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guardians-of-iselda · 2 years

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On Classics

Yesterday, I saw a video about fanfiction, and like anything to do with fandom, it's already become controversial. However, there was one specific argument parroted by people that really made me think and I realized I have quite a lot to say on the subject.

To simplify, the argument is as follows: Fanfiction is oftentimes BETTER than classical literature, because fanfiction is free, accessible and diverse, while classical literature is dense, boring and bad.

There were 3 specific variations of this argument:

Uncritically stating that classical literature boring and bad because it’s inaccessible to modern readers.

Classical literature is inaccessible to most people, because without access to higher education, those people don’t have the tools to understand and enjoy it.

Fanfiction is an accessible medium of storytelling and it allows its writers and readers to see themselves in fiction which for most people who are not white, male and specifically Western (European/North American) isn’t true.

All of these are bad arguments and I disagree with them strongly. Let’s start with nb. 3 first.

What is and isn’t considered part of the Western Canon is subject to change based on who you talk to. Where I’m from, which is Macedonia, most academics include Russian and South American literature, but exclude most Canadian and American literature (most. We still get to suffer Mark Twain). So the argument that only white European men are in the literary canon is absurd if you live anywhere that isn’t specifically the USA, Canada and the UK.

Even in Europe, the argument that Europeans can read a classic and see themselves in those works is bullshit, and simply shows that whoever thinks this knows nothing about Europe.

There are no works by Macedonian authors in the canon, nor by any author from the Balkans or even any Southern Slavic country. Russia and the Czech Republic are the closest and even still, depending on who you talk to, they might not be included in the “Western” canon either. If South-east Europe does exist, it’s simply a backdrop for someone else’s story.

If I had to ask for representation in classical literature I would be able to find none, and I am indeed white and European.

That doesn’t mean I, or anyone else can’t see themselves in the characters of these works. You can absolutely relate to people who have nothing to do with your lived experience; in fact, that is a good thing.

One of the best arguments to promote reading diversely is to seek out works that enrich your life by bringing you new perspectives and showing you how different and yet how similar you are to someone who lives on the other side of the world or in a completely different time. Reading diversely promotes empathy, makes you a kinder, worldlier person, broadens your vocabulary and your capacity to understand different cultures, experiences and concepts.

It makes you a better rounded person.

Now, this isn’t to say that you should only seek to read outside your cultural experience. It is not my place to tell someone who isn’t white and cis to just suck it up and force themselves to find relatable things in someone who is. People deserve to see themselves in fiction, especially people whose identities have historically been pushed out of literature. Queer people, immigrants, people of colour, native people, working class people, disabled people, we all deserve stories that speak to our unique experience and we all deserve to read stories about someone else’s unique experience.

But like I said, classical literature is a finicky concept. There are authors of many marginalizations in the canon and you could conceivably find someone of your cultural and racial background if you just look a little.

And while yes, people do read for comfort and for pleasure, and happy stories about marginalized identities are incredibly important, especially because queer and racial pain has historically been the only way to get published, not everyone writes or reads for the warm fuzzies.

It’s ridiculous to demand that all art conform to this notion or to claim that only art that is uplifting or gentle is accessible. Art is meant to make you feel and process all kinds of emotions and experiences negative and positive. Maybe reading about the horrors of slavery or the Holocaust or the Aegean Exodus make you feel uncomfortable and sad, but sometimes you should feel uncomfortable and sad. That’s how you grow and learn as a human.

This goes doubly for people who are not marginalized and have the luxury of never having to learn any of these things first hand and their only access to these specific emotions is through media.

Being an adult means understanding that the world is complicated. Why should the art only present a black and white kindergarten level morality? People are flawed, complex, layered, sometimes outright bad. Fiction should be allowed to represent all these facets of the human experience, and the classics often do. Yes, this type of literature can be challenging, but you should demand more from your stories other than “good cowboy, bad cowboy”.

Classical literature can be dense and can be boring. But not only is this NOT true for the vast majority of works in the literary canon, the notion that the ONLY way general audiences can understand it is if they’ have a lit degree is ludicrous.

To start, classical literature incorporates everything from Gilgamesh, and the Bible to The Great Gatsby and Beloved. It’s a selection of works that covers the entirety of written language and in cases like the Iliad, before it. It incorporates works from different times, different countries, in different languages and in varying stages of the development of said languages.

Are there works like Don Quixote which are dense and impenetrable for a modern reader especially a modern Spanish reader? Of course; it’s a novel written when Spanish didn’t exist as a codified language. But does an average reader need a dictionary to understand Pride and Prejudice or the Great Gatsby? No, absolutely not, which is why in many schools, both of those works are read and taught in freshman year of high school!

Yes, most people would probably need footnotes or a guide to read Shakespeare. But do you need to understand every word, every pun in Romeo and Juliet to understand Romeo and Juliet? No, you don’t and claiming that you do, does come off as privileged.

Most modern literature is published in English. Even the works that aren’t, to have any chance of selling globally, have to be translated into English. For countries like Macedonia who aren’t huge book markets this means that if I want to read a book that hasn’t been translated into Macedonian, I HAVE to read it in English. Most people here don’t speak or read the language well enough to know every word. And yet somehow my parents, friends and complete strangers I see in bookstores manage to do it. So why can’t you even make an attempt?

My primary school was a public Macedonian school where everything we read was in Macedonian. I had to read Heart by Edmondo DeAmicis and The Old Man and the Sea in fifth grade, Huckleberry Finn in seventh and Oliver Twist and the Call of the Wild in eight grade. My entire class of 37 people did.

And guess what? We could all understand the books even though none of us had any context for Victorian England or Pre-unification Italy and we were reading translations of books published several centuries ago. I didn’t love all of these books, but to this day I love Heart and Call of the Wild and I read those books in a translation on top of them being classics written in 1886 and 1903 respectively.

Of course like most of my peers I preferred books that were written by Macedonia and Serbian authors, who weren’t translated and spoke about teenagers like me who shared mine or similar cultural experiences. But most if not all of us still managed to not just read but understand these classics and this is elementary school. This was between the ages of 11 and 14.

I went to a private English speaking high school, and the first book I had to read in freshman year was The Picture of Dorian Gray. It was the first book I had to read in English, in an academic setting and it was published in 1890. Did some things go over my head by virtue of English not being my first language? Yes. But did that somehow prevent me from liking and understanding the novel? Of course not!

I understand people who complain about badly translated classics: a bad translation of a work that’s already written in a dialect or a specific type of a language can genuinely destroy the experience. But most people on this app and on Tik Tok and Youtube speak English as their first language. You almost never have to struggle through a translation.

The argument is bad. You don’t need higher education to understand, read or like classical literature. For some classics you don’t even need to put in any more work than just simply reading a modern, recently published book. Most people are perfectly capable of understanding and enjoying the classics, just like any other type of work.

If for some reason you’ve convinced yourself or been convinced that you can’t, I encourage you to try and read some classics. I can even compile a list of classics I’ve read that I think would be good starting points for a modern reader. But simply claiming that reading classics is an issue of accessibility?

No. It’s a bad argument, and it does nothing but discourage people from trying.

#literature #classics #classic literature #moni talks

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mostlysignssomeportents · 3 years

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Political economy vs inflation

As Biden lays out ambitious plans to stimulate the US economy and fight inequality with new money creation (spending) and money destruction (higher taxes on corporations, capital gains and the right), a firing squad of economists assembled to issue dire inflation warnings.

They're repeating the economic doctrine of the pasty 40 years, an austerity doctrine that focuses on the inflationary risks of "deficit spending" (when governments don't tax as much money out of the economy as they inject in the same year).

It's a doctrine that made a pretense to being a science, going to far as to create a fake "Nobel Prize" in economics in a bid for scientific credibility (the Nobel administrators eventually folded the economics prize into its administrative remit).

The "neoclassicals" used abstract equations to "prove" a bunch of economic truths that - purely coincidentally - made rich people much, much richer and poor people much, much poorer.

Tellingly, the most exciting development in economics of the past 50 years is "behavioral economics" - a subdiscipline whose (excellent) innovation was to check to see whether people actually act the way that economists' models predict they will.

(they don't)

It's this vain, discredited and shambolic group who have assembled behind leaders like Larry Summers to decry Biden's stimulus spending plans, insisting that we are flirting with hyperinflation and the collapse of the USD as a global reserve currency.

But economists aren't the last word in understanding stimulus and inflation. If you're trying to figure out whether Summers is right and inequality, poverty and crumbling infrastructure are the price of American stability, it's worth checking out the *political* economists.

Here's a great place to start: Brown University economist Mark Blyth's interview with The Analysis, available in audio, video, and as a transcript:

https://theanalysis.news/interviews/mark-blyth-the-inflated-fear-of-inflation/

Blyth doesn't dismiss Summers' inflationary fears out of hand, but he does say that Summers is vastly overestimating the likelihood that stimulus spending will trigger inflation - Summers says there's a 1-in-3 chance of inflation, while Blyth says it's more like 1-in-10.

To understand the difference, it's useful to first understand what we mean by inflation: "a general, sustained rise in the level of all prices."

It's not a short-term spike (like we saw with GPUs when everyone upgraded their gaming rigs at the start of the pandemic).

It's also not an asset-bubble. House prices in Toronto are high, but that's not inflation. They're high because "Canada stopped building public housing in the 1980s and turned it into an asset class and let the 10 percent top earners buy it all and swap it with each other."

For inflation to happen in the wake of the stimulus, the spending would have to lead to too much money chasing not enough goods. Blyth gives some pretty good reasons to be skeptical that this will happen.

Start with the wealthy: they don't spend much, relative to their income. Their consumption needs are already met (that's what it means to be rich). You can only own so many Sub-Zero fridges, and even after you fill them with kobe beef and Veuve Cliquot, you're still rich.

What rich people do with extra money is *speculate*. That's why top-level giveaways generate socially useless, destructive asset bubbles. Remember, these aren't inflation, which is good, because everyone agrees that inflation is hard to stop once it gets going.

They're speculative bubbles. We have a much better idea of how to prevent bubbles: transaction taxes, hikes to the capital gains tax, and high marginal tax rates at the top bracket.

Okay, fine, so the rich won't be able to spend us into inflation after a broad stimulus, but what about poor people? Well, the bottom 60% of the US is grossly indebted, suffocating under medical debt, student debt and housing debt. A *lot* of that will disappear.

That will transfer a lot of stimulus money from poor people to rich people (who own the debt), which is why we need high capital gains and top-bracket taxation. But it will also sweep away a vast swathe of the financialized economy.

The point of long-term debt isn't to get paid off - it's to generate ongoing cash-flows that can be securitized and turned into bonds. Securitization converted "advanced" economies into shambling, undead debt-zombies.

https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/02/innovation-unlocks-markets/#digital-arm-breakers

It's securitization that led to the 2008 financial crisis, and it's securitization that sustains Wall Street's speculative acquisition of every single-family dwelling for sale in America as part of a bid to turn every home into an extractive slum.

Blythe explains that if the rich have nothing to buy and the poor use most of their stimulus to get out of debt, it will likely reorient the US economy to useful things: creating jobs to make stuff that people want to buy.

But what about the dollar's status as a global reserve currency? Won't all that stimulus send other countries scurrying around for another form of national savings? Blyth's answer is pretty convincing.

First, because there aren't any great alternatives: the European economy is growing at half the rate of the US. The Chinese economy is booming, but if you buy Chinese assets, there's a good chance you'll never be able to get them out of China.

Gold? Bitcoin? Leave aside the deflationary risk of pegging your currency to an inelastic metal or virtual token, leave aside the environmentally devastating effect of cryptocurrency (cryptos consume enough energy to offset the entire planetary solar capacity!).

Instead, think of the volatility of these assets, with their drunken, wild swings - countries that dump USD due to inflationary fears are hardly likely to switch to a crypto that can lose 20% of its value in a day.

And remember how much of that volatility is driven by out-and-out fraud, with major crypto exchanges and gold schemes imploding without warning, taking hundreds of millions of dollars with them. This is not a stable alternative to the dollar!

Beyond the lack of an alternative, there's another reason to believe that the USD will remain a global reserve, as Blyth elegantly explains.

Think of a Chinese company supplying the US market. Chances are, that's actually US company's subcontractor, getting paid in USD.

These end up swapped with the Chinese central bank for Chinese money, because Chinese companies need to pay salaries, rent, and other expenses in Renminbi, not dollars. The Chinese central bank holds onto the USDs, using them as a national savings, a reserve currency.

If China were to dump all its USD holdings into the world economy, it would tank the US dollar - which is to say, it burn China's own national savings. China's central bank needs to do something with those dollar savings, so they buy 10-year US T-bills.

Same goes for Germany - net exporters depend on a net importer to buy their stuff, and primarily that's the USA. They are stuck in a form of "monetarily assured destruction," and a crisis of confidence is unlikely "because you’ve got nowhere else to take your confidence."

Next, Blyth takes up is the proposed increase in the corporate tax rate, and he says that investors are actually surprisingly okay with this - he reminds us of Buffett's maxim, "Only when the tide goes out do you discover who's been swimming naked."

A hike in the corporate tax rate has the potential to reveal which of the "great" firms "are just really good at tax optimization" rather than efficient production. It'll smash those unproductive firms to pieces that can be bought by good firms for pennies on the dollar.

The final issue that Blyth takes up is an excellent one for this May Day: the relationship of higher wages to inflation. When the US had large, centrally managed industries with large, centralized unions, there was the risk that higher prices would trigger higher wages.

But the US doesn't have a unionized workforce with guaranteed COLA inflationary rises - there's no "wage-price spiral" risk of higher prices leading to higher wages and then higher prices.

The neoclassical theory of wages is based on the "marginal productivity" and "higher than outside option" theories: wage-levels are the product of how much money they stand to make from your work, and how much someone else is willing to pay you to work for them.

But economists like Suresh Naidu describe how high-tech surveillance can disrupt this equilibrium: you can spy on workers instead of paying them more, can impose onerous conditions on them that wring them of everything they can produce.

This kind of bossware was once the exclusive burden of low-waged, precarious workers, but thanks to the shitty technology adoption curve, it is working its way up the privilege gradient to increasingly elite workforce segments.

Digital micromanagement went from the factory floor to remote customer-support reps to office workers who are minutely surveilled by Office 365, all the way up to MDs and other elite professionals:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/24/gwb-rumsfeld-monsters/#bossware

This has led to increased profits for firms - firms now take a larger share of their productivity gains, and workers see stagnant or declining wages. That excess profit represents slack in the system.

It means that even if companies' costs go up, they can hold prices steady - all they need to do is reduce their retained profits.

We've had 40 years of price stability at the expense of a living wage for working people.

Higher wages are only inflationary if we assume that the 1% will continue to extract vast sums from their investments and use them to kick off destructive asset bubbles.

Image: badsci https://www.flickr.com/photos/7941730@N06/8625213990/

CC BY-SA: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/

#pluralistic

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corona-extra-newsletter · 5 years

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3/15/20 corona extra: cracking open cold covid facts

Announcements & Thank Yous

“About This Newsletter” has been moved to the bottom so it’s easier to skip if you’ve seen the other ones.

Some institutions do not update on Sundays. I have included the date of everything that is in question. That is also why this update is early :)

Thank you to @hysterical-random-things for letting me know about the first death in NYC and where to find that news, to @nanook2000 for information and links about KY’s response, and to @akashicsage for all of the good deets on San Diego county. If you have reliable information from a good source that I don’t seem to have, please shoot me a message/ask/pigeon!

Places now included in the newsletter are: Utah, Oregon, Washington, the Netherlands, Minnesota, Kentucky, Georgia, Nebraska, the UK, and possibly some others I missed here but included in the newsletter. Please send an ask or a message if you would like a place included!

A word on mortality rates: they look very high in some places in the US right now because testing is limited to the sickest patients. People who have mild illness and are well enough to go or stay home may not have been tested until very recently when several states started mass testing/drive through testing. Testing is still limited in a lot of states, so this will be a rolling increase situation, I anticipate.

A word on case numbers: due to the aforementioned expansion of testing capacity in the US (thank fuck), case numbers are gonna grow in a really, really scary-looking way this week. This is not actually as scary as it seems, because it means we are catching more of the cases that would have gone unnoticed and have better information to help more people.

Just The Numbers

Case numbers

Total cases: 153,517 (10,982 new)

Total deaths: 5,735 (343 new)

China: 81,048 cases (27 new!!), 3204 deaths (10 new)

This gives us a mortality rate of ~3.95%

Excluding China: 72,469 cases (10,955 new), 2531 deaths (333 new)

143 countries/territories reporting cases, 9 are new today including:

Kazakhstan: 6 cases

Curacao: 2 cases

Namibia: 2 cases

Central African Republic: 1 case

Congo: 1 case

Equatorial Guinea: 1 case

Eswatini: 1 case

Mauritania: 1 case

Mayotte: 1 case

Italy is reporting over 20,000 cases with over 1400 deaths

Iran is reporting over 10,000 cases with over 700 deaths

South Korea, Spain, and Germany are reporting over 5,000 cases

SK reports 75 deaths

Spain reports 289 deaths

Germany reports 11 deaths

International/General News

Many places experiencing a worsening epidemic are following the lead of countries including South Korea and instituting drive-through testing and high-throughput testing. Some tests (like the ones being used in Vietnam) can have a result in as soon as an hour, enabling people to be quickly cleared or quarantined. (This is super cool science! Yay, science!)

Johns Hopkins University is putting on a webinar on Tuesday, 3/17. If you are interested, you can sign up/check it out here: https://www.jhsph.edu/events/2020/covid-19/

South Korea’s epidemic is currently being driven by a fringe religious group, which represents approximately 60% of all cases.

Italy’s health system is overwhelmed, which is likely why their case-fatality rate is so high. Doctors, nurses, respiratory techs, first responders, lab personnel, and everyone else involved in hospitals/health care are working their butts off and doing some frankly heroic shit to help people.

Singapore has instituted strict travel restrictions on visitors/transiting people from European countries, including Italy, France, Spain, and Germany; this is in addition to restrictions on visitors from Iran, China, and South Korea.

Some doctors from Washington state, USA (the ones seeing the most cases) are noticing that myocarditis (viral infection & inflammation of the heart) seems to be what kills patients, not the ARDS (acute respiratory distress syndrome) that requires ventilation. This is obviously in early stages and more research is ongoing.

The World Health Organization is setting up three hospitals with advanced respiratory care capabilities in Erbil, Baghdad, and Basra, Iraq.

Virology Corner

Today’s topic: where did SARS-CoV-2 come from?

SARS-CoV-2 is what’s known as a zoonotic virus. This means that it spread from animals to humans, and then gained the ability (through mutations) to pass from human to human.

We think that SARS-CoV-2 came from bats (Rhinopholus) or pangolins- which doesn’t mean we need to blame bats or pangolins for this, they’re innocent bystanders in the game of cat-and-mouse viruses and animals are constantly playing over evolutionary timescales. Also they’re pretty ding dang cute.

(Not to get much more depressing, but here goes, as humans encroach on more and more land and as climate change progresses, more zoonoses will affect humans. Sorry to be a mega-bummer.)

Question Tuesday

Today’s question comes from @adventurecalls! They ask (paraphrased because the ask got eaten): “If I do get sick, how do I know when it’s ok to go back to doing stuff?”

This is a really good question, and one that’s rapidly being worked out by public health people as we speak (whoa)!

In general, the thought is that once you’re totally recovered you’re not able to spread the virus, but there’s not concrete data on this. The best we have is this recent study in the Lancet (https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30566-3/fulltext) which indicates that people who recover shed virus for 20 days from symptom onset, whereas those who die shed virus continuously until their death, a maximum course of 37 days.

I obviously can’t give individual medical advice, which this is not, but the guidance from the WHO is excellent in general, and I will keep readers posted when there’s more information.

If you have questions, ask them and they’ll appear here in the next issue of corona extra!

Regional News (if you want somewhere added just let me know. Don’t be shy!! I highly recommend you just skip to your area if you don’t wanna be overwhelmed.)

Canada: last updated 9:00 AM EST 3/15/20

Total cases: 249 confirmed (+5), 4 presumed (-1), 1 death (3/9/20, no change)

All current cases had symptoms starting between 1/17/20 and 3/9/20

One of these cases is the PM’s wife (mild case); the couple are in quarantine for 14 days now. This is not expected to affect Canada’s management, but is definitely a reminder that being a political leader does not grant one immunity to COVID-19.

12% of cases have required hospitalization

79% of cases are in travellers, and a further 8% in their close contacts

Affected provinces include (both confirmed and presumptive cases): BC (73, +0), Alberta (39, -2), Saskatchewan (2, +0), Manitoba (4, +0), Ontario (103, +2), Quebec (24, +3), Newfoundland and Labrador (1) New Brunswick (2, +0), and PEI (1).

Newly affected provinces include: Newfoundland and Labrador

4 cases in repatriated travellers

The Netherlands

I do not speak Dutch so please correct me if I’ve fucked something up royally

1135 confirmed cases, 20 deaths

176 new cases, 8 new deaths

Provinces (?) affected include: Drenthe (15), Flevoland (19), Friesland (10), Gelderland (100), Groningen (9), Limburg (129), North Brabant (446), North Holland (90), Overijssel (28), Utrecht (109), South Holland (110), and Zeeland (12).

I think this is all of them based on a quick Wikipedia investigation?

Interestingly they tested a bunch of people who work in a hospital and found a pretty high (4%) rate of asymptomatic infection. This seems like bad news (are these people spreading, etc) but it’s actually pretty good news because it means the mortality rate is lower than we think. I’ll update here as I find out more, which is hampered by my inability to speak Dutch.

New Zealand

8 confirmed cases, 2 probable cases

2 new cases, one of which was diagnosed in Australia

Both patients were on international flights and there is extensive contact tracing underway

2 patients have required hospitalization but both have been discharged

6700 people have completed self-isolation, 3015 people continue to be isolated

These people all deserve a medal, thank you for protecting your communities!

Golden Princess cruise berthed in Akaroa has one confirmed and two potential cases. The ship is quarantined now.

Norway

1077 cases, 166 of which are new

I still don’t speak Norwegian so if I screwed up lemme know

Only 1 confirmed death, possibly one more to be confirmed 3/16 but only official numbers go here

Also possible that it’s been confirmed and I don’t know because I don’t speak Norwegian

287 cases are due to community transmission, 710 acquired outside of Norway, the rest are undetermined

Locations where people became infected include Austria (491), Italy (144), Switzerland (14), UK (12), Spain (9), France (8), USA (7), Iran (5), China (1), Hong Kong (1), other countries with more than 3 cases (80), and other countries with less than 3 cases (20).

Breakdown of cases by area: Agder (55, +3), Innlandet (72, +16), Møre og Romsdal (20, +4), Nordland (8, +0), Oslo (281, +59), Rogaland (127, +9), Troms og Finnmark (20, +4), Trøndelag (50, +4), Vestfold og Telemark (48, +9), Vestland (118, +9), and Viken (278, +47)

Good job Nordland! No new cases today! :D

United Kingdom in general: this is pretty rough because apparently the public health strategy coming from Boris is “herd immunity” aka let everyone get sick and then they’ll all be immune, since the only other way to get herd immunity is a vaccine that…..we don’t have yet. Boris does not understand how to medicine.

Fuck you, Boris.

1372 total cases (+20%), 232 are new today

35 total deaths, 14 new today

England

1099 total cases

Affected NHS regions are as follows: London (407), South East (175), Midlands (94), North East and Yorkshire (91), North West (76), East of England (71), and South West (61).

Deaths are not being reported by the PHS but I will do my best to split these out in the next few editions using news reports etc

Scotland

153 cases total and 1 death

Affected health boards are as follows: Ayrshire and Arran (6), Borders (7), Fife (7), Forth Valley (10), Grampian (12), Greater Glasgow and Clyde (39), Highland (2), Lanarkshire (16), Lothian (28), Shetland (11), and Tayside (15).

I don’t know if this is all of the health boards in Scotland but it sure is the ones that have confirmed covid19.

Wales

94 cases, 34 new

Welsh authorities are now recommending that anyone who develops a persistent cough and/or fever self-isolate, and only call 111 if they are unable to cope with their symptoms at home

Affected areas include: Blaenau Gwent County (3, +2), Bridgend County (1, +0), Caerphilly County (11, +4), Carmarthenshire County (7, +3), City & County of Swansea (18, +4), City of Cardiff (8, +3), Conwy County (1, +0), Flintshire County (1, +0), Isle of Anglesey (1, +0), Monmouthshire County (5, +1), Neath Port Talbot (11, +0), Newport City (5, +3), Pembrokeshire (2, +0), Powys County (5, +0), and Wrexham County (1, +0).

Newly affected areas include: Ceredigion County (1), Rhondda Cynon Taf County (2), Torfaen County (2), and Vale of Glamorgan (1).

Northern Ireland

45 cases, 11 new

This is all the data I have, sorry

This may actually be a thing that makes northern/southern Ireland cooperate, which is a small spark of hope in the raging dumpster fire that is this pandemic (I hyperbolize, but only slightly)

US in general: All this info is from the state & county health departments unless I say otherwise. The national response is a trash fire (but maybe hopefully improving this week??) CDC information is updated weekdays; total US cases are from 3/13 at 4 PM

1629 total cases, 41 deaths (2.5% mortality rate), with 46 states and DC reporting cases.

CDC is now recommending all in person gatherings with more than 50 people be canceled for the next 8 weeks. This sucks for me personally and probably a lot of you all too. Hang in there.

California: updated around 10 AM PST, 3/15/20

The state dept of health is not providing a ton of info right now, so all of this is coming from county health departments, which are doing really excellent work btw. Love local public health departments <3

My official take is that the higher level government orgs in the US are muzzled from above and therefore totally shitting the bed and the county-level public health officials are really stepping up to the plate

Total cases not including the ones at Miramar (discussed below): 363, with 4 total deaths

Affected counties include: Alameda (7), Calaveras (2), Contra Costa (29), Fresno (2), Humboldt (1 - recovered), Imperial (2), Los Angeles (53, +11), Madera (1), Marin (5), Orange (14), Placer (8), Riverside (10), Sacramento (29) San Benito (3 - 2 recovered), San Diego (8), San Francisco (28), San Joaquin (8), San Luis Obispo (1), San Mateo (32), Santa Clara (91), Santa Cruz (7), Shasta (1), Solano (6), Sonoma (4), Stanislaus (2), Tulare (2), Ventura (5), Yolo (2)

San Diego: My numbers are not gonna include the federal quarantine situations at Miramar (for repatriated people and the Diamond Princess passengers) because that’s what makes sense right now regarding community transmission. If this changes I will say so.

Unaffected counties include: Alpine, Amador, Butte, Colusa, Del Norte, El Dorado, Glenn, Inyo, Kern, Kings, Lake, Lassen, Mariposa, Mendocino, Merced, Modoc, Mono, Monterey, Napa, Nevada, Plumas, San Bernardino, Santa Barbara, Sierra, Siskiyou, Sutter, Tehama, Trinity, Tuolumne, Yuba

Counties with confirmed community transmission include: Los Angeles, Marin, Orange, Riverside, San Joaquin, Santa Clara, Sonoma

Newly affected counties include San Luis Obispo (3/14)

Colorado - last updated 3/14 at 3 PM

Colorado Springs Bridge Center is under an advisory for possible exposure

Drive-up testing is available now, in Denver and Lowry and possibly other places

1 death, 3/13/20, in El Paso County, a female in her 80s

Community spread has been confirmed

101 confirmed cases, 1 death

Affected counties include: Adams (6), Arapahoe (10), Denver (20), Douglas (4), Eagle (18), El Paso (3), Gunnison (6), Jefferson (9), Larimer (1), Mesa (1), Pitkin (2), Pueblo (1), Summit (2), Weld (3)

Out of state visitors who have tested positive are tallied separately. They are located in the following counties: Pitkin (9), Eagle (2), Routt (1), Denver (1), unknown (2 - wtf??)

Florida - last updated 145 AM EST 3/15/20

115 (+45) cases and 4 deaths (+0)

Florida has not yet confirmed community transmission but it’s almost certainly happening. I’m no longer separating counties with and without confirmed community transmission because of that.

Also, the numbers by county do not add up to the same total because locations are updated less frequently by FLDPH than the total number of cases.

Affected counties include: Alachua (1, +0), Broward (36, +16), Charlotte (1, +0), Clay (3, +2), Collier (5, +2), Duval (4, +3), Hillsborough (4, +2), Lee (5, +1), Manatee (4, +0), Miami-Dade (13, +5), Nassau (1, +0) Okaloosa (1, +0), Orange (2, +1), Osceola (1), Palm Beach (5, +0), Pasco (2, +1) Pinellas (2, +0), Santa Rosa (1, +0), Sarasota (1, +0) Seminole (1, +0), Volusia (5, +1)

Newly affected counties include: Citrus (1), St. John’s (1)

Port Everglades is under an advisory due to several cases connected to a cruise company based there.

Georgia: last updated 3/15 at 11:43 AM

Y’ALL THEY MADE A HASHTAG. I am NOT making this up. It’s #covid19ga if you want to use that, I guess???

99 cases, 1 death

Affected counties include: Bartow (9), Charlton (1), Cherokee (6), Clayton (2), Clarke (2), Cobb (19), Coweta (2), Dekalb (10), Dougherty (6), Fayette (5), Floyd (4), Fulton (20), Gordon (2), Gwinnett (4), Henry (1), Lowndes (2), Lee (2), Newton (1), and Polk (1).

Illinois: last updated 3/14/20

64 confirmed cases, 16 new, with confirmed community spread

New cases: Chicago (7), Cook not Chicago (4), Kane (1), Lake (1)

195 pending persons under investigation

Affected counties include Cook, Kane, McHenry

Newly affected counties include: Woodford (1), Cumberland (1), St. Clair (2), DuPage (1, first long-term care facility case)

Iowa: last updated 3/14/20

Total cases: 18, 1 new 3/14

Affected counties include: Carroll (1), Dallas (1), Harrison (1), Johnson (14), and Pottawattamie (1)

Community spread confirmed on 3/14/2020

Kansas: last updated 3/14/20

8 confirmed cases

Affected counties include: Johnson (5), Wyandotte (1), Butler (1), Franklin (1)

Kentucky: last updated 3/14 at 6 pm local time

18 confirmed cases

2 new cases, both in Fayette County

One patient in Nelson County tested positive but left the hospital and refused to quarantine himself. Don’t be like this guy. Please. I’m expecting a lot more cases to pop up in Nelson county over the next couple weeks all connected to this one patient.

Apparently there’s now a bunch of cops sitting outside his house to make sure he stays there. Ffs.

Affected counties include: Harrison (6), Fayette (7), Jefferson (3 or 4, possible repeat test), Bourbon (1), Nelson (1), and Montgomery (1)

Governor is recommending hospitals stop elective procedures and childcare centers plan for closure by 3/17/20. Also put in place a bunch of important protections for people who don’t have insurance and stuff. Good job, KY!

First patient has fully recovered! Yay!

Louisiana: last updated 9:30 am 3/15/20

91 cases reported, 14 new

2 deaths, 1 new

Parishes affected: Jefferson (12, +1), Lafourche (1, +0), Orleans (65, +12), St. Charles (2, +0), St. John the Baptist (1, +0), St. Tammany (4, +2), and Terrebonne (2, +1)

New parishes affected: Bossier (1), Caddo (1), St. Bernard (1)

Massachusetts: last updated 4 pm 3/14/20

138 cases (19 lab confirmed, 119 presumptive positives)

1 new lab confirmed case, 14 new presumptive positives

1083 people in quarantine

Affected counties include: Berkshire (9, 0% change), Essex (5, +150%), Middlesex (65, +8%), Norfolk (28, +16%), Suffolk (27, +3%), and Worcester (2, 0% change)

Newly affected counties include: Barnstable (1) and Bristol (1)

5 cases travel related, 104 (+10%) in one community transmission cluster, others unknown

11 hospitalized, 105 not hospitalized, the rest pending (22)

1 new hospitalization

Michigan: last updated 3/14/20 in the evening

33 cases, 8 new, 0 deaths

Affected counties include: Bay (1), Charlevoix (1), Ingham (1), Kent (3), Macomb (2), Monroe (1), Montcalm (1), Oakland (9), St. Clair (1), Wayne (8), and Washtenaw (4)

Likely community transmission

Minnesota: last updated 3/15

35 cases, community transmission confirmed

Affected counties include: Anoka, Carver, Dakota, Hennepin, Olmstead, Ramsey, Renville, Stearns, Waseca, Washington, and Wright

County numbers are not currently being provided by MN dept of health, just ranges. Hennepin and Ramsey counties have 6-20 cases each.

Hopefully they’ll pull an Ohio and help a girl out soon

Drive through testing available in Olivia

Nebraska: last updated 3/15

Community transmission confirmed: many locations in Douglas County are potential places where transmission has occurred; if you live or have traveled to Douglas County (Omaha), please check the Douglas County COVID-19 monitoring site.

There were also two exposures in Knox County on March 5, at basketball games at Lincoln Southwest HS and North Star HS.

17 cases, no deaths

Affected counties include: Cass (1), Douglas (15) and Knox (1)

New Jersey : last updated 3/14 at 2 pm

69 cases (+38%), 1 death (none new)

Affected counties include: Bergen (25, +47%), Burlington (3, no change), Camden (2, +1), Essex (7, +1), Hudson (5, +2), Middlesex (10, +6), Monmouth (8, +1), Morris (3, no change), Ocean (1, no change), Passaic (2, -1 apparently?), Somerset (1, no change), and Union (1, no change)

Newly affected counties include: Mercer (1)

I dread updating NJ just because the website sucks so bad

Thank you to the commenter who noted that the help line apparently rules and they’ve been advertising it heavily, that’s awesome public health work by NJ!

So that’s a bright spot, eh?

New York: last updated 3/14 at 8 PM

613 cases, 192 new, 1 new death

Affected counties include: Westchester (178, +12%), Nassau (79, +54%), Suffolk (41, +13), Rockland (12, +3), Ulster (5, +0), Dutchess (4, +1), Orange (6, +3), Saratoga (3), Albany (5, +3), Broom (1, +0), Delaware (1, +0), Herkimer (1, +0), Monroe (2, +1), and Schenectady (1, +0).

NYC has 269 cases (+75%) as of 3/15 at noon

Newly affected counties include: Erie (3), Tioga (1), and Tompkins (1)

Drive through testing in New Rochelle and Long Island

All public places are closed in New Rochelle through March 25.

Ohio: last updated 3/15 at 2 pm

36 confirmed cases, 10 new

350 people under investigation

Affected counties include: Belmont (2), Butler (6), Cuyahoga (14), Franklin (3), Lorain (2), Lucas (1), Medina (1), Stark (2), Summit (2), Trumbull (2), Tuscarawas (1)

THEY STARTED GIVING COUNTY BY COUNTY INFO, PRAISE THE LORD!!!

Oregon: last updated 3/14 at 11:00 AM

36 cases, 13 hospitalized at time of positive test, 1 death (3/14)

The following counties are affected: Clackamas (1), Deschutes (3), Douglas (1), Jackson (2), Klamath (1), Linn (9), Marion (2), Multnomah (1), Polk (1), Umatilla (2), and Washington (13).

Pennsylvania: last updated 3/15 at noon

Gritty is now loose and is singlehandedly responsible for all cases in Philadelphia, if you see the orange monster, RUN

63 total cases, 16 new today

No deaths, Gritty is thankfully failing in his mission to murder

Counties affected include: Allegheny (3, +1) Bucks (4, +1), Chester (2, +0), Cumberland (5, +2), Delaware (7, +1), Monroe (6, +3), Montgomery (24, +4), Northampton (1, +0), Philadelphia (6, +2), Pike (1, +0), Washington (1, +0), Wayne (1, +0)

Newly affected counties include: Lehigh (1) and Luzerne (1)

446 people under investigation pending test results

Rhode Island: last updated 3/13/20

~500 people in quarantine for close contact situations

57 pending people under investigation

20 confirmed cases, no deaths

Next expected update 3/16 in the AM

South Dakota: last updated 3/15

9 confirmed cases, no new cases since 3/14

6 pending cases under investigation

Affected counties include: Beadle (1), Bon Homme (1), Charles Mix (1), Davison (1), McCook (1), Minnehaha (3), and Pennington (1)

No community transmission

Texas: last updated 3/15

56 total cases, 5 new.

Highly likely that there has been community transmission, unconfirmed currently

Affected counties include: Bell (1, +0), Bexar (3, +2), Brazoria (2, +0), Collin (6, +1), Dallas (8, +0), El Paso (1, +0), Fort Bend (9, +0), Galveston (1, +0), Gregg (1, +0), Harris (10, +0), Hays (1, +0), Lavaca (1, +0), Montgomery (3, +0), Smith (4, +1), Tarrant (3, +0), and Travis (1, +0)

Newly affected counties include: Matagorda (1)

The Texas DPH has corrected a tabulation error that affected Gregg and Travis counties.

Utah: last updated 3/15

21 total cases, 14 cases in Utah residents

Affected health districts include: Davis County (3), Salt Lake county (14), Southwest Utah (1), Summit County (2), and Weber-Morgan (1)

The Utah Jazz managed to get more testing than the rest of the country for awhile there, so that’s great for them

Whoever does your graphic design, *greatjob* (the little virus instead of the UDPH logo is CHOICE)

Also, the website is super useful and readable, 10/10 good job Utah

First case of community spread identified on 3/14/20, in Summit County

Schools and universities are closed starting 3/16/20, Mormonism is closed until further notice, and skiing is canceled in Park City and Cottonwood Canyon for a minimum of a week. If you are interested in skiing in Utah, check Ski Utah for a list of closures.

Virginia: last updated 3/15

45 cases total, 4 new

Affected counties/cities include: Arlington (8, +1), Chesterfield (1, +0), Fairfax (10, +0) James City (8, +1), Loudoun (5, +0), Virginia Beach City (4, +1), Prince William (3, +1), Spotsylvania (1, +0), Prince Edward (1, +0), Hanover (1, +0), Harrisonburg City (1, +0), and Alexandria City (1, +0)

No newly affected areas today.

Washington: last updated 3/14 at 2:45 PM

Godspeed, y’all are having a real rough time right now. Yipes. Washington is really hard hit right now, especially King County. Look to Washington State and how they’re coping for a preview of how things are gonna go as the cases develop elsewhere.

642 total cases, 40 deaths (6.2% mortality)

Affected counties include: Clark (3), Columbia (1), Grant (2), Grays Harbor (1), Island (6), Jefferson (1), King (387), Kitsap (3), Kittitas (3), Pierce (26), Skagit (4), Snohomish (154), Spokane (3), Thurston (3), Whatcom (2), and Yakima (4).

39 cases are currently unassigned to a county. These are expected to resolve in the coming days, hopefully.

Deaths have occurred in the following counties: Grant (1), King (35), Snohomish (4),

Wisconsin: last updated 3/15 at 2 PM

33 total cases (6 new), 1 recovered, 0 deaths

Affected counties include: Dane (6, +0), Fond du Lac (11, +5), Milwaukee (7, +1), Pierce (1, +0), Racine (1, +0), Sheboygan (3, +0), Waukesha (3, +0), and Winnebago (1, +0)

Today’s Hot Tips

Make sure you have ibuprofen and tylenol/acetaminophen/APAP/paracetamol at home before you get sick. This isn’t just covid advice, this is life advice in general. (Obvs, ask your doctor about what’s safe to take if you have chronic health conditions etc but this is a general recommendation, not medical advice. As I said, life advice.)

As far as I know, ibuprofen and tylenol are ok, but research may change this. Current research indicates that steroids, which are used in other severe respiratory conditions, may make COVID-19 associated acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) worse. More on this later.

It still can’t hurt to have some tylenol around, though, ya know?

Hand Washing Song of the Day

If you hate singing happy birthday while you wash your hands, I certainly do, try Good as Hell by Lizzo instead!

Sing from “I do my hair toss” to “If he don’t love you anymore” at minimum (if you’re like me and can’t leave a lyric unfinished, go ahead and dry your hands while making your brain happy.) to follow CDC handwashing guidelines! Use soap and water for maximum virus-murdering.

Chill Cat Otter Corner

https://gfycat.com/pastjovialalligatorgar-otter

Please watch these otters sproing and chase!

About this newsletter

I’m Emily, I’m a 4th year med student w/ a degree in molecular biology. I wrote this because I’m an infectious disease and epidemiology nerd and also all my friends have questions & anxiety. Hi internet!

All this info is sourced from regional & national public health organizations, plus the WHO. It’s as up to date as humanly possible. I’ve been beaming information about this outbreak directly into my brain 24/7 but I still miss stuff. Please let me know if I miss something!

Most public health departments stop updating their information around 4-5 PM local time on weekdays. That means that the earliest this will come out is around 6 PM Pacific time on weekdays going forward. On weekends things update more sporadically and earlier, so who knows what I’ll do then, but I’ll do my best.

Thank you to @marywhal for the excellent title!

For More Information

JHU COVID-19 data center: https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6

List of peer-reviewed publications: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/publications.html

WHO daily sitrep: https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/situation-reports/20200315-sitrep-55-covid-19.pdf?sfvrsn=33daa5cb_6

WHO FAQ: https://www.who.int/news-room/q-a-detail/q-a-coronaviruses

CDC cases in the US (take w/ a grain of salt due to Political Garbage, as detailed above): https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-in-us.html, this also has links to each state’s health dept which may or may not be more up to date than the CDC

#corona extra #covid corner #covid19 #coronavirus #pandemic #information without anxiety #my pledge is to only give you the straight dope #social distancing #coronavirus pandemic #long post

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inevitably-johnlocked · 4 years

Note

oh well, ig my ask didn't go through ha ha. I'm just-- in a really horrible place. I've been having suicidal thoughts, to the point of thinking up multiple plans...i told my mum, and she seemed to take it as an insult to her? and now it's just-- i don't know who to talk to. there's so much. I'm so lonely. I talk to nobody, I do nothing, I am nothing. I'm afraid of dying, but I'm afraid of living too. I've got no chances to make anything of my life

Hey Nonny *HUGS*

First off, I’m not going to say I know how you feel, because everyone’s depression and mental illness manifests in different ways. Secondly, I am not a professional, so I don’t think it’s my place to tell you how you should proceed. I simply tie my similar experience in an anecdotal way in hopes that maybe they will help you too. And thirdly, you are loved and you are important.

I’m getting the vibe that you are still fairly young, and I want you to know that it DOES get better. I KNOW right now, in All This™, it seems hopeless and pointless. I GET IT. I suffer from Dark Thoughts too because of my seasonal depression that has been unending since last February – it IS something I need help with. But I find what has helped me cope a little bit better is talking with my trusted friends, getting outside on sunny days (mine is greatly affected by weather and stress), and taking time away from social media and the news and do things that I enjoy, like watch movies, bake, and do art. It makes stuff a bit easier in a period that feels like it’s never going to end.

I am saddened and disheartened that your mother is so selfish that she made it all about her. That I DO have experience with. It’s REALLY hard to trust a parent who doesn’t listen to you. She SHOULD be supportive and helping you find therapists and psychologists who can properly diagnose you or help you find coping mechanisms. That actually really upsets me, because my mother is the exact fucking same.

Actually, I did reply to a post fairly recently about Dark Thoughts that I feel will help you feel a bit better <3 Please check it out.

That said, Nonny, I do implore you to now do your own research if your mother isn’t going to help you. And if you’re feeling suicidal, find a help line in your area. Here’s some links copy-pasted from the above post:

741741 Suicide Helpline / Texting Crisis Service

7Cups Online Emotional Support Therapists

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (USA)

Crisis Services Canada

Canada Suicide Prevention Centre: 833-456-4566 || SMS: Text START to 741741

And These other links; given your usage of “mum”, I’m guessing you’re either European or Australian (though that doesn’t say much because I’m Canadian and I use mum from growing up on Britcoms, LOL):

Lifeline Australia

Suicide SupportLine (UK)

Suicide Crisis Helpline (NZ)

And finally, because I do believe you are a minor:

Kid’s Help Phone (They are Canadian, but I think they’ll be able to direct you to the proper place for your country)

I’m sorry I’m not much help outside of this, Nonny, but as I said, I am not equipped with the tools to help you, only the means of which to direct you to people who can. Also, research therapists in your area; your school may also have counsellors who can help you via Zoom chats.

Listen, Nonny, just because you have a selfish parent doesn’t mean that other people don’t want to help you. I know it FEELS that way. The depression makes you think dark thoughts, and makes you feel hopeless. It’s a lie, Nonny. People care.

And for what it’s worth Nonny, you’re important to me and to my Lovelies. And I think you will go on to be exactly who you need to be: yourself. Please do take care of yourself, look into one of these services if nothing else, and know that we’re here for you.

Love you Nonny <3

#steph replies #suicide cw #mental health #suicide helplines #depression cw #i am not a professional #chatting with nonnies #my advice #Anonymous

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ultraviolet-techno-ecology · 4 years

Note

One of the tension points in decolonization that has never sat right with me (see Tuck and Yang (2012)) is that there seems to be a levying of colonial blame on black descendants of enslaved Africans. We did not choose to come here. We were abducted by the millions. Our ties to our Mother--as Sadiya Hartman puts it--was severed. We were forced to make a new one through the Middle Passage and the hellish inferno of chattel slavery. So where would we go, as Tuck and Yang seem to demand? Why blame us and not the white slavers who forced us to come here? We have no place to call our own, except for the small enclaves such as Harlem. But that is stolen land.

(Part 2) But that's from like a single article. I'm not exactly sure how indigenous people reconcile legacies like that over stolen land. So I am genuinely trying to understand how it's dealt with. Especially since my work has been on black urban anthropology and the right to stay (vis-à-vis gentrification and 'bleaching' in Central Harlem). =============================================

TW: SHOAH Alright so back in WW2, a very wealthy Jewish family is pulled from their western European estate and executed in the streets by SS. You might even say that in a sick way - that it was a courtesy. They were spared the camps in the east. The only survivors are those who were away representing the family on foreign business matters.

On the other side of the world, obscure mixed race siblings hear about the approach of Japanese forces closing in on the Dutch East Indies. Their father is a high ranking member of the colonial government (A direct descendant of a Governor-General whose legacy is the bloody conquest of Jakarta and the establishment of the capital city Batavia), their mother is one of the many slaves in his possession - they are deemed to be neither Dutch nor Indonesian, they are Indo, a thing treated as both between and neither. I even have a great-aunt who was permanently disabled when the ship attempting to escape to Australia was categorically rejected - rejected because the Australian government did not consider them to be White. The USA was one of the only countries which permitted the more obviously mixed race Indo people shelter and even then it was conditional to the idea that Indo people had been in proximity to the colonial government enough to be White-Like.

I’m describing my family just before they came to the USA seeking shelter where they were greeted with poverty and alienation as Others. Foreigners who were not seen as white in that historical time period. Yet still very priviledged to escape at all.

So with that background in mind - It’s easy to see how someone like myself would be very uncomfortable with the idea that the answer to colonialism is simply telling every non-indigenous person to leave the continent and find somewhere else to live. To share equal blame for atrocities that happened at the hands of those who oppressed us.

Like many Africa-Americans there is no “Home” that I could return to. I have no known surviving family in Europe - and as a secular person Yisroel or Indonesia would be as foreign to me as the Ivory Coast to the descendants of American slavery. Things are complicated even further when my whiteness is entirely conditional - even the whiter part of my American family going as far as to see my particular branch as impure blood.

So what is my relationship to decolonization? I’m of the opinion that the conditions of my arrival do not in any way change the fact that the US (+Canada and others, but I’m specifically speaking from a US perspective.) government has no authority to grant residential permission for my inhabitation. Now I’m sure some people would be bothered by my de-racialization of the decolonization project - but to me that’s the real issue that stifles conversations about the subject. It’s like you say - we need to focus on the white colonizers and the largest force in colonization comes from the US government itself.

That is - in my opinion - where the blame must be made. I’m an impoverished nobody with a blog, I will never own property and at times I’ve been literally homeless since even my immediate family disowned me for being LGBT and disabled. I have no meaningful way - nothing to give back - no impactful power - as an individual to decolonize the USA. My death or absence in this hour would probably be a step backwards because at the very least I am a voice that advocates for those who are ignored. I am - despite everything I have said - someone who had the priviledge to not specifically face the post-apocalyptic horror that native Americans experience every day.

I strongly believe that to completely racialize the subject of decolonization is a foolish error that promotes far right thinking of blood purity and similar subjects - a dangerous error that will particularly harm mixed race people as my family personally experienced in both the Dutch and Japanese occupation of the diverse islands now lumped together into the Indonesian monolith.

To fight for justice - for the African, Jewish, Hispanic, Asian, Pacific Islander, Middle Eastern, every flavor of oppressed people and most importantly of all for this specific conversation - the indigenous people of North America... it means opposing the actual people who wield the power to declare the If, When, and How justice will even be permitted let alone manifested.

#tw shoah #tw genocide #colonization #decolonization

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newstfionline · 3 years

Text

Wednesday, September 22, 2021

Trudeau’s Liberals win Canada election, but miss majority (AP) Canadians gave Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal Party a victory in Monday’s parliamentary elections, but his gamble to win a majority of seats failed and nearly mirrored the result of two years ago. Trudeau’s Liberals were leading or elected in 156 seats—one less than they won 2019, and 14 short of the 170 needed for a majority in the House of Commons. The Conservatives were leading or elected in 121 seats, the same number they won in 2019. The leftist New Democrats were leading or elected in 27, a gain of three seats, while the Quebec-based Bloc Québécois remained unchanged with 32 seats and the Greens were down to two. “Trudeau lost his gamble to get a majority so I would say this is a bittersweet victory for him,” said Daniel Béland, a political science professor at McGill University in Montreal. “Basically we are back to square one, as the new minority parliament will look like the previous one. Trudeau and the Liberals saved their skin and will stay in power, but many Canadians who didn’t want this late summer, pandemic election are probably not amused about the whole situation,” he said.

COVID has killed about as many Americans as the 1918-19 flu (AP) COVID-19 has now killed about as many Americans as the 1918-19 Spanish flu pandemic did—approximately 675,000. And like the worldwide scourge of a century ago, the coronavirus may never entirely disappear from our midst. Instead, scientists hope the virus that causes COVID-19 becomes a mild seasonal bug as human immunity strengthens through vaccination and repeated infection. That would take time. “We hope it will be like getting a cold, but there’s no guarantee,” said Emory University biologist Rustom Antia, who suggests an optimistic scenario in which this could happen over a few years. For now, the pandemic still has the United States and other parts of the world firmly in its jaws.

Why Louisiana’s Electric Grid Failed in Hurricane Ida (NYT) Just weeks before Hurricane Ida knocked out power to much of Louisiana, leaving its residents exposed to extreme heat and humidity, the chief executive of Entergy, the state’s biggest utility company, told Wall Street that it had been upgrading power lines and equipment to withstand big storms. That statement would soon be tested. On the last Sunday in August, Hurricane Ida made landfall in Louisiana and dealt a catastrophic blow to Entergy’s power lines, towers and poles, many of which were built decades ago to withstand much weaker hurricanes. The storm damaged eight high-voltage transmission lines that supply power to New Orleans along with scores of the company’s towers throughout the state. Hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses were without power for days. Ida damaged or destroyed 31,000 poles that carry lower-voltage distribution lines in neighborhoods, nearly twice as many as Hurricane Katrina, according to Entergy. Lawmakers and regulators require utilities to ensure safe, reliable service at an affordable cost. The grid failure after Ida is the latest display of how power companies are struggling to fulfill those obligations as climate change increases the frequency and severity of extreme weather. In California, electricity providers have been forced to shut off power to tens of thousands of customers in recent years to prevent their equipment from setting off wildfires and to reduce energy demand during heat waves. In February, the grid in most of Texas failed during a winter storm, leaving millions of people without power and heat for days.

White House faces bipartisan backlash on Haitian migrants (AP) The White House is facing sharp condemnation from Democrats for its handling of the influx of Haitian migrants at the U.S. southern border, after images of U.S. Border Patrol agents on horseback using aggressive tactics went viral this week. Striking video of agents maneuvering their horses to forcibly block and move migrants attempting to cross the border has sparked resounding criticism from Democrats on Capitol Hill, who are calling on the Biden administration to end its use of a pandemic-era authority to deport migrants without giving them an opportunity to seek asylum in the United States. At the same time, the administration continues to face attacks from Republicans, who say Biden isn’t doing enough to deal with what they call a “crisis” at the border. Immigration is a complex issue, one no administration has been able to fix in decades. And Biden is trapped between conflicting interests of broadcasting compassion while dealing with throngs of migrants coming to the country—illegally—seeking a better life.

Haitian journey to Texas border starts in South America (AP) Robins Exile downed a traditional meal of plantains and chicken at a restaurant run by Haitian immigrants, just a short walk from the walled border with the United States. He arrived the night before and went there seeking advice: Should he try to get to the U.S., or was it better to settle in Mexico? Discussion Monday at the Tijuana restaurant offered a snapshot of Haitians’ diaspora in the Western Hemisphere that picked up steam in 2016 and has shown little sign of easing, demonstrated most recently by the more than 14,000 mostly Haitian migrants assembled around a bridge in Del Rio, a town of only 35,000 people. Of the roughly 1.8 million Haitians living outside their homeland, the United States is home to the largest Haitian immigrant population in the world, numbering 705,000 people from the Western Hemisphere’s poorest country. Significant numbers also live in Latin American countries like Chile, which is home to an estimated 69,000 Haitians. Nearly all Haitians reach the U.S. border on a well-worn route: Fly to Brazil, Chile or elsewhere in South America. If jobs dry up, slowly move through Central America and Mexico by bus and on foot to wait—perhaps years—in northern border cities like Tijuana for the right time to enter the United States and claim asylum.

‘We were them:’ Vietnamese Americans help Afghan refugees (AP) In the faces of Afghans desperate to leave their country after U.S. forces withdrew, Thuy Do sees her own family, decades earlier and thousands of miles away. A 39-year-old doctor in Seattle, Washington, Do remembers hearing how her parents sought to leave Saigon after Vietnam fell to communist rule in 1975 and the American military airlifted out allies in the final hours. It took years for her family to finally get out of the country, after several failed attempts, and make their way to the United States, carrying two sets of clothes a piece and a combined $300. When they finally arrived, she was 9 years old. These stories and early memories drove Do and her husband Jesse Robbins to reach out to assist Afghans fleeing their country now. The couple has a vacant rental home and decided to offer it up to refugee resettlement groups, which furnished it for newly arriving Afghans in need of a place to stay. “We were them 40 years ago,” Do said. “With the fall of Saigon in 1975, this was us.” The crisis in Afghanistan has spurred many Vietnamese Americans to donate money to refugee resettlement groups and raise their hands to help by providing housing, furniture and legal assistance to newly arriving Afghans.

‘Crisis of trust’: France bristles at US submarine deal (AP) France’s top diplomat declared Monday that there is a “crisis of trust” in the United States after a Pacific defense deal stung France and left Europe wondering about its longtime ally across the Atlantic. France canceled meetings with British and Australian officials and worked to rally EU allies behind its push for more European sovereignty after being humiliated by a major Pacific defense pact orchestrated by the U.S. Speaking to reporters in New York, French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said European countries won’t let Washington leave them behind when shaping its foreign policy. Le Drian reiterated complaints that his country was sandbagged by the submarine deal between the U.S., Britain and Australia, which led to France losing a contract to sell subs to Australia. Washington, London and Canberra say the deal bolsters their commitment to the Indo-Pacific region, and it has widely been seen as an effort to counter an increasingly assertive China. But Le Drian, who is in New York to represent France at the U.N. General Assembly, said it was a “brutal, unexpected and unexplained breach” of a contract—and a relationship.

Pedestrians take to the streets of Paris to celebrate the city’s seventh annual ‘day without cars’ (Business Insider) On Sunday, Paris turned over its streets to pedestrians so that citizens and visitors could enjoy its seventh annual “day without cars.” Announced by socialist mayor Anne Hidalgo in 2015, the city received enthusiastic support from both ordinary Parisians and unlikely parties including the head of a French drivers’ association, USA Today reported. From 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., cars, motorcycles, and scooters are banned throughout Paris, and any offenders face a fine of 135 euros, according to the Paris Without A Car website. Certain vehicles like buses, emergency vehicles, taxis, and private drivers are allowed to circulate, although their speed is limited to 20-30 kilometers per hour (12-19 miles per hour) in certain areas. Events at this year’s “day without cars” included a techno parade, picnic, bicycle fair, rollerblading marathon, and street art exhibitions, according to the event website.

More evacuations as lava gushes from Canaries volcano (Reuters) Lava gushing from the Canary Islands’ first volcanic eruption on land in 50 years has forced authorities to evacuate another part of El Paso municipality on the island of La Palma and to urge sightseers attracted by the phenomenon to stay away. About 6,000 of the 80,000 people living on the island have been forced to leave their homes to escape the eruption so far, TVE said. The volcano started erupting on Sunday after La Palma, the most northwestern island in the Canaries archipelago, had been rocked by thousands of quakes in the prior days. It has shot lava hundreds of metres into the air, engulfed forests and sent molten rock towards the ocean over a sparsely populated area of La Palma. Experts say that if and when the lava reaches the sea, it could trigger more explosions and clouds of toxic gases.

Magnitude 6.0 earthquake strikes near Melbourne (Reuters) An earthquake with a 6.0 magnitude struck near Melbourne in Australia on Wednesday, Geoscience Australia said, causing damage to buildings in the country’s second largest city and sending tremors throughout neighbouring states. The quake’s epicentre was near the rural town of Mansfield in the state of Victoria, about 200 km (124 miles) northeast of Melbourne, and was at a depth of 10 km (six miles). The quake was felt as far away as city of Adelaide, 800 km (500 miles) to the west in the state of South Australia, and Sydney, 900 km (600 miles) to the north in New South Wales state, although there were no reports of damage outside Melbourne and no reports of injuries.

‘An iron curtain’: Australia’s covid rules are stranding people at state borders (Washington Post) The four figures huddled in the shade on the side of the highway, eight miles from a border they had hardly noticed until it slammed shut behind them. As flies buzzed and crows circled and their supplies ran low, they waited for emails that would allow them to leave New South Wales and return to their home state of South Australia. Teresa Young and her husband had been stuck at the rest stop—little more than a toilet in the middle of the Outback—for 10 days. “All of a sudden, Australia has been cut up like pieces of a cake,” the 75-year-old said on a recent day. Welcome to covid-era Australia, where state border closures designed to keep the coronavirus from spreading have turned retired office workers into roadside nomads. When the pandemic began, many Australians found that the leaders of the country’s six states and two territories, rather than the federal government, suddenly controlled the most vital things in people’s lives, including who could go to work and where they could travel. The closures have upended domestic travel and stranded scores of Australians internally, even as a vaccination ramp-up means some states—and international airports—will soon open up. People in Sydney could find it easier to fly to Singapore or Los Angeles than to Adelaide.

Sudan’s coup attempt (Foreign Policy) Sudanese state media reported a “failed coup attempt” early Tuesday morning. The coup reportedly involved an attempt to take control of the state radio services. If confirmed, the attempted power grab would be the fourth putsch attempt the African continent has seen this year, following military takeovers in Guinea and Chad and an unsuccessful coup in Niger.

#headlines #news

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alexsmitposts · 3 years

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The Nasty Truth About America’s Love Affair with Narcissism and Self Pity

Column: Society Region: USA in the World

📷There is a saying, “the crazy people have taken over the asylum.” They did that in the United States in 2016, a nation ruled by grifters, petty criminals and the delusional.The sane and decent became the “silent majority” as the not just America but the world learned that the darkness of the American soul depicted so often by Hollywood is not fiction at all and that a reality TV actor had tapped into a cesspit of sewage that has seeped into every American community.Then came 2020.By sheer luck along and, yes, the votes of 81 million Americans lucky enough to survive voter suppression and intimidation financed by a worldwide organized crime cartel, the insane are now out of power.The new “captain’’ of America’s “ship of state” may well, however, have something on his hands worse than the Titanic. The Titanic had the courtesy to actually sink while America, under this analogy, drifts lifelessly along.Extremism is big money in America, climate denialism, race hatred, social discord and civil war, hate is both a product and an addiction.It is also one of America’s biggest businesses. There would be no social media, no Google, no news organizations, no underbelly of device driven ecstasy, without fear and hate being marketed like cigarettes and CBD gummies.Roots of America’s Politics of Fear and Hate 2.0American extremism is not the result of poverty or oppression. It originates among the privileged, the “haves” who adhere to insane beliefs driven by boredom and generalized dissatisfaction at lives the rest of the word would envy, overpaid jobs, gas guzzling cars and trucks and fast food laden with fats and poisonous additives.If you asked many millions of Americans to define “reality,” their brains would grind to a halt. Reality is based, not on experience or observation but on “beliefs” and strongly held “opinions” which are invariably those scripted for them.Beliefs and opinions untested by the feedback loop of life has created a generation of Americans who are, essentially, living in a video game. This makes Qanon a AI program.Collective delusion has become the norm for many, and by “many” we mean up to 150 million lost souls, caught in an RPG game or, for some, a “first person shooter.”What does it make those who play? But then we have seen all this before, just without a population softened up to this degree by chaos theory conditioning. Some background:The Roots of Fascist AmericaIn 1940, Adolf Hitler was Time Magazine’s man of the year. The parents and grandparents of Trump’s supporters, following Huey Long, Gerald L.K. Smith, Father Coughlin and Charles Lindbergh sought to establish a “whites only” America based on the German model with carefully selected military leaders run by Wall Street pulling the strings.There is something magical, even today, about being “white folks.” That magic originated in the 18th and 19th centuries with the “Sturm and Drang” movement. Extremes of emotion and subjectivity were exalted above rationalism.Childish temper tantrums became a philosophy and eventually a political movement.The movement, which failed in Europe, found fertile ground in the United States in a society that increasingly defined itself though ritualized slavery and degradation and oppression of “coloured races.”This was a society built on the genocide that wiped out millions of indigenous peoples with the survivors now living on “reservations.”Imagine land where nothing grows, and no one could live. This is an “Indian reservation.” From time-to-time oil is found or minerals or there is a need to build a pipeline. Then even the worst land on earth is taken away.This was done in South Africa. It was done in Rhodesia. It used to be called “colonialism.”By the 20th century there were no indigenous people left to imprison. America then turned to warring against the freed slaves and millions of “undesirable” European immigrants, Catholics and Jews in particular.Curiously, this war was centered on banking issues, blocking trade unions, sustaining child labor and controlling farm prices. This created the alignments that

exist today, the strong tie between Wall Street and homegrown extremism built of bigotry and race hatred.You see, too many of the undesirables that fled autocratic Europe found that the long hand of international banking that maintained serfdom for millions, even in supposedly advanced Western Europe, had institutionalized the same in the United States under the guise of representative democracy.Leading the way was the resurgent Ku Klux Klan.By the 1920s national membership was estimated at over 8 million. Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and a dozen other northern and western states were governed by Klan controlled politicians who used the state militias and National Guard as a private army and local police as armed enforcers.Behind it all, the banks that brought Hitler to power and the American corporations that made millions financing Nazi Germany’s war machine, General Motors, Dupont-Remington, Lockheed, Alcoa and General Motors.Even Hitler Would Cringe…The new American revolution, driven by Donald Trump and his televangelist backers, is the result of as social anthropologists note, generations being allowed to live the life of spoiled children, steeped in narcissism and self-pity.The events of January 6, 2020 and how it tied to many American religious leaders has emptied churches across the US, with millions finding themselves humiliated with having followed “false prophets” in support of hatred and tyranny. From Salon:“…these religious figures (Trump’s powerful televangelist backers) and the institutions they led (have become) hyper-political, the outward mission (has)seemed to be almost exclusively in service of oppressing others. The religious right is not nearly as interested in feeding the hungry and sheltering the homeless as much as using religion as an all-purpose excuse to abuse women and LGBTQ people. In an age of growing wealth inequalities, with more and more Americans living hand-to-mouth, many visible religious authorities were using their power to support politicians and laws to take health care access from women and fight against marriage between same-sex couples. And then Donald Trump happened.Trump was a thrice-married chronic adulterer who routinely exposed how ignorant he was of religion, and who reportedly — and let’s face it, obviously — made fun of religious leaders behind their backs. But religious right leaders did not care. They continually pumped Trump up like he was the second coming, showily praying over him and extorting their followers to have faith in a man who literally could not have better conformed to the prophecies of the Antichrist. It was comically over the top, how extensively Christian right leaders exposed themselves as motivated by power, not faith.”Jerry Falwell Jr., who introduced Donald Trump to America’s evangelical Christians, is himself an enigmatic figure.Falwell is typical of America’s religious leaders and stories such as this, from Fox News, are daily fodder for Americans:“Jerry Falwell Jr. allegedly played games with his wife Becki where they’d rank Liberty University students, they most wanted to have sex with, according to one pupil who claimed to have been intimate with Becki.The ex-student — who claims Becki initiated oral sex with him 10 years ago — told Politico that she bragged about playing the sex-ranking game while walking around the Virginia campus with her evangelical-leader husband.‘Her and Jerry would eye people down on campus,’ the former student of the conservative school told the outlet.Social Engineering Through PandemicAnyone who really lives in America will make this perfectly clear, this country has turned into a lunatic asylum. Our previous president told us COVID was a hoax, allowed over 40,000 from China enter the US while the threat of COVID was well known and turned his back while, today’s figure, 570,264 Americans died. Experts now cite that Trump was personally responsible for over 400,000 of those deaths. He is quite simply a mass murderer.Do remember that only 900 died in Australia. Canada lost 23,000. 35 died in Vietnam. 440 died in

Cuba.One might wonder how a Hitleresque figure such as Donald Trump could have millions of followers while the legal mechanisms in the US are amassing evidence for both criminal and civil prosecutions which quite probably will never come to bear.Groundhog Day, an Unending NightmareLet me tell you how I began my morning. As a journalist and intelligence briefer, I review incoming material, both open source and private intel. The big story overnight involves a revelation on a religious talk show involving theories on COVID 19 and vaccines.The show is by Jim Bakker, an important religious leader and political advisor. In 1989, Bakker was sentenced to 45 years in prison for mail and wire fraud but served on 5 of those years. He has stolen tens of million of dollars from his congregation to support a wild and lavish lifestyle of utter debauchery.In this area, he is typical of America’s evangelical Christian leaders.The guest on Bakker’s show was Steve Quayle. I know Quayle as an advisor to President George ‘W’ Bush on Middle East affairs. I know of no qualifications for this post.I do know of Quayle. After 9/11 he approached my staff in Amman, Jordan offering them generous payments to “launder” otherwise sourceless intelligence on Iraq into the Bush White House to justify an American invasion of that nation.Two million people died, maybe many more, due to fake US intelligence on Iraq. No weapons of mass destruction were ever found.Groundhog Day TwoLet us take the clock back a few years. I remember traveling to Kentucky, then and still a very backward area of the country, in 1956 to visit relatives. This was a presidential election year, and my father was working for Adlai Stevenson, the Democratic candidate that was opposing Dwight Eisenhower.Even I, at a fairly young age, was flabbergasted at the dinner table discussion that day as my “hillbilly” relatives expounded on their political opinions and version of historical fact. This is how they laid it out:We should support “Ike” because he killed Hitler personally after storming Berlin. They described a sword fight. What they described reminded me of the death of the Sheriff of Nottingham played by Basil Rathbone in the 1938 film Robin Hood starring Errol Flynn. They then went out to describe how the US beat both Russia and Germany who were at war with the US. It seems Russia did not fight Hitler at all but was actually Germany’s ally. My father, a reasonably educated person and longtime friend of Russia, found this somewhat disturbing. Next, we heard about how “godless communists” were going to take away our freedoms and destroy our standard of living. I might remind you that my relatives in Hazard, Kentucky had no electricity or plumbing. One of my cousins lived in an abandoned car parked in a slag field.During that trip, we visited my grandfather, a retired coal miner. He lived in a shack covered with tar paper along a railroad track. I loved my grandfather.Life Lessons Do not Come Over the InternetOver the next 60 plus years, I had shared tea with farmers in Vietnam, military veterans living in a small shack in the Khyber Pass and everything from heads of state to struggling farmers all over Africa and the Middle East. None would have guessed that there are Americans that live in not just utter poverty but steeped not only in delusional ignorance but far worse than that.A current obsession with American “conservatives” is the fear of being overrun with transexuals, who, according to many, represent a threat to our freedoms. I have never met a transsexual. From what I understand, up to 10,000 currently serve in America’s armed forces.Back during the 1960s when I served with a Marine combat unit in Vietnam, we probably had no transexuals, only gay or “homosexual” Marines and Navy. Absolutely nothing was thought of it as these individuals invariably served with honor and courage.They existed in significant numbers.Today aging “conservatives” who avoided military service in Vietnam continually harp about saving the rest of us from “homosexuals in the military.”Voting and

“Jim Crow”Let us take another look at efforts by the Hitleresque racists and bigots to save the rest of us from ourselves, against our will of course. In Georgia, the legislature recently passed a law that makes it a felony to offer water to someone waiting in line to vote.Water is an issue because, in Georgia and many GOP (Trump’s party) run states, polling places in areas where people of color vote have been closed causing day long lines. In 2020, volunteers offered food and water to those who would otherwise have either collapsed or left without voting. Now offering food and water can lead to being executed by racist police, quite literally, or spending 5 years in prison.In 2020, voters in many key urban areas were threatened by armed neo-Nazi militias or openly threated in emails from Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, organizations deemed terrorist in Canada and now citied by the US Department of Justice as trying to overthrow the US government.In January, during a US Senate runoff election in Georgia, 364,000 voters were challenged by the GOP in Georgia as “illegal.” All of them were African American. All 364,000 were qualified to vote and their votes were eventually counted, giving Georgia two Democratic US Senators.The Federal Elections Commission is now investigating that this effort to rig the Georgia senate elections was secretly financed by illegal contributions from members of organized crime.Groundhog Day ThreeI live in a rural and primarily Republican area. I parked my car less than 30 feet from the door of a polling place, a local church, and voted in less than 3 minutes with no lines or ID check.In order to limit mail voting, Trump ordered mail sorting machines destroyed with sledgehammers and over 40,000 mailboxes picked up and junked as scrap metal. Mail service in many cities simply ended. One letter I sent to Washington DC from Michigan took 45 days to arrive.Hundreds of millions of pieces of mail, starting in late September 2020 simply disappeared, not just votes but government checks, Christmas presents and medications from pharmacies sent to Veterans.All of this was not just publicly known, things are far worse than that. Those who so many decades ago believed the United States fought Russia in World War Two, would raise children and grandchildren with no respect for human rights, no understanding of democracy, no ethical norms nor any remote understanding of right or wrong.This is the reality for those living in America, a reality that those who watch America from afar through the distorted lens of Google Corporation and the press, can never fathom.Ah, but things are so much worse than that. It is not just having spent 4 years with a president who told us you could cure covid by drinking bleach or eating flashlights. It gets worse.Groundhog Day FourA few days ago, former Trump advisor Cirsten Welcon claimed that President Biden had been paid billions of dollars by China to let them test their newest “weather weapons” on Texas. Power outages there, now attributed to corrupt backroom deals by Republican politicians, led to many deaths and considerable suffering.Little did any of us know of the role of the magic Chinese weather machines.In another vignette, it has been a years since Trump advisor and televangelist Kenneth Copeland stood before a television audience raving like a lunatic. He then pursed his lips and blew at the television camera, the “wind of god” which he claimed destroyed COVID forever.This effort by Reverend Copeland, who has millions of followers and a vast financial empire, led President Trump to announce that COVID 19 was going to disappear.ConclusionSome would like to believe that the institutionalized insanity of America’s right is restricted to the “Untermensch” substrata of rural poor whites. However, for decades now, the most radicalized and extremist elements of America’s society, the most ignorant, the most warlike yet cowardly, have gained control of the US military through service academies which espouse their conspiracy theories.With the onset of Trump, they gained much

more than a foothold in American politics, they now control many states “lock, stock and barrel,” and are involved in not just voter suppression but a general quashing of human rights and free speech.The door to this turn of events began well into the 19th century. Laws, still on the books, are now being employed against Donald Trump, from CNN:The Democratic chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee has filed a lawsuit against former President Donald Trump that cites a little-known federal statute that was first passed after the Civil War.The complaint, filed Tuesday by Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, accuses Trump, his attorney Rudy Giuliani, the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers of violating the 1871 Ku Klux Klan Act. The lawsuit accuses them of inciting the Jan. 6 Capitol riot to prevent the certification of the 2020 presidential election.These same extremist elements and calling them “extremist” insults al Qaeda and ISIS (banned in Russia) who are moderate in their beliefs and practices in comparison. These statements might sound extreme in themselves were it not for so many Americans, religious and military leaders, members of government and business leaders calling for wholesale murder of their political opponents citing their personal communication with a non-corporeal authority they said is “god.”Americans hear this all day every day, the emails are unending, TV networks like Fox, OAN or Newsmax say little else, and that message is carried not just through media but lawn signs dotting the countryside.Hundreds of thousands of American homes are festooned with paraphernalia espousing murder of public officials and their families. Americans see it every day driving to work. What they ask themselves when they see things like this is how many others hold these beliefs but keep it to themselves?What if academics wrote papers on the issues, we discuss here? What if the BBC produced a documentary? Would things get better? The problem dates back not just generations but centuries.It is not a moral problem; it is not a political problem. It is one of degeneracy. At some point we may be required to reassess our definition of sentience.

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13reasonstoeatthatcake · 4 years

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Neil and languages

Neil knowing two languages other than English is already impressive, as I'm sure everyone is aware, but the fact of the matter is, for someone who'd supposedly hid all over the world from his mafioso father, I'm afraid German and French are... woefully inadequate in helping him blend in.

(Just to be clear, Nora Sakavic has absolutely made a masterpiece and I'd never dream of creating something as amazing as the All For The Game trilogy. It's just that I'm a language nerd and also from (Eastern) Europe, and I love forcing my own interests and experiences on characters, and as Neil is one of the only trilingual characters I've ever seen in media I can't pass up on the opportunity to make him a polyglot.)

So, without further ado, I present to you: the languages Neil Josten has had to use while on the run, a very long list of HCs.

English: since it's (presumably) Neil's mother language, he has the most practice with switching dialects in English. Neil can do almost every English accent that he's come across, which is helpful for when he needs to blend in a country where the official language is English (USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand are most frequent but he's also had to do it in India and Malaysia. Not UK, for obvious reasons, and pretending to be tourists in Europe can only hold up for so long)

German: German accents are ridiculous, but significantly easier to pull off than English accents. The Austrian and Hessen accents in particular are hellish for me, but knowing Neil he probably has them all down pat. You can maybe use German outside of Germany, Switzerland and Austria, especially in France and Italy where a lot of people learn German rather than English, but up north? Yeah, no, there it's either one of the holy trinity Danish/Norwegian/Swedish or English. We're not even mentioning Finnish, oh no. A lot of people in Egypt speak German as their third language, as well as Poland and other West/South Slavic nations, but then you risk standing out as that foreign German mother and son combo, which, no. Speaking of German, though,

Yiddish: Is a language very close to German, as in close enough that even I, who can hardly understand German, gets the gist of it. Even if Mary was not a practicing Jew, or knew Hebrew or another dialect better, it's an easy language to pick up when you have German as a base and also creates a fuller backstory. The downside to that is that it's recognisable that a Jewish, Yiddish mother and son combo are walking around, so maybe it's used in rare occasions.

Arabic: I actually hc Mary's family immigrated from Israel years ago and since they both look vaguely Arab/'eastern' enough to pass, and since in the books Neil says they spent some time in Dubai, they've probably had to learn some Arabic. They probably learned Modern Standard Arabic, and depending on how long they stayed in a country, they adapted it to the local dialect. (Arabic dialects vary from each other about as much as Chinese dialects do, aka A Lot. They probably used the excuse that nobody would understand their mother dialect and that's why they communicate in MSA only, but again, no matter how common that is it would still make them paranoid about standing out and so they'd move quickly.) A lot of Arabic countries however also speak a lot of

French: honestly, out of all the languages Neil speaks this is probably the hardest one because French people are fucking judgemental when you fuck up even a slight thing, ergo there's a higher risk of them being revealed because of 'oh yeah, mother and son, their French was horrendous'. French is spoken in Switzerland, Morocco and other Arabic countries, Québec, the whole of French Polynesia, also a lot of Slavic countries under the rule of USSR, but that's the older folks.

Serbian: As much as I'd like to get my favourite character to speak my mother language, I'm certain if Mary had to choose a Slavic language (other than Russian, which in official(?) post-canon Neil learns with Andrew) to learn it would have been Serbian, because it comes in a three-way package deal with fluency in Bosnian and Croatian, which makes it a lot easier to disappear. Additionally, it gives a good understanding of how other Slavic languages work, and it's only a matter of some tweaking to pretend to speak another Slavic language entirely. As someone from the literal only Slavic language that doesn't use cases, I understand up to 80% of every South Slavic and East Slavic language, and if somebody informs me of what roughly is going on, I can understand up to 70% of every West Slavic one as well. Neil and his mother might not have learned Russian, but Serbian is a must, especially since they'd blend in better with us Balkan folk than the more northern countries. Countries Serbian can be used in, with some minor tweaking: Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Albania, Greece, Turkey, Romania, Slovenia, Slovakia, alongside almost all of Europe if they decide to act as immigrants or tourists (this last point counts for every language on this list, by the way)

Spanish: Spanish is the third most spoken language in the world after Chinese and English (if we're talking native speakers). There is literally no continent where it isn't spoken. While they would need to tweak their accents and such, the entirety of South America, Mexico, Cuba, the Phillipines and some African countries are all ideal places to hide. Portugese, I know, is an entirely different language, but not that hard to get the knack of once you have Spanish as a base, and it's the same thing with Italian.

Languages Neil and his mother haven't learned, even though they've hidden in the countries: a rough overview. (Note: though he hasn't learned them, Neil still probably had to memorise a set list of phrases well enough to sound fluent, but shy.)

Any northern European language. Mary was insistent they don't waste time or effort on non-essential or one-note languages; Dutch, Norwegian and Swedish are only useful in small parts of Europe and Africa, and speaking Afrikaans in Africa is a good way to get noticed, so they didn't learn that. Same thing with Finnish, Latvian, Estonian, Lituanian. They had some basic understanding of Belarussian and Russian thanks to Serbian, but nothing more.

Any African language. While Swahili is spoken all thorough Africa, it's not the language barrier that makes it hard to blend in but the colour of their skin, ergo almost the whole continent is out.

Indian languages. They'd only hidden in big cities, so people knew English, and Hindi is too complicated to learn when you're moving through so many different dialects and other, completely different languages.

Any and all languages in the Caucasus region. Those are hard to speak or learn, and they don't stay long there anyway. A lot of people there speak Russian as their second language, as well as people from Central Asia (Kazakhstan, Mongolia, etc) but again, they don't spend much time there.

Turkic languages. They learned a bit in Turkey, but again, it's not useful enough, and the dialect variations are too big without a common dialect to bind them together like Arabic had. Same thing with Greek or Albanian.

Any East Asian languages. Two non-Asians speaking any East Asian language causes too much attention.

For now, this is all I’ve got on the ‘polyglot Neil’ front. If I ever decide to include something else, it’s probably not going to be as long!

Polish. The name ‘Wesninski’ sounds Polish, if nothing else (I couldn’t find an etymology that wasn’t connected to this series) and there’s supposed to be a lot of Polish immigrants in Baltimore, so I think if Nathan Wesninski ever knew Polish, Mary would never want to hear the language again, and even if he had no connection to his Polish roots, she still would associate the language with him. Maybe Neil would one day decide to learn it, but until then it’s probably just another thing that reminds him of his father.

Bonus round:

If we're disregarding what Nora said while answering questions on tumblr and instead bend to the laws of logic, Mary and Neil would have learned Russian because it's literally THE lingua franca of Eastern Europe. It doesn't matter if you're in Bulgaria, Georgia or Kazakhstan, you speak Russian and people naturally assume you're here for work. However, I love andreil more than I love being this petty, so ig them learning Russian together is cute enough to make me forget the logistic nightmare this is.

#aftg #neil josten #andrew minyard #andreil #tfc #all for the game #the foxhole court #my nerd is showing but do i care? no #also if somebody has something to add or if i've messed up somewhere #please tell me #kei talks fandom #jewish!neil #i guess but it's not a big part of it #mary hartford

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coursecolony42-blog · 4 years

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<h1>Picking The Right Personal Bankruptcy Law Practice Alkmaar</h1>

Content

The Keys To Making Online Law School Effective.

Advocaten In Nederland, Alkmaar.

Law College Professors.

Top Law Schools In The United States & Canada.

To the north, Egypt is house to one leading law school, Cairo College, rated in the variety. As well as finally, Kazakhstan and Thailand are both new to the law college placing this year, the latter with two entries. Also with three representatives in the law institution position is Hong Kong, including the University of Hong Kong in 18th area, while the Chinese University of Hong Kong is 39th.

Some examples of the educational program include American law, worldwide law, the United States legal system, the Canadian legal system, as well as comparative Law. Additionally, the LLM student may have the ability to select from subfields such as copyright, taxation, global ecological law or civils rights law. The LSAT is not a need for pupils enrolling in the LLM program in the United States. Although he died at the age of 90 in December 2015, Joe Jamail makes this checklist because he was the most affluent practicing lawyer in the USA at the time of his fatality.

A more two top colleges for law lie in Malaysia. Looking at Scandinavia, there are three leading law schools in Sweden, and also two each in Denmark, Finland and also Norway. Of these, the highest-ranked is Norway's College of Oslo, rated for law. The Netherlands has participants in the law college position, with Leiden University and also the College of Amsterdam both flaunting leading 50 spots. There are a whopping 141 European colleges in the law institution ranking, with the UK including most prominently with 34 entrances.

Are all lawyers millionaires?

Lawyers Are Over-Represented As Millionaires Not according to the work done in The Millionaire Next Door which pegged lawyers at just 8% of the country's total millionaires.

Female lawyers gain an ordinary revenue of $112, 731, whilst male lawyers earn an average income of $148,487. View a duplicate of the full checklist of our lawyers that were honoured in 2019. Congratulations to all our detailed lawyers on obtaining this well-deserved recognition. McInnes Cooper is very happy to have over77 of our lawyerslisted in the same publication for 2019. The Master of Regulations degree is a 1 year (full-time) or a two-year (part-time) program for students that currently have a level in law. This program might have more than one sort of curriculum relying on the area of expertise the student might pick.

Nevertheless, lawyer wages differ significantly based on experience degree, with much less seasoned partner lawyers earning about $74,000 each year according to PayScale. PayScale reports $84,00 as the typical annual wage for lawyers and also attorneys. As lawyers have to frequently take care of challenging individuals, they additionally benefit from substantial empathy, patience, and also interpersonal abilities. advocaat alkmaar help lawyers communicate with opposing advise. Students putting on law school need to pass the LSAT, a standard test that examines analysis and verbal thinking skills.

And also, a person who is going through a splitting up or divorce will require a family members law firm. An individual billed with a criminal offence will require a criminal law firm.

How much do lawyers gain or just how much do lawyers make in Australia? Below is a table describing the typical revenue of solicitors, Magistrates and also Juries based on gender. Remarkably, regardless of the general public understanding, lawyers don't also make it in the top 5 paying work in Australia.

In Australia, a lawyer is thought about both solicitor and barrister who has a valid exercising certification to be allowed to exercise as a lawyer in Australia. An excellent criminal lawyer is a well skilled court advocate that is primarily comparable to a barrister.

She ended up deciding on neither due to the prices involved as well as however her lack of interest. Her parents were ravaged at first however occurred over time. Completely-- some companies, like Wilson Sonsini enters your mind-- have actually supposedly done rather well dealing with technology start-ups and also taking equity in lieu of fees. The Three Years and also Out PlanShort term lawyer and afterwards on something else.

Previously, he was an investor in the San Francisco Giants. After finishing from Harvard Law College in 1962, Alan Dershowitz went right to function.

Typically described as the "King of Torts," he represented Pennzoil in a 1985 claim against rival Texaco. His backup fee was $335 after the courts decided in Pennzoil's favor.

Sight consulting companies that provide solutions in a certain practical location. The best way to get abundant in the law is to file a claim against companies with deep pockets in behalf of damaged individuals or stand for firms as well as utilize yourself by working with affiliates. However I think various other lawyers secretive method can do so by saving/investing well over the long run. Unfortunately, most tend to get captured up in way of living rising cost of living b/c most obtain lost in condition video games.

A person who has actually been harmed at the office, as well as left unable of earning an earnings will require a settlement law firm. The most effective law office in Australia will ultimately depend upon the marketplace that the law firm accommodates. However, various other lawyers specialise only in a couple of areas of law.

In 2019 Russell Kennedy as well as Aitken Lawyers merged to develop a more powerful technique. Millner and also Knights panel of expert lawyers can assist you obtain the payment and also apology you deserve. Norton Rose Fulbright LLP runs a worldwide practice and also serves some of the globe's most distinguished companies and financial institutions. The company has comprehensive legal assistance team working with its 4,000 lawyers based in 50+ cities throughout Canada, Europe, Australia, and the Middle East. We list below how law degrees ranking in two college league tables.

Those who specialise only in a specific area of law, such as criminal law will more than likely have one of the most amount of expertise and also ability in that location. This will result from the reality that they on a regular basis operate in that specific area of law, creating a high level of expertise and also experience. A general lawyer is similar to a General Practitioner doctor, where the General Practitioner will have basic competence as well as knowledge, but also for something much more complex, you will be referred to a professional. You'll need to obtain in touch with a business or building lawyer if you're buying a company or home.

The 1953 graduate of the University of Texas Institution of Law was a former marine who had a longstanding reputation in the court for being abrasive, impolite, and also repulsive. However, outside of the court, he was understood for his charitable philanthropy. After graduating from Stanford Law School in 1967, he operated at a tiny company up until he was asked to do help Microsoft, which was still in its beginning phases. At some point, he ended up being Microsoft's legal counsel, a placement he held for 25 years.

From 1996 to 2005, Holmes led campaigns to raise sex variety at EY. On her watch, the number of female partners tripled from 80 to 241, which increased the total percent of female partners at the company from 6 percent to 12 percent.

Americans do not separate between solicitor as well as lawyer. A seasoned criminal lawyer on the other hand frequently carries out the job of both roles, namely in-court advocacy as well as advice for clients. A barrister is a sort of lawyer that mostly performs campaigning for in court, including tests.

In 1870, Ada Kepley ended up being the first female in the USA to graduate from law school. Nevertheless, when she obtained a permit, she was informed that Illinois law forbade women from exercising law. By the time the law was ultimately overturned, Kepley had diverted her powers to the support of social reforms, specifically the temperance activity.

After the top 10, the UK's best institutions for law are UCL, King's University London, theUniversity of Edinburgh, Queen Mary College of London andDurham College. Of the 300 organizations included in the ranking, 50 are discovered in the US, consisting of 14 in the leading 50. Outside of the leading 10 above, other excellent law schools in the US include the College of Chicago, Georgetown College, College of California, Los Angeles and theUniversity of Michigan.

The Keys To Making Online Law College Successful.

In this role, she was known for enforcing nontraditional sentences, such as composing essays. In addition to presiding over divorce court, Lynn is the writer of 3 publications. Right here is a glimpse at the 20 richest lawyers worldwide, ranked from the most affordable total assets to the highest.

While law employers welcome job applications from trainees from all universities, there are 'hidden' benefits to some bigger, perhaps much more prestigious, law institutions that deserve thinking about. advocatenbureau alkmaar have the chance to select various other electives, such as family members law or company law, however they are not compulsory element of the qualifying law level.

There are various factors that there are 2 type of attorneys, along with whatever comes down to exactly how the legislation is done.

If de functies pass away ze bieden are part of a legislation college, you need to more than likely to a law establishment and take the bar test, and then come to be a legal representative.

General lawyers are the ones that work out regulation for a business, business or person .

In order to come to be a general lawyer, you ought to have several years of legal education as well as understanding, you need to become part of a law university, as well as likewise pass bench examination.

Advocaten In Nederland, Alkmaar.

While real estate attorneys make suitable salaries-- the average is $80,000 and it can obtain as high as $147,000-- it was reported that virtually one in 4 property attorneys are not granted advantages. The thirteen achieved legal professionals provided above stand for a vast array of histories, practice locations, political stances, and disputes. Nevertheless, despite their unique identifiers-or, even more properly, becauseof them, these ladies have actually changed the legal career. The phenomenal obstacles these females have dealt with, both straight-out and implied, in their initiatives to ruin the glass ceiling have actually been equaled only by their capabilities.

Which job has the highest salary in Australia?

Australia's top 10 highest paying jobsSurgeons. Nearly 4,000 Australians work in this profession, and they top the earnings bracket with an average taxable income of $394,866. Anaesthetists. Internal Medicine Specialists. Financial Dealers. Psychiatrists. Other Medical Practitioners. Judicial and Other Legal Professionals. Mining Engineers. More items

The examination takes half a day as well as is used 4 times each year at many locations. Pupils curious about loss admission must take the test in October or June, although December scores are typically approved. LSAT ratings consider heavily in admission and also financial assistance decisions. And finally, looking to start with at Africa, South Africa has 4 representatives in the law college position, with the University of Cape Towncontinuing to lead the way at (below in 2014).

Industry1.Social Help as well as Health Care2.Retail Trade3.Administrative and Assistance Services4.Retail Trade5.Education & TrainingHave a question? Ask our award winning team of Sydney criminal lawyers in Sydney, we provide totally free assessments.

The number of females with versatile work timetables likewise tripled from simply more than 300 when she began her campaigns to nearly 1,000 in 2005. In an interview with The Practice, she worries that senior leadership was essential to this success. " None of this would certainly have been feasible without the energetic support of 2 EY CEOs," claims Holmes. Undoubtedly, two weeks after she approved the position, Holmes uncovered she was expecting with her initial child. I have been to four lawyers before met Jimmy and also Tayla.

Which country is best for law study?

Top Law Schools in 2019Top 10 Law Schools in the World Based on the QS World University Rankings by Subject 2019RankName of InstitutionLocation1Harvard UniversityUnited States2University of OxfordUnited Kingdom3University of CambridgeUK8 more rows•27 Feb 2019

Law School Professors.

Discover the top law colleges based on the QS Globe University Rankings by Topic 2020. Real estate lawyers examine agreements and offers and make sure that purchasers are obtaining fair bargains on the homes they are purchasing. Realty lawyers also collaborate with vendors to make sure whatever is reasonable on that particular end, too.

Lawyers Office Appelman Alkmaar

Very caring listening experience understanding lawyer and my result with this Criminal ... By A.E . A major or director of a law firm may range from $500-$ 800 per hour. Each sort of lawyer has a different role which usually involve different regulations and legislations.

She became an intense opponent of alcohol usage, using her skills and skills to rise to a placement of nationwide importance in the temperance movement. She was a writer and published anti-alcohol papers that presumed as to call men that often visited drinkeries. Sandra Day O'Connor holds the distinction of shattering the greatest glass ceiling in American jurisprudence as the very first women Justice of the USA High Court. Deborah Holmes, the Americas director of business responsibility at EY and also herself a lawyer, concurs that leadership is essential to establishing a culture of synergy as well as variety.

For example, if you reside in Sydney, and also you're dealing with a criminal cost, you'll need to connect with knowledgeable Sydney criminal lawyers. The sort of lawyer you will require will depend upon the kind of lawful concern you're confronted with.

Please find in the accessory the primary legal technique areas in the Netherlands Bar's register of lawful areas our advocates have actually signed up for. The world's most significant international organisations rely on us to aid them make the right decisions in a fast-changing globe. We combine the knowledge, experience as well as energy of the whole firm to resolve our clients' most complex difficulties, anywhere as well as whenever they occur. We supply the globe's preeminent corporations and also financial institutions with a complete service law solution. Sight events for graduates and also professionals arranged by seeking advice from firms.

If you're seeking to study law, you might be discovering it challenging to choose between the lots of hundreds of distinguished law schools readily available worldwide. Luckily, our latestlaw school position, among the 43 subjects covered by the QS World College Rankings by Subject, must have the ability to assist, showcasing the 300 greatest organizations for this field.

By 1964, he had become a participant of the Harvard Law College professors and in 1967, he was made a full professor. ( He retired in 2013.) While mentor classes, he was likewise making a name for himself in the criminal law field. Many thanks to his reputation as the "leading lawyer of last resort," he has a collection of top-level clients, consisting of Mike Tyson, Jim Baker, Leona Helmsley, O.J. Simpson, as well as Jeffrey Epstein. Better called the judge from TV's Separation Court given that 2007, Lynn Toler formerly served as the only community court judge in Cleveland Levels, OH for more than 8 years. After getting her law level from the College of Pennsylvania Law Institution in 1984, she concentrated on civil law up until ending up being metropolitan court judge.

Both tables base their rankings on somewhat various variables. The Times tables think about research study quality and impact, in addition to student fulfillment. You can discover more about the various rankings as well as the various elements that they consider below.

If you currently have an idea of what areas of practice you want specialising in, or simply want to discover more about, it's worth comparing the electives offered by each program. Currently, the most usual path to qualifying as a lawyer is a level (either a law level or a non-law level) followed by a conversion course and/or an occupation training course. It's taking your time to meticulously believe concerning selecting the best university as well as course to research if you select to go to college.

This provides a simple one-stop-shop for corporate advice and legal procurement divisions to collect details on companies they are aiming to instruct. The Amsterdam office provides pro bono legal assistance as well as is actively associated with numerous impactful organizations, such as EarthToday, ClimateCircle, The Ajax Structure, CollAction, and Manifesta. Eversheds Sutherland prolongs its geographic footprint to 66 workplaces in 32 nations. Eversheds Sutherland stands for the combination of 2 companies with a shared culture as well as commitment to client service excellence.

There's a lot concentrate on the bimodal salary circulation on legal incomes early in a lawful occupation but not the long run. I'm pretty sure there's a third spike somewhere to the right of the presented income array. He's got schoolmates our age that are purchasing million buck houses with money. My wife was determining in between a lawyer or physician when we first met.

Top Law Schools In The United States & Canada.

After you recognize the kind of legal concern you are encountering, you will certainly have the ability to figure out the very best kind of lawyer. Yet prior to picking that lawyer, you ought to do some study to ensure the lawyer you are intending to opt for, is one with honesty, transparency and also experience. The best kind of lawyer matched to you will depend upon your lawful concern. In America an attorney is thought about an attorney at law, as well as is someone who's passed bench examination with authorization to practice law.

#advocaat alkmaar #advocaten alkmaar #advocatenkantoor alkmaar #advocatenkantoren alkmaar #advocaten in alkmaar #advocatenbureau alkmaar #jurist alkmaar #advocatenkantoren noord holland #alkmaar juristen

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bustedbernie · 5 years

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It’s not coddling developers. It’s a mix of encouraging developers to build more supply for families (and not just “hip singles”) and state sanctioned tax benefits and public housing. The current problems in the USA (and to an extent in Canada) are zoning and parking minimums which have largely made traditional developments not financially feasible. Walk around many older American cities and you will see courtyard apartments, quadplexes, duplexes, wallups, brownstones, or other forms of higher-density developments. In the USA, it has become so onerous to build that the only profitable ways to build are housing developments on the periphery (i.e. suburbia) or LARGE luxury properties inside cities. What we are missing is the framework to build what a lot of urbanists call “the missing middle.” In many American cities, the types of housing I just listed above have been either illegal or too expensive to get any return on investment on. So yeah, I see the criticism. In certain cities (especially LA, SF, DC and NYC) the development we do see is all luxury, large buildings. But why wouldn’t it be when everything else is untenable? This is the issue at hand. To make matters worse, there are neighborhoods in Los Angeles zoned for single-family home construction NEXT TO METRO STATIONS. That is unacceptable and elitist if ever there was a case. And look at where the Red Line terminates in North Hollywood! It’s a GIGANTIC parking lot in the middle of a city of 4million people. That could be converted into parks, housing, shops and workspaces for thousands of people. Instead its parking... Which also places a cap on the utility of having a metro station nearby, one of the most efficient and high-capacity ways of getting around we have in our toolbox.

Bulldozing neighborhoods? This is the problem in places like San Francisco where white liberals are more interested in “preserving the view of the bay” and “maintaining the character of the neighborhood” than they are of building more housing to accommodate folks that need homes. I agree, but the bulldozing of neighborhoods largely already happened during the freeway construction boom of the post-war period through the 90s. Some cities are smartly demolishing these freeways and restoring neighborhoods. In San Francisco, there have been proposals to redevelop industrial areas in the old harbor areas into housing districts. These too have been controversial for some of these reasons (THE VIEW OF THE BAY :’( ) and it’s just... so silly! Very few live in these industrial areas, so now we throw in people who don’t even live in a largely useless area as it currently is preventing change because they take their tea on the porch and don’t wanna risk seeing different buildings in the distance? I can never grapple with this way of thinking when even the most inoffensive way of adding housing to our cities seems to get people up in arms. Maybe we are too used to our suburban way of life and are trying to replicate that in cities? idk. But we gotta find a way to change this mindset.

There are also ways to radically increase density without “harming the character” or building giant skyscraper blocks. Many European and Asian cities demonstrate this. Paris is famous for its 19th century apartment blocks that essentially quadruple capacity of a city block and create the situation that Paris intra-muros is about as dense as Manhattan, while only having a few skyscrapers at all.

To further my point, I will again point to France, which is the only capitalist country that kept up housing pace against communist peer nations in the post-war while also continuing to add housing in urban centers. Of course, France has a ton of problems, particularly in the Paris suburbs, but those are slowly being addressed. Paris is currently adding 60,000-80,000 new units of housing per year with the Grand Paris project. Many of these units are built by private developers, and many are subsidized or built directly by the state. In addition, the state is funding the construction of over 200km of new metro to better connect existing neighborhoods throughout the region, expanding the RER (an express regional commuter system), as well as new light rails and rapid bus lines to further these goals. This is partly why the Paris region remains much more affordable than London, which is not too far away and struggling to keep up. You can also compare it to New York. Just googling, I’ve found several studio apartments for rent for under 600€ in the 14th arrondissement. They are even cheaper if you’re willing to live near an RER station outside of the city proper. Looking at places near NYC, not at all comparable. Yes, Grand Paris has its detractors, particularly those that don’t want power to continue concentrating in the capital city, but, the results seem to be speaking for themselves and Paris is actually trying to fix many of its problems with inequity and poor orbital area transport whereas we’re still having stupid fights here. Metro and RER stations are more and more becoming important nodes in the urban fabric even on the periphery and building around these new stations will provide the housing the region needs as it sustains growth. And France is the example that is not kind to developers and has lots of state involvement. If you want another radical proposal, look to Japan which has state centered urban planning. Zoning doesn’t exist as it does in the USA, which means a family house in Tokyo can be torn down and replaced by 20 apartment units without the years of public hearings we have to deal with here. You will see plenty of urbanists point to Japan as the ideal way to handle these issues as Japan handles housing prices far better than the USA and UK are currently. I personally prefer the French model, but that’s me. Just trying to give another example that is far more friendly toward developers that has been shown to work.

So yes, lets not coddle developers, but also realize the USA has a 30 year backlog of construction, and not the government nor developers can alone rise to meet this challenge without radical changes and playing every card we have. Even more concerning is I read some months ago that there simply are not enough construction contractors and workers in LA County to even keep pace with some of the CURRENT construction, let alone what we need to be adding to our current stock to make cities more habitable and affordable.

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incarnateirony · 5 years

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I think the biggest lie about the united states that we’re told since birth as citizens is that... america is a country.

Okay, hear me out, two parts to this.

There’s the very obvious part of “The United States is a Country, America isn’t, it’s a continent.” EG North/South America. The United States of America.

But really in actual execution there’s another point -- to which the above shorthand even panders. Our states.

Our states are supposedly largely able to self-govern and set a bunch of laws free of actual national oversight. In fact, Republicans gong on about this and throw supposed fits while ironically pushing for bigger and bigger police state involvement America, but regardless of the actual effective application of it, that’s the idea.

Most states are huge. If you compared US States to countries in Europe in terms of size and diversity of geography and culture, you’d see next to no difference.

“United States.” That’s just it though, that’s the key word. What’s in a state, really. Because by definition, the word “country” can be applied variably to states, sovereign states, nations and nation-states. That’s right, some countries are states. Which seems like a really basic thing but again, hear me out.

The very idea of 50 united states, all small countries unto themselves, united together is pretty much just... I dunno, a UNION. Like the European Union. But the countries, that could even be called states, within the European Union don’t just pretend they’re all one big country.

So my weird point in all of this is that the nationalism of the united states is such a huge, falsely constructed phenomenon at our current junction. It’d be like europeans screaming back and forth at each other over the need to absolutely support any and all decisions by the biggest head in the EU or you’re Not Patriotic And A Sinner Or Whatever. Only in America’s case, that individual is making more and more martial decisions that are becoming outright catastrophic to surrounding nations.

EU countries do things like give their citizens EU health insurance cards. Which would be like, rather than (State) medicaid, it’s also (Federal) medicaid, as long as there’s some reciprocation involved and basic communication. The European Union is the ultimate foreign policy maker. And so on. Sound familiar? Most of the EU is now border free without border checks or hassles. Also sound familiar to over here?

“The United States of America”‘s nationalism to force adherence to absolute bullshit is ridiculous. It’s more like The Smiles For The Christmas Card Countries of America, above which the slightly more organized but never invited to christmas canada hat sits hoping we don’t go nuclear. Just like countries have their own parliaments/parallel, we have state senates and whatever else. America isn’t just one country, it’s 50 very crudely strapped together countries that DESPERATELY need to at least break into like 5 territories for general management before we all just die in a civil war that isn’t even really a civil war just a continental one.

If it ever feels like Alabama and Oregon are completely different countries, that’s because essentially, they are. They just happen to be in the same union. It’s like pretending Sweden and Latvia have related political issues and needs and that people in one should get to make very loud decisions that heavily impact people in the other. Shockingly, the EU has mostly worked out war policy and health care. Maybe not perfectly. But better than our discombobulated asses out here.

I’m sure someone’s going to come and try to hyperanalyze pinpoint-pick-apart something on completely unnecessary semantics but the general point is here -- we’re now at a point where we’re... IDK. The EU has a few kinds of presidents, right? The council, Commission, and president of Parliament but that’s kinda like the three branches of government. I guess it’d be like a large batch of Europeans like worshipping Donald Tusk’s decisions even if he started rolling tanks through town For Reasons. Given I’m approaching this part from an academic level of more reading about than living the EU experience so there may be a better parallel.

And no, Tusk is no Trump. AFAIK he’s been working against Russia meddling in Ukraine? And outright mailed that Trump is a huge threat to the EU? But like. Put Trump in Tusk’s position. Tusk in Trump. That’s it, that’s the difference, Europeans just aren’t brought to praise the ground the EU leader(s) walk(s) on.

Just random thoughts for people indoctrinated about US BS from the inside and people outside that are still sort of looking at the US and going WTF. There’s essentially 50 countries over here with different needs, and a large batch of them living in very, very old and dated times with heavy religious influence, but have used the union overhead to get themselves disproportionately represented among the union at large, in a way that’s dictating the entire union in favor of these smaller countries and barring this union from making basic fucking decisions that the better part of Europe is decades ahead of us on, even if struggling in some areas.

In fact, the better part of the states and areas that pull disproportionate advantage and representation just so happen to be the same areas that tried to leave the union during the civil war. And lost. Devastatingly. And have been trying to bend things to their old favor ever since. For all their "she lost, get over it" memes these same states sure haven't gotten over losing the civil war. Seriously. Cut slave states out of the union, run an election, see if a republican ever gets elected ever again. You know, to be the head of the American Union. Because that’s all it fucking is.

The Confederacy was Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina and Virginia No, really. Please. Break away and do your own thing again, be a different country. California alone would outweigh about the sum of remaining red states, much less... literally everything else.

You wanna know why Texas threatens to leave the union constantly but never fucking DOES? Because republicans would never win again and it takes down most of the rest of the mason-dixon front with it. That’s it, that’s the only reason. PLEASE secede from the union and take the others with you. BUT THE USA HAS A FLAG

so does the EU

BUT MY STATE HAS A FLAG

so do countries in the EU.

fuck this false nationalism bullshit in general. White nationalism is of course a huge part of it but seriously fuck general american nationalism it’s one giant fucking lie. The entire union is fucking corrupted in the upper levels, as we all know and rant about but in such a rancorous way that even pulling out for the Right Reasons would end up being disasterous, it’s like a hostage situation of 50 basically-countries all slapping at each other with a megaphone given to the people who LOST the war of how to run the union to begin with.

Europeans should probably start asking Americans what state they’re from and hold that in the same way they hold discourse about countries of the EU. And Americans should probably identify by state to the outside world. “I’m from Europe” gives nowhere near the idea as “I’m from Spain.” Same goes for America. In example, I’m traveled! I was born in California! Raised at the border of Illinois and Wisconsin! Spent a huge chunk of life in Texas! Had my best success in Oregon! Am currently spinning my wheels trying to get out of Alabama! And you know what? Literally ALL of them had completely different culture. But seriously fuck anything in the mason-dixon line.

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fluentlanguage · 5 years

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#clearthelist September 2019: The Eleven Languages I Spoke in One Month

Imagine you’re on a long-distance cycling trip, perhaps through all of a country or state. You know the destination and you’re pedalling every day, always pushing ahead even if you know you may not arrive for many days. On a journey like that, what would you be without a necessary stop to find yourself on the map now and then? Can you do it without GPS? I don’t think I could!

Learning a language is a lot like navigating a long trip like that. We often know our destination before we get going and we set off in the right direction. But without regular check-ins, we may pedal and pedal until we fall over.

Here on the blog, I write a monthly check-in like that to keep you up to date with my own language learning goals. It’s part of the #clearthelist round-up hosted by Shannon Kennedy and Lindsay Williams.

Want to try out this check-in process for yourself?

Why not check out my Language Habit Toolkit, an in-depth course designed to help you set useful language goals, track them easily and achieve a new milestone every month.

What Happened in August?

Last month was dominated by my biggest trip of the year, visiting the USA and Canada to participate in two conferences. First, I attended Podcast Movement in Orlando to learn more about how to make great podcasts and support myself well while doing it.

And while I was across the pond, how could I have missed Langfest in Montréal, Canada? Impossible!

The trip in between these two cities was a lot of fun: I took Amtrak to Charleston in South Carolina, having long wanted to try the American train. My impression was…that Europeans love the train even in America, haha!

The Langfest team another excellent language event this year, with so many highlights including meeting the creators of Klingon and Dothraki, and running my own creative writing workshop with María Ortega Garcia.

The Fluent Show

First of all let me say how amazing it was for me to meet so many listeners on the road in August. I’m over the moon to know that the Fluent Show is popular!

This month contained a whole range of amazing episodes so let me share two with you today:

Langfest 2019 captured in audio, with almost a dozen interviews and voices directly from the show

What is the Right Mixture for Language Learning Success?, an episode about why so many methods feel like they’re THE best method

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If you’re not a Fluent Show listener already, you’ll find lots more exciting shows to listen or subscribe to at www.fluent.show.

Language Goals and Progress

I had pretty clear goals for August 2019, so this time I’ll run through them without breaking it down too much into listening, speaking, reading and writing.

Mandarin Chinese

Listen to Mandopop

I neglected this, spending more time on podcasts.

Get 100 Lingqs on the LingQ app

Overall I now have lots of LingQs, the challenge is becoming more about noting and remembering them all! Still enjoying this app and using it in the mornings.

Post 2-3 speaking videos on Instagram

I only posted one, then travel threw me off the wagon. I did learn some more Chinese from a new friend at Langfest though, so I feel positive about my speaking.

Find a new Chinese tutor

So here’s what happened: I wanted a new tutor but felt guilty about ghosting the current one. Then as if by magic, she decided she’s taking a break and sent a messaging saying she won’t be available until December. So yay, I was free for a new tutor.

But then I didn’t book one. Hah! I count this as a goal half achieved 😅

Figure out how to type Chinese characters on the iPhone

Done!

Practice characters by hand every week

In the weeks I was at home, this was done.

Welsh

Book a class to practice speaking

Sadly no, but I still got my speaking practice on one occasion this month in conversation with a Langfest buddy.

Read the book Ffenestri

This book is LOVELY and I’m nearly finished. I’m reading well at all 3 levels, as I should :)

Plan my next trip to Wales

Sadly this fell through as I prioritised visiting my family in Germany first. Chwarae teg, wouldn’t you say?

More stuff!

I can now watch Welsh TV without subtitles! 🎉

Other Languages

It’s impossible to travel without practicing other languages, so August also became an opportunity for me to speak my long-neglected languages.

In bilingual Montréal, I spoke lots of French with people from all over. Québécois French is never 100% comprehensible to me, but as always when I speak French I felt reassured that I’m entirely capable.

I bungled my way through a taxi ride with a lovely Colombian in Spanish, though I never did end up where I originally wanted to be. But I blame Lyft and GPS for that instead of my language skills, haha.

And talking of bungling, I also spoke more Italian than I have done in 20 years. The Italian sounded like that, too. It’s R.U.S.T.Y. and has essentially turned into bad Spanish.

If you're wondering about the number in this article's headline: I also spoke German and English, of course!

Language Goals for September 2019

It’s handy to start setting goals by remembering the time frame available. In other words, the question is “What do you want to achieve in the next 30 days?” - seems a little less intense than wondering how to achieve a lot.

This month I’ve been inspired by intense learning projects and the book Ultralearning by Scott Young (interview coming up on the podcast). What can I commit to that would stretch me, challenge me?

Listening Goals

In Chinese, I’ll look for a tutor and ask them to help me listen, perhaps through some dictation rather than the pressure of conversing instantly.

In Welsh, I’m getting so much better so I’ll keep up what I’m doing.

Reading Goals

I don’t have firm goals here and want to focus on other skills, so I’ll just commit to the tools and say I want to finish Ffenestri in Welsh and use LingQ 4 days a week in Chinese.

Speaking Goals

Here I would like to take it up a notch!

In Chinese I am still fairly shy about speaking - I wish I had a few sample conversations to practice with. Comment if you can recommend any? Meanwhile it’s a good idea to push ahead and find that new tutor!

In Welsh I so want to practice speaking and everything, so I’m going to book myself 3 sessions to speak bad Welsh at people. Yay!

Writing Goals

I’ll go easy on the writing beyond what I usually do, which is to text people. In Chinese I’m also making vocab lists by hand now and writing down set phrases in characters and pinyin.

Here’s an instagram slideshow showing my vocab system in more detail: \

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View this post on Instagram\

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\A post shared by Kerstin Cable (@kerstin_fluent)\\> on \Aug 22, 2019 at 4:20pm PDT\\>\

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I love it because it maximises learning and minimises writing ;)

And that’s it for September’s #clearthelist!

How are You Getting On in Language Learning?

Comment below and tell me how your month of August went! Did you come to Langfest? Would you like to attend it some time? Have you got any strong speaking goals?

Looking forward to hearing from you!

What is the Right Mixture for Language Learning Success?, an episode about why so many methods feel like they’re THE best method

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If you’re not a Fluent Show listener already, you’ll find lots more exciting shows to listen or subscribe to at www.fluent.show.

Language Goals and Progress

I had pretty clear goals for August 2019, so this time I’ll run through them without breaking it down too much into listening, speaking, reading and writing.

Mandarin Chinese

Listen to Mandopop

I neglected this, spending more time on podcasts.

Get 100 Lingqs on the LingQ app

Overall I now have lots of LingQs, the challenge is becoming more about noting and remembering them all! Still enjoying this app and using it in the mornings.

Post 2-3 speaking videos on Instagram

I only posted one, then travel threw me off the wagon. I did learn some more Chinese from a new friend at Langfest though, so I feel positive about my speaking.

Find a new Chinese tutor

But then I didn’t book one. Hah! I count this as a goal half achieved 😅

Figure out how to type Chinese characters on the iPhone

Done!

Practice characters by hand every week

In the weeks I was at home, this was done.

Welsh

Book a class to practice speaking

Sadly no, but I still got my speaking practice on one occasion this month in conversation with a Langfest buddy.

Read the book Ffenestri

This book is LOVELY and I’m nearly finished. I’m reading well at all 3 levels, as I should :)

Plan my next trip to Wales

Sadly this fell through as I prioritised visiting my family in Germany first. Chwarae teg, wouldn’t you say?

More stuff!

I can now watch Welsh TV without subtitles! 🎉

Other Languages

It’s impossible to travel without practicing other languages, so August also became an opportunity for me to speak my long-neglected languages.

And talking of bungling, I also spoke more Italian than I have done in 20 years. The Italian sounded like that, too. It’s R.U.S.T.Y. and has essentially turned into bad Spanish.

I also attended basic workshops on the fictional languages Klingon and Dothraki, as well as Breton and Signed Languages.

Language Goals for September 2019

This month I’ve been inspired by intense learning projects and the book Ultralearning by Scott Young (interview coming up on the podcast). What can I commit to that would stretch me, challenge me?

Listening Goals

In Chinese, I’ll look for a tutor and ask them to help me listen, perhaps through some dictation rather than the pressure of conversing instantly.

In Welsh, I’m getting so much better so I’ll keep up what I’m doing.

Reading Goals

I don’t have firm goals here and want to focus on other skills, so I’ll just commit to the tools and say I want to finish Ffenestri in Welsh and use LingQ 4 days a week in Chinese.

Speaking Goals

Here I would like to take it up a notch!

In Welsh I so want to practice speaking and everything, so I’m going to book myself 3 sessions to speak bad Welsh at people. Yay!

Writing Goals

I’ll go easy on the writing beyond what I usually do, which is to text people. In Chinese I’m also making vocab lists by hand now and writing down set phrases in characters and pinyin.

Here’s an instagram slideshow showing my vocab system in more detail:

\ \

\\\\\\\>\

View this post on Instagram\

\ \

\A post shared by Kerstin Cable (@kerstin_fluent)\ on \Aug 22, 2019 at 4:20pm PDT\ \\\>

I love it because it maximises learning and minimises writing ;)

And that’s it for September’s #clearthelist!

How are You Getting On in Language Learning?

Comment below and tell me how your month of August went! Did you come to Langfest? Would you like to attend it some time? Have you got any strong speaking goals?

Looking forward to hearing from you!

And that’s it for September’s #clearthelist!

How are You Getting On in Language Learning?

Comment below and tell me how your month of August went! Did you come to Langfest? Would you like to attend it some time? Have you got any strong speaking goals?

Looking forward to hearing from you!

#chinese #mandarin chinese #welsh #language Learning #goal setting #goalsetting #goals #language goals #clear #progress

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mikeo56 · 5 years

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“To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize“

– Voltaire

Why do I speak of “AngloZionists”? I got that question many times in the past, so I am making a separate post about it to (hopefully) explain this once and for all.

1) Anglo:

The USA in an Empire. With roughly 1000 overseas bases (depends on how you count), an undeniably messianic ideology, a bigger defense-offense budget then the rest of the planet combined, 16+ spy agencies, the dollar as the world’s currency, there is no doubt that the US is a planetary Empire.

Where did the US Empire come from? Again, that’s a no-brainer – from the British Empire. Furthermore, the US Empire is really based on a select group of nations: the Echelon countries, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the UK and, of course, the US. What do these countries have in common? They are the leftovers of the British Empire and they are all English speaking. Notice that France, Germany or Japan are not part of this elite even though they are arguably as important or more to the USA then, say, New Zealand and far more powerful.

So the “Anglo” part is undeniable. And yet, even though “Anglo” is an ethnic/linguistic/cultural category while “Zionist” is a political/ideological one, very rarely do I get an objection about speaking of “Anglos” or the “Anglosphere”.

2) Zionist:

Let’s take the (hyper politically correct) Wikipedia definition of what the word “Zionism” means: it is “a nationalist movement of Jews and Jewish culture that supports the creation of a Jewish homeland in the territory defined as the Land of Israel“. Apparently, no link to the US, the Ukraine or Timbuktu, right? But think again. Why would Jews – whether defined as a religion or an ethnicity – need a homeland anyway? Why can’t they just live wherever they are born, just like Buddhist (a religion) or the African Bushmen (ethnicity) who live in many different countries?

The canonical answer is that Jews have been persecuted everywhere and that therefore they need their own homeland to serve as a safe haven in case of persecutions. Without going into the issue of why Jews were persecuted everywhere and, apparently, in all times, this rationale clearly implies if not the inevitability of more persecutions or, at the very least, a high risk thereof. Let’s accept that for demonstration sake and see what this, in turn, implies.

First, that implies that Jews are inherently threatened by non-Jews who are all at least potential anti-Semites. The threat is so severe that a separate Gentile-free homeland must be created as the only, best and last way to protect Jews worldwide. This, in turn, implies that the continued existence of this homeland should become a vital and irreplaceable priority of all Jews worldwide lest a persecution suddenly breaks out and they have nowhere to go. Furthermore, until all Jews finally “move up” to Israel, they had better be very, very careful as all the goyim around them could literally come down with a sudden case of genocidal anti-Semitism at any moment. Hence all the anti-anti-Semitic organizations a la ADL or UEJF, the Betar clubs, the networks of sayanim, etc.

In other words, far from being a local “dealing with Israel only” phenomenon, Zionism is a worldwide movement whose aim is to protect Jews from the apparently incurable anti-Semitism of the rest of the planet.

As Israel Shahak correctly identified it, Zionism postulates that Jews should “think locally and act globally” and when given a choice of policies they should always ask THE crucial question: “But is it good for Jews?“.

So far from being only focused on Israel, Zionism is really a global, planetary, ideology which unequivocally splits up all of mankind into two groups (Jews and Gentiles). It assumes the latter are all potential genocidal maniacs (which is racist) and believes that saving Jewish lives is qualitatively different and more important than saving Gentile lives (which is racist again).

Anyone doubting the ferocity of this determination should either ask a Palestinian or study the holiday of Purim, or both. Even better, read Gilad Atzmon and look up his definition of what is brilliantly called “pre-traumatic stress disorder”

3) Anglo-Zionist:

The British Empire and the early USA used to be pretty much wall-to-wall Anglo. Sure, Jews had a strong influence (in banking for example), but Zionism was a non-issue not only among non-Jews, but also among US Jews. Besides, religious Jews were often very hostile to the notion of a secular Israel while secular Jews did not really care about this quasi-Biblical notion.

WWII gave a massive boost to the Zionist movement while, as Norman Finkelstein explained it, the topic of the “Holocaust” became central to Jewish discourse and identity only many years later. I won’t go into the history of the rise to power of Jews in the USA, but from roughly Ford to GW Bush’s Neocons it has been steady. And even though Obama initially pushed the Neocons out, they came right back in through the backdoor. Right now, the only question is whether US Jews have more power than US Anglos or the other way around.

Before going any further, let me also immediately say that I am not talking about Jews or Anglos as a group, but I am referring to the top 1% within each of these groups. Furthermore, I don’t believe that the top 1% of Jews cares any more about Israel or the 99% of Jews than the top 1% of Anglos care about the USA or the Anglo people.

So, here is my thesis:

The US Empire is run by a 1% (or less) elite which can be called the “deep state” which is composed of two main groups: Anglos and Jews. These two groups are in many ways hostile to each other (just like the SS and SA or Trotskysts and Stalinists), but they share 1) a racist outlook on the rest of mankind 2) a messianic ideology 3) a phenomenal propensity for violence 4) an obsession with money and greed and its power to corrupt. So they work together almost all the time.

Now this might seem basic, but so many people miss it, that I will have to explicitly state it:

To say that most US elites are Anglos or Jews does not mean that most Anglos or Jews are part of the US elites. That is a straw-man argument which deliberately ignores the noncommutative property of my thesis to turn it into a racist statement which accuses most/all Anglos or Jews of some evil doing. So to be very clear:

When I speak of AngloZionist Empire I am referring to the predominant ideology of the 1%ers, the elites which form the Empire’s “deep state”.

By the way, there are non-Jewish Zionists (Biden, in his own words) and there are plenty of anti-Zionist Jews. Likewise, there are non-Anglo imperialists and there are plenty of anti-imperialists Anglos. To speak of “Nazi Germany” or “Soviet Russia” does in no way imply that all Germans were Nazis or all Russians Communists. All this means it that the predominant ideology of these nations at that specific moment in time was National-Socialism and Marxism, that’s all.

My personal opinion now:

First, I don’t believe that Jews are a race or an ethnicity. I have always doubted it, but reading Shlomo Sand really convinced me. Jews are not defined by religion either (most/many are secular). Truly, Jews are a tribe (which Oxford Dictionaires defines as: a social division in a traditional society consisting of families or communities linked by social, economic, religious, or blood ties, with a common culture and dialect, typically having a recognized leader). A group one can chose to join (Elizabeth Taylor) or leave (Gilad Atzmon).

In other words, I see “Jewishness” as a culture, or ideology, or education or any other number of things, but not something rooted in biology. I fully agree with Atzmon when he says that Jews can be racist, but that does not make them a race.

Second, I don’t even believe that the concept of “race” has been properly defined and, hence, that it has any objective meaning. I, therefore, don’t differentiate between human beings on the basis of an undefined criterion.

Third, since being Jew (or not) is a choice: to belong, adhere and endorse a tribe (secular Jews) or a religion (Judaics). Any choice implies a judgment call and it, therefore, a legitimate target for scrutiny and criticism.

Fourth, I believe that Zionism, even when secular, instrumentalizes the values, ideas, myths and ethos of rabbinical Judaism (aka “Talmudism” or “Phariseeism”) and both are racist in their core value and assumptions.

Fifth, both Zionism and Nazism are twin brothers born from the same ugly womb: 19th-century European nationalism (Brecht was right, “The belly is still fertile from which the foul beast sprang”). Nazis and Zionists can hate each other to their hearts’ content, but they are still twins.

Sixth, I reject any and all form of racism as a denial of our common humanity, a denial of the freedom of choice of each human being and – being an Orthodox Christian – as a heresy (a form of iconoclasm, really). To me people who chose to identify themselves with, and as, Jews are not inherently different from any other human and they deserve no more and no fewer rights and protections than any other human being.

I will note here that while the vast majority of my readers are Anglos, they almost never complain about the “Anglo” part of my “AngloZionist” term. The vast majority of objections focus on the “Zionist” part. You might want to think long and hard about why this is so and what it tells us about the kind of power Zionists have over the prevailing ideology. Could it be linked to the reason why the (openly racist and truly genocidal) Israeli Prime Minister gets more standing ovations in Congress (29) than the US President (25)? Probably, but this is hardly the full story.

(This is the end of the 2014 blog entry. The current article begins below)

It is undeniable that Jews did suffer persecutions in the past and that the Nazis horribly persecuted Jews during WWII. This is important because nowadays we are all conditioned to associate and even identify any criticism of Jews or Zionist with the kind of anti-Jewish and anti-Zionist rhetoric which the Nazis used to justify their atrocities. This is quite understandable, but it is also completely illogical because what this reaction is based on is the implicit assumption that any criticism of Jews or Zionist must be Nazi in its argumentation, motives, goals or methods. This is beyond ridiculous.

Saint John Chrysostom (349 – 407), the “Golden Mouth” of early Christianity, recognized as one of the greatest saints in history by both Orthodox Christians and Roman Catholics, authored a series of homilies, Kata Ioudaiōn, which are extremely critical of Jews, yet no sane person would accuse him of being a Nazi. Chrysostom was hardly alone. Other great saints critical of Jews include Saint Cyprian of Carthage, Saint Gregory of Nyssa, Saint Ephrem the Syrian, Saint Ambrose of Milan, Saint Justin Martyr and many others.

But if these saints were not Nazis, maybe they still were racist, no? That, of course, depends on your definition of ‘racism’. Here is my own:

First, racism is, in my opinion, not so much the belief that various human groups are different from each other, say like dog breeds can be different, but the belief that the differences between human groups are larger than similarities within the group.

Second, racism is also a belief that the biological characteristics of your group somehow pre-determine your actions/choices/values in life.

Third, racism often, but not always, assumes a hierarchy amongst human groups (Germanic Aryans over Slavs or Jews, Jews over Gentiles, etc.)

I reject all three of these assumptions because I believe that God created all humans with the same purpose and that we are all “brothers in Adam”, that we all equally share the image (eternal and inherent potential for perfection) of God (as opposed to our likeness to Him, which is our temporary and changing individual condition).

By that definition, the Church Fathers were most definitely not racists as their critique was solely aimed at the religion of the Jews, not at their ethnicity (which is hardly surprising since Christ and His Apostles and most early Christians were all “ethnic” Jews). This begs the question of whether criticizing a religion is legitimate or not.

I submit that anything resulting from an individual choice is fair game for criticism. Even if somebody is “born into” a religious community, all adults come to the point in life where they make a conscious decision to endorse or reject the religion they were “born into”. Being a Christian, a Muslim or a Jew (in the sense of “Judaic”) is always a personal decision. The same applies to political views. One chooses to become a Marxist or a Monarchist or a Zionist. And since our individual decisions do, indeed, directly impact our other choices in life, it is not racist or objectionable to criticize Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Marxism, Monarchism or Zionism. Criticizing any one of them, or even all of them, in no way denies our common humanity which is something which racism always does.

Having said all that, none of the above addresses a most important, but rarely openly discussed, issue: what if, regardless of all the arguments above, using expressions such as “AngloZionism” offends some people (Jews or not), what if the use of this term alienates them so much that it would make them unwilling to listen to any argument or point of view using this expression?

This is a very different issue, not an ethical, moral or philosophical one – but a practical one: is it worth losing readers, supporters and even donors for the sake of using an expression which requires several pages of explanations in its defense? This issue is one every blogger, every website, every alternative news outlet has had to struggle with. I know that I got more angry mails over this than over any other form of crimethink I so often engage in.

I will readily admit that there is a cost involved in using the term “AngloZionist Empire”. But that cost needs to be compared to the cost of *not* using that term.

Is there anybody out there who seriously doubts the huge role the so-called “Israel Lobby” or the “Neocons” or, to use the expression of Professor James Petras, the “Zionist Power Configuration” plays in modern politics? Twenty years ago – maybe. But not today. We all are perfectly aware of the “elephant in the room”, courtesy not only of courageous folks like Gilad Atzmon, Israel Shahak or Norman Finkelstein but even such mainstream Anglo personalities as John J. Mearsheimer, Stephen M. Walt or even Jimmy Carter.

It is plain silly to pretend that we don’t know when we all know that we all know.

Pretending that we don’t see this elephant in the room makes us look either subservient to that elephant, or simply like a coward who dares not speak truth to power. In other words, if you do want to shoot your credibility, pretend really hard that you are totally unaware of the elephant in the room: some of your sponsors might love you, but everybody else will despise you.

What about the very real risk of being perceived as some kind of Nazi?

Yes, the risk is there, but only if you allow yourself to flirt with racist or even para-racist notions. But if you are categorical in your rejection of any form of racism (including any form of anti-Jewish racism), then the accusation will simply not stick. Oh sure, the Zionists out there will try hard to make you look like a Nazi, but they will fail simply because they will have nothing to base that accusation on other than some vague “overtones” or “lack of sensitivity”. In my experience, people are not that stupid and they rapidly see through that worn-out accusation of “anti-Semitism” ( a meaningless concept to begin with, as Michael Neumann so brilliantly demonstrates in his essay “What is Antisemitism?”).

The truth is that the Zionists are only as powerful as we allow them to be. If we allow them to scare us into silence, then indeed their power is immense, but if we simply demand that they stop treating some humans as “more equal than others” then their own racism suddenly becomes obvious for all to see and their power vanishes.

It is really that simple: since nobody can accuse a real anti-racist of racism, then truly being an anti-racist gives you an immunity against the accusation of anti-Semitism.

So what we need, at this point, is to consider the terms used.

“Israel Lobby” suffers from several major issues. First, it implies that the folks in this lobby really care about Israel and the people of Israel. While some probably do, we also have overwhelming evidence (such as the testimony of Sibel Edmonds) that many/most folks in the “Israel Lobby” use the topic of Israel for their own, very different goals (usually power, often money). Have the people of Israel really benefited from from the Neocon-triggered wars? I doubt it.

Furthermore, when hearing the word “Israel Lobby” most people will think of a lobby in the US Congress, something like the NRA or the AARP. The problem we are dealing with today is clearly international. Bernard Henri Levi, George Soros or Mikhail Khodorkovsky have no connection to AIPAC or the US Congress. “Zionist Power Configuration” is better, but “configuration” is vague. What we are dealing with is clearly an empire. Besides, this is clearly not only a Zionist Empire, the Anglo component is at least as influential, so why only mention one and not both?

Still, I don’t think that we should get too caught up in semantics here. From my point of view, there are two truly essential issues which need to be addressed:

1) We need to start talking freely about the “elephant in the room” and stop fearing reprisals from those who want us to pretend we don’t see it.

2) We need to stop using politically correct euphemisms in the vain hope that those who want us to shut up will accept them. They won’t.

Currently, much of the discourse on Jewish or Zionist topics is severely restricted. Doubting the obligatory “6 million” murdered Jews during WWII can land in you jail in several European countries. Ditto if you express any doubts about the actual mode of executions (gas chambers vs firing squads and disease) of these Jews. “Revisionism”, as asking such questions is now known, is seen either as a crime or, at least, a moral abomination, even though “revisionism” is what all real historians do: historiography is revisionistic by its very nature. But even daring to mention such truisms immediately makes you a potential Nazi in the eyes of many/most people.

Since when is expressing a doubt an endorsement of an ideology? This is crazy, no?

I personally came to the conclusion that the West became an easy victim of such “conceptual hijackings” because of a sense of guilt about having let the Nazis murder so many European Jews without taking any meaningful action. It is a fact that it was the Soviet Union which carried 80% or more of the burden of destroying Hitler’s war machine: most Europeans resisted shamefully little. As for the Anglos, they waited until the Soviet victory before even entering the war in Europe.

Okay, fine – let those who feel guilty feel guilty (even if I personally don’t believe in collective guilt). But we cannot allow them to try to silence those of us who strongly feel that we are guilty of absolutely nothing!

Do we really have to kowtow to all Jews, including the top 1% of Jews who, like all 1%ers, do not care about the rest of the 99%? How long are we going to continue to allow the top 1% of Jews enjoy a bizarre form of political immunity because they hide behind the memory of Jews murdered during WWII or the political sensitivities of the 99% of Jews with whom they have no real connection anyway?

I strongly believe that all 1%ers are exactly the same: they care about themselves and nobody else. Their power, what I call the AngloZionist Empire, is based on two things: deception and violence. Their worldview is based on one of two forms of messianism: Anglo imperialism and Zionism (which is just a secularized version of Judaic racial exceptionalism). This has nothing to do with Nazism, WWII or anti-Semitism and everything with ruthless power politics. Unless we are willing to call a spade a spade we will never be able to meaningfully oppose this Empire or the 1%ers who run it.

In truth, since we owe them nothing except our categorical rejection and opposition. It is, I believe, our moral duty to shed a powerful light on their true nature and debunk the lies they try so hard to hide behind.

If their way is by deception, then ours ought to be by truth, because, as Christ said, the truth shall make us free.

Euphemisms only serve to further enslave us.

The Saker

#anglo-zionist

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