May 30, 2021

In These Times, Still Feelin' the Birthday Gras for Bobby

...Across the street
They've nailed the curtains
They're getting ready
For the feast
The Phantom of the Opera
A perfect image of a priest
They're spoon feeding Casanova
To get him to feel more assured
Then they'll kill him
With self-confidence
After poisoning him with words

And the Phantom's
Shouting to skinny girls
"Get Outta Here
If You Don't Know
Casanova is just being
Punished for going
To Desolation Row"

Now at midnight all the agents
And the superhuman crew
Come out and round up everyone
That knows more than they do
Then they bring them to the factory
Where the heart-attack machine
Is strapped across their shoulders
And then the kerosene
Is brought down from the castles
By insurance men who go
Check to see
That nobody is escaping
To Desolation Row

Praise be to Nero's Neptune
The Titanic sails at dawn
And everybody's shouting
"Which Side Are You On?"
And Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot
Fighting in the captain's tower
While calypso singers laugh at them
And fishermen hold flowers
Between the windows of the sea
Where lovely mermaids flow
And nobody has to think too much
About Desolation Row

Yes,
I received your letter yesterday
(About the time the door knob broke)
When you asked how I was doing
Was that some kind of joke?
All these people that you mention
Yes, I know them, they're quite lame
I had to rearrange their faces
And give them all another name
Right now I can't read too good
Don't send me no more letters no
Not unless you mail them
From Desolation Row

May 23, 2021

When it Comes to Democracy, Sundays are No Longer Days of Complete Rest

No complacency.
There are no radical left.
There are the radical right.
Radical right men.
This year is mobilizing. Next year is action.
At least half the population are not safe from white supremacists posed as 'civic nationalists.'
Peaceful vigilance.


https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/american-insurrection/

May 11, 2021

The politics of spite cannot abide a smoothly run, no-drama democracy.

Or...

Democracy with dignity.
Democracy with (omg!) equality of participation.
Democracy with peace.
Democracy with good faith intentions.
Democracy with stability.
Democracy with good governance for all.
Democracy with respect for reality.
Democracy with transparency, facts, truth and science.
Democracy with investment in the demos.
Democracy with visions of the future.
Democracy with rule of law.
Democracy with life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-laws-elections-voting-health-4cb9244c381f1031c9ce20610c79a931?fbclid=IwAR0nEJrlqBNb91B7ETmydz0Y6ZCbyzuqKpPzRX4CUtaY-1MX1zquBDIXVcA

Republicans are making voting a pre-crime totalitarian nightmare for Americans. If covid couldn't smash Americans' voting, then they will. The politics of exclusion, extremism and spite is why Democrats must nuke the filibuster -- now used for obstruction over deliberation -- and pass the For The People Act.

May 11, 2021

Rachel Maddow -- News on Covid, DarkSide, AZ's Fraudit, Schumer & McConnell Bigfooting S1 Rules,

and Medina Spirit's Cheating Trainer Calling "Cancel Culture" for Being Caught

May 8, 2021

John Oliver Reviews Tuckertalk

John Oliver's is the first thoughtful review of tuckertalk I've seen -- talk that poses white supremacist, or even "replacement theory" talk as civilized thought, even Western philosophical thought.

Less than 1% of the country watch Carlson per night. Tucker needn't preoccupy us; still, his sophomoric questioning style can be filed away as more drag on the nation's unity and progress in solving larger problems like cascading climate change.

Per Oliver, FOX loves its big signal-to-noise distractor who grooms 3 million and their adjacents ( still not more than another 1% of the country) with language that twists their beliefs about who are the good and bad people, who are American and who are not, who deserve power and who don't, who deserve to exist and who don't, what “civilization" is superior and which inferior.

Tuckertalk reinforces their belief that their America and their very “civilized” selves, are in an existential crisis for survival, as if a subculture of 3-5 million is the equivalent of a dying civilization.

Across statehouses (“The pests are voting!” “Kill the democracy beast!”) ALEC templates for suppressing votes get passed around.

Last obvious thing: the other drag on democracy’s big problem solving tasks is other media’s similar profitable tendency toward elevating the FOX/trumpcult subculture of controversies to a ’thing.’ We see the stuff of digital ad displays on major news sites — when media knows better that it's real, usable information that people of democracies need.

May 6, 2021

Visions

Given the politics of where Western democracies are going, Gonzalez' words seem relevant.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100215405494

May 6, 2021

Two Competing Visions of Food and the Future -- Bill Gates and Dr. Vandana Shiva

At times it's good to review the obvious for the same reasons we still say "I love you" when others already know that.

Food, farmlands, biodiversity, envisioning the future are paths so worn that we lose sight of those who would shuttle us into their more synthetic or profitable paths.

Thinking about humans' future, can Vandana Shiva and Bill Gates coordinate a future for human good? Whose activities will do the greatest good for the greatest number?

Monsanto's insurgency and Gates' insurgency on farmland and food supply are facts. It's even said that their goals are the same.
Human producers of food are the worst sufferers of the world's food crisis.

Diversity of species is the base on which we produce our food. Kill biodiversity, kill food. Yet we wouldn't think that, given the caloric intake of rich countries, which doesn't necessarily mean nutritional intake. It's also true that whole food is medicine.

Industrial farming imposes water pollution, climate change; it destroys biodiversity, and sacrifices 8,500 crops for 8 commodities.

Eating is a ecological, ethical, political and agricultural act.
No more separation between those who grow the food and those who eat food.
No more for-profit separation of humans from nature's abundance.

How old this is shows how old these food and future vision conflicts are.

Forget Brand, and for now just take in some information.


Who is buying up Earth essentials is who we need to see.

If we keep on our radar the names of those controlling land and energy, we can glimpse their visions of humans' future, how they use theirs and others' power to get humans there.

Collecting land and knowledge (data and research) is what the 1% do. To them, human free will is secondary and not self evident. The way I see them so far (not very well), their efforts don't encourage a collective unity of any vision but theirs. Their efforts don't look democratic. To find out what they know requires FOIAs, political will, both kind of useless when finding out what the Davos crowd's up to.


I don't credit our political opponents with foresight or wisdom, yet this 1%'er activity might be one reason some Republicans say democracy is not important. The politics of AZ vote count theatrics to AI algorithms to fascism to plutocracy and autocracy are 1% dark money donor financed. History's shown that however benevolent such governance begins, it goes downhill for anyone but the 1%.

So, we're not just facing the Kochs, Mercers and Waltons' Republican visions. We need to see the vision of a big donor to Democrats, Bill Gates. I'd like to optimistically believe he's a force for a good anthropocene, but so far, his activities don't support my politics or vision of the future.

Some want to guide Earth's future while others pursue space control. I don't mind being among the puny humans who can only watch them, as long as my descendants get to live a better future than what's being envisioned by the 1% right now. Beyond Biden and Harris, I don't see any way this government will 'swerve' their power. I see them controlling global wealth and allowing the veneer of democracy to those humans who want it.

Some readings...






Your thoughts...?

May 5, 2021

To The Facebook Oversight Board

To The Facebook Oversight Board --

Afia Asantewaa Asare-Kyei
Evelyn Awad
Endy Bayuni
Catalina Botero-Marino
Katherine Chen
Nighat Dad
Jamal Greene
Tawakkol Karman
Maina Kiai
Sudhir Krishnaswamy
Ronaldo Lemos
Michael McConnell
Suzanne Nossel
Julie Owono
Emi Palmor
Alan Rusbridger
Andras Sajo
John Samples
Nicolas Suzor
Helle Thorning-Schmidt

When you 'rule' on whether Donald Trump can rejoin Facebook, remember that it is public knowledge in the U.S. that

-- during Trump's presidency you allowed him to break your Terms of Service countless times without suspending him;
-- during his presidency you allowed him to post fundraising issues to solicit followers' donations;
-- from Nov 4 2020 until Jan 6 you allowed his 2000+ posts to claim that the 2020 election was stolen, which led to his 'friends' storming the U.S. Capitol on his behalf on Jan 6 to literally stop Congress from certifying America's popular and electoral vote;
-- you only suspended him when other platforms banned him for life;
-- he will use Facebook to post the same claims again;
-- you routinely suspend U.S. citizens for posts that don't adhere to your never-defined "Community" or its "Standards," suspensions that you base on other posters' "reports", with many suspensions lasting for at least a month at a time.


If you decide, one day short of four months of his attempt to delegitimize the election and incite seditious insurrection on Congress, that Trump may rejoin Facebook, you have shown that you are not a neutral platform in

-- your disregard for abuse of the First Amendment, since you would continue to allow a public figure to repeatedly yell "fire" in your platform theater when other platforms do not,
-- your accommodation of fake covid claims and fake covid cure claims,
-- your disregard for his followers to call their fellow Americans, once again, liars in their votes,
— your platform's support for his disproven claims about being elected "by a landslide" when other platforms do not,
-- your allowing his followers a platform to repeat his lies about popular vote fraud,
— your disregard for his and his believers’ predictable repeating of lies that Joe Biden's presidency is illegitimate,
— allowing him and his believers' continued poisoning of truthful public knowledge that Joe Biden is the legitimate president through their fellow Americans' popular vote (81+ million) and Electoral College votes,
-- your continued disregard for continued poisoning of democratic discourse that continues to cry "fire" on your platform,
-- your accommodation of debunked inflammatory conspiracist claims,
— your trustworthiness in promoting "community standards"
-- your pro-Trumpism,
-- your anti-democracy stance,
-- corporate disregard for who and what secures or endangers Americans' freedoms and democracy.


If you rule that Trump can rejoin Facebook, you, more than any social media platform, will prove that Facebook is not to be trusted by at least 81 million Americans who have the common sense to know factual truth from lies. You will prove to be unwilling to learn from history. As the boycotts continue against American companies, I'll be among the Americans who close their Facebook accounts, and you'll likely become Parler lite.

May 5, 2021

Chris Hayes and Rachel Maddow -- Facebook's Ruling On Trump's Suspension

from Chris Hayes



from Rachel Maddow -- start 31:56



from The New Yorker

May 2, 2021

The Politics of Earth Cleanup Policy: End Fossil Fuel Plastic Before It Kills Earth and Us

Beyond the focus on our political opponents is still the world that will impact everyone.

By 2050 there will be more plastic than fish in the oceans. It’s an environmental crisis in the making for nearly 70 years. Plastic pollution stands with agricultural CO2 emissions as one of the largest environmental threats facing humans and animals globally. Because it affects 70% of Earth.

100 companies should not be killing the oceans, land earthlings and 7.5 billion of us for money. It's "bad for business."
When oceans die, so will multi-celled land life.

The "fundamental" problems:
-- political laziness to end production & use of fossil fuel and single use plastics.
-- attacking plastic from the death end to the production end
-- ignoring and neglecting the well being of our descendants.



https://noplasticwaste.org






https://ed.ted.com/cleanup