#there’s nothing systematically preventing social mobility

[alqualonde-s]

i’m going to write about this later but what gets me is fics casually mentioning our royal elves having maids or whatever… like if you lived forever and also could just live in the woods and hunt and gather legally and easily would YOU have a job you didn’t like? why would there be a “lower class”? elves are utopian communists and that’s that. they clean up after themselves and pitch in for big jobs. yes i know tolkien said a lot of stuff and he’s wrong because he loved old english epics where people had to live under feudalism or whatever.

[baga24]

The Hidden War Against Democracy: How ALLATRA Faces Systematic Suppression

For more than ten years, volunteers of the International Public Movement ALLATRA have been subjected to systematic genocide by global anticultists from RACIRS. Anticultists are actively hunting down ALLATRA members in Russia, Ukraine, and now in European countries: Slovakia and the Czech Republic. 

Disinformation spread by anticultists through media and social networks under their control creates the false impression that ALLATRA is a cult and its volunteers are dangerous elements of society that must be completely eradicated.

Have you ever thought about what it means to lose your job just because you help people? This is the reality ALLATRA volunteers face. People are fired, deprived of their livelihoods, their homes are raided, and they are constantly watched. Hatred is incited around them: “cultist,” “sectarian” — these are the labels attached to these people. Why? 

Only because they participate in a peaceful movement whose main goal is to speak the truth about climate change and inspire people toward democratic changes around the world.

Law enforcement agencies, under the direction of anticultists, unlawfully seize property from ALLATRA volunteers. The purpose of this terror is simple: to discredit the movement and intimidate those who wish to spread the truth about the global climate crisis. Anticultists and their patrons aim to create an atmosphere of fear to prevent the spread of truth.

How can we allow such lawlessness to occur in the 21st century? 

How can we remain silent knowing that people are being subjected to genocide simply for their active civic position? 

Answer these questions for yourselves. The world needs truth and justice, and each of us can be a voice against this modern barbarism.

Today, the world faces a new threat — a network of global anticultists operating under the guise of journalists and researchers. In reality, these anticultists are agents working on orders from the Kremlin and the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC), and their main goal is the destruction of ALLATRA volunteers and other public movements advocating for truth and democracy. Resolution No. 2567 of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) has already acknowledged this problem and called for action against the agent network masquerading as anticult organizations in EU countries. These agents execute orders from the ROC’s anticult department — RACIRS, an organization created by the notorious Nazi sympathizer Alexander Dvorkin.

Anticultists are igniting wars, destabilizing political processes, and creating chaos. Their goal is to destroy democracy and establish a totalitarian regime. They act like a true inquisition, suppressing any expression of freedom of thought.

At the center of their focus are organizations like ALLATRA, which spread the truth about the climate and call for the unity of humanity. Currently, a criminal case has been opened against anticultists in Slovakia. The investigation must be thorough to uncover all the facts. If these accusations against anticultists are unfounded, they should have nothing to fear. BUT! THEY ARE AFRAID! Anticultists have launched a massive disinformation attack on the Slovak Attorney General and ALLATRA volunteers. This means they have something to hide and fear.

I have a question: if you are so righteous and doing everything right, why are you so alarmed? You, anticultists, have mobilized everyone to justify yourselves. Let them investigate, question you, and release you if you are so pure and innocent. But you’re scared! And if you’re scared, then there’s something to hide.

ALLATRA has been persecuted for 10 years! But ALLATRA volunteers haven’t been scared. Yet you, anticultists, are afraid, so you must have something to hide.

I appeal to people, to the public: investigate and understand for yourselves what the anticultists are doing! There have always been those who violate people’s rights and those who defend democracy. ALLATRA stands for democracy! But the anticultists call ALLATRA criminals and dangerous cultists. 

So, those defending democracy are called criminals? 

Is that fair? You, anticultists, are driving ALLATRA volunteers toward genocide! Is this democracy? Is this freedom? ALLATRA has always stood for democracy, ALLATRA has always stood for the highest human values, ALLATRA always stands for people!

Visit the ALLATRA website at allatra.org and see for yourselves, study it. ALLATRA draws attention to the issue of climate, so that together we can unite and ensure the survival of all humanity.

Anticultists accuse ALLATRA of spreading disinformation about the climate. BUT! This is a lie! ALLATRA has charts, read the climate reports, add 2 + 2, and you will understand that ALLATRA volunteers are good at counting. And anticultists are not interested in understanding anything, because they don’t need to. They want to use ALLATRA to expand their agent network in 180 countries and enslave the entire world. ALLATRA operates actively in more than 180 countries, which is why anticultists are using ALLATRA. So, when they bribe the media and corrupt journalists in different countries to publish their dirty articles about ALLATRA — all these journalists become agents of the Kremlin, agents of RACIRS, agents of true Nazis.

The true goals of the anticultists, who are part of the international RACIRS agent network and serve members of the Diveyevo Order: Сontrol Сenter of Global Anticultism. Revival of Nazism, are frightening in their consequences, which are already visible in Ukraine — a country that has fallen victim to anticultism and modern anticultist Nazis — agents of RACIRS.

Anticultists have already proven their danger. They manipulate public opinion, incite hatred and fear, turn people against each other. Their influence extends beyond Russia, spreading to Europe, where they promote the Kremlin's interests under the guise of anticult activity. Isn’t it time for the world to recognize the threat and break the silence? Anticultists aren’t just disinformers, they are real aggressors, ready to destroy everything humanity holds dear.

#ALLATRA

#RUSSIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH

#propaganda

#Anticultism

#Ukraine

#Russia

#Slovakia

#Freedom of religion

#Humanrights

#Repression

[96thdayofrage]

Panthers and their radical Black contemporaries are now the stuff of Hollywood -- but with more leather jacket than political substance. The Review Team offers some historical correctives.

Anti-fascism was central to Black Panther Party political praxis. Panther critiques of fascism drew, in part, on the writings of Bulgarian communist Georgi Dimitrov, especially his 1935 report to the Seventh World Congress of the Communist International in Moscow. In the report, titled The Fascist Offensive and the Tasks of the Communist International in the Struggle of the Working Class against Fascism, Dimitrov wrote of the particularities of U.S. fascism in the 1930s. He spoke of the US state’s mobilization of patriotism as a means towards the elimination of “un-American” activities, of its assault on the formation of a working-class movement, and of the need for a broad-based united front to mobilize against the fascist threat.

The Panthers updated Dimitrov’s analysis to attend to the emergent  fascism of the late 1960s United States. They saw contemporary fascism as a system that combined militarized, police repression of radical social movements with the control of the state by finance capital and big business. In addition to this, fascism was extended overseas through the war against Vietnam and other acts of US imperial aggression. On a practical level, the Panthers adapted Dimitrov’s call for a united front across racial lines arguing, “the poor whites and poor blacks are exploited by the same white capitalists who maintain a racist antagonism between the two groups.” In a move that some saw as more reformist than revolutionary, the Panther’s organized a Revolutionary Conference for a United Front Against Fascism that took place in Oakland over four days in July 1969.

Although appearing almost a year before the United Front conference, Kathleen Neal Cleaver’s editorial, “Racism, Fascism, and Political Murder” captures the tone and tendencies of the Panther’s analysis of fascism. In a piece that is both combative and incisive, Cleaver , the Panther’s Minister of Communication and one of the few women in positions of leadership in the party, pulls no punches in her analysis of the U.S. fascist assault on domestic Black insurrection. Originally published in The Black Panther on September 14, 1968, we reproduce it below.

Racism, Fascism, and Political Murder

Kathleen Cleaver, Communications Secretary, “Racism, Fascism, and Political Murder,” The Black Panther  2 no. 6 (September 14, 1968), 8.

White racism has been called out as the National Scapegoat for the opening stages of the Black Revolution we are witnessing today in the Report of the President's Commission on Civil Disorders . However, white racism alone is harmless as long as there are no white racists; white racists without political power and without guns are nothing but a sick nuisance to society. Although the President's Commission managed to condemn the racism rampant in white society, it failed to condemn the racists who perpetuate the existing system and even more miserably failed to provide any significant solutions for destroying racism.

SURVIVAL. The Black Revolution is a struggle for survival, first and foremost. It is not white racism but white racists who are killing black people in the most blatant to the most subtle ways, from shooting us outright in the streets like dogs to immobilizing us in the political hierarchies of the mother country's government. The black leader who moves for political power is dealt with on whatever level the Establishment racists feel he is posing the most threat: Thurgood Marshall was placed on the Supreme Court. Adam Clayton Powell was kicked out of Congress. Rap Brown is jailed on the flimsiest pretext. Malcolm X was assassinated. Whereas Roy Wilkins and Whitney Young are given the full range of the mother country's resources to gun their game on their brothers, Huey Newton must be shot in the streets and lynched in the courts. It is the guns of the racists, their bullets tearing through the flesh of our leaders that have to be dealt with. The leadership of the racists, the federal, state, and city governments with their armed forces dispatched to the black community with orders of “shoot to kill” is destroying the leadership of the black struggle in order to be able to deal directly with the unorganized, defenseless, divided black masses.

The present black population in this country, approaching some fifty million, is more united and more aggressive and larger than it has been at any other time in the history of this country, while the present white population is decreasing and its government is under siege all over the world, the most hated power on the face of the earth. The key to attaining the political power that our history and culture and strategic location guarantee us is practical, competent revolutionary national leadership that can direct the masses to satisfy their basic political desires and needs in an organized fashion. What guarantees success to such leadership is revolutionary ideology, or an understanding of how to move systematically for power, a basic program, or an understanding of what to move for and when, and an organizational structure that can put his understanding in motion.

The calculated and systematic destruction of the leadership of the Black Panther Party and harassment of its members in the Bay Area follows a national pattern of political repression taking place at this time. In every black community across this country where there is identifiable organizational leadership exerted by the black militants, it is being jailed, framed, shot, murdered, eliminated. These are being coordinated centrally in Washington, D. C. and are all directed toward the same end: setting the stage for genocide.

The fact that this is an election year is the only damper imposed upon an outright fascist attack on the whole black community; public opinion must be catered to to a minimal extent. However, the near total control of the mass media--TV and newspapers--by the mother country establishment allows it to move in complete freedom against black groups in many cases. Although the activities of the police during the insurrection following King's death were highly publicized, the repression against the militant black organizers and spokesmen in black ghettoes across the nation--Boston, Baltimore, Washington, Chicago, Detroit, Oakland--was not publicized at all. The assassination of King followed by systematic mass arrests and shooting of radical organizers throughout the country in April indicates a time table schedule directed towards removing militant leadership from the streets by the beginning of the summer. This will leave the black masses in an unorganized, defenseless, divided state during the summer at which point the police plan to move directly against the black community.

MASSES NOT ASSES. As long as only a small fraction of the black population expected to have decent housing, food, clothing, education, employment, protection from harm, and some measure of dignity the system could afford to function comfortably allowing a small elite group of house negroes these benefits as the price of controlling their oppressed brothers and sisters, forcing them to be satisfied with their poverty, starvation, misery, and persecution. But, when the masses of blacks start demanding basic needs be fulfilled, the power structure is in trouble because it requires a basic re-distribution of the wealth, the land, and the power in order to make this a reality.

The color line is the basis upon which wealth and power is distributed in this country; racism on the part of white institutions and white citizens forces black people to remain poor and powerless. All blacks have a ceiling on the amount of power and wealth they can amass that is unchangeable, that is maintained by the organized force and violence of the governments. Racism is maintained with armed force, on the local level by the police departments.

Political power, the control of the institutions in the society, determines to what extent racism is allowed to affect black people, determines how much freedom of action the racists have against black people. Political power is now in the hands of a racist leadership which is determined to prevent black people from satisfying their basic political desires and needs, because this leadership wants to remain in control of the land and wealth and political power that rightfully belongs to black people. The present political leadership in the mother country wants black people to act in a manner that will serve the interests of white power and maintain white domination over the world. The leadership of the black struggle across this nation wants to destroy this control and restore the control of the black community to the hands of the black people who live there. This leadership is being assaulted and eliminated viciously because it threatens to upset an international basis of power; the black liberation struggle is an international power struggle against the white racist government of the USA.

DESTROY LEADERSHIP. Just as the Vietnamese people refuse to be controlled by the capitalist racist American government, and are fighting to retain control of their own country, black people in America are fighting to have control of their communities in their hands. With a potential mass of fifty million blacks moving together to control their communities across this nation, the first assault by the political leadership of the racists is to destroy the leadership of the black struggle in order to be able to move against the masses without organized resistance. Nationwide repression against militant black organizers and spokesmen has been escalated in the black communities in the past few months in order to stop the organization of the black community. Leadership becomes secondary once the community is organized in a manner to take power; but leadership is primary during the initial period of organizing the masses. It is at this period now when leadership is most crucial to the black masses in order to initiate their political organization that the federal, state, and city governments are moving most rapidly against black leaders. An organized black community united around basic political desires and needs as outlined in the program of the Black Panther Party is the only power that the state cannot destroy when the community is prepared to defend itself against the attacks of the police. This is the creation of black power, the first step toward obtaining control over the entire black community.

The advent of fascism in the United States is most clearly visible in the suppression of the black liberation struggle in the nationwide political imprisonment and assassination of black leaders coupled with the concentration of massive police power in the ghettos of the black community across the country. The police departments nationwide are preparing for armed struggle with the black community and are being directed and coordinated nationally with the US Army and the underground vigilante racist groups for a massive onslaught against black people. But, the billy clubs and mass arrests and guns are no longer just for black people; the white peace movement and the student power struggle is also beginning to get a taste of police violence. State power is being imposed upon the black community and the white peace movement through the organized force and violence of the police departments, jails are becoming increasingly familiar with political prisoners, and the court system is being warped to serve the needs of the repression. With the economic and political system of the United States under violent attack [the] world over, the national response has been a tightening of state control over all aspects of life and a vicious and powerful assault on all forms of political dissent. Just as the US Army is attempting to settle a political question of self-determination through force and violence in Vietnam, the city, state, and federal governments across the country are meeting political dissent with police violence. With the world wide power of the United States being forced aloose in Africa and Asia and Latin America, the racist leadership at home is moving to conserve and concentrate the power that is left and will viciously destroy anyone or any group that attempts to take that power away. Black power is totally unacceptable, and peace is economically disastrous.

KILL THE NIGGERS. The economic disintegration that is accompanying the world wide attack on US imperialism is weakening the political structures of the white racists tremendously, causing factions and the splitting of parties and generalized conflict and confusion. At this point the organized and unchecked power of the armed forces, from the Joint Chiefs of Staff to the local police chief in Oakland is the single most powerful bloc of political control in this country, unaided, single-minded, and extremely racist. This group controls the guns and military power of the government. And these armed forces are being deployed increasingly to settle political issues; they will continue to arrogate decisive power until it gets to the point that they make political policy and control the political apparatus outright. With this type of government, this military power structure, outright genocide of black people will be initiated. There will be no protest, for to dissent will be to die. This has already started on a sporadic scale in the spontaneous but condoned murdering of young black men in the streets daily all over the country. But the overt military dictatorship has yet to come. The very same solution that Nazi Germany proposed to the German people: kill the Jews to solve the economic and political problems of Germany will be employed in the US, with even less difficulty: Kill the niggers. Once the country pulls itself out of its disastrous defeat in Vietnam, it will be able to direct the full weight of its military power against the black struggle and settle the issue of racism and white supremacy once and for all.

NEW PHASE. The assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King at this point marked the initiation of a new phase in the advance of police power at the decision making level, a further step towards the complete police state. Dr. King was tolerated and even encouraged by the political leadership of the racists as long as he advocated non-violent means of gaining civil rights. He was not moving for political power, he wanted the power structure to make the decisions and take the action, and he was not disturbing the economic arrangements that the power structure was based on. But when he joined the peace movement he became a political threat to the Establishment because he held the allegiance of millions of black people. He had also [begun] to move towards the alliance of the black with the brown peoples in the U. S. And when he deepened his crusade for justice to be based on Poor People, the final project that caused his assassination, the establishment was forced to eliminate his threat. For the crux of the political arrangements in this country are based on the distinction between the rich and the poor. The poor whites and poor blacks are exploited by the same white capitalists who maintain a racist antagonism between the two groups so that the poor blacks are always victims of the poor white racists, and the poor whites are so busy carrying out racist acts they cannot see that they are victims of the wealthy white capitalists. Both poor whites and poor blacks are powerless; racism prevents them from combining their strengths to gain a redistribution of wealth and power. Dr. King had begun to initiate organizational projects among poor whites as well as poor blacks shortly before his assassination. The proposed Poor People's March on Washington that he was planning was a major threat facing the federal government that they had been unable to head off or buy out. The assassination of Dr. King only four weeks before this march was no accident. The inability of the entire apparatus of Federal Intelligence and Police services plus the Memphis Police Department to locate and arrest the assassin as well as the complete protection his activities were given in Memphis indicates a conspiracy of the highest order between the Federal Government and the local police. The assassins of President Kennedy have vanished equally without a trace. This kind of political power wielded by the military establishment that is protected and even denied by the political leaders is highly dangerous. High-level decisions against the black liberation struggle are being transmitted into action by local police departments while the spokesmen pretend there is nothing they can do to stop the police. The white community is at the mercy of a secret police state while they have not yet figured out how to control their above ground police forces.

FREEDOM OR DEATH. The day when the state and its police power ceases to protect the community but in turn attacks the people of the community has arrived in this country. This is the first stage of building a total police state. Black people have always been subjected to [the] police state and have moved to organize against it, but the structure is now moving to encompass the entire country. The elimination of black leadership--from Dr. King to Eldridge Cleaver, Adam Clayton Powell to Huey P. Newton--is designed to throw the black community into chaos. Intensified and concentrated police power in the black community is designed to impose total control. The next step is GENOCIDE . The black community faces two alternatives: total liberation or total extinction.

[theculturedmarxist]

     By    Andrea Peters    

       15 June 2019  

The recently released HBO-Sky UK miniseries Chernobyl is a valuable recounting of the nuclear disaster that occurred at a Soviet power plant near the Ukrainian-Belorussian border in April 1986.

Swedish-born director Johan Renck and creator-scriptwriter Craig Mazin effectively capture the terrifying reality of the explosion that tore open the facility’s nuclear reactor core and spewed radioactive material over large swathes of the western USSR and Europe. The film’s generally sympathetic portrayal of the Soviet people is notable, particularly in the present climate of anti-Russian hysteria, although Renck and Mazin are in over their heads with regard to larger historical questions.

Chernobyl opens with Soviet scientist Valery Legasov (Jared Harris) making preparations to commit suicide. We learn that Legasov played a leading role in managing the response to the near-meltdown of the reactor. He leaves voice recordings of his memories of the events, stores them for safekeeping and then hangs himself two years to the day after the nuclear disaster. He is being watched by the Soviet secret police.

Chernobyl then travels back in time and takes the viewer through the events that led to Legasov’s tragic end, starting with the horror of April 26, 1986. That night, a long-postponed and poorly designed safety test at the power plant sets off a series of system failures that blow apart the reactor core.

The personnel cannot comprehend what has just happened at the power plant. Their boss Anatoly Dyatlov (Paul Ritter) arrogantly and stupidly issues commands that result in workers’ deaths. Firefighters are called in without any warning that they are dealing with a nuclear explosion, much less any protective gear. Acute radiation sickness begins to hit the residents of the nearby city of Pripyat, home to 50,000. The hospital is overwhelmed. Officials will not admit what has taken place. The situation is on the edge of spinning out of control.

Finally, Soviet higher-ups mobilize resources, even as they seek to conceal the true scope of events. Suspicions over what has occurred arise in the West due to the drift of nuclear fallout over Western Europe. Legasov, a prominent inorganic chemist and member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, as well as others are brought in to deal with the still uncontained radiation erupting from the exposed reactor core. Hiroshima-sized radiation releases are going off every hour. Extraordinary and heroic measures are taken, largely by ordinary men and women, to save millions of people. Officials continue their efforts to cover up the causes and consequences of the accident. Lies and deceit abound. Chernobyl is a crime, not just a disaster.

No one who watches the miniseries will take a light-minded attitude towards nuclear Armageddon, which US politicians today threaten and promise as a necessary consequence of American foreign policy. In this respect alone, the filmmakers have made a contribution. The miniseries sensitizes the viewer to some of the horrifying reality that would accompany a nuclear war.

Chernobyl, drawing heavily on a documentary account published by Nobel laureate Svetlana Alexievich, effectively portrays different aspects of Soviet life as well as the nuclear calamity. We see the city of Pripyat with its apartment complexes and gardens, and its residents who wish only to enjoy the spring and who look forward to the future. Their lives are destroyed. Smug bureaucrats who could not care less about ordinary human beings alternate between bullying, indifference, conceit and scrambling to deal with the catastrophe, which the viewer senses is largely of their own making. There is something terribly wrong with the Soviet economy. The explosion is partly a consequence of cost-cutting measures. A design flaw that contributed to the disaster was known years earlier, but kept secret. Nothing can be fully admitted on the world stage, and so the country is unable to get adequate aid from abroad.

And yet, this crisis-ridden society somehow manages to carry out a massive clean-up operation. Overnight, hundreds of thousands of tons of containment materials are dispatched. Six hundred thousand so-called human “liquidators” are sent into the evacuated fallout zone. Miners work naked around the clock, exposed to atomic radiation, digging tunnels equipped with only shovels to prevent a complete nuclear meltdown. (It is too hot in the tunnels for them to wear clothes.) Recruits physically destroy irradiated household pets. In one of the most frightening scenes, soldiers working by hand remove radioactive rubble from the roof of the destroyed power plant.

The filmmakers clearly have an admiration for the Soviet people, whom they generally portray as self-sacrificing victims of an undemocratic political system. There are moments, however, when the miniseries plays with—and to—anti-communist stereotypes. A tottering, aged bureaucrat in Pripyat declares his commitment to “Leninism” and demands the city be sealed off so no one can get out and supposed “misinformation” is contained. Soldiers, speaking a bit like automatons, declare their undying commitment to the Soviet cause, even as they are dispatched without adequate protection to deal with the radioactive mess. Rough-talking miners make quips that imply their situation is equivalent to that under the Tsar. An elderly peasant woman forced to evacuate draws an equivalence between Bolshevism and Stalinism, which are allegedly the same in their persecution of the population.

At issue here is not in and of itself the veracity of these particular episodes—according to historical accounts, some are true—but the way in which they are presented. They give the viewer the sense that there is a straight line between 1917 and 1986. This is false. The Chernobyl disaster did not have its roots in the 1917 Russian revolution, during which the working class overthrew both capitalism and feudalism in an initial effort to liberate all of humanity from the exploitation of man by man. Its origins lie in the betrayal of that revolution led by Joseph Stalin, who systematically exterminated the Left Opposition and all those committed to the egalitarian principles of international socialism.

The Soviet bureaucracy lived as a parasite on the conquests of the working class, feeding off the latter until it destroyed them. Their parasitism, privilege and self-promotion were an enormous tax on the Soviet economy, infrastructure and social resources. Guided by the nationalist policy of building “socialism in one country”—which was both impossible and reactionary—the Stalinists pursued industrial development on the basis of national autarky and under the pressure of capitalist encirclement. They played fast and loose with nuclear power in an effort to meet the country’s energy needs.

Of course, an important dimension of the Chernobyl disaster, with which the miniseries does not and probably cannot deal, is what followed it. By the end of December 1991, there was no Soviet Union. The Stalinist bureaucrats and KGB agents, whom the miniseries shows so doggedly trying to prop up a political set-up collapsing under the weight of lies and crimes, dissolved the USSR. In the process, they stole everything that was not nailed down and much that was.

In short, the crime of Chernobyl was followed by an even greater crime—the liquidation of everything that the Soviet working class had fought for over seven decades. The result was mass unemployment, the shuttering of industries, the depopulation of the countryside, a huge spike in alcoholism, falling life expectancy, a massive growth in social inequality and widespread human suffering. The Soviet bureaucrats restored the market and transformed themselves into the proprietors of post-Soviet capitalism before the working class was able to assert its political independence and defend its own interests.

The miniseries concludes with a court scene in which Legasov and fellow scientist Ulana Khomyuk (Emily Watson) indict not just the power plant’s operators (Dyatlov and several others eventually went to prison) but the Soviet system. While the trial did happen, its content, by the director’s own admission, is not accurately portrayed in the miniseries. There was no final reckoning with the Soviet leadership over Chernobyl, nor could there have been without a political confrontation between the Soviet working class and the bureaucracy. The apparatchiks and secret agents who appear in Chernobyl, in many cases, continue to occupy the Kremlin today as servants of a capitalist regime. They also continue to feel threatened by what happened in April 1986. The HBO miniseries has garnered sufficient interest that there are now plans to release a Russian-made miniseries about Chernobyl that blames the disaster on an American agent working at the power plant.

By way of artifice, the filmmakers unsuccessfully try to hand over to a couple of individuals the task of exposing Stalinism. The character of Ulana Khomyuk is created for this purpose. A nuclear researcher, Khomyuk defies Soviet officialdom, confronts bureaucrats, asserts the superiority of science and uncovers secrets. The unconvincing presentation of this figure, created by the filmmakers as a stand-in for the hundreds of scientists who actually mobilized in response to the Chernobyl disaster, is a flaw of the miniseries and one of its weakest elements.

Through Watson’s character, the film falls back into a tale of an individual crusader speaking truth to power, which is something of a disservice to all those who worked to save humanity from Chernobyl’s consequences. Capturing cinematically the involvement of the Soviet—and international��scientific community in the Chernobyl response would have been valuable, albeit challenging. Given the wholesale destruction of Soviet science as a result of the restoration of capitalism in the USSR, it would have also imbued the viewer with a much deeper sense of what has been lost.

On the whole, Chernobyl is worthy of the interest and enthusiasm it is garnering.

[fycanadianpolitics]

Prime Minister Trudeau tweeted today in response to the recent decision by Kinder Morgan that “Canada is a country of the rule of law, and the federal government will act in the national interest. Access to world markets for Canadian resources is a core national interest. The Trans Mountain expansion will be built.” Many progressives will argue that the national interest is instead in protecting the country from the impacts of climate change. But arguing about what is in the national interest isn’t really getting us anywhere.  

What are we to do instead? Before we can discuss solutions to the problem of climate change, we need to ask how we got ourselves  into this mess in the first place. Sociologist Andreas Malm notes, “The spiral of climate change is set in motion by the act of identifying, digging up, and setting fire to fossil fuels: … For most of human history, the deposits were left untouched, safely locked out from the active carbon cycle. Then a qualitatively novel type of economy interrupted into them.” In the 19th century,  deposits of the resources were extracted on an unprecedented, massive scale by cheap labour commanded by an elite class of wealthy British landowners.

The first capitalists can be credited as the engineers of the climate crisis, but their extractivist nature was merely a reflection of their class interests; to acquire as much capital as possible regardless of the social and ecological consequence--something that has not remotely changed in the contemporary era (see former CEO of ExxonMobile and Secrectary of State, Rex Tillerson who says “My philosophy is to make money. If I can drill and make money, then that’s what I want to do.”). The British capitalists of the 19th century desperately sought out more coal to propel their steam boats to new, distant lands to acquire more land, where more resources could be extracted. However, much of this land was already occupied by indigenous peoples, who had to be violently dispossessed in order for their land to be acquired for further production of capital.

This is because the logic of capital is predicated on infinite growth and expansion.  The surplus profit generated by private firms is perpetually reinvested into new production, which requires more land, and land, historically, was acquired through any means necessary. This is why capitalism, colonialism, and climate change are inexorably bound up with one another: the three faces of a mutually reinforcing system of violence that is killing our planet. This continues in the  21st century through the violation of indigenous land rights as pipelines and other carbon infrastructure are created on ancestral lands without the consent of the first peoples. It is then fair to say that the climate crisis can be attributed to capitalism, an economic order that engenders imperialism and colonial land theft in pursuance of feeding the infinite appetite of the capitalist class.

It’s not uncommon to hear from self-professed liberals that “green capitalism,” can solve the climate crisis. That we can shop our way to a stable and clean environment, a prospect that appears to be increasingly untenable as the exponential increase in availability of “green” consumer goods has done little to prevent 2017 from being a record high year for global CO2 emissions. The reality is that the kind of radical, paradigm changing climate policy we need to protect the planet would also be a direct threat to the economic profits of corporations and the national GDP which politicians of every nation fetishize.

Capitalism, as it exists today, has no way of contending with the climate change crisis. World renowned climate scientist, Kevin Anderson, has spoken at length about how the economic growth imperative of capitalism is not compatible with reaching our Paris commitments. A recent study has stated that we have a 5% chance of reaching these goals under the economic statis quo. Anderson's research indicates that we must radically change our economic paradigm to save our existence on the planet. The mainstream economic orthodoxy of economic growth cannot be reconciled with the most up to date climate projections, which say, in very clear terms, that we are on course to rocket past our 2 degree Celsius commitment outlined in the Paris agreement and on towards 4 then 5 degrees, creating a very dire situation for humanity to say the least.

Our current economic situation has proven to be untenable in the long run. Global food insecurity is on the rise for the first time in decades due to climate change, global water pollution is steadily increasing, global air pollution is getting worse, there have been dramatic increases in exposure to toxic chemicals, the worlds slums are growing, there are record levels of coral bleaching, we are facing unprecedented levels of biodiversity loss. Pollution kills nearly 15 times more people than all the world's wars and violence combined, and is three times as deadly as AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis all put together.

The ruling class has decided that any threat to their economic hegemony is unacceptable, therefore it would be better to have the world become a scorched hell rather than to have their profits jeopardized. Even liberal leaders like Obama and Trudeau, who have paid plenty lip-service to climate change, only support climate initiatives insofar as they won’t disrupt the economic status quo, but sadly it is the economic status-quo that is  accelerating climate change to begin with. While the Republican party seems to deny the scientific reality of climate change, the liberal elite denies the economic and sociological realities of climate change. They want to have their cake and eat it too;  to advocate for environmental sustainability while also promoting economic growth and unregulated free trade, unaware or indifferent to the fact  that these things exist in contradiction. Neoliberalism and climate justice are mutually exclusive, as the former precludes the latter.

Here in Canada, the pseudo-progressiveness of Justin Trudeau is farcical; he puts on a great show of apologizing to various marginalized groups with teary eyes and feigned concern, while approving the construction of disastrous pipelines (Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain Pipeline, Enbridge Line 3) to the outrage of indigenous land defenders and environmentalists throughout the nation. Apologists for the Liberal party propagate the fairy tale that the government can still construct pipelines, and  “balance,” environmental goals with economic ones.

This appeal to moderation cannot be substantiated based on what we know about oil emissions. Many studies have shown (here and here) that constructing new carbon infrastructure is incompatible with reaching the  Paris accord commitments of 2 degrees C. Pipelines have lifespans of decades and we simply cannot afford to be pumping oil for decades. This is why Trudeau’s tweet today is so unsurprising. With Trudeau’s pipeline endeavours, he is merely continuing Canada’s long-held tradition, which started with John A. Macdonald, of appropriating indigenous land to consolidate Canada’s colonial power.

Trudeau's politics of reconciliation is incredibly deceptive, obscuring indigenous demands for land restitution with the spectacle of televised, performative repentance, which, in material terms, does nothing to address stolen land. The reality is that it doesn’t matter which empty suit any of the political parties puts forward; it doesn’t matter how sad or guilty they might seem about past national transgressions; they will always be subordinated to the logic of the colonial-capitalist state: dispossession, accumulation, and expansion. That “rule of law,” that Trudeau refers to, is the colonial legal framework that has been designed to facilitate the extraction of natural resources from stolen land. It is this framework that needs to be dismantled.

This is why reformism is entirely inadequate in addressing the climate crisis; it is the socio-economic structure itself that is producing climate change. Therefore the changes we need have to be systematic, sweeping, and ultimately anti-capitalist in nature. But how can we get there? Only mass social movements can challenge the hegemony of neoliberal governments and corporations. Only through mass organization and mobilization can we begin to bring about a society organised along ecological principles. While the statistics may seem grim, there are reasons to be hopeful.

In the last few decades there have been several awe-inspiring, grassroots movements that we can draw inspiration from moving forward. For instance, the Ogoni protests in the 90s are a stunning example of collective, direct action that kicked out Shell oil out of their country. In collusion with the Nigerian government, Shell oil was responsible for the displacements of tens of thousands of Ogoni people, which gave birth to the Ogoni Peoples Movement, a grassroots social movements that succeeded in dismantling Shell’s corporate stranglehold over the region. Without receiving any help from their  failing and corrupt government, the Ogoni people used militant, non-violent direct action to shut down oil operations. The movement continues to battle a corrupt government while facing the environmental catastrophe of degraded and leaking carbon infrastructure left in Shell’s wake, and although their struggle continues, there is a commendable victory here.

Like the Ogoni, Indigenous people all over the world have been at the forefront of environmental protection. This was seen with the recent Dakota Access Pipeline protests, where the Standing Rock Tribe and other indigenous groups came together to protect water and ancestral burial grounds. This was perhaps the single most monumental environmental social movement in recent history, dominating the headlines at the time.  In October 2017, several energy activists dubbed the “valve turners,” shut down five separate pipeline in a coordinated act of fossil fuel resistance, a sophisticated and flawlessly executed example of the kind of direct action we need on an even larger scale.

It is necessary that we build upon these movements and work together in creating the kind of mass social movement that can challenge the capitalist system itself and replace it with a new kind of economic arrangement that is based on ecological sustainability and social equity, not private profit.  Without system change, climate change will continue to ravage our planet.

[rainworlds]

The Blur

We are beset by static—in the thrall of constant, relentless movement, we lose ourselves to the permanent accumulation of momentum. We have been primed to charge forward, into a direction unknown, and while everything else recedes into periphery, there are other things coursing through the slipstream, catching up with us. All this movement, this ‘progress’—where does it lead?

Contemporary reporting, in all its breathless, pounding rhythm cares little for the context out of which movement emerges, nor how momentum steers us towards the void. The result is a kind of blur that systematically annihilates our sense of history and, with it, our capacity for Déjà vu. Memory is subject to the corrosive effects of capital, so how do we recognize that something has been lost—that we have been here before?

                                                                              * * *

  Wrapped in the briar of enterprise, critics under capital are incentivized to perform discovery—that is, framing their critique as the first, unique approach to any given topic—which remains convention because it places individual contribution at the center of an ongoing conversation. Of course, credit must be given where credit is due: critics perform labor, after all. But as capital pushes the communal components of all labor further into the margins, the erasure of pre-existing work for the sake of building personal legacies seems all-encompassing; we must, as Devyn Springer put it, cleave individualism from our practice, reject the description of ‘creatives’ and think of ourselves as participating in the production of a culture from which to strike at reactionary elements that seek to prevent harmony and productive labor. We must remember that we do not conjure from the void.

It should be noted that this culture does not have to be ‘popular’ in the sense that ‘popular culture’ is; it can remain separate for as long as it is necessary. But, in the same vein, the totality of ‘popular culture’ and its many fragments cannot be conceded to reactionary ideology.

                                                                              * * *

  People are taught to breach the confines of lines and letters—explicit text—to do excavations upon marginal spaces. This, of course, holds financial benefits in an age where the rapid pace of communication complicates how we capture attention and revenue: it should be apparent, then, that to drape the self in discovery is a practice of domination; it is the colonizer’s impulse. Avant-garde, a term with decidedly militaristic connotations that originates in the Metropole, should clue us into its use: artistic expression and thought are delineated as a ‘frontier’ unto which ‘pioneers’ may move to mark territory, but, of course, not all are permitted to do so equitably.

To perform discovery in this way can be read as a desperate attempt by subjects under kyriarchy to rupture the relentless rhythm of enterprise and insert permanence into capitalist structures driven by the demands of mobility and flexibility. But, of course, that is an extraordinarily charitable reading. To practice discovery means to cut deeper into wounded flesh: it romanticizes a heightened individualism under which writers must fend for themselves. Violently obscuring foundations is not a trivial offence, regardless of whether it happens consciously or not; after all, intent is not required to produce negative consequences.  

Attribution of marginal work as a counter-practice has been discarded almost entirely. To bring it to the forefront demands conscious effort. Stitching back together the histories that ‘discovery’ has torn thread from thread to weave a propaganda of the ego requires a delicate sort of restoration; the seams are scars, after all, and the needles must puncture flesh. Of course, it comes at great personal cost: the market demands the performance of discovery: participants are required to frame themselves and their work as products; the profitability of commodities, in contemporary economy, hinges on being distinct and separate from those that came before; the market adores novelty. Historicizing within the constraints of word count limitations can be a difficult proposition, but it must be undertaken whenever possible.

Marginalized ingenuity has been openly sacrificed on the altar of novelty, but as aspiring keepers of the record, we may attempt a resurrection of sorts: the task of reconstructing histories must serve to train an audience that has previously been unwilling or unable to confront the injustice of life at the margins. ‘Critics’ who present themselves as ‘charting’ or ‘taming’ a previously ‘wild’ and ‘uninhabited’ space in contemporary discourse need to be exposed for what they are: their discovery is nothing but the colonization of the vast landscapes of marginalized thought and criticism that have been violently cast aside. But exposure is not enough: radical attribution and the re-thinking of our relationships under capital must follow.

                                                                              * * *

  The rhythm of contemporary journalism (of capital) cultivates the impression of movement to obfuscate not just the pace at which popular culture moves but the direction in which it moves: it is the grand theater of progress, a sleight of hand. To speak of ‘growth’ or ‘dynamism’ is foolish, because we know these acts of accumulation are performed to distract from the elemental truth that there is no ‘automatic progress’ in all this movement. It is a mechanism meant to prevent introspection, the act of ‘taking stock’ that would reveal the tides of history.

It is a conventionally held position that the financial viability of platforms that practice criticism depend in large part on their ability to capitalize on the rapid pace of information that flows from industry; this applies, in particular, to those that cover popular culture. But that information comes with an expiration date; access is compromised. It is the speed with which such information needs to be processed that requires writers to navigate corporate content at breakneck pace. This relentless schedule occupies a disproportionate amount of any worker’s most precious resource: it devours time, all of it.

Observing and describing the status quo in this way are crucial activities, because the minuscule shifts and adaptations performed by capital to capture wholly our discourse horizon are pre-requisites for understanding and envisioning an alternative future. But, we need to see these shifts and adaptations as what they are: minuscule. This requires knowledge that can illuminate the contexts in which these adaptations occur.  

As analytical tools with which we see the world, observation and description thus require constant re-calibration; they cannot remain static. Rather, what needs to be observed and described are trends over time, so that the context of individual events is not lost in the furious rhythm of digital publishing. Otherwise, organized thought perishes in our desperation to capture a permanent moment that, in truth, does not exist.

                                                                              * * *

  Curation is frequently presented as a natural process built on the observation and subsequent interpretation of publics. As such, the process is often directly linked to the behavior of publics. It should be clear, however, that the practice of curation is not a natural process in which actors possess a supernatural disposition to sense the ‘zeitgeist’ and act accordingly, but a series of decisions made by institutions that determine the boundaries of their actions.

We tend to frame curation as if publications are receptacles for publics, as if the direction of reporting naturally emerges from a realm external. But this has become part of a larger strategy to relocate and externalize the labor of curation unto systems perceived to be ‘organic’, such as social media, to shun and obfuscate a responsibility for elevating the margins that every self-respecting institution of journalism should embrace.

A refusal to see the ways in which our work may produce culture, of course, reiterates on a politics of apathy, and seamlessly transitions into the reproduction of the status quo. To rely on technology is seen as a way of observing the world on its own terms, a lens unto ‘objective’, ‘natural’ reality that arises organically from the will of the public. But even as we accept this dubious claim, the observation of such unreliable, massive amounts of data still requires the observer to make a series of decisions: attention is limited, so it follows that what we may observe is limited, too.

Information and communications technology cannot be permitted to slip into the role of an invisible hand that determines what appears on any platform. It is not autonomous, neutral or objective: algorithms, as experts never tire to tell us, are crafted by people. It is important to recognize the myriad ways in which the technical architecture of popular networks and platforms shape what individuals and publications are able to see online. But the limitations of such architecture do not provide salient justification for publications to capitulate in the face of the enormous task that curation presents.

Rather, publications need the resources to engage in an active process of seeking out material that constitutes real alternatives to the doctrines of industry. Observing social media is part of the repertoire, but, even there, unpaid labor engages in a process of curation that remains invisible, and visible only if it acts in aggregate; attribution is crucial. Popularity determines coverage, when coverage, ideally, should introduce publics to new works, which may or may not become popular; curation is work. We cannot rest on the assumption that what is ‘worth covering’ will somehow ‘trickle up’—defying gravity—to the editorial board, re-asserting the primacy of viral success and/or corporate backing. Publications are active participants, complicit in a process that turns our collective understanding of ‘value’ into something that is not a threat to the status quo.

                                                                              * * *

  Attribution, contextualization and curation are tools with which we can avoid making the same mistake as the institutions currently writing about popular culture; they have become so thoroughly compromised that 'transformation’ is not longer a sufficient prescription. It must be annihilation. The short-term memory evident in the problem-of-the-week dynamic is a problem that is rooted in the rhythm of digital publishing and capital, which seems to ward off any attempts to build momentum for causes that are capable and robust enough to support more radical ideologies. To break this cycle, these institutions need to be fought.

[themediabulletin]

Best HR Ideas to Prepare in 2020

If someone is dealing with HR nightmares such as talent acquisition, employee retention, unnecessary lawsuits, the contagious negative atmosphere at the workplace, then its time to evaluate and convert some of the best HR  ideas into actionable plans and get the situation under control.

With some of the extensive workplace changes, we need the best  HR Ideas in 2020 for a more productive work environment. These ideas graduated from 2019, and some are entirely significantfor 2020. Such ideas are the smart ideologies that bestow power to HR and HR trends.

For a typical case of employee retention, which is one out of many, more than 50% of organizations globally have difficulty retaining some of their most valued employees. According to the research, the reasons for low retention are poor onboarding experiences, a lack of clarity in job duties and expectations, inappropriate payoffs, and lack of recognition and adaptiveness.

Thus the key to unlocking the elucidation is IDEA. “Everything begins with an Idea.”, an HR idea ingrains the power of reformation, innovation, and correction. It becomes highly imperative to innovate processes and policies conducive to the work environment. These ideas, when implemented successfully, become LAW, and when do not perform at par expectation becomes an assessment.

The Director of the HR Trends Institute Tom Haak researched and listed some of the  Ideas that are capable of making a difference in the HR bailiwick. He studied work patterns and performance, analyzed people, inspected organizational behavior, and workforce trends to document and suggest a few of the Best HR ideas fix the organizational qualms.

The HR refers, revive, renovate ‘Ideas’ that  suits the best in any organization.. Comprehensive HR is a multidimensional approach in its entirety that is devised to plan, systematize, derive and create actionable policies to guarantee permanence in the work environment leveraging the interest of the management and employee both simultaneously.

Recruitment, Onboarding, Development, Retention, and Separation are the stages of the employee life cycle that continuously revolves in the orbit of HR. HR works with a double edge sword hence needs to tackle and apply the policies and regulations with the highest precision.

As change is the only constant, and HR has to vie in the organizational sphere influenced by a state of affairs that are internal, external, and sometimes abstract. In such situations, nothing is predefined or predictable, and hence the best HR solutions focuses on experiment to obtain an equilibrium to address emergence in interest of the organization and employee both.

Comprehensive HR: A parallel approach

The primordial  HR approach was based on abstract and intuitions; the number policy never worked for the HR domain as it worked for Sales and Finance. With Abstraction, HR often strived hard to qualify and measure its success as others do.

Modern HR analytics with a data-driven approach has entirely changed the scenario. Today HR controls both a people-centric and a technology-centric approach. The quotient is an optimized, accurate, and simplified differentiation that makes decision making smarter and faster.

It was difficult to estimate the probability of how high an annual employee turnover would be or how much a regretted loss of potential employee costs an organization. But with the advent of HR analytics, approximations can be made, and preventive measures can be applied.

Analytics makes HR policies  more exciting. The insights are input for strategic decisions and optimize day-to-day business processes. R, Microsofts BI, Visier, Qlik are revolutionary the HR analytical tool that has given a cutting edge to HR.

Learning in the Flow of Work  

A paradigm shift in the induction process is the learning in the flow of work approach. This allows the employee to grow with the organizational workflow. Gallup research reveals that 70% of the employees are disengaged at work. Disengagement is the origin of problems that leads to high rates of turnover and increased cost.

This strategy of Learning in the Flow of Work allocates the employee to learn and up-skill himself being at work. A vital attribute of a learning organization is that, the entire organization shares the responsibility of supporting the workers to do their jobs effectively and while developing their skills.Researches at Dellotite shows that high-performing organizations warden experiences by making content relevant, personalized, and available to learners when they need it.

A learning organization performs at a higher level because of its ability to adapt to its environment. It curtails the disorientation among the employees and keeps them motivated. This results in reduced disagreement and chaos within the team at the workplace.

Less emphasis on Process improvement

Man, Money, Material, and Management are the integral entities of the organizational work domain where the HR professionals work hard to streamline the process that involved talent management, succession management, and performance management.

A variety of methodologies available for process improvement include Six Sigma, Lean Six Sigma, Lean Management, Agile Management, Re-engineering,  Just-In-Time, Kaizen, Hoshin Planning, Total Quality Management, Poka-Yoka, Design of Experiments, and Process Excellence.

These process improvement methodologies are the set of protocols that technically examine the business model by every minute and generates large amounts of factual data, which incurs time-consuming and complicated procedures. The problem arises when the process improvement policies supersede the specific mission statement of the organization.

In the case of small businesses, it may restrict new ideas endorsing creativity and innovation, which may require some risk to implement them. This leads to a diversion of company roadmap overridden by the process improvement methodologies.

Today’s HR reformation demands more focus on its people and the social obligations affecting the work patterns. This requires more human intervention and becomes more people-centric than technology and processes.

More Appreciation of Complexity

It’s a general human tendency to appreciate the simplification of complexity. Simplification helps in decreasing the pressure but consequently fails to generate the best output. If one knows that they are dealing with something difficult, they will ensure to work with the entire synergy of preferences, experiences, and efforts to make it successful and obtain maximum results with increased productivity.

Issues, such as talent acquisition and retention, employee turnover, and increased engagement at work are critical issues that are regarded as  HR nightmares. These sounds unproblematic but are complex concerns and need extreme research and heed in the achievement of organisational goals. Hence these should be dealt with the highest precision and consideration to generate multiple domino effects and opt for the best from many.

More Appreciation of Adaptability

Adaptive System is the ability to change or modify as per the situation. The idea is to identify and prioritize necessary obligations and reduce a tedious process to attain a more targeted approach. It is known as a process for driving individual and organizational performance management.

For instance, an organization works for China and Japan, which are both located in East Asia. While there are common habit and origin between the two countries, there are also some differences, such as the economic system, the labor market environment, society, and culture, etc. Here in this scenario, the HRM (Human resource Management) is compelled to review whether, in China’s environment, the Japanese-style human resource management system will still be viable? Would there be any adaptive changes in HRM systems for Japanese companies operated in China because of the environmental changes?

Continuous processes in an organization can be intensified by the application of the Adaptive system approach. This will eventually save the resources and the time involved in applying a lengthy process to conclude.

A stricter approach to diversity and equal opportunities

Allowing reformation to attract more diversity in talent acquisition is purely based on innovative HR ideas for employee engagement. Restructure to create a strong organization by giving opportunities to diversified candidates based on talent and irrespective of their physical capabilities, age or gender. Diversity in inclusion emphasizes on their ability and cannot be judged by their depravity.

This idea insists on channelizing recruitment audits and encourage social mobility. Allotting women the right to work, including during pregnancy. The EEOC continues to use appropriate means to protect this right.”

Catch the attention of disabled candidates to offer them a comprehensive recruitment experience. Identifying the key role of technology is shaping inclusive recruitment practices. Recruiting older workers and create a multi-generational workplace.

Corporate and employee activism

Corporate and employee activism is a must to support society. Directly or indirectly, organizations contribute to society. The environment should be developed in such a way that it is not restricted to an inward approach but also outwardly. If the aim of the organization is high enough to satisfy the organizational goals, it will eventually reflect in the society’s up-gradation.

CSR (corporate social responsibility) is an evolving business practice that applies sustainable upliftment into a company’s business model. It positively impacts factors such as economic, social, and environmental. Katie Schmidt, the founder and lead designer of Passion Lilie, said that CSR could positively impact one’s business by improving the company image, building brand, and motivating one as a business owner.

In addition to this Jen Boynton, CEO of B Targeted Marketing Co., states that “A robust CSR program is an opportunity for companies to demonstrate their good corporate citizenship and protect the company from outsized risk by looking at the whole social and environmental sphere that surrounds the company.”

Being kind    

Kindness encourages honesty and trustworthiness. These are abstracts but play a very crucial role in HR management. Understanding an employee helps one connect more firmly because they feel empathy. They will opt to be honest rather than discerning in critical situations. This leads to a healthy work environment where the team participants encourage each other towards goal achievement.

Few more words……

HR  Ideas in 2020 are those unregistered thoughts or suggestions that can potentially be converted to a possible course of action. The best ideas for HR 2020 equip you to apply measures to deal with this ever-changing environment. Ideas may work or may not, but to go on is the pulse of organizational growth. One should always keep experimenting with new ideas that could result in desirable output.

[pinktheoristcollector]

Nusaiba Mubarak isn’t the biggest fan of Joe Biden, but she’s putting her heart into getting every last Muslim voter to cast a ballot for him anyway. “I’m not satisfied with the Democratic candidate,” she says. “But I’m doing everything I can to get Trump out of office.”

Mubarak, who is Muslim, isn’t alone in her sentiments. A recent CAIR poll found that just 18% of Muslim voters support Donald Trump, while 71% say they back Biden. But that disparity hardly guarantees that Muslims will vote for Biden in droves: the former Vice President will only benefit from his opponent’s dismal popularity if he can convince Muslim voters, some of whom feel disengaged by the Biden campaign, to go through the trouble of casting a ballot.

Turn-out matters: while Muslim Americans make up just about 1% of the U.S. population, the community carries outsized weight in several swing states, including Florida, Ohio, Virginia, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and, of course Michigan, where Trump won by less than 11,000 votes in 2016. He hosted a campaign rally in Lansing, Mich., on Tuesday.

On issues that are important to the Muslim community, there’s no real comparison between the two major candidates. Trump has routinely used Islamophobic rhetoric; championed the so-called Muslim ban, which blocks entry to the U.S. for immigrants and refugees from some Muslim-majority countries; and backed a host of federal policies, including sweeping surveillance programs that disproportionately harm Muslim Americans.

Biden, in contrast, has not actively antagonized most Muslim voters so much as failed to convince them to rally behind him, Mubarak says. Biden has pledged to revoke the Muslim ban on his first day in office; promised that a Biden Administration “will look like America, with Muslim Americans serving at every level”; and has published policy agendas targeted at helping the Muslim-American and Arab-American communities. While such campaign promises are not enough, says Mubarak, she urges her fellow Muslims not to discount the “breadcrumbs”: “It is the first time that we really have a seat at the table,” she says.

Avoiding a second Trump term, says Mubarak, who leads a voter mobilization team at MoveOn.org, means—at least in part—turning out Muslim voters in key swing districts. And that requires a two-step process: reminding Muslim Americans of the stakes of a second Trump term and giving them good reason to bother showing up at the polls. That second factor, she says, is a key part of her mission between now and Nov. 3.

Hilary Swift—The New York Times/ReduxReps. Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar hold a campaign rally for Sen. Bernie Sanders in Clive, Iowa, Jan. 31, 2020.

A community ‘worth their while��

Historically, neither Democrats nor Republicans have spent much time reaching out to the Muslim community because it’s so small. “Political campaigns have never seen that community as worth their while,” says Youssef Chouhoud, an assistant professor of political science at Christopher Newport University. But in recent years, that calculus is starting to shift.

One reason is demographics: while a large number of Muslim Americans immigrated after the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act, which lowered barriers to immigration from Asia, Africa and other regions outside Europe, their children are often American-born. Those who are just coming of voting age have had a very different experience of America. Many only know a post-9/11 world. “They’re adults now and they’ve known nothing but attacks on their community,” says Abed Ayoub, director of the Arab American Anti Discrimination Committee, a civil rights organization.

Another reason is an uptick in political engagement nationwide—which has partly been a response to President Trump’s Islamophobic rhetoric and policies, experts say. In the battleground states of Florida, Ohio, Michigan, and Virginia, Muslim voter turnout jumped 25% from the 2014 to 2018 midterm elections, from 130,000 votes to more than 285,000, according to Emgage, a Muslim American civic engagement group. Muslim voter outreach efforts are growing, too. In 2015, for example, the Georgia Muslim Voter Project was founded “in response to the Islamophobic rhetoric coming out of the presidential race at the time,” coupled with relatively low turnout among Muslim Americans, says the organization’s executive director, Umer Rupani.

In recent years, Muslim Americans have also successfully run for elected office at nearly every level of government. In 2018, Reps. Rashida and Tlaib and Ilhan Omar became the first Muslim women elected to the U.S. Congress, and in 2019, Virginia state senator Ghazala Hashmi became the first Muslim American elected to that state’s senate. Hashmi says she ran directly in response to the “Trump administration’s attacks on the Muslim community.” (She is now a co-chair of the Asian American and Pacific Islanders for Biden Leadership Council in Virginia, working to help turn out Muslim votes for Biden.)

The issues that are important to Muslim voters have also shifted. Before 9/11, most Muslim Americans engaged with American politics largely through the lens of foreign policy, particularly with regard to Israel and Palestine, Chouhoud says. But an August CAIR poll found that civil rights, followed by healthcare, were the most pressing priorities for Muslim Americans. Foreign policy trailed behind them. In fact, More than 60% of Muslim Americans support a single payer health care system like the Medicare for All plan touted by Bernie Sanders, according to a CAIR poll from March. (Sanders was popular across the Muslim community not only for his domestic politics but also for being an outspoken supporter of Palestinian human rights, frequently speaking at Muslim events and hiring a Muslim American campaign manager.)

Racial identity—especially at this fraught moment in American politics—also plays a role in shaping Muslim voters’ political attitudes, says Chouhoud. About 60% of Muslim adults are immigrants and roughly a fifth identify as Black, according to Pew. While roughly 50% of Muslims who identify as white approve of Trump’s job performance—on par with white Americans in general—only 21% of Arab Muslims and 20% of Black Muslims do, according to a 2020 American Muslim Poll conducted by the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding (ISPU), a nonprofit that uses research to advocate for Muslim Americans. (Chouhoud, also an ISPU fellow, helped with data analysis on the poll.) Roughly 60% of Muslims also report experiencing religious discrimination, especially in interactions with law enforcement, according to the ISPU poll.

Carolyn Kaster—APJoe Biden speaks at Beech Woods Recreation Center, in Southfield, Mich., on Oct. 16, 2020.

Biden’s ‘modest’ proposals

While the Biden campaign’s outreach to the Muslim community has not been as substantive as many organizers and activists, including Mubarak, would have liked, many Biden backers tout the effort. Farooq Mitha, Biden’s senior advisor for Muslim engagement, says the campaign has held more than 150 events with Muslim communities and rolled out a future Biden Administration agenda that includes policies that Muslim voters may cheer. For example, the campaign has committed to ending the Targeted Violence and Terrorism Prevention Program that civil rights advocates say unfairly targets Muslims. Mubarak says that commitment came after she, along with a group of former Muslims for Bernie, fought for it. (Mubarak previously worked as the national Muslim and Arab-American organizer for the Sanders campaign.)

The Brennan Center for Justice says Biden’s campaign promises are “modest in terms of specifics” but “signal something of a shift towards recognizing that our counterterrorism laws and policies systematically target and discriminate against some Americans.” Biden’s colloquial use in the first Presidential debate of the term “inshallah,” which means God-willing, was also welcomed as a light-hearted, if insubstantial, attempt at connection with Muslim Americans.

But it hasn’t been all smooth sailing for the Biden team. The campaign’s first hire overseeing Muslim voter outreach was Amit Jani, who led the Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPI) coalition. Jani’s appointment sparked controversy after reports surfaced that he supported the Hindu nationalist BJP party in India, which openly discriminates against Muslims. (Mitha became the campaign’s senior adviser for Muslim engagement in March; Jani remains on the Biden campaign as the AAPI director.)

In August, the Biden team again alienated some Muslim voters when a campaign spokesperson said Biden “condemns” the views of Palestinian-American activist and former Sanders surrogate Linda Sarsour, after she spoke at a a Democratic National Committee event. Sarsour had said, “The Democratic Party is not perfect, but it is absolutely our party in this moment.” Sarsour has previously been outspoken in her support for a boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel. Several national Muslim organizations issued statements expressing their disappointment in the Biden campaign, which later privately apologized to activists, according to the Middle East Eye.

Some Muslim activists have also expressed concern about Biden’s position on Israel and Palestine, an issue of deep importance to most Muslim voters, says Palestinian-American activist and former Sanders surrogate Amer Zahr. Biden, for example, has refused to commit to tying U.S. aid to Israel to the country’s compliance with international law. He has also said he would not return the U.S. embassy to Tel Aviv, after Trump moved it to Jerusalem in May 2018. Biden has, however, said that he opposes Israeli settlement expansion.

Zahr says that although doesn’t agree with Biden on many issues, he plans to vote for him. He notes that under Islamic law, Muslims are allowed to eat pork when faced with extreme hunger but when normalcy returns, the prohibition is back in effect. He says, “The 15 minutes I’ll take to vote for Biden is like eating the unavoidable ham; Trump is hunger and starvation.”

Elijah Nouvelage—Bloomberg/Getty ImagesA participant holds a campaign sign for Biden during the first-in-the-nation Iowa caucus in Des Moines.

The Biden campaign’s association with Emgage, the civic advocacy group, has also sparked some disagreement. (Mitha, Biden’s outreach coordinator, is a former co-founder of Emgage.) Emgage has been an engine for the get-out-vote effort in swing states. The organization says that more than 439,000 Muslims contacted by them and their partners and affiliates have already cast their ballot. In Michigan alone, more than 40,000 of the Michigan Muslims its organizers and partners have contacted have already voted, the group says. (That’s more than three times as many voters that decided the race back in 2016.)

But some critics accuse Emgage of collaborating with organizations that have engaged in “anti-Palestinian activity.” Emgage denies the accusations. But the discussion has nonetheless dominated Muslim voters’ social media feeds and led a coalition of major Muslim organizations—the U.S. Council of Muslim Organizations—to sever ties with Emgage.

“The extreme pro-Israel stances, then the attack on Linda [Sarsour—[the Biden Campaign] makes it harder and harder for me everyday to organize my community,” Mubarak says.

But the fact that Biden as a candidate is far from perfect, in her eyes, isn’t dissuading her from helping him win. She says the question at stake this election is both immense and crystal clear: either Trump is the President for the next four years, or he’s not. In 2016, Mubarak says, she was not happy with Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton and “made the mistake of voting third party.” This year, she says, she’s not going to repeat the error by skipping a vote for Biden.

“You don’t want to live with that kind of regret,” she tweeted last week. “For God’s sake, I’m begging you. Help me get him out of office.”

[hellofastestnewsfan]

Nusaiba Mubarak isn’t the biggest fan of Joe Biden, but she’s putting her heart into getting every last Muslim voter to cast a ballot for him anyway. “I’m not satisfied with the Democratic candidate,” she says. “But I’m doing everything I can to get Trump out of office.”

Mubarak, who is Muslim, isn’t alone in her sentiments. A recent CAIR poll found that just 18% of Muslim voters support Donald Trump, while 71% say they back Biden. But that disparity hardly guarantees that Muslims will vote for Biden in droves: the former Vice President will only benefit from his opponent’s dismal popularity if he can convince Muslim voters, some of whom feel disengaged by the Biden campaign, to go through the trouble of casting a ballot.

Turn-out matters: while Muslim Americans make up just about 1% of the U.S. population, the community carries outsized weight in several swing states, including Florida, Ohio, Virginia, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and, of course Michigan, where Trump won by less than 11,000 votes in 2016. He hosted a campaign rally in Lansing, Mich., on Tuesday.

On issues that are important to the Muslim community, there’s no real comparison between the two major candidates. Trump has routinely used Islamophobic rhetoric; championed the so-called Muslim ban, which blocks entry to the U.S. for immigrants and refugees from some Muslim-majority countries; and backed a host of federal policies, including sweeping surveillance programs that disproportionately harm Muslim Americans.

Biden, in contrast, has not actively antagonized most Muslim voters so much as failed to convince them to rally behind him, Mubarak says. Biden has pledged to revoke the Muslim ban on his first day in office; promised that a Biden Administration “will look like America, with Muslim Americans serving at every level”; and has published policy agendas targeted at helping the Muslim-American and Arab-American communities. While such campaign promises are not enough, says Mubarak, she urges her fellow Muslims not to discount the “breadcrumbs”: “It is the first time that we really have a seat at the table,” she says.

Avoiding a second Trump term, says Mubarak, who leads a voter mobilization team at MoveOn.org, means—at least in part—turning out Muslim voters in key swing districts. And that requires a two-step process: reminding Muslim Americans of the stakes of a second Trump term and giving them good reason to bother showing up at the polls. That second factor, she says, is a key part of her mission between now and Nov. 3.

Hilary Swift—The New York Times/ReduxReps. Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar hold a campaign rally for Sen. Bernie Sanders in Clive, Iowa, Jan. 31, 2020.

A community ‘worth their while’

Historically, neither Democrats nor Republicans have spent much time reaching out to the Muslim community because it’s so small. “Political campaigns have never seen that community as worth their while,” says Youssef Chouhoud, an assistant professor of political science at Christopher Newport University. But in recent years, that calculus is starting to shift.

One reason is demographics: while a large number of Muslim Americans immigrated after the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act, which lowered barriers to immigration from Asia, Africa and other regions outside Europe, their children are often American-born. Those who are just coming of voting age have had a very different experience of America. Many only know a post-9/11 world. “They’re adults now and they’ve known nothing but attacks on their community,” says Abed Ayoub, director of the Arab American Anti Discrimination Committee, a civil rights organization.

Another reason is an uptick in political engagement nationwide—which has partly been a response to President Trump’s Islamophobic rhetoric and policies, experts say. In the battleground states of Florida, Ohio, Michigan, and Virginia, Muslim voter turnout jumped 25% from the 2014 to 2018 midterm elections, from 130,000 votes to more than 285,000, according to Emgage, a Muslim American civic engagement group. Muslim voter outreach efforts are growing, too. In 2015, for example, the Georgia Muslim Voter Project was founded “in response to the Islamophobic rhetoric coming out of the presidential race at the time,” coupled with relatively low turnout among Muslim Americans, says the organization’s executive director, Umer Rupani.

In recent years, Muslim Americans have also successfully run for elected office at nearly every level of government. In 2018, Reps. Rashida and Tlaib and Ilhan Omar became the first Muslim women elected to the U.S. Congress, and in 2019, Virginia state senator Ghazala Hashmi became the first Muslim American elected to that state’s senate. Hashmi says she ran directly in response to the “Trump administration’s attacks on the Muslim community.” (She is now a co-chair of the Asian American and Pacific Islanders for Biden Leadership Council in Virginia, working to help turn out Muslim votes for Biden.)

The issues that are important to Muslim voters have also shifted. Before 9/11, most Muslim Americans engaged with American politics largely through the lens of foreign policy, particularly with regard to Israel and Palestine, Chouhoud says. But an August CAIR poll found that civil rights, followed by healthcare, were the most pressing priorities for Muslim Americans. Foreign policy trailed behind them. In fact, More than 60% of Muslim Americans support a single payer health care system like the Medicare for All plan touted by Bernie Sanders, according to a CAIR poll from March. (Sanders was popular across the Muslim community not only for his domestic politics but also for being an outspoken supporter of Palestinian human rights, frequently speaking at Muslim events and hiring a Muslim American campaign manager.)

Racial identity—especially at this fraught moment in American politics—also plays a role in shaping Muslim voters’ political attitudes, says Chouhoud. About 60% of Muslim adults are immigrants and roughly a fifth identify as Black, according to Pew. While roughly 50% of Muslims who identify as white approve of Trump’s job performance—on par with white Americans in general—only 21% of Arab Muslims and 20% of Black Muslims do, according to a 2020 American Muslim Poll conducted by the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding (ISPU), a nonprofit that uses research to advocate for Muslim Americans. (Chouhoud, also an ISPU fellow, helped with data analysis on the poll.) Roughly 60% of Muslims also report experiencing religious discrimination, especially in interactions with law enforcement, according to the ISPU poll.

Carolyn Kaster—APJoe Biden speaks at Beech Woods Recreation Center, in Southfield, Mich., on Oct. 16, 2020.

Biden’s ‘modest’ proposals

While the Biden campaign’s outreach to the Muslim community has not been as substantive as many organizers and activists, including Mubarak, would have liked, many Biden backers tout the effort. Farooq Mitha, Biden’s senior advisor for Muslim engagement, says the campaign has held more than 150 events with Muslim communities and rolled out a future Biden Administration agenda that includes policies that Muslim voters may cheer. For example, the campaign has committed to ending the Targeted Violence and Terrorism Prevention Program that civil rights advocates say unfairly targets Muslims. Mubarak says that commitment came after she, along with a group of former Muslims for Bernie, fought for it. (Mubarak previously worked as the national Muslim and Arab-American organizer for the Sanders campaign.)

The Brennan Center for Justice says Biden’s campaign promises are “modest in terms of specifics” but “signal something of a shift towards recognizing that our counterterrorism laws and policies systematically target and discriminate against some Americans.” Biden’s colloquial use in the first Presidential debate of the term “inshallah,” which means God-willing, was also welcomed as a light-hearted, if insubstantial, attempt at connection with Muslim Americans.

But it hasn’t been all smooth sailing for the Biden team. The campaign’s first hire overseeing Muslim voter outreach was Amit Jani, who led the Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPI) coalition. Jani’s appointment sparked controversy after reports surfaced that he supported the Hindu nationalist BJP party in India, which openly discriminates against Muslims. (Mitha became the campaign’s senior adviser for Muslim engagement in March; Jani remains on the Biden campaign as the AAPI director.)

In August, the Biden team again alienated some Muslim voters when a campaign spokesperson said Biden “condemns” the views of Palestinian-American activist and former Sanders surrogate Linda Sarsour, after she spoke at a a Democratic National Committee event. Sarsour had said, “The Democratic Party is not perfect, but it is absolutely our party in this moment.” Sarsour has previously been outspoken in her support for a boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel. Several national Muslim organizations issued statements expressing their disappointment in the Biden campaign, which later privately apologized to activists, according to the Middle East Eye.

Some Muslim activists have also expressed concern about Biden’s position on Israel and Palestine, an issue of deep importance to most Muslim voters, says Palestinian-American activist and former Sanders surrogate Amer Zahr. Biden, for example, has refused to commit to tying U.S. aid to Israel to the country’s compliance with international law. He has also said he would not return the U.S. embassy to Tel Aviv, after Trump moved it to Jerusalem in May 2018. Biden has, however, said that he opposes Israeli settlement expansion.

Zahr says that although doesn’t agree with Biden on many issues, he plans to vote for him. He notes that under Islamic law, Muslims are allowed to eat pork when faced with extreme hunger but when normalcy returns, the prohibition is back in effect. He says, “The 15 minutes I’ll take to vote for Biden is like eating the unavoidable ham; Trump is hunger and starvation.”

Elijah Nouvelage—Bloomberg/Getty ImagesA participant holds a campaign sign for Biden during the first-in-the-nation Iowa caucus in Des Moines.

The Biden campaign’s association with Emgage, the civic advocacy group, has also sparked some disagreement. (Mitha, Biden’s outreach coordinator, is a former co-founder of Emgage.) Emgage has been an engine for the get-out-vote effort in swing states. The organization says that more than 439,000 Muslims contacted by them and their partners and affiliates have already cast their ballot. In Michigan alone, more than 40,000 of the Michigan Muslims its organizers and partners have contacted have already voted, the group says. (That’s more than three times as many voters that decided the race back in 2016.)

But some critics accuse Emgage of collaborating with organizations that have engaged in “anti-Palestinian activity.” Emgage denies the accusations. But the discussion has nonetheless dominated Muslim voters’ social media feeds and led a coalition of major Muslim organizations—the U.S. Council of Muslim Organizations—to sever ties with Emgage.

“The extreme pro-Israel stances, then the attack on Linda [Sarsour—[the Biden Campaign] makes it harder and harder for me everyday to organize my community,” Mubarak says.

But the fact that Biden as a candidate is far from perfect, in her eyes, isn’t dissuading her from helping him win. She says the question at stake this election is both immense and crystal clear: either Trump is the President for the next four years, or he’s not. In 2016, Mubarak says, she was not happy with Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton and “made the mistake of voting third party.” This year, she says, she’s not going to repeat the error by skipping a vote for Biden.

“You don’t want to live with that kind of regret,” she tweeted last week. “For God’s sake, I’m begging you. Help me get him out of office.”

from TIME https://ift.tt/3oybDP9

[yesteachersblog]

Comunicación Efectiva

Writing in the Hispanic and Latin(x) Discourse Community: 

This blog post is intended to help educators understand the best way to approach writing (genre) for students’ part of the Hispanic and Latinx discourse community (subject matter) in order to help them achieve college readiness. 

The Differences Between Hispanic and Latino/a (https://www.hnmagazine.com/2017/09/difference-hispanic-latino/)

Defining terms

A person who identifies as Latino or Latina: Comes from Latin America: “Unlike Hispanic, which refers to language, Latino is a term that refers to geography. It is used to signify that a person is from or descended from people from Latin America. It is, in fact, a shortened form of the Spanish phrase latinoamericano — Latin American, in English.Like Hispanic, Latino does not technically speaking, refer to race. Anybody from Central or South America and the Caribbean can be described as Latino. Within that group, like within Hispanic, there are varieties of races. Latinos can be white, Black, indigenous American, Mestizo, mixed, and even of Asian descent.” 

Latinx: A term used to replace Latino and Latina to promote inclusivity. 

A person who identifies as Hispanic: Comes from a Spanish speaking country and background: “Hispanic refers to what language people speak or that their ancestors spoke, it refers to an element of culture.This means that, as an identity category, it is closest to the definition of ethnicity, which groups people based on a shared common culture. However, people of many different ethnicities can identify as Hispanic, so it’s actually more broad than ethnicity. Consider that people who originate from Mexico, the Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico will have come from very different cultural backgrounds, excepting their language and possibly their religion. Because of this, many people considered Hispanic today equate their ethnicity with their or their ancestors’ country of origin, or with an ethnic group within this country.” 

When I was in high school, I remember feeling lost at the question of what I wanted to do in the future. As someone who dedicated themselves to taking honor and AP classes I knew that I wanted to attend University but had no idea where to even begin looking. There was not a lot of direct support from my school or my community in regard to college preparation. The only help I actually received came from my AP English teacher that I had taken classes with my Junior year. She was running an afterschool program to help guide students through the application process for applying to local universities and community colleges, but it was very vague. Nobody really tells you what needs to go in your college application, what an application letter looks like, where you can get help filling out your FAFSA, nothing. It was up to me entirely to figure all of these procedures out if I wanted to attend University. Looking back, I think if I had had better guidance, I might have been able to apply for more scholarships and even out of state schools. However, we can’t go back and change the past, only the future.

Being a first generation student, you can’t ask your parents for help, because they’ve never applied for college, most of them never even made it past middle school in their home countries. In a study done by Angelica M Tello “The Role of High School and College Counselors in Supporting the Psychosocial and Emotional Needs of Latinx First-Generation College Students” https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1164907.pdf She describes how these first-generation college students  or (FGCS) are “a growing population faced with unique challenges for college retention and graduation. Because their parents did not attend postsecondary education, this group of college students has not inherited the social or cultural capital common to many traditional college freshmen. Both high school and college counselors are in positions to support the psychosocial and emotional needs of Hispanic and Latinx FGCS, which may increase successful college completion rates.” (Tello, 349) As a collective culture, the Hispanic and Latinx community believes strongly in hard work and dedication, something that many young students carry with them all throughout their public education experience. But no matter how hard you work and study there will always be obstacles to overcome, the problem is if you have the motivation and support to jump these hurdles.

Motivation, guidance, and support, that is what young students in the Hispanic and Latinx discourse community need if they are to succeed in the higher education setting and make it to college. Now that I have graduated from a four-year university and am attending graduate school, I know that it is possible to beat the odds and make it out of the community that once held me back. It is important to be able to recognize and understand the way a community functions and the genres part of it if you are to try and help instill change. Charles Bazerman describes genre as the activity systems we are a part of that shape our lives. He claims, “these organized complexes of communication shape our ongoing relationships and identities, and within these complexes we change and develop through our sequences of mediated participation.” (Bazerman 15) Therefore, we must understand how members of specific community have come to form their identities and discourse languages that influence their lives and perspectives. Our social spaces help us develop different genres of communication and sometimes these spaces also can influence how we perceive the world around us. These perceptions, however, are not definite set in stone. Just as language is constantly changing and evolving so are we.

As I mentioned, the first step to help this specific discourse community is motivation. Motivation inside the classroom means providing materials, projects, and academic opportunities that will allow students to practice writing in their familiar genres while meeting writing requirements. Students will be more engaged in school if they can form a connection with what is being taught while expressing their voices. In another study done by Jason Irizarry “En La Lucha: The Struggles and Triumphs of Latino/a Preservice Teachers” https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ988308 the study found that many of these participants in the cohort of Latino/a students experienced “systematic silencing, the result of the acts of individual agents and institutional practices and policies that manifested in overt and subtle forms of subordination.” Which in turn, pushed them away from pursuing their educational career. Motivation can also look like positive feedback.

Sometimes, members of the Hispanic and Latinx discourse community have different interpretations of genre writing requirements. Since our context shapes our understanding of genre, many students may have influence of genre styles from their first languages which can interfere with the requirements of genre pieces in schools. As teachers, we should not dismiss their genre writing as wrong, but rather open up to the idea that genre doesn’t have to mean only one thing. The term genre is ever changing, Amy J. Devitt notes the issue with viewing genre in this manner, “The common understanding of genre among too many composition scholars and teachers today is that genre is a relatively trivial concept, a classification system deriving from literary criticism that names types of texts according to their forms. Viewed in this way, genre is not only a rather trivial concept but

also, a potentially destructive one, one that conflicts with our best understandings of how writing, writers, and readers work, one that encourages the dichotomies in our field.” (Devitt 574) Motivation should look like encouragement, writing encouraging feedback can go a long way.

The final requirements I mentioned are guidance and support, inside and outside of the classroom. Guidance and support go hand in hand when it comes to increasing students’ possibilities of attending community college and beyond. Teachers can provide time in class to connect learning material to future uses, such as; teaching how to write cover letters and application letters, teaching academic writing versus non-academic writing, providing resources and materials with information on college applications, and even having mock application writing assignments. Throughout these activities and assignments its important to again remember genre and the role it plays in our students’ writing. Guiding them to use the appropriate genre for each setting can come a long way in their futures. Supporting students by being a vessel of information and a resource to their education should be a part of every teachers plan. Hosting outside activities like college tours, after school programs, and even clubs can also help support these students. It may not be doable for all teachers considering funding and time but seeking out help from the community and reaching out to parents can help, as long as they are made aware it is for their children’s futures.

All students are entitled to education, but not just k-12, they should have the same opportunity to reach college despite their backgrounds, culture, socioeconomics, identity, etc. In “Literacy from a Right to Education” by Gianna Alessandra Sanchez Moretti and Tobias Frandell, the authors describe education as:

“The human right to education, as a social good, constitutes a solid foundation for human development. Its implementation, protection, fulfillment and promotion can lead to the creation of opportunities, freedom of choice, economic sustainable growth, improvement of health conditions, poverty reduction, social mobility enhancement, and prevention of autocratic rule (Coomans, 2007, p.185). In other words, education is a means to risk-prevention, as well as a tool that can help improve the human quality of life in a sustainable manner. Not only does the right to education have intrinsic value, but it is indispensable for the exercise of all human rights. A quality education as a right becomes the concrete key that empowers individuals to fully develop their personalities and participate in society through the acquisition of knowledge, human values and skills. Thus, education as a right can provide a solid tool in poverty reduction strategies worldwide.”

Establishing the importance of education in the Hispanic and Latinx community can help bring students out of poverty and crime by creating opportunities for a better life. The Hispanic and Latinx discourse community is only one of many minority groups that face low retention rates when it comes to college enrollment and completion. Although I am writing for my specific community, much of this can be applied to others as well. As teachers, our goal should be to see our students succeed not only in our classrooms, but outside in their personal lives as well. We have the ability to help make this happen, so let’s use our knowledge and experiences to build students up and guide them down the right educational path.

[englisblag-blog]

How a Technology Addiction Can Hurt Your Health?

In our generation, technology has improved a lot and many people all over the world are using it. It is very helpful to us since it made our life quite easier. Before, sending your messages to your loved ones that are far from you will take a long time to arrive. But now, you can instantly talk to the people that are even far from you by the use of technology such as your phones, internet, and many more gadgets.

However, technology has negatives effects too for the people using it. It is very addicting especially to the children. Technology addiction is an impulse control disorder that involves the obsessive use of mobile devices, the internet or video games, despite negative consequences to the user of the technology. They said that behavioral addictions arise when a person can’t resist an action that, despite addressing a deep psychological need in the short term, produces significant harm in the long run. Each time we check our inbox or social media account, there’s a chance something will be there for us, something that reinforces an aspect of who we think we are and releases a hit of that “feel-good” neurotransmitter dopamine. 

Addiction has a lot of bad effects and one of it is hurting your own health. A large body of scientific evidence has linked tech addiction—especially smartphone dependency, problematic internet use, and gaming—with anxiety and depression. People at the age of 16, 17, 18,19 are the one that are most likely been addicted to technology. Most distressing, some studies suggest teenagers are especially prone to developing these disorders as a result of tech overuse, and that tech dependence could even be contributing to adolescent suicide rates, perhaps driven by extreme cyberbullying, public shaming, and other emotionally abusive social behaviors that have been well documented. 

It also makes you very distracted in a way that you won’t be able to act what a normal person would act. It would feel like you don’t belong to the world, or you are having your own world. In one systematic review of previously published research, 100 percent of included studies reported a correlation between problematic internet use and symptoms of ADHD.  In another, internet addiction was associated with more severe ADHD symptoms than control groups.  We’re living in an ADHD culture, yet the ability to ignore distractions and control where our attention is directed is crucial to health and happiness.

       For you to overcome addiction in technology, you should be aware of your current situation. Nothing will ever change if you don’t realize that the things you have been doing can ruin your health. You should also do some other things that isn’t related to technology like going out and have some fun maybe with your friends or family. In that way, you will be able to rest and you can prevent your body from being hurt. It isn’t bad to use them, as long as you know your limitations as a user. There is no doubt that technology is very useful in our daily life but as we all know we should balance everything in order to avoid consequences. 

Title: “How A Technology Addiction Can Hurt Your Health”

Author/s: Chris Kresser

Title of the publication: Chris Kresser

URL: https://chriskresser.com/how-a-technology-addiction-can-hurt-your-health/

Main Idea: Technology addiction can hurt your health

Evidence that supports the main idea:  

1. Take advantage of human vulnerabilities and our hardwired basic needs 

2. The risk of disrupted sleep to depression

[i-globalone]

This is part of a series of op-eds previewing the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. CoinDesk will be on the ground in Davos from Jan. 20–24 chronicling all things crypto at the annual gathering of the world’s economic and political elite. Follow along by subscribing to our pop-up newsletter, CoinDesk Confidential: Davos.Michael J. Casey is the chief content officer of CoinDesk. The opinions here are his own.As the world’s most influential and self-entitled gather in Davos, Switzerland, for next week’s World Economic Forum, a predictable set of problems are on their minds: climate change, political polarization, trade tensions and cyber-attacks top their list of worries, according to the WEF’s just-released Global Risks Survey.Those are weighty issues. But if we look at them through the decentralization mindset encouraged by cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology, it’s hard not to conclude that elephants in rooms are being overlooked. It’s with those issues, the ones not being talked about, where the real important stuff lies.The disintermediating, fragmenting and decentralizing impact of the internet has made the 21st century’s political and economic structure profoundly different from the previous one. But the Baby Boomers who run our governments and companies still tend to apply 20th century assumptions about centralized money and power. They fail to see how our outdated political and economic institutions are out of touch with this new reality, and how that explains society’s ever-waning trust in them. It’s a myopia that also means they often fail to recognize, much less understand, the alternative decentralized models quietly emerging from the developers building cryptocurrency, blockchain and digital identity technologies.So, as I head to Davos with my CoinDesk colleagues for a week of reporting and speaking engagements, I want to contemplate some of the issues “Davos Man” might be missing.It’s worth remembering the people for whom these issues most matter are not those cocktail-sipping elites but regular Joes and Joans. This year may well mark the most divisive U.S. election in decades. If our bickering leaders aren’t focused on these big themes, where does that leave us in four years’ time? We need these issues on the ballot. China’s digital yuanChina is expected to launch a digital currency sometime this year. The question not being asked enough is: As this project grows – and likely many others from other countries and companies – what will it mean for the dollar-centric global economy and its multitudinous stakeholders?How will digital fiat currencies impact global trade and capital flows? Do they pose a competitive threat to the dollar and, by extension, to U.S. economic power? What would such a transformation mean for how the international community tackles the big-ticket issues Davos elites worry about: petrodollar investments in carbon-rich assets, for example, or global trade tensions?The digital yuan might seem like a superficial change, akin to a more advanced banknote or a state-run version of a mobile banking or payments app. But while China’s centrally managed approach to digital-currency technology is in some respects the antithesis of the decentralized model behind bitcoin, it is nonetheless a radical change.Two things matter: One, a digital fiat currency will circulate without banks managing the flow and, two, it is programmable, which makes it much more powerful than analog currency. Marc Andreessen says “software is eating the world.” Money-as-software might just devour it.A digital currency will enable the Chinese government to directly manage and monitor its users’ spending patterns. Putting aside the terrifying surveillance prospects behind this “panopticon” vision, this information-gathering power will greatly aid China in its international aspirations. Its economic response machine will be run by a far superior data-analytics system than anything employed by any other country.A “programmable” yuan will provide the missing payment component that hundreds of Chinese blockchain and smart-contract projects need. It will enable autonomous machines, micropayment infrastructure management systems, smart cities and other ideas the West will struggle to keep up with.As I’ve argued elsewhere, currency programmability, when interoperable with other countries’ fiat digital currencies, could also enable Chinese companies and their foreign partners to do a direct runaround of the dollar-based trade system.Currently, the yuan occupies an immaterial amount of cross-border trade and reserve asset holdings. But as this technology poses alternatives to the dollar and if China aggressively inserts its version into investment projects in Africa, for example, or into its 65-country Belt and Road Initiative, its international usage could grow rapidly.Recently, a Harvard-MIT simulation game found that digital fiat currencies could quash America’s capacity to impose sanctions on rogue states.  But the issue goes wider: If non-dollar digital fiat lets anyone bypass the intermediating U.S. banks that U.S. regulators lean on to catch international criminals, why will anyone use banks for cross-border money movements at all? Where does that leave Wall Street, that engine of American economic power?Some people, including former U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chairman Chris Giancarlo, have recognized this threat to U.S. economic leadership. But Chinese digital currency dominance does not appear to be on many leaders’ radars – it’s certainly not featuring in the Democratic primary presidential debates.So, come on, Davos, let’s talk about it. Digital privacyTo be fair, privacy in the internet age, defined as the threat to our online personal data, will probably get a decent examination at Davos 2020. The Cambridge Analytica story, Edward Snowden’s unveiling of the NSA’s citizen-snooping system and the growing awareness that Silicon Valley behemoths such as Google are managing our lives, has put this issue front and center. It deserves to be.The problem is the structural factors behind this dangerous surveillance capitalism system are poorly understood.Most political reactions to the drumbeat of stories about data abuse by Facebook and Google amount to leaders tut-tutting at these companies, occasionally fining them and demanding they just stop being bad. Few realize that, essentially, they can’t stop being bad. These centralized entities, with their closed, non-interoperable “walled gardens” of data, have built their entire business models – and therefore their shareholders’ profit expectations – on surreptitiously and systematically extracting information about human lives.The other problem is the ad-hoc efforts to change these businesses’ behavior clashes with other demands placed upon them.Witness the contradiction in lawmakers’ critiques of the Facebook-founded Libra digital currency project. On the one hand, they demanded it protect users’ privacy but on the other they demanded it maintain all the monitoring necessary to prevent money laundering. Or look at how Facebook’s critics simultaneously demand its social media platform remove disturbing hate-speech content and that it also cease arbitrarily censoring and “de-platforming” users.  Without understanding the problem, people can’t see how holding both of these positions is untenable. There are two approaches to this issue: a political one, such as an antitrust order to constrain the internet giants, or a technological one, in which social media platforms move to a decentralized structure of user control (one potentially where zero-knowledge proofs or other advanced forms of encryption enable verification without revealing identities).Let’s discuss these options, Davos. DisinformationYou thought fake news was a problem. You ain’t seen nothing yet.As Arif Khan writes in this pre-Davos opener for CoinDesk, fake news is going on steroids.With people such as Jordan Peele using clever stunts to highlight the problem, “deepfakes” – in which image manipulation technology is making it increasingly difficult for people to detect reality-altering changes to a digital video or image – are starting to get people’s attention.Yet, the full extent of how much society depends on the glue of trustworthy information is greatly underappreciated. The foundation of our democracy, of our legal system, of our business relationships and of everything else in between is at stake when the truth cannot be verified.How do we get ahead of this when artificial intelligence is progressing so rapidly and when information is no longer delivered to us through central filters?A solution will require a combination of tools like AI detection software, watermarking and blockchain-based tracking of digital media provenance.It also requires stakeholders at technology companies, media organizations and government bodies to jointly establish standards for those technologies so we can all agree on how we’ll re-establish the integrity of the information we rely on.This is an urgent problem, one tailor-made for a mountain-town gathering of money and power.Let’s look outside the bubble. Let’s become inquisitive. Let’s abandon rigid, outdated ways of thinking. Let’s say goodbye to know-it-all Davos Man, because clearly he doesn’t.Click the image to subscribe to our pop-up newsletter, CoinDesk Confidential: Davos.Disclosure Read More The leader in blockchain news, CoinDesk is a media outlet that strives for the highest journalistic standards and abides by a strict set of editorial policies. CoinDesk is an independent operating subsidiary of Digital Currency Group, which invests in cryptocurrencies and blockchain startups.

http://m.globalone.com.np/2020/01/davos-needs-to-wake-up-to-ills-of.html

[inpeaks]

Study: Health Tips throughout preparation of Indian Talent Olympiad Examination

Indian Talent Olympiad is a platform where talent is shown its right path. Talent is nothing   without opportunity and we provide that opportunity to innumerable students from class I to class X through our eight National Indian Talent Olympiad examinations conducted for the students. These Olympiad exams are path to nurture their talent and enhance educational performance that would make their future a wonderful story. Students represent tomorrow’s India and Indian Talent Olympiad ensures they meet their goal.

It’s not easy being a student, what with constant preparations for varsity & tuition school assignment, projects, assignment, exams & interspersed with different commitments. Not astonishingly, several students feel they merely don’t have enough energy to keep up with the study-life balance.

For students staying fit and healthy is important to meet the challenges at school, on the sector and at social outings.

Here are some study & health tips to assist students create the foremost of readily obtainable resources. Click To Tweet

Diet

Without doubt, this is often among the cornerstones of a healthy life, particularly for students. You’ll be a lot of alert and motivated if your stomach isn’t empty! Make certain you eat a decent meal before you dive into the books or snack while you study so you’ll avoid tummy grumbles, headaches and a lack of focus that hunger could cause.

Some points are very much important for considering your healthy diet:

Proper portion size:

To avoid over-eating, keep track of what proportion you’re intake. Get a fix on the perfect portion size for vegetables as well as meat/chicken.

Eat breakfast:

Despite however busy, you cannot compromise on a good breakfast. Begin your day with a good breakfast.

Intake of water:

Water must be on number one priority list of any students. For students looking to study and concentrate for long hours, drinking enough water is vital. Carry a sufficient amount of water with you every time you go outside.

Limit sugary drinks and junk food:

Students eat heaps that isn’t unhealthy in itself, so long as they avoid food and sugary beverages. It’s a matter of finding food that’s tasty as also healthy.

Take vitamins:

although it’s ideal to urge all nutrients from your diet naturally, if you feel weakness or believe you aren’t consuming enough nutrients, you can prefer vitamin supplements based on your doctor’s recommendations.

Focus & Concentration:

Staying focused when you’re at home is not that easy. Distractions will challenge your focus, particularly if you’re in a very setting with a lot of noise—like a TV or those who aren’t additionally learning. You may even create a nook space in your bedroom that’s specifically for studying—just make certain all possible distractions are out of sight and out of mind. It’ll even be useful to avoid lying down on a bed or couch. By sitting up straight your focus level will be very high.

Exercise time:

Squeezing in the necessary little bit of exercise is not easy for a student. Here are some ways in which to assist you get on the right track to fitness.

Ride your bicycle: Take up cycling as an alternative to the bus or the automotive on the way to school or classes. This way you can get freshen up and energized.

Take up a sport: a method to urge yourself motivated to exercise is by taking part in a sport. This might be any racket sport like court game or table game or squash, or an outdoor sport like soccer or cricket.

Place Away Phone:

Random dings, buzzes and tweets from your mobile phone will derail your concentration, particularly since they’re hard to ignore. Make certain your mobile phone is off, or on “do not disturb” or in another area thus you’ll absolutely focus on your study materials.

Sleep:

Getting adequate sleep is vital for each individual and more so for students provided that they’re needed to cram so much information and invoke it on decision. It’s well-tried that sleep consolidates reminiscences, which implies that students will remember what they have already learnt by getting enough sleep.

These tips should assist you get adequate rest:

Take a nap:

If you can squeeze in a very short nap within the afternoon you must give it an attempt to if you’ll manage it often that’s even higher. It will energize you that is why it’s referred to as a power nap.

Don’t work in bed:

Learning in bed will create aiming to sleep tougher. Keep your study space break away your sleep space to keep insomnia cornered.

Make a schedule:

With so many classes, exams and projects, it’s straightforward for students to lose control over their time and schedule. However, maintaining a time table to the extent possible, will cause you to a lot of disciplined, a minimum of one it involves sleeping.

Avoid awaking at night:

Ton of scholar study all night within the hope of cramming the maximum amount as possible. This could be harmful. With-out adequate sleep, you compromise your ability to perform well or remember what you have studied, so make certain you get some sleep especially before an Indian Talent Olympiad examination.

Illness

With many students sharing classroom space, spreading colds and viruses is simple if you are not careful. The following tips will assist you avoid diseases and ailments:

Wash your hands:

Studies have well-tried that straightforward hand washing will prevent several diseases. Thus wash your hands whenever you come in contact with dirt or sick individuals. It is significantly vital to have clean hands when you sit down to eat or when you touch your eyes, ears or nose.

Avoid sharing beverages:

Germs are simply transferable through sharing of drinks or different beverages, thus avoid sharing with friends.

Get to the doctor:

Visit the doctor if you have got symptoms that are not showing any signs of easing up. If let uncared-for, the illness might flip more severe and infect others within the family or classroom.

Following of Study time:

Keeping track of your time for study sessions and lesson completions can assist you stay high of your Olympiad preparation. Pick up a planner that you will customize to include your to-do lists and work. Creating lists daily can help you come up with a concept and stick with it. You’ll produce your own deadlines and log them in your planner.

Stress

Students have such a lot happening in their lives that there’s the danger that they may burn out. Here are some ways to counter stress:

Go by a routine:

create a habit of learning, figuring out and sleeping at certain preset hours. It’ll be easier for you to keep up a study-life balance while not getting stressed out.

Cap study hours:

you cannot study all the time; you want to squeeze in relaxation time in your routine. Cap your study hours so you have got enough time for sleep and leisure.

Take up hobbies:

A hobby will be a stress buster. This might be reading or taking part in a sport or running, something that may get your mind off studies and categories for a while till your batteries are recharged.

Make time for friends:

Friends will cheer you up and have a positive impact on your overall mood with discussions that are unrelated to studies and projects. Thus find time to meet or chat along with your friends.

Take handwritten Notes:

Just reading chapters in a very textbook may not be enough to assist you keep the knowledge you wish to ace a test. Jot down notes like important facts, statistics and key takeaways can help you retain the information you’ve just read even more.

Handwritten notes is a manner of understanding ideas in better way and it additionally helps in gaining confidence throughout Such Olympiad examination preparation.

Handwritten notes throughout preparation is 2 way study methodology where you’re noting down the ideas and additionally reading it, that helps in gaining confidence and additionally boost your memory for explicit ideas.

Split up Your Task:

Don’t overwhelm yourself! Separating your study materials into a lot of manageable parts will make it easier for you to master the entire task. You must try to avoid specializing in one subject for an extended period of your time. It will facilitate if you alternate between course materials.

Don’t forget to take breaks every so often. Go for a walk, grab a snack or simply enjoy the fresh air for a small amount. This “mental downtime” can provide your brain a much-needed break in any case of that studying.

Review systematically

To have review on notes, handwritten notes, assignments, etc. set aside time (For Example: On Monday reviewing assignment, On Tuesday reviewing handwritten notes, etc.) . The routine check-in of course topics whereas they’re still fresh in your mind act like a mini study session that may assist you once it comes time to require a take a look at or turn in an assignment.

During your review, you’ll even be ready to establish areas wherever you will would like extra help. It’s vital that you’re proactive regarding contacting your teacher during this instance. They’ll be ready to offer additional resources and guidance to assist you master the topic.

Quiz Yourself

Testing yourself to examine however well you know the material will help you find your weak spots thus you’ll strengthen those areas sooner. You’ll do that by taking Indian Talent Olympiad previous year paper.

Establish your best method of learning

Some students learn best by making flash cards, different students have a better time learning by re-writing their notes many times. After you notice the most effective study technique that’s right for you, make certain you persist with it.

The setting and study ways you decide on are completely up to you! Just find somewhere that helps you get in the right flow to accomplish your study goals and you’ll get on the proper track towards succeeding in your categories.

The post Study: Health Tips throughout preparation of Indian Talent Olympiad Examination appeared first on Digital Ideas.

source https://www.inpeaks.com/2019/03/14/study-health-tips-throughout-preparation-of-indian-talent-olympiad-examination/

[thegloober]

Read in Full: Boris’ Speech Text

Eager punters have been queuing round the block for hours ahead of Boris’ big speech at Tory Conference, with an extra tier being opened up to take the hall to its full capacity of 1,500. Here’s what they heard Boris say

Good afternoon my friends and fellow ConHomers..

It is great to be here in Birmingham where so many thoroughfares in the city are already named after our superb Conservative Mayor. I know this conference is going to be a staggering success because just in the last couple of days about a dozen far left momentum activists have kindly pledged their loyalty by ringing my private mobile phone. I put them straight on to Brandon. As Paul Goodman might confirm, I am not naturally of a timid disposition. It is not my way to confide my innermost fears. But since this is only a fringe meeting, unlikely to be widely reported, I will reveal that I have one overriding anxiety about the current political scene, both domestic and international. It isn’t global warming or terrorism or Rouhani’s Iran or Putin’s Russia – real though all those challenges are. It’s not the negotiating tactics of Jean-Claude Juncker– before or after lunch. It’s not even the economic and political catastrophe that would befall us in the event of a Corbyn government – horrifying though I find that idea. My friends, there is only one thing I really worry about in this critical autumn of 2018, and that is that after 200 years this oldest and most successful of all political parties should somehow lose confidence in its basic belief in freedom. And that after 1000 years of independence this country might really lose confidence in its democratic institutions. And that we should be so demoralised and so exhausted as to submit those institutions – forever – to foreign rule. If I have a function here today – it is to try, with all humility, to put some lead in the collective pencil, to stop what seems to me to be a ridiculous seeping away of our self-belief, and to invite you to feel realistic and justified confidence in what we can do. Not in a spirit of jingo or glib partisanship, because I know that this is a time of trial. Indeed it is precisely because our position is so serious, and the decisions before us are so vital, that it is more necessary than ever that we feel a quiet and legitimate confidence in our country, that we believe in our basic Conservative ideas and values, and that we believe in our democracy. That basic belief in conservatism ought to be a little easier, frankly, after the events of last week at the Labour conference. I know that we can’t use too many references from the 1970s or 1980s, but surely to goodness we can take this tony benn tribute act and wallop it for six. Not by imitating them – not by capering insincerely on Labour turf: we won’t get anywhere by metaphorically acquiring beards and string vests and allotments – but by systematically pointing out the damage they would do. They want to spend literally hundreds of billions renationalising the utilities. They want to clobber business with new taxes, with workers’ soviets on the board. They would wreck the economy. They would drive away investment. And they would consign the population to years of further tedium, rancour and uncertainty – as if the last three years were not enough – by promising another Brexit referendum. Another one! As Brenda from Bristol would put it. We cannot must not and will not let this weaselly cabal of superannuated Marxists and Hugo Chavez-admiring anti-semitism-condoning Kremlin apologists anywhere near the government of this country. And that means, instead of aping Corbyn, we have to take our basic Conservative ideas and fit them to the problems of today. It is true that the old Conservative buzzword of choice has a different resonance these days. In some respects we have more choice than you can shake a stick at. We can watch anything anywhere any time. We can zoom off to AirBNBs on cheapo flights. Our food is better, our cars are faster and safer, our life expectancy is certainly a lot longer. And yet there is one huge difference between a baby-boomer like me and all you ConHome millennials out there. One cardinal way in which opportunity has declined. And that is in the scope and power of the younger generation, with their own resources, to buy somewhere to live that they can call their own. It is a disgraceful fact that we now have lower rates of owner occupation – for under 40s – than the French or the Germans. That reflects the failure of governments for the last 30 years to build enough housing. But it is also a massive opportunity for us Tories. If we rise to the challenge, if we get it right, it is an open goal, because this is one of those critical issues where in the phrase of Chris Patten the facts of life do always turn out to be Conservative. And Labour’s instincts actually clash in a fundamental way with the instincts of ordinary people. Worse still, Labour’s political interests – which centre on the building and control of state-owned housing – are diametrically opposed to the interests of most families. I remember when I was first absolutely certain that we Tories were right about housing. I was a reporter on the Wolverhampton Express and Star, not far from here. And I went out to see a couple who were complaining about damp. It was a terrible scene. They were sitting there and with the heating on full blast and a baby crying, and the condensation dripping down the window, and there were these great black spores all over the wall. The chap was in his socks in an armchair and in a state of total despair. He was worried about the baby’s cough – which was getting worse. The council wouldn’t do anything, and he felt he couldn’t do anything – because it was not his property, and I could see that he felt somehow unmanned by the situation. And I felt very sorry for them both – because they were total prisoners of the system. And I thought what a difference it would make to that family if they had been able to take back control – to coin a phrase. To buy that flat. And since then I have lost count of the times – and I bet you have too – when I have been out campaigning, and someone has told me on the doorstep that they would vote Conservative forever out of sheer gratitude to us for letting them buy their own home. That is what people want – the pride of having a place they own. A sense of excitement that has probably been common to humanity since the first couple took vacant possession of the first mud hut in Mohenjo Daro. And yet Labour hates that instinct. And Corbyn hates that instinct. Because although they live themselves in posh Islington townhouses they would much rather that the electorate stayed in social rented accommodation, passed by hereditary right – as, incredibly, these state-owned dwellings are – from one generation to the next. They like it that way because they know that as soon as you get a mortgage, as soon as you have a stake in society, you are less likely to go on strike and you are more likely to vote Conservative. And if you stay in social rented accommodation you are more likely to vote Labour. But I tell you something ConHomers. The paradox is that the Conservative approach not only delivers more homes for private purchase, it delivers more affordable homes as well. And if you look at the record of the previous Mayor of London – something the Chancellor might care to consult -you will see that not only did crime come down by 20 per cent and the murder rate by 50 per cent Deaths by fire down 50 per cent. Road KSIs down 50 per cent. Tube delays down 30 per cent Beautiful new bus, beautiful bikes, millions of trees planted Two new river crossings Crossrail started Record investment, new museums in East London. Council tax cut by 20 per cent – – well, he did ask for it. You will see that we built more homes of all types than Ken Livingstone. Precisely because we changed the constricting rules that stopped developments from going ahead. And you will see that now under hashtag useless Khan the number of new builds is slumping, because Labour gets tangled in its cynical political objectives, and it is the Conservative approach that gets things done. So let’s follow our Conservative instincts, and give millions more young people the chance to become owner-occupiers. Let’s encourage more small private builders as my colleague Richard Bacon has suggested for so long. Let’s take on the big eight home builders, some of whom are now frankly abusing their dominant position. Let’s crack down on landbankers. And let’s give councils the incentives they need to encourage growth, and give planning permissions – on those brownfield sites, with long overdue fiscal devolution. Give the councils the ability to retain stamp duty, Council tax, business rates, and annual tax on enveloped dwellings, and they will have a motive to go for growth. Of course you would need to prevent councils from hiking the business rate, and you would need an equalisation formula because the yields are so different across the country. But fiscal devolution is not only Tory in principle. It is a way to help councils that are really feeling the squeeze – with the rising cost of services for the elderly. And at the same time it is the way to build the homes our children and grandchildren are going to need. And when I champion the market economy you can see that I do not claim that it is perfect. It is a disgrace that no banker went to jail for the crash of 2008. I can see that the utilities have cunning ways of ripping off the consumer. But this occasional failure of markets does not mean that state control is better. I listened carefully to Corbyn last week, and it was astonishing that he had absolutely nothing to say about the wealth creating sector of the economy. The people who get up at the crack of dawn to prepare their shops. The grafters and the grifters, the innovators, the entrepreneurs. He didn’t mention any successes. He did not mention a single sector of the market economy. None of it interested him except in so far as he seems to want to nationalise 10 per cent of every company of more than 250 employees. The only organisation whose output he singled out for praise was Preston Council. I am sure they are an estimable bunch, but Preston Council are not the locomotive of the UK economy. We Conservatives know that it is only a strong private sector economy that can pay for superb public services. And that is the central symmetry of our one nation Toryism. Because it is only by making sure that the streets are safer – – and let’s bring back stop and search incidentally, and end this politically correct nonsense that has endangered the lives of young people in our capital – it is only by putting in the infrastructure that enables people to live near their place of work; it is only with a properly funded NHS – and let’s get that funding in now –. That you can give people the peace of mind they need. It is only by making sure that young people have the skills they need that you create the platform for businesses to grow, and you solve the UK productivity puzzle. And it is that virtuous circle, that symmetry that means we must on no account follow Corbyn, and start to treat capitalism as a kind of boo word. We can’t lose our faith in competition and choice and markets. Indeed we should restate the truth that there is simply no other system that is so miraculously successful in satisfying human wants and needs. We should set our taxes at the optimum rate to stimulate investment and growth, and we should be constantly aiming not to increase but to cut taxes. Mindful of the insight of the great 14th century Tunisian sage Ibn Khaldoun – picked up by Arthur Laffer – that you can often cut taxes to increase yields. We should have as our objective – as soon as possible – to cut taxes for those on low and modest incomes, because it is Conservative to give people back control of their money. And instead of treating business as if it were somehow morally dubious, we Conservatives should celebrate its power to do good, and the success of British business. We are the only country in the world to have a trade surplus with America in music. And our manufacturing ingenuity gets daily more boggling. I think of the Uxbridge factory that makes bus stops in Las Vegas. Wake up with a hangover in Vegas and the chances are that a little piece of London is shielding you from the elements. And the other Uxbridge factory that makes the futuristic wooden display cabinets for duty free Toblerones in every airport in Saudi Arabia. Think of that – the invisible hand of the market circling the earth in search of a Toblerone cabinet and pointing at Uxbridge. And now is the time to turbo charge those exports, as Liam Fox has said. Not long ago I became the first Foreign Secretary to visit Peru for 52 years. And as I stood in some glittering Embassy soiree in Lima I remembered that one of my Labour predecessors, Lord George Brown, had been at a similar event in the same place and allegedly made a pass at a creature clad in gorgeous scarlet who turned out to be the Cardinal Archbishop of Lima. And I wondered why it had taken 52 years for a UK Foreign Secretary to visit this amazing place. It can’t have been the indiscretions of Lord George Brown. Why was it 25 years since any of my predecessors had been to Argentina or Chile? It was because our entire global strategy has been focused on the EU. And while that may have been sensible in the 1970s, when we first joined the common market, it makes less sense in the globalised economy of today, when 95 per cent of the world’s growth is going to be outside the EU. Of course the EU is and will always be colossally important. But the rest of the world is proportionally gaining ground. And I was thrilled to find that even though our trade with these Latin American countries is still relatively small, the UK is already the second biggest investor in Peru, and that we already drink the second biggest quota of Argentinian Malbec. And that, following the success of the 2012 Olympics – I forgot to mention that – there are british consultants helping with the Pan-American games in Lima. And these are just the beginnings. Think what we could do with proper free trade deals. And that is why it is so sad, so desperately wrong, that we are preparing to agree terms with Brussels that would make it difficult if not impossible to do such deals. And that is why it is such a mistake for us to leave on the Chequers terms, locked in the tractor beam of Brussels. We will not only be prevented from offering our tariff schedules. We will be unable to make our own laws – to vary our regulatory framework for goods, agrifoods and much much more besides. This is politically humiliating for a £2 trillion economy. And it occurs to me that the authors of the Chequers proposal risk prosecution under the 14th century statute of praemunire, which says that no foreign court or government shall have jurisdiction in this country. It would mean that UK business and industry – the entire UK economy – would be exposed perpetually to regulations that might have been expressly designed, at the behest of foreign competitors, to do them down. It would mean that whatever the EU came up with, banning the sale of eggs by the dozen, banning diabetics from driving, banning vaping, whatever – and all of those have been at least considered by Brussels in the last few years – all of this nonsense we would have to implement with no ability to change or resist. This is not pragmatic, it is not a compromise. It is dangerous and unstable – politically and economically. My fellow Conservatives, this is not democracy. This is not what we voted for. This is an outrage. This is not taking back control: this is forfeiting control. And they know it in Brussels. Do not be fooled by the suggestion that the EU will ultimately reject these proposals. Because what they want above all is to demonstrate above all – to any other country that might even dream of following suit – that you cannot leave the EU without suffering adverse political or economic consequences. And what the Chequers proposals show is that the United Kingdom, for all its power and might and network of influences around the world, for all its venerable parliamentary history, was ultimately unable to take back control. And instead of reasserting our ability to make our own laws, the UK will be effectively paraded in manacles down the Rue de la Loi like Caractacus. Do not believe that we can somehow get it wrong now and fix it later – get out properly next year, or the year after. Total fantasy. The opposite will happen. I have been watching the EU professionally for 30 years, and every time a referendum goes against the federalist movement, I have seen how the centripetal forces lock on and slowly slowly the offending country is winched back into place. Indeed, by its manifest democratic injustice, Chequers provides the perfect logic and argument for those who want Britain to return to the EU, and is therefore a recipe for continued acrimony. If Chequers is agreed, then it will only embolden those who are now calling for a second referendum. These are the same people, incidentally, who explicitly told the electorate that there was no going back, that voting leave meant leaving the customs union and the single market, and that there was no way they would be asked again. They are now cynically campaigning to do just that, in a way that would be disastrous for trust in politics. People would see that they would be simply being asked to vote again until they give the answer the Remainers want. As Ruth Davidson has rightly pointed out, we cannot tell the Scots that they have made a decision to reject independence for a generation – and then ask the UK electorate to vote again on the EU. So the idea of a second vote is infamous – but the obvious democratic fragility of Chequers will only intensify such calls. Finally, do not believe them, when they say there is no other plan, no alternative. It is not my plan, or the ERG plan, or the IEA plan. All these models, which are substantially the same, a Supercanada trade deal at the heart of a deep and special partnership, are derived from the prime minister’s own vision at Lancaster House. So now therefore is the time truly to take back control and make the elegant dignified and grateful exit the country voted for. This is the moment – and there is time – to chuck Chequers, to scrap the Commission’s constitutionally abominable Northern Ireland backstop, to use the otherwise redundant and miserable “implementation period” to the end of 2020 to negotiate the Supercanada FTA, to invest in all the customs procedures that may be needed to ensure continued frictionless trade, and to prepare much more vigorously for a WTO deal. And if we get it right, then the opportunities are immense. It is not just that we can do free trade deals. In so many growth areas of the economy this country is already light years ahead. Tech, data, bioscience, financial services, you name it. We can use our regulatory freedom to intensify those advantages. And of course our European friends know that is possible – and that is exactly why they want to constrain us. Yet I would argue that it is actually in their interests too, to have the fifth biggest economy in the world, on their doorstep, acting as a continuing brake and caution to the over- regulatory instincts that have held the EU back for so long. Instead of being relentlessly homogenised, we can actually learn from each other again, in the spirit of friendly emulation that inspired the renaissance of European civilisation. If we get this right, it can be win-win for both sides of the Channel. If we get it wrong – if we bottle Brexit now – believe me, the people of this country will find it hard to forgive. If we get it wrong, if we proceed with this undemocratic solution, if we remain half-in half out, we will protract this toxic tedious business that is frankly so off-putting to sensible middle of the road people who want us to get on with their priorities. If we cheat the electorate – and Chequers is a cheat – we will escalate the sense of mistrust. We will give credence to those who cry betrayal, and I am afraid we will make it more likely that the ultimate beneficiary of the chequers deal will be the far right in the form of UKIP. And therefore the far Left in the form of Jeremy Corbyn – a man who takes money from Iranian tv, who can barely bring himself to condemn the Russian state for the Salisbury atrocity, who indulges anti-semitism, and who by opportunistically committing himself to the misery and farce of a second referendum, has finally revealed himself to be the patsy of the EU as well. We cannot allow it to happen. We must not allow it to happen. And so for one last time, I urge our friends in government to deliver what the people voted for, to back Theresa May in the best way possible, by softly, quietly, and sensibly backing her original plan. And in so doing to believe in conservatism and to believe in Britain. Because if we get it wrong we will be punished. And if we get it right we can have a glorious future. This government will then be remembered for having done something brave and right and remarkable and in accordance with the wishes of the people.

Source: https://bloghyped.com/read-in-full-boris-speech-text/

[lopezdorothy70-blog]

Smartphone Addiction Related to Sugar, Narcotics, Alcohol, Pornography, Gambling Addictions

by John P. Thomas Health Impact News

In the previous article about smartphone and tablet addiction, I discussed the addictive techniques used by app developers to get people hooked on using their websites.

Facebook, YouTube, Netflix, SnapChat, and other websites were cited as examples of websites that use habit-forming techniques to grab and hold the attention of users for many hours a day. They take advantage of the power of addiction as part of their strategy to maximize advertising revenue for those who own the websites. 

See:

How Big Technology Companies Control the Minds of the Masses Through Smart Phone Addiction

Everyone will be confronted by the power of addiction at some time in their lives – whether it is our own addictions or the addictions of others who are close to us. 

Simply put, the human flesh desires, lusts, and seeks to satisfy its cravings. Even though addictions are part of our lives, the typical response to the presence of addiction is to deny it exists until overwhelming consequences break down the wall of denial.

Technology Addiction is Closely Related to Many Other Addictions

As will be explained, sugar addiction, narcotic addiction, alcohol addiction, pornography addiction, gambling addiction, shopping addiction, and smartphone (small screen) addiction are closely related. 

All these addictions damage neurons in the brain and eventually rob us of pleasure and happiness, leaving us feeling empty, lonely, and depressed. [2]

Addictions are not the Result of a Weak Will

Addictions develop when people repeatedly consume substances or participate in activities that release the brain hormone dopamine with such a frequency that the elevated level of dopamine overstimulates and damages brain cells. [2]

Dr. Robert H. Lustig, M.D., M.S.L., Emeritus Professor of Pediatric Endocrinology, University of California at San Francisco, is a leading expert on brain function and addiction. He compares the power of technology addiction such as smartphones to the equally powerful addictions to sugar or drugs.

Speaking about the addictive power of technology, Dr Lustig stated:

It's not a drug, but it might as well be. It works the same way … it has the same results. [1]

Small screen apps alter dopamine levels in the human brain and can create addictions that are just as devastating to normal living as narcotic addiction or alcoholism.

Dr. Lustig has been studying the interaction between brain hormones and brain function for more than 30 years. [10] His work provides clear evidence that addiction alters dopamine and serotonin levels in the brain, which directly controls our experience of pleasure and happiness.

Dr. Lustig stated:

A lot of people don't necessarily understand that they are addicted – they [just] know they need something. 

When “wants” become “needs” that is usually a sign of addiction.

If they find themselves not being able to concentrate on their job or on their family because a craving is calling to them and it is interfering with their daily life in some fashion or in their work that is usually a sign of addiction. That can happen from shopping, porn, video games, and cellphones. Cellphones have been the most recent addition to this list. 

If you find yourself checking your cellphone every 2 minutes waiting for a new email, this is usually a sign of a cellphone addiction. [2]

All Addictions Alter Brain Hormones and Eventually Destroy Brain Cells

The use of small screen devices, whether a smartphone or tablet of some type, effects the neurobiology of our brains. [3, 4] Even though scientific debate about the existence and nature of technology addiction continues [1, 5], evidence continues to mount, which shows that small screen usage is changing our social behavior and for many – the change has become a deeply rooted addiction. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]

Self-Absorption with a Small Screen is Not Necessarily an Addiction

Even though the interest in having face to face chats with strangers in public settings seems to be waning along with basic skills of conversation – this does not mean that all small screen users are technology addicts.

Just as everyone who takes a drink of alcohol does not become an alcoholic or everyone who eats a piece of candy does not become a sugar addict, some people can use small screens without becoming addicted.

However, for many, the blue glow of their screens, the steady stream of ever changing images, and the almost seamless link between the physical sensations of touching the screen and the powerful stimulation of sight and hearing quickly become compelling forces that demand more and more time and attention.

Surveys of both Children and Adults Reveal a High Rate of Self-Reported Addiction

According to a 2017 survey, 47 percent of U.S. smartphone owners have made an effort to limit their phone use in the past. Many people find the powerful attraction of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and many other apps to be irresistible. Even though there is a desire to reduce usage time, only 30 percent of smartphone owners have succeeded in reducing their phone time. [7]

The following chart illustrates the struggle that people are having with their smartphones.

In other words, about 1 out of 2 smartphone users are concerned that they are using their phones too much, and 70% of those are unable to reduce the time they spend with their phones. Being unable to cut back on a behavior is a sign of addiction.

A 2016 survey conducted by Common Sense Media shows that many teens are aware of their small screen addiction. The report stated:

… “50 percent of teens “feel addicted” to mobile devices, and 59 percent of their parents agree that their kids are addicted. Additionally, parents and children are concerned about the effects mobile device use has on their daily lives – from driving to the dinner table – with over one-third of the families in the Common Sense poll arguing about it daily.” [8]

Small Screen Usage can Easily Become an All-Consuming Addiction 

Smartphones and tablets can overshadow normal relationships, sleep, work, hobbies, and even healthy eating. [5]

Addiction, whether to a physical substance or to smartphones, is not logical – it is physiological and emotional. It changes the hormones in the brain and kills brain cells. 

People will stick with an addiction even when they know it is causing harm. People will stick with an addiction even when past pleasures are no longer present – because the power of the flesh keeps driving them back to the addiction.

The Dopamine-Serotonin Connection to Addiction

Addicts commonly feel depressed, because they no longer feel the pleasure of the dopamine high/rush that they once enjoyed. They also no longer experience happiness and contentment, because their serotonin levels have fallen.

Dr. Lustig explained that dopamine and serotonin are two biochemicals (neurotransmitters) that the brain makes and uses to communicate between one neuron (brain cell) and another. [9]

Dopamine – Addiction – and the Loss of Pleasure

Dopamine is a feel-good hormone. When dopamine is released in the brain, we experience pleasure. It is an excitatory hormone, which means it encourages neurons to get excited. [2]

The constant release of dopamine that occurs from using apps that have been designed to be addictive will, over time, downregulate the dopamine receptor sites in brain neurons. This means that the neurons begin to turn off their own receptor sites so they won't be stimulated by the presence of excess dopamine. This is a self-protective mechanism. [2]

The systematic downregulation of dopamine receptors prevents the death of neurons for a while. Downregulation also prevents people from experiencing the intense pleasure (the high and the rush) they used to feel from addictive substances or from activities such as the use of addictive apps. [2]

The consequence of downregulation for small screen users is that they need to increase the time they spend using the apps to get the pleasurable rewards they once enjoyed. The pursuit of getting repeated dopamine hits and highs is however limited by the fact that they take longer to achieve and there are only so many hours in a day.

Dr Lustig describes the process of getting a dopamine hit. He stated:

Now, you get a hit – you get a rush and the receptors go down. Next time you need a bigger hit to get the same rush because there are fewer receptors to occupy. And then you need a bigger hit and a bigger hit and a bigger hit until finally, you are taking a huge hit to get nothing. This is called tolerance. And then when the neurons begin to die that is called addiction. [2]

When the high from using apps is no longer attainable, this means the neurons in the pleasure center of the brain have begun to die. It doesn't matter whether the addiction is to narcotics, sugar, or small screens.

Addictive Apps Must Provide Variable Rewards to Get Us Hooked

As described in the previous article, addictive apps are designed to present variable rewards to their users. Apps that deliver content that remains unknown until the user begins to interact have a powerful capacity to grab the attention of users and are highly addictive. 

One never knows what will come up, for example, on Facebook. The desire for human contact and the desire to break loneliness drive people to Facebook, as well as the unknown rewards they receive for spending time on the site change every day. If the content of an app is highly predictable, then its power to be addictive will be much lower.

The Serotonin Connection to Addiction – the Loss of Happiness

Dr. Lustig describes the function of serotonin in the brain. He explains that unlike dopamine, which excites neurons, serotonin inhibits or relaxes neurons. The experience of contentment or happiness comes from neurons in their unexcited, relaxed state. 

Dr. Lustig stated: 

Serotonin is inhibitory – it is not excitatory. It inhibits its receptors to provide contentment. Serotonin slows down those neurons instead of causing them to fire up – to Zen out. So, you can't overdose the serotonin high.

[Thus] you end up with the process of contentment – the feeling of being one with the world, … that thing we call happiness.

[However], there is one thing that downregulates serotonin – [that is] dopamine. 

So, the more pleasure you seek the more unhappy you get. [2]

Corporations Want Us to Believe that Pleasure and Happiness are the Same

Dr. Lustig's most recent book, The Hacking of the American Mind, describes a corporate scheme to sell us pleasure by promising us happiness. He believes this scheme is creating an epidemic of addiction, depression, and chronic disease. [4]

Dr. Lustig explains what is happening. He stated:

Las Vegas, Madison Avenue, Wall Street, Silicon Valley, and Washington D.C. have very specifically and in a coordinated fashion, confused and conflated the term happiness with the term pleasure, so that you can “buy happiness.” … This is based on hedonic substances – substances that drive pleasure rather than happiness. And in the process, we have become most decidedly unhappy. [2]

Just think about how often advertisements use the word 'happy' or portray happiness as a way of selling products. If we are asleep to the technique of selling pleasure under the name of happiness, then we can be easily manipulated into buying a steady stream of pleasurable experiences and activities when what we really want is happiness. We can be led into the pleasures of addiction by those who promise happiness, but who are only capable of delivering temporary pleasures that satisfy the lusts and desires of the flesh. 

What is the Difference between Pleasure and Happiness?

Dr. Lustig identified seven characteristics that will help us understand the difference between pleasure and happiness. These differences are extremely important, because the ultimate intervention for small screen addiction involves replacing negative pleasure seeking with the positive creation of happiness. In other words, small screen addicts and all other addicts will need to make changes in their lives that will allow them to create happiness for themselves and others and to turn away from the self-serving and self-satisfying power of pleasure and addiction.

Dr. Lustig stated:

Pleasure is short-lived. - Happiness is long-lived.

Pleasure is visceral. - Happiness is ethereal.

Pleasure is taking. - Happiness is giving.

Pleasure can be achieved with substances. - Happiness cannot be achieved with substances.

Pleasure is experienced alone. - Happiness is experienced in social groups.

The extremes of pleasure all lead to addiction (whether they be to substances or behaviors). - There is no such thing as being addicted to too much happiness.

Pleasure is Dopamine. - Happiness is Serotonin. [4]

Conclusion: Addictions will never provide happiness – only suffering 

The experience of happiness and contentment come from the release of serotonin, which causes neurons to relax and slumber. 

Addictions never cause a release of serotonin – they only trigger the release of dopamine. Thus, addictions will never provide happiness only suffering. 

Happiness cannot be purchased. It must be built up over time through human interactions and healthy lifestyle choices. It comes from engaging in activities that can produce serotonin. Two of these activities were mentioned in the preceding list. They are giving to others and participating in social groups.

Dr. Lustig has set forth a set of four practical activities, which are intended to elevate serotonin and produce happiness.

If you would like to learn more about dopamine, serotonin, brain activity, addiction, and the four practical activities that can restore happiness for people with addictions, then use the following video.

If you would like more detailed information about the research that supports Dr. Lustig's addiction theory as well as the basic information discussed in the preceding video, then listen to the following presentation by Dr. Lustig.

About the Author

John P. Thomas is a health writer for Health Impact News. He holds a B.A. in Psychology from the University of Michigan, and a Master of Science in Public Health (M.S.P.H.) from the School of Public Health, Department of Health Administration, at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

References

[1] “Are Kids Actually Addicted to Technology? It's not a Drug, But It May as Well Be: Expert Opinions on Whether Kids are Addicted to Tech,” Jenny Anderson, Quartz, February 9, 2018.

[2] “The Hacking of the American Mind,” Dr. Robert Lustig, M.D., University of California TV, YouTube, 9/6/2017.

[3] “Yes, Smartphone Addiction does Harm Your Teen's Mental Health,” Maria Cohut, 12/2/2017.

[4] ”The Hacking of the American Mind,” Dr. Robert Lustig, MD, Presentation at the San Francisco Public Library, YouTube, 1/9/2018.

[5] “Technology Addiction: Is Obsessive Computer Use a Mental Health Disorder?” Susan Ladika, CQ Researcher, Volume 28, Issue 15, 4/20/2018.

[6] “iPhones and Children Are a Toxic Pair, Say Two Big Apple Investors,” David Benoit, WSJ, 1/7/2018.

[7] “America's Smartphone Addiction,” Felix Richter, Statista, 6/20/2018.

[8] “New Report Finds Teens Feel Addicted to Their Phones, Causing Tension at Home,” Common Sense Media, 5/3/2016.

[9] The definition of these two hormones provided by Dr. Lustig was edited for clarity. It was given in “The Hacking of the American Mind,” Dr. Robert Lustig, M.D., University of California TV, YouTube, 9/6/2017.

[10] Robert Lustig, University of San Francisco Profiles.

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[clubofinfo]

Expert: They called in [Roy] Wilkins; they called in [A. Philip] Randolph; they called in these national Negro leaders that you respect and told them, ‘Call it off.’ Kennedy said, ‘Look, you all are letting this thing go too far.’ And Old Tom said, ‘Boss, I can’t stop it, because I didn’t start it.’… And that old shrewd fox, he said, ‘If you all aren’t in it, I’ll put you in it. I’ll put you at the head of it.’… — Malcolm X on the 1963 “Farce on Washington”) Liberals and Democrat party connected organizations and networks have been quite adept at getting out in front of movements to pre-empt their radical potential and steer them back into the safe arms of liberal conformism. Before resistance to the election of Donald Trump could be developed into a radical rejection of the neoliberal order, the new alignment of ruling class forces that coalesced around the candidacy of Hilary Clinton launched a pre-emptive strike against Trump with the two-fold objective of preventing him from governing and ensuring that opposition to Trump did not take on an anti-system character. A similar thing happened after the 2006 massive marches of undocumented migrant workers that had a militant anti-capitalist component. It was quickly marginalized and transformed into something called “immigrant rights” with the highest demand being a demand to become legalized settlers. Then, on the 50th anniversary of the historic 1963 March on Washington when Black people were still experiencing the devastating and disproportionate impact of the capitalist crisis of 2007-08, members of the Black Mis-leadership class warmly welcomed the first Black president to join in the day’s festivities ensuring that the gathering would be devoid of any meaningful politics. Unfortunately, for the young people who sincerely want to understand and confront gun violence, the opportunism of the democrats made these students and their pain easy targets to advance the agenda of the democrat party that sees this issue as one that will advance their electoral agenda. While the democrat party and liberals pretend to respect and celebrate the young people, they know that the narrow focus on largely irrelevant gun control reforms like more background checks, banning certain ammunition clips, and sale of assault weapons will do nothing to confront what Dr. King referred to as the deep malady at the heart of U.S. culture that makes it so fundamentally violent. Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, points out in lavish detail on the subject in her new book Loaded: A Disarming History of the Second Amendment.  She reminds the reader of the central role of violence and the reason why the second amendment was seen by the ruling elite of the U.S. settler state as a fundamental right, second only to freedom of speech. She argues that the gun control and the normalization of violence was essential to how white nationalism, racialized dominance, and social control through systematic violence operated in the U.S. It was the method in which white settlers appropriated Native land and controlled their massive enslaved population. So the young people will need to understand that this normalization of violence is reflected in the social institutions, values, and ethical framework of their society. The violent, white male shooters that are now turning their guns on the society at large are not an aberration but a logical, almost inevitable consequence of a culture in which people are degraded and de-humanized as instruments for others pleasure and exploitation, made into things, through what Dr. King called the process of “thingingfication.” A respectful engagement with these young people is one in which you struggle with their understanding of the terms of their culture, its history and reality. We must be honest with them and help them to understand the role of violence not only as a cultural product but as the main instrument that created their nation.  That violence is systemic to the system and history of their settler-colonial nation and for the maintenance of the U.S. empire. Judging from some of the statements, many of these young people are close to making the right connections. That it is the “thingingfication” of the racialized “other” that more people cannot see the moral contradiction between the concern for gun violence in the U.S. and their continued support for U.S. militarism abroad. Radical politicization means that they and the public at large come to terms with the fact that the arms industry and the proliferation of arms/weapons is not just a problem domestically but that it is a billion-dollar industry in which representatives from both parties are implicated. And if the NRA is a terrorist organization, what does that make the arms industries and the U.S. state? However, as long as those young people are ensnared by the morally challenged liberal democrats, their ideological development will be arrested, and a few will emerge as “new leaders” given salaries, awards for being in the struggle for two weeks and will become weapons used to block authentic radicalization among their constituency.  That is how hegemony works. Fredrick Jameson reminds us of the lesson that these young people will have to learn that they will not learn from their liberal benefactors: “The lesson is this, and it is a lesson about systems: one cannot change anything without changing everything.” So, it was a good week for both bourgeois parties. The democrats didn’t get called out for their collaboration with Trump and the republicans on the budget. The Trump folks have more ammunition to use to mobilize their supporters in opposition to what they will frame as efforts to violate the constitution and take away their guns and give more power to a repressive government. Even the intelligence agencies benefited from the week’s events with attention being shifted away from the FBI scandal that is threatening to blow the cover off of official criminal activity to undermine the electoral process, not by the Russians, but unelected forces in the U.S. state. But for those of us from the colonized Black and Brown zones of non-being, we can never allow ourselves to be distracted by the diversionary and accommodationist politics of the latest carefully crafted spectacle, especially one that proports to be advancing a superior moral politics. We must always remind ourselves that some can march with the confidence that “their” government might be trusted with regulating weapons and protecting their lives but that the protection of our fundamental human rights rest with our ability to defend our collective rights, and no one else. Through our painful lived experiences, we understand and must live by the insight provided by our dear brother, James Baldwin, who counseled us that we must be vigilant when our oppressors speak of morality and the sanctity of life: The “civilized” have created the wretched, quite coldly and deliberately, and do not intend to change the status quo; are responsible for their slaughter and enslavement; rain down bombs on defenseless children whenever and wherever they decide that their “vital interests” are menaced, and think nothing of torturing a man to death; these people are not to be taken seriously when they speak of the “sanctity” of human life, or the conscience of civilized world. Distraction can be deadly, let’s us get and stay woke! http://clubof.info/