jd in .hu – Page 2

2018.10.18 Link Blog

And remember, this happened during the Obama Admin. /jd

Investigation: As U.S.-Backed War in Yemen Raged, UAE Hired U.S. Mercenaries to Kill Yemeni Leaders

‘A shocking new investigation has revealed that the United Arab Emirates hired U.S. mercenaries to carry out assassinations of political and clerical leaders in Yemen. The former elite U.S. special operations fighters were paid to take part in missions to kill those deemed to be “terrorists” by the UAE. The UAE worked with the U.S. company Spear Operations Group, founded by an Israeli-American man named Abraham Golan, who told BuzzFeed, “There was a targeted assassination program in Yemen. I was running it.” The group’s first target in Yemen was a local leader of al-Islah, a political party whose members include Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Tawakkul Karman. We speak with journalist Aram Roston of BuzzFeed News, who broke the story. His new piece is titled “A Middle East Monarchy Hired American Ex-Soldiers to Kill Its Political Enemies. This Could Be the Future of War.”’

‘…ARAM ROSTON: Indeed, it did happen under Obama, yes. The period of time was after the war—I mean, an interesting point was, after the war started in March, the U.S. pulled its forces directly out of Yemen, during the chaos of that war, when the war first started. The UAE, of course, still stayed there. They were the ones on the ground. And the Yemen war is a very complex war. People see that the UAE and the Saudis are in the same coalition, but the UAE and the Saudis have kind of different aims there, or traditionally had different aims there. The Saudis were bombing the Houthis, fighting the Houthis, which they believed are proxies for Iran, and the UAE, most experts will confirm, was really trying to consolidate control over the south. They want the south to separate, to secede. They want control of the ports in the south. And they want to control the political space there, because the UAE and Yemen are very close.

AMY GOODMAN: So they were trying to get the head of the al-Islah party. This is the party of Tawakkul Karman, who was sitting here a few years ago, right at the time the Nobel Peace Prize—the Nobel committee announced she was winning the Nobel Peace Prize. UAE can call them terrorists. UAE can hire a mercenary firm, the State Department would approve, to attack anyone they consider unfriendly to them?…’

https://www.democracynow.org/2018/10/17/investigation_as_us_backed_war_in

original Buzzfeed article…: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/aramroston/mercenaries-assassination-us-yemen-uae-spear-golan-dahlan

No, the US didn't create ISIS – but it did help to create the circumstances from which it emerged. The conspiritorial Left fails and fails again to understand the difference between intent and unintended consequences, and also of taking advantage of a situations that which the US is not fully in control of.

That said, the US does tend to support the worst of the worst because it thinks it can with with them and rarely the people who want democracy and human rights - because how could the US ever control people with that agenda?? /jd

The ISIS Conspiracy That Ate the Web

‘…The intelligence report about Syria is just that — a report, It’s not a policy directive and there’s no proof that any action was taken based on its analysis. Nevertheless, people across the political spectrum are taking it as if it were a presidential order. Anti-Muslim bigot Pamela Geller thinks it’s a scandal because it proves President Obama knew about ISIS and chose to do nothing. Geller’s outrage is the inverse of the indignation expressed by far-leftists like the Guardian’s Seumas Milne who takes the report as proof that the U.S. abetted ISIS to sow discord in the Middle East, part of a grand divide and conquer strategy. Neither one seems to understand what they’re actually looking at.

Milne’s Guardian piece is subtler than its headline. It grants that the DIA report, “doesn’t mean the US created Isis, of course,” and adds caveats likes, “the report isn’t a policy document. It’s heavily redacted and there are ambiguities in the language.” But it assumes, ambiguities aside, that the report reveals some level of collusion with ISIS as a tenet of U.S. policy seeking to inflame sectarianism…’

https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-isis-conspiracy-that-ate-the-web

The Empire gets fucked back /jd

Moldova Grudge Could Cost U.K. Access to $1.7 Trillion Projects

‘…The U.K.’s post-Brexit access to $1.7 trillion in public projects relies on the good will of its European neighbors. Too bad Moldova holds a grudge.

The tiny country wedged between Romania and Ukraine is joining half a dozen nations in blocking the U.K.’s re-entry to the World Trade Organization’s Government Procurement Agreement, an accord that smooths the bidding process on public contracts, including in the $837 billion U.S. market.

Why the hold-up? Corina Cojocaru, Moldova’s economic counselor to the WTO, and her team were denied entry to the U.K. last year when they wanted to discuss their future relationship with Britain after it leaves the European Union.

And Cojocaru has a good memory.

“I couldn’t get a visa and a diplomatic passport to go to London to negotiate on government procurement,” Cojocaru said in a telephone interview. “Nobody listened to us for six to seven months.”…’

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-10-17/how-tiny-moldova-s-brexit-grudge-could-cost-u-k-1-7-trillion

‘…On 27 September, the administrative court of the northwestern German city of Oldenburg ruled that the municipality’s decision to cancel a 2016 BDS event had been unlawful.

It determined that the city council had “undermined the fundamental right of the applicant’s freedom of assembly” as well as freedom of expression, which, it added, “was (and is) severely interfered with.”

“The fundamental right to freedom of expression is, as the most direct expression of the human personality in society, one of the most distinguished human rights of all.”

The ruling, the first of its kind in Germany, could have broader political implications for BDS activism, said Ahmed Abed, the lawyer who represented event organizers in court. “This ruling could have a great impact because it is the first time an administrative court has said it is unlawful to disallow a BDS event.”…’

https://electronicintifada.net/content/big-bds-legal-win-germany/25741

Nationalist rabbi: European Right no longer anti-Semitic

‘…Rabbi Melamed – who heads the Har Bracha Yeshiva in Samaria – explained that for many years, Israel’s Foreign Ministry was wary of the European right wing parties, because they harbored Nazi supporters and Holocaust deniers.

“But in recent years, the extreme right wing movements have been undergoing a process of change,” he added. “Leaders have emerged who want nothing to do with the racist Nazi heritage, and who openly support the state of Israel.”

These leaders “have distilled the movements’ nationalist positions, and now they express a proper position, which demands maintaining the European people’s national, religious and cultural identity,” the rabbi insisted.

Rabbi Melamed went on to say that “[j]ust as it is forbidden to steal the property of a private individual, as the communists did in the countries that they took over, so it is forbidden to steal from people their national and religious identity, as the communists’ successors – the extreme liberals on the Left, like the British Labor party – seek to do.”…’

https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/253164

If he wins, his brother Jack can take his place. /jd

everything wrong and surreal about today’s #Murica Republican Party contained in one screenshot ????

source: https://www.facebook.com/TheHill/posts/10156481355824087

everything wrong and surreal about today's #Murica Republican Party contained in one screenshot ????

How restrictive voting requirements is the USA target minorities

Carol Anderson: ‘…And that’s one of the great ways the way voter suppression works, is that it sounds reasonable, until you see how it’s operationalized, and when you also understand, for instance, that the issue of voter I.D. is based on the lie of voter fraud.

And what I mean by that is that Justin Levitt, a professor out of California, did a study. And from 2000 to 2014, he counted up all of the votes in all of the elections and came to one billion votes. Out of that, he identified 31 cases of voter fraud, 31 cases out of one billion votes…’

transcript: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/how-restrictive-voting-requirements-target-minorities

There are so few refugees left in #Hungary these days that PM Viktor Orbán has selected a new scapegoat,,,,, the danger posed by Gender Studies ???? /jd

‘…On October 12, 2018, without any public statement or explanation, gender studies Master degrees were removed from the list of accredited subjects in Hungary. Students currently enrolled can finish their course of studies as usual and with both Hungarian and US accreditation, but no new students enrolled from September 2019 will be able to earn a Hungarian accredited degree in the field of Gender Studies…’

https://gender.ceu.edu/statement-annulment-gender-studies-ma-degree-accredited-hungary

music starts at 1:10 /jd

2018.10.17 Link Blog

‘…Helen—a smart, cheerful five-year-old girl—is an asylum seeker from Honduras [….]

In July, Helen fled Honduras with her grandmother, Noehmi, and several other relatives; gangs had threatened Noehmi’s teen-age son, Christian, and the family no longer felt safe. Helen’s mother, Jeny, had migrated to Texas four years earlier, and Noehmi planned to seek legal refuge there. With Noehmi’s help, Helen travelled thousands of miles, sometimes on foot, and frequently fell behind the group. While crossing the Rio Grande in the journey’s final stretch, Helen slipped from their raft and risked drowning. Her grandmother grabbed her hand and cried, “Hang on, Helen!” When the family reached the scrubland of southern Texas, U.S. Border Patrol agents apprehended them and moved them through a series of detention centers.

[….] Helen was given a pack of crayons and spent the summer coloring patriotic images: busts of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, the torch on the Statue of Liberty. She was granted an hour of “Large Muscle Activity and Leisure Time” each day, and received lessons on the human respiratory system, the history of music, and “the risk and danger of social media.” “Helen,” a caseworker observed, “has excellent behavior at all times.” She had no major sources of stress, her reports noted, aside from “being separated from her family.” Her teachers encouraged her to develop “smart goals”—ambitions that are “Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound.” Helen’s goal was simple: “Minor disclosed wanting to live with her mother and family in the U.S.”

[….] On Helen’s form, which was filled out with assistance from officials, there is a checked box next to a line that says, “I withdraw my previous request for a Flores bond hearing.” Beneath that line, the five-year-old signed her name in wobbly letters…’

https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-five-year-old-who-was-detained-at-the-border-and-convinced-to-sign-away-her-rights

Always read the end of NYT articles, that's where the info is. It looks like Trump is for a permanent occupation of parts of Syria... /jd

‘…[Trump] has spoken positively about the idea of withdrawing the approximately 2,000 American soldiers who are based in eastern Syria in areas once controlled by the Islamic State, although he now appears committed to leaving them there. In August, his administration decided not to spent $230 million that had already been earmarked for stabilization programs in that area.

The Saudi money, in addition to another $50 million given by the United Arab Emirates, will allow American programs there to continue, but on other countries’ tabs.

The funds will be used by USAID and the State Department for a variety of programs, including infrastructure repairs and provision of health, education and sanitation services.’

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/16/world/middleeast/saudi-arabia-money-syria.html

Those Raised Fists Still Resonate, 50 Years Later

‘…And beyond that, the Olympics were taking place amid turmoil around the nation and around the world. Two major assassinations in the United States. A student riot that paralyzed much of Paris. The Czech uprising against Communist rule that became known as Prague Spring. People beaten in the streets during the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

And in Mexico City, dozens, perhaps hundreds, of students protesting the country’s authoritarian government were killed by that same government.

The games went on anyway…’

‘…Smith and Carlos were banned from future participation in any Olympics for life. (They were in their early 20s in Mexico City, and this effectively prevented them from competing in other races in Munich and Montreal.) There were no offers of the complimentary stadium tickets usually offered to medaled athletes.

(Peter Norman suffered many of the same indignities when he returned to Australia. He was ostracized, never allowed on an Australian Olympic team again, despite qualifying in several national trials. His offense: wearing an Olympic Project for Human Rights button, like Smith and Carlos, and refusing to disavow his podium mates. When he died, in 2006, Smith and Carlos flew to Australia to be pallbearers.)

But for all the detractors, many thought of Carlos and Smith as heroes, especially in black America. Their upraised fists became a symbol of black refusal to submit to racial injustice — a precursor to today’s take-a-knee protests by NFL players…’

Who was that white guy?

And, I think people assume the white guy was separate from the black guys, not true /jd

The third man: The forgotten Black Power hero

‘…Yet few know that the man standing in front of both of them, the Australian sprinter Peter Norman who shocked everyone by powering past Carlos and winning the silver medal, played his own, crucial role in sporting history.

‘…On his left breast he wore a small badge that read: “Olympic Project for Human Rights” — an organization set up a year previously opposed to racism in sport. But while Smith and Carlos are now feted as human rights pioneers, the badge was enough to effectively end Norman’s career. He returned home to Australia a pariah, suffering unofficial sanction and ridicule as the Black Power salute’s forgotten man. He never ran in the Olympics again.

[….] Australia too, was in the midst of racial strife. The country’s “White Australia” policy had provoked protests of its own. It put heavy restrictions on non-white immigration — and a raft of prejudicial laws against its indigenous aboriginal population, including a policy of taking Aboriginal children from their birth parents and handing them to white couples for adoption, a practice that continued until the 1970s…’

https://edition.cnn.com/2012/04/24/sport/olympics-norman-black-power/index.html

Even capitalist Forbes magazine is telling us capitalism is the problem, and still no one listens,,,,

quarterly reports are the motive of every corporation. corpos are zombies. only the living can stop them. /jd

https://www.forbes.com/sites/drewhansen/2016/02/09/unless-it-changes-capitalism-will-starve-humanity-by-2050

Bittersweet Justice in Guatemala
A Guatemalan court found that the army committed genocide against the Maya Ixi, but at the same time acquitted the chief of military intelligence of wrongdoing.

‘…In 2013, Guatemala brought charges against the former dictator, Efraín Ríos Montt, and his chief of military intelligence, Mauricio Rodríguez Sánchez, for the crimes of genocide against the Maya Ixil population. It was an historic trial, marking the first time in Guatemala that a former head of state was put on trial for serious human rights violations.

During Guatemala’s thirty-six-year civil war (1960-1996), 200,000 people, mostly civilians, were killed or disappeared and countless others were subjected to torture, sexual violence, forced labor, and forced displacement. Some 600 villages were destroyed. A UN commission found that ninety-three percent of atrocities were the responsibility of the Guatemalan military…’

https://progressive.org/dispatches/court-delivers-bittersweet-justice-in-guatemala-181016

A new study reveals the real reason Obama voters switched to Trump

‘…One of the most puzzling elements of the 2016 election, at least for a lot of Americans, was the millions of voters who switched from voting for Barack Obama in 2012 to Donald Trump in 2016. Somewhere between 6.7 million and 9.2 million Americans switched this way; given that the 2016 election was decided by 40,000 votes, it’s fair to say that Obama-Trump switchers were one of the key reasons that Hillary Clinton lost.

[….] The study, from three political scientists from around the country, takes a statistical look at a large sample of Obama-Trump switchers. It finds that these voters tended to score highly on measures of racial hostility and xenophobia — and were not especially likely to be suffering economically.

“White voters with racially conservative or anti-immigrant attitudes switched votes to Trump at a higher rate than those with more liberal views on these issues,” the paper’s authors write. “We find little evidence that economic dislocation and marginality were significantly related to vote switching in 2016.”…’

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/10/16/17980820/trump-obama-2016-race-racism-class-economy-2018-midterm

Some Bad News For Earth
by Tom Tomorrow

the rest of this cartoon at: https://thenib.com/some-bad-news-for-earth

Howard Zinn’s “Three Holy Wars”

2018.10.16 LinkBlog

The Suffocation of Democracy
by Christopher R. Browning

‘…In threatening trade wars with allies and adversaries alike, Trump justifies increased tariffs on our allies on the specious pretext that countries like Canada are a threat to our national security. He combines his constant disparagement of our democratic allies with open admiration of authoritarians. His naive and narcissistic confidence in his own powers of personal diplomacy and his faith in a handshake with the likes of Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un recall the hapless Neville Chamberlain (a man in every other regard different from Trump). Fortunately the US is so embedded in the international order it created after 1945, and the Republican Party and its business supporters are sufficiently alarmed over the threat to free trade, that Trump has not yet completed his agenda of withdrawal, though he has made astounding progress in a very short time….’

https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2018/10/25/suffocation-of-democracy/

The point of a space elevator is that it would be a long term investment that makes the EU hardwired to service earth's space needs. It would require a massive amount of money and global cooperation. But it is not a 'frill' but an essential contribution to getting us off this rock. All the above ideas are about getting individuals into space for a period of time – this is about building a motorway to the stars to be used by all.

Europe can do this.
/jd

My Great-Grandfather the Bundist
by Molly Crabapple

‘…Founded in 1897 in Vilna (Vilnius in modern-day Lithuania), and reaching its height in interwar Poland, the Bund was a sometimes-clandestine political party whose tenets were humane, socialist, secular, and defiantly Jewish. Bundists fought the Tsar, battled pogroms, educated shtetls, and ultimately helped lead the Warsaw Ghetto uprising. Though the Bund was largely obliterated by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, the group’s opposition to Zionism better explains their absence from current consciousness. Though the Bund celebrated Jews as a nation, they irreconcilably opposed the establishment of Israel as a separate Jewish homeland in Palestine. The diaspora was home, the Bund argued. Jews could never escape their problems by the dispossession of others. Instead, Bundists adhered to the doctrine of do’ikayt or “Hereness.” Jews had the right to live in freedom and dignity wherever it was they stood….’

https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2018/10/06/my-great-grandfather-the-bundist/

Last surviving prosecutor at Nuremberg trials says Trump’s family separation policy is ‘crime against humanity’

‘…The lawyer said it was “painful” when he heard about how the Trump administration had separated more than 2,000 children from their families after they had crossed the US-Mexico border.[….] “We list crimes against humanity in the Statute of the International Criminal Court. We have ‘other inhumane acts designed to cause great suffering’. What could cause more great suffering than what they did in the name of immigration law? It’s ridiculous,” the prosecutor of war criminals said regarding the family separation policy…’

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/trump-border-crisis-nazis-nuremberg-trial-ben-ferencz-family-separation-migrants-un-a8485606.html

my video /jd

Az Európai Baloldal szolidáris azokkal hajléktalanokkal – 2018.10.14

Egy mondat. Demonstráció a hajléktalanságban élők védelmében – 2018.10.14. . .Európai Baloldal Barátai: Az Európai Baloldal szolidáris azokkal hajléktalanokkal,akiket a kormány már fizikailag is üldöz, és mindenkit a szegények támogatására kérünk.Ők is egyenjogú állampolgárok, akik többet érdemelnek az államtól.Rövid távon a szociális lakások rendszerét kell kiépíteni.Hoszzabb távon véget kell vetni a neoliberális gazdaságpolitikának, az emberi jogokat veszélyeztető Fidesz-rezsimnek.

Publiée par A MI IDŐNK sur Mardi 16 octobre 2018

‘…For months in war-torn Yemen, some of America’s most highly trained soldiers worked on a mercenary mission of murky legality to kill prominent clerics and Islamist political figures.

Their target that night: Anssaf Ali Mayo, the local leader of the Islamist political party Al-Islah. The UAE considers Al-Islah to be the Yemeni branch of the worldwide Muslim Brotherhood, which the UAE calls a terrorist organization. Many experts insist that Al-Islah, one of whose members won the Nobel Peace Prize, is no terror group. They say it’s a legitimate political party that threatens the UAE not through violence but by speaking out against its ambitions in Yemen.

The mercenaries’ plan was to attach a bomb laced with shrapnel to the door of Al-Islah’s headquarters, located near a soccer stadium in central Aden, a key Yemeni port city. The explosion, one of the leaders of the expedition explained, was supposed to “kill everybody in that office.”…’

Yeah, no one cares really - but the MSM sure love to talk about their friend Jamal Kashoggi, don't they? /jd

Saudi war on Yemen: World’s Worst Famine in a Century could Claim 13 Million

‘…Yemen is a country of some 29 million persons, but over a third of them are at risk of starvation if Saudi and UAE bombing campaigns continue. Lise Grand, the United Nations coordinator for Yemen, has warned that the world has only 3 months to halt the slide toward catastrophe.

[….] The war has so far taken at least 10,000 lives, and has displaced millions and left most of the country food insecure (i.e. not yet starving but one paycheck away from it)…’

https://www.juancole.com/2018/10/famine-century-bombing.html

When will people learn that 'fiscal discipline' is a bait and switch ideology? /jd

Under the Fog of Kavanaugh, House Passes $3.8 Trillion More in Tax Cuts

‘…September 28, 2018
With attention fixed on the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation hearings, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a new $3.1 trillion tax cut on Friday. The vote was 220 to 191, including three Democrats [….] The House’s new bill takes effect starting in 2025, and would add $600 billion to the national debt within the next decade, and then $3.2 trillion in the 10 years after that…’

http://fortune.com/2018/09/28/house-3-8-trillion-tax-cut-passes

2018.10.15 LinkBlog – a lazy Monday

At last the Feminist agenda can be completed! and I am not even saying that's such a bad idea. Would the world really be worse off if women ran things the way men do today? Serious question. /jd

Same-sex mice have babies

‘…Baby mice have been made with two mums and no dad, say researchers at the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

It took a substantial feat of genetic engineering to break the rules of reproduction.The scientists said the “bimaternal” (two mammas) animals were healthy and went on to have pups of their own.

But there was bad news on the all-male front. Mice with double-dads were attempted, but died within days of being born.

[….] It was easier with double mums. The researchers took an egg from one mouse and a special type of cell – a haploid embryonic stem cell – from another. Both contained only half the required genetic instructions or DNA, but just bringing them together wasn’t enough…’

Language framing: The left is losing the language game

‘…The elephant continues to win. Whoever controls the words controls the ways in which ideas are framed. Anyone can disagree with your beliefs, but so long as they use the same framework of words you use to describe your beliefs, even in adamant opposition to them, you win…’

http://beloitcollegeroundtable.com/2018/10/02/language-framing-the-left-is-losing-the-language-game/

The Antifascists (2017) Documentary (full length)

‘A low-intensity war is being fought on the streets of Europe and the aim is on fascism. This critically acclaimed documentary takes us behind the masks of the militants called antifascists.

In 2013 a group of armed nazis attacks a peaceful demonstration in Stockholm where several people are injured. In Greece the neo-nazi party Golden Dawn becomes the third largest in the election and in Malmö the activist Showan Shattak and his friends are attacked by a group of nazis with knives and he ends up in a coma.

In this portrait of the antifascists in Greece and Sweden we get to meet key figures that explain their view on their radical politics but also to question the level their own violence and militancy.’

Why Real Change Won’t Come From Billionaire Philanthropists

‘When wealthy elites embrace issues such as inequality, poverty, climate change, women’s empowerment, and LGBTQ rights, are they spurring change—or reinforcing the status quo? In his new book Winners Take All, the writer Anand Giridharadas says it’s the latter. Giridharadas persuasively argues that when they adopt pressing social and economic issues as causes, plutocrats simply reinforce their position atop the hierarchy…’

Question: Billionaires like Jeff Bezos, George Soros, and Mike Bloomberg (who is allegedly considering running for president) position themselves as the antidote to Trump. But you see them and Trump more as flip sides of the same coin. Why is that?

Anand Giridharadas: ‘One of the things that became very clear to me as I reported this is: It’s not about billionaires we like versus billionaires we don’t like. This is not about rich people who do the right thing versus rich people who do the wrong thing. This is a fundamental question of, why do rich people have so much power over public life in America?…’

https://www.citylab.com/equity/2018/09/why-real-change-wont-come-billionaire-philanthropists/571354/

DNA Tests Prove Aboriginal Australians Are the World’s Oldest Culture
The genetic study helps show that the ancestors of today’s Aboriginals came here about 58,000 years ago.

‘…Prior to this study being published, some scientists had debated whether or not modern Aboriginal people are the descendants of ancient tribes who first populated Australia. This research, the most comprehensive genomic study of Indigenous Australians to date, also helps to confirm that all humans share the same common ancestors from a single African migration event.

That event occurred when both Papuan and Aboriginal ancestors left Africa as part of a larger group of migrants around 72,000 years ago, then split with that main group of early humans about 58,000 years ago. Probably the first group of humans to cross an ocean, they reached “Sahul”—the supercontinent that was made up of modern day Tasmania, Australia, and New Guinea together—and then split apart about 37,000 years ago. The supercontinent only split up around 8,000 years ago.

“Australia has one of the longest histories of continuous human occupation outside Africa, raising questions of origins, relatedness to other populations, differentiation and adaptation,” the study concludes. “We find that Aboriginal Australians and Eurasians share genomic signatures… a common African ancestor.”…’

https://www.vice.com/en_au/article/5gq3vd/dna-shows-aboriginal-australians-are-the-most-ancient-culture-in-the-world

I always said #Murica elected an Internet Troll, now we must also count his wife... /jd

‘…”I want to show them that I don’t care,” Melania Trump continued. “You could criticize whatever you want to say, but it will not stop me to do what I feel is right.”

She said her point was proven because by the time she put the jacket back on for her return flight, she could see “how the media got obsessed by it.”

First ladies and other political figures are often watched closely for what they wear, given the potential for sending messages and signals with fashion choices.

Trump’s choices, if anything, have prompted even more speculation than past first ladies.

Trump has criticized her husband’s “zero tolerance” immigration policy that separated families, and in the interview she said she was blindsided by it.

Her comments about the jacket in the ABC interview were in contrast with those of her spokeswoman, who at the time said the jacket had “no hidden message”.

President Trump, however, said the jacket was meant to be a hit at the media.

The president eventually halted the policy following widespread criticism from both parties, but The Washington Post reported on Friday that new options are being considered that could again separate families as officials deal with a new surge of immigrants at the border…’

https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/411247-melania-trump-responds-to-jacket-controversy-it-was-kind-of-a-message

I suspect this is Left-wing vapourware /jd

Kurds in Syria Will Use Crypto to Power an Anarchist State

‘…Because its primary currency is the Syrian lira, the main currency of the Syrian state (which Rojava has just spent years fighting), there’s a growing belief in some quarters that cryptocurrency could provide a better alternative, Erselan Serdem, a leader of Rojava’s technological development program, told CoinDesk.

Alongside a system of self-governing communes, Rojava plans to implement new technological academies, with a particular emphasis on cryptography and cryptocurrency, Serdem said.

Assisting the change is Amir Taaki, an early bitcoin developer who fought alongside Rojava in the war. As detailed by CoinDesk, Taaki is also in the process of setting up a European-based technological academy in Barcelona.

“[Rojava is] a revolutionary project that wants to build a new society based on anarchist principles, and that means law, defense, society and culture,” Taaki told CoinDesk.

The new academies follow the philosophy of Kurdish political theorist Abdullah Ocalan, who is promoting a form of governance called “democratic confederalism.” Advocating for direct democracy, feminism and ecology, Serdem said that blockchain and cryptocurrency are crucial for achieving this vision…’

https://www.coindesk.com/a-war-torn-country-in-syria-will-use-crypto-to-power-an-anarchist-state/

In the history of Catholicism it will be remembered that America's CIA crucified one of its martyred saints. /jd

The killing of Archbishop Oscar Romero was one of the most notorious crimes of the cold war. Was the CIA to blame?

‘…The men received orders from a National Police detective, Oscar Perez Linares, who came to the house. A man of few words, he was treated by the others with the respect reserved for those not afraid to kill. Several times, Jorge heard the others laughing at how Linares had shot Romero. Linares sat with a half-smile. “You should have seen the blood that came from that priest!” was his only comment.

At the time, Jorge’s story was impossible to check – although the rest of what he said turned out to be true. After the war, I looked in declassified CIA files. Sure enough, in mid-1983, an unusually detailed CIA report, quoting a senior Salvadoran police source, named Linares as a member of a four-man National Police squad which murdered Romero. Other Salvadoran officers said the same thing. And the man who drove the car which took the killer to the church also picked out a photo-fit of Linares. So why, if the CIA had such evidence, and solving the murder was such a priority, was nothing done?…’

https://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2000/mar/23/features11.g21

2018.10.12 LinkBlog – Link Dump

Catching up and I got to kill loads of tabs, therefore I will just post the links and headlines... /jd

The banana is dying. The race is on to reinvent it before it’s too late
https://www.wired.co.uk/article/cavendish-banana-extinction-gene-editing

Some fairy tales may be 6000 years old
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/04/some-fairy-tales-may-be-6000-years-old

British Army starts recruiting for revived Monuments Men unit to protect art and archaeology in war
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/10/11/british-army-starts-recruiting-revived-monuments-men-unit-protect

JD PHOTO — My photo, more at http://redjade.tumblr.com or https://www.facebook.com/DzsediFenykepesz

Dr. Gabor Maté – Trauma, Addiction, & The Use Of Psychedelics
http://ultimatehealthpodcast.com/dr-gabor-mate/

Capitalism Makes us Crazy: Dr Gabor Maté on Illness & Addiction
https://www.radioproject.org/2013/05/capitalism-makes-us-crazy-gabor-mate-on-illness-addiction/

Reality Is Just a Bunch of Hallucinations We Collectively Agree On
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/8xjbn3/consciousness-is-just-a-bunch-of-hallucinations-we-collectively-agree-on

Naomi Klein: We’ve Entered a Frightening New Era of Capitalism
https://www.truthdig.com/articles/naomi-klein-weve-entered-a-frightening-new-era-of-capitalism/

Why European Islam’s current problems might reflect a 100-year-old mistake
https://www.economist.com/erasmus/2016/07/26/why-european-islams-current-problems-might-reflect-a-100-year-old-mistake

My Great-Grandfather the Bundist
https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2018/10/06/my-great-grandfather-the-bundist/

‘I spent seven years fighting to survive’: Chelsea Manning on whistleblowing and WikiLeaks
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/oct/07/chelsea-manning-wikileaks-whistleblowing-interview-carole-cadwalladr

The Myth of the Lazy Nonvoter
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/10/05/opinion/midterm-election-voter-turnout-photo-id.html

Erik Prince, in Kabul, pushes privatization of the Afghan war
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/erik-prince-in-kabul-pushes-privatization-of-the-afghan-war/2018/10/04/72a76d36-c7e5-11e8-b1ed-1d2d65b86d0c_story.html

Caring for Gaza’s stray cats ‘with all the money we had left’
https://www.middleeasteye.net/in-depth/features/palestinians-gaza-start-projects-rescue-stray-cats-316949850

The Supreme Court Is Headed Back to the 19th Century
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/09/redemption-court/566963

What would cities look like if they were designed by mothers?
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/aug/27/architects-diversity-cities-designed-mothers

Flawed reporting on antisemitism claims against the Labour party
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/sep/30/flawed-reporting-on-antisemitism-claims-against-the-labour-party

Neil deGrasse Tyson: A Celebrity Salesman for the Military-Industrial-Complex
https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/09/14/neil-degrasse-tyson-a-celebrity-salesman-for-the-military-industrial-complex/

U.S.-led forces appear to be using white phosphorus in populated areas in Iraq and Syria
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2017/06/09/u-s-led-forces-appear-to-be-using-white-phosphorous-in-populated-areas-in-iraq-and-syria

Why Was Monty Python Anti-Zionist Scene Cut From The Life Of Brian?
https://rebelvoice.blog/2017/08/18/why-was-monty-python-anti-zionist-scene-cut-from-the-life-of-brian/

Walmart Patented a Cart That Reads Your Pulse and Temperature
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/8xjeg4/walmart-patented-a-cart-that-reads-your-pulse-and-temperature

Neoliberalism has conned us into fighting climate change as individuals
– Martin Lukacs
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/true-north/2017/jul/17/neoliberalism-has-conned-us-into-fighting-climate-change-as-individuals

The New York Times Bombshell That Bombed
And what the Grey Lady can still do to find an audience for its Trump tax story.
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/10/09/new-york-times-trump-taxes-221144

The truths that won’t be heard
A never-shown Al Jazeera documentary on the pro-Israel lobby in the United States reveals possibly illegal Israeli spying on American citizens, and the lobby’s fear of a changing political mood.
https://mondediplo.com/2018/09/02israel-lobby

Sex with Neanderthals helped modern humans survive, says study
https://bigthink.com/surprising-science/sex-with-neanderthals-helped-modern-humans-survive-says-study

FAMILY TREE: DNA study confirms Native Americans descended from a single ancestral group
https://www.ucdavis.edu/news/family-tree-dna-study-confirms-native-americans-descended-single-ancestral-group/

Silicon Valley’s Keystone Problem: ‘A Monoculture of Thought’
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/02/technology/silicon-valleys-keystone-problem-a-monoculture-of-thought.html

Myth-busting the self-shredding Banksy painting
https://boingboing.net/2018/10/09/myth-busting-the-self-shreddin.html

2018.10.11 LinkBlog

Not a bad idea /jd

The man who never released his tax returns wants to tax speech against him. Tyranny much? /jd

‘…For the first time, the U.S. government wants demonstrators to pay to use our parks, sidewalks and streets to engage in free speech in the nation’s capital. This should be called what it is: a protest tax.

This is a bold effort by the Trump administration to burden and restrict access to public spaces for First Amendment activities in Washington. If enacted, it would fundamentally alter participatory democracy in the United States.

[….] Such a “pay to protest” plan will probably be challenged in court. The right to petition the government for a redress of grievances cannot be burdened by such charges. And discretionary fees or measures that can serve as a proxy for content-based discrimination are unconstitutional.

[….] Free speech is not a cost. It is a value. It is a fundamental pillar of democracy.

It also costs money to hold elections, to print ballots, to open and staff polling places. Yet we have recognized and rejected poll taxes as anti-democratic methods of voter suppression. Charging for protest is no different…’

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-trump-administration-wants-to-tax-protests-what-happened-to-free-speech/2018/09/11/70f08bfa-b5e1-11e8-b79f-f6e31e555258_story.html

Charges Dismissed in Pipeline Shutdown Case

‘Charges were dismissed against Emily Johnston, Annette Klapstein, and their support person Ben Joldersma in a criminal case stemming from an October 11, 2016 action that shut down tar sands oil from flowing [….]

Judge Robert Tiffany dismissed the charges, saying that based on the statutes being used, there was not enough evidence to charge Emily Johnston with damaging pipeline equipment. He also found that charging Annette Klapstein and Ben Joldersma with aiding and abetting the damage was impossible because damage couldn’t be proved. The statute’s “clear definition” of a pipeline also did not include the chains that were cut to enter the valve site.

The decision came as a surprise in a trial that the defense had suggested could go into Friday. The defense was based around a historic “necessity defense,” in which Johnston, Klapstein and Joldersma openly admitted to their actions that would normally be a crime, but that they insist were necessary to prevent greater harm to humans on the Earth…’

https://unicornriot.ninja/2018/charges-dismissed-in-pipeline-shutdown-case/

Yes, Lock her up. But only after we can tax Trump's Nuremberg Rallies, also. /jd

‘…President Trump’s supporters don’t care which woman gets locked up, as long as one of them does.

At a rally in Iowa on Tuesday night, attendees began chanting “lock her up” when Trump referenced Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and her handling of allegations against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh…’

https://theweek.com/speedreads/801165/trump-rallygoers-now-chant-lock-about-woman-dont-like

video…

Crowd breaks into cheers of “Lock her up” as Pres. Trump rails against Sen. Dianne Feinstein at Iowa rally, mocking her denial of leaking Christine Blasey Ford’s letter. https://t.co/YZHDSQ0ptC pic.twitter.com/nSZS3FPN8r

— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) October 10, 2018

So fucked up. /jd

US Weapons Systems Are Easy Cyberattack Targets, New Report Finds

‘…the report concludes that almost all weapons that the DoD tested between 2012 and 2017 have “mission critical” cyber vulnerabilities. “Using relatively simple tools and techniques, testers were able to take control of systems and largely operate undetected, due in part to basic issues such as poor password management and unencrypted communications,” the report states. And yet, perhaps more alarmingly, the officials who oversee those systems appeared dismissive of the results.

[….] The GAO report says that one tester was able to guess an admin password on a weapons system in nine seconds. Other weapons used commercial or open-source software but administers failed to change the default passwords. Yet another tester managed to partially shut down a weapons system by merely scanning it—a technique so basic, the GAO says, it “requires little knowledge or expertise.”

Testers were sometimes able to take full control of these weapons. “In one case, it took a two-person test team just one hour to gain initial access to a weapon system and one day to gain full control of the system they were testing,” the report states…’

https://www.wired.com/story/us-weapons-systems-easy-cyberattack-targets/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6iW-8xPw3k

Can Civilization Survive What’s Coming?

‘…Here’s what this new IPCC report says, in a nutshell: To avoid blowing through the 1.5 C target, nations of the world need to cut carbon pollution as fast as humanly possible. To be more precise, nations of the world need to get to zero carbon emissions by 2050.

Let me underscore this: It’s not enough that Portland, Oregon, or Berkeley, California, get to zero carbon emissions by 2050. Or the entire state of California, for that matter. Or even the entire United States. The entire world must eliminate (or offset)carbon pollution by 2050.

“It’s like a deafening, piercing smoke alarm going off in the kitchen. We have to put out the fire,” Erik Solheim, executive director of the U.N. Environment Program, told the Washington Post…’

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/can-earth-survive-climate-change-735067/

France sued for ‘crimes against humanity’ over nuclear tests in South Pacific

‘France is being taken to the International Criminal Court for nuclear weapons tests in French Polynesia. France has long denied responsibility for the impacts of the tests and only recently began compensating civilians.

[….] Oscar Temaru, the archipelago’s former president and current leader of the Tavini Huiraatira Party, announced the move during a United Nations committee dealing with decolonization.

Temaru accused France of “crimes against humanity” and said that he hopes to hold French presidents accountable for the nuclear tests with the ICC complaint.

“We owe it to all the people who died from the consequences of nuclear colonialism,” he told the UN committee.

[….] The French territory, currently home to 290,000 people, is best known for the popular tourist island of Tahiti, but its atolls of Mururoa and Fangataufa were used for decades for nuclear tests.

France carried out 193 nuclear weapons tests on islands in the archipelago between 1960 and 1996 until French President Jacques Chirac halted the program.

Around 150,000 military and civilian personnel were involved in France’s nuclear tests, with thousands of them later developing serious health problems.

[….] In 2010, France passed a law allowing military veterans and civilians to be compensated if their cancer could be attributed to the nuclear tests.

Out of approximately 1,000 people who have filed complaints against France, only 20 have been compensated…’

https://www.dw.com/en/france-sued-for-crimes-against-humanity-over-nuclear-tests-in-south-pacific/a-45826054

Nazi enough to call it Nazi-like? /jd

Migrant children may be adopted after parents are deported

‘…Holes in immigration laws are allowing state court judges to grant custody of migrant children to American families without notifying their deported parents [….] Legally, when a parent is deported without their child, that child is not supposed to be allowed to be permanently adopted.

“And the reality is that for every parent who is not located, there will be a permanent orphaned child,” U.S. District Judge Dana Sabraw said in August.

[….] Associated Press’s conclusions are especially important given that 300 parents were deported to Central America without their children just this summer as part of the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” policy at the border…’

https://thehill.com/policy/international/americas/410653-ap-migrant-children-may-be-adopted-after-parents-are-deported

More Capitalism means More Freedom, or not. /jd

‘…Back in 2016, printing giant HP sent a deceitful, malicious update to millions of OfficeJet and OfficeJet Pro printers that disguised itself as a ‘security update.’ Users who trusted HP and applied the update discovered to their chagrin that the update didn’t improve their printers’ security: rather, the updated printers had acquired the ability to reject cheaper ink, forcing the printer owners to throw away their third-party and refilled ink cartridges and buy new ones.

Now, Epson has followed suit: in late 2016 or early 2017, Epson started sending deceptive updates to many of its printers. Just like HP, Epson disguised these updates as routine software improvements, when really they were poison pills, designed to downgrade printers so they could only work with Epson’s expensive ink systems…’

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/10/eff-texas-ag-epson-tricked-its-customers-dangerous-fake-update

Computers are not gender-neutral because the humans who programmed them are not gender-neutral. /jd

‘Amazon.com Inc’s machine-learning specialists uncovered a big problem: their new recruiting engine did not like women.

[….] “Everyone wanted this holy grail,” one of the people said. “They literally wanted it to be an engine where I’m going to give you 100 resumes, it will spit out the top five, and we’ll hire those.”

But by 2015, the company realized its new system was not rating candidates for software developer jobs and other technical posts in a gender-neutral way.

That is because Amazon’s computer models were trained to vet applicants by observing patterns in resumes submitted to the company over a 10-year period. Most came from men, a reflection of male dominance across the tech industry. ..’

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-amazon-com-jobs-automation-insight/amazon-scraps-secret-ai-recruiting-tool-that-showed-bias-against-women-idUSKCN1MK08G

Who was Cecilia Payne?

‘…Not only did Cecilia Payne discover what the universe is made of, she also discovered what the sun is made of (Henry Norris Russell, a fellow astronomer, is usually given credit for discovering that the sun’s composition is different from the Earth’s, but he came to his conclusions four years later than Payne—after telling her not to publish).

Cecilia Payne is the reason we know basically anything about variable stars (stars whose brightness as seen from earth fluctuates). Literally every other study on variable stars is based on her work…’

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1764457033653272&set=a.359457910819865&type=3&theater

like, duh... /jd

It’s better to be born rich than gifted

‘…A revolution in genomics is creeping into economics. It allows us to say something we might have suspected, but could never confirm: money trumps genes.

Using one new, genome-based measure, economists found genetic endowments are distributed almost equally among children in low-income and high-income families. Success is not.

The least-gifted children of high-income parents graduate from college at higher rates than the most-gifted children of low-income parents…’

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2018/10/09/its-better-be-born-rich-than-talented

2018.10.09 – back from vacation

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

2018.09.25 LinkBlog

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

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

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

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

2018.09.19 LinkBlog

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/

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

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