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Sun, 29 Sep 2024 12:28:50 GMT

"'I had a different response to Trump’s words. At first it was visceral disgust mixed with fear. Then the memories kicked in. This is the kind of talk the man who raped me said. It was some version of that I was going to like the experience, which was deeply untrue. And that I wouldn’t tell anyone if I knew what was best for me.'"

Read the rest: https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/on-language-and-predation#more-1502126

#electable

Wed, 11 Sep 2024 10:43:55 GMT

Swifty speaks:

"Like many of you, I watched the debate tonight. If you haven’t already, now is a great time to do your research on the issues at hand and the stances these candidates take on the topics that matter to you the most. As a voter, I make sure to watch and read everything I can about their proposed policies and plans for this country.

Recently I was made aware that AI of ‘me’ falsely endorsing Donald Trump’s presidential run was posted to his site. It really conjured up my fears around AI, and the dangers of spreading misinformation. It brought me to the conclusion that I need to be very transparent about my actual plans for this election as a voter. The simplest way to combat misinformation is with the truth.

I will be casting my vote for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz in the 2024 Presidential Election. I’m voting for @kamalaharris because she fights for the rights and causes I believe need a warrior to champion them. I think she is a steady-handed, gifted leader and I believe we can accomplish so much more in this country if we are led by calm and not chaos. I was so heartened and impressed by her selection of running mate @timwalz, who has been standing up for LGBTQ+ rights, IVF, and a woman’s right to her own body for decades.

I’ve done my research, and I’ve made my choice. Your research is all yours to do, and the choice is yours to make. I also want to say, especially to first time voters: Remember that in order to vote, you have to be registered! I also find it’s much easier to vote early. I’ll link where to register and find early voting dates and info in my story.

With love and hope,

Taylor Swift

Childless Cat Lady"

Should qualify this thread: I doubt that it will matter but I still give her credit for what her peers are too cowardly to do.

Wed, 11 Sep 2024 10:43:35 GMT

Swifty speaks:

With love and hope,

Taylor Swift

Childless Cat Lady"

Should qualify this thread: I doubt that it will matter but I still give her credit for what her peers are too cowardly to do.

Wed, 11 Sep 2024 10:10:40 GMT

And this is why I tend not to watch a debate let alone sit through the whole thing--well this as well as Trump's too triggering for my delicate self:

They're not aimed for people like me or us here.

https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2024/09/master-class-2

Rather, they're aimed at the media who then tell their audiences what they missed.

More relevantly here, I am regularly disappointed by how Kamala answers questions about policy generally, more so when it involves flip-flops.

But what matters isn't what people like me think but what media audiences think.

So the media say Kamala won. (Times, too, has been fairly positive.) That may be huge and, yes, if they say she won, she won. What I think doesn't matter.

Mon, 09 Sep 2024 09:02:09 GMT

The Founders were first and foremost out for the freedom to acquire wealth without state interference. The big break is where slave policy in Britain and the future US diverged. (See the work of Gerald Horne.)

So this:

TW: in The Radicalism of the American Revolution (1991, Vintage Books), Gordon Wood recounts (p. 108), that General Nathanal Greene wrote that the “most dangerous” men

“...knew the secret avenues to the human Heart and having the power to make the worse appear the better,” they had the capacity for ensnaring ordinary people in chains. “Ninety-nine parts out of one hundred of mankind, are ever inclined to live in peace, and cultivate a good understanding with each other.” Only members of “the remaining small part”—those with considerable abilities” were “joined to an intriguing disposition”—were “the real authors, advisers, and perpetrators of wars, treasons, and those other violences, which have, in all ages, more or less disgraced the annals of man.”

Controlling and channeling the overweening passions of these extraordinary men—the aristocratic passions of avarice and ambition: “the Love of Power and the Love of Money,” as Benjamin Franklin called them—seemed to many to be the central political problem of the age. Some thought that “ambition and avarice are springs of action so utterly opposite, that they never did or ever will unite in the same person. “ Others, however, were convinced not only that these two great passions “may subsist together in the same breast,” but that when “united in view of the same object, they have in many minds the most violent Effects. Place before the Eyes of such Men a Post of Honour, that at the same time be a Place of Profit, and they will move Heaven and Earth to obtain it.”

Via https://real-economics.blogspot.com/2024/09/week-end-wrap-political-economy\_8.html

Sun, 03 Dec 2023 11:21:58 GMT

"Ms. Habba told Plaintiff that she “had heard” about what was going on and wanted to “help her”. Ms. Habba acted as if Ms. Bianco was her friend and that she [Habba] was very concerned about Plaintiff.

https://abovethelaw.com/2023/12/alina-habba-you-got-some-splainin-to-do/

Plaintiff told Ms. Habba the name of her lawyer. Rather than comply with the Rules of Professional Conduct (“R.P.C), specifically the prohibition on communicating with a person who is represented by counsel about the subiect of the representation while actively working on behalf of the interests of an adverse party. Habba encouraged Plaintiff to fire her lawyer, saying: 'you know you can fire [Plaintiff’s lawyer at the time], right?'”

Someone expected complying with rules of professional ethics from someone happy to be fPOTUS' attorney?

Please.

Mon, 27 Nov 2023 15:09:50 GMT

“The Holocene climate was the product of a delicate, intricate balance. A mirror of ice and snow in the Arctic, Antarctic, and in many mountain and tundra regions reflected sunlight..

https://probablefutures.org/heat/planetary-balance/

…moderating the warming effects of solar radiation. In the Tropics, trees and plants cycled carbon, ensuring more carbon remained stored on land in forest and vegetation than escaped into the atmosphere. The result was an atmosphere that kept Earth at a stable temperature ideal for our species as well as for those glaciers and forests.

Climate change threatens to push our planet out of the Holocene. The driving force behind climate change is heat. Heat is familiar, it is intuitive, and understanding its attributes will help you understand our changing climate more clearly.”

I know. Again with this. Like all macro problems — crises — that don’t have a significant effect on their special interests, our leaders are not going to anywhere near enough. We’ve probably already passed the tipping point.

That’s your great western civilization: Bringing literally habitat destroying freedom to acquire wealth by any means.

Including the current crisis.

Mon, 27 Nov 2023 15:08:53 GMT

“The Holocene climate was the product of a delicate, intricate balance. A mirror of ice and snow in the Arctic, Antarctic, and in many mountain and tundra regions reflected sunlight..

https://probablefutures.org/heat/planetary-balance/

That’s your great western civilization: Bringing literally habitat destroying freedom to acquire wealth by any means.

Including the current crisis.

Sat, 25 Nov 2023 17:04:07 GMT

To get somewhat personal: When I see an obese person, first thought is that it’s unhealthy. I don’t believe that being 50 or 100 or200 pounds overweight is in any way healthy.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12790111/One-worlds-fattest-men-dead-home-trapped-five-years-44-stone-Russian-vowed-start-soup-diet-day-heart-attack.html?ns\_mchannel=rss&ns\_campaign=1490&ito=1490

We were on a beach in Nelson, BC, this sometime this summer. There was a seriously obese young woman. First I of course thought the obesity was unhealthy.

And then I started to admire her matching tats going from the buttocks to the upper parts of her legs. Worked as a pretty good distraction from the thoughts about unhealthiness.

BTW: Partially at fault is that most if not all the food most people buy is unhealthy shit where profits come before producing anything worth eating.

Sat, 25 Nov 2023 17:04:01 GMT

To get somewhat personal: When I see an obese person, first thought is that it’s unhealthy. I don’t believe that being 50 or 100 or200 pounds overweight is in any way healthy.

We were on a beach in Nelson, BC, this sometime this summer. There was a seriously obese young woman. First I of course thought the obesity was unhealthy.

And then I started to admire her matching tats going from the buttocks to the upper parts of her legs. Worked as a pretty good distraction from the thoughts about unhealthiness.

BTW: Partially at fault is that most if not all the food most people buy is unhealthy shit where profits come before producing anything worth eating.

Wed, 22 Nov 2023 11:04:24 GMT

"Maria W. Miller was born free in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1803. At the age of five she lost both of her parents and was forced to become a servant in the household of a white clergyman with whom she lived for ten years. https://www.aaihs.org/maria-w-stewart-and-a-womanist-theological-tradition/

She was not afforded formal education but learned as much as possible by reviewing books from the family library. At age fifteen, Miller supported herself by taking on a job as a domestic servant while advancing her education at Sabbath schools. She would later move to Boston, where on August 10, 1826, she married James W. Stewart, a forty-four-year-old veteran of the War of 1812. After the war, James earned a substantial living as a merchant, enabling the Stewarts to live a comfortable, middle-class life among Boston’s Black community. This allotted Maria the opportunity to fully dedicate herself to cultivating her intellectual prowess.

This all changed when, just three years later, her husband died. Although Stewart was left with a substantial inheritance, white executors of her husband’s will defrauded her of it after a drawn-out court battle. Once again, she was forced to return to a life of domestic service. She admonished the restrictive conditions in the US that continued to suppress educational opportunity for Black people, prompting her to educational advocacy. In her 1831 tract, Religion and the Pure Principles of Morality, the Sure Foundation on Which We Must Build, Stewart inquired, “How long shall the fair daughters of Africa be compelled to bury their minds and talents beneath a load of iron pots and kettles?” She called to conscious the stringent domestic labor that defined life for many Black women and brought to light the specificity of Black women’s experiences, as regularly defined by both gender and racial oppression. Stewart encouraged Black women to break free from gender confines by pursuing formal education and careers, particularly in teaching and other leadership roles.

But what would inspire her, a Black woman, to defy the social mores of the time—and risk public ostracization, arrest or assault—to publicly advocate for educational equity and freedom during her Franklin Hall lecture?

Wed, 22 Nov 2023 11:03:48 GMT

https://www.aaihs.org/maria-w-stewart-and-a-womanist-theological-tradition/

With a heritage like that... *sigh*

Mon, 20 Nov 2023 11:23:28 GMT

"All Property, indeed, except the Savage's temporary Cabin, his Bow, his Matchcoat, and other little Acquisitions, absolutely necessary for his Subsistence, seems to me to be the Creature of public Convention. Hence the Public has the Right of Regulating Descents, and all other Conveyances of Property, and even of limiting the Quantity and the Uses of it. All the Property that is necessary to a Man, for the Conservation of the Individual and the Propagation of the Species, is his natural Right, which none can justly deprive him of: But all Property superfluous to such purposes is the Property of the Publick, who, by their Laws, have created it, and who may therefore by other Laws dispose of it, whenever the Welfare of the Publick shall demand such Disposition. He that does not like civil Society on these Terms, let him retire and live among Savages. He can have no right to the benefits of Society, who will not pay his Club towards the Support of it."

https://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/v1ch16s12.html

Much as Franklin is the only intellectual amongst the Founding Fathers actually worthwhile, he wrote this in the context of nascent capitalism greatly expanding a right of private property which maybe actually wasn't the greatest idea produced by western civilization.

Mon, 20 Nov 2023 11:23:26 GMT

https://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/v1ch16s12.html

Mon, 20 Nov 2023 11:12:50 GMT

Via: https://alexkrainer.substack.com/p/the-empire-sails-into-a-hurricane

"Five days after they lit the fuse on 7 October, Hamas leader and founder Khaled Mashal published a video message appealing to Muslims worldwide, asking them to carry out Jihad and become martyrs for Al-Aqsa. He urged Muslims to spill their blood for Palestine and even asked religious leaders to issue a fatwa compelling Muslims to take part in the holy war against Israel. Mashal himself wasn't exactly volunteering: he sent his appeal from Qatar where he is safe from the mayhem he unleashed in Gaza.

The phoney Palestinian patriot calls for a global jihad.

Mashal has no links to Gaza since he never actually lived there. He was born in the West Bank, raised in Jordan and Kuwait and over the years operated from Jordan, Syria, Qatar and Egypt and his loyalties lay with his paymasters. Fortunately, apart from a handful of lone-wolf attackers, the Muslim world largely ignored the fake Muslim and even faker Palestinian patriot Mashal. In the weeks that followed the war's outbreak, Muslim world backed away from the impulse to attack Israel, and even Hezbollah's Hassan Nasrallah declined to open a new front from Lebanon.

In short, they didn't take the bait. Had muslim countries united to attack Israel, many western nations would have united to defend her, and might even have been able to do so with substantial popular support."

Gotta, I'm amused by this delusional hysteria.

Various entities might be attacking US troops and bases in the region but the lack of Arab support for Palestine -- already receding for years -- was pretty much shut down by the Abraham accords which lack of support is what drove Hamas to roll the dice, so to speak, on 10/7.

When you have nothing left to lose...

Mon, 20 Nov 2023 11:10:15 GMT

Via: https://alexkrainer.substack.com/p/the-empire-sails-into-a-hurricane

The phoney Palestinian patriot calls for a global jihad.

Gotta, I'm amused by this delusional hysteria.

When you have nothing left to lose...

Sun, 19 Nov 2023 14:31:01 GMT

"While the media criticize social media as harmful to children, the legacy media have been detrimental to Blacks, Browns, Native Americans, and Muslims. This might account for Black men being in the dark about what’s in store for Blacks in the event of a Trump administration. If they knew, they’d realize that a vote for Trump is suicide by vote."

https://www.counterpunch.org/2023/11/17/majority-of-black-men-prefer-trump-suicide-by-vote/

To be clear, that level of knowledge (or lack thereof) is not special to anyone.

The difference (unaddressed) is that POC, like labor, have given the Des so much support for so little -- enough to blind them to the harm from the GOP when the dems have brought so little good.