New Onslaught Of Airstrikes In Aleppo Hit World-Famous Cat Sanctuary Huffington Post. Cyndy: “This one is breaking my heart, airstrikes hit Aleppo Cat Sanctuary. I learned of this news today from a Facebook page dedicated to Alaa Aljaleel, The Cat Man of Aleppo – and his mission of love and hope.”
Activist establishes Dumpster Divers Defense Fund to help ‘food waste warriors’ TreeHugger. Good. I see people rummaging through grocery store garbage and it would be beneficial to legitimate them.
First power drawn from tidal turbines off the coast of Scotland ars technica (Chuck L)
Office Depot caught claiming out-of-box PCs showed “symptoms of malware” ars technica (Chuck L)
The code I’m still ashamed of Medium (Dan K)
Is Microsoft Purposefully Degrading/Crashing Internet Explorer to Bully Users into Upgrading to Windows 10 & Edge? Wolf Street (EM)
CAN HYPOTHERMIA SAVE GUNSHOT VICTIMS? New Yorker (guurst). Not the US now has more people dying from gun injuries than in car accidents.
China?
$100 Billion Chinese-Made City Near Singapore ‘Scares the Hell Out of Everybody’ Bloomberg. Wonder if it will starting sinking like that condo tower in San Francisco.
If you’re happy with it, Canberra will sell Australia to China MacroBusiness
India Cash Train Wreck
How India’s Cash Chaos Is Shaking Everyone From Families to Banks Bloomberg. So much for the “let them make digital transfers” armchair experts:
Of India’s 1.3 billion population, less than 300 million use the Internet. Of the total number of Indians who own a mobile phone, only about 26 percent have smartphones, which are essential to run payment apps.
Demonetisation resulted in chaos and loss of trust in govt: Lawrence Summers Financial Express. J-LS: “Welcome to the party! Larry finally weighs in, echoing what NC has been saying for nearly two weeks now.”
Threadbare Demonetisation: The Cycle of Life Stops in Modi’s India The Wire (J-LS)
Brexit
Nigel Farage would be ‘great’ UK ambassador to US, says Donald Trump Guardian (J-LS). Theresa May must be losing her mind.
Zionists’ weapon of mass destruction against UK’s left Electronic Intifada (Sid S)
Angela Merkel wants to be liberal Europe’s answer to Donald Trump Spectator (J-LS)
NATO chief Stoltenberg calls for military alliance to enlarge euronews (furzy)
Elections if No wins referendum, Di Maio tells ANSA Forum ANSA
France foils new terror plot, seven arrested euronews (furzy)
Gov’t spokesman calls on IMF to ‘stop sitting on fence’ ekathimerini
Ukraine/Russia
Syraqistan
Will Turkey Present Trump with a Fait Accompli in Syria? Defend Democracy
Clinton E-mail Tar Baby
Clinton fights demand for more information on emails Politico
Trump Transition
A Message from President-Elect Donald J. Trump YouTube. Only 122,000 views as of midnight EST. Intends to make immediate use of executive orders, first of all to withdraw from the TPP. Among other things, I hear this as going after H1-B visas. Driving a wedge in Silicon Valley!
Reaction: US President-elect Donald Trump to dump TPP BBC
Trump, on YouTube, Pledges to Create Jobs New York Times
Donald Trump’s Popularity Surges New York Magazine
Can Trump succeed? Voltaire.net (Chuck L). Awfully broad brush.
Top network executives, anchors meet with Donald Trump CNN. Bill B: “Served up generous slices of humble pie by a billionaire driven by messianic vengeance against anyone who opposes him. Eat hearty!”
For Trump and GOP, ‘Obamacare’ repeal is complex and risky Washington Post
Battle brews over Trump’s foreign policy Defend Democracy
The Koch Brothers’ Favorite Congressman Will Be in Charge of the CIA Nation (furzy)
Reinstating A Muslim Registry Is Literally At The Top Of Kris Kobach’s Agenda For Trump Administration Huffington Post
As a Sex Worker, I’m Terrified for the Next Four Years Vice (resilc)
White Nationalists Salute the President-Elect: “Hail Trump!” Atlantic
The death of net neutrality begins today Next Web (Randy)
Paul Krugman, Who Proposed Fight with Fake Outer Space Aliens to Stimulate the Economy, Now Worried About Quality of Trump’s Spending Michael Shedlock (EM). Actually, Kruggie thought they were real space aliens, having spoken to John Podesta, but couldn’t bring himself to admit that.
2016 Post Mortem
ObamaCare’s Supposed Beneficiaries Turned Out For Trump Forbes. Important. But in reality, Obamacare’s biggest beneficiaries were Big Pharma and the health insurers (despite all their kvetching, Medicaid expansion was very profitable for them).
We Are All Deplorables Chris Hedges, TruthDig
Harsh truths about fake news for Facebook, Google and Twitter Financial Times (David L)
NYT Advocates Internet Censorship Consortiumnews
Ron Paul reveals hit list of alleged ‘fake news’ journalists RT
Why the Media Cannot Deal Effectively with Donald Trump Benjamin Studebaker (Brant). Today’s must read. But a curious blind spot: Trump campaigned on creating more “good jobs,” which is tantamount to increasing wages.
NoDAPL
Exclusive Video: #noDAPL Protestors Share Experiences of Police Repression Real News Network
McCarthyism today: The Professor Watchlist (Sid S)
The 60 Minutes Interview George Soros Tried To Bury Off-Guardian (margarita)
U.S. Stocks Close at Record Highs Wall Street Journal
Insurance fund for US pensions could be insolvent by 2025, agency director warns WSWS (Judy B)
Class Warfare
Lowe’s Unveils Lo Bot, The Bilingual Robot That Is Eager To Please « CBS San Francisco (resilc)
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
Antidote du jour (furzy):
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
325 comments
Comments are closed.
Media story is interesting although Postman said it all amusingly and at length 30 years ago. But why oh why must we fall into the use of “media” as a singular noun? News organs are not all alike, and “the media is” reinforces the distorted view of a monolith. Latin teachers of the world, unite!
Cats will survive us at this rate Yves…. where many breeds of dogs won’t…. too specialized thingy…
Disheveled Marsupial…. on that note what is going on with Roubini…. gone to the dogs – ????
Nah….Roubini’s been too wrong with the binturongs!
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binturong)
The fact that Trump chose YouTube to deliver his message about the transition and his 100-day plan should be the death knell for the mainstream media. Especially since it came right on the heels of Trump’s explosive meeting with a who’s who of MSM exectuives and anchors wherein Trump tore them all new assh*les for their biased, shoddy work.
It couldn’t be clearer that Trump intends to ‘disrupt’ the symbiotic relationship between the White House and the MSM and just communicate directly to the public through social media. His use of Twitter during the primary, his ability to garner 10’s of millions of dollars of free publicity during his run, his refusal to allow press access after winning — all of it points to an intention to leave the old MSM paradigm behind as an outdated relic, only to be used under certain conditions as it suits him. Quite amazing.
Great point.
The MSM still has enough money that it’s not going to lose power without a fight. Censorship by private near-monopolies isn’t censorship by the government (so no 1st issue) and many (but not all) of the relevant billionaires are on the MSM’s side so some might play along. Let’s see how their demand is received by the public and whether Trump is suddenly a supporter of net neutrality/common carrier restrictions on, say, Google’s ability to delist ideologically opposed sites.
That was Bernie’s strategy too. Straight to youtube, twitter and facebook. I can’t find it but a map of Bernie vs. Hillary and High Speed internet penetration was uncanny.
Fireside chats coming up next? Death knell may be a bit strong but Trump seems to know quite well who his enemies are. Broadcast television in particular has always been vulnerable to government pressure because its wealth stems from a licensed monopoly over a portion of the public airwaves. Here’s betting that if Trump’s approval ratings go up the networks at least will start sucking up.
Here’s the WaPo story on the Trump/media meeting. These are going to be interesting times….
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/a-defiant-trump-meets-the-tv-news-crowd-in-private–and-lets-them-have-it/2016/11/21/17a9e418-b040-11e6-840f-e3ebab6bcdd3_story.html
Maybe Trump will get Clinton’s nefarious TeleCom Act of 96 undone, and de-monopolize the public airwaves.
G. Greenwald also has some comments.
The Intercept
If it’s as so described, it’s rather disturbing. We need to keep a watchful blind half-eye on those few malevolent media stars who violated their agreement……Launching into a radical running protest of Trump to go all the way to the NY Post & New Yorker so this evil twofer could drive a stake through the heart of Trumps’ media game plan instead is quite alarming…..It could be just as effective as Hogarth’s Gin Lane and Beer Street, that other evil twofer which helped reform alcohol law in yee olde englande. And look what happened then! Today those enchanting English tea shops have been taken over by run-of-the-mill pubs! The English are fizzing with fury over their stiff upper lips on that one! Hmmph!
Jeff Zucker: Yikes, he said he hates everyone at CNN.
Blitzer: I’ve never met “everyone.” Does he do the millennial reporting?
Yeah, you’re right — maybe death knell is overstating it. But Trump swims in the social media sea like he was born to it.
And the availability of free, instant, global distribution of text, images, audio and video allows Trump (or anyone) to sidestep conventional distribution channels with the click or tap of a button.
More importantly, it looks like Trump intends to lead by example when it comes to embracing new media and leveraging it for maximum impact.
There’s no doubt Trump is using that capability as a huge bludgeon with which to beat the MSM into submission. He doesn’t have to come crawling to the MSM for coverage – they have to come crawling to him.
He’s taking on the other MIC – Media-Industrial Complex.
Communicate directly with the people, like Sanders grassroots fundraising from the people.
This is what Bannon is for.
Lots of what Trump wants to do (a lot of things that don’t fit into the partisan templates) are going to face immediate resistance from one or both of the parties, who have all the traditional press on their side.
If Trump is going to get any traction at all, he needs to go over the heads of the press gatekeepers and directly to the people who voted him in.
Either that or he’s just a whinger. First we get the whinging about SNL, then Hamilton, and then MSM… all in one week and before he takes the Presidential seat.
Unfortunately we’ll probably have to listen to 4 more years of his narcisistic “waa waa, you don’t like me” crapola.
He really needs to grow a pair.
This is great. As long as Trump is focused on whatever mean thing someone has said, he isn’t working, and Washington doesn’t function without the President.
I’m not sure making the incredible discovery there are horsies in the middle of the race track at the Kentucky Derby is quite what we need in our President. Yes, he probably does need to grow a pair too, or rather, a bigger pair, but I’m coming to the conclusion we live in the age of vulnerability hence stupidity….so fear runs amok and we all end up dimly thinking worst-case scenarios about pretty much anything and this displaces any aptitude we may have for an ounce of rational risk-assessment……
@ emma
… not to mention a growing number of people finding themselves actually living their worst-case scenario, turning all the social contract promises ever made to them into arrant lies and deceptions. fear does tend to run amok when you really cannot pay the rent or see a doctor when your child is sick, and so on.
a nation in fear–how bizarre/ironic, when USA remains the most powerful, ruthless, and affluent empire ever to lord it over the earth. will we go out not in fire, or ice, not with a bang, or a whimper, but with a chicken little scream of terror in response to mere reality?
It’s a global phenomenon to varying degrees aletheia33. Traumatic fear is commonly seen among the many casualties of successive neoliberal governments. And both flourish faster without a leash. So we need to tune in to our fear to switch both off.
Failing that, perhaps the best treatment now for our fear would be a transfusion of some of that newly developed Peter Thiel blood fluid, eh?! Tweeted to us beyond borders, beyond boundaries, and beyond the outer peripheral parts of a 140-“character limit” message by that incredibly strong and patriarchal velvet-cloaked KKK Grand Wizard playing Presidential poker with us all, but who may well end up less popular than the Spanish Inquisition if he doesn’t do as Bernie advises…..
Perhaps we could even get a stash of ‘Trumpiflu’…..Or better yet, look into the merits of constructing altogether, an incredibly efficient flame-throwing Bernie device!! ;)
yea for flamethrowing bernie.
as lambert says, we have to kill it with fire!
On the other hand, if the establishment keeps lobbing Trump eephus pitches right into his troll wheelhouse, why shouldn’t he take a whack at them?
“Let’s see, a chance to play to my Acela-hating base by playing kayfabe vs. the liberal-infested MSM, Hamilton and SNL? Yes please.”
> if the establishment keeps lobbing Trump eephus pitches right into his troll wheelhouse, why shouldn’t he take a whack at them?
Exactly. Somehow I doubt Trump’s tweets are vetted by a 22 staffers or whatever. It takes him about 30 seconds to tweet, the stupid liberals feed the troll, and there’s then a media firestorm that sucks all the oxygen away from everything else Trump wants to do.
And the beauty part is that they’re now blaming Trump for the firestorm, when (a) the Hamilton cast started it by attacking Pence (to great applause from liberal coastal enclaves) and (b) they caused the firestorm by feeding the troll and (c) pumping the story in the media they control.
Really instructive.
Will you hate me if I admit that I’m a wee bit smug about having predicted this?
Uh … not to change the subject … but there is no ‘g’ in whine ….
carry on ..
It is British English usage polecat. Maybe even Beeb Usage, but do not hold me to that, please.
See: http://www.thefreedictionary.com/whinge
It’s a colourful rumour realised in a specialised flavour of nationalised traits (that we’re two nations separated by a common language).
I just made that ditty up while doing the hoovering.
well … OK then ……
Yes, believe. Clive is right; cleverly crafted as bite sized bursts of beatific badinage.
Also, not just the United Kingdom and America, but England, North and South, Cornwall, Wales, Scotland, the Manx, and all those overseas dialects. (Though, technically, the Isle of Man could be considered “overseas.”)
: Why the Media Cannot Deal Effectively with Donald Trump
‘You can have the traffic, or you can have me kill your credibility. Your choice.’
Carrot AND Stick. Mule moves in one direction.
The problem is that just about every profession has successfully marketed itself as sufficiently too complicated for the layperson to understand. Economists and Government do this, but they are not the only ones. Media outlets start from the assumption that we are all rubes and need to be hand held along the way if they are going to cover anything of substance in any direction. They don’t want to commit the time or effort into doing that because they think that they will lose most of their audience. That quickly becomes a self fulfilling prophecy, if the news can’t be bothered to educate the public the public is left in the dark. That just keeps getting worse and worse. Until we are left with a public that can’t think past Identity politics and a media that is forced into 24/7 coverage of someone they think is the 2nd coming of Hitler.
Like most things wrong in the world, the Clintons had a hand in it. Thanks Telecommunications act of 1996.
All this extreme lowering of the expectation bar for the Trump administration will be an immense help to him going forward. At least consider the possibility this is by deliberate intention and he’s playing us.
I take exception to the idea that using social media is a way to communicate ‘directly’ with the public. Twitter, Facebook, et. al., are walled gardens that one needs to sign up for and then agree to play by their rules. Some of us are not interested. I think it sets a dangerous precedent.
And, as mentioned in the recently linked article about quitting social media, it’s designed to be addictive.
Methinks that it would be better for us, individually and collectively, to spend less time on social media and more time in social reality.
+1
Social media, two that. Compernolle has written extensively on this, and while email can have the same effect as social media, he considers it a good medium for one-way info flow. If limited to reading them 2 or 3 times a day, as batch loads.
If NC had not posted a link, and these comments weren’t here, I would never have seen DJT vid.
Too many people are under the impression that ‘everyone’ has access, or wants access, to social media.
When they talk of ‘Winning the internet’, or ‘Internet memes’, they really are talking about Twitter of Faceborg, or whatever SM flavor of the day. Those of us who think these ‘services’ are abput mining us for every detail of our lives, often have no clue as to what the rest of you are on about.
(Pepe the Frog?)
I am on the internet, the real one, most of the day. No ‘social’ media. I have to spend way too much time trying to decode the horses**t that people are blathering about, in order to make sense of the rest of the stories. When I do go in search of some insight, it usually is not worth the time.
I know that this puts me at a disadvantage, because I do not get ‘shared’ things as they happen, and actually have to seek out news.
But if want, I can go days without hearing from anyone. Bliss.
Just a reminder, if it is free, you are the product, not the client.
You are not in the group they are targeting. Millions of buffoons are.
I suppose the rest of us will have to rely on Yves, Lambert, and others to read Twitter,
“so I don’t have to”.
While I love you guys, it does make me somewhat beholden to a different set of ‘gatekeepers’. Sigh.
I would love to know what is being said by certain parties, in real time, but I have reasons beyond the obvious ones, to not be on social media.
Like ‘cyclist’, I feel it is very dangerous. At least to me and my interests.
People I know thought I was crazy, because I didn’t have an unlisted landline. Now they all went from having personal websites, to sharing their whole lives (and their children’s) on F-Book and Twatter.
Things that make ya go Hmmm.
I look at Facebook, mostly for the comedy value, but it has almost become unbearable. Twitter is garbage: the ultimate result of a culture which reduces every thought to a ten-second soundbite.
Twitter, properly curated, is not garbage at all. It does help if you have a combative temperament…
Twitter, properly handled, is amazing. I hear from and converse with people I would never otherwise have heard from or had any kind of direct interaction with otherwise. I’ve had long political discussions with men 30 years younger than me that were surprised to find they had things in common with a middle-aged mom. I was talking to Hillary Clinton delegates directly the night of the Nevada convention shenanigans, as they were supporting the Bernie delegates and being generally stand-up, honorable people. It was quite moving, actually. I hear about life on the ground in detail from about 30 different countries, and the fact that it’s just daily life pouring across my feed makes it uniquely interesting. I had a complicated debate about the Troubles and its legacy with a guy in Northern Ireland that would have been impossible without Twitter.
It may be crumbling, but entering Twitter through any of the leftist communities active there is a great way to get away from the junk and find the good stuff. The Bernie Twitterverse was awesome. And watching Bernie voters splintering after the primary was fascinating. I predicted here back in the summer that Black voters were going to reject Clinton by meaningful margins (meaning she’d still get the majority, but not enough) based on what people were saying on Black Twitter, and I think I have been vindicated in that prediction.
F-Book and Twatter! I like that. And who are these twits?
I too would sneer at social media addicts, but I know too many smart and erudite people who absolutely love this crap. A old friend’s public output looks like an unintelligible chunks of hashtags, and other equally obscure (to me) responses. To his credit, he knows me well enough to stick to e-mails or phone calls.
Pepe is most definitely not worth your time but this is the best explanation.
https://gimletmedia.com/episode/77-the-grand-tapestry-of-pepe/
I see what you mean, I think, but what I meant by direct communication was that Trump is creating and distributing news content himself. When Trump creates news by posting a message on Youtube, and people alert other people to it by sharing it, who is going to wait for an hour or a day to see what the New York Times or CNN says about it? No, people go right to YouTube to watch it themselves. It is now possible — and possibly more effective — to completely cut out the old guard mainstream media from the equation.
Yes, YouTube is the platform, but there are no outside filters and gatekeepers that oversee and spin the message.
Is it a fluke or is it the future?
I dunno, but my nephews check their phones and text 3,000 times a month, or about 100 times a day.
I have a feeling that Trump is quite content to create a whole new arena of dialog that takes place solely in the self-curated digital realm.
The most important Trump related news yesterday was the speculation about Tulsi Gabbard possibly being named Secretary of State. NeoCon heads are exploding and the usual suspects are already trying to take her down, at least on Twitter.
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/democratic-rep-tulsi-gabbard-consideration-trump-cabinet/story?id=43696303
This would be a most brilliant choice by Trump on multiple levels.
The DNC, I’d wager, would be speechless at the utter gall of Trump to do such a thing …. and would ALSO try to quash (through their minors in CONgress) said appointment, out of shear spite !
The Democrats ruthlessly attacking Gabbard will be a feature and not a bug for Trump. He will stand tall protecting her as the Democrats and NeoCon-symp GOP try to turn her into Tulsi Palin. Those are exactly the optics he wants! And in the end the Senate will have to confirm her.
i would think she might have some difficulty with accepting that appointment, on principle. doesn’t she then become a minion of the antichrist?
oh wait, to decline such an “opportunity” would be to go against everything that everyone most basically believes in in USA. absolutely everyone of all stripes would think she was simply crazy. except for mebbe a few NC readers and other fringe elements.
??
The Hill reports that the Trump campaign, specifically at the urging of Bannon, contacted Gabbard. Apparently, he is a huge fan of her views on a number of issues.
Bannon set up Trump-Gabbard meeting
Well f#ckin A !!
And today’s Rice-Davies Award goes to…
NATO chief Stoltenberg calls for military alliance to enlarge [euronews]
Obviously a journalist with an iota of integrity would have written “… Erdogan slammed Europe for not doing enough to help Turkey tackle Kurdish seperatists whom he lables as terrorists“, but journalists and integrity are increasingly akin to oil and water.
Edit: I just read the second Euronews story on the France “terror plot” which offered 0 information other than claims by the French security forces saying how awesome they are to have foiled a terror plot (more Rice-Davies). Today is my first experience with Euronews, and it hasn’t been a good one.
Rule #1: assume all news is really disguised propaganda, at worst; or
Rule #2: assume a lot of mis-information or dis-information; then
Rule #3: Do a little research to discover opposing viewpoints/ information if available
Rule #4: If you still are confused or cannot determine the truth or reality, go back to Rule #1
Euronews is a consortium of state broadcasters. Usually very dull.
Sorry, but the Lowe’s robot, as well as the the army of people in orange aprons at Home Depot, are there to deter shoplifting (there’s a small underground economy based on returning items to HD for gift cards). Helpfulness (e.g. knowledge) and cheerfulness are not the same thing.
That sounds like insider knowledge — is it?
I worked at Lowes for almost three years. There is an entirely self sufficient sub domain in every store for “Loss Management.” Scott 2s point is good as far as it goes, but the people there, and the orange vests at Home Depot, are mainly there for shelf stocking and inventory management. People have an innate desire to physically handle something before they buy it. I have literally bought down, opened and then closed and restored boxes of product from the shelves for half an hour for some little old lady, or young house husband, I being in Plumbing. “Do you carry this in Brushed Nickel?” was a common question. “Why yes sir, we do,” I’d reply and then climb the moveable ladder to bring down a Super Duper Deluxe Bidet Multi Spray Head in Brushed Nickel for approval. “Hmmm. I don’t know. Let me see the Chrome model for a comparison. “Yes sir, Here one is.” (I’ve already got a chrome model ready, anticipating just such an eventuality.) This kind of service cannot be done by robot; at least, any robot available in the forseeable future.
Helpfulness is something that the Gods of Corporate cannot really control. That is lower management’s baliwack. Cheerfulness, on the other hand, is mandatory. The capacity of the human animal for emotional deceit is well nigh infinite.
Well, my first reply to you was eaten by Skynet, so, here we go again.
I worked in the Plumbing department at a Lowes for almost three years. Those Blue Vests and Orange Aprons are there also, besides “Loss Prevention,” for stocking and inventory control. The first thing in the morning shift to be done was a count of stock on the shelves and then pulling down stock from the high overhead shelves to fill in empty spots on the display shelves.
Secondly, people have an innate desire to physically handle the goods before buying. Many’s the time I’ve had to help someone finding product for them to look at and compare with other versions of same.
“Do you have this in Brushed Nickel?”
“Yes sir. Let me find it for you. Ah. Here it is.”
“Hmmm. Do you have this Super Duper Bidet Multi Spray Head in plain Chrome?”
“Why, of course sir. Here.” I’ve already bought one of those down since this comparison is almost standard practice during the perusal stage of an equipment purchase exercise.
“Er, does it, hmmm, tickle?”
“Well sir. Let me put it like this; Screw Magazine rates it as Four Hard Dicks out of Five.”
“Oh my! High praise indeed.”
“Yes sir. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Al Goldstein had one of these in every one of his bathrooms.”
“Oh, you have been very helpful. Perhaps one day I’ll have you, say, install one and show me how it works?”
“Well sir. I would have to ask my wife about that.”
“Oh, great! Swingers! Here’s my number. Any time after five. I do so love the service at this store.”
For NoDAPL if you want to help:
http://sacredstonecamp.org/supply-list/
Thanks for sharing this with us. There is an important meeting being held right now at the Security Council of the UN on Water. The UN Security Council is holding an open debate on Water, Peace and Security with briefings by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon; Danilo Turk, Chair of the Global High-Level Panel on Water and Peace; Vice-President of the International Committee on Red Cross (ICRC) Christine Beerli; and Sundeep Waslekar, the President of Strategic Foresight Group (SFG).
See here for detail: http://webtv.un.org/live/
Obamacare’s Supposed Beneficiaries — broken link
Fixed, thanks.
‘broken arrow’
‘broken care’
re: Is Microsoft Purposefully Degrading/Crashing Internet Explorer
I run Windows 7 in a virtual box. The software I run on Windows became extremely slow. But I got it running as good as ever by turning off “check for updates” for the Windows system. Previous to this change I had simply turned off automatic updates. On my virtual box the Windows system process of checking for updates though not installing them began about two minute after startup and used 50 percent of the processor from then on. I turned on another virtual CPU and it still used 50 percent. Google for it and it will often be referred to as a known bug. A known bug that’s been around since XP. The MS recommended solution is to turn on automatic updates so security and performance fixes can be installed.
Mine was to put a red x near the update flag on the tray.
Thanks for the insight into the ongoing Window crapification of Windows. I’m out of the loop for such technical knowledge but very very much appreciate all the knowledge shared.
I find win 10 to be a hopeless case with updates. I have had enough of their crapification so I am switching to Linux Mint. Is mightygood on my trial pc so will change all soon.u
Trump on HB-1 work visas – it would be nice if he would begin a gradual drastic reduction/elimination of them. My income would likely go up and the many and increasing Indians in the Boston area that have displaced American workers and driven up rents would be go home probably. NPR won’t be able to do many more programs on the fusing of many diverse sub cultures and influences of Indian music in the SAN Fran area but I can live with that and maybe mutual fund companies like State Street and others will hire Americans not just to train their Indian replacements.
Ditto here. One company interview in downtown Chicago I had recently was quite revealing. I don’t mind coding in a crowded room where 75% of the staff are south asians. I do mind salary offerings comparable to what I made out of college. I’m finding many senior dev positions are really “Team Lead” positions with significant management of off-shore “talent”. Depressing.
Several years ago I was performing contract work at State Street located next the the IT dept. The entire staff was Indian. Not 75%, not 90% – 100% — except for 1 person in the middle of the floor was a white male American. He was the manager. And that doesn’t even get into the off shored support sfaff located in India. Several people from State Street have mentioned they are training their Indian replacements…don’t know if those Indians stay here in the Boston area or return to India and perform the jobs.
And it’s other mutual fund companies too, not just State Street – JPMorgan, Brown Brothers…they all do the same thing. Bring in foreigners to replace American workers.
This likely helped cause the end of my 5 yr relationship with my partner who I prized greatly. When we met I was employed full time at good money. Now I make less than half of what I did in a good year on contract work which is never year round. After we broke up he finally said what I suspected was the real reason for leaving me: “You haven’t had a job in 3 years.” Not entirely true as I part time tend bar and do get contract work, but point taken. I am in a different income class than when we met. I get it. I read here at NC that is the leading cause for broken relationships. He didn’t get the have the life he expected to have when we met and he can do better he is very attractive young and personable person.
Amazing how life can so quickly unravel when your income is decimated. And we are still sharing these stories 7+ years into an economic “expansion”? Google “Andrew Joseph Stack”. and Section 1706 of Tax Reform Act of 1986. Democratic Senator Moynihan’s little Lap-Dance for IBM and other large software firms.
Sorry about the break up, but you just may have encountered the dreaded “silver lining” effect. He will forge ahead to whatever self delusional life he wants. He seems to have embraced the “wealth equals happiness” myth. You sound sadder but wiser. You are better off; fewer delusions and better problem solving abilities as a result. No, I am not arguing that “poverty builds character.” Often, said “character” built is bad character. Finally, your ex-partner won’t be young and attractive for very long. Age will creep up and hit him over his head one fell night. Someone will call him Mister, or, horrors, Grandad.
Anecdotally, the same “crapification” process you described as occurring in IT work is at play in construction as well. Several light commercial job sites I have looked at in my search for work recently are now heavily Latino in crew composition. This includes so called “skilled trades” like electrical, plumbing, and carpentry. The only ones benefiting from this are the owners and contractors.
I live in the Deep South. One joke current around here is that Mexico won’t have to fight a war to get the southern third of America back. They’re merely displacing the older population. Another wag suggested that, just as the White man did to the Natives with smallpox and other ‘European’ diseases, i.e. killed them off, the Latinos are doing the same to the Anglos with cheap drugs.
Your definition of personable and mine differ.
I hope you find someone who chooses you because of who you are as a person instead of because of how much you can bring into the relationship in terms of money.
I get that having money can definitely improve the outcome of relationships sometimes but it should not be the be all and end all. Some of my best memories in my own 20+ year relationship have been when we were broke as broke can be and the MOST we had was each other to depend upon.
Ditto that.
Yes, doubly ditto’ed. You are better off without. Be glad you found out sooner rather than later, not after a material proportion of your life or whatever. Consider yourself lucky that you’re free of such a bad deal.
Plus, shallow materialistic people tend to get worse with age, not better. What I keep hearing described as “mid life crises” are more often than not disillusioned people not “achieving” what they “think they’re supposed to have”. And I’ve seen some cases of “mid life crisis” go on twenty years or more. And start at 30-something.
You weren’t broke. You were rich.
timbers,
Very sorry to hear about your career troubles and your relationship troubles.
But believe me when I say, “He did you a favor by leaving”. I’m sure it doesn’t feel like it, but your ex doesn’t understand hardship and what relationships are really for. You’re lucky it didn’t take 10+ years to find out.
When time passes and your ex gets older and faces health problems or other difficult circumstances, that person will become very lonely, very quickly and realize what a mistake they’ve made.
@timbers
I have been somewhat in the same boat. I have $100k in student debt hanging over my head and the income I expected when I signed for it fell laughably short thanks to 2008. I have had 1 serious relationship since school, and while we didn’t break up exclusively over money, money is the reason I refuse to even put myself out there. There is essentially no chance I will ever be able to pay off my debt and the squalor I live in to try and make ends meet is too depressing to try and introduce someone special into the mix.
I like Dmitry Orlov’s take on this all-too-common experience…
“Collapse early, and avoid the rush!”
Don’t sell yourself short.
A real partner is looking at you, not your financial statement.
Secondly, all that “squalor” is a physical manifestation of your circumstances, not yourself. A real “soul mate” is a real potential. There are many here who will attest to that.
A defeatist attitude is it’s own reward. I know I’m venturing into exhortational territory, but there it is. By starting out depressive, you short circuit any positive outcomes that you might encounter. Then, you console yourself by observing that “it was all doomed from the beginning.” Basically, you are avoiding the possibility of pain by pre-setting parameters to guarantee failure. The pain is part of life. The Buddah was right in his Fire Sermon.
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_Sermon
But we are Human; we can rise above. You can too.
Don’t sell yourself short!
At my shop we’re discouraged from looking to H1B-1 candidates unless we can’t find a U.S. citizen to fill the position. And as far as the Bay Area goes, everyone wants to work at Twitter, or FB or Google, etc. The competition is intense for good software developers, whether they are U.S. citizens or here on a visa. And as I noted in another thread recently, we’re having much better success lately with college-level hires.
I don’t mean to diminish your experience, and I have stories to tell myself about the failures of off-shoring and the “penny wise, pound foolish” thinking of executives in software development companies. But at the same time, I don’t blame the H1B workers for being here, nor the people working for slave wages in far away places. They’re workers, just like you and me.
You should also know that, increasingly, a lot of those people from India and Pakistan are U.S. citizens, born and raised. And many more are naturalized U.S. citizens. As American as you and me.
I don’t blame them either. I do think their culture is way too deferent to hierarchical authority. Why wouldn’t American companies want to hire them?
The Confucian culture was good for 2,000 years, until collapsing before ‘free trade’ (yes, even in the 19th century) backed by opium diplomacy (no smallpox infested blankets diplomacy necessary).
Fortunately, it has come back and with it, the emphasis on deference by those below to those above, and everyone must know his/her place in the hierarchy. Educated thusly, graduates, those with A grades in Confucian ethics, from those countries make great wives. B and C students, on the other hand, are not so reliable, perhaps even deplorable.
This, right here, is my problem with the commodity fetishism of ethnicity that Democrats call “diversity”. Why wouldn’t the managerial class want to dilute the uppity white laborers with them? A naturalization certificate melts nothing.
It’s more than just the culture. An H-1B worker is dependent on the goodwill of their employer to a much greater degree than an American worker. If they want to get a new job, they have to apply for a new visa, which is time consuming and expensive (and can typically not be done start to finish in the 2 weeks they are permitted to remain in the country if they are terminated, even if they find a new job right away). This allows employers to get away with much more where H-1B workers are concerned, because they can’t just quit and find a new job in the way that a US citizen or permanent resident could.
I’ve seen presentations from recruitment agencies that quantify this advantage in dollar terms and explicitly advertise it to employers as an argument for hiring H1-B workers over Americans.
Otis B Driftwood
November 22, 2016 at 9:26 am
I don’t mean to diminish your experience, and I have stories to tell myself about the failures of off-shoring and the “penny wise, pound foolish” thinking of executives in software development companies. But at the same time, I don’t blame the H1B workers for being here, nor the people working for slave wages in far away places. They’re workers, just like you and me.
You should also know that, increasingly, a lot of those people from India and Pakistan are U.S. citizens, born and raised. And many more are naturalized U.S. citizens. As American as you and me.
No diminishment taken, but the fact is the numbers of HB-1 has increased and is likely to increase greatly over time, because Obama recently allowed spouses of HB-1 workers to take jobs. If you are savvy as to how foreigners get into this country with fake marriages, you know taht one action by Obama could potentially nearly double the HB-1 numbers allowed to work. And that doesn’t even get into any actual increase in HB-1 official numbers, which I think have been increased also (could be mistaken abt that though).
I figured you’d get some serious push-back when I read your initial comment.
But the fact remains that, given the serious levels of un- and under-employment existing in this country currently and the social upheaval it’s causing , there is no excuse for a policy like HB-1 visas. It and all others like it should be abolished, those now occupying those positions required to train their american replacements and return to their countries of origin.
Especially if they are “developing” software for such things as driverless trucks or robotic replacement of manufacturing workers. At some point, the social costs of technology that displaces humans will need to be considered when evaluating the “benefits” provided by these “innovations.”
It’s interesting that making the condemned dig his/her own grave, a pre-medieval practice, should be so much alive in the hi-tech industry.
Can’t these smart guys (and gals) think of something more better, sorry, superior?
I had to do that once in order to get the severance package. It was incredibly humiliating, and almost convinced me to get out of the software racket.
But since then I’ve built up enough of a nest-egg that, should it ever happen again, I’ll be able to walk out on the spot. I advise anyone else in the “industry” to do the same if you at all can.
I’m surprised the companies do it – usually, if you’re laid off, they don’t even let you in the door.
It seems like a perfect opportunity for sabotage.
While we’re at it can we ask why we should be “for” free trade in the first place. “Levelling the playing field” with countries with no indoor plumbing, no wages, and no environmental controls seems like complete folly for a country with a high standard of living. Unless you own the means of production, that is.
My second question: where is the wisdom in countries devaluing their currency? The logic seems to be: “we’ll make our country richer by making it’s citizens poorer”. In combination with the above no wonder America is starting to look like a Third World country.
As far as H1-B, I have hired very large software teams and dealt with many people from south Asia. They are usually very well-educated, speak impeccable English, and show up extremely well groomed. They tend to be the first to arrive and the last to leave. On the minus side they do tend to overcomplicate things: “but we need to take into account these 47 other things that might happen”. I think it’s because their culture has > a million deities and their thought processes rebel against solution that are simple. Gross generalizations, of course.
We don’t need driverless vehicles, what we need is vehicleless drivers…
Nice chiasmus.
Thank you for another new word. I added it to my text file of new words. /NOT sarc I do have such file and do add new words hoping to increase my vocabulary — Thanks!
You’re welcome.
That’s how one learns. I used to keep a notebook of new words and ideas I picked up, and, as a part of cultivating my creative self, my own thoughts and neologisms (and I should do that again – it just seems there’s not that much time. I used to live by myself, but now, my 84 year old mother and my brother live with me).
Master Zhaozhou (or Josho in Japanese) was over 60 and the abbot of his Zen monastery when he decided he did not know enough. So, he resigned and wandered around China for decades, vowing to learn from anyone he could…fortune tellers, fish mongers, waiters, laborers, potters, miners, beggars, etc. He then returned and lived well past 100 (died at the age of 119 – that’s what it says in Wiki 778 to 897). This was over 1,000 years ago (see Zhaozhou Congshen, Wiki)
It is comments like this that make NC so addicting for me.
Do you know that Rhetoric is a tool like a shovel or a knife, or more particularly, a bow and arrow?
Just asking, because I remember finding out about chiasmus. Among other things.
Timbers, Sorry to hear about your breakup due to “money driven” motive of your ex. You’ll find someone much better, not to worry.
Obama increased the number of H1-B visas to pander to Silicon Valley and their lobbying due to their whining about “shortage” of personnel. I have read many forums where good engineers were let go because the companies hired cheaper replacements.
The companies who hire H1-B visas and the recruiters (body shops, a lot of whom are in India) are the ones to blame. The H1-B visa holders are treated badly because they have 30 days to either find another job or leave the country. It’s almost like slave labor.
In contrast with the many provincials that bitterly threaten to leave the US due to our manifold problems, very real and some imagined, there is a long line of ppl holding their breath to enter this country, including those subject ones that get packed on the H1b express train.
I don’t blame a single one of them acting in their self interest, ultimately we all do.
The real issue is the corruption of the legislative system that passes these congenitally unfair laws to beneficiate special interests that want to operate in this country with “global” advantage.
I have no problem with East Indians perse, but they have a very rigid cultural pecking list code that is not inclusive. It is their nature and i have watched it evolve in several companies, particularly in commercial IT depts.
What i have observed is they tend to hire exclusively from their social pool, as distinct from just cultural demographic, and the social order is enforced in and out of the work enviornment.
Maybe this is the immigrant story but there is a twist. At a certain critical as the corporate think sets in, positions and entire departments that make absolutely no sense to “offshore” migrate to India w serious crapification results.
Is it hubris to think all cultures can ‘pot-melt’ as quickly as we assume?
Some did quickly, some took centuries, others still on-going.
Witness the Amish in Pennsylvania, Chinese in South East Asia, Dravidians after Indo-Aryan migration into the sub continent, etc.
On the other hand, Spartacus’ revolt gladiators came from different backgrounds, so it was possible to unite.
Let’s not assume one will like something from another place right away (due to enornous peer pressure), nor if one doesn’t like it initially, one will not like it later.
So, it’s OK to say one doesn’t like something if that’s how one feels. At least, that’s genuine.
Maybe you’ll like it later.
Witness the Amish in Pennsylvania, Chinese in South East Asia, Dravidians after Indo-Aryan migration into the sub continent, etc.
None of them are being aggregated in this Country by financially connected corporate interests through a special Visa program to be used as a blunt instrument against prevailing domestic wages.
To be clear, I enjoy the cultural diversity in this country. And my comments about Indians are impart derived from observation of Indian friends at large family/guest events. like graduations and birthdays…
When I first ran into the vegetarian culture, I was not too thrilled.
“What, no meat!?!?!?”
Now, I am mostly that.
oohhhh.. they know how to cook…
What I am still looking for is an antique Indian Karahi, the Indian analog to a wok but hand beaten carbon steel thick on the bottom and tapering to the perimeter. Heavy like a cast iron pot. All I see is stamped junk.
A long time friend’s mom had one handed down from her grandmother and she used it for simmering the most fantastic curries and making pori ( flash fried puff bread).https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puri_(food)
good stuff…
There used to be a place in Culver City. The chef slow cooked his dishes, hours and hours. Really good stuff. I never had Jackfruit until I tried it there.
I took my ex-girl friend there and she loved it, after she told me she didn’t like Indian food.
Here, she was allowed time to get used to a nice experience, unlike your neoliberal boss – you get along NOW and dig that grave, or you’re a bigot.
East Indians have a surprising way of becoming American over two generations — like all the others before. How long does it take for a 2nd generation East Indian to marry a Korean or Chinese or Caucasian or Black or someone like me — a mutt? America will become like Brazil — a good thing I think.
As for the place of H-1B workers — scabs are scabs — no matter where they come from. And scabs only come through their greater need and greater oppression.
Labor must organize across International boundaries just as capital did. I don’t how that might happen but when — and it is when not whether this happens — our oppressors will have hell to pay.
I don’t consider H1-b works as scabs, they are people that are trying to improve their existence.
The fact that they are topical is due to Domestic issues higher up the food chain.
East Indians have a surprising way of becoming American over two generations
Personal observation:. Two Indian families I know, very genteel nice friends. Both sets of parents my ageish, first generation, grabbing the brass ring and all that.
Their kids progressively did everything to culturally rebel from the ethnicity through high school. Now in colleges, HUGE 180degree about face, it’s all about being indian, Indian sorority ( female kids obviously) Indian food ( used to hate it) Indian attire.. you get the theme. We are amused.
They are fiends but I could never travel with them.. UTTERLY complicated people to be within a larger social context. Everything seems to have a couple extra steps.
One of the families built a new house, the big hous they no longer need. just a disaster project after they took the contractor over the edge. Open house party in the yard. Big BUUUUZZZZ, I track it down to a lighting transformer.
Me: “maybe you want to get this wired correctly before it burns your house to the ground?”
****.. “It’s not supposed to sound like that?”
Me: “nooo , I don’t think so”
*****” should I shut it off?”
Me: ahhhhhhhmmmm yeah kill the breaker and go get a screwdriver and a plate of Samosa for me”
I could never travel with fiends, either.
Contrast “people that are trying to improve their existence …” with people with “greater need and greater oppression.” I think we agree more than we disagree in this matter. I do not blame H-1B Visa workers for trying to get a better life for themselves and their children — indeed I honor them for that. But scabs are scabs. I believe the scabs of past were driven by much the same honorable purpose as H-1B workers. But both undermine pay. I do not blame scabs. They are but even greater and more exploited victims.
In case you thought I am anti-foreign or anti-Indian — Vishwakarma chides me for the poverty of my works. I lived in and deliberately chose to live in a community with a large Indian and Pakistani and Chinese and Korean and Caribbean enclaves [the Latinos who worked on the lawns and some Caribbeans driving local cabs envied our great good fortune in affording the apartments where we all lived] … in the hopes some of their values might rub off on my own mixed children. Perhaps you miss the heart of my comment — “Labor must organize across International boundaries just as capital did.”
I make no assumption abt you,
some good eating an mom and pop joints in those neighborhoods
This weekend dinner experiment for me
http://mabenka.com/storage/mabenka_menu.html
I don’t consider H1-b workers as scabs,
Proper Scabs must have tremendous agency.
Any desperate earthling is pretty scary, though.
‘The words that hurt us so…’
You blame our politicians and the CEO/corporate sociopaths and economist sociopaths that push so hard for our 1st world nation to compete with 3rd world or 2nd world nations on the labor level.
You CANNOT justly expect our workers to have to compete for jobs with desperate people barely eating in another county. It is ridiculous to level the labor playing field until AFTER the other nations are already developed to near our standard of living (unless we ALL agree to degrade our own standard of living, CEOs AND OTHER EXECS INCLUDED, to meet them half-way).
The problem was designed to be so. The entire H1b and trade deal bullshit that forces competition for labor in poor and advanced nation alike for the same jobs is wrong on its face. It was designed to destroy labor costs by forcing our workers to give up living in a modern world and accept abject poverty for their efforts…all so CEOs and shareholders can get richer at their expense.
I don’t blame the H1b worker. I blame the CEO for forcing that system upon us. I blame Presidents and Congress for forcing that system upon us. I blame economists for pushing this crap. NONE of them have skin to lose for their beloved race to the bottom. THEY make bank on our misery and laugh it up over cocktails.
As far as I’m concerned, it requires a reconfiguration of trade. No more 1:1 competition for jobs by our own 1st world workers with 3rd worlders. Only allow corporations to H1b or off-shore a limited percentage of labor so that they HAVE to keep the bulk of jobs HERE with DOMESTIC workers. CEOs get to take a pay cut, the bottom line doesn’t get the be the bottom line anymore, they MUST serve the greater good of the community they live and operate in BEFORE they worry about shareholder value.
It has LONG been a LIE that US corporations “just can’t find qualified people in-country”. BULLSHIT. Our universities pump out world class engineers, coders, etc. That’s why all the people who currently work under H1b Visas GOT EDUCATED AND TRAINED RIGHT HERE IN OUR UNIVERSITIES…just like our DOMESTIC students did. The difference? Domestic prospects are unwilling to work for scraps and zero benefits. Corporations know they can offer shit to foreign workers and they will thank them for it and ask for MORE beatings. Past time to end that shit now.
Agreed. For the last ten years plus, Slashdot has regularly featured new computer sciences grads looking for entry level jobs, finding there are none, and asking the greybeards for guidance. They don’t have that many ideas.
The whole resuscitation of Ricardian comparative advantage theory (which I’ll always remember as the main element of Krugman’s career as an economist, back when he still had one), besides its other theoretical flaws ALWAYS rested on a hugely wrong assumption about the ability of the “rising” economies to absorb living labor at a rate anything like the rate that happened with 1890s or 1920s technology. (I’m being charitable here, in assuming that this WAS a “mistake.”
The idea that economies will somehow “converge” and compensation will eventually stabilize between them doesn’t work at all if even the emergent economies, at their fastest possible growth rate, can’t absorb even their own newly proletarianized populations as rapidly as they are displaced from agriculture and crafts. And this is what has, in fact,happened. India now has a huge population that its own “rising” middle class can see no role AT ALL for within the economy, and there is absolutely no realistic possibility of Mr. Market addressing the situation through the ostensible magic of growth. What HAS happened is the creation of a huge worldwide surplus of labor, creating a buyer’s market across virtually all fields of all economies.
At this point, the part of the analysis of Capital that was largely ignored during the last “Marxist” renaissance of the 70s and 80s, assumes greater importance. There was a fairly clear demonstration in a couple of chapters (with a mass of illustrative data) indicating that in such a market, the value of labor power could be depressed even below the cost of regenerating the labor power (or even of keeping the existing laborers alive), and that that situation could prevail for long periods with no “automatic” mechanism within the market to fix it. And the brave new world looks, in many ways, like that Victorian world.
As a former H1-B worker I am sympathetic to your arguments and have made some of them myself in the past. But I think the structure of the H1-B program leads to it being used as a weapon by employers against workers (I suspect by design). Because it is a nonimmigrant visa, the H1-B says: we want you to come and work for us, but we don’t want to provide you with a path to residence/citizenship or any of the rights and privileges that come with that status. This becomes a tool for exploiting the H1-B workers themselves and weakening the relative bargaining position of American workers, who can’t be similarly exploited.
I do think that some level of employment-based immigration is desirable, but the way it’s currently implemented is exploitative, breeds resentment, and (like most US labor policy) favors big business. By all means bring people in to work if it’s needed, but let them do it as American residents or Americans so that the playing field is level.
I find attitudes toward people from South Asia to be the ugly side of NC’s commentariat. Some of the comments below are hard to see as anything but racist and if anyone doubts it, one could substitute any other ethnic group in those statements and see if it still appears to be non-racist.
As for H1-B visas, there are doubtless many abuses and there are easily workable fixes (here’s a simple one — make H1-Bs completely portable and just auction it off to the highest bidder. This would completely eliminate using H1-B workers to undercut wages). But the government actually has to want to fix it. I must say that I do find it amusing that most of the commentariat has no problem with illegal immigrants from south of the border “stealing” jobs from citizens, but are up in arms when their own jobs are vulnerable.
I find “I find…” comments to be jejune, especially when they’re general proffers with no evidence.
Take issue with individual commenters instead of making general complaints.
Ditto “I find it amusing,” an allied trope.
Well, consider the comment by Optimader (http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/11/links-112216.html#comment-2713469) where s/he makes an assertion about East Indians hiring only from their ilk. Substitute, say, Chinese or Mexicans in that comment and tell me it’s not racists.
In any case, I have been a long term reader of NC and I stand by my assertion, jejune as it might sound to you, that when it comes to immigration, only one ethnicity seems to get all the hate — the South Asians.
Au contraire mes amis.
Come on down here to the Deep South and enjoy the scorched air of Locals versus Immigrant Mexicans relations. We have tiendas and rincones and a medium large trailer park almost all Mehicanos. We got a mini barrio dude!
Almost everyone else views them as vermin who stole the low level jobs and work for less. The Bosses love them! No one yet has proposed burning down the bosses’ houses and stores. The lowly braseros, meanwhile, get all the grief.
Who ever said that Life was fair?
I just can’t see Trump eliminating HB-1 work visas. All wealth comes from labor. It’s not just software and engineering but also medical industries that would be effected.
And are effected … look at nursing staff especially those working graveyards.
Awful news about the cat sanctuary bombing.
Alaa Aljaleel, The Cat Man of Aleppo, is a true leader, with good works for his neighbors, beast and man.
The world should honor people like this instead of the scoundrels who gin up the wars.
Very true, he’s a hero through and through, with more integrity and valor in his little finger than the majority of our US elected leaders put together.
Kindness and compassion are other resources this world seems to be running out of.
That story brought tears to my eyes. I’ve been following the work of the cat sanctuary, not only because I am an animal lover, but because it was a small sliver of positivity in a very ugly situation. I hope he and the remaining cats find a new haven and he is able to continue his good work for the cats and for the children who love them.
Many videos from rebel-held Aleppo are staged. This is is one obvious example where they apparently forgot to edit the video before uploading it
This comment on the kitten sanctuary is relevant
pmr9–
The video seems to have been pulled.
From children’s hospitals to cat sanctuaries. This surely represents an improvement.
But I wonder: After spending billions of dollars to wreck the place, our leaders suddenly discover Syria is a wonderful land of children’s hospitals and cat sanctuaries. Shouldn’t they have checked before?
–Gaianne
Trump on infrastructure – 2nd consecutive day of significant delays in service on the Boston T public transportation and it’s not even snowing. Track problems. Last snow storm we had delays – when I pointed out on FB that Obama was spending money like water bombing Syria while Bostonians can’t even get to grocery stores or work because broken Boston T and I was told that was the fault of Republicans and promptly unfriended.
Giving new meaning to the expression, “the truth will set you free”
You think that’s bad, live in NYC. They closed down an entire line for 2 years to work on the tracks, and they’re not even using that time to upgrade and renovate their filthy dilapidated stations.
MBTA situation is in large part a product of debt and underfunding and is indeed the fault of Republicans (e.g. Weld, Cellucci, and Romney) just not today’s household names.
That ‘unfriending’ is one powerful peer pressure approach to democracy.
Who wants to be unpopular?
“I am the most unfriended person on social media!!!”
“Banned in Boston” worked well enough to get people to look, back in the day. Being unfriended by bourgeois Democrats is a scar of honor.
‘Tis better to have friended and unfriended, than never to have friended at all?
Facebook sux.
What does this tell you about FaceBook?
i am so happy to see all the facebook-bashing on here today.
i tried it for awhile, even became sucked into the whole thing for a few months, compulsively spending a couple of hours on it every evening.
then i woke up and quit.
i have a lot of trouble understanding how people who consider themselves matured, mentally sound adults can stand to engage in the idiocy and isolation of facebook absorption. how do they work during the day and keep up with their family and children without loss of sleep to this time sink? do they really feel just fine after their facebook sessions? i can only conclude there is something wrong with me that i am not able to enjoy this form of “fun.”
the social pressure is getting worse faster all the time. i dread the day when i’ll be forced to buy and use a smartphone because none of my friends can deal with my preference for living in the world without a pager attached to my body. i already can barely handle the distractions of email and the internet. how do people actually do it and continue to function? (serious question)
i know if i lived in NYC i would have no choice, fortunately out here in the boonies some people are of like mind with me in their preference for and appreciation of face-to-face encounters in the real world.
but as it creeps upon us–where will one have to go to actually be able just to live in the company of other human beings?
…i already can barely handle the distractions of email and the internet. how do people actually do it and continue to function? (serious question)….
Mute switch, possibly compromise w / vibrate mode. Its just a tool, treat it as such.
beg to differ, the internet is not just a “tool”. i read this kind of view on it all the time. it’s just a tool, you are in control, turn it on and off as you choose. as the NYT article recently linked on social media pointed out, these “tools” are intended to create irresistible, highly seductive distractions. the impulse to check email constantly is one that so many people have to work to override–expend energy to fight, in one way or another. watching people compulsively texting trivia and unnecessary check-ins on their iphones once a minute, i conclude that they have little control over their impulses to do so. again, it takes real energy to not do it.
the same cannot be said of a typewriter, a car, DIY home improvement tools, gardening tools, etc. or of other kinds of non-concrete “tools” that one learns to operate mentally. when driving, gardening, carpentering, doing math problems using the math techniques one has mastered, and so on, not many people have trouble taking a break and during that time completely forgetting about the tool they have laid down for a time. it does not keep nagging at the back of their minds to “check just to see what’s new in the last minute.”
i believe these “tools” are as addictive as cigarettes, heroin, cocaine, oxycontin, and sugar.
I have never .. and always will not .. use ‘anti’ social media !
Maybe one response to Trump might be to collect his campaign “promises”, sift them a little, clarify them — and use them as a hammer to drive Trump in the populist directions he dabbled with — like public transit.
Trump seems (?) to care more about his public image than other politicians. That might be used a tool to drive him.
If this happens, how will The Donald respond? Obama?
Hundreds of O’Hare workers to strike next week as part of Fight for $15 protests — Chicago Tribune
A strike planned for Nov. 29 at Chicago O’Hare International Airport will miss the Thanksgiving holiday’s busiest travel days and coincide with a nationwide day of protests that the Fight for $15 movement claims will be its most disruptive yet.
The Fight for $15 asserted Monday that after the election of Donald Trump to the White House it “won’t back down” from its activism in the face of an incoming administration it believes “threatens an extremist agenda to move the country to the right.”
I don’t know if it will work out, but by shrinking supply of labor (border control, *fewer H1B visas and other immigrants…*fewer, not zero, as we are still open to them), if demand stays constant, price should go up… theoretically.
No doubt, but long term. Course elites think long term, we should too.
Infra, if it comes, would be sooner
#NoDAPL – Water Protector in Critical Condition After DAPL Police Grenade Blew Apart Her Arm
This has been corroborated from other sources as well. It is absolutely frustrating and unacceptable.
Note my link above. ways you can help. Where’s the Potus on this? Or the Potus-elect? Or anyone but Bernie, who has been vocal.
Depravity.
Exactly. Where is Potus on this?
IIRC did he say something like ‘he’s going to wait a couple weeks and see how this plays out?’
Wtf?
Where’s Hillary? She has the time now and Bernie has to clean out the Dem stables and lead the Revolution.
hiding. i would be also. I hope she and hers are gone forever.
She is probably waiting by a phone for a $250k speech offer and can’t figure out why the offers haven’t come in. Maybe Wall Street doesn’t know she has a lot of free time.
True to form, she made a meaningless, word-salad statement in late October. Bill McKibben who I see as a middle of the road environmentalist tweeted “Hillary Clinton managed to make a statement about the Dakota Pipeline that literally says nothing. Literally”. Another fine example of her “playing not to lose” mentality. 0bama isn’t doing much better–must…leave…with…50 pct plus…approval rating.
Bill McKibben is a phony and an ObamaBot.
I believe he and Michele are poring over the Podesta emails from WikiLeaks and cold-calling leads for this paid speaking tour. I imagine a lot of Bill’s upcoming marks are reconsidering their ‘investments’.
Sheriff Kyle Kirchmeier attributed the blast to protesters and said law enforcement had nothing to do with the explosion.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/nyc-woman-lose-arm-protesting-dakota-access-pipeline-article-1.2883263?
Videos suggest otherwise.
“Objectivity” wasn’t what I intended (I didn’t mean to say what I implied). I missed my cast toward Orlando Letelier and Ronni Moffit, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orlando_Letelier
and then to Judi Bari
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judi_Bari .
WaPo just came out with a wishy washy both sides blame each other article so I tore the author a new one on twitter.
https://twitter.com/UserFrIENDlyyy/status/801196712953987072
Yes, Sanders really is the person who should be our next President. As Gaius Publius points out in an article at NC today, it didn’t have to be this way. Sanders would have beaten Trump.
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/11/donald-trump-my-100-day-action-plan.html
One thing that strikes me, that I’ve dwelled on in more Democrat=oriented sites, is that the Dems weren’t serious about stopping Trump, who they knew would be the nominee. If they had been, they would have cheated in order to nominate Bernie.
Good link. Here’s what I posted on FB after reading it:
A brave woman demonstrating at Standing Rock named Sophia Walinsky just had her right arm amputated after being shot by a percussion grenade indiscriminately fired into a crowd by police. I entered her name into a search of Google News trying to find a mainstream news report on this important national story. This is what I got:
Your search – Sophia Walinsky – did not match any news results.
Suggestions:
Make sure all words are spelled correctly.
Try different keywords.
Try more general keywords.
Try fewer keywords.
The reason I tried to find a mainstream source is that I found some the clickbaity sidebar of paid placements on the side of the report I read uncouth. But I guess in today’s journalistic desert, that’s the only way real journalists can hope to keep the lights on reporting.
Here’s the link I to the brave journalism with the tacky sidebar:
http://thefreethoughtproject.com/water-protector-dapl-grenade-destroys-arm/
What I want to know is where is the putatively prestigious professional press on this important story? Where is Obama? Where is Hillary Clinton? Where are the Democrats? Why the shameful silence? What do they owe to the petro-barons to maintain their cynical silence?
I spit on your “lesser evil”.
OK, I’ve been corrected on the spelling of the woman’s name. The linked report apparently misspelled her name which accounts for the lack of hits on that spelling. The correct spelling of her last name is “Wilansky”. Maybe the tacky sidebar should have alerted me to expect shoddy reporting.
It’s very unfortunate that spokespeople for this movement, or possibly just activists who are involved in it, have shown a willingness to lie, or exaggerate the truth for their cause (see: “thousands of wild buffalo appearing out of nowhere”, and “11 year old girl shot and killed by police”). Because although I otherwise support what they’re doing, I just can’t be sure what’s really true, and what’s B.S.
This is all to say, that after looking into it a little bit, I remain skeptical of some of the details. I hope the young woman didn’t lose her arm, but that seems to be one of the details that’s not entirely clear yet.
> a willingness to lie, or exaggerate the truth for their cause
Anti-GMO people have fallen into that trap. Anti-TPP people did not. Who won, and who lost?
Not really sure.. the anti-TPP crowd seems to have won by some freak act of God or something.
Either way, the truth speaks for itself guys. It doesn’t need your embellishment. And your average Joe sees right through that pretense, believe it or not.
It has occurred to me on more than one occasion that there is much similarity between the way that the Chinese government mistreats Tibetans, and the way that the U.S. government mistreats American Indians. Both governments are shameful and oppressive.
It is absolutely frustrating and unacceptable.
+1
I note, hypothetically of course, that small amounts of thermite could inflict commensurate damage to the pipeline itself.
Re: Trump and Media’s inability to deal with him effectively. Neglected to mention the flip side of all the attention on Trump– their steadfast refusal to give Sanders ANY air-time. The DNC, Wasserman-Schultz conspiracy actions broke me away from the Dims, forevah. Their lack of substantive plan and demonstrated inaction on climate and celebrating and promoting the obvious make-work shift away from a deleterious carbon-based system to a more sustainable future was the last nail.
Voting: license and consent for all the crap I reject.
I yam The New Face of an Angry White Older American Male.
Boosting Trump was a Clinton campaign strategy; it’s in the Podesta emails. I suppose it’s possible they never actually put that plan into action, though they certainly welcomed boosting Trump over his primary opponents. So, it’s not really a flipside. Boosting Trump and pretending Sanders didn’t exist were fundamental parts of the same strategy.
Here’s the memo discussing “Pied Piper Candidates.”
got a bumper sticker/ t-shirt slogan idear for like-minded curmudgeons:
I’m deplorable and I vote!
I considered printing this up at cafepress, but living where I do, it would probably just get my car window smashed, or the paint keyed. My neighbors are all super tolerant enlightened Democrats, without a speck of bias or hatred in their hearts you understand. Love always trumps hate is their motto, unless one is different from them and fails to accept their moral superiority. Then it’s daggers and severed brake lines.
Yup. I’ve experienced that too. I’ve questioned said moral superiority and ended up getting un-friended. (In real life, not on Faceborg.)
There are many small T-shirt vendors who specialize in T-shirts for middle-school soccer teams who might print your shirts for you. Support small business!
Sorry — the slogan “I’m deplorable and I vote!” already seems dated and a little past it’s sell-by date. Be more radical and think more revolutionary thoughts! If you expect to get your car window smashed or your car key-ed — get a video — press charges! — and come up with a more radical bumper sticker/T-shirt slogan.
i don’t know your neighbors but “daggers and severed brake lines”? Maybe it’s time to move?
At the moment, Trump’s advisor Kellyanne Conway says he won’t be prosecuting Clinton.
I suspect there will be another event where a Clinton prosecution is floated, then quashed, then floated again, and then it’s never going to happen. The powerful don’t pursue the powerful that way. Too many skeletons.
Cynic that I am I’m guessing that a headlong investigation of the Clintons’ skullduggery would bring unwanted attention to Trump’s own dubious finances regarding his foundation and undisclosed tax returns. However, Committee Chairmen are pretty independent, and, I would really love some effort be made regarding what really was discussed during that “Tarmac” chicanery.
They are not going to have time to investigate Hillary, They will be pre-occupied investigating Trump’s numerous conflicts of interest in preparation of impeaching him to elevate Pence to the Presidency.
I keep hearing that the Trumps are working with lawyers to make everything legal. I don’t think they understand that impeachment is not a legal proceeding in a court of law. it is Congress acting as grand jury and then judge to remove the president for high crimes and misdemeanors. Trump’s conflicts of interests are setting the table for him to remain president for only as long as the Republican Congress wants him to be.
Trump is more popular than the Republicans in Congress with Republican voters. Trump isn’t getting impeached by that group. They threw everything at Trump already and lost.
The “lock her up” sentiment is the danger for Trump. Republican base voters want Hillary prosecuted. If Trump is perceived as against, the GOP base then things could change, but Republican after Republican tumbled before Trump because the GOP voters simply don’t like the continuing elite Republican class.
That is going to be the big battle in this Congress. Trump’s policies will lead to larger deficits to try to generate fiscal stimulus to improve middle class jobs (theoretically). This Republican Congress has fought fiscal stimulus on the spending side tooth and nail for 8 years (even pre-Obama).
So Trump will be on Twitter and national TV calling for voters to contact Congress demanding action on his programs while the Tea Party right will be fighting them. The Hastert Rule will be Ground Zero.
The winner of that PR war will define the next 4 years. If the Tea Party wins, then Trump gets impeached and Pence takes over. If Trump wins, then it will be a sloppy legislative period with Tea Party Republicans fighting a rear-guard action against moderate (do they exist?) Republicans and Democrats passing fiscal stimulus bills.
I would like to see your fantasy roll call on impeachment.
Investigation of Clinton is not one of the binary elements in a zero sum game. Just because the election is history doesn’t mean an investigation rolls up it’s carpet.
Trump’s business conglomerate is an entity the likes of which no previous President even came close to approximating. It’s not just a portfolio of stocks/bonds/cash, etc. which would be simple to place into a blind trust. The total number of individual, operating companies he owns number about 150, I believe. And, besides functioning companies, real estate holdings, golf courses, licensing agreements, and such, he has huge, complex, foreign loans/mortgages outstanding, including from, I believe, China.
It’s a real tangled mess, and the discussions by some very bright, experienced attorneys & accountants I’ve listened to all conclude the same way: they don’t see any way to structure it….legally. The simplest way, of course, would be to convert everything to cash, but that would be virtually impossible within the time frame involved. And, besides, Trump would never agree to such an arrangement. To show how naïve (unrealistic) he is regarding this dilemma he’s floated the idea that his children will run the empire and he’d have nothing to do with it. I guess Thanksgiving dinners, and Christmas get-togethers will be verboten……..ridiculous!
I think we’re heading for a true waterloo climax in a couple of months. Violations regarding the conflicts of interests he’d inevitably trigger are very serious criminal matters. I don’t see any way out for him; he’ll have to decide, the Presidency, or, his businesses. His tax returns, which he will have to divulge, run into many thousands of pages. And, as he’s shown, he really, really, really doesn’t want to expose them. I’m far from being an expert on these things but I’ve searched out people who are experts, and, so far no one has a clue how to do it, other than the way I mentioned above……..liquidation, then blind trust.
“President Pence” is becoming a real possibility.
I think this is the legal precedent that Trump will be relying on regarding his conflicts of interest: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HiHN3IJ_j8A
That should be entertaining. Alas for the Republican establishment, the base voted for Trump, not Pence.
So if they want to split the Republican Party, they are proceeding in exactly the right way.
Pass the popcorn. (Personally, I feel that if the Republicans split, the Democrats will too. They prop each other up.)
Yeah but if Trump reneges on a lot of his promises, which it looks like he’s already doing, he may lose a lot of that base support and then the party establishment will have a much stronger hand to impeach him.
Could also be a head fake so that Obama sees no need to pardon her.
Breitbart doesn’t seem to be too happy about this.
Kind of goes to show you that the entire cabinet-choosing exercise is a little silly, given that Donald can’t keep an advisor around for more than a few months.
Re Obamacare’s beneficiaries voting for Trump, part of saying Medicaid expansion was worthless and so is insisting covering preexisting conditions, is a classic example of taking an interesting piece of data and shoving it into a pre existing viewpoint to support an ideological argument when there’s no real link between the data and the ideological claims. When looking at that interesting datapoint:
“the single best predictor identified so far of the change from 2012 to 2016 in the share of each county’s eligible voters that voted Republican” is how low the county scores on an index of public health measures. The worse a county performed on life expectancy, obesity, diabetes, heavy drinking, and physical activity, the greater the swing toward Trump.”
There’s nothing in it that specifically id’s medicaid expansion eligibility, though that’s how the article opens, and even a data point to counter:
“Polling data suggests that on the whole, Mr. Trump’s supporters are not particularly down on their luck: within any given level of educational attainment, higher-income respondents are more likely to vote Republican. But what the geographic numbers do show is that the specific subset of Mr. Trump’s voters that won him the election—those in counties where he outperformed Mr. Romney by large margins—live in communities that are literally dying.”
And also:
“The implications are remarkable. ObamaCare’s main selling point is that it guarantees access to health insurance for people with preexisting conditions — like diabetes and other illnesses associated with obesity, heavy drinking, and a lack of physical activity….”Many of Obamacare’s supposed beneficiaries don’t appear to value the law very much”
What about cancer? What about genetic diabetes? What about genetic fifty million things and other pre-existing conditions? The idea that there’s any argument that pre-existing condition coverage isn’t valued by people because people dealing with “illnesses associated with obesity, heavy drinking, and a lack of physical activity” voted for Trump is absurd.
Here’s an alternative hypothesis–note “hypothesis”, not claiming truth:
When communities are dealing with large amounts of “illnesses associated with obesity, heavy drinking, and a lack of physical activity” they are probably inhabited by large numbers of depressed and angry people, perhaps people dealing with a large amount of financial stress and perhaps a decreased standard of living.
” ObamaCare’s main selling point is that it guarantees access to crappy health insurance for people with preexisting conditions”. There, I fixed it for Forbes. What good does it do to people who are barely hanging on financially to be forced to purchase high deductible, narrow network plans that are anything but “insurance?” Many people purchase “insurance” and can’t afford to use it. People don’t need access to crappy “insurance,” they need access to medical care, and 0bamacare certainly does not guarantee access to it.
OIFVet
November 22, 2016 at 9:10 am
Exactly right. I have been saying for a while that what people THINK of as insurance, and what they are buying, are two different things.
Kinda like buying those 70$ Disneyland tickets – just gets you into the park, the rides are extra…
Insurance…
What was it Inigo Montoya said…
“You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”
subgenius
November 22, 2016 at 2:09 pm
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++!!!
I think that line actually applies better to health insurance than to the scene in the film in which it was used….. (The Princess Bride)
Inconceivable!
/runsaway
This emphasis on “pre-existing conditions” as evidence of the holiness and indispensability of obamacare is driving me absolutely batty. It has become THE existential issue of the american “healthcare” system.
Pre-existing conditions are a construct of the american insurance industry, meant to identify those people the industry did not want as customers, because they required medical treatment. In any nation with cradle-to-grave national healthcare they do not exist. In those countries, a sick person is a sick person, regardless of when the illness manifested.
The “pre” in pre-existing refers to the timing of a diagnosis and the start date of an insurance policy. A diagnosis prior to the start date of a new policy is, by definition, pre-existing.
So, here’s the bad news. Any person who is treated under a current insurance policy, is creating a “condition” that could be construed as pre-existing in the future.
My point here is that pre-existing conditions are only real things as far as insurance industry profitability is concerned. As far as “healthcare” is concerned, they are illnesses indistinguishable from any suffered by those with insurance, and should not be regarded differently.
And now that insurance has become a high deductible, high out of pocket rent extraction, insurance companies can make money even from people with many preexisting conditions. Take Type 2 diabetes for example, I have no doubt that the typical person with this condition is low income. It is a desease that really strikes people who can’t afford quality fresh food and have to rely on overprocessed cheap crap, and who experience a lot of stress in their lives. Low income people fit the bill. Yet by virtue of their low incomes, all they can afford is a high deductible policy, with this year’s maximum being $7,150. When we look at the brochures attached to marketplace policies, we learn that managing Type 2 diabetes costs about $4,500-$5,000 per year. So the low income individual is forced to purchase a crappy high deductible policy, and even though he is now “insured”, he is still out of pocket on managing his Type 2. And to add insult to injury, he is told that he ought to be grateful to 0bama and the Democrats for having allowed his “insurance” company to pick his pocket clean. It’s a scam.
Covering “pre-existing conditions” makes nonsense out of using insurance to deliver health care. It’s exactly analogous to letting people buy car insurance AFTER the accident – to cover the accident. That isn’t insurance, and it was bound to collapse.
As someone pointed out, you normally buy insurance to cover unlikely events: car accidents (the deductible rules out minor ones), house fires. But getting sick isn’t unlikely; it’s all but certain, and pretty frequent. Plus we’re told to get “checkups,” which are yearly. So there’s a contradiction from the start, which is worsened by “pre-existing” conditions.
None of this contradicts your own point; it merely extends it.
Katniss Everdeen
November 22, 2016 at 11:59 am
I agree a squillion percent. The construct of “pre-existing” condition has no precedent in “real” medicine. Its like we start dying the second we are born.
Every single medical condition we get is do to the fact that our pre-existing condition was being ALIVE. Everybody has tumors in them – they are discovered and undiscovered. They are benign and some, at some point may become malignant.
I agree with OIFvet, no reason why most populations should be enthused about the ACA. Also, they’re looking at the wrong demographic, Trump voters (about 25% of eligible voters), when they should be looking at non-voters (about 45% of eligible voters), people in an ostensibly “blue” demographic who were not enthused about HRC. The assumption that poor economic conditions –> Trump vote is less true than poor economic conditions –> no vote at all.
HRC didn’t lose because people voted for Trump, she lost because people didn’t vote for her and they didn’t vote for her because things like the ACA have decimated the 90%.
……“illnesses associated with obesity, heavy drinking, and a lack of physical activity”…….
Apparently “deplorable” was too discredited a characterization, so someone decided to just describe the behavior and leave the proof of complete unworthiness to the reader.
Here’s another alternate hypothesis–
The shitty law simply does not work as advertised. It has zero “value.” The rational choice is to vote for the person who wants to get rid of it and replace it with something different and, hopefully, better.
Figuring out what’s going on here is not rocket science. Rhetorical contortion to explicitly avoid saying it, however, is.
Time for some modest proposals?
The mcarthyism today link is a clear illustration of the direction discourse seems to be headed in the US. Tribes will double down and further alienate eachother and outsiders (independents). While creating a fully impenetrable bubble around themselves.
While new media offers the opportunity to find views that challenge your outlook and exposes one to varying perspectives and critiques, it also offers one the ability to fully control the information one is exposed to.
Too many appear to curate an impenetrable bubble with new media. This further entrenchs tribalism and divisiveness.
Things are only going to get worse on the tribalism front.
Has anyone seen recent polls on party affiliation? The last ones I saw were about 50% independent, making the “major” parties no long major. One recent one said that millennials were 70% independent, making them trivial.
Yet they’re still allowed to control our elections. And the smaller they get, the more tribal.
Would love to know if there is any way for the new administration to compel Loretta Lynch, or any career Justice Department employee with knowledge of the “Tarmac” incident to divulge what really was discussed on that fateful day?
I understand Trump has announced that poor Hillary has “suffered enough” and won’t pursue either the email debacle or the Foundation Fraud.
Let’s just hope that Trump decides that Chelsea Manning, Edward Snowden, and Julian Assange have also “suffered enough” and that they won’t be prosecuted.
Strange how the elite, globally, seem to be able to get away with just about anything, whilst god forbid Joe Sixpack forget to declare a few thousand dollars income, some old granny neglect to declare a foreign bank account, or some mid-level seaman inadvertently take a photo of a Navy ship.
They’d have to offer Lynch immunity from prosecution. Then they could subpoena her, and she wouldn’t be able to hide behind the Fifth Amendment.
Gotcha, thanks
Like a shark, trump neither recognizes her as food or as a threat.. or as someone that can serve as a ablative shield.. at this point in time. She presents no advantage.
Punishment or none — I am not a fan of our penal system — the Clintons and Clinton Foundation deserve and require exposure to bright light.
Like a strong laser beam directed at the eyes?
I feel dirty after hearing Soros claim taking from the Holocaust Jews was okay because if he wasn’t there someone else would have been. Best quote from the video:
Yeah that video should come with a “bathe after watching” warning. Just disgusting watching Soros brag about his moral vacuity (because markets) and then get praised by the interviewer for his humanitarian work, such as “rebuilding the Ukrainian army”.
In a decent society, people like Soros would be ashamed to walk the street, much less appear on TV smiling like a cheshire cat.
On the subject of Soros and suppressed interviews, I’m virtually certain Democracy Now gave him a platform to spew his bullshit fairly recently, as in within the last couple years, but for some strange reason I can’t seem to find it now.
We Are All Deplorables Chris Hedges, TruthDig
The suffering of the white underclass is real. Its members struggle with humiliation and a crippling loss of self-worth and dignity. The last thing they need, or deserve, is politically correct thought police telling them what to say and think and condemning them as mutations of human beings.
The self-righteousness of the liberal class, which revels in imagined tolerance and enlightenment while condemning the white underclass as irredeemable, widens the divide between white low-wage workers and urban elites. Liberals have no right to pass judgment on these so-called deplorables without acknowledging their pain. They must listen to their stories, which the corporate media shut out. They must offer solutions that provide the possibility of economic stability and self-respect.
==================================================================
I can’t say I pay a lot of attention to Chris Hedges, but what occurred to me when I was reading it was that it acknowledged my point of view (which I certainly believe is objective reality, but I might be biased) and how, what really should not be important at all by any realistic standard, is more important to me than I would have though.
As I’ve said, Hillary campaigning with all the happy, shiny people did herself no favors…(i.e., the Dem implication that only racists were dissatisfied with the economy)
I would quibble that it leaves out that there has to be acknowledgement that the Dem Davos glass is responsible for a great deal of this pain, and was active in trying to sweep it under the rug AND uses racial virtue as a McGuffin to hide the unadulterated greed that drives these people.
But a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Slowly, slowly maybe we all will realize that our Oh so virtuous non racist billionaire tech titans and financial technocrats, who conspire to reduce wages through H1b visas, are not tolerant at all, but its just a big scam to hoover up all the money in the world.
The Mr. Fish cartoon illustrating Hedges’ article is right on target.
Butch In Waukegan
November 22, 2016 at 9:40 am
Thanks for that – I thought it was vaguely familiar….
I have some heartburn with Chris Hedges old-style notions about !848-style barricades and action in-the-street. But otherwise I am one with Hedges view of the “deplorables”.
Hedges too often places unarmed/brick armed civilians in the streets against Iraq-war trained Veterans of anti-civilian warfare. When civilians armed or Not stand against State supported Military Police — like our “civilian” “police” — they will be crushed, decimated, and severely injured.
If you don’t count on the venison you hunt-kill-and-freeze for meat — you have no say in the great 2nd Amendment debates — or bullet purchase limits.
If we’re talking about civic unrest — bullets are small fire ammunition. Better to hit with strong arguments.
Re “armchair experts”
M-Pesa, the Kenyan system that is already implemented by Vodafone in some part of India does NOT require an internet connection nor a smartphone, it can use the USSD standard, that even Yves’ dumbphone supports (unless it is a CDMA phone, but India is GSM land anyway)
Why the Media Cannot Deal Effectively with Donald Trump Benjamin Studebaker (Brant). Today’s must read. But a curious blind spot: Trump campaigned on creating more “good jobs,” which is tantamount to increasing wages.
Then Trump himself can call into the program and get some free air time to say whatever he thinks will improve his poll numbers. They’ll take his call because nothing attracts eyeballs more than “Donald Trump responds to controversy about controversial thing Donald Trump deliberately said to generate controversy” and because only one program can have Trump live on air at any given moment in time–time during which that program and its network know that they have a guaranteed ratings advantage against everyone else.
==============================================================
There is some very preliminary evidence that superhero movies may be on the wain…..after all, how many times can the earth be saved before one starts to say, “been there, seen that, I’m bored with it”
How long will it be before, just like individual auto crashes or gun murders aren’t reported, a Trump tweet won’t be reported? Who will find out first that even the president of the United States can be over exposed – Trump or the public???
The Benjamin Studebaker piece is very rich. Let me pull out this paragraph:
Sanders is correct, strategically, to attack identity politics and Trump’s intrastructure plan at the same time. The first is necessary if the Democrats are to display adaptability. The second is a pre-emptive strike (and indeed a government-funded stimulus would be far more effective than public-private partnerships, and open invitation to corruption.
But no. Liberals would rather talk about Hamilton.
The Hedges piece demonstrates everything that’s wrong with Hedges. He starts by lucidly outlining the problem and usefully quoting MLK on the need for universality and then launches into an attack on Trump and people like him as “slick, amoral trolls.” Hedges doesn’t seem to grant that there may be a grain of sincerity in Trump’s expressed desire to benefit the country and lift up the working class. The people who voted for him are therefore desperate fools. Hedges pities the poor but doesn’t respect their intelligence.
In reality it’s Hedges who misunderstands King’s message that the powerful are people like us only with a lot more money and power. The poor struggling to get by–and therefore possessing much better bs detectors than many of the cosseted elites–likely do understand quite well who and what Trump is. They are desperate but hardly stupid and so see Trump as a leap of faith because what other choice do they have? In that sense it is like the evangelicals. But stepping back the evangelicals have a defensible point when they say you either believe all of it or you believe none of it. Hedges, the onetime seminarian, is on quicksand when he starts lecturing other people about their rationality.
seconded.
I hope you are right about Trump’s sincerity — even a grain of it. “Trump’s expressed desire to benefit the country and lift up the working class” hasn’t seemed so evident after the election as it was before. We can hope.
Hedges very strongly supported the Greens early on as the only rational choice for all voters — not just the poor.
Down-Ballot, Green Party Grows in Reach and in Votes
Cook County IL Metropolitan Water District (4 positions) Green candidates won 9.52 – 10.11%
http://results1116.cookcountyclerk.com/summary.aspx?eid=110816
I voted for several Green candidates myself, but that’s not going to accomplish anything unless the Green Party gets organized. As near as I can tell, even this year the goal wasn’t to actual build a viable third party but to get that desired 5% so in four years they can run Jill Stein or some other woefully unqualified candidate for president again.
If we’re going to discuss the willful blindness of the Democrats, how about we also discuss the willful blindness of the Greens, which party also appears to have a leadership composed of mostly upper-middle-class professionals with healthy investment portfolios who come across to us Deplorables as snobbish dictators swooping in and condemning us for not recycling enough? Other than co-opting Bernie Sanders’s talking points, I saw nothing from Stein that would appeal to anyone except not-Hillary urbanites and suburbanites.
Agreed on the attitude.
I recently read a ‘car review’ for a chevy volt. The review was for how it did in the winter. Great, according to the reviewer.
When questioned, he had to admit that it was garage kept. Because everyone has a garage, right?
Heating an electric car in the cold is a huge draw on power, and limits their usefulness. Keep it at 50 F, in a garage, and it will do OK. Keep it outside, where temps go below 0 F, and you’d get stuck on the side of the road. The same battery powers the motor and the heater.
The greens have to stop making climate change a local issue. It never was, never will be, and only serves to draw the worst proselytizers to the party, who by the way, have an extra few hundred square feet of space to keep a car. Green.
I have a hybrid sedan that I am very happy with. I live in upstate NY with cold winters and lots of snow. The effective average gas mileage drops from mid to high 40s per gallon in the summer to low to mid-30s in the winter (starting about now) – still pretty good.
The new Chevy Bolt is supposed to get 50 miles on a charge which is probably real above 50 degrees F. I would be surprised if you could park that outside at work in our area during the day and get anywhere close to 50 miles for the round trip. Both the cold effect on the battery and the additional energy needed due heating and to poor traction would take a toll.
Let’s not forget Green Vice Presidential candidate Ajamu Baraka’s public disdain for Sanders and many Sanders supporters. Hardly a shrewd move on the part of the Greens.
Here in Tucson, the Green Party leadership is a small group of misfits who don’t welcome outsiders. One of my friends tried to help them, but he finally threw up his hands.
I suspect that the same thing is happening on the national level.
Since Stein ran on a similar platform in 2012, it’s hardly fair to characterize her as “co-opting Bernie Sanders’s talking points”.
“Let those without environmental sin, cast the first green stone.”
It’s not so much the deplorables are green with envy, but the tent should be big enough that no one should be morally more superior for winning the recycling contest. People have mouths to feed and jobs to keep. We all do our best and it’s the thought that counts. It may be counter intuitive, but maybe, you get more recycling that way.
I voted Green but for what might be considered obscure reasons. Neither Stein nor Ajamu were strong candidates. Ajamu — though he excoriated Sanders supporters — a problematic stance at very best — held a glimmer of promise … which fizzled out as the election drew near [I believe his disdain for Sanders and Sanders supporters originated from a purist view of those who supported or at least traveled along with the spending thrusts of the Military Industrial Complex. Such purism has no place in real world politics when a state like Bernie Sanders Vermont has a very real world need for the spending … in lieu of other sources of spending.]
I hoped the Greens might get their 5% of the vote given the poor and largely equivalent choices offered as alternatives. The Democratic and Republican parties have become so similar in their offerings it was like a choice between Cherry Koolaid and new and improved Very Cherry Koolaid. We no longer have two-party system. I can see only two options going forward — a Sanders style takeover of the Democratic Party or the growth of a party like th Green Party. For all its flaws the Green Party does have a line on most state ballots.
May I suggest that “unqualified” is a term that depends on the eye of the beholder. The only qualifications needed to run for President are 1) Be a US Citizen born in the USA and (2) Be at least 35 years of age.
Many things in the Green Party are appealing. They should be in line with most left wing people.
It the Greens can’t get to 5% in a Trump v. Clinton year, they’re not going anywhere, ever. I’d love to see a post mortem, but my guess is institutional dysfunction. They would do better to reconstitute as a movement and play the outside game, which is much more congenial to them anyhow.
re: Is Microsoft Purposefully Degrading/Crashing Internet Explorer
Almost certainly.
(The moderation-borg won’t allow me to present an explanation.)
What’s Internet Explorer?
It should be what Netscape Navigator is.
It’s what you use to download a browser on a Windows machine.
RE: Lowe’s Unveils Lo Bot, The Bilingual Robot That Is Eager To Please « CBS San Francisco (resilc)
What a relief! At last I don’t have to go to all the trouble of dialing an 800 number to be aggravated by one of those automated phone systems. I can just go to Lowe’s and one will roll right up to me and get in my face.
The lady bending down and asking the bot for a “human” was pure comedy gold. She should have just yelled “representative” two or three times like I do on the phone, or looked for a 0 to keep pressing.
I used to decide whether to go to Home Depot or Lowe’s or Ace based on location. Not any more.
Those techies in SF have lost their minds.
Isn’t “Lobot” the name of Lando’s assistant in The Empire Strikes Back?
Yes, and, as a smidgen of discreditable enjoyment, the Cloud City Lobot perfectly embodies the type of employee Lowes, and I’m guessing every other boxx store, wants. Programmed for narrow tasks and inhibited from independent thought and action.
Ha! It is.
They would do well to keep the damn things in the Bay Area. Out here in flyover, it looks like another good use for a crooked-ass two-by-four. Or maybe a piece of 1.5″ pipe, if I happen to be in the plumbing dept.
Or if one is technically inclined, you could just mess with it’s comms, and let it crash into posts, and racks.
“Hey Joe, come over and look at this, it’s the little pecker that took your job…”
I do love the idea of just standing there, screaming “representative” at the top of my lungs, until the cops come!
http://atlanta.cbslocal.com/2015/06/15/cdc-average-american-woman-now-weighs-as-much-as-1960s-us-man/
Not being married, I would be curious as to what American women think about that. Could some married commentators ask their wives about this on Thankgiving and report back….
Ask our wives about their weight on Thanksgiving?! You’ve set up a death wish trap fresno dan. Confess now, you work for or are from Zeta Reticuli system. Only an alien could come up with such a fiendishly clever way to cull the human herd.
To be fair(ish), the article says that the average American male is almost an equal percentage heavier now than in the 1960’s as well. So, I’ll adopt the principle of Conservation of Mass, and not try to transmute my life into a ‘Free Fact Zone’ and thus avoid the massive explosion that a transmutation of Mass to Energy would entail. (Short form; I’ll embrace my “Inner Coward” and live.)
There was a time …when ‘full figured’ was a virtue …. look at any painting or sculpture from, say, the enlightenment to the 18th century …. no ‘twiggy’ figures there !
Just about everything born of 20th century modernity has given people a really skewed sense reality !
Thanks a lot … Mr.Bernays/Madison Ave …
.. .and Fraud !
ambrit
November 22, 2016 at 11:06 am
My nefarious scheme exposed by the brilliant Ambrit – curses!!!
I will bide my time humans – your time is coming!!!
Do you really think Donald Trump is not a pod????
my 5:44 pm comment is awaiting moderation?!?!!! you gotta be sh*tting me…
Skynet is our friend! Feel the full wrath of all the “Youtube Heros” Reptillian scum!
And, ambrit and brilliant in the same sentence??? That’s a Yogi Berra level oxymoron!
Still, fresno dan, we may have to make common cause if those pesky tall aliens start acting up again. Time to reopen the Agartha Command Centre!
Both sexes are also taller, on average, and this might be especially true of women. Lately I meet women who look down at me. Course, I’ve lost an inch or so.
I have found that most women “looked down” at me for character issues.
I think that it’s superfluous since men have also gained 30 pounds in weight during the 30 year period(does that make you all almost the equivalent of a 1960s water buffalo or some such blather?)
There now you have your “American woman” thoughts and the guys can eat their pumpkin, pecan or apple pie in peace.
I’m having shredded pork tacos for my Thanksgiving …. Yuuuuum !!
this buffalo’s gonna indulge !
Interesting that neither the headline nor you focused on this bit:
But of course you could still let us know what you think about this.
It was from a documentary I watched and one casket maker in the Rust Belt commented that they had to make larger and larger caskets over the past years or decades.
Now, to burn off the body fat, how much carbon will be released?
Or do we just eat less, but my gawd, are we talking about starving people? That’s nor moral at all.
So, we are back to ‘exercise, release more carbon into the atmosphere.”
I am much heavier than even that! Of course I am also ten feet tall, spray tanned, and solid steely resolve…with a copper top.
Don
Still evolving to the natural equilibrium..
Mars: 0.38
Venus:0.91
(Earth: 1.00 mass units)
And isolation experiments showed that humans spontaneously adapted to a Mars’ length day and night cycle. There is also the Lunar cycle to consider.
See: http://www.scienceclarified.com/everyday/Real-Life-Biology-Vol-3-Earth-Science-Vol-1/Biological-Rhythms-Real-life-applications.html
[sotto voce] “could you try to explain to wittle wifey what exactly you mean by ‘what do i think about that'”?
[pours drink (or gravy, if available) down into shirt onto beer belly of husband]
“… awww, wook what mommy did!!! what do YOU think about THAT, sweetie pie?”
Fresno dan, consider the hive poked.
The rest of you are just over analyzing the implied joke…:)
The day that America died and hasn’t found it’s way back.
https://www.jfklibrary.org/JFK/JFK-in-History/November-22-1963-Death-of-the-President.aspx
This country needs to get away from its celebrity obsession. Jim Crow was still around in December 1963. The innocent American waif didn’t die with a guy who attacked his opponent for being an NAACP member for over 20 years.
Until we are able to look at ourselves honestly (warts and all) we will never take any meaningful step forward.
To many U.S. citizens treat their country like parents who believe their little snowflakes are NEVER to blame for their bad actions. There is no such thing as “American Exceptionalism.”
Right on.
There is gr8 American ecxeptionalism…
jfk
rfk
mlk
malcolm x
medgar evans
Paul Robeson…
they are all smiling and laughing this thanksgiving
Most of what they died for or had their lives destroyed over has come to pass…
stopping them did not stop them…
Rejoice and remember…the little people have more or less spoken…
El donaldo is peotus…
the “obvious” expected party nominees are now stuck having to have thanksgiving with a family they have spent a lifetime avoiding by hiding in politics
Roosevelt & Co was a banking house when fdr was inaugurated…
Realities vs perceptions…
We all sooner or later turn to dust…spending time chasing some distant indignities or injustice takes time away from preventing and disrupting the wrongs that happen today…
It’s a day I won’t forget till I die; never even dreamed such a thing could happen here. I was shattered; my family was shattered; and, yes, something in me died. But I was only 13, and I had to grow up, as we all do. Every year on this day, I remember – and hope (without much hope) we’re getting better on the whole than we were then..
Well worth a scan, with much detail on southern Algeria: shia vs takfiri communal violence / an anti-fracking movement & disaffection among the unemployed youth in hydrocarbon industry towns. Sounds like a volatile mix, of which we will probably be hearing a lot more:
not quite sure how to make the links work here:
I think you mentioned something about this. Here is Brock today on NPR. Have your puke bag at the ready.
Brock Launches Donor Network To Rebuild The Left After Trump’s Victory
https://www.crisisgroup.org/middle-east-north-africa/north-africa/algeria/algeria-s-south-trouble-s-bellwether
Re: White Nationalists Salute the President-Elect: “Hail Trump!”
Well good thing somebody has dug up the necessary punching bag for the white nationalist movement. Or is it the alt-right? Wait, is that a media thing, or an actual movement? What happened to the ‘vast right-wing conspiracy?’ Not obviously racist enough? Whatever. Now he’s here, ready for his turn in the national spotlight and making the rounds. Never heard of him? Neither has anyone else, except, curiously, the ever suspect NPR crowd.
http://www.npr.org/2016/11/18/502616373/npr-listeners-react-to-interview-with-alt-right-leader-richard-spencer?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=us
Perhaps next year’s conference in DC will double in size – to 400 people…
Sad as the Cat Hotel of Aleppo incident is, I couldn’t find out specifically what part of Aleppo it is situated in. Is it in the East Aleppo pocket, or the government held Rest of Aleppo? If East Aleppo it is, than, sad to say, hard times are nearly here. If the jihadis don’t do a deal and leave peacefully, that entire neighbourhood will go through street fighting. I hope that then the Cat Man has a safe basement to huddle in with some of the animals. Better yet, drape a big red crescent flag on the sides of his place to deter violence. Now that I think about it, that would only attract jihadis looking for a safe place to hide out in. Just go with a bunker. Good luck to the Cat Man.
Incidentally, what ever happened to the capture of Mosul, “We’ll Be Home By Christmas” promise? Fifty thousand Iraqi Government and allied troops versus five or six thousand jihadis an it’s still grinding on? Something doesn’t smell right about this.
It’s close to the hospital that was put out of action last year, and around the corner from two schools that were leveled even earlier. Bombing a cat sanctuary though is surely the act of men who have gone beyond depravity.
Can’t we just have cage matches where world leaders go at it one on one?
A test of valor! a question of honor!
Cheaper, satisfying and much less offensive.
But absolutely nothing settled about which man is so great that other men will die for his whims. And that’s all national sovereignty really is.
That gives the offensive forces involved too much credit for omniscience. Most of the munitions used in any air war today are “dumb” bombs. The much feared “collateral damage” is a commonplace in urban warfare. What were the air units engaged aiming at in the first place? If the target was anywhere near the Cat Hotel, then ‘overages’ would be expected. Also, combatants look for any advantage they can find. Setting up shop next to an internationally known site in hopes of thus discouraging attack would be a rational course of action for the jihadis. Sadly, in urban warfare, one goes to attack the opposition where ever they may be located.
Roughly though, any descent into outright warfare is beyond depraved. It means that rational considerations have been rejected by one or both of the parties involved. Running a war may entail the use of reason. Choosing war does not.
Actually I was trying to point, indirectly, out that the cats will get more sympathy than children.
Sorry. My irony meter is acting up. And yes to your point. Lots of cute kitten videos out there, few cute human offspring videos.
There are most likely lots of US mercs included in the mix … to continue stirring up the hornet’s nest !
Another Obama ‘legacy’ !
Re: Microsoft degrading Explorer
Explorer doesn’t need active assistance from Microsoft for it to have crappy performance. It is perfectly capable of accomplishing that by itself.
When we got a new PC, it came with Windows 10 and Edge. Edge was useless as it seemed like nobody had developed websites to allow it to access them. Maybe it is better now, but Chrome worked fine then and seems to work fine now.
The organizations that my wife and I work at require Explorer for accessing the secure employee websites. Edge doesn’t work. Chrome doesn’t work. So, if Microsoft wants people to adopt Edge, they need to get corporate and public sector America to set up their internal websites using Edge. Right now, we use Explorer for accessing our employer websites and Chrome for accessing just about everything else, since Explorer sucks for commercial websites outside of our employers’ security bubbles. Chrome also allows for bookmarks to be ported over across multiple platforms, including iOS and Android onto phones and tablets.
Why should I need browser “X” to access and interface with the Internet? What happened to the old idea of wide and common access to information? Is that really so passe?
re: India Cash Train Wreck
This series is very interesting for a number of reasons. Thanks for posting these links.
I see Summers is still peddling the “$100 bills in the US are too large for daily use and can be discontinued.” Makes me wonder what world he lives in. Not my world. Maybe Mr. Summers and Mr. Rogoff always use credit cards for daily purchases and from their daily life make several unwarranted assumptions.
Also, US economists are still pushing for more inflation (of the small variety – 2% or so). On the one hand economists want to create inflation, on the other hand they want to remove from circulation the next highest commonly used $bill above the $20.
I wonder if esteemed economists ever venture into the real world or if they ever compare their ‘theory 1’ with ‘theory 2’.
Modi caused instant austerity, aka deflation, with his “demonetization”; nobody is acknowledging it. Does plastic avoid inflation? What is this fetish about the black market and big bills? It will just promote black markets and barter to mess with money like this. None of this makes an actual difference in the value of things except that it causes panic demand, aka inflation. Can we just all get real about money?
Today, a $100 US bill is not a large bill; not when it can cost between $60 – 80 dollars to refuel a large 4×4 vehicle (common around here); not when it costs over $100 for a week’s groceries for a family, etc.
Cash and inflation are unrelated except in use terms: The more things cost, the larger the $bills people use to pay for them. Imagine only being able to use $10 bills today, instead of $20 or $100 bills.
Summers sounds like he’s still pushing “cashless” by stealth – one $bill denomination at a time.
Modi’s move was billed as “populist” since it was intended to attack black market payments. If you want to hook up your telephone, get electricity, pay taxes, or do pretty much anything you must have cash ready in a brown paper bag in order to get to the head of the queue. You can probably account for that cash because you are a farmer or a small merchant or small manufacturer. The recipient, however, a civil servant of some kind, has no way to explain that money.
I don’t understand the link between the two. Does more cash/less electronic transactions –> inflation, and vice-versa?
I see a link between Mr. Summers and Mr. Rogoff ….
… it’s called a two-sided straight jacket ….
These guys, and their ilk are certifiable … big time !
On the note of gluttonous tech —
Howes: Willow Run could change how world moves again
Synder and all the Democrat sellouts of Michigan think Michigan will be a leader in driver-less cars…
Meanwhile in Flint…
Yeah, tell me about it. My alma mater, the University of Michigan, is going bonkers over driverless cars.
Uhhh, U-M, here’s a little hint: You know those university-owned and operated buses that travel to the various parts of campus? I’ve been on some that were so packed that I thought I would be crushed. Think you could put some of your R&D talent into fixing that problem?
The Defend Democracy article about Turkey directs to the Guardian story about Farage. I couldn’t find a good link to the Syraquistan story quickly. Sorry.
On the professor watchlist: it looks like they don’t have a very stable website. I tried to take a look at it this morning but got this error: “Error displaying the error page: Application Instantiation Error: Could not connect to MySQL.”. Evidently their DBMS server is down or there is a communication problem between tha server and the one used for http service. Or if both the http service and DBMS service are on the same machine, the app is buggy. In any case, it seems like it may not be a very professionally done site.
It’s a Joomla content management system installation, apparently half-configured. That, or some infosec profs decided to make a little mess for them.
I’m not sure why the Studebaker media piece qualified as a must read. I was so put off by the poor-helpless-victims-of-circumstances attitude I had trouble getting through it.
That’s an essential part of the argument I’m making, Katharine–we sometimes think the media has a lot of agency and we feel inclined to blame it for its failings, but it’s subject to structural imperatives just like everything else. Even if people in the media have the best of intentions (I’m not saying they do, but they could–we can’t know intent), this behavior is necessarily produced by the structure of capitalist incentives. So it makes little sense to hate the media. Instead we should be trying to identify and modify the systemic imperatives that make it into what it is.
I don’t agree. Particularly with the notions that more money equals less power, and that the “free market” forces the media into what it has become.
In the distant past, the media had power and money and what has changed is that credibility, the power to influence voters, has been squandered by the constant barrage of blood and bullshit.
Sensationalist stories about a tragic school bus accident being milked by national broadcasters over the last two days, the random police officer killings over the last weekend by deranged individuals now in it’s third day.
I get the impression the media hates it’s consumers of sewage, otherwise why would they put this stuff front and center every day? It induces mental illness in those watching, and the more that the media plays it up, the more acceptable it becomes for deranged individuals to act out their murderous fantasies. Who wants to be a police officer now?
Even more horrific was the “Saddam has weapons of mass destruction” lie, spoon fed to the world, while Hans Blix, the UN weapons inspector was showing us warehouses with old clunker machine tools that were so dusty and rusty the couldn’t be used to make anything that needed to be precise. A major war was started and continues to this day, conducted with total complicity and encouragement by the media, and you write it makes no sense to hate the media. How about disliking the individual reporters and editors that were thick in the middle of it, and at least firing them permanently for doing a crappy jawb? Anyhow, I digress.
As for the white working class voters that are made fun of and you think are owned by the democrats, they have been serially lied to by both democrats and republicans for the last couple of decades, and knew they were going to be thrown under the bus a nanosecond after their vote for Hillary. How did they know that? Look at what happened to Bernie.
President Trump. Rolls off the tongue quite nicely. Get used to it.
Why the Media Cannot Deal Effectively with Donald Trump – Benjamin Studebaker
Pretty astute observation. I guess I have to confess, I was rooting for Caesar in this election.
Conversely, I’m reminded of the line from a “Gang of Four” song, “a balance of power will ensure our safety”. But what if the “balance of powers” came upon a win/win/win solution where they benefit, and the common guy was screwed? Back to the article.
So it seems like we’re locked in an enemy of my enemy type of landscape. My current enemy is the media and the elites that they are presstitutes for. And at some point, Trump could/would wear out his welcome, at which point presumably the media will be re-embraced (if not rehabilitated).
I wouldn’t say we’re becoming like Rome (or Nazi Germany). If anything, we’re becoming like South America, where it’s a rough and tumble between institutions and charismatics.
Our American Augustus ??
Hardly astute observation. Narcissists don’t recognize each other for what they are.
What’s happened? To retain our eyeballs, the media has to begin producing sewage, and while we may be attracted to the sewage, on some level we all know it’s sewage. The internet has made this even more obvious–today you can read a blog post like this one reminding you that the content is sewage. So the media continues to generate profit, but its influence and power to shape the election is diminished. When you exchange trust for ad revenue, you gain money at the expense of power.
Instead of reporting the news, Benjamin wants the media to have power but is distraught at the trade, which is the first time ever that I have heard the claim that having more money equals less power.
Everybody knows the deal is rotten. The last paragraph is a doozie.
The moral of the story is that this goes much, much deeper than mere bad decisions by folks in the media this election cycle. We have an institutional confidence problem, and that is making our most charismatic political figures dangerously powerful, to the point where they are able to manipulate the media and use it as a tool. The media is meant to constrain politicians, not serve them. But the imperatives of the free market have forced our media to fundamentally compromise its ability to perform its basic role, and now Trump can shunt the press about without paying any meaningful price for doing so. The press has no recourse. It is weak, he is strong.
A forced free market, is a contradiction and the press has all the recourse it needs. To get rid of a narcissist, ignore him. He wrote that in May, which is long ago in political time, and no doubt believed Hillary would be elected handily.
Here was his post the day after the election https://benjaminstudebaker.com/2016/11/09/how-we-let-the-orange-monster-win/#more-2986
Somehow Donald Trump is going to be President. Trump campaigned tremendously poorly, feeding us a steady stream of horrific gaffes, flip-flopping on policy, and taking political positions that sounded crypto-fascist. We managed to lose anyway. This is an existential moment for all opponents of Trump, whether you count yourself on the left or in the center. We need to have an honest conversation about what we did wrong so that we can make sure nothing like this ever happens again.
————————-
The critical change this year is that Clinton couldn’t hang on to the rust belt–the only rust belt state she won was Illinois, where the exceptionally large size of Chicago dictates the outcome. These heavily unionized states are meant to be part of the Democrats’ heartland, and we need them. We don’t have enough electoral votes on the two coasts, and there aren’t enough cities, college-educated people, African-Americans, or Hispanics in the south or west to make us competitive in those regions.
————————–
Every time we don’t win, it’s because we fail part of our coalition. When we’re in office or on the campaign trail we forget about one of our oppressed groups. Maybe we start to take them for granted or maybe we start to think we don’t need them anymore. Who lives in the rust belt that we forgot about?
Working class whites.
—————————-
Inflation-adjusted median household income in all of these states is little improved since the late 90s:
In Iowa, the top saw a gain of 12.8% while the rest only gained 4.8%.
In Wisconsin, the top gained 12% while the rest only gained 4.7%.
In Ohio, the top gained 17.3% while the rest only gained 3.9%.
In Pennsylvania, the top gained 8% while the rest only gained 0.2%.
In Michigan, the top gained 26.3% while the rest only gained 0.3%.
This happened while Barack Obama was president. It’s not all his fault–Republicans in congress frequently obstructed him. But when we’re not able to deliver the goods for important parts of our coalition, we need to explain why we’re not delivering and what they can do to help us do to break through for them. We needed a Democratic campaign that put these people front and center. We needed someone who would passionately explain to them precisely what the impediments in our system are to their prosperity and how we’re going to remove those impediments.
—————————–
A lot of people today are mad at the white working class. They’ll point out that Trump’s policies are never going to help them, and that the working class is stupid and ignorant to support him. And there’s truth to that–if the workers truly understood what the real consequences of Trump’s policies would be, they wouldn’t have supported him. Indeed, some of the economic misery in these states is due to the policies of the Republican governors many of these same people voted for. But it’s not enough to tell people why they can’t support your opponent, and calling them stupid or racist isn’t going to win them over. We have to make them feel valued and show them that we care, that we have a plan to help.
—————————–
Over the last few years we’ve placed a lot of emphasis on the other parts of our coalition. We have stuck up for our voters of color, for our female voters, for our LGBT voters. But we’ve made whiteness a punchline. We make fun of these people for being uneducated, for being white trash, for being rednecks, for being religious, for owning guns, for living in trailer parks, for being addicted to meth. We’ve become casual about dismissing the concerns of working class whites. They’re the one group we still stereotype with impunity. We have to stop doing it. We have to show these people we care, that we believe poor and disadvantaged lives matter even when they’re white. We need candidates who will push for meaningful changes loudly and proudly that serve the interests of all our disadvantaged people, so our coalition is never split asunder in this way again.
—————————
Not actually care, it’s only for show.
The democratic party couldn’t give two shits about any voters of any gender, color or sexual preference, if this person’s writing is what’s inside. It’s about political power, and voters are a means to get it. Sewage indeed.
On the contrary, I was never confident that Clinton would win. I took my signals from 538 and believed Trump had somewhere between a one quarter and one third chance of winning.
If you’ve read my work, I have frequently expressed a genuine concern for working people. It is also a fact that left wing movements cannot win without them, and it should be pointed out that we have both intrinsic and instrumental reasons to care about them. I do think that they often vote against their class interests (notably in the primary, when many of them voted for Clinton even though she was not prepared to do much of anything for them), but that doesn’t mean I don’t care about them and don’t want to help them. I don’t speak for the Democratic Party and have no association–I’m a PhD student working on inequality and democracy.
As far as the media goes, it is a fact that when you report the news you have power, because you determine what is reported and what isn’t. This is true even if you eschew interpretation and just report facts. The media has more power when the public is confident that it chooses to report on the right things and that the reporting it does is accurate. In this case to make more money in the short-term the media damaged the public’s confidence in it, and in that sense the media traded money for power. They make more money, but they have less political influence. I don’t see how that can be denied.
{In this case to make more money in the short-term the media damaged the public’s confidence in it, and in that sense the media traded money for power}
Yes, the media squandered their “neutral” branding. But why did they do that? Simply to make money in the short term? I would assert that money had nothing to do with it. Rather, defeating Trump had everything to do with it. It was a high stakes gamble; they went all in. In effect, they became part of the Clinton campaign.
And the reason was because not only was Trump an existential threat to Clinton. He was an existential threat to the dominant conduits of power (in our particular case, call it the neo-liberal/neo-con/wallstreet/corporate/silicon valley nexus). The media could have extracted themselves from this mess, if they kept themselves more at arms length. But they can’t help themselves; they’re a channel-to-market, between the conduits of power and the people that those conduits of power are trying to get their message to. More critically, the conduits of power need help; they’re not the most charismatic. They’re not like Trump who can get his message out in spite of the media. In contrast, the conduits of power need help selling their message – and who better to sell it than the media.
Look at businessinsider.com (BI). That’s all they do; sell the messaging. They’re very good at it. They work on behalf of particular clients (hedgefunders, silicon valley, wallstreet, jeff bezos). My sense is that after enough messaging by their clients that BI was “trained” so that the messaging by BI became self-perpetuating. It’s amazing the amount of message they can churn out. Probably with little need for their clients to weigh in as much as the early days. Now all the clients need to do is provide the paid advertising. Also perpetuating is the number of eye balls of consumers that want to drink their koolaid. It’s not hard to attract those eye balls; all it requires is consumers that want to “win” like the current power structure is “winning”. There was a number of us that were antagonistic to their messaging, but we’re under control now – BI turned off their comments section.
BI is an apparatus of its clients. So when Trump came along, BI saw the existential threat to its clients (and therefore to itself) for what it was. So did the other media, to a T. Previous to now, there hasn’t been as existential a threat to the status quo, which is why the media hasn’t had to squander their “neutral” branding until now.
Now that the apparatus has been exposed for what it is, it will have to re-invent itself. Media will lick its wounds and rebuild its “neutral” branding, to your point. But once it establishes its branding again, it knows what to do with it – alloy it to power. Do you expect something better than that? Do you hope for something better than that?
[In the above, I’m using the term media to represent main stream media for short.]
Des anyone know if this is legitimate:? It’s an email from Pension Rights Center/PRC News – something I guess I signed up for sometime in the distant past.
Dear Kim ,
Write and call your members of Congress now to urge them to stop a draft proposal that would send shockwaves through the nation’s multiemployer pension system. Powerful members of Congress are trying to attach this dangerous proposal, called the “composite bill,” to must-pass year-end legislation, in this year’s lame-duck session of Congress, just as they did with the Multiemployer Pension Reform Act (MPRA) two years ago.
Like MPRA, this draft legislation was developed by Representative John Kline (R-MN), the retiring chair of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce. Where MPRA gave license to trustees to slash the benefits of retirees, this ill-conceived proposal would allow the trustees of healthy multiemployer pension plans to switch to new inferior plans that don’t provide guaranteed benefits to workers or retirees. Even worse, the bill would allow plan trustees to divert money from the old plans to the new plans – increasing the chances that well-funded plans could fall into underfunded status, threatening the promised benefits of both workers and retirees.
Don’t let Congress “pull another MPRA” by sneaking another piece of legislation into a must-pass omnibus spending or other bill! Urge your members of Congress to stop efforts to attach the Kline composite bill to any end-year legislation.
Stand with workers and retirees by telling your members of Congress to oppose the Kline composite proposal, which could undermine the retirement security of millions of workers and retirees who count on their pensions.
Around this time two years ago, Congress attached the Multiemployer Pension Reform Act to must-pass omnibus legislation – without congressional hearings or input from the workers and retirees who would be affected by the law. MPRA allowed certain severely underfunded pension plans to cut – in some cases by as much as 70 percent – earned pensions for workers and retirees, placing their retirement security in jeopardy.
We can’t let this happen again. Tell your members of Congress to protect workers and retirees by rejecting any proposal that would further undermine the nation’s multiemployer pension system.
Thank you,
Karen Friedman
Executive Vice President and Policy Director, Pension Rights Center
Some multi-employer pension funds are in deep doo-doo, especially some Teamsters funds. Poor long-term funding and portfolio management have been primary cause. Some of these funds are at the 50% funding level. Much gnashing of teeth going on from all sides. I have watched this from a distance because it impacts some construction union workers I have worked with over the past few years. Kenneth Feinberg is everywhere – he is in the middle of this one too. http://www.pionline.com/article/20160516/PRINT/305169978/its-back-to-the-drawing-board-for-multiemployer-pension-reform
can’t find much, but what I can find doesn’t sound good. (e.g. here -> http://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=1e8a3fed-a7ce-42e8-9e2e-455d20b1e97d , from nov 10)
Re: White Nationalists Salute the President-Elect: “Hail Trump!”
Perhaps an earlier comment did not make the point properly or just got lost… but isn’t it beneath The Atlantic to dignify 200 jackasses (who can legally engage in all the protected speech they want, by the way) in DC with comment? (Nothing is beneath NPR anymore.) Will ‘Hail to the Chief’ trigger people now? But seriously, JSM could post an ad on Craigslist out here and host a bigger UFO meetup tomorrow night… After all, that topic supports a real national lecture circuit. There’re actually scary proposals coming down the pike like a national registry for people of a particular religion, and these idiots are what’s worrying liberals these days?
In truth though Chris Hedges makes the most relevant point: ‘demolishing the cruelty of the corporate state will do more to curb the racism of the white underclass than lessons by liberals in moral purity.’
But no one wants to report on that.
Maybe if we came up with a groovy salute….
I have just the finger!
The cruelty of the corporate state and the cruelty of the white underclass come from their shared values. We will have to do the hard work of peeling one from the other, not just shuffling money.
Remember the conversations about the blood-swapping? This just came up on my news feed. Enjoy!
“Here we show that heterochronic blood exchange between young and old mice without sharing other organs, affects tissues within a few days, and leads to different outcomes than heterochronic parabiosis.”
Glenn Greenwald totally nails it on the Trump meeting with the media:
Media Stars Agree to Off-the-Record Meeting With Trump, Break Agreement, Whine About Mistreatment
https://theintercept.com/2016/11/22/media-stars-agree-to-off-the-record-meeting-with-trump-break-agreement-whine-about-mistreatment/
The push to end net neutrality means ISP’s can alter traffic on the internet to favor their own products or advertisers. You know, like cable TV. This claim rests on the ISP’s “owning” the last bit of wire that connects your home or office to the real internet, which is the system of global trunk lines everybody uses, and over which no one gets the right to alter traffic.
However; if the lobbyists for the ISP’s do get net neutrality overturned here in America, it will be a Pyrrhic victory. They will be signing their own death warrants as functioning businesses. There are four reasons:
1) The American public does not like the web being divvied up into fiefdoms like Compuserve, Prodigy, Yahoo, GeoCities, etc. We’ve been there, and we’ve done that. Never again.
2) Within a decade, internet access worldwide will be wireless, via satellites or high-flying planes or balloons. It won’t reach your door through cables buried underground. The “last mile” will no longer exist, and if any of it does, it had better deliver the same unfiltered and unfettered access the satellites deliver, or it will soon be out of business. Alternatively, the web ten years from now will be optical fiber straight into every room of every building, like they do already in South Korea.
3) Local cities and towns and states will see the stifling of local business and loss of taxes that web filtering causes, openly defy the FCC, and build their own ISP’s. To hell with your regulations.
4) The rest of the world is so vehemently against filtering web results that if net neutrality falls in America, most sapient humans of the American variety will simply sign up to an overseas ISP, and get their internet in neutral format.
For that matter, parking aging freighters or oil tankers precisely 12.5 miles off the American coast and building an ISP on them is another form of ‘satellite’ takeover of the new, filtered internet.
Net neutrality is a dead end, and the companies pushing it are Luddites. No enduser in the world wants their web filtered, any more than they want to eat scraps off of someone else’s plate three times a day.
May I suggest that critics of this new plan to turn the American internet into cable TV refer to it henceforth as “the neutered web.” Much better framing than the euphemism “net neutrality,” which means the opposite of what it says. Critics of web filtering are also encouraged to point out endlessly that the web is a global utility, and that no other nation besides North Korea, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia are interested in filtering the web. And they do not succeed at it.
Neither will America.
Sure, there are different ISPs that control last mile access, but who owns all the fiber that goes between? If I recall, AT&T still has quite a bit of that cable, and they’re the ones that are pushing back against net neutrality. Even with the push for more wireless access, that fiber will still be there, and that’s where they’ll want to implement metering.
I think the last mile is where the bulk of the bottleneck is.
The dot com bubble was also a telecom bubble, not necessarily for the last mile, but definitely for the metro rings and fiber interconnects between rings. Don’t believe we’ve exhausted that glut yet.
By the way, we talk about rent-seeking and toll-based economy from PPPs a lot on this site. Last mile is all about rent seeking. The more it’s a bottleneck, the more rent that can be sought. US should nationalize the last mile and get those trolls out of the way.
If you want a REAL open internet, you have to use a mesh network as the physical infrastructure…
https://www.wired.com/2014/01/its-time-to-take-mesh-networks-seriously-and-not-just-for-the-reasons-you-think/
http://www.servalproject.org
Our “last mile” – really more like 10 – is already wireless. Our other choice was either the cable company or phone line DSL, which was a pain in the neck. One bonus: advertisers think we’re in the adjoining town where the ISP is located. Further bonus: it’s a local company, hasn’t sold out yet.
And thinking of Plantidotes: maybe I should get a picture of the large (misplaced) fir that serves as our antenna mast. Very handy. Not convinced the dish would show in any picture I could take, though. I finally stopped wishing I’d cut the tree down when it was small and easy. Douglas firs get very big very fast, the reason the lumber companies love them. Don’t belong near houses, but people around here still try it.
If the mainstream media collapses, good riddance IMO.
It’s become less an objective media and more of an American Pravda machine, designed to keep people in line of authority like sheep. Baa. Baa.
Look at how they covered the Sanders primary for example. It was a deliberate attempt to undermine his campaign, as Thomas Frank detailed in an article on Harper’s.
http://harpers.org/archive/2016/11/swat-team-2/?single=1
The NYT or Washington Times? Newspaper of record? More like a plutocrat wing propaganda piece.
Most people in my immediate circle regret that Clinton lost. My thoughts are that if she had won, she would stuff her cabinet with her sycophants, Goldman Sachs people, and neoconservatives. In other words, not any better than Trump, and perhaps a lot worse because she seems to relish war with Russia. To be sure, I think Trump will be a disaster, but he may very well be the lesser evil.
Perhaps the biggest thing the American people have rejected is the mainstream media. That’s great news and great progress!
Another Clinton legacy besides, welfare reform, banking deregulation etc.Bill Clinton ushered in media consolidation;
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/34789-democracy-in-peril-twenty-years-of-media-consolidation-under-the-telecommunications-act
Now we need to demand that Trump and his Congress open up the air waves to more competition.
From Democracy Now headlines this morning:
Washington Post: Trump Policies Will Hurt Federal Workers
HeadlinesNov 22, 2016
Despite Trump’s focus on creating more jobs in the United States, an investigation by The Washington Post reveals how Trump and the Republican-controlled Congress are, in fact, drafting up plans to eliminate government jobs and erode worker protections for federal workers. Among a few of the proposed changes that could affect federal workers are hiring freezes, cutting worker benefits and pensions, and eliminating automatic raises to keep pace with inflation.
Keith Ellison – hidden agenda for Neo-liberalism
Explain to me the “let’s get Hillary syndrome”, she’s a politician. The right-wing cottage industry Wurlitzer owes it’s existence to her. Ailes, Rove, most am radio hate mongers would be little known without her. If she could have been charged with something in the last 30 years why wasn’t she? Who will you blame for the ill’s of merica now that Hillary is gone.
Breitbart is in total meltdown. It’s hilarious to me.
Liberalism itself. And, frankly, there’s a very good case to be made that American liberalism, informed by respectable Northern values and a firm belief in submission to authority, is indeed the cause of many of the USA’s (and America’s) ills.
Looks like I’m going to have to “self-deport” with my options for remaining documented in the US looking to become non-existent.
H1-Bs remain the only way to “legally” immigrate to the US (unless its family reunification/asylum).
” Theresa May must be losing her mind. ”
Probably. But isn’t the US where Farage would do the least harm? No one will pay any attention to him here, and he’d be a long way from Europe.
“Domestic abuse and sexual assault destroy families.”
“The last thing they need, or deserve, is politically correct thought police”
Speaking as a victim of the above who fled Flyover . . . nope. If you want me to send yet more resources, you gotta root out the brutality and provide the economy, both.
“Among other things, I hear this as going after H1-B visas. Driving a wedge in Silicon Valley!”
Had noted this some days ago. (I live in SFBA). Stick that in the craw of the Trump-loving Hindu fundies.
For the Trumpists this should be a cost-free no-brainer. SV, like Hollywood, hated Trump. If they actually do something I predict it will be immensely popular. Governed under act of congress to they’d have to get something by Ayn Ryan. Are H1-B’s executive-orderable?
>McCarthyism today: The Professor Watchlist
Ahahahahaha, oh man.
I for one wish our universities were awash in real radical leftists. Hell, we could use some at the high school level as well.
>Zionists’ weapon of mass destruction against UK’s left Electronic Intifada
So their ‘secret weapon’ is the same one they’ve been openly using for decades. It may once have been a sharp blade, but by now it’s become extremely dull.
@ 32 nechaev,
That article on Algeria’s “Great South” makes me feel as wretched as I have about the Syria business (I’ve visited both countries).
25 years ago, as the strange result of a series of botched travel plans, I somehow ended up hitch-hiking by myself across the Sahara Desert, in July.
My memories of Algeria and Algerians were almost all happy ones, even though at the time the country had just come under martial law.
I was particularly impressed by the hospitality of people in oasis towns such as Ghardaïa and Ain Salah.
The people I met in 1991 in the M’Zab were extremely pious Muslims. They were the real deal. They actually behaved as if God were a constant and immediate presence. They didn’t even tell fibs. If I had not encountered this sort of society at first-hand, I would never have believed such a thing to exist or ever possibly to have existed. The encounter didn’t change who I am, but it did temper somewhat my own Occidental conceit.
I also remember the FIS enthusiast I met on a bus from Ghardaïa to Tamanghasset. Before I had come to Algeria, I had always been slightly afraid of encountering “Islamic fundamentalists.” But the man I met on the bus wanted to work on water conservation and oasis reclamation. He felt the long-incumbent FLN had become unresponsive to the needs of the region and its people. Hopefully he didn’t get arrested or killed during the civil war in the 1990’s.
One time I overnighted with some people in Ain Salah (on that trip, it seemed that I couldn’t set foot in a Saharan oasis without receiving multiple offers of a place to stay). In the household there were both FLN and FIS members. That night we all watched the small B&W TV in the one room that was air conditioned. I didn’t know any Arabic, but nevertheless I was fascinated by the vociferous discussion during the news broadcast! Hopefully, too, all those guys made it through the civil war OK.
In the last number of years, I had allowed myself to think that, even if there wasn’t any democracy in Algeria, at least the war was over.
Then today I saw nechaev’s link.
So I guess we’ll soon be reading about all sorts of NGO people offering specious advice while Africom flies in some drones to be even more helpful. That’s the way things tend to go, when you find a place mentioned in a Crisis Group article.
Much more of this, and I’ll regret ever having travelled anywhere. Did I need to go abroad, to learn the truth of the saying, “the worst things happen to the best people” ?l
“Donald Trump’s Popularity Surges”
True enough, I suppose. It always does when a new person wins election.
But-the “surge” only brings him to net 0 at 46/46, and its the smallest “winner” effect since they started tracking this stuff.