It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Sunday, May 15, 2022
Fossils of a Dinosaur that Inspired 'Jurassic Park' Sold for Over $12 Million
CNN 14 May 2022
CNN published this article:
His name is "Hector," he's over 100 million years old, and his fossils sold for more than $12 million in auction at Christie's.
Hector is the most complete skeleton of Deinonychus antirrhopus ever found, according to Christie's. The specimen, excavated in Montana in 2013, dates back to the early Cretaceous period: 115 to 108 million years ago. It's in a "remarkable state of preservation," the auction house says of the specimen, consisting of 126 original fossils on a custom-built frame.
The lot was expected to net between $4 million and $6 million, according to Christie's.
Instead, it sold for a jaw-dropping $12.4 million on Wednesday.
The 9-foot-long Deinonychus, which roamed western North America, was named for its distinctive and deadly claw on each foot, says the auction house. Deinonychus means "terrible claw" in ancient Greek.
"Shaped like a sickle and held up off the ground when not in use so as to maintain its lethal sharpness, this claw was used to disembowel its prey," said Christie's.
The lethal talon might be familiar to fans of the iconic film series "Jurassic Park," in which conniving velociraptors kill park guests and battle a Tyrannosaurus rex. However, in reality, Velociraptor was a small turkey-sized dinosaur found mostly in Mongolia. Filmmakers lifted its name, but took most of the attributes from the larger Deinonychus, according to Christie's.
Hector, only the third complete skeleton of Deinonychus ever found, has been privately owned since his excavation. The other two complete Deinonychus skeletons are owned by museums: one is on display at the American Museum of Natural History.
Dinosaur fossils, particularly for "celebrity" species like those featured in "Jurassic Park," have fetched impressive sums at auction in the past few decades. In 2020, a T.rex skeleton sold for a record-breaking $31.8 million, and in 2021, the world's largest Triceratops skeleton sold for $7.7 million.
0Bit coin
Bitcoin crash erases $36 million in value from El Salvador government's massive crypto investment as national debt grows
Hannah Towey Fri, May 13, 2022 A store that accepts bitcoins in El Zonte, La Libertad, El Salvador on September 4, 2021
.MARVIN RECINOS/AFP via Getty Images El Salvador, the first country to make bitcoin legal tender, racked up $36 million in cryptocurrency losses on Thursday.
The popular cryptocurrency plummeted 50% from its all-time high this week.
El Salvador – which became the first country to make bitcoin legal tender in September — has seen the value of its massive cryptocurrency investment plummet by $36 million as bitcoin dropped over 50% from its all-time high on Thursday.
President Nayib Bukele bet big that bullish bitcoin investments could rescue El Salvador's economy from its growing debt-to-GDP ratio. Now, the crypto market's crash is fulfilling critics' warnings against investing treasury funds into volatile digital currencies.
Bukele's administration has spent a total of $103 million on 2,301 bitcoins since September of last year, according to Bloomberg data. As of Thursday afternoon, the coins were valued at around $67 million. El Salvador currently owes an estimated $23.3 billion in national debt.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) issued multiple warnings to the administration about legalizing bitcoin as an acceptable form of payment for any purchase or debt. In February, Fitch Ratings downgraded El Salvador's default rating from a "B-" to a "CCC," citing financing uncertainty spurred by the law.
"Households and businesses who hold Bitcoin balances and save in Bitcoin could lose wealth through large swings in value," the IMF El Salvador team, led by Alina Carare, warned in February.
"The adoption of Bitcoin as legal tender is fully funded by public money, through a trust fund. If the price of Bitcoin was to plummet, the resources in the trust could be rapidly depleted," IMF continued.
Bukele's bullish investment in cryptocurrency has led to a mixed reception by the country's citizens, with past bitcoin protests drawing thousands of attendees. A spokesperson for the administration did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.
According to a September survey of 1,281 people, most Salvadorans (67.9%) disagree with the government's decision to make bitcoin legal tender. The nation's digital wallet, "Chivo Wallet," has not seen widespread use as the majority of sales continue to be paid in physical currencies, as Insider has previously reported.
El Salvador buys the bitcoin dip, adding 500 coins to its balance sheet
El Salvador just added another $15.5 million worth of bitcoin to its balance sheet, as the world’s most popular cryptocurrency continues its sell-off.
In a tweet on Monday, President Nayib Bukele revealed that the country bought the dip, adding another 500 bitcoin to government coffers.
It is El Salvador’s largest coin purchase since it first began adding the digital currency to its balance sheet in Sept. 2021 — the same month it became the first country to adopt bitcoin as legal tender, alongside the U.S. dollar.
President of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, gestures during his speech at the closing ceremony of the Latin Bitcoin conference (LaBitConf) at Mizata Beach, El Salvador, where he announced “Bitcoin City”, on November 20, 2021. Marvin Recinos | AFP | Getty Images
El Salvador just added another $15.5 million worth of bitcoin to its balance sheet, as the world’s most popular cryptocurrency continues its sell-off.
In a tweet on Monday, President Nayib Bukele revealed that the country bought the dip, adding another 500 bitcoin to government coffers.
It is El Salvador’s largest coin purchase since it first began adding the digital currency to its balance sheet in Sept. 2021 — the same month it became the first country to adopt bitcoin as legal tender, alongside the U.S. dollar.
Bitcoin is down more than 8% in the last 24 hours, and it’s nearly 55% off its November all-time high.
El Salvador purchased bitcoin at an average price of $30,744, according to the president’s tweet.
This is the latest in a string of dip buys over the last nine months, in which President Bukele — who has tethered his political fate to the success of the country’s bitcoin experiment — has doubled down on his bitcoin bet, as the crypto market plummets.
The country’s decision to lean into bitcoin is not without its skeptics — a contingent that has been gaining momentum in recent months.
For months, the International Monetary Fund has bemoaned Bukele’s bitcoin experiment.
In January, the IMF pushed El Salvador to ditch bitcoin as legal tender.
IMF directors “stressed that there are large risks associated with the use of bitcoin on financial stability, financial integrity, and consumer protection, as well as the associated fiscal contingent liabilities.”
The report, which was published after bilateral talks with El Salvador, went on to “urge” authorities to narrow the scope of its bitcoin law by removing bitcoin’s status as legal money.
The IMF report went on to say that some directors had expressed concern over the risks associated with issuing bitcoin-backed bonds, referring to the president’s plan to raise $1 billion via a “Bitcoin Bond” in partnership with Blockstream, a digital assets infrastructure company. However, that bond offering was put on ice in March, due to “unfavorable market conditions,” according to Finance Minister Alejandro Zelaya.
Part of El Salvador’s nationwide move into bitcoin also involved launching a national virtual wallet called Chivo that offers no-fee transactions and allows for quick cross-border payments. For a country where 70% of citizens do not have access to traditional financial services, Chivo is meant to offer a convenient on-ramp for those who have never been a part of the banking system.
IMF directors agreed that the Chivo e-wallet could facilitate digital means of payment, thereby helping to “boost financial inclusion,” though they emphasized the need for “strict regulation and oversight.” Many Salvadorans have reported cases of identity theft, in which hackers use their national ID number to open a Chivo e-wallet, in order to claim the free $30 worth of bitcoin offered by the government as an incentive.
A report published in April by the U.S. National Bureau of Economic Research also showed that only 20% of those who downloaded the wallet continued to use it after spending the $30 bonus. The research was based upon a “nationally representative survey” involving 1,800 households.
El Salvador has been trying since early 2021 to secure a $1.3 billion loan from the IMF — an effort that appears to have soured over this bitcoin row.
The country will need to figure out some other backstop to shore up its finances. The IMF predicts that under current policies, public debt will rise to 96% of GDP by 2026, putting the country on “an unsustainable path.”
Protesters demand arrest of ex-Sri Lankan PM over attack
By Associated Press May 15, 2022 New Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe (center) visits a Buddhist temple after his swearing-in ceremony in Colombo on Thursday, May 12, 2022. AFP PHOTO
COLOMBO: Sri Lankan protesters attacked earlier this week by pro-government supporters de-manded on Friday that new Prime Minister Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe arrest his prede-cessor for allegedly instigating the attack against them as they were calling for his resignation.
A group of protesters camped outside the official residence of the premier, who was appointed on Thursday night by President Gotabaya Rajapaksa in a bid to hold onto power and quell the South Asian island nation's political and economic crisis.
For months, Sri Lankans have been forced to wait in long lines to purchase scarce imported essen-tials such as medicines, fuel, cooking gas and food because of a severe foreign currency shortage.
The president's elder brother, Mahinda Rajapaksa, resigned as prime minister on Monday after the attack on peaceful protesters triggered a wave of violence across the country. Nine people were killed and more than 200 were wounded.
The group of about 10 protesters camped at the prime minister's residence said they don't trust Wickremesinghe, a former five-time premier, because he is close to the Rajapaksas.
"If he is truly on the side of the people," he should have Mahinda Rajapaksa arrested, said Wimal Jayasuriya, a 43-year-old teacher. If he doesn't arrest him, "then he has to get ready to go."
Jayasuriya and the others said they were among the protesters who were attacked on Monday with metal and wooden poles by Rajapaksa supporters who were leaving the prime minister's residence after meeting with him.
Thousands of protesters have joined weeks of protests outside the president's office and the prime minister's residence demanding their resignations over the worsening crisis.
Mahinda and his family have taken refuge at a fortified naval base in Trincomalee, on the coun-try's northeastern coast. A court on Thursday issued travel bans against him, his former Cabinet minister-son and 15 others, including other former ministers, pending an investigation into the at-tack on the protesters.
Wickremesinghe's appointment has been opposed by some politicians and religious leaders, who say he is part of a corrupt system they want overhauled.
As prime minister from 2015 to 2019, Wickremesinghe was accused of protecting the Rajapaksa family from allegations of corruption and other crimes after Mahinda lost a presidential election in 2015.
The main opposition party, which split from Wickremesinghe's leadership in 2020, also opposes his appointment as premier.
Wickremesinghe says he can prove he has the support of a majority of Parliament and will be able to solve the country's economic issues.
Sri Lanka is near bankruptcy and has suspended repayment of its foreign loans pending negotia-tions on a rescue package with the International Monetary Fund.
It needs to repay $7 billion in foreign debt this year out of the $25 billion due by 2026. Its total foreign debt is $51 billion. The finance ministry says the country currently has only $25 million in usable foreign reserves.
Resident Physicians Are Unionizing — They Need Fighting Unions
Amid growing pro-union sentiment in the country, resident physicians are unionizing. They need fighting unions that challenge the for-profit healthcare system.
Resident physicians are unionizing around the country. Most recently, residents at University of Vermont Medical Center (UVM), Stanford Medical Center, and Keck School of Medicine of USC all voted to join the Committee of Interns and Residents (CIR), which is part of the larger Service Employees International Union (SEIU). These wins come despite ongoing pushback from the hospital bosses. This resistance is coming because hospitals know unionized resident physicians will be harder to exploit. More residents should fight to unionize to protect themselves and the care of patients, and in the process of winning unions, they should extend their fight and demands to challenge the dynamics of the healthcare system itself.
The growth in resident physician unions is occurring in the context of a growing pro-union sentiment around the country. Approval for unions in the United States is at its highest point in over 60 years, according to a recent Gallup poll. As part of this pattern of growing support, workers in Amazon recently voted to establish the company’s first union in Staten Island, and Starbucks Workers around the country continue to win union votes, even with ongoing pushback and union-busting tactics from the company. As interim ALU President Chris Smalls has noted, workers are unionizing as a way to fight back against their poor working conditions instead of quitting their jobs. Workers are seeing unions as ways to fight back collectively against the boss and more resident physicians are seeing joining a union as a way to do the same thing.
Still, though, only about one seventh of the over 145,000 resident physicians in the United States today are unionized. But 100 percent of residents should have a union. As we have written about previously, residents are cheap labor in an exploitative, for-profit healthcare system. In many ways, residency training itself serves to condition physicians to act as tools for a capitalist healthcare system constantly looking to cut staff and cut costs to increase profits. Much of the fight for resident unions goes against this dynamic. Residents at hospitals fight through their unions for more demands such as raises, housing stipends, and a better parental leave policy, etc.
And resident organizing for and through unions only increased during the height of the Black Lives Matter Movement and then again throughout varying waves of the pandemic as resident physicians were at the frontlines caring for patients and witnessing the outcomes of intersections of race and class under capitalism have on people’s bodies. These experiences highlighted very clearly how institutions that claim to care about health and well being ultimately put their bottom line above the well being of patients and frontline healthcare workers.
We undoubtedly need more resident unions, and as the number of resident unions grows, the most combative sectors of resident physicians need to explore how to push further beyond demands of workplace improvements and towards questioning the exploitative dynamic of residency itself and more largely the dynamics of the for profit healthcare system. For example, as we have written about in the past, residents often work 80-100 hours per week during their training. They serve as cheap labor for hospital systems and that labor helps uphold the factory-like dynamic of many of these healthcare settings. Resident programs claim to care about addressing these long hours, but argue their hands are tied. One potential avenue of resistance is for resident unions to begin to challenge the 80 hour workweek by forcing their hospitals or clinics to unilaterally cut work hours in contracts (for reference, our CIR union local did exactly this when I was a resident in NYC, winning the first reduced hour contract in CIR history).
Struggles should not stop around hours, however. Residents should also begin to think about challenging their own union leadership. As noted above, most residents unionize under the Committee of Interns and Residents (CIR). The union often attempts to “play nice” or be cordial with hospital leaderships, even signing “no-strike” clauses with the hospitals or clinics at which they are based. But hospital executives are enemies of healthcare workers and patients, and there should be nothing cordial about relationships with them. The strike is one of the most powerful tools any worker has, and the potential for its use should never be signed away in a contract.
Resident mobilizations should go beyond the limits of medical residency. Resident physicians should fight together in their workplaces to challenge the exploitative healthcare system as a whole and push their unions to actually be fighting organs to fight for a better healthcare system. We see some glimmers of this in some of the current resident unionizing efforts where workers want to push for broader improvements at the workplace. At UVM, for example, they “want to tackle broader working conditions at the hospital, including an ongoing staffing shortage and a lack of adequate work spaces.”
In general, physicians today, whether still in residency training or outside residency training, must begin to see themselves as part of the working class, fighting with other workers for better conditions and against conditions that threaten the well being of the general public. For example, resident physicians could also mobilize their unions and fight with other unions to push back against recent threats to the right to abortion in the United States. Rank and file committees could be made to mobilize healthcare workers against the ongoing war in Ukraine. Unionized healthcare workers should be mobilized to confront these fights in their workplaces and in the streets.
As the pandemic showed us, the maintenance of individual and community health extends beyond the walls of any hospital or clinic. When the right to abortion is threatened, this threatens health and well being. When an Amazon worker is exploited by Jeff Bezos and forced to work in unsafe conditions, it does the same. As residents continue to unionize, their fight needs to become more dynamic and combative and spread across sectors to other healthcare workers and other workers more generally.
Mike Pappas is an activist and medical doctor working in New York City.
Sinn Féin leader says Boris Johnson using Northern Ireland as ‘pawn’ in games with EU
Mary Lou McDonald says Tories in ‘cahoots’ with DUP in threatening to tear up post-Brexit protocol
Sinn Fein president Mary Lou McDonald speaks to the media in Dublin after a meeting of the party executive. Photograph: Sam Boal/PA
The leader of Sinn Féin has accused Boris Johnson of playing games with Ireland and using it as a “pawn” in the UK’s continual trade battle with the EU, ahead of the prime minister’s visit on Monday.
Johnson is due to touch down in Belfast on Monday for talks after the Democratic Unionist party (DUP) blocked the election of a speaker in the Stormont assembly, a week after Sinn Féin topped the polls in elections.
Johnson will hold talks with politicians in Northern Ireland, but the Sinn Féin leader, Mary Lou McDonald, said he was in “cahoots” with the DUP in stopping a new executive and assembly sitting.
Under Stormont rules, a new administration cannot be formed without the largest unionist party taking part.
McDonald said it was part of “a game of brinkmanship” with the EU over the Northern Ireland protocol and post-Brexit trading agreements.
Speaking after a meeting of the party’s ruling council, she said: “He has connived with the DUP to use Ireland, the north of Ireland, to use unionism in Ireland as a pawn in a wider game that is being played out with the European Union.
“That is clearly a shameful tactic and approach and it’s one that is absolutely not acceptable.
“We’re not one bit naive as to what’s happening here – it is very clear that the Tory government in London is in cahoots with the DUP to stall and to hold back progress, to frustrate the will of the people as expressed in the election and that, to anybody who calls themselves a democrat, is clearly unacceptable and clearly shameful. And that case will be made to Boris Johnson.”
The DUP, now Northern Ireland’s second party, is opposed to the protocol as it means checks on goods passing between Great Britain and Northern Ireland. It allows the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic to stay open, in line with the Good Friday agreement.
However, the checks have meant delays for businesses.
The DUP leader, Sir Jeffrey Donaldson, has said a “very clear message” needs to be sent to the UK government and the EU.
McDonald said: “We’ve been here before. The British government threw out the process of Brexit and the negotiations and the ratification of the protocol.
“They have not acted in good faith, they have consistently threatened to act and have acted unilaterally.
“Let’s just be clear, the protocol is going nowhere, the protocol is a necessary outworking of Brexit, for which the Tory party and the DUP campaigned.
“The British government cannot use Ireland as a pawn, we won’t be the collateral damage in the Brexit negotiations.”
The DUP had a poor night in the elections, losing three seats, and its refusal to elect a speaker was criticised by Sinn Féin’s leader in Northern Ireland, Michelle O’Neill. The previous executive collapsed due to the resignation of the first minister, DUP politician Paul Givan, in February.
She added: “The British government have assisted the DUP in blocking tactics and this needs to stop. Certainly when we meet Mr Johnson on Monday we will make that clear to him.”
Why Politics is Toxic for Australia’s Women
Australian politics has a problem with women. Prime Minister Scott Morrison is accused of presiding over a culture of misogyny among the country’s political elite, where women face systemic mistreatment, and in some cases, sexual abuse.
Reality Privileged: Orwell/Huxley/McLuhan on Steroids
metaverse, global brain, social impact, your digital self
by Paul Haeder / May 10th, 2022
You can go through life with a thousand epigrams or deep quotes that you might come back to over two, four, six decades. Then, the disrupters pop up, those techno fascists, the tinkers and culture blasters.
These sociopaths who get the limelight then become part of a new set of epigrams, but not grand ones, but totally emblematic of a new normal of Triple Speak, Capitalism Porn, and the Stiff Arm to the Coders and their Masters.
It’s sad, really. Here, quality ones of very different and varied origins:
Timothy 6:10 “The love of money is a root of all kinds of evil.”
Pierre Joseph-Proudhon: “Property is Theft.”
Karl Marx: “Private property has made us so stupid and one-sided that an object is only ours when we have it – when it exists for us as capital.”
“It is capitalism, not Marxism, that trades in futures.” ― Terry Eagleton, Why Marx Was Right
We don’t think you fight fire with fire best; we think you fight fire with water best. We’re going to fight racism not with racism, but we’re going to fight with solidarity. We say we’re not going to fight capitalism with black capitalism, but we’re going to fight it with socialism. We’re stood up and said we’re not going to fight reactionary pigs and reactionary state’s attorneys like this and reactionary state’s attorneys like Hanrahan with any other reactions on our part. We’re going to fight their reactons with all of us people getting together and having an international proletarian revolution. ― Fred Hampton (source: “Fred Hampton Speech Transcript on Revolution and Racism” )
One might wake up after two decades of capitalist slumber and feel like Rip Van Winkle while observing how deep the slide into those circles of capitalist hell we have all ended up. Exhumed from the grave all the felons, high and midddling, and then see that the world is still valorizing . . . Kissinger, Albright, Bush, Trump, Biden, Obama, et al. Shocks to the system every nano second. Capitalism with a gun, with a drug, with a bank.
Once we have surrendered our senses and nervous systems to the private manipulation of those who would try to benefit from taking a lease on our eyes and ears and nerves, we don’t really have any rights left. Leasing our eyes and ears and nerves to commercial interests is like handing over the common speech to a private corporation, or like giving the earth’s atmosphere to a company as a monopoly. (Marshall McLuhan rocketed from an unknown academic to rockstar with the publication of Understanding Media: The Extensions of Manin 1964.)
Concentrated power — information age, and now, it’s even so much worse, 60 years later.
Get these people’s aims and goals. These are the powerful, work with the powerful, are armies unto themselves, and they take no prisoners. We are all Luddites if we resist their machinations, their totalitarianism in skinny jeans, on the spectrum, vegan and all.
I’ll let the guy’s words flow here, longish. Monsters, really:
Marc Andreessen (“The Internet King on why the Internet is a force for good, on media conformity, the inevitable triumph of the WEIRD, Crypto, ‘Retards,’ etc. — Source) breaks down Reality Privilege:
Your question is a great example of what I call Reality Privilege. This is a paraphrase of a concept articulated by Beau Cronin: “Consider the possibility that a visceral defense of the physical, and an accompanying dismissal of the virtual as inferior or escapist, is a result of superuser privileges.” A small percent of people live in a real-world environment that is rich, even overflowing, with glorious substance, beautiful settings, plentiful stimulation, and many fascinating people to talk to, and to work with, and to date. These are also *all* of the people who get to ask probing questions like yours. Everyone else, the vast majority of humanity, lacks Reality Privilege—their online world is, or will be, immeasurably richer and more fulfilling than most of the physical and social environment around them in the quote-unquote real world.
The Reality Privileged, of course, call this conclusion dystopian, and demand that we prioritize improvements in reality over improvements in virtuality. To which I say: reality has had 5,000 years to get good, and is clearly still woefully lacking for most people; I don’t think we should wait another 5,000 years to see if it eventually closes the gap. We should build—and we are building—online worlds that make life and work and love wonderful for everyone, no matter what level of reality deprivation they find themselves in.
Here’s a thought experiment for the counterfactual. Suppose we had all just spent the last 15 months of COVID lockdowns *without* the Internet, without the virtual world. As bad as the lockdowns have been for people’s well-being—and they’ve been bad—how much worse would they have been without the Internet? I think the answer is clear: profoundly, terribly worse. (Of course, pandemic lockdowns are not the norm—for that, we’ll have to wait for the climate lockdowns.)
Is this an easy target? Am I just poking fun at culture, the new masters of the metaverse? Are we speaking two very “man who fell to earth” languages? Or, is this fellow above, misanthrope on a very pathetic scale? We know he’s got hundreds of millions, and he is the guru, and governments and the Titans of Media all have his ear.
Oh, I have old people whispering how they feel for today’s kids, how they feel for the young adults who are stuck in this bubble inside a bubble. I hear them while they have grand machinations of flipping a home into a bank account and some smaller home. Too expensive in Pacific Northwest or California? Then, sell sell sell, and end up in Appalachia. Lewisburg. Get a home and two acres for $250K, and bank the rest, and be damned, the rest of the world.
Me-myself-I, that’s the reptilian brain angle these Titans of the Screen/Black Mirror in the Hand have going for them (not a great term, really, repitilian, but you get the picture — food, sex, water, fight or flight, flash, rest, run, jump, gobble, hump).
Get these stats, mom and pop, uncle and aunt, cuz:
In Chain Reactions, he writes about how stunning the scale of the internet has become; every minute on the internet:
Netflix users stream 404,444 hours of video
Instagram users post 347,222 stories
YouTube users upload 500 hours of video
Consumers spend $1,000,000 online
LinkedIn users apply for 69,444 jobs
TikTok is installed 2,704 times
Venmo users send $239,196 worth of payments
Spotify adds 28 tracks to its music library
Amazon ships 6,659 packages
WhatsApp users send 41,666,667 messages
And 1,388,889 people make video and voice calls
Every minute. American adults spend over 11 hours interacting with digital media every day. Daily media consumption on mobile has grown 6x from 45 minutes in 2011 to 4 hours and 12 minutes in 2021.
The “entire world is a stage” is played out minute by minute, in Ukraine by the Zionist Comic Nazi-loving Jew (not-not), or the charades of Biden and the gang (media). Now? Every man, woman, child is an island — connected to the WWW — unto him-her-them SELF:
This is it, while the crocodile tears are spewing for the poor Ukrainians, and the trillion$ soon for guns, nukes, these idiots try a Jon Leibowitz Stewart thing: White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner on Saturday night. The dinner was shunned by Trump and canceled last year due to the coronavirus pandemic.
But then, they all are misanthropes, and again, the optics, man, the optics of the USA decaying while Biden shits his pants: “I’m really excited to be here with the only group of Americans with a lower approval rating than I have,” Biden joked to the Washington, DC crowd, referring to his own sub-40% polling and to surveys showing just 36% of Americans trust the mass media.
This is insane, of course, on many levels. It is the inside joke, and the giant overt joke. This is the spokesperson for the free world, and these are the minutes they spend in their spare time. All puppets, all wind-up dolls, and the media, they are the lever pullers. Behind the media? Oh, man, you don’t need a recap on who the monster men (a few women, too) are?
Okay, now down the other rabbit hole: Go to Alison McDowell’s work (Wrench in the Gears (dot) com) recently in Salt Lake City, following the LDS/Mormons capitalization of transhumanism, blockchain, social impact investing, cyber everything, internet of bodies, brains, babies. Slide show/stack here, Ignorance is Bliss?
Check out 36 videos looking into this dispicable system of mind-matter-money control: Transhumanism, CIA Enslavement, Faith and Technology, Digital Education. YouTube.
I have those discussions now, with former students, who want to know from me, what I think of Zoom Doom Rooms, or where I think education, both K12 and higher (sic), is going. Of course, the language we use is not always in synch, since I think the systems of education were flawed from the beginning, and that capitalism and fascism as it is delineated by GloboCap, set people up to accept lies, and the systems of oppression are about getting people to learn how to lie to themselves.
I’ve noticed a fascinating phenomenon in my thirty years of teaching: schools and schooling are increasingly irrelevant to the great enterprises of the planet. No one believes anymore that scientists are trained in science classes or politicians in civics classes or poets in English classes. The truth is that schools don’t really teach anything except how to obey orders. This is a great mystery to me because thousands of humane, caring people work in schools as teachers and aides and administrators, but the abstract logic of the institution overwhelms their individual contributions. Although teachers do care and do work very, very hard, the institution is psychopathic — it has no conscience. It rings a bell and the young man in the middle of writing a poem must close his notebook and move to a different cell where he must memorize that humans and monkeys derive from a common ancestor. ― John Taylor Gatto, Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling
I talked recently with a teacher who knew me, and wondered where I was, in the substitute teacher stable. I informed her that this county, the school district, has banned me for pushing high school students to think about their own lives tied to stories like Of Mice and Men and Animal Farm, two books the teacher of record was having me, the substitute of record, work with. Amazing, I was frog marched out of the classroom and school, and there was zero recourse, no audience to be gained, and alas, I couldn’t defend myself: this is how one system of oppression works.
This fourth grade teacher went on and on about how oppressive it is to be that elementary grade teacher in this district, and how the higher ups, the school board, they have scorn for the teachers, the paraeducators, the staff.
Hell, I was teaching a community education class, and it took me more than a month and a half to be paid by the community college. This is the new normal, but not so new. This is the mentality whichruns the world. And, more and more people want to be their own boss, but their options are limited — really, a cinnamon roll shop, beads, candles, more deep fried oysters?
Capitalism is lovely, so creative, open, available for smart small and tiny entrepeneurs. Wrong!
Disdain, just like the fellow announcing that Reality Privilege is dead. The world of games, the world of on-line shopping, dating, hunting, driving, hiking, that is it for the world from here on in. Get on the phone, six hours a day, at least. Plug in.
Zoom Zelensky from Britain or Poland. Watch Sean Penn or Pelosi fly into some staged area, then, long-live the ZioLenksy Nazi, and then, more dialing for dollars. Stage left, masks on, start themusic, do the edits, cut cut cut, and then let the lies fly.
“The effects of technology do not occur at the level of opinions or concepts,” wrote McLuhan. Rather they “alter patterns of perception steadily and without any resistance.”
“A new medium is never an addition to an old one, nor does it leave the old one in peace. It never ceases to oppress the older media until it finds new shapes and positions for them.”
We see this today as newspapers transition to a digital world and how the medium—the internet—remakes the papers to fit its own standards. Not only have newspapers moved from physical to virtual but now they are hyperlinked, chunked, and embedded within noise. If he were alive (and healthy) McLuhan would argue these changes impact the way we understand the content.
McLuhan foresaw how all mass media would eventually be used for commercialization and consumerism:
“Once we have surrendered our senses and nervous systems to the private manipulation of those who would try to benefit by taking a lease on our eyes and ears and nerves, we don’t really have any rights left.”
Carry on:
And, finally, reality is reality, all those down-home chemicals, cancers, catastrophies. A new outfit with the Environmental Working Group, The New Lede. PFAS, Monsanto, other pesticides, all covered by investigative journalists. You can attempt to “virtual reality” away the reality world. These are freaks! However, a hero like Carey Gillam has spent more than 25 years reporting on corporate America. She is the managing editor at The New Lede. Watch her over at RFK Jr’s site!
Reality for Us, the Unprivileged.
For a visitor to this rural part of eastern Nebraska, the crisp air, blue skies and stretch of seemingly endless farm fields appear as unspoiled landscape. For the people who live here, however, there is no denying that they are immersed in an environmental catastrophe researchers fear may impact the area for generations to come.
The signs of a silent poisoning are everywhere: A farmhouse has been abandoned by its owners after their young children experienced health problems; a pond once filled with fish and frogs is now barren of all life; university researchers are collecting blood and urine from residents to analyze them for contaminants; and a local family now drinks water only from plastic bottles because tests show chemical contamination of their drinking well. — Source, Carey Gillam
No matter how many hours you might be connected to a gamefied world, virtual and augemented, the chemicals will still bore their toxins into your cells until no amount of AI-VR-AR can save you!
Listen to these monsters . . .
And then, four hours learning about this global brain mentality. Good work by Wrench In the Gears:
And how many people are willing to go down these blockchain, decentralized technologies, social impact and reality priviledge and digital ID and crypo-funding? The Church of LDS is into Transhumanism. Keep your eye close on these folk, synthetic biology eugenics freaks.
Thousands march in London in solidarity with Palestinians
About 10,000 protesters rally a day ahead of Nakba, the day marking 1948 Palestinian exodus, to express anger over the killing of Al Jazeera journalist.
The march comes a day before the commemoration of the Nakba (the Day of Catastrophe), the ethnic cleansing of Palestinian cities and towns by Zionist paramilitaries in 1948.
Published On 14 May 2022
Thousands of people have attended a rally in London in solidarity with Palestinians and Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, who was killed by Israeli forces on Wednesday.
“I met Shireen about 12 years ago in Ramallah and she was a lovely person… She was very knowledgeable,” Kamel Hawwash, chair of the Palestinian solidarity campaign, told Al Jazeera.
“So it was particularly devastating for me as a Palestinian and someone who had met her to see the unbelievably shocking footage of her killing and the callousness of the Israeli security forces when they attacked her funeral, almost dropping her coffin to the ground.”
The march comes a day before the commemoration of the Nakba (the Day of Catastrophe), the ethnic cleansing of Palestinian cities and towns by Zionist paramilitaries in 1948.
More than 700,000 Palestinians were forcibly expelled or fled from their homeland in 1948, in the year of establishment of the state of Israel.
Abu Akleh, 51, who worked for Al Jazeera’s Arabic television channel, was hit by an Israeli bullet, according to witnesses, as she covered an Israeli military raid in the occupied West Bank city of Jenin.
Her killing has sparked international condemnation.
People who joined the rally reflected the shock and anger over the killing of the veteran journalist.
“I would estimate the crowd at several thousand, probably in excess of 10,000 at the moment, it’s difficult to judge, I can’t actually see the end of the march here,” Al Jazeera’s Paul Brennan, reporting from London, said.
Demonstrators carry 'Justice for Shireen' placards at the rally in central London. [Al Jazeera]
A woman among protesters is carrying a 'Free Palestine' placard at the rally. [Al Jazeera]
Protesters expressing anger over Abu Akleh's killing walk to the All Souls Langham Place. [Al Jazeera] The rally also commemorated the Nakba, the 1948 Palestinian exodus during the forming of Israel. [Al Jazeera] Additional police forces have reportedly been deployed to monitor and facilitate the demonstration. [Al Jazeera]
Demonstrators carry Palestinian flags as they commemorate the Nakba at All Souls Langham Place. [Al Jazeera] Advertisement
We need to show Israel the time for accountability has arrived Israel should not be allowed to whitewash the killing of journalist Shireen Abu Akleh with yet another sham ‘investigation’.
Hagai El-Ad Executive Director of B'Tselem Published On 14 May 2022
Palestinians protest the killing of veteran Al Jazeera journalist
Shireen Abu Akleh, Gaza City, May 12, 2022
[Mohammed Abed/AFP] (AFP)
The only possible response to the hasty offer Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid made to the Palestinians to conduct “a joint pathological investigation” into the killing of renowned Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh can be rage.
Such “investigations” conducted by Israel serve not to uncover the truth but to bury it, not to establish accountability but to preserve impunity, not to indict the perpetrators but to protect them.
That the offer for a “joint investigation” into the killing of Abu Akleh came directly from Foreign Minister Lapid – and was later repeated by Prime Minister Naftali Bennett – speaks to the magnitude of Israel’s concern about the public relations crisis it is now facing. Such offers for “investigation” and “analysis” are normally left to lower-ranking officials in Israel’s whitewash apparatus.
Indeed, Israel only engages in such high-level whitewash if it believes the killing of a Palestinian can damage the country’s image. Otherwise, it doesn’t even bother with such empty gestures.
B’Tselem tried in good faith to engage Israel’s domestic investigation mechanisms for decades. Over the years, we have made hundreds of applications to relevant authorities for cases of Palestinians killed by Israeli security forces to be investigated, but meaningful accountability was never realised. Six years ago, we concluded that what we were dealing with is not merely a dysfunctional investigation mechanism but an organised, systemic whitewash operation. As a result, we made the decision to continue our work on such killings – but without ever engaging in Israel’s so-called “investigations”.
Israel’s investigation mechanism is clearly a charade. Even if an investigation into the killing of a Palestinian at the hands of Israeli forces is opened, it almost never conclude with someone being charged. The entire mechanism is a charade because its flaws are, in fact, its essential features – the ones that enable it to deliver impunity. To begin with, the army is tasked with investigating itself. Soldiers are typically interviewed without being challenged, almost no effort is made to collect external evidence, and “investigations” are drawn out for years. On top of all this, even the sham described above is directed only at low-ranking soldiers – those who make the policies that enable soldiers to pull the trigger on Palestinians never face any scrutiny. All this, despite in many cases fatalities being caused not because of any deviations from the policies of the Israeli military but the criminal policies themselves.
Take, for example, the cases of Israeli snipers shooting at unarmed Palestinians at the Gaza fence during the Great March of Return demonstrations. Israel conducted “investigations” into certain specific cases of shooting by snipers. But no one investigated – and no one in Israel will – the rules of engagement themselves.
Israel’s military advocate general – the very same person in charge of Israel’s military investigations – is tasked with giving the green light for such policies. Thus, obviously, nobody is being held to account for giving snipers those flagrantly illegal orders.
Israel needs impunity to maintain its apartheid regime. It cannot maintain control over a subjugated population without state violence. Thus it is essential for the regime to provide itself with blanket impunity – while performing what looks like investigations, to appease international expectations.
Impunity paves the way for more killings. Don’t fall for Israel’s propaganda, its promises to “investigate”. Israel will not hold itself to account, just like its apartheid regime won’t dismantle itself. International stakeholders who do not call this out simply cast themselves as a cog in Israel’s whitewashing machine. The grotesque US pressure on Palestinians to accept a “joint” investigation and the statement by US Ambassador to Israel Tom Nides vaguely “encouraging” an investigation, only demonstrates the extent to which the Biden administration continues to serve as such a cog.
Shireen Abu Akleh once said while it “might not be easy to change reality”, she could at least bring “the voice of the people to the world”. To keep that voice alive, to honour her legacy and to demand justice, please: Say no to Israeli propaganda, view reality with clarity, and demonstrate to Israel that the time of accountability has finally – even if belatedly – arrived.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance
US outrage grows over Shireen Abu Akleh killing after funeral attack
If international outrage over Shireen Abu Akleh's killing was lacking following her killing on Wednesday, it was unleashed after an Israeli police attack at her funeral.
Shireen Abu Akleh's funeral procession was attacked by Israeli police, sparking international outrage [Getty]
Many in the international community, including in the United States, might have been slow or cautious to react to the killing of Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh as she reported on an Israeli military raid on the occupied West Bank town of Jenin.
Whatever muted responses that existed on Wednesday, the day of her killing, quickly turned to outrage on Friday following an undeniable Israeli police attack on her pallbearers, which almost caused them to drop the coffin and forced at least one to the ground.
While many international observers were shocked, it came as no surprise to many Palestinians who have seen similar incidents, albeit much less publicised. What was being demanded by Palestinians, their allies and progressives around the world – more transparent news coverage as well as an independent investigation – reached the mainstream following the jarring images of the funeral attack.
One of the main criticisms of the establishment media coverage was of the New York Times, whose headline on the day of Abu Akleh’s killing read “Shireen Abu Akleh, Trailblazing Palestinian Journalist, Dies at 51”. US progressive group Jewish Voice for Peace “corrected” the headline in red handwriting in a widely circulated meme that replaced the last clause with “Assassinated by Israeli Sniper While Wearing a Press Vest and Reporting on Israeli Military Violence”.
Other outlets, such as the BBC and the Associated Press, whose office was destroyed by Israeli shelling in Gaza in last year, were also criticised for their coverage of the story. News outlets were also generally criticised for using the term “clashes” to describe Israeli soldiers’ armed attacks on unarmed journalists.
Possibly due to numerous complaints, the NYT changed their headline to “Trailblazing Palestinian Journalist Killed in West Bank”. On Wednesday, its headline about the funeral was a blunt “Israeli Police Attack Mourners at Palestinian Journalist’s Funeral”.
Some mainstream publications featured opinion pieces critical of Israel’s actions. Time published a piece entitled “The Problems With Israel's Version of the Killing of Reporter Shireen Abu Akleh”. Meanwhile, a number of opinion pieces in Israeli publications had by Friday acknowledged the power dynamic between armed occupier and unarmed civilian at play, with a growing number of headlines questioning Israel’s initial narrative of a Palestinian gunman being responsible for the killing.
Politicians who had not previously made statements on social media about Abu Akleh's killing did speak out about the attacks on mourners at her funeral.
On Friday, Senator Elizabeth Warren tweeted: “The killing of Shireen Abu Akleh and the attacks on mourners by Israeli forces at her funeral are deeply disturbing. A free press is a cornerstone of democracy and journalists should not be killed for doing their jobs. We need a full independent investigation.”
Some Twitter users replied to Warren saying she should focus on domestic issues, like Roe v Wade. Others hit back at those replies, saying that Abu Akleh’s killing is of domestic concern because she is a US citizen and the American government is Israel's biggest funder.
Her progressive colleague, Senator Bernie Sanders, tweeted: “The attack by Israeli forces against mourners at the funeral of Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh is an outrage. The United States must condemn this, and demand an independent investigation into her killing.”
Secretary of State Antony Blinken, in a rare criticism of Israel, also expressed concerns about the funeral attack, tweeting: “We were deeply troubled by the images of Israeli police intruding into the funeral procession of Palestinian American Shireen Abu Akleh. Every family deserves to lay their loved ones to rest in a dignified and unimpeded manner.”
Though many are continuing to promote the idea that a Palestinian gunman is responsible for the killing of Abu Akleh, their voices are increasingly getting drowned out by the growing numbers of those outraged by what they have seen.
The rally also commemorated the Nakba, the 1948 Palestinian exodus during the forming of Israel. [Al Jazeera]
Additional police forces have reportedly been deployed to monitor and facilitate the demonstration. [Al Jazeera]
