Open Thread WE 12 MAY 21


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I hereby accuse the North American empire of being the biggest menace to our planet.
- Hugo Chavez

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Howdy. Just an observation here today. Whenever I hear the pundits and media describe the US in terms like : "richest nation on earth" or "the world's greatest democracy" or the POTUS as "the leader of the free world" my mind goes into a tumble. Old enough now to remember better times, both financially and socially, when portions of truth were more accessible and better understood.

Seems the heart and soul of our nation has been stolen by the corporate oligarchy and sold to the highest bidder internationally. It is menacing to think of earlier times when progression of ideas, expanding consciousness and social change were on the horizon .. only to see it being erased into the sunset of what was or could have been. Has anyone else noticed this demise? Sure, we read about these issues here a lot. What is a optimist to do with an existential crises in the works?

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"The American Dream has run out of gas. The car has stopped. It no longer supplies the world with its images, its dreams, its fantasies. No more. It's over. It supplies the world with its nightmares now" - J. G. Ballard

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"The enormous gap between what US leaders do in the world and what Americans think their leaders are doing is one of the great propaganda accomplishments". - Michael Parenti

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Credits

“AmeriCan’t” (2018) Alvaro Naddeo

https://www.thisiscolossal.com/category/art/

https://www.tentmaker.org/Quotes/america_falling_quotes.html

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It's open thread time folks. Post way!

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mimi's picture

Meet Annalena Baerbock, the trampolinist giving Germany's Green party a bounce in the race to succeed Angela Merkel

That is what CNN wants you to believe. But Baerbock is not what she is made the public to believe. She snuffed out Robert Habeck, who was too morally soft-hearted to fight against her.

Along with the party's co-leader, Robert Habeck, Baerbock has steered the Greens -- once known as the "anti-party party" -- to the center of German politics.

Robert Habeck is the brain, she is the the equivalent of the AOC-type of talking too much propaganda woman. Robert Habeck should have been the candidate.

Well, there is always something to get pissed about. I am done with the world. She will not deliver policies that I could support. But then who could do that anyhow. Wink

Thanks for the OT.

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I guess it is heartening to hear your description of politics as kabuki theater also in Germany.
Hate to think the US is the only one. Funny how the media re-frames issues to fit a pre-determined script. Enjoy your mulchers!

"Where is the justice of political power if it executes the murderer and jails the plunderer, and then itself marches upon neighboring lands, killing thousands and pillaging the very hills?" Kahlil Gibran

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It does turn the stomach doesn't it, when TPTB spout all those Orwellian phrases about great this and great that. Many around the world know the farce for what it is and that the emperor has no clothes. It is a shame.

It does seem TPTB have pissed away the opportunities to try and make things better.
This article from BAR is very much along this same train of thought.

For many Black political activists – from some of the most committed bourgeois Democratic Party stalwarts to some of the most revolutionary socialists – there is a widespread commitment to achieving political aspirations, if not within the current system, at least within North America. However, if what we face in this country goes beyond racial tensions and discrimination and is instead a state of war, then plans for freedom or liberation in the U.S. are grounded in self-delusion.

In this George Floyd moment, the evidence of ongoing brutal warfare against people of African ancestry in the U.S. is quite apparent. A distinguished international “Commission of Inquiry on Systemic Racist Police Violence” convened by the National Conference of Black Lawyers (NCBL), International Association of Democratic Lawyers (IADL), and the National Lawyers Guild (NLG) recently concluded that the United States should be investigated by the International Criminal Court for its systematic commission of crimes against humanity.

https://www.blackagendareport.com/usa-immoral-illegal-irredeemable-and-i...

Thanks for the OT, and as eyo says, good luck to all.

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with Raoul Peck whose new film Exterminate All the Brutes, is airing on HBO. I know JS highlighted this in the EB, but I thought this was a good interview. His previous film is, I Am Not Your Negro, and is about James Baldwin.

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Lookout's picture

The US has become increasingly evil...the world's biggest exporter of weapons, war, and violence.

I suspect Truman was selected for that purpose after TPTB got rid of Henry Wallace, who I expect would not have allowed the mafia branch of our gov't to be formed.

My hope is the US empire can collapse without WWIII.

We are having a cool spring here in the SE, and the tomatoes and peppers don't like it. On the other hand, the cabbage, greens, lettuce and such do.

Hope you all have a great day. Rain is lifting here and we're due several sunny days in a row.

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

rain here. The plants look quenched.

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enhydra lutris's picture

100+ in the patio by our thermometer, corresponding to 80 weather report. Real number well over 80 but a bit under 100 for reasons. So today weather says 75 which means somewhere in the nineties or better, depending. Luckily we are experienced campers, so yesterday I did a pizza on the grill and today it will be chicken on the grill and sweet corn on the portable one-burner stove. Looks like we'll be mostly cooking outside for a few months now.except for bread making. We just barely got the garden started and suddenly we have to worry about stuff bolting. Sure could use less abrupt transitions.

Meanwhile there are nest cams keeping us distracted, we both watch the Condor cam in Hutton's Bowl ( https://www.allaboutbirds.org/cams/california-condor/ ) and the Cal falcons in the Campanile at Cal ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ooeTUYlflk ) - momentarily quiescent because they're banding the chicks today and my wife also watches a falcon nest atop SF's PG&E building and an Eagle nest up by Redding, CA. There is going to be a shitload of catch up to do around here in a week or two, deferred everything you can imagine.

Meanwhile I am lackadaisically building a sort of Haiku database using one of those fake sticky-note programs. So, apropos today's activities and blather I find myself preparing to add:

ANOTHER NEW YEAR
AND MANY ANOTHER
FLEDGLING
WITHOUT A NEST...
Issa

Time to get busy on the busywork of daily life, dabbling, doodling and "doing stuff".

Thanks for the OT

be well and have a good one

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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 --

an earwig? But first a message for the humans:

FUCK WAR!

STOP IT
I am losing my mind. Now where's that bottle of pHucamol? "I'd rather have a bottle in front of me, then a frontal lobotomy." -- I can't remember
--
Yesterday noticed a pincer sticking out in a photo I took of a primrose, and realized it's probably earwigs chewing the longbean leaves every night. Here the camera focused beyond what is supposed to be a shiny new bean leaf this morning but instead all that's left is the skeleton. wah

earwigdamage.jpg
bean peace

I am not looking forward to waging war on the earwigs now, already looked up how to poison or trap and drown them to death. great!

--- lucky shots

Today, 15:33 UTC
earwigrevenge1.jpg

omg, 15:34 UTC
earwigrevenge2.jpg

thanks, 16:15 UTC
earwigrevenge3.jpg
RIP earwig
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earwig

16:17 UTC
Quit staring! Let a spider eat in peace. sheesh

Peace and Love

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enhydra lutris's picture

@eyo
good fortune that you have a predator handy to take care of your earwigs.

be well and have a good one

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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 --

@enhydra lutris thanks, it looks like a lynx spider , I think:

Human interest

The green lynx spider very seldom bites humans, and when it does, its venomous bite, though painful, is not deadly[3] but may cause surrounding swelling (edema) up to 7"-10" in diameter.[4]

The species is primarily of interest for its usefulness in agricultural pest management, for example in cotton fields. The spiders have been observed to hunt several moth species and their larvae, including some of the most important crop pests, such as the bollworm moth (Heliothis zea), the cotton leafworm moth (Alabama agrillacea), and the cabbage looper moth (Trichoplusia ni). However, they also prey on beneficial insects, such as honey bees.[5]

Save the bees!

Huh, there are no webs. They hide and attack prey from the back, like a lynx cat, like that first lucky shot. I got bit by somethin' yesterday, but not by that thing. I think it was a mosquito, not sure. Itchy not sore.

Peace and Love

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"If wishes were fishes, we'd all end in riches." --yet another idiom

Production to cease at Sebastiani Winery in downtown Sonoma

It is the end of an era for Sonoma’s largest downtown winery. Foley Family Winery plans to lay off most of its workers at the Sebastiani Winery and close its winemaking operations at the eastside facility. The winery’s tasting room and administrative offices in Sonoma will remain open, however, according to Foley President Shawn Schiffer.
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Sebastani currently has about three dozen union production workers whose jobs are impacted, according to Luis Martel, the Modesto-based president of the local 186 winery and distillery workers union that includes Sonoma.

The Index-Tribune reached out to two Sebastiani union employees who spoke on background about their jobs but were uncomfortable speaking on the record in the midst of the negotiations between the union lawyers and the Foley lawyers.

“These employees are afraid and their back is against the wall,” said Martel. “Foley wants to transfer all of its production but not its union production workers to another site. Or maybe they plan to give everyone a severance and then reopen with temporary (non-union) workers. Either way, it’s not right.”

NOPE

Gallo lays off most Clos du Bois winery workers
SAME

Authorities clear homeless camp near downtown Santa Rosa in latest sweep
AS IT

SMART conductor honked horn multiple times before train struck, killed man
EVER WAS

Respect My Authoritah! Sorry, I don't recall.

Windsor requests grand jury involvement as Foppoli lashes out at recall effort
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In 2003, Foppoli announced his candidacy for California State Assembly.[1][12] His campaign website featured him shaking hands with Arnold Schwarzenegger.[1] Foppoli ran in the primary against rancher Ray Tyrone. During the election, Foppoli's campaign promoted numerous unfounded claims about Tyrone, including operating an illegal bar in Cloverdale, theft, and clearcutting.[5] Foppoli lost the Republican primary.[1]
...
He attended the California Democratic Party State Convention in 2019.[5] Months later, during the Kincade Fire, Foppoli slept in his car at the emergency operations center as the fire threatened Windsor. He met with Governor Gavin Newsom and State Senator Bill Dodd during the fire and participated in numerous press conferences. During the fire, a batch of beer at Russian River Brewing Company was going to be spoiled. Foppoli gathered the National Guard, who had been gathered in Windsor to help with the wildfire, to help save the beer. His response to the wildfire was praised by his fellow councilmembers, who endorsed him, again as mayor in 2020.[5]

VOTE D! Save the beer.

/wine cave out

Peace and Love

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from our local weekly..

Former RI house speaker Gordon Fox .. after serving 3 years in prison for bribery, wire fraud and tax evasion is doing a zoom meeting entitled "What I learned from my mistakes" which is (paid for) sponsored by the state legislative leaders foundation.

Somewhat explains why crooks get into politics.

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