Hello Comrades -
Due to situations outside our control, it has become necessary to move on from this Blogger site in order to preserve and continue the constructive social commentary and leftist information and analysis that we set out to do. Hopefully for you, the transition will be (pretty) seamless.We have set up two options. One option is to continue with a new Blogger site, which could mean no change for you at all.
The second option is to move our site to our own domain and server space and escape Google data mining (Blogger is owned by Google). We are working on this option and development is going (cough...) well.We need input from our community please:DISQUS OR OTHER COMMENTING PLATFORM: What interest do folks have in leaving disqus altogether and moving to another commenting platform that will not harvest data (as disqus does)? Getting rid of the truncated threads where each person sees a different version of the discussion and which is open to any troll that signs up for a disqus account is an option. If we leave disqus, there will be no way to send out notices of new posts, and you would have to set up a commenting account with an email address.
If we move to our own server space and want to add disqus to Wordpress, the disqus plugin is rated 2.7 out of 5 stars. Yikes!!
Can we discuss and have a show of hands who would be interested in moving to a different comment platform? Possibly flat thread (as opposed to disqus threaded view)?
MODERATION: The question of moderation is a perennial one. For the most part, we have taken a very light touch but there are trolls and saboteurs who periodically disrupt and most of us have played that role ourselves. (banned one who has been a particular personal menace yesterday) There are obvious holes in the moderation here. Are commenters in favor of more aggressive moderation? Or what is your view?HELP!! One more important question... Do we have a tech guru with experience in Wordpress in the house who would be interested in helping me with the transition? I have the tech things pretty much in hand, I think, but there are a few loose ends (if so, please send me a note - newestbeginning@gmail.com)Thanks for your contributions guys,newestbeginning, collectivist and dmorista
(also might as well ask - is there anyone who wants to be removed from our email notification list?)
September 11, 2001 Events in the U.S.: Reflections to Mark the Twentieth Anniversary
Prepared by Dmorista for Leftist Politics.
"Millions will suffer as they lose this critical source of income and the loss of spending will suppress job growth."
https://climateandcapitalism.com/2021/06/17/the-double-deformation/
~~ posted for collectivist ~~
Economic exploitation is only one aspect of capitalism. The crisis of humanity and the crisis of the earth system are inseparable"The Empire Strikes Back (Part One): The Largest Voter Suppression Campaign in US History Is Underway"
By Harvey Wasserman, Reader Supported News, 08 February 21
At < https://www.brennancenter.org/
After historic turnout and increased mail voting in 2020, state lawmakers across the country are pulling in opposite directions by introducing restrictive and expansive voting legislation.
~~ posted for dmorista with introduction by dmorista ~~
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/sep/02/roe-v-wade-texas-abortion-law-us-constitution
~~ posted for dmorista with introduction by dmorista ~~
https://www.mintpressnews.com/john-pilger-afganistan-great-game-smashing-countries/278289/
~~ posted for dmorista with introduction by dmorista ~~
https://thegrayzone.com/2021/08/21/us-afghanistan-pullout-cia-opium-pipeline/
~~ posted for dmorista with introduction by dmorista ~~
~~ posted for dmorista with introduction by dmorista ~~
~~ suggested by a guest contributor ~~
The Sunrise Movement deserves enormous credit for putting the Green New Deal on the national political agenda. But the organization seems to have hit a wall as of late. It may be time for Sunrise to pursue a new direction in its tactics
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2021/08/antiwar-military-veterans-afghanistan-iraq-biden-troops
~~ posted for dmorista and introduction written by dmorista ~~
Iraq War veteran Mike Prysner on what the military-industrial complex gained by staying in Afghanistan so long, what’s next for US empire, and why antiwar sentiment is rising among active-duty soldiers.
https://www.blackagendareport.com/afghanistan-0
~~ posted for dmorista ~~
~~ posted for dmorista with introduction by dmorista ~~
https://www.workers.org/2021/08/58438/
~~ posted for collectivist ~~
https://jackrasmus.com/2021/08/17/afghanistan-the-american-imperial-project/
~~ posted for dmorista with introduction by dmorista ~~
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cacJawinmFU
https://www.rt.com/shows/on-contact/531779-dennis-kucinich-on-contact-part-two/
~~ posted for dmorista with introduction written by dmorista ~~
~~ written by and posted for dmorista ~~
~~Written by and posted for dmorista ~~
https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/08/12/the-war-on-wokeness/
~~ posted for collectivist ~~
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/08/10/pers-a10.html
and
Podcast https://popularresistance.org/the-afghanistan-war-was-a-disaster-veteran-danny-sjursen-on-us-pullout/. Note: the interview with Sjursen begins at about 20 minutes into the podcast.
~~ posted for dmorista ~~
~ ~ posted for dmorista with introduction by dmorista ~~
https://scheerpost.com/2021/08/05/hiroshima-is-a-lie/
~~ posted for dmorista ~~
Why do U.S. history teachers in U.S. elementary schools today — in 2021! — tell children that nuclear bombs were dropped on Japan to save lives — or rather “the bomb” (singular) to avoid mentioning Nagasaki?
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/25/world/europe/disinformation-social-media.html
~~ posted for dmorista with introduction by dmorista ~~
https://newsone.com/4178339/glen-ford-dies-black-agenda-report-founder/
~~ posted for dmorista with introductions by dmorista and collectivist ~~
https://inthesetimes.com/article/open-letter-bipartisan-infrastructure-water-privatization
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69pEzsfX8Aw
~~ posted for dmorista with introduction by dmorista ~~
M4A
Rather than force hospitals to be up front with patients about their costs, we should strip them of the power to set them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9lWJB1jPVQ
~~ posted for dmorista with introduction by dmorista ~~
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpD0Im5d9-c
~~ posted for dmorista with introduction by dmorista ~~
https://mltoday.com/world-communist-movement-cuba-will-win/
~~ posted for collectivist ~~
Slavoj Žižek writes in Jacobin that today's exploding ecological crises open up a realistic prospect of the final exit of humanity itself. Might socialism be our off-ramp, or is it already too late?
~~ recommended by a guest contributor ~~
~~ posted for dmorista ~~
https://unlimitedhangout.com/2021/06/investigative-reports/who-is-a-terrorist-in-bidens-america/
~~ recommended by a guest contributor ~~
https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/07/20/a-nighttime-walk-without-bugs-or-bats/
Lawns.... and the environmental catastrophe they bring with them. Very few authors are speaking up against the violent destruction of the prettification of the natural world... I invite each person to go out and look around - daytime at night... Listen to the silence... Where are the insects and birds? Kudos to Lindorff for writing this ~~ NB
https://popularresistance.org/bless-the-traitors/
~~ posted for dmorista ~~
For his heroism, he faces ten years in prison while those who oversee these war crimes continue their killing spree.
https://www.workers.org/2021/07/57547/
~~ posted for collectivist ~~
https://www.dailyposter.com/workers-are-funding-the-war-on-themselves/
~~ posted for dmorista ~~
How workers’ retirement savings are enriching billionaires and, in every way imaginable, financing the apocalypse.https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/06/27/anti-war-crusader-mike-gravel-dead-91
~~ posted for dmorista ~~
"Mike Gravel was a truly good guy. He was one of the first elected officials to publicly and loudly oppose the Vietnam, and later imperialist wars." ~~ dmorista
~~ posted for dmorista ~~
"Declaring the extinction crisis to be a national emergency would unlock key presidential powers that will halt the unraveling of the planet’s life-support systems."
~~ posted for dmorista ~~
"You are siding with a handful of corrupt corporate elites over honoring treaty rights, climate, water, and the future of life on Earth."https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CyS7VsQ5jYQ
~~ posted for collectivist ~~
A Bird Summit (Pt. 2)
https://www.hamptonthink.org/read/from-black-wall-street-to-black-capitalism
~~ posted for collectivist ~~
https://mronline.org/2021/06/03/red-alert-only-one-earth/
~~ posted for collectivist ~~
https://petras.lahaine.org/wars-us-militarist-factions-in-command/
~~ posted for, and with introduction written by dmorista ~~
https://mronline.org/2021/04/20/the-classes-of-capitalism/
~~ posted for collectivist ~~
https://www.workers.org/2021/05/56453/
~~ posted for collectivist ~~
https://www.workers.org/2021/04/55957/
~~ posted for collectivist ~~
https://www.mintpressnews.com/congressional-report-finds-us-sanctions-blame-venezuela-crisis/276963/
~~ posted for dreamjoehill2 ~~
If the U.S. government’s propaganda is correct that the current crisis is due to Maduro’s mismanagement and corruption, then illegal and inhumane sanctions would not be needed to dislodge the “regime.”
https://archive.iww.org/history/biography/LucyParsons/1/
~~ posted for collectivist ~~
https://theanarchistlibrary.
~~ posted for Collectivist who requested this introduction be included: Although I am an ecological socialist, not an anarchist, I post this for two reasons, 1) anarchists are revolutionary comrades 2) to generate discussion . .. Collectivist ~~
https://www.workers.org/2021/04/55814/
~~ posted for collectivist ~~
~~ Written by dmorista ~~
https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/03/29/culture-of-violence/
~~ posted for collectivist ~~
~~ posted for collectivist ~~
https://www.leftvoice.org/amazon-hires-off-duty-cops-to-harass-workers-the-press-and-supporters
Bessemer, Alabama’s police chief has confirmed that off-duty officers have been hired by Amazon to act as “security” for the BHM1 facility in the middle of a historic and intense union drive. Two Left Voice reporters who were recently expelled from Amazon’s premises by the cops: report from the ground.
In Yet Another Epic Betrayal, Forcible-Disarmament-Fanatic Joe Has Sneakily Renewed His Opposition to Legalized Marijuana -- Probably to Radically Intensify Prosecutions of Otherwise Lawful Gun Owners
THANKS TO A pair of sources -- The Stand, Washington State Labor Council's excellent on-line daily, plus a much-appreciated news tip from fellow journalist William Boardman -- we now have our clearest-yet sense of the hatred and contempt that unites the "Democratic" (sic) and Republican parties in the ecogenocidal solidarity of their Neoliberal (Neonazi) war against U.S. Working Families and the global Working Class in general:
These are among the most damning proofs yet the "Democratic" (sic) Party has reverted to its post-JFK function as the Republican Party's Neoliberal (Neonazi) Fifth Column.
And, of course, the Mainstream Media Propaganda Machine, the world's first privately owned, for-profit version of Josef Goebbels' infamous Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, is protecting the Democrats by suppressing the story -- or at the very least, sugar-coating it with the nauseatingly fecal propaganda routinely excreted in service to the Moronic Majority's cult of mandatory optimism.
Again demonstrating our fatal lack of a genuine Left, nearly all the so-called "alternative" media is doing likewise.
Hence our two courageous sources have provided genuinely revealing information:
Firstly. as you probably know, many Republicans and at least a few of their "Democratic" (sic) Fifth Column co-conspirators sadistically wanted to deny -- say again DENY-- stimulus checks to any of us whose sole sources of income are the murderously miserly welfare, Social Security or veterans' stipends that define us as unexploitable for profit, too impoverished to be liable for income taxes and therefore -- in the merciless Ayn Randified eyes of our Neoliberal Masters -- as "life unworthy of life."1
Why withhold the money? Obviously, it's another aspect of our Masters' Final Solution to the problem of overpopulation by those of us who are hopelessly poor: the longer we are denied our $1400, the more acute our anxiety. More of us will therefore sicken and die -- which of course leaves more money for the Empire's Neoliberal (Neonazi) owners and their political marionettes.
Moreover the Democrats and their Republican co-conspirators have sneakily given the SS and VA bureaucracies until 31 December 2021 to make the payments2 -- obviously to further maximize the Covid19 death toll.3
Secondly, apropos the "Democratic" (sic) Party's resumption of opposition to legalized marijuana, as an analytically minded member of the Second Amendment community's hard-Left faction, I saw this coming years ago. The fact marijuana is legal prescription medicine in a growing number of states is federally meaningless -- and as Biden now demonstrates, so it shall remain.
Why?
Because any firearms owner who merely draws a breath of air containing
marijuana smoke will urine-test positive for drug use and is therefore
subject not only to confiscatory forcible disarmament, but to ten years'
slave labor on the for-profit prisoner plantations that despite Biden's deceptions continue to expand, amassing profits comparable to those extracted by antebellum slave owners.
Hence anyone who believed Biden/Harris would legalize pot or end for-profit prison slavery was either hopelessly naive or more typically a member of the Moronic Majority, a useful idiot brainwarped by the Ruling Class and thus totally oblivious to the fact our Masters intend to completely disarm us -- to reduce us literally to mandatory pacifism and compulsory victimhood -- the latest expression of their fear our hopelessly dumbed-down brains might someday figure out how to foment a (real) revolution.
Doubt me? Note that some forcible-disarmament fanatics are already calling for mandatory monthly drug tests and annual psych evaluations for all firearms owners -- millions more dollars for the for-profit medical predators, with firearms ownership by us poor folk permanently prohibited by these proposed additional costs.
Thirdly, behind his cloak of Big Lies, disinformation and euphemisms, Biden is obviously just another example of "change we can believe in," different from the Trumpite version mainly in the extent to which Biden hides Neoliberalism's Neonazi agenda -- Trump's premature disclosures of which separated our Masters into at least two mutually hostile factions and ensured Trump's loss in last November's election.5
How then did the "Democratic" (sic) Party become the Republican Fifth Column it is today? My journalistic guess is the Democrats were terminally compromised by their collaboration with the Republicans in the murder of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy and the still furiously controversial deceptions necessary to hide the Ruling Class coup of 22 November 1963 -- its reality since proven by the now-irremediable (boiled-frog) imposition of Neoliberal Neonazism.4
Perhaps the most pivotal lesson I've been taught by Moron Nation is that investigative journalism is utterly pointless -- that too many of whatever small percentage of the population has retained the ability to read with comprehension has also been reduced to such submissive moral imbecility they are genetically incapable of feeling the empathy or concerns essential to humanitarian action.
In other words, in the psychological sense -- regardless of race or gender -- they are already naught but slaves.
All
of which thrusts me ever closer to concluding there truly is no hope
for us -- not for ourselves, our nation, our species, our Mother Earth.
___________________________
1"Life Unworthy of Life" is the English translation of the phrase by which the German Nazis condemned elderly or disabled people to death for being unprofitable -- an ultimate example of the criminalization of poverty that has become so popular amongst U.S. politicians.
2HR1319, the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021,
is among the most infuriatingly censored legislative packages ever
enacted by Congress, which is why most of us remain unaware its
Ayn-Rand-minded authors gave the federal bureaucracy nearly a year --
specifically until 31 December 2021 -- to send us our $1400 relief
payments. Scroll to Page 137, "Timing and Manner of Payments...No refund or credit shall be made or allowed under this subsection after December 31, 2021." This is the most outrageously tolerant approval of bureaucratic obstructionism I have ever encountered.
3Apropos the viciously extended disbursement deadline, I turn 81 on 30 March; even fully vaccinated -- I go off quarantine at midnight -- my comorbidities may not let me live long enough to see the now indefinitely delayed $1400 -- and the same applies to anyone like me. Obviously, this is no accident; its potentially deadly anxieties are precisely what our Masters intend -- another atrocity in their ever-more-lethal criminalization of poverty.
4Though it is seldom recognized as such, neoliberalism is the most toxic variant of Nazism to emerge thus far. Note the identical, might-makes-right ethos of absolute moral imbecility promulgated both by Hitler in Mein Kampf and by Ayn Rand in Atlas Shrugged. Indeed, Neoliberalism's submit-to-capitalism-or-die mandate expresses the same submit-to-the-übermenschen-or-die ruthlessness of Nazism's German founders; the differences between the two are thus more illusory than real. Rather than requiring an individual tyrant, Neoliberalism crowns the corporate aristocracy as our species' divinely ordained, absolute-power ruler; building on Josef Goebbels' methodological foundation, it achieves its intended tyrannies by the most compelling psychological warfare ever unleashed against our species and -- cunningly exploiting the induced ignorance of Moron Nation -- by other methods far more readily concealable than the German Nazi agenda of military conquests, death camps and Zyklon B. It does so by glorifying Ayn Rand's sociopathy and by weaponizing disaster, pollution and disease to eradicate the few remnants of democratic process and reduce the Working Class to inescapable forms of modern slavery. Given the many variants of fascism that have reduced what was originally a proper noun to a lower-case generic, I propose doing likewise with Nazism. This gives us neonazism (or nazism) as more emotionally accurate description of what we now label "fascism," its lower-case forms the correct spelling for all "nazi" references save to the Third Reich's N.S.D.A.P., the original Nazi Party, which should of course still be capitalized accordingly.
5Is Trump down for the proverbial count? I fear not. I have no doubt whatever non-nazified historians might abide in the future -- that is, if we somehow manage to seize ourselves a future -- will define the nazis' 6 January 2021 uprising as eerily equivalent to Hitler's 1923 Munich Beer Hall Putsch. Obviously I cannot predict what measures the U.S. nazis will next attempt. But I am absolutely certain we the people of these helplessly (dis)United States no longer collectively possess the empathy, integrity, knowledge, skill, determination, solidarity-- and most of all the titanium-ovaried, brass-testicled courage -- necessary to defeat (any) nazi onslaught. We saw these requisites demonstrated by the Soviet people, as many as 43 million of whom died saving us all from Hitler and his allies, but alas I cannot imagine such capability in the present-day United States. Goddess grant this time my usually accurate pessimism is flat out wrong.
LB/27 March 2021
-30-
One Night in Miami (A Film Review by Collectivist)
~~ posted for collectivist ~~
https://www.rdwolff.com/thom_hartmann_rising_food_prices_could_bring_world_war
https://www.leftvoice.org/capitalism-and-healthcare-the-con-of-nonprofit-
https://constantinereport.com/the-siege-of-the-capitol-all-roads-lead-to-robert-mercer/
~~ article recommended by dreamjoehill2 and Introduction by dmorista ~~
https://www.blackagendareport.com/poor_black_lives_matter_to_capitalism_new_jim_crow
The U.S. mass incarceration regime measures Black lives by the value that can be derived from their imprisonment. “The ‘new Jim Crow’ is about disciplining a deindustrialized Black lumpen proletariat and turning it into a largely inert, deindustrialized profit-source whose 'value added' comes mainly from the mere fact of its captive existence.”
Yet Another Capitalist Failure in Texas
~~ Written by dmorista ~~
