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My buddy told me he felt good now because he didn't need to watch the news everyday to see what Trump had done. I'm hearing comments like "Joe's doing a pretty good job". His approval numbers are high. Is it ignorance or apathy? I don't know and I don't care.

Krystal puts it differently by suggesting everyone is going back to brunch, but she runs in a different world. I see it as people going back to sleep. What wars? What coups? What sanctions?

From my vantage on the mountain it seems hypocritical arrogance, aggressive warmongering, and the notion that the US is entitled to anything anywhere anytime continues unabated. As Biden told his owners, "Nothing will fundamentally change" (Link is worth a read). Just check out Biden's National Security Strategic Guidance pdf. TPTB simply cannot let go of the '92 goal of global dominance.

1992-Draft-Defense-Policy-Guidance_1.jpg

There are those who speak truth to power, but their voices are largely stifled. Chris suggests today's MLKs, Malcom's, and other similar radicals are in prison...effectively silenced. Julian is sure a good example. I'm certainly glad there are voices like Chris and Daniel Ellsberg. These are two excellent conversations.

Politics is a Game of Fear:
The Chris Hedges Interview with Briahna Joy Gray and Virgil Texas

Chris Hedges take on the state of the left: What are the structural factors and ethical rationalizations that keep congressional progressives from taking the adversarial approach required to push a united Democratic government left? How can we parse good faith excuses from the bad, and what does history tell us about the way forward?

Matt and Katie's first independent podcast. They tell the story in the first 30 minutes if you want to hear their take on things. Otherwise this is cued to Daniel's interview.

Matt and Katie interview legendary whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg, who made history and changed history when he released the Pentagon Papers. Ellsberg talks about the nuclear threat nobody seems worried about, what people don't realize about nuclear weapons, his book "The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner," the likely end of the world and how he, despite it all, remains hopeful.

And yet this week...

On 16 March, the United Kingdom announced that it would increase its limit on its nuclear arsenal for the first time in decades. Instead of decreasing its nuclear stockpile to 180 warheads in the mid 2020s, the United Kingdom will increase its stockpile cap to 260 warheads - a 40% increase.
...
“This decision is imbibed in a toxic combination of militarism and hubris. We need the UK Government to invest in measures to combat climate change and pandemics, not trigger a dangerous new nuclear arms race."

The UK’s shocking expansion of its nuclear weapons capability comes without explanation of how this is in the national or global interest.

https://www.icanw.org/uk_to_increase_nuclear_stockpile_limit

To understand the nature of US global aggression it is important to know who is really controlling the levers of power. Eisenhower warned us.
Chris Hedges discusses the rise of America's secret government with journalist and author, David Talbot. David Talbot's book is The Devil's Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America's Secret Government. (27 min)

Vijay Prashad Warns Biden Is “Doubling Down” on Trump’s Anti-China Cold War Policy
https://www.democracynow.org/2021/3/16/vijay_prashad_us_china_rivalry

...when they say that China is a threat, as Antony Blinken said in what I thought was a very sharp and rather bellicose speech — when he says China is a threat, what do they mean? I think, here, precision is important. They don’t mean that China is a military threat to the United States. After all, the Chinese military has the capacity to defend its homeland, but it’s not in any way threatening the United States. In fact, it’s U.S. naval vessels that are sailing very close to the Chinese mainland in so-called freedom of navigation sorties right close to Chinese territorial waters. So, the Chinese don’t have a military threat against the United States at all.

What they’re talking about has been very closely clarified at this Quad meeting, which is that the United States government understands that China’s scientific and technological developments, particularly in robotics, in telecommunications, in green technology and so on, has far surpassed that of U.S. and European companies. And this is an existential threat, as far as the United States is concerned, the U.S. government is concerned, to Silicon Valley. China doesn’t threaten the American citizen, the average American citizen. But Chinese telecommunication companies, like Huawei and ZTE, are perhaps a generation ahead of U.S. telecommunications companies. And rather than compete, you know, in a, as it were, free market with these companies, the United States government is using immense military pressure, diplomatic pressure and a sort of information war to push China back into its boundaries. It’s one thing, as far as the U.S. is concerned, Amy, for China to deliver its workers to produce products for U.S. companies. It’s quite another when Chinese companies are competing fair and square against U.S. companies.

The Biden approach to diplomacy is hurling insults. Bet that works well...
That was Bliken's approach in Alaska this week when meeting with his Chinese counterparts.
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/us/top-american-chinese-diplom...

In an extraordinary breach with diplomatic protocol, during normally formal opening remarks before the media, Blinken bluntly warned that China had to abide by the “rules-based international order” or face “a far more violent and unstable world.” In reality, US imperialism established the so-called post-World War II order, in which it sets the rules, and is prepared to use all means, including war, to prevent China from challenging its global hegemony.

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/03/20/usch-m20.html

Well, isn’t this the intention of United States, judging from what – or the way that you have made your opening remarks, that it wants to speak to China in a condescending way from a position of strength?

So was this carefully all planned and was it carefully orchestrated with all the preparations in place? Is that the way that you had hoped to conduct this dialogue?

Well, I think we thought too well of the United States. We thought that the U.S. side will follow the necessary diplomatic protocols. So for China it was necessary that we made our position clear.

So let me say here that, in front of the Chinese side, the United States does not have the qualification to say that it wants to speak to China from a position of strength. The U.S. side was not even qualified to say such things even 20 years or 30 years back, because this is not the way to deal with the Chinese people. If the United States wants to deal properly with the Chinese side, then let’s follow the necessary protocols and do things the right way.

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2021/03/us-aggressiveness-follow-up.html#more

Is Chinagate next?

The Wall Street Journal editorial board (3/7/21) has accused a major Chinese newspaper, and by extension the People’s Republic of China, of exploiting progressive rhetoric around racial justice to create division in the United States.

https://fair.org/home/wsj-rage-at-woke-china-foreshadows-new-redbaiting-...

Don't forget Russia!

Joe really knows how to reach out and be diplomatic...yeah right.

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: So you know Vladimir Putin. You think he’s a killer?

PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: Uh-huh. I do.

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: So what price must he pay?

PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: The price he’s gonna pay we’ll– you’ll see shortly.

... the other comment many Russian officials are making is that Biden simply lacks even basic manners. To make clear: they are not only saying that Biden has zero understanding of diplomacy, they are saying that Biden simply has no basic manners which any semi-educated person ought to have. On the main Russian TV channel reporters were even asking today whether Russia ought to completely break diplomatic relations with the USA! That would be a very dangerous mistake and I don’t think that the Kremlin will go so far, at least officially, but there is a clear understanding amongst Russian officials while officially the two countries still have diplomatic relations, in reality the US basically terminated them.

Do I really have to spell out here how insanely dangerous this is?

http://thesaker.is/uncle-shmuel-is-truly-brain-dead/

Saagar Enjeti: Dems See Russia As Top US ENEMY, That's A BIG Problem
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHuEXocnF4g

We assess that Russian President Putin authorized, and a range of Russian government organizations conducted, influence operations aimed at denigrating President Biden’s candidacy and the Democratic Party, supporting former President Trump, [and] undermining public confidence in the electoral process…

No matter what, the clear aim of this report is to cast certain stories about Joe or Hunter Biden as misinformation, when the evidence more likely shows that material like the Hunter Biden emails is real, just delivered from a disreputable source. That makes such stories just like, say, the Joe Biden-Petro Poroshenko tapes, which were also pushed by Derkach and reported on uncontroversially by major media outlets like the Washington Post, before it became fashionable to denounce those reporting such leaks as Russian “proxies” and “conduits.” ...
Does this mean the Russians don’t meddle? Of course not. But we have to learn to separate real stories about foreign intelligence operations with posturing used to target domestic actors while suppressing criticism of domestic politicians. It’s only happened about a hundred times in the last five years — maybe it’s time to start asking for proof in these episodes?
https://scheerpost.com/2021/03/20/a-brief-list-of-official-russia-claims...

How to start a war with Russia?

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba announced this week that the country’s National Security and Defense Council had approved a strategy that is aimed at retaking Crimea and reintegrating the strategically important peninsula.

Crimea, a peninsula in the Black Sea, was annexed by Russia in March 2014, following a US-backed, far-right coup in Kiev, the capital of Ukraine.

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/03/20/ukra-m20.html

US wars are simply endless....
Saagar Enjeti: Pentagon CAUGHT Hiding 1000 EXTRA Troops In Afghanistan As War Lobby Ramps Up https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vSyBl491-c (10 min)

The foreign policy of the current U.S. administration is exactly the same as the foreign policy of the previous one. In short: disastrous.

There are dozens of examples: The "maximum pressure' campaign against Iran continues, the sanctions on Venezuela will be upheld or even strengthened, the bombing of Syria, no change on Yemen and so on.

The problem is that none of these 'we are tough guys' policies achieves any purpose.

From the outside world the behavior and tough talk of U.S. officials is seen as juvenile. It demonstrates a lack of knowledge, wisdom and strategy.

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2021/03/us-aggressiveness-will-accelerate-...

Stopping US endless wars is key to any other goal we might have...
‘Green New Deal Can Only Happen With The End of US Militarism!'
(Sunrise Movement's John Paul Mejia) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFPd-FtgSnw (15 min)

He discusses why environmentalists and progressives are demanding the Line 3 pipeline be shutdown, the encroachment of many of these fossil fuel pipelines on indigenous peoples’ rights, why all future permits for oil and gas pipelines should be denied, why the Line 3 pipeline is arguably a test of trust between voters of colour and President Joe Biden.

Bob Scheer interviewed Ralph Nader this week...
Transcript or audio

So now we have a Democratic Party taboo on the military budget. It used to be they would talk about it, at least; at least people like Senator Proxmire would hold hearings on military waste, fraud, and abuse. But no, that is the largest operating budget in the federal government, and it isn’t even audited. The Pentagon is violating a 1992 federal statute requiring them to submit an audited budget to the General Accounting Office, or Government Accountability Office as it’s now called, of the U.S. Congress. So you have two giant revenue factors. One, a huge drain on public infrastructure investment by empire and blowing up other countries abroad in the military budget.

And you have another taboo emerging now, you’d think they’re under the sway of Grover Norquist–they don’t talk about restoring the tax cuts. They don’t campaign on restoring the tax cuts, with the exception of Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.

“Corporate capitalism is not capitalism,” argues Nader. “Capitalism is your ma-and-pa store on Main Street; corporate capitalism is basically corporate socialism because without socialism in Washington bailing out capitalism, capitalism would have collapsed a long time ago.”

But Nader goes even further from calling our current system corporate capitalism or socialism and labels it “corporate fascism” due to the fact that moneyed interests have strategic power over everything from our diets to our public lands. Scheer and Nader have a lively discussion about whether or not it is possible to challenge the powers that be in an age of corporate fascism. Scheer argues that it is impossible to truly effect change under the conditions of life in today’s America, in which the traditional proletariat is no longer able to organize due to the gigification of the economy at the same time powerful corporations such as Google and Facebook disguise their obscene profit-seeking under the cloaks of anti-racism, women’s rights and other worthy social issues. Nader, however, is more hopeful than Scheer about a power that people still have the opportunity to harness.

How did we get in this mess? Perhaps it is Poor Education...

LA and Oakland teachers: Vote “No” on the deadly deals to reopen schools!
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/03/20/wcrf-m22.html

AFT President Randi Weingarten tells Texas teacher Michael Hull: “We’re not going to fight to keep the schools closed”
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/03/20/wein-m20.html

Teachers Union President Caught Screwing Teachers & Public Education

Sadly schools have merely become a pipeline to prison...

It is easy to see how the war based system is maintained...

dumb down the people, threaten them with prison if they step out of line, and placate them with bread and circuses. Max and Stacy suggest it is more bread than circus.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1mUez-vPMA (15 min)
The last 15 minutes is an interesting discussion about investment in these times.

So it seems to me we're in Obummer 2.0 where the left is asleep trusting TPTB to steer the ship of state. Or perhaps it is more like Reagan's second term when his dementia was largely hidden. Either way, it probably isn't a good idea to take our eye off the US war machine...the engine is revving up.

war machine_5.jpg

It is enough to make you want to drop out of the capitalist system. Lots of folks have done just that... (7 min)

...we headed to Virginia, where a cluster of communes thrives in rural, conservative Louisa County. In exchange for working around 40 hours a week, Twin Oaks’ roughly 100 residents get everything taken care of, free of charge, from food to housing to health insurance. But the community is able to provide so generously because of their successful businesses; for over thirty years, they produced every hammock sold at Pier One and today, they sell tofu to Whole Foods.

Our lives are dependent on the choices we make. Choose wisely. Live the life you want.

I choose to live by choice, not by chance,
To be motivated , not manipulated,
To be useful, not used,
To make changes, not excuses,
To excel, not compete.
I choose self-esteem, not self pity.
I choose to listen to my inner voice,
Not to listen to the random opinions of others.

Author Unknown

I hope you all have a lovely, peaceful, spring day!

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Lookout's picture

I've been enjoying Mary Chapin Carpenter's Sunday Songs from home series. As she explains this is the last of them. Like us she just lost her cat. She is a friend of a friend so I've always felt a connection. Thought you might enjoy it as well.

Mary Chapin Carpenter - Songs From Home Episode 62: Sometimes Just The Sky
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihGTt8FKEwU]

Seems I always forget to include things I meant too. Here's one piece I intended to include:
‘Independent’ report claiming Uyghur genocide brought to you by sham university, neocon ideologues lobbying to ‘punish’ China

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

lotlizard's picture

@Lookout  
She had been in poor health for months. Not a shock but still sad. Very congruent with sorrow also for both your and Mary Carpenter Chapin’s loss.

When I first started coming to Dresden, my friends had three cats and the kids were so little. Now the last of the three cats is gone, the older daughter is grown and living in another town and the younger is in the equivalent of high school (Gymnasium)…

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Lookout's picture

@lotlizard

All the pets that cycle through our lives. Love and loss are an integral piece of the human puzzle. Like the saying goes, ‘Better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.’

I had to look it up...

Tennyson wrote In Memoriam, which he worked on for sixteen years between 1833 and 1849. It was published in 1850, the year Tennyson became UK Poet Laureate following the death of Wordsworth.
https://interestingliterature.com/2021/01/better-loved-lost-than-never-l...
And it’s in Canto XXVII of In Memoriam that we find the words ‘’tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all’:

I envy not in any moods
The captive void of noble rage,
The linnet born within the cage,
That never knew the summer woods:

I envy not the beast that takes
His licence in the field of time,
Unfetter’d by the sense of crime,
To whom a conscience never wakes;

Nor, what may count itself as blest,
The heart that never plighted troth
But stagnates in the weeds of sloth;
Nor any want-begotten rest.

I hold it true, whate’er befall;
I feel it, when I sorrow most:
’Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.

Hope all is well in your world and the grip of the pandemic is beginning to loosen!

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

The Liberal Moonbat's picture

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In the Land of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is declared mentally ill for describing colors.

Yes Virginia, there is a Global Banking Conspiracy!

Lookout's picture

@The Liberal Moonbat

My favorite part was...

...it was probably the 15,000th email from Nancy Pelosi that finally convinced us.” Russian officials added that they were beginning to question their own participation in the election, however, noting that despite so many people saying that everything rode on its outcome, it didn’t seem like much of anything was really going to change.

Thanks for the laugh!

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

emphasis on GOOD. So beautiful in NYC we can see that planting season is almost here. My balcony garden will be fully planted by May 1. Unheard of only a few years ago when it was inadvisable to do so before Memorial Day.

On the are we asleep issue---yes, yes we are. How else could any of us bear what atrocities go on in our name.

This Spring, the sleep is surely mixed with relief. The orange madman is gone and vaccines are here. We are easily placated.

This year we lost much more than the victims of Covid. What happened to the Gilets Jaune who filled the streets of France for over a year? Is France any more enlightened or fair.

Hong Kong? Some of the largest demonstrations ever. Have you checked in lately? I do not see what if anything has improved. China was not thrown far off its goal to obtain complete control. Even with before unseen masses of demonstrators.

General strikes, long the shining star of The Left as the way to effect change, have not done so well.

Direct confrontation, with the modern weapons the Police, even your local Police now have,
hardly seems like a sane notion anymore.

We are left with the ability to work for change in our own corners of the universe. In the belief that if you till the square foot, the square mile will take care of itself.

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NYCVG

Lookout's picture

@NYCVG

Nothing like the explosion of spring. Here's our view...
IMG_4527_0.jpg

While it is true sleep is curative and we've been sick a long time, it won't make progress.

The protests have not seemed to move the needle much either as you suggest. The DAPL event made me feel that approach wasn't going to be effective. However perhaps there was a positive outcome.

In a massive win for the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and Indigenous organizers across the country, a federal judge has ordered the Dakota Access Pipeline shut down and called for it to be emptied of all oil in the next 30 days, pending an environmental review. U.S. District Court Judge James Boasberg issued the decision on Monday, saying the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers violated environmental law when it granted a permit for the pipeline without an extensive environmental assessment. That permit has now been revoked until an environmental review is conducted — a process that could take years.

https://www.democracynow.org/2020/7/7/dapl_shutdown_standing_rock_sioux

Oops Edit to add:

According to the Sierra Club, “a federal judge ruled that the Army Corps of Engineers violated key environmental laws in its permitting of the pipeline, and ordered the Corps to conduct a full environmental review that considers the danger to the Tribe and the risk of an oil spill.” After the court threw out a key permit for the pipeline, the Trump administration allowed operation to continue.

Now is the time for President Biden to take action and “end a long and shameful history of government sponsored dispossession and disrespect of Tribal rights.” DAPL must be shut down until the dangers and impacts to the infrastructure are studied to justify the pipeline’s continued operation.

Tell Congress to shut down DAPL and restore tribal sovereignty, protect our waterways, and our climate.

https://www.nationofchange.org/2021/03/15/no-dapl-tell-congress-to-shut-...

So not much has changed. Surprise, surprise.

The XR world protest didn't produce much either.

Hong Kong (like Ukraine) smells of US involvement.

And the yellow vest had mixed results at best.
https://www.france24.com/en/20191113-five-takeaways-from-a-year-of-frenc...

My circular think keeps returning to using (withholding) our purchasing power. Or as suggested at the end of the essay, walking away...no longer participating.

You conclusion reminds me of a friends approach. He always said, "take care of the little things and the big things will take care of themselves."

Thanks for your thoughtful comment! Enjoy the lovely day.

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

CB's picture

@NYCVG
and has been since the Qin Dynasty (221 to 206 BC) except for the short period when the British colonial powers took formal control in 1842 under the Treaty of Nanking until midnight July 1, 1997. Never ONCE during this period did ordinary Hong Kongers have the slightest shred of democratic rights.
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkShSujdao4]
Those "peaceful protests" that have ripped the city apart were instigated and supported by the US/UK in the hopes of a color revolution. The numbers of protesters (mostly consisting of deluded youth) were inflated by western media - the majority of Hong Kong citizens wanted to remain with China. A generous estimate of the number of protestors at the high point in the beginning was 300,000 out of total population of 7.5 million. That's a fucking percentage of less than 5%! So much for "democracy"........

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPYuGYLesx0]

Hong Kong is finally getting back to normal and will return to positive growth within the year.

Public consultation backs HKSAR improvements
Thursday, March 18, 2021, 09:59

Representatives from various sectors of Hong Kong on Monday gave their advice about improving the electoral system of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) at separate symposiums held by the central authorities' departments.

Zhang Xiaoming, deputy director of the Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office of the State Council, promised to listen to key local figures as he launched the first of 60 sessions attended by 1,000 business elites, community leaders and pro-establishment figures.
...

I consider Hong Kong a success story for 2020. The US government needs to stop meddling in foreign nations and start to fix it's own internal problems. It is now circling the drain at an ever increasing rate.

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Pluto's Republic's picture

@CB

Hong Kong is a major city in China, and has been for thousands of years.

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____________________

The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
Lookout's picture

@CB @Pluto's Republic

are not America's strong point.

Thanks for the HK background.

Ban shredded cheese, make America grate again!

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

@CB history but you failed to understand the point of my comment,

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NYCVG

ggersh's picture

Here's what a Canadian mate of mine asks, I have no answer

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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

Lookout's picture

@ggersh

insanity?

Did you see the hormone explosion in Florida?

"I think it might be a little bit related to just people looking to let loose after being pent up, but some people are coming here with sort of an anything-goes mentality and even if it's just a small percentage ... it's a small percentage of an enormous amount of people," Gelber said, noting that flights to the city have been cheap and room rates are low.
...
Because most pandemic restrictions have been lifted in Florida, people are coming with an "anything goes" mentality, Miami Beach Mayor Dan Gelber told USA TODAY on Monday, after a weekend of mayhem that kicked off with police in Miami Beach shooting pepper balls to disperse a crowd that had gathered around officers who were making an arrest.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/news/2021/03/15/florida-spring-bre...
break madness.jpg
Ten foot tall and bulletproof...the stuff of youth.

Hope you've got a taste of spring up your way!

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

CB's picture

@Lookout
of the pandemic last year when someone tracked the phones of Florida spring break revelers when they returned to their home cities/states?

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Lookout's picture

@CB

...but I do remember the foolish behavior driving the spread. We just can't seem to learn.

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

magiamma's picture

thanks for the ww

Sunny here for a week at least after much needed rain. Bioswale has survived after my repairs. (I dug the rocks out of the catchment chamber at the low end, put base rock down, added pond liner on top and put the river rocks back. Non trivial.) I am so stoked. It works. I actually sang to it in the middle of the storm when it was full and working.lol. Moving on.

Yes, hegemony, war, never ending and so it goes. Love the ones your with.

On the climate front (no pun intended)...

Pentagon Fuel Use, Climate Change, and the Costs of War
https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/files/cow/imce/papers/2019/Pentagon%...

Easy to read and well worth it. ( pdf and hard to copy )

Love Go to sSleep You Little Baby
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H58fUI1wptI]

Here's one for y'all. They're having way too much fun.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZgEI0XLAXQ]

rock on y'all

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Stop Climate Change Silence - Start the Conversation

Hot Air Website, Twitter, Facebook

Lookout's picture

@magiamma

The swale was swell! Water management is a trip, and a constant task. Thanks for the article and the music!

Have a great week!

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studentofearth's picture

If so, the aristocracy of Europe has been battling communism for much longer historical period than the Russian revolution. The institutional memory passed from generation to generation within a defined social class and family lore would be strong enough to continually seep into any society they have interacted or ruled.

Just read this section in "Eleanor of Aquitaine" by Alison Weir and it fits so well with the thoughts prompted by todays The Weekly Watch.

pg 113
During the twelfth century, English towns flourished and grew, thanks to the development of trade and commerce. Several new towns were founded by Kings and noblemen, and some villages received charters conferring township status. Conscious attempts at town planning were made into new urban developments, such as Leeds and Liverpool, which were constructed on a grid system.

Towns known as boroughs, from the Saxaon word burh, and were the center of trade; the merchants who lived in the boroughs were known as burgesses. Towns would have built walls around them for protection, which often meant that, with the expansion of their trade and their population, too many people were crowded together in houses crammed into narrow streets. As the century progressed and society became less militaristic in its out look, suburbs grew outside town walls.

Some towns and cities were communes, which meant that they has secured the right to self-government by elected aldermen, often in the face of opposition of kings like Henry II, who disapproved of towns being independent of the crown. Kings and lords, would also grant charters licensing the holding of fairs and markets, invariably a lucrative source of profit for themselves.

London, with an estimated population of 35,000, was by far the biggest and most important city. Its chief citizens were known as barons. They were a politically acute clique who wielded considerable influence, and by the end of the century they had wrested their independence from the crown, they declared themselves a commune, and in 1191 elected their first mayor, Henry Fitzailwin. Many citizens were bilingual, speaking both Norman-French and English, or a curious combination of the two. Intermarriage between those of Norman and Saxon origin was common.

Beginning to wonder what has fundamentally changed since the time of the second Crusade, except technology used in daily lives and the geographic location lands were are living upon. Emerging and new uses of existing technology is focused on regaining control of people and the new independent communities they continually create. The spiral continues. We just need to keep a few step ahead to stay free and can look into history to have an idea of what will be thrown at us to disrupt our journey of life.

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Still yourself, deep water can absorb many disturbances with minimal reaction.
--When the opening appears release yourself.

Lookout's picture

@studentofearth

After the National Guard took over key government and army sites in Paris in March 1871, the Commune began to take shape as members of a Central Committee organized a democratic election of councilors that would rule the city on behalf of the people. Sixty councilors were elected and included workers, businessmen, office workers, journalists, as well as scholars and writers. The council determined that the Commune would have no singular leader or any with more power than others. Instead, they functioned democratically and made decisions by consensus.

https://www.thoughtco.com/paris-commune-4147849

but not the London episode. Thanks for the info. Interesting. Many UK towns are still known as market towns (with a weekly market). The whole king/Queen thing is difficult for me to wrap my head around, but our system is pretty weird too...neofuedalism.

Hope spring is happening in your world. Somehow the re-greening of the world make me feel better. Have a good day!

There have been major changes to my mind, one I enjoy studying is the neolithic to bronze age...basically from hunter gathering tribes to an agricultural community.

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

Lookout's picture

Like to hear this weekly piece as well as the Mary C Carpenter featured in the first comment.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICkTygl9jwU]

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

It looks like we're not "following the science" as per the plan put forward during the campaign season. The consensus is that Covid is spread through aerosolized particles and that good indoor ventilation is crucial to minimize spread. We also know that our public schools are lacking the infrastructure for these safe ventilation systems.

Lambert almost immediately challenged the CDC’s recommendations on schools for ignoring evidence on aerosol-based transmission. He also found evidence that they relied on a National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine report that punted on the question of “indoor air quality of schools” because addressing it might mean spending money! In other words, they refused to consider the issue at all, even low cost mitigations. This article confirms his concerns and adds quite a few others.

Bitter experience has taught us a great deal since the beginning of the pandemic. Among the most important lessons we have learned is that it is not, in fact, safe to open schools as the pandemic persists without close adherence to significant and stringent abatement measures.

The NC article is very much worth the time to read. It is so disappointing that we don't want to take the measures that we need to in order to open up safely.

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2021/03/new-cdc-guidelines-to-reopen-sch....

Although I haven't watched Dore's piece about Weingarten yet, I suspect it fits well with the NC article.

Thanks for the WW lookout, glad you came through the rough weather last week without too much difficulty. Have a good one.

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Lookout's picture

@randtntx

...just open them up so people can go back to work, IMO.

All the preventive science that has been ignored makes me think this has been about vaccine profits...not that vaccines are bad...I've had two Moderna shots...but I can't help but wonder why the Vitamin D message wasn't pushed nor Ivermectin recommended. I return again and again to the idea this is a pandemic managed for profit.

Hope spring is exploding in your world!

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

@Lookout
Except for sports teams, soccer and football.
go figure.

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I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.

and a form to use in calling your Representatives.

Nathan Fuller of the Assange Defense Committee
John Kiriakou, Medea Benjamin, and Kevin Gosztola
Lee Camp, Rania Khalek, and Ron Placone
Justin Jackson, Kate Willett, and Jordan Chariton
Norman Solomon, Marjorie Cohn, and Shahid Buttar
Chris Hedges & Margaret Kimberley

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Lookout's picture

@aliasalias

under Julian in the essay. I listened to most of the long form conversation.

Thanks for featuring it. There's is no more relevant story than the hit job on Julian for telling the world about US war crimes.

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

@Lookout

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The Liberal Moonbat's picture

...I don't. This is a nightmare. Things were bad enough already, then THIS ill-conceived bomb went off. My entire generation (and more!) has been nullified by a cabal of psychopaths.

https://newdiscourses.com/2021/03/forging-woke-one-ring-kimberle-crensha...
https://newdiscourses.com/2021/03/end-civil-rights-kimberle-crenshaws-ma...

This shit has been taking over my mind like a computer virus/"Child's Plague" from Dr. Who/the Ray Bradbury story "Fever Dream" ever since it got shoved down my throat in my waning days at DailyKos. I need help and I don't know what to do or where to turn. My entire existence is at stake here (remember, extreme OCD/Asperger's/PTSD/etc).

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In the Land of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is declared mentally ill for describing colors.

Yes Virginia, there is a Global Banking Conspiracy!

lotlizard's picture

@The Liberal Moonbat  
Useful stuff for anyone researching “Patient Zero” / the origins of what could well be thought of as a virus. One that attacks rationality, replacing it with limitlessly-reproducing bits of limbic-system tribal instinct. Maybe it could be called Covidpol-91.

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Lookout's picture

@The Liberal Moonbat

fake wokeness. Intellectual hogwash.

I prefer real people and plain talk.

Stick to the sci fi. It has more relevance IMO.

Thanks for the info though.

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

I am likely the only site member who has gone into various prisons over and over in my career as an attorney.
It is that rare person who comes out of a prison and remains whole.
We are so wrong in how and why we do it.
And I know first hand that poor, and especially poor POCs ,never got the sweetheart deals whites, especially rich whites got.
I have represented all of them.
The rich whites are always the easiest to plead.

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"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981

Lookout's picture

@on the cusp

who taught in the local prison. He often said it was just a matter of circumstance that he was on one side of the desk and they were on the other.

Chris is finishing up a new book about prisons due out next fall I think. I'm glad I've never had to experience them. Everyone I know who worked at our local prison didn't last long and disliked the job.

Whenever I get to talk with an AL pol, I always suggest legalizing pot and releasing all nonviolent drug prisoners....generate revenue and saves on prison costs. Alabama spends more on prisons than schools. That speaks volumes.

Have a great week. Glad to read your house is back in water, know you are too!

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

Always good stuff here from soil science to dirty politics...Thank you!

And, I thought I'd pass on the following, because holy-hell I did not see that coming.
What is linked below is a tweet from Ro Khanna commenting on a video from Fareed Zakaria on US war policy.
I should say that I almost never watch FZ anymore. This is the first time that I can recall watching him and not yelling something like "Oh, bullshit" in one form or another multiple times. This (5min or so) comment from FZ is actually almost reasonable, I only rolled my eyes 2 or 3 times.

So what's going on? I think FZ is wholly owned by wall street et al. So, I'm guessing maybe some on wall street who are not part of the MIC are pushing back a bit? Maybe they think the $$$ coming in the new infrastructure bills might be limited if the pentagon asks for even more?
I don't know. You?

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Lookout's picture

@peachcreek

but I sure like the idea of repurposing the military budget for US infrastructure. If wall street wants it to happen, it will happen because they will tell the politicians they own to make sure it does.

Thanks for the heads up.

Have a good one!

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