(do click in to the Independent link; it’s great.)
Bonus treats:
‘Sitrep Afghanistan: Bad, Getting Worse’, by Robert Fisk , December 28, 2015
‘From the Shadows of the Cold War: the Rise of the CIA’, by Ben Terrall, December 28, 2015, a short review of a new book by David Talbot on Allen Dulles and the CIA, pithy with additional history and quotes, even by Allen’s wife Clover.
davidly
Greyson Smythe
LeMoyne
juliania2
ohiobarbarian
stephenadavis1
wendyedavis
café babylon 
PEACE and Military Vets
War demonstrates failure in the Human Endeavor, and thusly, following speaks to our Growth as a human species, in and during this Holiday Season. And from the Chicano Veterans Organization. Enjoy!
Odds & Ends
With the New Year’s annual festivities to commence this Thursday and Friday, a quick look back at our national politics for these past few days, may portend more delusion as well as more fear. Regardless, politics should be always fun for Elected and Appointed Officials and their campaign donors, since the generic issues for greater self-governance, is still being hampered by the self-interest of our more than fifty percent of the eligible population and who don’t vote.
1. Climate Science. With Senator Graham now out of the GOP’s presidential sweepstakes, all the remaining candidates are now “officially” in denial of climate science.
2. Challenging the Non-Conventional Wisdom of Money. With ever-increasing use of SuperPacs, the Republican Establishment Elite have tossed their self-interest into the columns of both Trump and Cruz, given that the Tea Party and the white non-educated potential voters, have taken over the ‘angst and anger’ and thusly, any challenge to Trump and his Umbrella of Hate, continues to resonate. And to reverse this Trend will require of the Establishment to begin to espouse “mandatory voting” and which would circumvent the Democrats’ or Clinton’s and Sander’s current espousal for a universal voting systemic in this election cycle. As such, the GOP has no alternative when it comes to addressing the pending demographics of our nation, and the subsequent demise of today’s conservative bastion for and of overt nonsense. Perhaps, their unevenly-grafted Wurlitzer of wonder-lust Propaganda is tiring from over usage? Or perhaps, the conservative Democrats can only continue to “own and operate” the Democratic Party should mandatory voting become concretized?
3. Not-Much Mentioned. Conservative writer Dinesh D’Souza has been quite silent since he was facing legal charges for illegal campaign contributions. However, he’s living in a half-way house as part of his plea agreement, he’s taken to the ‘tubes’ to complain that his legal problems can be attributed to the hands of the liberals. And his “logic” if one were call it acceptable logic, is he’s no different from anyone else since this ‘else’ does it all the time and are not prosecuted. Obviously D’Souza’s accepting of his self-responsibility is not required of him since the pursuit of blind ambition is a universal and a trait to be perpetuated, even universally.
4. The “jungle” in the Sonoran Desert. The Independent Movement in Arizona and led by the conservative Republican, Sandra Day O’Connor, has announced that that they are seeking volunteers for their petition gathering effort and done in order to acquire and eventually submit the necessary signatures to establish a ballot proposition for November’s election and which if approved at the ballot box, would establish a “jungle primary” in subsequent elections and this behavior for garnering the requisite political influence for challenging the Democratic voters, given the ever-increasing numbers of Latino voters anticipated or expected to participate in future elections. Of course, this is the Right’s alternative to mandatory voting and thusly, ‘gaming’ the system for their benefit.
5. Today’s “revisionist” History for Tomorrow. Of course, I am speaking of Democratic Party’s apparent leadership in support of either Clinton or Sanders when it comes to the approximate 40% of Progressives that comprise the totality of DNC voters. To wit, Debbie Wasserman Schultz is determined to cavalierly dismiss these Progressives when one takes a gander at down-ballot candidates and where wealthy liberals are discouraged to not donate to viable progressive candidates. Thusly, these wealthy liberals are now known to appreciate the more conservative candidates in the Democratic Party when their large dollar contributions are yard-sticked or measured. Therefore, the DNC leaders can no longer disparage or dismiss the progressive but must accommodate and undergird these progressives. Otherwise, blasting progressives as a bunch of fringe wackos, is going to rebound, given that the “value” found in the years ahead when it comes to the spending decisions currently being made by conservative Democrats relative to our national appropriation as well as our national debt. And if not, the Democrats will have to contend with tomorrow’s “renege and repatriate” Movement.
6. The Status of Black Women in American Politics is, in actuality, an academic study of Black Women and their “influence” in our national as well as on our local politics. Most interestingly is the unassailable fact that black women are in the ascendance when it comes to “moving” our America in the proper direction and where self-governance is of paramount importance. And perhaps, I shouldn’t joke that the America’s national religion is not exemplified in Christianity, but is exemplified by Women and found in my notional for the Church of the Matriarchal Renaissance, and yet I do, and done on the premise that today’s patriarchy is yesterday’s political foil. And as a full measure of Indigenousness.
i realize that i’m not in fine fettle just now, jaango, but i have a question and a couple comments. first, the only Indigenous in the US are first americans, yes? if one were to stretch a point almost infinity, one could try to count brown mexicans who became USians in the snatch of texas from mexico, but…not really.
you’re in favor of mandatory voting? whooosh.
black women moving the US in the proper direction: i’d have to give you condi rice, the detestable susan rice, anita alvarez, oh, well; the list would be long. it may be that the millennial generation of black women really do move things forward and in that ‘long arc of the moral universe bending toward justice’, but it isn’t automatic, by any means. at least ‘imo’.
i’m not sure what you mean about the dems, but i don’t know as any of the three candidates for prez could be considered ‘progressive’ except on certain domestic issues. bernie is an Imperialist, too. but i do like your line about war being a failure of the human endeavor.
I have a problem with using the Latin word indigenous to describe First Americans. Maize and tomatoes are indigenous to the Americas but humans are not. Africans are the only truly indigenous, to their lands, people. All of us humans came from somewhere else before getting to the Americas.
I like the fact that when Europeans made first contact with local groups in the Americas the names they used to describe themselves often translated to The People a unifying concept even though they recognized different groups of people.
ach, i yam so distressed by your discomfort about the over-arching term ‘indigenous’, wayoutwest. please consult the wiki as you did for geoffrey cowan. yes, in canukistan, ‘aboriginal’ is sometimes used, as well as a couple other terms i’ve forgotten. but fook, you always have some bone to pick, don’t you?
pardon me for peck-pecking at your comment; i was (and am) in fowl mood becuse: #Tamir.
the term indigenous is being used globally more and more, including in the UN as far as ‘rights’ the UN definition is complicated as all giddy-up. but as to the indigenous on turtle island, the wiki on native americans says in part:
“In the United States, Native Americans are considered to be people whose pre-Columbian ancestors were indigenous to the lands within the nation’s modern boundaries. These peoples were composed of numerous distinct tribes, bands, and ethnic groups, and many of these groups survive intact today as sovereign nations. The terms Native Americans use to refer to themselves vary regionally and generationally, with many older Native Americans self-identifying as “Indians” or “American Indians”, while younger Native Americans often identify as “Indigenous”. Which terms should be used to refer to Native Americans has at times been controversial. The term “Native American” has been adopted by major newspapers and some academic groups, but has not traditionally included Native Hawaiians or certain Alaskan Natives, such as Aleut, Yup’ik, or Inuit peoples. Indigenous American peoples from Canada are known as First Nations.”
the wiki on paleo-indians looks very interesting, as well. canadian indigenous also call themselves by designations of aboriginals or the inter-racial Métis, as well.
Russia, now’s yer chance! NATO’s on vacay.
Shearer’s great. thanks wendy.
welcome, jason. i wuz lookin’ for ‘a lighter side’, and i love ‘nato on vacation, Hppy Holidays almost too well.
i thought of you when i hit mattie stoller’s twit thang for more humor.
(and that’s wd or wendye to you, son…) ;-)
Wendy,
Indigenous, yes! In 20 years, the demographics will bring forth an even split between white and brown. Add another twenty years, and the brown will represent 60% of the overall population, Consequently, the United States will be “progressive” and the conservatives will have to advocate and achieve their success for mandatory voting and done in order to continue to have any “influence” in national politics.
And whatever occurs in next year’s election, won’t have any significant success, given that the conservatives have lock themselves in for the next fifteen years. In the meantime, the children of this millennial generation won’t have much of a future to look forward to, unless the parents of these children ‘change their political ways.’ Of course, progressive does not equate to socialist, but progressive may open another door for the socialists are recognized as presidential aspirants among these children.
sorry to be so long, jaango, but with one thing and another…
i’m till not sure who’s advocating mandatory voting, but googling brought me obama positing it. what a guarantee of ignorant voting.
bless your heart, you believe brown people will all be progressive; i wish it were so, but i don’t see any group as monolithic, although i will say they’ve been hitched to the dems for a very long time now. but if so, maybe by that date there would be a serious worker’s party allied with others so locked into debt peonage, cradle-to-prison pipelines, locked out of public education including college for those who want it…all of that.
but i will say that i just read a long piece at naked capitalism discussing some recent dem debate, and most on the thread were of the opinion that ‘the bern’ is a progressive. how depressing; not one soul spoke to any issues past medicare for all and maybe one other issue. still, closer than clinton, but someone had the gall to say that he’s not a neocon, then not discuss his views on FP and the military.
the wiki has a lot of definitions of the age of millennials, but most placed them at between 18-30 years old now; they have voted, or could vote now, it seems. if we’ve left the world to them, as it seems, as “we’ve” done a crap job of securing anything remotely like shared power among the citizenry, justice of any sort, or custody of this once-gorgeous planet and its gifts, here’s to hoping they might make a better job of it.
i’m so pissed at this country i can scarcely see straight, and i sincerely believe that the rest of the planet would be better off without us, may the gods cause the Imperium to fall to its knees and die sooner than later.
The thing that had not occurred to me, until I thought I thought it up myself, was that key to the condept of institutional racism is that you can have a president and secretary of state, supreme court judge and attorney general, billionaire and banker, and one of a couple of the fastest growing demographics in a nation, all of the race and/or color of the objects of racism is said nation, and they will not unlikely serve the same racist proclivities.
With this in mind, the tipping point of loving and “progressive” black and brown people is not by a long shot a given, so long as the “institution” in “institutional” is rewards self-serving in equality. The tipping point would more likely envision a kind of payback. Racists can feel this intuitively, which is why they shit-scared racist.
if i take you to mean ‘if a potus, scotus justice/s, SoS, AG were all black, there would likely still exist baked-in institutional racism? well, such is true in some cities in the south in which killings of unarmed blacks are high, but many of the elected officials who could top it…are black, as are some police at least. compradors, those who zip on the uniform of the security state.
but good thinking as to the perpetuating force of self-serving inequality. as to this: “The tipping point would more likely envision a kind of payback. Racists can feel this intuitively, which is why they shit-scared racist.”, oh, my yes.
historical examples abound, say the haitian revolution, the pueblo revolt, a few actual slave rebellions in new orleans, etc., but it was the ‘rumors’ of rebellions that drove the first police organizations to be formed a far back as the early 1700s. slave patrols, night watches, to, yanno: preserve the natural order and law. then think COINTELPRO, and it becomes clear that the american indian movement and the black panthers were not to be tolerated, the fear level was so high.
how many political prisoners still languishing in prison are black or first american? a hella lot. leonard peltier is one that burns most hotly for me, i reckon. the authorities even know he didn’t kill those two fibbies, but someone had to pay…and keep on paying until…he’s dead.
and S. Africa. and, sigh, Mandela himself.
and think what the ANC has done w/ his legacy; hills the soul, it does.