Open Thread - Thursday - 06-25-2015

Submitted by mimi on Thu, 06/25/2015 - 7:00am

Update: I wrote this yesterday morning and just wanted to let you know, that by today, I am gone. I feel better now, knowing I will leave reading about "politics and news" behind me for a while. Just need it. Thanks.

Good Morning.

I don't know about you but I need a break and I just wanted to say that I will take one. I am preparing to travel to see my sister in Germany and my son in Hawaii. Both trips give me some heartache, stomach ache and an empty bank account. But it has to be done. As always nothing is foreseeable in my life, so I can't promise I will continue the OT. I know I probably can't resist to read the gos and here, but I also know that I have to get away from it (aside from reading the news articles of the EB) and to comment in it has to stop, as I am getting sick over it. One of the things that turns me into a biting and angry spitting bitchy reader over at the gos is the constant bickering over which candidate to support, who is the bigger racist, who is the more naive purist, who is talking in more coded language, who lies more, who is the smart revolutionary and who the biggest sell-out to Wall Street and closet capitalist and all that stuff. Discussions of who is too radical and who is more reality-based and who is just plain nuts, I don't want to be confronted with anymore.

In order to go on, I need some sort of hope to put behind a candidate, and can't live with a vague idea of building a movement, which, if I were able to see the movement, I certainly would get behind and support. I have given up in believing that there will ever be a serious movement and implementation of profound electoral system changes in the US, something I consider the biggest need there is to change the undemocratic political representation of the American voters. I can tell you that US foreign policies make me sick, as is the counter reactions of many to make a saint out of everything Putin and Russia as well. Just leave me alone with all of it. I don't listen to Obama or Hillary Clinton's speeches anymore for quite some time. I never listen to Republicans other than to some clips that appear in some news stories. I don't live with TV and the entertainment industry for relaxation. Since I don't have to do that since my retirement, I am also more dependent on reading the news online and of course that too turns out to be not a very healthy affair as well, which you might understand reading the comments to this diary. Just for those, who want to read about the EU and its difficulties to do anything unisono, read Migration Crisis: The EU's Shipwrecked Refugee Plan. Lots of interesting details in there, at least for me. And not encouraging at all.

Sorry to be so negative and not a good sport and not very loyal. I have to go. May be I do get some photos done and live through things that are unpolitical and cheerful in nature. If that happens, I share them with you. I need to swim and cuddle with some turtles and dolphins, I guess. If I weren't too poor and actually could buy a lot and build a little house, that would be the last thing I do before I go for good.

This video made me chuckle. I kind of see that some people might be doubtful of Sanders. I guess they don't have enough humor. I am not sure about his rhythm though.

Cutely and stubbornly in and out of it, heh ?

Have a good one and don't be as negative as I am. There is a whole good world out there, one just has to look out for it. And if I hear Americans singing like in the video above, I like them all over again. Bye.

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Open Thread - 06-25-2015 - Need a break

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Submitted by gulfgal98 on Thu, 06/25/2015 - 8:17am

Over the last two months

I have had two breaks in the last two months, one not of my choosing in May and my most recent vacation this month. Sometimes a little time away can do a world of good. Hopefully, you will find yourself more at peace during your hiatus. I hope you will return soon. In the meantime, enjoy your visits and refresh yourself. Bon voyage, mimi!

—

Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy

Submitted by mimi on Thu, 06/25/2015 - 9:21am

HI, I am still here ...

of course I can't stop reading "the news". One article I ran into this morning may be worth for anyone to read:
Racism’s Psychological Toll and also
may be one should watch the new documentary, presented this morning at Democracy Now:
"I Am Not Nonviolent": New Nina Simone Film Captures Singer and Activist’s Uncompromising Voice.
Sigh. Have a good day, don't think about racism for a day. It may be good for your mental health. Who knows.

Submitted by gulfgal98 on Thu, 06/25/2015 - 10:15am

racism's psychological toll

I just finished reading this article and there were some things that even I, as a white female of privilege, could identify with. I was the victim of nearly five years of on the job harassment of a non-sexual variety by a supervisor who wanted to get rid of me because, as he told me, "I knew too much." Racism certainly takes a far greater psychological toll than the type of harassment I experienced, but even my experience with on the job harassment took a very heavy toll on me.

I often could not sleep on Sunday nights dreading having to go into work on Mondays. Usually, on Monday mornings, I would literally feel physically sick to my stomach. One of the many ways my supervisor harassed me was to set nearly impossible deadlines on my assignments, such as asking me to produce a full report with less than one hour's notice. The stress was enormous especially when I knew the deadline was artificial and designed to stress me out. I reported him to our HR office and was told that there was nothing they could do about it because it was not sexual harassment. I was constantly on edge all the time. During his tenure, two of the five professional staff left because of him. The experience was very damaging to me and my family. It was one of being like in a war zone at all times.

Nowadays, much of racism is not as overt as it once was so I had not really thought about how much racism can psychologically affect the person subjected to it until reading the article. It is part of my own white privilege that made me somewhat blind to the psychological effects of racism. But now I am far more aware of it and will continue to be sensitized to it. Racism makes a person experience that combat like sense of trying to survive all the time, unlike my 8 to 5, five days a week experience. I cannot begin to imagine just how horrible that is and how much of a psychological toll that takes upon the individual and his or her families.

—

Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy

Submitted by hecate on Thu, 06/25/2015 - 10:21am

hi,

"I am still here." ; )

It's a nice idea, "don't think about racism for a day," but as another Times piece indicates, not everybody has that privilege:

A friend recently told me that when she gave birth to her son, before naming him, before even nursing him, her first thought was, I have to get him out of this country. We both laughed. Perhaps our black humor had to do with understanding that getting out was neither an option nor the real desire. This is it, our life. Here we work, hold citizenship, pensions, health insurance, family, friends and on and on. She couldn’t, she didn’t leave. Years after his birth, whenever her son steps out of their home, her status as the mother of a living human being remains as precarious as ever. Added to the natural fears of every parent facing the randomness of life is this other knowledge of the ways in which institutional racism works in our country. Ours was the laughter of vulnerability, fear, recognition and an absurd stuckness.

I asked another friend what it’s like being the mother of a black son. “The condition of black life is one of mourning,” she said bluntly. For her, mourning lived in real time inside her and her son’s reality: At any moment she might lose her reason for living. Though the white liberal imagination likes to feel temporarily bad about black suffering, there really is no mode of empathy that can replicate the daily strain of knowing that as a black person you can be killed for simply being black: no hands in your pockets, no playing music, no sudden movements, no driving your car, no walking at night, no walking in the day, no turning onto this street, no entering this building, no standing your ground, no standing here, no standing there, no talking back, no playing with toy guns, no living while black.

One friend said, “I am so afraid, every day.” Her son’s childhood feels impossible, because he will have to be — has to be — so much more careful. Our mourning, this mourning, is in time with our lives. There is no life outside of our reality here.

: /

Submitted by mimi on Thu, 06/25/2015 - 1:14pm

thank you, hecate,

of course I know all too well that "leaving" or "forgetting" is not an option for most of the black and brown discriminated and exploited people in the world. I have seen some of them from around the globe personally and it's not just "a theoretical whitesplaining excuse or attempt" for me.

If you want me to talk from my personal point of view, it's somewhat convoluted, because somehow I am privileged as a white mother, who at least got some grounding in my years growing up in Germany. Racism came into my life through becoming a girl friend of an African student at age 19. I had a "honey moon" time (that's how I call it talking to myself) for eight weeks (nobody was aware about the friendship). After that, what other people would call racist reactions, knocked me out like a tornado and changed my life over night. Five years later I dared to become a mother. (I remember praying that the child would be a girl, as I knew black girls - in Germany - are less discriminated that black boys). It was a boy - heh, such a cute one.

I got confronted with all kind of things that I would never had to deal with had my boyfriend be a white student. It was so obviously racist and to me there was no question to reject it and go my own way according to what I thought at that time was the right thing to do. But I also could see that racism is an inate reaction of fear, doubt, concerned parents foreseeing the life of their daughter entangled in difficulties and emotions they thought their daughter would never be able to handle. It is traumatic if the "racism" is coming from people you love. Dealing with that, is emotionally difficult.

In the German society's context I lost privileges, (mainly family and social life ones), but when 15 years later I came to the US, I learned that I was very well protected by my home country's social, health and educational services. (That makes me a determined social democrat with strong socialist leanings) I didn't lose my options to get an education, I was a poor student, but never homeless or jobless as to not be able to feed myself, I had no difficulties to raise my child and work and study etc. I paid around 20 Euro for a day-care center for my toddler per month. These were the good times of the seventies ....

I see that I start to write out my life story here ... and I guess that's not what I should do.

I just say that, there are people, who definitely can't leave, and others, who can, but would hurt loved ones with it, and others, who have no clue anymore, where to leave to, because they "know" too much about all the places around the globe. Then the supposed privilege of being able to leave becomes a problem in itself and loses its meaning.

Racism, imo, is universal, exploitation, imperialism and colonialism mainly white Western over brown people. I learned about racism in Asia and India. I have given up to believe that you can "unlearn" racist feelings, your brain can do it intellectually, but with regards to your emotions that's another thing altogether. They pop up, all a matter of having been challenged too directly and personally on them. So, I am just happy, if I manage to "forget about it" for while. Basically, it's hard, and I am always worried and scared over what happens to my son. I guess that's how mothers tick.

He is the one who has become the not so privileged person and one which is deep down very scared as well and that is not what should have happened. That makes me angry and sometimes him too. He had the privilege gap in front of his eyes too close-up and it several countries as well.

Gosh, am I talking nonsense or what?

Thanks for your comment and "I am leaving to nowhere" just try to take a trip...if I can get my act together.

Submitted by Big Al on Thu, 06/25/2015 - 12:41pm

The answer to stopping ISIS is simple.

Stop our governments and those behind them, particularly our own. ISIS is basically just a proxy army for the west, the Zionists and the Saudi's to neuter the Shia's., just like Al Qaeda started out as a proxy army for the west against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan and the Hmongs who were trained and armed by the CIA to fight the communists during the Vietnam war. Same playbook.

"For years now judicious analysts have been saying that ISIS, which now calls itself the Islamic State, is a synthetic witches’ brew of malcontents organized, armed and trained by the West and its regional appendages in the Arab Gulf countries.

Despite an overwhelming sand storm of disinformation emanating from the mainstream media that laughably portrayed the militant group and its creepy offshoots as wholly organic, critical thinkers have insisted that ISIS is a controlled outfit of covert mercenaries that were manufactured by Western powers and first wielded like a samurai sword against the Gaddafi regime in Libya. Once the North African country was swallowed whole by the Wahhabi onslaught, which was directed by CIA and MI6 “advisors” on the ground and reinforced by NATO airstrikes from above, the same stock and breed of criminal miscreants were promptly set upon Syria to ravage that unsuspecting nation."

http://levant.tv/blog-posts/evil-triumphs-the-wests-hand-behind-isis-con...

Submitted by Big Al on Thu, 06/25/2015 - 12:49pm

It's looking more and more like Bush vs. Clinton.

The big money always wins and that's where it's at, sorry Bernie fans. You can't possibly expect $50 million (maybe) to compete with over a billion, just ain't going to happen. Money talks, bullshit walks as they say.

But it brings up an important situation for the American people at this point in history:

BUSH VS CLINTON!!!!

Been saying for months and months that we can't let that pass without a fight. What are we going to do about it, because to not do something is just plain wrong. Or maybe we'll just deny it up until the very end.

But the symbolism of a Bush vs. Clinton race should be like red meat to those who want to tear down the system. Couldn't get any better than that.

It's like, "it's Bush vs. Clinton man, do you need any more fucking proof?"

Submitted by hecate on Thu, 06/25/2015 - 2:12pm

the

empire is exhausted, when the best it can throw up is these people, a couple of losers, lessers, from a pair of third-rate, fucked-out, family dynasties.

Not to mention that they are in many essential respects the same person. Like a creature with two heads. Could be collectively referenced as Bushton.

The ideal, the perfect ticket for the 2016 election: Hillary Clinton, Jeb Bush. Now, they can figure out who’s on top of the ticket on their own. But when you compare their positions, Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush, on the key important issues, they are two peas in the same pod.

And, by the way, Barbara Bush loves Bill Clinton. Says so publicly. George W. Bush has referred to Hillary as a half-sister, long lost whatever, some such thing. The Clinton family and the Bush family are very tight. They are very close. There is never a negative or critical word uttered by a Bush of a Clinton or of a Bush by a Clinton.

Both parties want to win the nomination, Hillary by running away from the Democrat base, Jeb by running away from the Republican base. This is an ideal combination.

Both parties care about their donors more than their voters. And both parties have the exact same donor class. Mayors, stockbrokers, elite entertainment industry types, you name it. Folks, this is a ticket made in heaven. I can’t recall a time in my life where a presidential candidate and a vice presidential candidate are so close to each other on the issues, where if one of them was unable to serve, we wouldn’t know the difference if the vice president had to take office.

If Jeb’s at the top of the ticket and they win and something happens and Hillary has to take over, nobody’d know the difference. Same token, Hillary is elected president, Jeb’s veep, Hillary can’t make it for some reason, then Jeb becoming president, nobody’d know the difference. Wouldn’t skip a beat.

Bipartisanship, crossing the aisle, united government, no more gridlock, key agreement on all the important issues that people vote on. Clinton-Bush ’16. You choose the top.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=heEEw_I2in0]

Submitted by shaharazade on Thu, 06/25/2015 - 6:14pm

Hey Big Al

I read an article at Salon yesterday that made me think of you. It's about Cornell West and his no holds barred opinion about 'my brother Bernie'. He seems to have the same take on Bernie's 'foreign policy' regarding Israel and the ME as you and I do.

Are you ready for 2 weeks of hotter then hell here in Portland? My veggie garden looks like a dust bowl as turned it over and amended it but for the first time in 15-20 years didn't plant in March- May. Then the freaking heat hit and I had to do the money work dance full blast. My gardening pal down the street already has tomato plant up to her shoulders. I bought some cucumber starts and a squash start but I scared to plant them in this heat. Maybe I will get up and outside by 7:00 and plant them Monday after the 102 peak on Saturday.

The Radical Alliance That Could Change Everything
http://www.salon.com/2015/06/24/bernie_sanders_cornel_west_the_radical_a...

“I love brother Bernie,” West replied. “He tells the truth about Wall Street. He really does.”

But West, who feels burned and spurned by President Obama, his team, and the Democratic Party generally, then turned immediately to the specter of Hillary Clinton. Sanders, though an independent socialist in the Senate, is running for the Democratic Party ticket, and West worried aloud about submission to the party hegemon, Secretary Clinton.

“I’m not a Hillary Clinton fan at all,” he said resolutely. “So if he uses his power to hand it over to her I’ll be deeply upset.”

Most of the article is about Bernie's not being much better on 'foreign policy'. I love how they call this bloody endless aggressive global war on terra either diplomacy or foreign policy. So Orwellian it makes me laugh trough my tears. I liked this story too. Some lefty pol in Germany a former minster of finance blasted The Sec of Defense/War machine and NATO.

Fuck US Imperialism
http://geopolitics.co/2015/06/24/its-germanys-fm-oskar-lafontaines-turn-...

Left-wing German politician and former finance minister Oskar Lafontaine has some harsh language message for US on its politics concerning Russia and Ukraine. He has also called on the EU to oppose Washington.

In a Facebook post which cannot be quoted fully quote due to strong language, Lafontaine, whose latest political post was co-chairman of the democratic socialist party The Left, called US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter the “Secretary of War”, and Washington’s policies “imperialism.”

“The US Secretary of War calls on Europeans to confront the Russian ‘aggression’,” Lafontaine writes after a strongly-worded introduction. “The Europeans have every reason to oppose the US aggression.”

“The US diplomat Victoria Nuland said, we have spent more than five billion dollars to destabilize Ukraine,” Lafontaine’s Facebook post goes on, presumably referring to Nuland’s February 2014 statement that since 1991, Washington invested $5 billion in “democratic institutions” in Ukraine.

Submitted by Big Al on Thu, 06/25/2015 - 6:38pm

Ya, I did see that article about West and Sanders.

West is not going far enough though, he forgot Russia and China which Sanders is fully on board that game too. And Sanders already did say he'd endorse Clinton so there's no wondering about that.
I saw that other article also about the German politician. That should be an eye opener for many and I'm glad he specifically calls out U.S. imperialism.

I'm not ready for this heat, too much too soon for summer just starting. I still haven't come to grips with it happening. I like to be outside a lot but this will be too much. Guess we'll get thru it. I'm trying to keep my garden well watered so it appears to be hanging in there.
Have fun!