Immunity will come from connecting and being close to one another – knowing that you are looking out for one another.
When you can take the masks off, you are showing the true you, your true light, you are willing to show whatever it is you’ve got inside. You have to create a world where people feel safe to take off their masks, let down their defenses. The fact people have generally been let down by the government, by the powers that be, by their own circle, etc. will dictate how long before they feel comfortable removing their mask, their defense.
Learn how to love one another. Study love, be a student of love. Look at love and ask:
“What does love do in this situation?”
“What would love do here?”
Tune into the energy of love. Love is your answer; love is the key. Find ways to love – ask for help.
“What do I need to drop within me that has this hatred, that has this fear, that has this anger?”
“What is it I need to release?”
This is an opportunity - take advantage of it and make those changes to bring about unity - which cannot come without trust.
Enjoy the day!
"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11
in crisis there is opportunity
...as you suggest. Although, I do think we better keep our masks on till vaccination is widespread.
One reason I dislike the idea of impeachment is it alienates the very people with whom we need to build bridges. The majority of them want to end war, have M4A, fulfilling jobs and so on. We have more in common than we think. I'm hoping a people's party can unite right and left to thwart the corporate duopoly that denies the things a majority of people desire.
I sure appreciate your positive view and hopeful outlook. Thanks for coming by and sharing some positive vibes!
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
A poem for you
"In this Place"
by the first-ever Youth National Poet Laureate, Amanda Gorman
There’s a poem in this place—
in the footfalls in the halls
in the quiet beat of the seats.
It is here, at the curtain of day,
where America writes a lyric
you must whisper to say.
There’s a poem in this place—
in the heavy grace,
the lined face of this noble building,
Collections burned and reborn twice.
There’s a poem in Boston’s Copley Square
where protest chants
tear through the air
like sheets of rain,
where love of the many
swallows hatred of the few.
There’s a poem in Charlottesville
here tiki torches string a ring of flame
tight round the wrist of night
where men so white they gleam blue—
seem like statues
where men heap that long wax burning
ever higher
where Heather Heyer
blooms forever in a meadow of resistance.
There’s a poem in the great sleeping giant
of Lake Michigan, defiantly raising
its big blue head to Milwaukee and Chicago—
a poem begun long ago, blazed into frozen soil,
strutting upward and aglow.
There’s a poem in Florida, in East Texas
where streets swell into a nexus
of rivers, cows afloat like mottled buoys in the brown,
where courage is now so common
that 23-year-old Jesus Contreras rescues people from floodwaters.
There’s a poem in Los Angeles
yawning wide as the Pacific tide
where a single mother swelters
in a windowless classroom, teaching
black and brown students in Watts
to spell out their thoughts
so her daughter might write
this poem for you.
There's a lyric in California
where thousands of students march for blocks,
undocumented and unafraid;
where my friend Rosa finds the power to blossom
in deadlock, her spirit the bedrock of her community.
She knows hope is like a stubborn
ship gripping a dock,
a truth: that you can’t stop a dreamer
or knock down a dream.
How could this not be her city
su nación
our country
our America,
our American lyric to write—
a poem by the people, the poor,
the Protestant, the Muslim, the Jew,
the native, the immigrant,
the black, the brown, the blind, the brave,
the undocumented and undeterred,
the woman, the man, the nonbinary,
the white, the trans,
the ally to all of the above
and more?
Tyrants fear the poet.
Now that we know it
we can’t blow it.
We owe it
to show it
not slow it
although it
hurts to sew it
when the world
skirts below it.
Hope—
we must bestow it
like a wick in the poet
so it can grow, lit,
bringing with it
stories to rewrite—
the story of a Texas city depleted but not defeated
a history written that need not be repeated
a nation composed but not yet completed.
There’s a poem in this place—
a poem in America
a poet in every American
who rewrites this nation, who tells
a story worthy of being told on this minnow of an earth
to breathe hope into a palimpsest of time—
a poet in every American
who sees that our poem penned
doesn’t mean our poem’s end.
There’s a place where this poem dwells—
it is here, it is now, in the yellow song of dawn’s bell
where we write an American lyric
we are just beginning to tell.
excellent poem...thanks
I love to see/hear young folks thinking and expressing meaningful thoughts. It was a great pleasure of teaching. Sounds like the young poet's Mom is a teacher...
There’s a poem in Los Angeles
yawning wide as the Pacific tide
where a single mother swelters
in a windowless classroom, teaching
black and brown students in Watts
to spell out their thoughts
so her daughter might write
this poem for you.
Have a good one!
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Cheers for the Gorman poem, OMS, most appropriate
for today and an encouraging reminder that "We will rise."
Good morning Lookout
Thank you for the huge menu of topics to discuss.
My focus will be on Intention. It's the thread running through so many of this week's events.
Intention in the unchecked insurrection of the Capitol. Larry Hogan, the GOP Governor of Maryland, came on TV immediately, pretty much as the breach was starting, and described his frantic calls to the DOD to get permission to send his ready-to-deploy National Guard troops to DC to help quell the riot. He was kept waiting for the Okay to send in assistance for 90 minutes. WTF? Looks like the Capitol Police and who knows how many others were in on wrecking the Capitol building and terrorizing the legislators within.
Bad Intentions. Capitol Police either unprepared or part of the problem. You tell me.
Bad Intentions. Weeks of fighting about who gets the vaccine first while ignoring setting up the means to deliver the vaccine efficiently. New York failed miserably and its egomaniac Trumplike Governor, King Cuomo II, the Lesser Cuomo, finally had to relent and relinquish power to the Mayor of the City of New York who actually is interested in saving lives. Tomorrow NYC will be innoculating its population 24/7 at numerous locations until the job is done. Mayor de Blasio expanded the eligible categories so that more people who want the vaccine can get it while those who are hesitant are free to refuse it.
Bad intentions. Why isn't widespread Vitamin D use being broadcast and suggested far and wide? Autopsied bodies early on in the pandemic revealed that those who died from the Virus were almost all Vitamin D deficient.
and so on................
NYCVG
From my perspective...
The Kapitol Kops were complicit...opening gates, posing for selfies. The wsws article suggest a broader conspiracy.
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/01/09/plot-j09.html
As you know, I've been harping on the Vit D effects on COVID for months. Ditto on ivermectin. Edit to add more evidence...
https://trialsitenews.com/an-unlikely-nation-is-kicking-this-pandemic-gu...
Why doesn't it hit mainstream? Well they're pumping millions into monoclonal antibodies. Not to mention the billions invested in the vaccines.
Glad to hear NYC is promoting and providing vaccines.
Good to "see" you this morning. Take care in the big apple!
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Good morning Lookout, et. al. Thanks for the WW and OT.
I'd like, for a moment, to dispute yoour title:
Incompetence is inability to successfully perform a particular task, process or program that one intends to perform. It is not that the US cannot successfully build schools, roads or hospitals, or feed its hungry or supply adequate quantities of PPE to its sickness remediation laborers, but that it chooses not to. These failures are not due to some ineptitude, they are by design, part and parcel of the process of intentionally allocating all of our resources to the twin goals of global hegemony and the enrichment of a handful of oligarchs.
Ask yourself, for example why the Az/Ox vaccine wasn't, isn't and won't be fast tracked through approval and into production and distribution. Is it clumsy lab assistants or the inability to operate appropriate data entry programs, do folks keep losing phone numbers and calendars, people forgetting to show up for work and similar impediments to meeting that goal, or is it simply because that was never the goal of our sickness management business?
Now, I'd like to thank you for using the term sick care system. It is a great inspiration, regardless of the fact that the use of "system" is subject to challenge. I have tried to scrupulously avoid the term "health care" because we have no commercial, magisterial or functional goals in that direction and wound up with verbiage like medical services deliverey to try to reflect the fact that some ailment or injury is needed to triggere the whole process. Sick and or sickness pervectly captures that aspect of the process, though I prefer management to care because the businesses and agencies involved do not, in actuality, care or provide care so much as they manage the universe of illness and illness related activities and products for profit,
Thanks again for another wonderful column.
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 never suggested the incompetence wasn't purposeful
The incompetence is our refusal to care for the citizenry. At least that was my take but I understand your correction.
Thanks for the visit and I'm in agreement that this is by design not accidental.
Have a good day! It is a chilly one here, but at least the sun is out...always an uplift for me.
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
yes, you did not suggest that it was unintentional,
but I jusst felt that the specific word was, per se, too forgiving of the root cause which is, as you so correctly stated:
.
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 understand...
no biggie.
Just fishing for a catchy headline...how incompetent!
Kidding aside it probably wasn't the best term but best I could come up with at the time.
Hope your having a nice day. The sun finally came out here and we got into the 40's. Managed a short walk around. Possible dusting tomorrow AM.
All the best.
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Another take on the falling empire...
https://www.rt.com/op-ed/511963-american-empire-capitol-resistance/
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
And here also another take
http://charleshughsmith.blogspot.com/2021/01/the-tyranny-nobody-talks-ab...
I never knew that the term "Never Again" only pertained to
those born Jewish
"Antisemite used to be someone who didn't like Jews
now it's someone who Jews don't like"
Heard from Margaret Kimberley
No better example than the fracking industry...
which has never turned a profit.
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2020/03/is-the-u-s-fracking-boom-based-o...
But no money for small mom and pop business.
Thanks for the visit and link.
From your link...
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
And thanks again for posting that Grayzon video
it's definitely worth the watch. All 5 participants voice views that very few can.
Danny, Max, Ben, Anya and Aaron are all great voices for the truth!
I never knew that the term "Never Again" only pertained to
those born Jewish
"Antisemite used to be someone who didn't like Jews
now it's someone who Jews don't like"
Heard from Margaret Kimberley
Glad you liked it...
As I said I didn't think I would listen to it all, but it was pretty easy. Rational conversation not in lock step but with mutual respect. I posted it thinking no one will watch this long form discussion, so thanks for the feedback.
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
This gives me hope
The honeymoon is over. It's time for America to accept itself for what it is - a falling empire that has been a bad actor for over 70 years. Will America finally find some humility? Fingers crossed.
"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11
Just wait till the dollar...
is dumped as the international standard of exchange. No telling how the oligarchs in Davos structure "the great reset" this winter. Perhaps as soon as that event. Can't come soon enough. Hopefully before a major war... the typical path of empire collapse.
Have a good one!
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Just make sure,
,
that you have your back-up monetary system in place. They are going to give it to us in a bad way if we're not prepared!
"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11
I'm with you on that
My main wealth is our place. We once went to a Roman estate in Britain built about the era of the fall...far far from Rome itself.
Here in the third world of Alabama I sometimes feel the same...we are far far out of the hub.
We know of the family that weathered the civil war here on our place. The hid back here in the holler and thats what we plan to do. Weather the storm as best we can.
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Good morning, Lookout; writing
on a marvelous day warn and sunny, almost toasty; a welcome relief from the very complex position we find ourselves in this country. Too late to say that elections matter, education matters, truth matters; but it's exactly what we must say, imo.
Removing Trump from privately held social platforms is not a free speech argument; the government, law, protect their right to do. The horse left the barn long ago in this concern having not the foresight or power to counter the fascist corporate stooges preventing regulation of what should be regulated. I mention this in order to say that i firmly think we should prosecute Trump, his enablers, Cruise, and all 'seditionists' to the greatest extent possible in the courts and in public opinion. An example must be set demonstrably proving that lies, corruption and incitement to violence of any kind will not be tolerated. Be damned the desires of the followers of Trump and the right wing, even though they may be in millions. It's the public facing tolerance of lies which grows, multiplies people's contempt for government. It must be forcefully ended.
Finally, some print media across the country has found a spine; this is a beginning; we must move quickly to grow this newly-found spine of truth and spread the word wide to all audiences that to survive we must make wholesale changes in this US-of-A grounded in the truth and science.
All this far to complex to diary or even comment on as i've just done, we need thousands of professors, teachers, leaders across organizations and the forth state to rise again and shout the truth from the rooftops.
My personal fear, almost gnawing knowledge is that Biden is not up to this challenge and may actually be an impediment to taking it to the liars and corrupt to the bone politicians he covets as friends.
My rant for today, thanks for letting me share and thank you for years of hard work producing this Weekly Watch.
Always nice to "see" you...
An eye for an eye and soon we are all blind.
Somewhere between 20 and 40% of the citizenry are Trumpeteers. I don't want a permanent war. Let's unite around M4A, ending the wars, protecting the environment...these are things the vast majority of all Americans want...including the Trumpeteers. Just like the Bernie Bros they ain't going away. Best to work together rather than antagonize, IMO. I'm hoping the people's party might be a common meeting ground.
I envy your warm weather...still in the 30's here but at least the sun is out. Take care and be well my friend!
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Appreciate and support your selection of needs to rally
around, but respectfully and firmly disagree about disturbing the Trump supporters, or the present republican party as it behaves. Possibly, in the short term more violence may come, but i think it naive to assume that violence isn't being fomented as we speak and i expect to see a lot more of it. We have a movement out of control and it must be dealt with first and foremost or sadly, none of what you wish for has a chance in hell of seeing the light of day. The silent have been silent for far too long allowing the strides taken by the profiteers, the Elmer Grantry's of today.
Hell, we tolerate conspiracies on this site to my she-grin; all non-truths should be outed ergo, i stand with those who shout for the expelling from congress all those who supported this insurrection and shame them into political irrelevance.
And, to this i don't know for sure, but the FBI had a special, large force following the terrorists from Bundy on, Trump cut the head off, but i suspect the knowledge is still there in the halls with seasoned agents.
Main Stream Media must come around to Muckraking as well, this is a hard slog, but absolutely necessary. No need in giving another lunatic bloviator time to spew falsehoods as if they are the truth. Our power here is with our pocketbooks and in the hands of those good voices who have platforms. Let's encourage them to shout from the rooftops.
Already we see the MSM trying to justify Trump's return to his social media platforms, for instance, as if sedition and inciting violence is allowable.
A clear paradigm shift in thinking begins by taking a stand; proven over and over again in history.
Biden and all with a megaphone must get on board or i fear the opposite from you, if not squashed with all political treasure now, it will foment and bubble beyond the future opportunity to do so; regrettably, it may already have.
Cheers, mate.
1/20 will be telling
as to more violence. We'll see.
I've got no problem with calling out corruption of both parties and the media, but I do want to make peace with the Trumpeteers. It is possible. I live among them. They want the same things we do. They are angry about the miserable condition of the country too. So we can provoke or we can unite around the things we both want.
Of course I can appreciate your view. I've spent my life in the stench of racism...it is embedded in the DNA of our nation.
All the best!
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Here’s 28 min. of the Convo Couch crew’s raw video. Do watch it
to get a broader, more genuine, “closer to the facts on the ground” sense of what happened at the Capitol.
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_T8GOytnEk]
Contrary to the narrative being promoted for all it’s worth from certain quarters, this disorganized crowd reminds me more of Woodstock with middle-aged squares than of any planned-putsch-implementing storm trooper outfit I’ve ever heard of.
Tune in to MSNBC as they will probaly rerun a new video
showing the storming of an entrance and the police being beaten on the ground and wish i could provide you with the photographic evidence from yesterday clearing showing a very long line of armed militia making their way single file through the storming crowd into the capitol. Innocent people, dumb asses in the crowd sure, but the militia were there and many cops and ex military too. People trained and intent on doing harm.
I wouldn't doubt some mercenary...
and certainly veteran involvement, but sure seemed mostly inept QAnon trumpeteers. The one thing I will say is at least they didn't wreck the building the way the Hong Kong rioters did who Nancy praised...the ones in SD piece.
What disturbs me most about the event is the complicity of the Capitol Police probably with Rethug involvement. My other issue is the difference with which the BLM protesters were treated compared to the come on in vibe on Wed. Illustrates a great deal.
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Unfortunately the above video obfuscates,
goes to my rant exactly. What i watched in whole on live TV has already proved otherwise enough and additional indisputable evidence of mob vilone keeps coming in discrediting the verbiage which accompanies the video in above comment. This is the problem.
The willingness, the agenda driven obfuscation of the facts on the ground that brought much of this upon us, turning those fellow citizens of yours and mine into fearmongers of the government and fear leads to hate. You've heard many times from folks, 'I hate snakes,' i have used the term myself; what we mean is we fear snakes. Fomenting fear is class 101 authoritarian, obfuscation is class 102.
Social media and the consolidation of media, thanks to Reagan and Clinton de-regulations especially helped foster this growth. I've had it with Crusaders carrying crosses in Jesus name and armchair journalists twisting the truth to their personal agendas.
Thanks again for respectfully communicating. I, too, know our neighbors, many want, peaceful productive lives but unfortunately, it's all we can do and then some keeping good people in county offices because they follow social media and BS and vote accordingly.
The task is huge, but the goal simple, dig deep first to find the truth, then spread it far and wide.
I don’t know who here thinks MSNBC is particularly trustworthy
I do know that I am not among them.
Video material can, of course, be chosen and edited together in all sorts of ways to create all sorts of impressions.
At any rate MSNBC is not carried on my German cable system. I suppose I could try CNBC, which is. Both are Comcast mouthpieces these days, via Comcast’s NBCUniversal subsidiary.
Then, unfortunately, you did not see this live as we did.
Incorrect! I watched in real time, via various people’s streams,
which included both MSM and independent individuals’ feeds, as the persons whose stream it was switched from source to source looking for the most relevant and informative.
Who do you mean when you say “we”? Who besides yourself are you speaking for there?
We are all in the US with televisions who were watching.
Good you have access to what we have through streaming.
Oh, okay, thanks. Had a flashback to the bad old times on TOP,
when all of a sudden, in an exchange, one might realize one was not just conversing with one fellow commenter, but was actually going up against an entire team or group of some kind. Sorry for being a bit oversensitive. Post-TOP PTSD
Had thanked Loti for sharing
the live streaming links on Wednesday.
Quite helpful. The damned bit was the
goggle machine kept shutting them down.
Only the official narrative was allowed to stream.
Disconcerting that.
"Hold the Booster. I got a better idea."
So, I am surprised to learn that President Joe is on the brink of making the very first Correct Executive Decision about the pandemic that I know of. Not that I expect competence to suddenly prevail. But right now we need bold, whether it is competent or not.(Perhaps this has already been discussed; I've been off on a deadline.)
So, the type of vaccine we are using supposedly consists of a shot and a booster. But these inoculations are not two separate synergistic ingredients that make some sort of magic together. It's merely two shots of the same stuff, with an unscientifically timed pause. I'm guessing this was a corporate decision, rather than a medical one. The trials didn't really go there. They can't tell us what happens next for obvious reasons. The trials can only tell us what happens during the first six-or-eight months (so far).
However, according to doctors involved with the pharmaceutical company, people probably don't need the booster. Not right away. The first shot is holding strong; stronger than expected. So, doctors say: What if we stop giving boosters (or schedule them much later when there are more supplies)? What if we take all those extra doses and stage a mass-vaccination effort, nationwide, as fast as we can? Not mandatory; just massive. Using just one dose per person, there may just be enough vaccine out there to 'simulate' immunity. These doctors think this could halt the virus. (And maybe stop the more virulent strain that is about to crash the US hospital system, nationwide.)
As things stand, we're in a race to the bottom.
Meanwhile, PE Biden is suddenly promising a Day One game changer. He claims he has a plan and is going after the virus to end the pandemic. The Pfizer docs have the only game-changer that's out there — plus it's a game-changer that also produces a profit.
Dumping the booster and going big is a bold approach, and at this point, boldness is our best hope. There is some corporate risk involved. And it's a PR challenge. And there is already risk on the table. The vaccine doesn't do what people think it does. But we can simulate what it should do. Managed science.
I'm making the connection between the two stories. If you haven't seen this, I'll be back with some links.
::
Over the past year, China has finally started to push back against the degrading propaganda attacks the US is waging. For a very long time, the Chinese remained silent, hoping to avoid exacerbating the temporary madness and deceit of the US. — which began long before Trump came along.
It saddens me that everything that Americans think they know about China is misinformation or propaganda or twisted beyond recognition. Every.Single.Thing. The CIA/media did a clean sweep of the American mind, preparing for war.
IMAGINE if you woke up the day after a US Presidential Election and headlines around the the world blared, "The Majority of Americans Refused to Vote in US Presidential Election! What Does this Mean?"
Meanwhile, Tommy Thompson, never noted as the
owner/operator of any deep intelligence, recently had an idea, and it wasn't completely stupid. In fact, it demonstrates a significant flash of Executive Insight into the problem of governing during a pandemic. Maybe he learned something during his peculiar tenure as the completely unqualified Secretary of Health and Human Services under Bush.
Thompson, a once-very-popular Republican governor, is currently serving as the interim President of the University of Wisconsin System (an umbrella administration governing an array of semi-independent campuses across the state). His suggestion -- and I'm sure this kind of wild, radical, convention-exploding nutty outside-the-box thinking will make some readers uncomfortable -- is that the state leverage the UW-System infrastructure to ramp up vaccination. The UW campuses have the freezers, the facilities, and even student nurses with sufficient training to administer the vaccines. He estimates the entire state could be vaccinated by the end of March.
https://wkow.com/2021/01/08/thompson-uw-system-could-vaccinate-entire-st...
The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.
The UK is using a 3 month
separation btwn shots to expand the number of people that get at least one jab. John Campbell suggests a 64% efficacy w/ one jab of the Oxford/AZ and those that get COVID with one jab had minor symptoms. Too bad we don't approve the Oxford/AZ which could be rolled out quickly. It is already being manufactured in the US.
From the notes below the clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-jqf6i5OLc
Oxford/AZ
Good immunity with 6-week gap
Efficacy after one dose, 64%
Efficacy after 2 doses, 70 – 80%
Cases, 21 days after first SD, 64%
Vaccine group, 51
Control group, 141
Efficacy 64%
Severe cases 21 days after the first dose of Oxford / AZ
Vaccine group, 0
Control group, 10 hospitalised (2 severe, 1 death)
Covid-19: Pfizer BioNTech vaccine efficacy was 52% after first dose and 95% after second dose
Twelve days after the first dose
Vaccine group, 39 cases
Placebo group, 82 cases
52% efficacy
Severe cases after one dose
Vaccine group, 1
Placebo group, 9
So you are right on target with your thinking, and amen on your China black wash treatment, too.
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Hi Lookout and others
From what I understand (and admittedly I am only beginning to try and understand) - an inherent difference between the O/AZ and the P/BN vaccine is the content. The O/AZ includes some of the virus itself, whereas the P/BN doesn’t, and is formulated from genetic material as a’ blueprint' or ‘code'.
O/AZ is a DNA adenovirus
That directly carries a spike protein that stimulate antibody production.
The PZ and Moderna are mRNA that contain instructions for your cellular machinery to make the spike protein. A novel approach. They are wrapped in a fat droplet to allow for cellular absorption across the membrane. It is the fat droplet that requires the super cold temps to prevent degradation.
You had it about right but perhaps that clarifies?
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Thanks lookout,
I was just reading this, which speaks about that.
https://biontech.de/covid-19-portal/mrna-vaccines
I object only to one thing and that is the phrase,
one which I never liked, and that is the statement that "We are living in interesting times'.
WTF did people think, when they made that expression into an everyday response to anything that makes a time that is a shit-storm time, an interesting one ?
Most Germans would call a shit-storm time "eine Scheißzeit" and certainly not an interesting one. English has some weirdo ways to express some things. A major factor why some Germans, who know Americans only from the distance and not much, doubt their honesty. If it wouldn't be for their music and philosophy teachers and movie making skills, it would be really sad.
I am too sad lately.
Your collection is superb form what I can gather scanning through. I hope I can read some of the links in depth in one or two days. Thanks as always for your great work.
There are just so many hours in a day and every day they seem there are too few of them.
Greetings and be well and safe belately.
https://www.euronews.com/live
Here's one explanation...
more here:
https://townhall.com/columnists/myrakahnadams/2020/01/19/may-you-live-in...
I doubt them too. Hell I doubt everyone till I can confirm the story.
Hope all is well with you and yours. 6 pm and dark here.
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
aahhh, that was an interesting explanation,
Thank God! Thank You!
You are a God of great explanations.
Seriously.
PS: btw, I can't help wanting to give the pooping elephant in your essay a laxative. Poor elephant. Imagine getting constipated and stuck with that kind of shit.
https://www.euronews.com/live
No, I'm just a retired 8th grade earth science teacher
That said if you can explain things to 8th graders you can teach most anyone.
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Chinese idiom
As I recall, the meaning behind the meaning was "a changing (turbulent?) society". There just isn't a 1:1 correspondence between Chinese and English, not even remotely close to it, and it isn't just because they use ideographs and not alphabetic characters.
It's not quite as bad as that Star Trek episode where everybody speaks in metaphors, but it's close.
There is no justice. There can be no peace.
"eine Scheißzeit"
is much more clear and expressive. Lookout is right to define "We are living in interesting times", as an ironic description of a similar state of things.
I know for a fact that Germans also understand irony ; ).
...
I admit my sins...
https://www.euronews.com/live
Prototype Festival—what’s “independent opera”?—looks interesting
http://prototypefestival.org/shows/
Not that I could fly to NYC right now, what with the pandemic and all, but still… ♫ ♫ ♫
Anyone know anything about it? I only know this one artist appearing in the Times-3 event, Pamela Z. Was seated next to her on a flight many years ago.
The only opry I know...
...is in Nashville, where I know several of the back up musicians including the fiddler. A few years ago he left saying he couldn't take any more of that "soul sucking country music".
Later he returned to the regular salary when he was asked, "are you coming back for more of the "soul sucking country music" He said, "yes". Sometimes we have to eat our words. Sure enough there is plenty of BS in the Opry.
So sorry I can't help maybe others can.
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
If you want to know how far down the rabbit hole we are,
you have only to look at the graphic that heads this diary.
Time was, that something so...graphic would be socially unacceptable in regard to anyone, at any time, for any reason. Now it's considered rather "tame".
How much lower will we go?
There is no justice. There can be no peace.