Category: LinkBlog

David Sirota writes

‘…Let’s remember that in less than two decades, America has experienced the Iraq war, the financial crisis, intensifying economic stratification, an opioid plague, persistent gender and racial inequality and now seemingly unending climate change-intensified disasters. While the victims have been ravaged by these crime sprees, crises and calamities, the perpetrators have largely avoided arrest, inquisition, incarceration, resignation, public shaming and ruined careers.

That is because the United States has been turned into a safe space for a permanent ruling class. Inside the rarefied refuge, the key players who created this era’s catastrophes and who embody the most pernicious pathologies have not just eschewed punishment – many of them have actually maintained or even increased their social, financial and political status….’

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/oct/05/americas-new-aristocracy-live-accountability-free-zone-david-sirota

FFS, they named it JEDI
/jd

Google Drops Out of Pentagon’s $10 Billion Cloud Competition

‘Alphabet Inc.’s Google has decided not to compete for the Pentagon’s cloud-computing contract valued at as much as $10 billion, saying the project may conflict with its corporate values.

The project, known as the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure cloud, or JEDI, involves transitioning massive amounts of Defense Department data to a commercially operated cloud system. Companies are due to submit bids for the contract, which could last as long as 10 years, on Oct. 12th…’

But that doesn't mean that Google isn't working for the US Gov't, however....
/jd

‘…The spokesman added that Google is “working to support the U.S. government with our cloud in many ways.”…’

– https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-10-08/google-drops-out-of-pentagon-s-10-billion-cloud-competition

#BeOptimistic –––– Remember folks, there are more of us than there are of them. We can do this! (Y)
/jd

Just 100 companies responsible for 71% of global emissions, study says

‘Just 100 companies have been the source of more than 70% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions since 1988, according to a new report. [….] The report found that more than half of global industrial emissions since 1988 – the year the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was established – can be traced to just 25 corporate and state-owned entities. The scale of historical emissions associated with these fossil fuel producers is large enough to have contributed significantly to climate change, according to the report.

ExxonMobil, Shell, BP and Chevron are identified as among the highest emitting investor-owned companies since 1988…’

https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2017/jul/10/100-fossil-fuel-companies-investors-responsible-71-global-emissions-cdp-study-climate-change

Strangely, I never saw this news on CNNNN
/jd

Iran’s World Court Win Exposes U.S. as Rogue State

‘After the International Court of Justice ruled in Iran’s favor on U.S. sanctions, the Trump administration pulled out of a 1955 treaty and announced a review of its relationship to the court. Trita Parsi, author and founder of the National Iranian American Council, says that when it comes to Iran, the U.S. is acting like a rogue state’

https://therealnews.com/stories/irans-world-court-win-exposes-u-s-as-rogue-state

‘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

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

Steve Austin and the Six Million Dollar Man?
/jd

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

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/

‘…‘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

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/

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

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 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

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

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

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

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…’