@Tall Bald and Ugly

...in the prison graveyard?

They are so humane in TX...yeah right.

In a state known for being tough on criminals, where officials recently eliminated last-meal requests on death row, the Byrd cemetery has been a little-known counterpoint to the mythology of the Texas penal system. One mile from the Walls Unit, which houses the state’s execution chamber, about 100 inmates are buried each year in ceremonies for which the state spends considerable time and money. Each burial costs Texas about $2,000. Often, as in Mr. Davis’s case, none of the deceased’s relatives attend, and the only people present are prison officials and the inmate workers.

https://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/05/us/texas-prisoner-burials-are-a-gentl...

yup, locked into one of our own making and we can't seem to find the damn key! We'll all get out someday, though.
Feet first.

Stop These Fucking Wars

peace

@detroitmechworks

...the most egregious of our problems. Let generals solve the problem of war, and politicians the issues like election fraud, and the judges can deal with prisons...oh yeah and the fox can clean the hen house.

I continue to think the path is to walk away from the system and build whatever best community we can with our friends. The system only excels in exploitation.

Hope all is going well and your house is filled with music!

I've lost track of the number of times I've seen the new media message that we must "Trust The Experts" because of the fact they have put in so much time and effort to the system, clearly they are the only ones who can fix it.

Of course, that entire argument smacks of hubris. Dead knowledge is dead. Don't tell me what you know, use it to build. Don't point to a certificate as your proof of knowledge, point to they people you've helped, the students you've inspired and the problems you've solved.

Your papers are not proof of competence.

@smiley7

Unfortunately, their legislative hold is so tied up and seemingly secure that even in 2020, there's little hope of seeing a change--gerrymandering and voter suppression of unmovable proportions will most likely continue their reign.

That is very much the case here in Alabama too. At one time NC had one of the best public ed systems in the SE. The most nationally certified teachers too. I just don't see a political solution...there are solutions but the pols are purchased on both sides of the aisle. As Rev. Barber says - it's not about turning red to blue, it's about changing wrong to right.

Let me eat my words a little -
There are some inspiring young folks running for office...
check out her two min ad below
https://theintercept.com/2018/06/05/ocasio-cortez-new-york-14th-district...

And how about this young woman recently elected to Clarke Co GA
https://therealnews.com/stories/georgia-county-commissioner-takes-oath-o...

The young give me some hope.

Assembly, one of the worst, if not the king of American's for Prosperity's efforts, since 2010.

From the elementary school to new Institutes at NC Universities, the repugs have turned a once thriving State education system into garbage, yes garbage, no other word fits their machinations, segregation for sure and religious schools galore with taxpayer funds.

Unfortunately, their legislative hold is so tied up and seemingly secure that even in 2020, there's little hope of seeing a change--gerrymandering and voter suppression of unmovable proportions will most likely continue their reign.

A very sad state of affairs particularly for those of us fortunate to have been educated in a very progressive time of building the universities and new schools all over the state. Not to mention our poor children being brainwashed by jesus riding dinosaurs.

As you know, Bishop Barber leads a charge here, but so far it's not enough to penetrate the power--should note that layouffs galore in news departments in the state's leading papers began 10-14 years ago, only a handful of watchdogs writing in the entire state and mostly on social media sites; throw in consolidation of TV and radio, we residents of NC don't even know the depths of deception going apace behind those shiny doors.

And a note: you are the second friend to mention a trip to the Legacy Museum, a ski buddy who travels for 3M visited there a couple of weeks ago and he shared his impressions of the experience with me by phone.

Remember, we've a date to visit Mabel someday, come on up and escape the heat!

@snoopydawg

...but after my museum visit I felt the need to look at our ugly side. There are some positive items like the European cooperative communities.

It is a struggle to keep a good attitude and to be aware of the things your own country does to people and the planet. Should we look behind the curtain? I think there's a donkey there too...well maybe it's an ass.

Thanks for reading!

great round up of bad news as usual. The news does seem to be getting worse each week though.

@DonMidwest

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3SjqGfe-yM]

Thanks for your thoughtful comment and the Bruno Latour links.

That is the last link in your article today. Well done article.

Makes the point, once again, that is captured in the subtitle of Naomi Klein's book, This Changes Everything. The subtitle is: "capitalism vs. the climate"

in the mean time the population has to be controlled

a couple of control systems are wars and prisons

cruelty is rampant

**
no easy way to go forward with a land

without a common ground, or common grounds for various groups

and a new relation with the non human world

so we have migration as an indicator of a crisis and a reaction to it used for right wing governments to continue their power

blame the migrants. Jail migrants.

the political system and economic system are built on exploiting the earth
and a return to the earth, care for the earth, will be necessary to build various commons

care for the earth, care for earthbounds (humans)

"People without a land looking for land" (this is immigration) "for land deprived humans"

say what? dog deprived of humans can understand. garden deprived of humans also makes sense. But land deprived of humans seems strange until reading further in this short article you realize that what is meant is care for the land. The land, the earth, is deprived from human care.

short article by Bruno Latour

[trans.] Bruno Latour, 'People without a land looking for land deprived of people' Le Monde 6th June

This is posted on an academic website which provides free downloads. I use it often. You will have to click and then download a WORD document.

I had downloaded it before and done various things with it, but to get a link I did a search and found that this title, this phrase goes to heart of Zionism.

From wikipedia

A land without a people for a people without a land
"A land without a people for a people without a land" is a widely cited phrase associated with the movement to establish a Jewish homeland in Palestine during the 19th and 20th centuries.

Maybe this is why is is so hard to understand the point of return to the earth because it has been used by a movement that is as far from where I am as possible. Homeland Security - right out of Nazi language. Return to the earth ...

This approach which is often tied to conservative positions, is crucial to a return to the earth. The right wing is trying to protect borders and hide under a nation state, but that return no longer works as does their return to a land that does not exist.

The article above begins with May 68, the 50 th anniversary of the 1968 revolution, but now there is no longer a globe of globalization that can be the place of the future. Hence, the celebration of the revolution was muted because the term revolution can no longer be used as it was back then.

What happened, between then and now, is that the meaning of revolution changed. What was driving students and workers fifty years ago, propelling them towards the future, also drives those who, around the world today, imagine they can return to an ethnically identified nation state. There is a revolutionary spirit, yes indeed, but it is conservative revolution on an unprecedented scale, without limits. The insolence of yesteryear is now on the extreme right!

Journalists and commentators talk of ‘populism’ in order to describe this mad scramble back to the protection of the Nation State. We see it happening in one election after another: in Italy, Germany, even in France, and most notably in Britain and the United States. The more a nation has profited from globalization, the more it breaks violently from it—England and America leading the rest of the world in this massive historical about-face. Of course, the word ‘people’ is in ‘populism’. As much as it might come as a surprise to those who still want to celebrate the ‘spirit of May’, today’s problem is one of coming to terms with these two toxic words, too often associated with reactionary thought: ‘people’ and ‘land’.

Progressives accuse populists of wanting to go back to land conceived of as an identity that protects and comforts. Yet the great paradox is that the progressives have as little ground to walk on as the populists. There are all literally without earth. What’s worse is that they are dimly aware of this, and that makes them even more irate.

Yea! return to the British Empire! Return to the Roman Empire! Return to what the US used to be! The nation state will protect us. Except politics, economics, law and culture are not dealing with the earth.

***
Europe is under attack. Attack by immigration. But the EU is not Europe. What about a European identity to unify peoples around the land. Use land as a signal to return to the earth.

a second short article by Bruno Latour

I’m also talking about a place that is threatened on all sides. You may not feel attached to this European homeland, but then I have to ask you what you feel when you look around at the threats from the Putins, the Erdogans and the other Trumps, not to mention the unexpected departure of the English—deep down still European—and the looming shadow of China weighing on the continent that you occupy the other end of?

Don’t you have a slight urge to defend this place where you live when attacks are raining down on it? Of course, no one would die for the EU, but isn’t the European homeland something worthwhile defending? Unless you think yourself strong enough to defend yourself all alone, or even worse, if you have given up on the whole idea of defending yourself.

reverse colonization! people taking over Europe I added the italics. Not only weakness, but superweakness!

But are we really going to go back to defending ‘European civilisation’, the
Europe superpower? No but rather the Europe superweakness. It’s already
happened. At the moment it is the migrant issue that is threatening to destroy the
deliberate plan that was put in place after the two world wars. So, that is the issue
we have to address directly. While Europe thought it could once occupy the
world, today the world thinks it can occupy Europe. Is this the ‘white man’s
burden’ all over again? At least you must surely see that this is the same problem
twice over, the same demand put on ‘European civilisation’, but this time the other
way around. It is no longer a matter of working out how we can divide up the
world, but how we can be capable of welcoming the world into our home. What
remains is the link between the history of the world and the history of Europe. If
the Old Continent is becoming historically relevant again, it is because other peoples aspire to settle there. As far as I know, no one is risking their life to seek
refuge in China or Russia. Be proud of the destiny that obliges you to
wholeheartedly take on the key question of migration.

strange to see US as weak and getting weaker with no end in site. Same for Europe

In a couple of tweets, Bruno says that liberals think that conservative wave will pass and they can regain power. Wrong. A new commons has to be built, not just swing back.

At least the battle against the populists has the virtue of clarity. When
speaking of people and land, you can actually compare dreamed-up identities
with real attachments. You think such a battle can’t be won? Wait, we haven’t
started yet! No-one is talking about a material and lived Europe, a ‘motherland’
Europe. Try carrying out an experiment. Ask any of those currently gagging on
the idea of ‘Brussels’ to describe the concrete environment that allows them to
live, the ins and outs of their sustenance and nourishment, and I bet you that you
will be taken on a trip, not only across much of Europe, but also a large part of the
world in which it is embedded (and that a large part of this EU you detest so much
will be included in it, this time positively). Now is the moment to ask the
question: what do you want to defend? If you answer, ‘my interests come first’, I
will reply, ‘fine, but you can no doubt see that these interests are in no way tied to
the national identity in which you imagine you are enclosed.’ If we are incapable
of describing our world, how can we possibly defend our interests in it?

Should we defend Europe or defend the EU?1 Bruno Latour

@randtntx

I will be reading. Thank you again.