2018.09.25 LinkBlog

Soviet space art by Andrei Sokolov, printed 1963.
Soviet space art by Andrei Sokolov, printed 1963.

‘The anger games are far from over’: A sociologist explains why uneducated white males won’t abandon ‘bullying’ Trump over Kavanaugh allegations

‘…Kavanaugh gave a speech in 2015 that has now become notorious, in which he said, “What happens at Georgetown Prep, stays at Georgetown Prep. That’s been a good thing for all of us I think.”…’

https://www.rawstory.com/2018/09/anger-games-far-sociologist-explains-uneducated-white-males-wont-abandon-bullying-trump-kavanaugh-allegations



Another millionaire funded foundation effort to reinvent journalism. It is not that this is always results in something bad, but that again the model that journalism can be independent and self-funding and self-supporting has become a massive failure in the 'Information Age' – which is a huge conundrum.
/jd

new news website: https://themarkup.org/

‘The Markup, dedicated to investigating technology and its effect on society, will be led by two former ProPublica journalists. Craig Newmark gave $20 million to help fund the operation.

[….] The group has also raised $2 million from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, and $1 million collectively from the Ford Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and the Ethics and Governance of Artificial Intelligence Initiative.

[….] Craigslist, which Mr. Newmark founded in the mid-1990s, helped to decimate print newspapers’ main source of revenue at the time: classified advertising. Recently, he has given several substantial donations to journalistic institutions, including $20 million to the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism.

“We’re in an information war now,” Mr. Newmark said…’

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/23/business/media/the-markup-craig-newmark.html


https://themarkup.org/


She gets rock n roll a rock n roll station
And a rock n roll dream
She’s making movies on location
She don’t know what it means
But the music make her want to be the story

Dire Straits - Skateaway


Steve Austin and the Six Million Dollar Man?
/jd

Steve Austin and the Six Million Dollar Man?
September 23, 1975: Test pilot Bill Dana with an experimental X-24B lifting body aircraft on the lakebed at NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center in California.


My photos
/jd

Voltál a Bacsó Béla utcában mostanában? A dzsentrifikáció tönkreteszi. // Have you visited Bacsó Béla utca lately? Gentrification is destroying it.

Budapest Hungary
District VIII, Bacsó Béla utca & Klu-Béla
September 2018
» https://redjade.tumblr.com/post/178410834730
» https://redjade.tumblr.com
» https://www.facebook.com/DzsediFenykepesz

Voltál a Bacsó Béla utcában mostanában? A dzsentrifikáció tönkreteszi. // Have you visited Bacsó Béla utca lately? …

Publiée par Dzsédí Budapesti Fényképész – redjade photography sur Lundi 24 septembre 2018


Spain. Just Do It.
/jd

Spain ‘ready to recognise Palestinian state’, urges EU to join

‘…Spain is to spearhead a move within the European Union to recognise Palestine as an independent state, the country’s foreign minister said, adding that if the initiative fails the government is ready to recognise Palestine individually

If the EU “is not able to reach unanimous decision – each to their own,” Spain’s Foreign Minister Josep Borrell said at a conference of European Union leaders in Austria Tuesday, according to Haaretz. Newly appointed Borrell added that an alternative option of Spanish recognition of the Palestinian state is “on the table.”

[….] Sweden is the only state to officially recognise Palestine while being a member of the EU, which it did in 2014. Following a severe backlash from Israel, other EU countries did not follow suit…’

https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20180923-spain-ready-to-recognise-palestinian-state-urges-eu-to-join/



2018.09.22 LinkBlog

‘…‘Jacob Rees-Mogg you’re right. You don’t need to visit the border… you need to have lived here.’ Belfast-born actor Stephen Rea explores the real impact of Brexit and the uncertainty of the future of the Irish border in a short film written by Clare Dwyer Hogg.’


Hell has officially frozen over.
/jd

Of the Democrats who responded to the questionnaire, 57 percent view socialism positively while 47 percent view capitalism positively.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/poll-democrats-prefer-socialism-to-capitalism/


Worker cooperatives: building democracy in the workplace

‘…Employees at worker cooperatives tend to be more productive than their traditional counterparts, according a study from Leeds University. The key is employee-owned businesses must go beyond a feeling of ownership, and actually give workers real influence over the company.

[….] Olsen looks to the Basque region of Spain for inspiration. That’s the location of the Mondragon Corporation, the largest worker cooperative in the world, with over 74,335 employee owners in 2015…’

https://www.wikitribune.com/article/87918/


‘The Hungarian Govt launched a taxpayer-funded campaign attacking Guy Verhofstadt and Judith Sargentini and democratic vote of European Parliament. Perhaps the Hungarian people should watch this video, make up their own mind & ask Mr Orban to respond!’

https://twitter.com/ALDEgroup/status/1042445300567343104


Hungary upholds ‘terrorism’ conviction against Syrian refugee

‘A Hungarian appeals court confirms throwing stones at police can be ruled as terrorism. A Hungarian court rejected the appeal of a Syrian refugee and upheld his 2016 conviction for “terrorism”, but reduced his seven-year sentence, in what a rights group called an abuse of anti-terrorism laws…’

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/09/hungary-upholds-terrorism-conviction-syrian-refugee-180920134344758.html


Many Of The Artists Have Left Hungary

‘…because the eight years of right-wing, nationalist, and isolationist government has fundamentally changed the cultural environment. The critical wing of culture is now completely marginalised and the artists in this scene struggle. Many of them have left the country: the current Hungarian art community in Berlin is as big as it was in the 1920s.

The media landscape has also dramatically shifted, as the public-service media (which is comprised entirely of governmental propaganda) says nothing about the living, existing culture. Some artists were officially declared “threats to national security” and the subculture of the extreme-right found its way into the mainstream. When the government is the biggest peddler of fear and hatred, why should lunatic ideologists feel discouraged?

[….] But this is not the entire picture. Budapest is still standing. Small exhibition and artist-run spaces, theatres, commercial galleries, and organisations are maintaining a critical culture and keeping the city’s creative spirit alive…’

http://politicalcritique.org/cee/hungary/2018/artists-have-left-the-country/

Many Of The Artists Have Left The Country


Brett Kavanaugh Has Exposed the Savage Amorality of America’s Ruling Class

‘…At this point, the GOP is well practiced in ignoring or discounting allegations of sexual assault. But let’s not forget that the path Kavanaugh has walked to power is designed for people like him—privileged, white, connected, conservative. The system exists to promote his type and to excuse any blemish, past or present. We used to ask how the US got Donald Trump, but the answer seems obvious: We got him the same way we got all these other guys…’

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/gynyxx/kavanaugh-has-exposed-the-savage-amorality-of-americas-ruling-class


2018.09.19 LinkBlog

The Harriet Tubman $20 Stamp

of course, this is illegal. Defacing US money is illegal. but the 3D printing tech is legal and in the USA is so legal that you can print a gun. But perhaps using this technology to spread images of black people will finally criminalise the gun making? This is #Murica
/jd

‘…Frustrated that the US Treasury Department is walking back plans to replace Andrew Jackson on the front of the $20 bill with Harriet Tubman, Dano Wall created a 3D-printed stamp that can be used to transform Jacksons into Tubmans on the twenties in your pocketbook.

[….] If you have access to a 3D printer (perhaps at your local library or you can also use a online 3D printing service), you can download the print files at Thingiverse and make your own stamp for use at home…’
https://kottke.org/18/09/the-harriet-tubman-20-stamp


Ten Years After the Crash, We’ve Learned Nothing

Matt Taibbi writes:

‘…The bank-state merger brokered 10 years ago this week socialized the risks of the financial sector, and essentially converted Wall Street into a vehicle for annually privatizing a big chunk of America’s GDP into the hands of a few executives. The same people who were minutes from being (deservedly) destitute 10 years ago are now a permanent aristocracy [….]

The “merger” committed the governments of Europe and America to unwavering overt and covert support of the finance sector. Scandals of worsening gravity kept popping up after 2008 – from the flash crash to LIBOR to HSBC’s $850 million drug money-laundering fiasco – and regulators kept quietly making them go away. Just like actual aristocrats, employees of these firms do not go to jail, even for serious crimes they admit committing…’

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/financial-crisis-ten-year-anniversary-723798/

Futurama


Selling flags at an Opposition Protest in Hungary - JP pic

https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=494200254428447&id=100015154297338


Doy Gorton

Photographing the White South in the Turbulence of the 1960s
‘Doy Gorton, a son of the Mississippi Delta who joined the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, returned to Mississippi to embark on a project photographing his fellow white Southerners.’

see the photos: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/13/lens/photographing-the-white-south-in-the-turbulence-of-the-1960s.html


Mariem Hassan

‘Mariem Hassan (Arabic: مريم حسن‎‎; 31 May 1958 – 22 August 2015) was a Sahrawi singer and lyricist from Western Sahara. She usually sang in Hassaniyya, an Arabic dialect spoken mostly in Western Sahara and Mauritania, and occasionally in Spanish. Her use of the Spanish language was related to the former status of Western Sahara as a Spanish colony…’

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariem_Hassan

https://www.facebook.com/MariemHassanSoySaharaui/


‘Characterististics of decentralisation:
The key characteristic I propose is that a system is decentralised to the extent it distributes power. Specifically, the distribution of control, knowledge and capability between many users. What does this look like?…’

https://medium.com/@shevski/how-decentralised-are-you-a6539eeb27ff


Rainbow gatherings happen far away from Babylon – the problem of #failbook

‘…Yet for the last 10 years they have been increasingly/largely organized on Facebook, this is having an affect on the gatherings. Facebook being a #dotcon is strong Babylon energy and this energy is overflowing into the Rainbow Gatherings.

For #rainbow to have most of its organizing and communication in/on #failbook is a clear bringing Babylon into Rainbow disaster. You can see this in the illness/eco disaster’s at European gatherings over the last 5 years. The regional one I was at for 3 weeks in Serbia this summer was such, though worked hard on the ground in circles to heal this…’

http://hamishcampbell.com/index.php/2018/09/19/rainbow-gatherings-happen-far-away-from-babylon-the-problem-of-failbook/


Diana Buttu writes:
I Advised the Palestinian Negotiating Team. It Was a Mistake to Have Negotiated With Israel at All

‘Buoyed by the Oslo Accords, I moved to the West Bank as a legal adviser to the PLO team. I was wrong. 25 years since that iconic Arafat-Rabin handshake, it’s clear talks are futile – and Palestinians are no closer to freedom [….]

25 years later, Palestinians are no closer to freedom, as Israel has further entrenched, rather than lessened, its now 51-year military occupation [….]

To demand that Palestinians – living under Israeli military rule – negotiate with their occupier and oppressor is akin to demanding that a hostage negotiate with their hostage taker. It is repugnant that the world demands that Palestinians negotiate their freedom, while Israel continues to steal Palestinian land. Instead, Israel should have faced sanctions for continuing to deny Palestinians their freedom while building illegal settlements…’

No Paywall: https://archive.fo/Th5g7
via https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/oslo-accords-25-years/.premium-we-palestinians-should-never-have-negotiated-with-israel-at-all-1.6467921


#ACAB
/jd


2018.09.18 LinkBlog

Sadly, I do not know the specific year that this was true, but it doesn't really matter because it has been like this for a long time
/jd

USA Congress


re: Impeachment
Liberals have the law, Conservatives have the guns.
/jd


2018.09.17 LinkBlog

#ListeningTo
/jd


The Anarchists Who Ignited Occupy Wall Street Seven Years Ago Are Now Calling For
#OCCUPYSILICONVALLEY

‘…On Monday, September 17th, millions of people around the world, in millions of different ways, will unleash a one-day flood of memes, posts, pranks, tweets, and statuses—each of them overflowing with everything Silicon Valley wants to keep offline…’

http://abillionpeople.org/osv-press-release.html


What is Orientalism? Here's one pervasive but unobvious example...
/jd

Forging Islamic science

‘…These contemporary images are in fact not ‘reproductions’ but ‘productions’ and even fakes – made to appeal to a contemporary audience by claiming to depict the science of a distant Islamic past.

From Istanbul’s tourist shops, these works have ventured far afield. They have have found their way into conference posters, education websites, and museum and library collections. The problem goes beyond gullible tourists and the occasional academic being duped: many of those who study and publicly present the history of Islamic science have committed themselves to a similar sort of fakery. There now exist entire museums filled with reimagined objects, fashioned in the past 20 years but intended to represent the venerable scientific traditions of the Islamic world…’

https://aeon.co/essays/why-fake-miniatures-depicting-islamic-science-are-everywhere


Capital will be capital
/jd

‘…Ten days after Nike announced that Colin Kaepernick would be the face of its “Just Do It” 30th anniversary ad campaign, the sports apparel behemoth’s stock price closed at an all-time high on Thursday at $83.47, according to a report from Bloomberg…’

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/9/15/1795753/-What-Was-Nike-Thinking


Historical nonsense underpins UK’s Brexit floundering
From Hastings to Dunkirk a past that blinds Britain to reality has been peddled

By Christopher Kissane

‘…In the British mind, that history remains centred on the second World War, the ‘darkest’ and ‘finest’ hour in which Britain imagines it stood alone in defiance of Nazism, not as a global imperialist allied to emerging superpowers.

[….] From the beginning of the European project, British opposition has rested on Powell’s assertion that the defining feature of Britain – “and above all of England” – is its “separateness from the history of continental Europe”.

[….] Superiority, antagonism and a fear of betrayal are not healthy historical lessons; instead they encourage Britain’s worst tendencies…’

https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/historical-nonsense-underpins-uk-s-brexit-floundering-1.3630936


War is a racket, and the endless war means endless cash – but not for the Afghans.
/jd

Pentagon says war in Afghanistan costs taxpayers $45 billion per year

‘…the $45 billion total for the year includes $5 billion for Afghan forces and $13 billion for U.S. forces inside Afghanistan. Much of the rest is for logistical support. Some $780 million goes toward economic aid.

The costs now are still significantly lower than during the high point of the war in Afghanistan. From 2010 to 2012, when the U.S. had as many as 100,000 soldiers in the country, the price for American taxpayers surpassed $100 billion each year. There are currently around 16,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

[….] “Why do the Taliban want a political settlement? They now control more territory than they did since 2001,” Democratic Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon said…’

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/pentagon-says-afghan-war-costs-taxpayers-45-billion-per-year


Alternative museum tours explore colonial loot, biased narratives

‘…”It is no longer possible for Britain to present itself as a world power, and people aren’t willing to pretend any more,” says Procter. “They are interested in the stories that aren’t being told.”

Admiral Nelson’s lifelong opposition to the abolition movement, the English Crown’s financial involvement with slavery and the lack of evidence to support lurid tales of cannibalism all come as a bit of a shock.

“Museums provide almost a Trojan horse type of space to confront the official narratives we’re told,” says Procter, who started the tours in 2013.

“I started them out of a sense of frustration over the lack of self-awareness that white British people have over their pasts and history – and that lack of attention is part of the shadow of white supremacy and racism that’s hanging over our heads right now.”…’

https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/alternative-museum-tours-explore-colonial-loot-biased-narratives-180915213140176.html


The Corporate Media finally gets it – post-Obama.
/jd

https://www.facebook.com/time/photos/a.470156966490/10156010810521491


White People.


Slaves taken from regions of Africa
Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/9g5how/slaves_taken_from_regions_of_africa_1229_x_869/

Map: Slaves taken from regions of Africa


Michael Bloomberg for President?

Whether it be Hillary, Trump or Bloomberg, or even Sanders, certainly what #Murica wants most is someone from NYC to fight the elites.

/jd


#FYI, sometimes the NYT prints the truth.
/jd

‘…The United States controls roughly 800 military bases in dozens of countries around the world. This is far more than any other power. The United States also spends more on its military than China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, India, France, Britain and Japan combined. American Special Operations forces were deployed to 149 countries as of last year…’

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/17/opinion/democratic-party-cortez-foreign-policy.html


Where in the World Is the U.S. Military?

Where in the World Is the U.S. Military? (2015)

‘…By my calculation, maintaining bases and troops overseas cost $85 to $100 billion in fiscal year 2014; the total with bases and troops in warzones is $160 to $200 billion.

These costs have heightened debate over whether the United States needs so many bases abroad: What effect do they have around the world, and are they really making us safer?

The first step is looking at where U.S. bases are, and where they’re most prevalent. For my forthcoming book, Base Nation, I compiled a near-comprehensive list of overseas U.S. bases, including smaller cooperative security locations (“lily pads”) and suspected but unconfirmed sites (“unconfirmed lily pads”).

Mapped all together, this data, which comes from the Pentagon’s annual Base Structure Report and additional government, news or academic sources, helps to show just how far America’s reach is…’

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/06/us-military-bases-around-the-world-119321


2018.09.16 LinkBlog

Massachusetts police

Massachusetts police tweet lets slip scale of leftwing surveillance

Massachusetts state police posted to Twitter a map of responses to fires and explosions.

[….] It was an image of a computer monitor, showing locations of 39 incidents as confirmed “by MSP Watch Center”, and it included a vital message: “Reminder: all residents of Lawrence/Andover/N[orth] Andover who have Columbia Gas must evacuate, as should anyone else who smells gas.”

But the image also showed something else: a bookmarks bar at the top of the browser window which listed several leftwing groups.

The bookmarks included a Facebook group for Mass Action Against Police Brutality (MAAPB); the Coalition to Organize and Mobilize Boston Against Trump (Combat); Facebook 413; Facebook MA Activism; and Resistance Calendar, which notes timings for canvassing for Democratic or progressive candidates and anti-Trump rallies.

Tom Arabia, a co-founder of Combat, said: “No one can deny the Massachusetts state police are surveilling leftwing organizations.”

He added that the image on the state police tweet “was both unsurprising and also a bit scary, because of how intimate it is in a sense to see your own organization listed in a police browser’s bookmarks”…’

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/sep/15/massachusetts-police-tweet-leftwing-surveillance-boston


Why Fascists Never Think They’re Fascists — but Victims and Heroes
– The Psychology of Neo Fascism

by umair haque

‘…Fascists never think they are fascists. A fascist never thinks of himself or herself as a “fascist”, anything at all carrying a negative or malicious connotation. They think of themselves, first, as victims. Victims of great and grand conspiracies — the Jews, the Muslims, the Mexicans. Those behind these conspiracies are not regular people — they are especially cunning and vicious especially greedy and unscrupulous, especially seditious and slothful, especially bad. They are especially powerful, in other words. They have the power to completely destroy the way of the life, the whole existence, of the person being victimized…’

https://eand.co/the-psychology-of-american-fascism-eff731c53f61


Afghan father

Afghan father who sought refuge in UK ‘shot dead by Taliban’ after being deported by Home Office
Exclusive: Zainadin Fazlie, father of four British-born children, forced to return to Afghanistan after 16 years in UK despite threats to his life – and killed two years later

‘…Mr Fazlie arrived to the UK in 2000 after the Taliban gained control of his home town in Maidan Wardak province. He was granted indefinite leave to remain and had four children now aged 16, 13, six and three.

He was issued a deportation notice in 2015 after recieving an eight-week suspended sentence for a violent offence. Due to a recent change in the law, he was unable to exercise his right to appeal in the UK and was removed to Afghanistan in April 2016…’

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/zainadin-fazlie-deport-home-office-taliban-afghanistan-shot-dead-refugee-a8536736.html


the key word here is systematic.
/jd

France admits systematic torture during Algeria war for first time

‘…Macron’s office said he would detail a system of arrest and detention legally put in place by parliament and decree in the late 1950s that allowed forces to hold and interrogate suspects, leading to “acts that were sometimes terrible, including torture.”

Macron will announce that archives will be fully opened up to historians, families and organisations seeking the truth about the large number of disappeared civilians and soldiers, both French and Algerian, whose bodies have never been found.

During the 1954-62 war, which claimed 1.5 million Algerian lives, French forces brutally cracked down on independence fighters in the then colony, which was ruled by Paris for 130 years…’

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/sep/13/france-state-responsible-for-1957-death-of-dissident-maurice-audin-in-algeria-says-macron


VIDEO: Poland is pushing the EU into crisis

‘Poland’s far-right party is subverting democracy, and setting the country on a collision course with the EU.

Poland is changing. In 2015, the far-right Law and Justice party, or PiS, won both the presidential election and a slim parliamentary majority. Since then, they’ve been working to cement their power by firing judges, purging the military and civil service, and cracking down on protesters and the media. All of this has put the country on a collision course with the European Union that could threaten Europe’s hard-won peace and prosperity following centuries of conflict.

To truly understand the international conflicts and trends shaping our world you need a big-picture view. Video journalists Sam Ellis and Liz Scheltens use maps to tell the story and chart their effects on foreign policy.’


Does this explain John Bolton's crazy attack on the ICC? Probably.
/jd

An International Court Is Investigating the U.S. and U.K’s Mass Expulsion of Indigenous Islanders

– Long ignored by the media, the people of Chagos struggle relentlessly to reclaim islands that the U.S. and U.K. stole for a military base.

‘For the first time, this month, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) is examining the deportation of the Chagossians and Britain’s 1965 decision to separate the people’s Chagos Archipelago from colonial Mauritius in preparation for the expulsion. The case could have significant implications for the U.S. military, for Mauritius, which is challenging U.K. sovereignty over the British Empire’s last-created colony, as well as for this long-ignored group of refugees.

[….] The price tag of this secret negotiation cost the U.S. government $14 million to relocate the Chagossians to Mauritius and the Seychelles. The two governments withheld the Chagossians’ expulsion from Congress, Parliament, the U.N., and the media.

[….] After 50 years of protests, strikes, and legal battles, some Chagossians have only received: negligible and inadequate compensation, short trips to restore the cemetery where their loved ones rest, and repeated dismissals in court proceedings….’

https://fpif.org/an-international-court-is-investigating-the-u-s-and-u-ks-mass-expulsion-of-indigenous-islanders


Ellis Island´s immigrant statistics by ethnicity 1899-1931

Ellis Island´s immigrant statistics by ethnicity 1899-1931

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1758837204229152&set=a.112063842239838&type=3&theater


Where are the congressional hearings on Puerto Rico?

watch the Video… https://www.msnbc.com/all-in/watch/where-are-the-congressional-hearings-on-puerto-rico-1320087619657


Reading Trump's twitter is increasingly like reading the paranoid rantings of a holocaust denier :-/
/jd

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1040217897703026689


2018.09.13 LinkBlog

Earliest known drawing found on rock in South African cave
Researchers believe the pattern on the fragment of rock is 73,000 years old, but are perplexed as to what it might represent

‘…It lacks the grace of Da Vinci and has none of the warmth of Rubens, but the criss-crossed pattern on the chunk of rock is remarkable all the same. According to researchers who unearthed the piece, it is the earliest known drawing in the world.

Archaeologists found the marked stone fragment as they sifted through spear points and other material excavated at Blombos cave in South Africa. It has taken seven years of tests to conclude that a human made the lines with an ochre crayon 73,000 years ago.

The simple red marks adorn a flake the size of two thumbnails which appears to have broken off a grindstone cobble used to turn lumps of ochre into paint powder. The lines end so abruptly at the fragment’s edges that researchers believe the cross-hatches were originally part of a larger design drawn on the cobble.

“This is first known drawing in human history,” said Francesco d’Errico, a researcher on the team at the University of Bordeaux. “What does it mean? I don’t know. What I do know is that what can look very abstract to us could mean something to the people in the traditional society who produced it.”…’

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/sep/12/earliest-known-drawing-found-on-rock-in-south-african-cave


How Viktor Orban Bends Hungarian Society to His Will (March 27, 2018)

‘…Even school textbooks.

On Page 155 of the latest eighth-grade history textbook, students are told that Mr. Orban thinks refugees are a threat to Hungary — and then encouraged to believe he is right. “It can be problematic,” the book concludes, “for different cultures to coexist.”

It is a testament to the scope of Mr. Orban’s program for remaking Hungary that part of the far-right leader’s message is now woven into the school curriculum…’

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/27/world/europe/viktor-orban-hungary.html


The refugee Dalai Lama who escaped to India from Chinese troops says refugees in Europe should go home (eventually)
– this is actually consistent with what he and his movement has said for a long time. But do not expect any kind of advocacy of multiculturalism or universalist humanist principled from him. I wonder if he is even aware how this statement will be interpreted by Euro-Nazis who regularly threaten and attack refugees in Europe?
/jd

‘…The Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, said Wednesday that “Europe belongs to the Europeans” and that refugees should return to their native countries to rebuild them.

Speaking at a conference in Sweden’s third-largest city of Malmo, home to a large immigrant population, the Dalai Lama — who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989 — said Europe was “morally responsible” for helping “a refugee really facing danger against their life”.

“Receive them, help them, educate them… but ultimately they should develop their own country,” said the 83-year-old Tibetan who fled the capital Lhasa in fear of his life after China poured troops into the region to crush an uprising.

“I think Europe belongs to the Europeans,” he said, adding they should make clear to refugees that “they ultimately should rebuild their own country”…’

https://www.france24.com/en/20180912-dalai-lama-says-europe-belongs-europeans


Trump’s National Security Advisor Michael Flynn to Speak Along Side Far-Right Parties Linked to Current Neo-Nazi Rallies In Germany

‘…While the [USA] Centrist and DNC aligned media has by and large pronounced the various neo-Nazi and white nationalist factions within the Alt-Right to be dead in the water, at the same time, in just the past month a member of DHS, a writer at the Daily Caller, and a Trump speech writer were all fired for their connections to white nationalists and the Alt-Right…’

https://itsgoingdown.org/turning-point-usa-and-michael-flynn-to-speak-along-side-far-right-parties-linked-to-current-neo-nazi-rallies-in-germany/


The Big Hole in Germany’s Nazi Reckoning? Its Colonial History

‘…Running from 1884 to 1918, that colonial history was relatively short, compared with that of other European countries, but still scarring. German colonizers killed tens of thousands during their reign over all or part of modern-day Ghana, Togo, Cameroon, Rwanda, Burundi, Tanzania and Namibia.

Street signs and other memorials honoring German colonizers still remain scattered throughout the country. Only a smattering of colonial history is taught in German schools. The government has not apologized for the nation’s colonial crimes, and it only recently started referring to the killings as genocide.

[….] Berlin officials agreed a couple of months ago to rename Petersallee and two other streets honoring German colonizers, much to the delight of activists who have spent years lobbying for the changes. The streets will be named after African resistance fighters…’

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/11/world/europe/germany-colonial-history-africa-nazi.html


Are your memes Article 13 compliant?


Never forget that he was a born-again christian conservative Dem when he ran in 1976 – it was right wing media that morphed him into a liberal in the propagandized American mind.
/jd

Jimmy Carter warns Democrats: Don’t veer too far left, scare off moderates

‘…”Independents need to know they can invest their vote in the Democratic Party,” Carter said Tuesday during his annual report at his post-presidential center and library in Atlanta, where he offered caution about the political consequences should Democrats “move to a very liberal program, like universal health care.”

That’s delicate — and, Carter acknowledged, even contradictory — advice coming from the 93-year-old former president, and it underscores the complicated political calculations for Democrats as they prepare for the November midterms and look ahead to the 2020 presidential election.

“Rosie and I voted for Bernie Sanders in the past,” Carter noted…’

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/jimmy-carter-warns-democrats-don-t-veer-too-far-left-n908771


Taking away American passports and citizenship is a precursor to genocide.

‘…It’s what happened to Jews in Germany in 1938 when their passports were declared invalid. That is what is beginning to happen here, now, to Hispanic citizens along the U.S.-Mexico border. [….]

Hispanic U.S. citizens, some of whom were in the U.S. military, are not being allowed to renew their passports. This is reportedly happening to “hundreds, even thousands” of Latinos, according to a report in the Washington Post. They’re getting letters from the State Department saying it does not believe they are citizens. The government claims their citizenships are fraudulent. “I’ve had probably 20 people who have been sent to the detention center—U.S. citizens,” Jaime Diez, an attorney in Brownsville, told The Washington Post.

The Washington Post also reports on ICE officials coming to citizens’ homes and taking their passports away. This is an escalation from a few months ago, when Americans were detained by ICE officials just for speaking Spanish to one another…’

https://www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/politics/a23010174/stripping-american-citizens-passports-genocide/


America doesn’t know how to escalate itself – and then thinks the solution is more guns and more cops, which then leads to more guns and more cops…
/jd

‘…According to the ACLU, schools nationally reported 27,000 sworn law enforcement officers, but only 23,000 social workers…’

https://gritpost.com/schools-guards-social-workers/


Oh FFS #Murica, WTF
/jd

‘North Carolina is bracing for the climate change-supercharged storm six years after passing legislation prohibiting state and local agencies from making planning decisions based on the latest climate science about sea level rise. Now the state is facing the threat of a life-threatening storm surge, which could cause billions of dollars in damage.’

https://www.democracynow.org/2018/9/12/headlines/6_years_before_florence_north_carolina_passed_law_banning_studies_of_sea_level_rise


‘The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) today ruled that the UK’s mass interception programmes have breached the European Convention on Human Rights.

The Court found that the UK’s mass surveillance programmes, revealed by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, did ‘not meet the “quality of law” requirement’ and were ‘incapable of keeping the “interference” to what is “necessary in a democratic society”’…’

https://www.englishpen.org/campaigns/press-release-uk-mass-surveillance-ruled-unlawful-in-landmark-judgment/


2018.09.11 LinkBlog

#WTF is it really true that 70% of people in USA prisons have NOT been convicted of a crime but can’t pay the bail?
/jd


The US has spent $1.5 trillion on war since Sept 11 attacks

Endless wars are good for someone, but who?
/jd

The US has spent $1.5 trillion on war since Sept 11 attacks

‘…The collective wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria have cost U.S. taxpayers more than $1.5 trillion since Sept. 11, 2001, according to a Defense Department report [….] Currently there are approximately 14,000 Americans in Afghanistan…’

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/10/the-us-has-spent-1point5-trillion-on-war-since-september-11-attacks.html


This is the kind of insanity that only John Bolton could conjure up
/jd

US threatens to arrest ICC judges if they pursue Americans for Afghan war crimes

‘…The United States threatened Monday to arrest and sanction judges and other officials of the International Criminal Court if it moves to charge any American who served in Afghanistan with war crimes.
White House National Security Advisor John Bolton called the Hague-based rights body “unaccountable” and “outright dangerous” to the United States, Israel and other allies, and said any probe of US service members would be “an utterly unfounded, unjustifiable investigation.”

“If the court comes after us, Israel or other US allies, we will not sit quietly,” Bolton said.

He said the US was prepared to slap financial sanctions and criminal charges on officials of the court if they proceed against any Americans.

“We will ban its judges and prosecutors from entering the United States. We will sanction their funds in the US financial system, and we will prosecute them in the US criminal system,” he said.

“We will do the same for any company or state that assists an ICC investigation of Americans,” he said…’

https://www.france24.com/en/20180910-usa-trump-threatens-arrest-icc-judges-american-soldiers-afghan-war-crimes


EU, founded as project of peace, plans military future

‘…After decades of the EU viewing itself as a peace initiative and seeing defense as a matter of national sovereignty (made all the less urgent thanks to the EU’s existence) there is still no consensus on how to create, organize or wield joint military power. Few are eager to turn over authority to Brussels.

In Germany, under fire from U.S. President Donald Trump over military spending, there is renewed debate about becoming a nuclear power. In France, President Emmanuel Macron, citing a worrisome lack of joint EU military planning, has called for “a common intervention force, a common defense budget and a common doctrine for action.”

In the U.K., security cooperation is a cornerstone of Prime Minister Theresa May’s proposed post-Brexit relationship with the EU — one of few British demands that has won unvarnished praise in the rest of the EU.

[….] Some EU countries have shown a willingness to go their own way. Poland, for instance, asked the Trump administration to establish a new military base on its territory — a unilateral request that was not discussed in advance either among EU partners or NATO allies — and that some other European countries fear could unnecessarily provoke Russia…’

https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-founded-as-project-of-peace-debates-a-militarized-future-nato-european-defense-fund-russia/


Trump $10 million from FEMA’s budget kidnap children and jail parents

‘….The Trump administration took nearly $10 million from the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s budget this summer to help boost U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, according to budget documents [….] The nearly $10 million was taken from various places within FEMA, including training, preparedness and protection, and response and recovery operations…’

ttps://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2018/09/11/femas-budget-cut-10-million-support-ice-documents-show/1274723002/


Today is Leonard Peltier’s 74th Birthday Today❤????

Sadly, he still in prison after 43 years????

GET INVOLVED ????❤????????

Please Share Everywhere????

http://Whoisleonardpeltier.info

Today is Leonard Peltier's 74th Birthday Today❤????  Sadly, he still in prison after 43 years????


Susan Sontag in the New Yorker writes just after after 9/11 2001
/jd

click to read more comments on Twitter…
Susan Sontag in the New Yorker

Susan Sontag in the New Yorker 2

Susan Sontag in the New Yorker 3

from the Sept 24 2001 issue of the New Yorker: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2001/09/24/tuesday-and-after-talk-of-the-town


The Obamas are worth 30 times more than when they entered the White House in 2008 — here's how they spend their millions

The Obamas are the 1%

‘…On April 15, 2016, Obama released his 2015 tax returns, which showed that he and his wife filed jointly and reported an adjusted gross income of $436,065. They paid $81,472 in taxes according to their 18.7 percent tax rate. They also donated a total of $64,066 to more than 30 charities.

[….] The power couple’s storytelling has already proven lucrative as their most recent book deal with Penguin Random House, for example, is worth up to $65 million, according to NBC News…’

https://www.gobankingrates.com/net-worth/politicians/barack-obama-net-worth/


via R. Crumb facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/rcrumb

R. Crumb and Friends ... Underground and Alternative Comix


John Feffer asks WHY?...
/jd

Anonymous And Trumpism Without Trump

‘..I’ll support Anonymous just like I support the Colin Kaepernick ads despite Nike’s failure to pay livable wages to its workers. Sometimes you have to praise the action and ignore the actor.

But the question remains: why did Anonymous do it?

[….] I think it’s part of an effort within the Republican Party that will gain strength over the next two years: to build a movement of Trumpism without Trump.

[….] So, I’ll certainly join hands with Anonymous to rid America of its present danger. But let’s not kid ourselves about the future danger that Anonymous wants instead.’

https://lobelog.com/anonymous-and-trumpism-without-trump/


2018.09.11 LinkBlog #911

911 day. the day american foreign policy went off the rails.
/jd


My photos

my photos from my photoblog
/jd


Noam Chomsky on the Pinochet coup. Sept 11th 1973.

Sept 11th 1973

‘…Suppose that on 9-11 the planes had bombed the White House. Suppose they’d killed the president, established a military dictatorship, quickly killed thousands, tortured ten of thousands more, set up a major international terror center that was carrying out assassinations, overthrowing goverments all over the place, installing other dictatorships, and drove the country into one of the worst depressions in its history and had to call on the state to bail them out. Suppose that had happened? It did happen. On the first 9-11 in 1973. Except we were responsible for it so it didn’t happen. That´s Allende’s Chile. You can’t imagine the media talking about this…’

– Noam Chomsky on the Pinochet coup. .


17 years today people started believing in a lot of bullshit on teh internets.
/jd


And continuing on the topic of conspiracy theories, why do not people dwell obsessively on this real issue?? I have never even read of ChemTrails being blamed for this. Why is it that people are entranced by 911 bullshit, but do not see much worse things on the immediate horizon?
/jd

‘…A strange thing has happened to men over the past few decades: We’ve become increasingly infertile, so much so that within a generation we may lose the ability to reproduce entirely. What’s causing this mysterious drop in sperm counts—and is there any way to reverse it before it’s too late?

[….] The results, when they came in, were clear. Not only were sperm counts per milliliter of semen down by more than 50 percent since 1973, but total sperm counts were down by almost 60 percent: We are producing less semen, and that semen has fewer sperm cells in it. This time around, even scientists who had been skeptical of past analyses had to admit that the study was all but unassailable. Jørgensen, in Copenhagen, told me that when he saw the results, he’d said aloud, “No, it cannot be true.” He had expected to see a past decline and then a leveling off. But he couldn’t argue when the team ran the numbers again and again. The downward slope was unwavering…’

https://www.gq.com/story/sperm-count-zero

Sperm Count Zero


Conjuring Up the Next Depression

Chris Hedges writes..

‘During the financial crisis of 2008, the world’s central banks, including the Federal Reserve, injected trillions of dollars of fabricated money into the global financial system. This fabricated money has created a worldwide debt of $325 trillion, more than three times global GDP. The fabricated money was hoarded by banks and corporations, loaned by banks at predatory interest rates, used to service interest on unpayable debt or spent buying back stock, providing millions in compensation for elites.

The fabricated money was not invested in the real economy. Products were not manufactured and sold. Workers were not reinstated into the middle class with sustainable incomes, benefits and pensions. Infrastructure projects were not undertaken. The fabricated money reinflated massive financial bubbles built on debt and papered over a fatally diseased financial system destined for collapse.

What will trigger the next crash? The $13.2 trillion in unsustainable U.S. household debt? The $1.5 trillion in unsustainable student debt? The billions Wall Street has invested in a fracking industry that has spent $280 billion more than it generated from its operations? Who knows. What is certain is that a global financial crash, one that will dwarf the meltdown of 2008, is inevitable. And this time, with interest rates near zero, the elites have no escape plan…’

https://www.truthdig.com/articles/conjuring-up-the-next-depression/


These Are the 3 Pernicious Forces Protecting Trump from Impeachment
Here’s why Trump continues to survive all the scandals and crises of his administration.
By J.M. Opal

• The tycoons
• The chosen people
• The real estate mogul unites the right

[….] Individually, these groups cannot win elections…’

https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/these-are-3-pernicious-forces-protecting-trump-impeachment


Bell Burnell: Physics star gives away £2.3m prize

‘One of the UK’s leading female astronomers is to donate her £2.3m winnings from a major science prize she was awarded.

The sum will go to fund women, under-represented ethnic minority and refugee students to become physics researchers.

Prof Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell has been awarded a Breakthrough Prize for the discovery of radio pulsars…’

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-45425872



and Cas Mudde adds to this map…

Useful map, but forgets:
1) Fidesz ???????? (49.3%)
2) SNS ???????? (8.4%)
3) VB ???????? (3.7%)

Some would argue, it also forgets
4) PiS ???????? (37.6%)
5) FrP ???????? (15.2%)


2018.09.08 LinkBlog

African migrants reel as Israeli law cuts their salaries

‘African migrants in have been detained, threatened with deportation and faced hostility from lawmakers and residents. Since last year, they face another burden: a de facto 20 percent salary cut that has driven them further into poverty.

Israel’s roughly 35,000 African migrants and the groups that support them say the recent law — in which Israel withholds the money from their paychecks every month and returns it only if they leave the country — is yet another attempt by an anti-migrant government to force them out.

“I feel that they started the ‘deposit law’ to make our life miserable,” said Salamwit Willedo, a migrant from Eritrea who came to Israel in 2010. “We suffer for eight years here. If I had a country, why am I living here?”

The Africans, mainly from war-torn Sudan and dictatorial Eritrea, began arriving in Israel in 2005…’

https://apnews.com/c36a59ae85e34854bbd9aca1aae010eb

African migrants reel as Israeli law cuts their salaries


Israel bans Ahed Tamimi from travelling abroad

‘Israeli authorities banned Ahed Tamimi, a Palestinian activist and campaigner who became a resistance icon, and her family from travelling abroad, her father said on Friday.

Basim Tamimi told Anadolu Agency that he and his family had planned to travel to Europe via Jordan. But they were informed by Palestinian authorities that Israel had banned them from travelling abroad.

They had planned to leave Friday morning, he said, adding the authorities did not provide a reason for the ban.

They were due to participate in some events in which they would discuss the Palestinian resistance movement and the experience of being detained in Israel, Basim said…’

https://www.middleeasteye.net/Israel-travel-ban-Palestinian-campaigner-Ahed-Tamimi

Ahed Tamimi


Hilel Garmi, Israeli Conscientious objector

‘…Hilel Garmi is in prison for the third time, for refusing to serve in the Israeli military. His decision was partly inspired by one of the lead organizers of the Great Return March in Gaza.

Conscientious objector Hilel Garmi was sentenced to 10 days in prison on Monday, after he again refused to serve in the Israel Defense Forces, in protest of Israel’s policies in the occupied territories. This is Garmi’s third detention, at the end of which he would have served 37 days in military prison.

Garmi, 18, from Kibbutz Yodfat in northern Israel, was first imprisoned in late July, after military police forces arrived at his home to arrest him. “I know I will be proud of this decision for the rest of my life, knowing that in the moment of truth, I was loyal to my beliefs, and did the only thing that seems moral to me. The way I see it, I chose to be on the right side of history,” said Garmi, upon his entry to prison…’

Conscientious objector to mark Jewish new year in prison


midclass.altright