My offerings:
See also: ‘F*cking the Haitian 99%: Another Clinton Family Project’, Café Babylon, Oct. 27, 2015
Café Babylon: ‘From the 99% in Haiti: ‘Another Electoral Coups d’etat’, December 2, 2016
‘I, Hillary Rodham Clinton: Haiti’s Pay-to-Play IHRC’, Dady Chery, Sept. 20, 2016, newsjunkiepost.com
davidly
Greyson Smythe
LeMoyne
juliania2
ohiobarbarian
stephenadavis1
wendyedavis
café babylon 
is this a general claim, bruce, or are you relating it to the haitians? if so, they’re facing a hella uphill battle. if i say ‘fuckk the clintons, would you interpret in the kindest manner possible?
weekends slavesRmoi; why cant i just sit around the shanty and eat annabis and bonbons, anyway?
see y’all as i’m able.
I haven’t been around since the 2nd thru the 8th since I was in the VA Hospital for having to address my spinal cord along with potential cancer located at the bottom of head. Today, I am recovering just like Superman told me when I was a kid, I’m “exempt” from the reality that I create for myself. Thus, the “undocumenteds” are my weak spot.
However, the best story today for me has been the effort by the Russians to insert themselves into our elections process. And which reminds me that we, the Chicano and Native American military vets have to finally, recognize and accept our responsibility for our conducting some serious surveillance on the Young White Kids, or for old times sakes: these young white kids stood out on the street corner demonstrating by their presence that they “managed and controlled” their respective neighborhoods (1950s Thus, we “minorities” were only acceptable as ‘neighbors’ provided our loyalty was properly offered and accepted.
And today’s kids carry their names forward as either Trump or Putin.
Thus, we, the military vets and in particular, Chicanos and Native American are going to have to step our well-assembled level of Responsibility for making sure the Rule Book is well-understood and readily available for Use. (RuleBookistheConstitution)
Jaango
i’m so sorry to hear of your health issues, jaango. i know we all hope that you’ll reach Superman full recovery soon.
@bruce: i wouldn’t doubt for a moment that some haitians are committing thought crimes against the ‘clinton dictators’ as dady chery calls bill. (she was riffing of toni morrison’s (creepy, imo) designation of bubba c. being amerika’s ‘first black president’. but oh, haiti as the white man’s burden ain’t goin’ away.
now even if dady chery’s report of the missing multiple billions and clinton as dictator in that 2016 piece are on the excessive side, it’s a grim story, and of course bill gates and friends have done some studies to recommend ‘bangs for the bucks’. ‘foreign investors are so eager to create more industry!’ ‘privatize the rubbish water and electricity!’
How do Clinton/$HILL$ (e.g., $heeran) even survive a trip in country? The Haitians don’t recognize CLINTON ($ame) “new” BO$$ ?
I can’t look at the Haiti report yet. I’ll catch up.
Just some odds and ends from the weekend and some other conversations.
As Trumpcare (Obamacare Repeal) marches toward a 50-50 vote, with Pence converting, lets look at what The Resistance (TM) has served up in California. After much ballyhooing a SINGLE PAYER bill as California’s resistance to Trump, the California Senate delivered a goose-egg to the California Assembly. No one bothered to develop public support. The Democratic leader in the Assembly will not bring it to the floor; it is so inadequate and embarrassing. The public wonders “How much will it cost?” and the $400 billion price tag. No one still has done the statistic to tell them how much they are currently paying (estimate $750 billion?) for their currently inadequate care that doesn’t cover everyone even after Obamacare. Looking more and more like a look-good-failing exercise to ice the idea of single payer forever. (“If California won’t pass it, it’s too impractical.”)
Pat Laing is of the opinion (yes, he did come back for a post) that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman will soon have Saudi Arabia destabilized and collapsing. Already there has been a purported suicide attack planned (and interrupted by the police) against the Grand Mosque. Not much detail in either article. Just keep watch for what is going on there.
Pepe Escobar’s Afghanistan report argues that US weakness has allowed the Islamic State of Khorasan (whoever they are) to set up shop in the Tora-Bora caves region. Escobar sees this as convenient for a proxy war against the Chinese Belt-Road Initiative that seeks to economically integrate (with modern infrastructure) all of Eurasia from Lisbon to Vladivostok. With convulsions in the European Union and Trump ambivalent about NATO, this could bring Trump’s generals against Pakistan and China and keep US there for 4-8 more years. Escobar’s article also highlights the play of US proxy war in frustrating any part of the Belt-Road Initiative that might seek connection through Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon to the Mediterranean. If Iran suddenly becomes a target of warmongering in earnest, this geopolitical disruption is likely what is driving US lunacy. Syria already is a target.
Muqtada al-Sadr has been in talks with Kurds and Shiites relative to the future of Iraq. Interesting move considering the attempts to reshatter the country along ethnic and sectarian lines. And the war drums beating against Iran.
Finally an idea. When conservative GOP take over a legislature as they did in North Carolina in 2010, they come equipped with a briefcase of model legislation ready to pass, courtesy of the American Legislative Exchange Council, who have worked out interlocking model legislation for the 50 states. Municipalities, to the extent that they are not proscribed from doing so by state legislatures (Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Kentucky, “commonwealths” excepted) can set their own ordinances for the jurisdictions within their borders. Seattle, for example, passed a fight-for-$15 minimum wage ordinance. Even after the chaos of full-out revolutions, when government of some sort is restored, there are formal agendas that must be passed legitimizing the new authorities. Often these act as straw men for the action of the new powers and have as much or as little as those new powers allow. The idea is this: What would those agendas be under current US circumstances in your state.
One set of ideas to work with has to do with breaking dramatically from the neoliberal “there is no alternative” philosophy most of the developed world is stuck in. There are indeed areas of life that do not require or thrive in markets–obvious, I know. The entire category of goods and services called “infrastructure” is an excellent example; infrastructure comprises the goods and services that a society wants all of its citizens to have. In the US, it is clear that the current government seeks only “national security” and “police presence” as the infrastructure for everybody. Everything else must be rationed by ability to pay–that is, in markets, by ability to pay.
Personally, I don’t mind some things being rationed by ability to pay (designer golf course memberships) and I don’t mind other things rationed by some random process (lotteries for magnet schools) or procedure (first come, first serve, for public campgrounds). And I don’t mind some true markets (farmers markets, for example) so long as there are other ways of dealing with food security.
What gets included in the category of infrastructure can be debated. I don’t think there is any danger of “creeping socialism” by having public infrastructure (and even conservatives like their public fire service and postal service when they are not being purist twerps.) But placing a money value on anything results in a danger of “creeping capitalism” (Marx’s technical term was commodity) by allowing the civilization to think that everything is tradeable, even cultural values and human beings. “Labor” becomes “I own you”. “Salary” becomes “I own you 24/7/365.” So any model legislation must have ways of breaking the tendency to make commodities of what are not. I would argue that natural resources and portions of the global commons are not suitable as commodities. So what are the bases on which to legislate severance of minerals and other natural resources from the environment? What are the bases for limiting the discharge of pollutants back into the environment? On what basis do production decisions happen (even the Soviet Union backtracked to prices to record complex summarized supply-demand supply-chain relations.) If there remains cost accounting, how does it accurately reflect the carrying capacity of the environment and load on the reserves of natural resources? How does labor get incorporated into cost accounting? If there is no cost accounting, how do you figure out the proportions you need for productive activity? What of that needs attention to freedom, justice, resilience, and sustainability — just to recite some possible values of society? How does one circumscribe the implicit power of those who face legal accountability and possess information that others might not have? What does legislation regarding labor contain?
Back to the short version: What is the draft model legislation that needs to be available in case of surprise victory?
gotta reply in stages, you’ve brought a mouthful of mouthfuls. first, is this why you’re saying that the assembly leader hadn’t brought the vote as too inadequate and embarrassing? from wsws:
“On Friday, however, California Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon, a Democrat, effectively killed the bill, blocking it from coming to a vote in the state’s lower legislative chamber.
Even if Medicare for all were implemented nationally, it would be woefully inadequate to meet the needs of working people. The program has already been significantly privatized, and Medicare recipients are forced to pay private insurers for expensive supplemental insurance plans to cover essential medical services and prescription drugs.”
those items may have been why you’d claimed that it was ‘no panacea’ earlier. not ironically, the author was writing about sanders leading voters angry over both versions, house and senate…back to the dems.
i’m sure we’ll all be watching what’s happening w/ saudi arabia, qatar, and possible war w/ iran brewing. gary leupp posits in his ‘Trump, Qatar and the Danger of Total Confusion’ that not only are the epically mixed signals coming from T’s administration, but:
“Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the Saudi ambassador to Washington (1983-2005), once told M16 head Sir Richard Dearlove: “The time is not far off in the Middle East, Richard, when it will literally be ‘God help the Shia.’ More than a billion Sunni have simply had enough of them.” This is the kind of specifically religious sectarianism Trump is embracing, no doubt having no idea what the difference is between Sunnis and Shiites. He just knows that “Radical Ideology” he oddly refers to is funded by Qatar at a very high level and Qatar also buys billions in arms from the U.S.”
he also posits that it’s entirely possible that herr T has no idea while screaming that we gotta stop qatar funding ter’rist! that
“But then on June 14 Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. Roger Cabiness told CNN: “Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis met today with Qatari Minister of State for Defense Affairs Dr. Khalid al-Attiyah to discuss concluding steps in finalizing the Foreign Military Sales purchase of US-manufactured F-15 fighter aircraft by the State of Qatar. The $12 billion sale will give Qatar a state of the art capability and increase security cooperation and interoperability between the United States and Qatar.”
loose cannons sink ships. ig’rant mega-bellicose loose cannons start sunni/shiite holy wars. please: not nuclear, if israel gets more involved!
not so much new in haiti, just the same old, same old, which amounts to…worse for the 99%, of course.
lotta questions there, amigo. i’d offer for consideration charles eisenstein’s ‘sacred economics’ (with a short video w/ subtitles):
Above: Sacred Economics (2012) – short film by Ian MacKenzie, a teaser on the ideas of Charles Eisenstein and the return of the gift.
About the Book
“Sacred Economics traces the history of money from ancient gift economies to modern capitalism, revealing how the money system has contributed to alienation, competition, and scarcity, destroyed community, and necessitated endless growth.
Today, these trends have reached their extreme – but in the wake of their collapse, we may find great opportunity to transition to a more connected, ecological, and sustainable way of being.”
and a look at david korten’s ideas, i guess this page from 2012 would serve.
11 here already; i really need to take care of real life obligations and chores.
on edit: i’d been struggling to recall his location while i was ‘slaving over a hot stove’ making mango chutney’ and other taking care of other chores, but…
“Building a solidarity economy in Jackson, Mississippi, anchored by a network of cooperatives and other worker-owned, democratically self-managed enterprises.” (kali akuno and comrades) but then you’d reckoned that until they’d disturbed the force, they could carry on, or close…
Thank you for this. It is strange to see visions begin to happen in real time. The movement moves.
home alone. if some robbers break in, like in that movie, i’m sure it will be a very humorous & entertaining situation.
speaking of entertaining, yesterday was a Twin Peaks’ marathon, the original series. I never saw it and am really enjoying it. the façade of small town Amerika vs. the reality. things about it reminded me a lot of True Detectives, one thing being “traffic in women,” the female as exchange commodity. e.g., How are those primitive Roman warriors going to reproduce? they are going to “rape the Sabines,” steal someone else’s women. in less dramatic ways, codes of endo- and exo-gamy (who one can & cannot marry), dowries (“bride price”), etc., were/are the more mundane, domestic “traffic in women.”
sex is used to sell everything (except weapons’ systems, then it’s all domination all the time, or security systems, etc.), how the man can get the girl (sic) w/the right body spray, how the girl can please the man w/the right dishwashing soap. it’s so infantile & disgusting. but it gets worse. actual traffic in women in this country alone is a multi-billion dollar a year biz. I’m referring to pornography, the legal kind, which is sex slavery cuz what woman would do that if men didn’t control all the money in society? capitalism=patriarchy.
and just why do we need “new” pornos? there’s only like a billion or trillion of these videos out there already, so what is the “market”? we get to watch people doing it on hi-def Blue Ray now? (Boogie Nights, from film to VHS.) when it comes to sex, there’s nothing new under the sun, only a limited number of things people can do.
capitalism has to devour & destroy. thinking of twin peaks again, it could be the trees at the saw mill or the young ladies drugged and/or bought off into prostitution, which includes filming, pornography. the capitalist cannot stop. it is the rape of nature. masculinity as domination. the female as male property.
and of course, under capitalism, as food becomes Mcdonald’s, beer becomes Steel Reserve, tobacco becomes Marlboro Lights, health=being pumped full of drugs, etc., etc., sex becomes pornography. and as a big gulp is better than a small gulp, the more massive the Johnson, the more deft the cocksmanship in the sack (right? how many Amerikan males have anxiety about penis size? ladies, it’s lots. how to shock a male: tell them from vase painting & other evidence, it’s pretty clear there was a time in ancient Athens when small was in. watch the consternation, the discomfort, as you mention this. but those greeks were all fags right? what did they know?) look at Ron Jeremy: ugly as hell but he’s got a big one for the logjammin’, so he “gets” the women. size is king. no one wants a smart car or Toyota yaris in the penis category. we want a suburban or Humvee.
anyway, sex, like everything, is a commodity to be sold. the fertility of the earth exists to be raped & plundered, that includes the traffic in women. no surprise how quickly the porno becomes a snuff film. it’s a small step from the mass rape known as the gang bang to the gang murder. (and I don’t know if this is true or not, or how true it is, but some people say the sex trade is an integral part of the Hollywood machine.)
now that I have sufficiently depressed myself….
hold the phone, j! you think we’re payin’ you to watch a twin peaks marathon? noting your absence here, we’d at least imagined you mightta been watchin’ somethin’ classy, like a marathon of ‘dogs of downton abbey’ (h/t mr. wd) or somethin’!
but okay, i looked up twin peaks, quite a night-time soap. murdered homecoming queen leading two separate lives, yum. but yeah, sex sells everything, and capitalism devours and destroys, an what’s left but ‘the commons’ and ‘the Rabble’? ‘women as property’ causes me to wonder if the one-off ‘million woman pink pussy hat’ march reflected that in a way, as so many women claimed ‘i felt so empowered©!’ when one asks ‘how’…no answer, just a repeat of the phrase.
Capital, of course, needs pay no attention to one-offs, but it caused me once again to wonder…why they’d dis-empowered themselves until that day? i admit that i’ve been more of an Accidental Feminist during my life, applying for, then getting, jobs in the man-job world, construction, then maintenance ‘man’ for the city of cortez, then learning carpentry, stone masonry, house-wiring a monkey could do, yada, yada.
or did society’s male authoritarianism limit their self-concepts, dreams, imaginations, etc.?
well, anyhoo, i’d at least need to offer that as far as male greek statues, genitals were sculpted on the smallish side due to the fact that most were displayed on tall pedestals, then viewed from below. the foreshortening of course, would make genitals look much larger…so, there is that. dunno about vases, myself.
ack, ron jeremy, ‘the hedgehog’; i looked, and man, is he ugly. as a side note, ever since i’d looked into buying ALZ meds for mr. wd’s mother at lower prices in canada, i’ve gotten a host of ‘male enhancement’ junk mail. but then, every morning, an ad for ‘hot asian women’ is in my junkbox, too, so…
sorry you depressed your self, but see, ya shouldda watch the other marathon. serves ya right, lol. by the by, a couple days ago some porn spanners got into one of my water protectors diaries and oooof, talk about ugly and racist.
the owls are not what they seem.
ha ha ha ha. the show at times is also hilarious. something nefarious is up w/the owls! just ask the field mice!
traffic in women…it’s easier to think about that subject w/o going ballistic when put in the context of more “primitive” times. life depends on fertility. oh so you don’t like arranged marriages? since when does liking something have to do w/anything?
but today, like the pentagon budget, it’s just all so unnecessary & wasteful. so sad the waste. but if the purpose in life is to shoot natives to steal their oil or whatever, sex traffic & other sex crimes will be right there. not possible for it not to be. perhaps the nobility or rightness of a military conflict can be gauged by who turns which women into prostitutes. people defending their own homes don’t generally pimp out their sisters. the malignant influence of US military bases around the world can be judged solely by the amount of sex trade going on. just ask the Okinawans.
one thing I like about the show is that it has an “augural” view of knowledge.
http://www.ancient.eu/Romulus_and_Remus/
in the story, at the founding of the city of Rome, R & R quarrel over “proper” interpretation of bird sign, & R then kills R. Being an actor, esp. a leader, involves a certain amount of “reading of the tea leaves” to try to know what to do, the best course of action. esp. in a military conflict where figuring out, e.g., what the weather is up to can mean defeat or failure. trying to “read” mysterious forces over which one doesn’t have control…when today our goal is to dominate & master those forces, with all the colors of the rainbow.
our society uses the scientific & technocratic jargon of experts & expertise to pull a snow job on people about how much our “leaders” know & understand about what they are doing. in the stories we tell ourselves about “crime,” forensic science plays the role of offering certainty. (alex Cockburn, pbuh, said many times fingerprinting & dna samples are a bunch of hogwash to blind people w/the “scientific” authority of police investigation. I don’t know if he’s 100% right about that, but some suspicion seems warranted.) they are just reading bird sign like the rest of us when it comes to understanding the full complexity of why humans act the way we do.
thanks for the context of ‘owls are not what they seem’. ;-) yes to rape at US bases world wild, but also among the enlisted. for the military to claim X nos. of reports, X nos. prosecuted begs the issue, doesn’t it? who gets convicted, who not, as in officers v grunts, etc.?
but how many young girls grow up dreaming of being prostitutes? but oh, my, what a socio-political hot potato! do you help license and monitor sex workers for health? do you allow it as a profession, given that so many are simply driven to it by desperate need? do you use it as pretext (sex trafficking) in the great war-driven diaspora to clamp down harder on ‘refugees’?
anyhoo, yes, cockburn may be right that some forensic testing has proven political as hell as we’ve seen, thank goodness lie detector tests aren’t admissible any longer, as far as i know.
but i’ll offer ‘The Sex Offender: the 21st Century Witch’, by David Rosen, counterpunch, june 23
when ‘sex offender’ and lists, sentences, can run amok and wild, including kids ‘sexting’ one another. although i’m hesitant to bring anything as illustrative of the wide-ranging piece, he begins:
“At the end of May, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives passed H.R.1761, the “Protecting Against Child Exploitation Act of 2017.” It is intended “to criminalize the knowing consent of the visual depiction, or live transmission, of a minor engaged in sexually explicit conduct.” Going further, those convicted of such a practice would “be fined and imprisoned not less than 15 years nor more than 30 years, 25 years nor more than 50 if two or more prior offenses and would get 35 years to life, and 30 years to life if a death occurred.” While broadly targeted at child pornography, it seeks to expand current legislation and make “sexting” — teens texting each other explicit images and words – a federal criminal offense.”
but as for ‘forensic evidence’: “Since the introduction of DNA testing and its use as evidence in criminal trials, thousands of innocent people have been exonerated, including for sex-related crimes.” and he offers links and evidence.
but good night; i’m out for the night and plan to save a bit of energy to go out when it’s very dark to see scorpio rising in the south and a bit of the milkway that mr. wd says is rising as well. ;-)
beware the early owl.
congress should pass a law that teens can only sext congress members. how many of these congresscritters are bent cuz of illegal porn or other illicit, indiscreet, immoral, etc., sexual activities? and how many were entrapped? no I don’t know any of these things for sure, but I do know congress could care less about sexting. they get their morning wood from spying, which all this sexual hysteria is a perfect pretext for. won’t someone think of the children, like trump did, w/his inordinate love of the babbies of Syria? and just what the hell is sexually explicit content? the teen section of the soon-to-be-defunct JC Penny’s summer swimwear catalog? sure these Clarence Thomas types know kiddy porn when they see it. no doubt. sexual hysteria & panic…shopping is the safest way to express your sexuality.
I backpedal on the forensic thing. what to do when the fingerprinting & dna analysis conflict????? most of this forensic discovery & re-examination of old cases did not come from w/in law enforcement, did it? so i’ll only backpedal a bit.
————–
“a well-regulated sex industry, being necessary to the health of the nation, the right of paying customers to boink shall not be abrogated”?
on the sex industry, as opposed to the sex trade, hey, whatever adults want to do *consensually*.
can it be consensual where money is involved, which one party controls? if money was removed from consideration, asking how many people would choose to be a sex worker seems akin to asking how many people would choose to be homeless. some? a few? 1 or 2? how about in a generation?
SCENE V. Mytilene. A street before the brothel.
Enter, from the brothel, two Gentlemen
First Gentleman
Did you ever hear the like?
Second Gentleman
No, nor never shall do in such a place as this, she
being once gone.
First Gentleman
But to have divinity preached there! did you ever
dream of such a thing?
Second Gentleman
No, no. Come, I am for no more bawdy-houses:
shall’s go hear the vestals sing?
First Gentleman
I’ll do any thing now that is virtuous; but I
am out of the road of rutting for ever.
Pericles, Prince of Tyre, 4.5
love your snarky tweak on the 2nd amendment, j. yes, yes! hacked congressional emails means critters are open to blackmail now! and the Presididn’t, too! but who they should really talk to is the congressional pages in the cloakrooms, no?
but oh, dear, i’d never clicked into one of david rosen’s internal links, which went to his 2007 ‘The New Disappeared‘ it starts w/ ‘liberal eliot spitzer’s new civil confinements, etc., but later comes this (oh, and he also mentions an early alex cockburn piece at the nation):
“However, facing the growing politicalization of sex offenders in the ’90s, especially what came to be called the “violent sexual predator,” legislators throughout the country moved aggressively to maximize the term of their imprisonment and, if they do get out of jail, severely regulate their lives after prison. One method employed was to expand the definition of mental disorder to encompass the less precise condition of “mental abnormality.”
In 1997, the Supreme Court upheld this new nomenclature in the Kansas v. Hendricks decision. Writing for the majority, Justice Clarence Thomas argued that mental abnormality covered under Kansas’ Sexually Violent Predator Act was a constitutionally permissible basis for civil confinement of a dangerous sex offender. He insisted that such confinement was civil, not punitive, because it was to be accompanied by treatment for the offender.”
now clarence knows from whereof he speaks, doesn’t he, Miz Hill? slight backpedaling is in order, yes.
this isn’t the case i’d seen recently as far as convicted sex offenders exonerated, that was a couple. but this one was a three-bagger conviction: ‘Exonerated after 20 years, Anna Vasquez seeks justice‘
“Anna Vasquez is one of the San Antonio Four – LGBT Latinas imprisoned for more than a decade for a horrific crime that never occurred. Now, Vasquez is working to protect others from wrongful conviction. Anna Vasquez and three of her friends – Elizabeth Ramirez, Cassandra Rivera, and Kristie Mayhugh – spent more than a decade of their lives as convicted sex offenders for a crime that never happened. In 1997 and 1998, the quad was accused of performing drug-fueled, satanic ritualistic child rape at gunpoint.
The four Latina women, who had recently come out as lesbian to their families and friends, were found guilty of a molesting two young girls, the nieces of one of the women.”, streetroots.org, may 10, 2017
the ‘southwest of salem’ film trailer:
my landlord & his just-turned 17 skateboarder son, and a friend of his son who is 19 & a solid middle class kid, Keith, who happens to be black, anyway, they are in NYC right now where the dad’s family is. so the dad is trying to inflict all these fears into his son re their interest in skateboarding around the city, saying shit like, “WHAT IF THE POLICE SHOOT KEITH????” kind of unbelievable, these overblown fears of middle Amerika. if they are skateboarding in NYC, oh yeah, & your son is diabetic, are there a whole heap of things to worry about first beside the pretty low possibility of being shot by a pig? like, just having an accident? it’s a fact that the dad never gave much tho’t to swine on black violence in this country till it became a bludgeon to threaten his son with. and his son knows way, way more about the glyphosate riddled, psychopathic, ‘roided up, heat-packing, future bacon strips & their lust for violence than the dad does.
fear fear fear. in order to protect themselves from the bogey men they see on Law & Order: child safety division (& shows like true detective & twin peaks), there is no amount of authority the middlers will not concede to the state. w/o one second’s hesitation. how else will the pigs protect the jon bonet ramseys of the world?
for the giggles, this guy’s son is Asian-Amerikan, Korean & Kaukasian to be exact, except culturally, wherein he’s all like:
hey, doctor ballistics; what’s up with that little ball o’ sweat ya got hangin’ off your nosecone, anyway?
but hold the phone; it was keith’s dad in nyc who’d just twigged that might be assassinated by porcines? not gettin’ why he went full-tilt bludgeoning; what am i missing? why now? didn’t keith live w/ them in NYC one upon a time?
and your landlord’s korea/kaukasian son is a bro’ now? kewl!
the dad of the 17 yr old saying this to the 17 yr old about the 19 yr old black kid. all live in charlotte now. but the dad’s parents are in queens, where they are all now visiting. the two boys are skateboarders. they skateboard unsupervised in charlotte all the time. not sure why skating in another city is suddenly a gigantic threat. and if it is, well, there are other ways to deal with it.
Pericles is great. it’s a “romance” and so full of wild improbability. act 4, pericles’ daughter marina, the true hero of the story & only 14 years old or so, gets sold to a brothel. this play is believed to have been co-written by someone else & the bard. act 4 is supposed to have been written by Will.
gack, then, it was your asian landlord w/ the heebie-jeebies. sad, really, ennit?
yes and the riddle about antiochus’s incestuous relationship…with his daughter? guess right, be killed; guess wrong, be murdered. wasn’t that the devil of it wiki described?
the resolution of the incest riddle, pericles to marina:
“O Helicanus, strike me, honour’d sir;
Give me a gash, put me to present pain;
Lest this great sea of joys rushing upon me
O’erbear the shores of my mortality,
And drown me with their sweetness. O, come hither,
*Thou that beget’st him that did thee beget;*
Thou that wast born at sea, buried at Tarsus,
And found at sea again!”
quite good intro.
i’d kept trying to remember to say that i’d never even heard of Pericles, Prince of Tyre, so…inevitably, i read the wiki, and followed a yotta links, even to one on cherubim, who it turns out have multiple sets of wings, and even some rabbinic scholars name as such.
Why the donkey is dead. As if you didn’t already know. Ralph Nader witnesses.
https://theintercept.com/2017/06/25/ralph-nader-the-democrats-are-unable-to-defend-the-u-s-from-the-most-vicious-republican-party-in-history/
The fundamental issue in opposition to Trumpublicanism is the lack of geographical presence after 30 years of Democratic professional consultants.
Anyone interested in building an actual resistance would be wise to start where Democrats are not strong and build lefty support to where they are strong. My challenge to the younger generation: flip Mississippi. A younger generation came very close to doing that 50 years ago. Close enough that LBJ at the 1964 convention got scared enough to pass some civil rights bills. It will be a fusion party if you expect to win (ask Rev. Barber about how to do that.) And you will meet armed opposition from more than the local law enforcement organizations.
As a fun diversion, read this carefully and think how you would organize the 3 million people of Mississippi to look after their own interests through existing local communities.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mississippi
Here’s a very interesting and helpful fact: Mississippi is one of five states that elects its state officials in odd-numbered years (the others are Kentucky, Louisiana, New Jersey and Virginia). Mississippi holds elections for these offices every four years, always in the year preceding Presidential elections. That would be 2019, 2023, 2027. Also good to know are when local elections are, especially if you are building from the grassroots up.
Might be helpful to review the labor history of Mississippi. The timber workers strike a hundred years ago is a milestone.
Mississippi is used to being a political battleground. They almost expect it, and are a bit touchy about defending white supremacy. That is the most challenging part of this diversion. How do you flip identity (white identity) to class understanding? How long can you be secure in the knowledge that you are ranked 50th in most “good” rankings and 1st in most “bad” rankings?
What you need to know about the media:
http://www.jacksonfreepress.com/news/2003/jun/08/who-owns-local-media/
Who owns Mississippi? At least these corporations:
http://business.msstate.edu/programs/ib/resources/ms/index.php
Pretty much what you need to know about agribusiness, another aspect of who owns Mississippi. (Lots of maps and tables)
Click to access b1108.pdf
Enjoy!
okay, i read it; only for you, i reckon. what fusion party, and flip mississippi to what? a fusion party? i admit i liked the link to politico’s hilarity on lizzie warren and the ‘defense’ industry.
Heeeeee’s baaaacckkkk. He didn’t BREXIT out.
Jim MessinaVerified account @Messina2012
Being home reminded me why it’s so important to fight for what you love and believe in. I cant let Trump take it all away.
What would that be, Jim?
oh, bother. had you said that messina had been advising the tories how to win? and is he indicating that he would have stayed for brexit but for T?
But for the peril of his Obamacare baby. He was Baucus’s chief of staff before he moved into the White House as an Obama adviser.
Oh, bother. Exactly the right response.
snort! but oy, the tories hashtag on the twit machine groweth vicious, fill of polemical images, esp. concerning may’s billion+ bucks to DUP to form an alliance, but couldn’t find the money to protect the folks in grenfell towers.
aw, shucks, i’ll bring one, okay?
A nugget from This is Hell;
All things in common: On the possibilities of life after capitalism.
https://thisishell.com/interviews/958-massimo-de-angelis
It’s a 34 minute interview and highly recommended by yours truly.
thanks, v. for any who can’t take the time to listen, or, like myself, don’t absorb audio well, this is a review of the book at counterpunch. ‘Omnia Sunt Communia: May Day 2017’ by Peter Linebaugh. the popular resistance newsletter had sent it in advance of may day.
trying to tell folks who the constitution protected, who it meant to shut outside any sort of ‘democracy’ is always an uphill battle, isn’t it?
aaaaaand…speaking of the constitution and the rule of law: ‘Unanimous Supreme Court reinstates anti-Muslim travel ban’, tom carter, wsws.org
“In its order yesterday, the Supreme Court added the caveat that the travel ban “may not be enforced against foreign nationals who have a credible claim of a bona fide relationship with a person or entity in the United States,” such as those who have family members or professional or academic connections in the US. However, the Supreme Court ruled, the ban can be enforced with respect to all “other foreign nationals.”
The caveat is a political compromise that does not have any legal significance. Its only purpose is to justify the cowardly capitulation by the court’s so-called liberal wing. The historic significance of yesterday’s decision is that Donald Trump’s presidential decree attacking Muslims, which was drafted by his fascistic advisers Steve Bannon and Stephen Miller, will be allowed to go into effect with the approval of all nine justices on the Supreme Court.”
ccrjustice had sent their press release on the decision via email.
I hate to be a bearer of bad news, but the new Transformers movie lacks some of the subtlety of the previous movies. The Decepticons are just not as convincing.
now real bad news: this article is about some rogue top cop, a Mr. Perez, on VZ taking shots & tossing grenades into the VZ Supreme court building, from a helicopter. The NYT is drooling over the prospect of destroying VZ (that’s right), that’s i wasted a click on this story & not any of the other patent nonsense, but I just found it interesting they felt compelled to include this little nugget of hyperreality in this story, and so here it is:
“Adding to the mystery around Mr. Pérez is a 2015 Venezuelan film called “Muerte Suspendida,” or “Suspended Death,” in which he plays a police officer and is listed as a producer.
The trailer tells the story of a kidnapping in which a gang armed with automatic rifles and rocket launchers captures a wealthy man at a gas station. The family pleads for the help of the police, who mount an ambitious rescue. Mr. Pérez appears at the end of the trailer, apparently part of the rescue team, emerging from water in scuba gear.
“A story based on true events,” the trailer’s opening says.” (end quote).
i’m not certain I understand precisely why the NYT includes this detail about this asshole, but something tells me words like innocence, naivete, human interest, etc., are not it. just what do movies have to do w/reality, NYT? is the NYT concocting the same fantasy about Mr. Perez as he apparently did about himself? why draw attention to that possibility? not sure, but the tone of the piece is rather sympathetic to the notion of taking potshots at judges. let’s ban a staged performance of an assassination of a leader (J. Caesar, NYC Shakespeare in the park) but create sympathy for indiscriminate assassination attempts in other target nations. why does anything surprise me, esp. just what a sewer the NYT is?
lol on the mini-review of the ‘new transformers’ flick. thanks for bring the times’ take, and yes, wtf on the film, anyhoo? they’re are lot of clips and seemingly the whole Muerte Suspendida film on youtube. and oy, i just clicked right in, surprise.
“‘Venezuela has been shaken for weeks by large protests against the government, some of which have turned violent. It has resorted to increasingly heavy-handed tactics, including torture, to beat back demonstrations, according to accounts by detained demonstrators and human rights activists. More than 70 people have died.’
now i admit i’m unfamiliar w/ this:
“Attempted coups have shaken Venezuelan politics in recent decades. Hugo Chávez, who later became the country’s president, made a failed attempt to seize power by force in 1992 when he was a lieutenant colonel in the army. The uprising was crushed by the military, and Mr. Chávez was jailed.”
different tweet, same dude:
and yes, maduro did and has claimed that. the back-story. mr. wd had alerted me to (ahem) seemingly biased coverage at the guardian yesterday, but they’ve been hittin’ maduro hard for a long time now. i’d clicked, hadn’t seen it as ‘US breaking news’ (wtf?). but i read him telesur english’s coverage. a few bits:
“The top court’s building in northern Caracas was sealed off after the national guard repelled the attack, avoiding civilian deaths.
A helicopter from the Venezuela’s Scientific, Penal and Criminal Investigations agency was stolen Tuesday evening, circled around the Supreme Court building, firing shots toward the building, followed by two explosions which were said to be grenades, according to official sources.
A banner was unfurled from the helicopter that read, “350 Libertad,” in reference to article 350 of the Bolivarian Constitution that opposition forces are attempting to invoke to stop the National Constituent Assembly. Perez is said to be an inspector with the CICPC and took off from the La Carlota airbase with the stolen helicopter.
“We are going to capture the person responsible for this terrorist act,” Maduro said, indicating that the pilot works for Miguel Rodriguez Torres, who is being investigated for ties to the DEA and CIA.”
now if you click the m r torres link, you get to that new information. but as none of the other hyperlinks within were in english, i’d backed out none the wiser.
Doesn’t need much comment, close friends. Intelligent beings we could learn from. Touched my heartstrings.
‘Elephant escapes from Circus World in Baraboo, strolls through neighborhood‘, lacrosse tribune
glad kelly just strolled after her escape, nonq. and that no crazy amerikan shot her! yeah, what magnificent critters. soon most of the live ones will be in zoos, and egad, circuses. fancy killing them for their ivory!
may i add this travesty? of course… ‘Venezuela Protesters Set 40 Tons of Subsidized Food on Fire’, telesur english
“Some 40,000 families will be affected by the act of sabotage.
Two Venezuelan protesters attacked a state-owned storehouse Thursday, setting fire to the building and destroying food reserves kept there.
The violent incident follows the pattern of violent acts promoted since April by opposition groups across the country in order to destabilize the government of President Nicolas Maduro.” goddam them.