Global
When corporations in capitalism-run-amok societies like the United States are run primarily for excess profits and achieving ever-increasing shareholder value, ethical considerations and the spiritual and environmental costs to society are routinely disregarded. In such societies, it is considered normal for corporations of all sorts to regard profits, especially short-term profits, as the main criterion for decision-making - and NOT the well-being of the people or the environment.
This isn’t free unsolicited advice on your new name, because (1) you’ve pretended to ask everyone for input, and (2) if you name your team the Washington Warriors next year, as I’m guessing you would have done by now if not for some legal dispute, I’ll be happy to sell you the URL washingtonwarriorssuck.com for a donation of .00001% of the U.S. military budget to the people of Yemen.
So, here’s my non-free and fully solicited advice: don’t be a moral imbecile. Name your team for something positive. Don’t name it something else cruel and offensive just because nobody’s objected yet.
Do you remember when they had to rename the Washington Bullets, not because they cared that bullets were being used to murder people all over the world, but because the city of Washington, D.C., had become famous for its high level of shootings?
So far, MSNBC’s “new” program presented by Joy Reid is arguably to the public discourse what the 1950’s The Donna Reed Show was to housewifery: nice, middle of the road, safe, conventional television. Of course, one was a TV sitcom and the other is a news-oriented program, but the main difference between the two eponymous performers is in form, not content. While Reed was lily white, Reid is Black, and as such at this time of urban uprisings she is intended to bestow street cred and legitimacy on her network.
Here’s a quietly unsettling moment from the current cries for change churning across the nation:
A teenage girl is at a grocery store in the small town of Marion, Virginia. Her brother, Travon Brown, age 17, had recently become both beloved and hated — the center of controversy — in the town, because he had organized a protest against racism in the wake of the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. This was one of thousands of such protests across the country, but the majority-white town was nonetheless riled up over this affront, according to the Washington Post, which took a long, deep look at events there.
The American police state is currently making its boldest test run to date in Portland, Oregon, escalating violence and lawlessness against the peaceful population of an American city. The people of Portland have responded with increased resistance, but support from officials elected to defend the Constitution is scarce and weak.
Oregon’s two senators, Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley, are both Democrats with reputations for being on the better side of important issues. But until July 20, their best response to federal secret police operating without restraint in Portland had been to wring their hands and call for a federal investigation of the uninvited federal forces that have ratcheted up street violence and terrorized the city.
WCRS Podcast - fightback
The Other Side of the News - Fascism and the Householder scandal
Submitted by fightback on Fri, 07/24/2020 - 2:07pm Bob interviews John Scales Avery about the state of the world, U.S. and rising fascism. Also he discusses the recent arrest of Ohio Speaker Larry Householder in the nuke bailout scandal. 26:33 minutes (24.43 MB)
To stop Donald Trump from becoming President for Life, democracy activists must win this fall's election protection "trifecta"-- restore the voter registration rolls, make it possible for everyone to vote by mail and guarantee a fair and accurate ballot count.
The odds are formidable.
In 2000, 2004 and 2016, Republicans deregistered millions of potential voters in order to put George W. Bush and Donald Trump in the White House. In 2020, the nationwide total has been estimated in the range of 16 million. The disenfranchised would-be voters, of course, are predominantly young, low income and people of color.
In years past, the pretexts for making voting harder have been varied and creative. They range from suspicion of voting twice, to being an ex-felon, to voting in more than one state-- things that almost never happen.
This year, Republican lawmakers are stripping the registration rolls of citizens they suspect of having skipped two previous federal elections. Their determination to "clean" the voter rolls has been fierce, especially when applied to voting blocs that lean Democratic.
Remarks at Peacestock 2020
Imagine you’re stranded on a barren rock in the middle of the ocean, nothing in sight but the endless sea. And you’ve got a basket of apples, nothing else. It’s a huge basket, a thousand apples. There are various things you could do.
You could allow yourself a few apples a day and try to make them last. You could work on creating a patch of soil where apple seeds could be planted. You could work on starting a fire in order to have some cooked apples for a change. You could think of other ideas; you’d have plenty of time.
What if you were to take 600 of your 1,000 apples and throw them as hard as you could into the water, one by one, in hopes of hitting a shark, or scaring all the sharks of the world so that they wouldn’t come near your island? And what if a voice in the back of your head were to whisper to you: “Psst. Hey, buddy, you’re losing your mind. You’re not scaring sharks. You’re more likely to attract some monster than to get a message out to all the monsters in the world. And you’re going to starve soon at this rate.”
BANGKOK, Thailand -- One year after becoming an elected civilian prime
minister, military coup leader Prayuth Chan-ocha is tightening
security links with the Pentagon, increasing financial deals with
China, and enjoying applause for containing COVID-19 at 58 dead with
no transmissions in two months.
Prime Minister Prayuth's political enemies meanwhile suffered the past
year being ousted from a lopsided, junta-stacked parliament or
struggling in disarray.
Smoldering protests are starting to resume against his change from a
2014 bloodless coup leader to being sworn in on July 16, 2019 after
his coalition won a parliamentary election and packed the Senate with
appointees.
But his opponents are muzzled by Mr. Prayuth's recent Emergency Decree
restricting free speech and assembly, which he claims is needed to
contain COVID-19.
A politicized and weapons-hungry military, Thailand's need for
investments, and its strategic territorial access in Southeast Asia
attract both the U.S. and China which perceive him as a willing
partner.