Four ways that falling back from Daylight Saving Time can kill you TreeHugger
‘Amused us for years’: Rob the unappealing albatross finally finds a mate Guardian (MG)
Boulder weighing 1-ton mysteriously reappears in Arizona forest Fox
Violent and drunk monkeys attack tourists in paradise beach in Thailand Daily Star
Modern Cities Breed Alienation. Insurgent Urbanists Are Pushing Back. TruthOut
Urban Planners Herald End of Cars in Cities Der Spiegel
Now Comes the Naked Truth NYT. MoDo.
What Are Pickle Fork Cracks And Should You Worry About Them? Simple Flying
BREAKING BREAD Cabinet
Sports Desk
Springboks’ victory driven by a strain of desire few others can comprehend
GuardianThe Disastrous Arrival of Video Replay in English Soccer New Yorker
2019 General Election
Like Northern Ireland, Great Britain is reaching for nationalism over economic sense Independent . Patrick Cockburn
The Incredible Disappearing Farage, and Other Electoral Oddities Craig Murray
Tories act to prevent NHS crisis hitting election hopes Guardian
Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage will not run in UK election Reuters
Hillary Clinton: Mark Zuckerberg ‘Should Pay a Price’ for Facebook Political Ads IndieWire
1. Twitter and FB stopping political ads are fundamentally different. Facebook is a tollbooth, Twitter is a megaphone. On FB you pay to get to your audience, on Twitter you get to your audience for free and pay to amplify. No ads on FB means no political speech on FB. https://t.co/VINfFConYJ
— Matt Stoller (@matthewstoller) 2 November 2019
Our Famously Free Press
CNN public editor: The network still doesn’t know how to cover ‘the squad’ Columbia Journalism Review
California Burning
Firefighters finally getting a handle on wildfires burning across California LA Times
California wildfires: Climate change driving ‘horror and the terror’ of devastating blazes, say scientists Independent
Malaysia rejects 1MDB offer from Goldman Sachs of ‘less than $2bn’ FT
Class Warfare
A Bipartisan Attack on the Homeless in Texas Jacobin
Even Louisiana’s Wealthier Neighborhoods Can’t Escape Toxic Air in “Cancer Alley” ProPublica
New cocoa deals help peasant farmers, but not enough Agence France-Presse
How mega infrastructure projects in Africa, Asia and Latin America are reshaping development The Conversation
Syraqistan
The new revolutions of the Middle East are not the same, but they all share this one fatal flaw Independent Robert Fisk
US Needs To Occupy Syria Because Of Kurds Or Iran Or Chemical Weapons Or Oil Or Whatever Caitlin Johnstone
Rebuilding Syria – without Syria’s oil Asia Times. Pepe Escobar
Over a dozen killed in car bomb attack near Turkey-Syria border Al Jazeera
Embassy seizure four decades ago leaves a legacy of bitterness between Iran and the United States WaPo
The genie is out of the bottle Qantara
Saudi Aramco Launches Long-Awaited IPO WSJ
India
#BeyondTheHeadlines | 1984 Massacres: Injustice Haunts India 35 Years Later The Wire
In charts: Eggs could help reduce India’s chronic child malnutrition, a new survey shows Scroll
Chelsea, Lately The former First Daughter is, at 39, trying to figure out what her own life looks like. New York magazine
2020
2020: The Democrats on criminal justice Marshall Project
Why Beto O’Rourke’s Campaign Failed FiveThiryEght
In Iowa, Biden confronts a growing threat: Pete Buttigieg Politico
China?
L’Affaire Epstein
Dershowitz Wanted To Get Boies Disqualified… So Now He Has To Deal With Another Famous SCOTUS Litigator Above the Law
Julian Assange
Julian Assange’s Life Is at Risk, Says United Nations Expert, Condemning Detention After Exposing War Crimes Common Dreams
Trump Transition
The Defeat of General Mattis NYRB
As Trump pushes to halt ‘endless wars’, the War on Terror continues unabated LSE US Centre
Antidote du jour (OL,via):
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
221 comments
Comments are closed.
Unless I am mistaken, isn’t today the day where it is exactly one year until the 2020 Presidential elections?
Yes, November 3, 2020 will be Election Day.
Nice stilts that Yellow Bittern has made for itself.
Looks like it’s eaten one flower and now ready to tackle the second.
Before I checked the link, I thought it was a Least Bittern. But my first guess was a cross between a frog and a praying mantis.
It kinda looks like a Shadok to me…
Visualizing a velvet picture of drunken card-playing birds: “Gin with Bitterns.” Hold the Hogarth.
Best anti-dote!
(Is that what is meant by ‘pulling yourself by your own bootstraps’? – even if borrowed?’)
It’s a new gymnastics move on the parallel bars that you can see in the next olympics.
First thought on seeing the picture: “Flying Wallenda kingfisher.”
Elizabeth Warren Town Hall Cold Open – SNL
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPDr9wGNEfg&list=PLS_gQd8UB-hJ3F5xYtj2Gxfg_b3qB-t9w
I saw that last night. The lady playing Warren could hardly hold back her laugh — But was she funny? I couldn’t tell.
I couldn’t tell either. And I am old enough to remember when SNL was funny.
Me too. Someone yesterday mentioned how you had to have a skit memorized when they got back to H.S. On Monday mornings. But I remember when parties in my college town came to a complete halt when the show came on while everyone watched (at least the first half hour :) )
Monday morning was “what did Will Ferrell do on Saturday?” day when I was in high school
Really? I remember I tuned in to it once in 1976. That was why I stopped watching American TV. So perhaps it was funny some time (long?) before that.
The likes of Belushi. Ackroyd and Chase will never be seen again on a SNL type show. Their collaboration is what made it all great. Today’s woke culture is why we will never laugh as hard again. Unfortunate.
Full agreement here. The first several seasons of SNL were surprising, and thus doubly funny. I cannot see the present SNL writers floating a running gag about a dead dictator, ‘General Franco is rumoured to be watching a lot of underground movies now,’ or real literary parodies, ‘Miles Cowperthwaite,’ or funny gay comedy,’ I’m the manliest man on this ship! [Ye Raging Queene],’ and on and on.
I have also noticed that some of the ‘edgier’ humour from back then has been shoved “down the memory hole,” and doesn’t show up on YouTube or the “official” DVD releases.
Woke=Lame
> Today’s woke culture is why we will never laugh as hard again.
I can’t stop laughing, although most of the things I find amusing are, I think, intended to be taken Very Seriously.
Tina Fey as Sarah Palin for the win.
She was funny. A big positive for Warren–it could have gone the other way. Last lines were the best:
“What about Pete Buttigieg?”
“Oh, go to Hell.”
May not have been n particularly funny but I thought there was some brilliance (read: foreshadowing) to the line about taxes being seen as an annual subscription fee. Sad but relatable in this wonderful Libertarian world where we find ourselves having to justify taxes for anything more than military spending — also covered in the skit.
> annual subscription fee
GAAS — Government As A Service.
I probably shouldn’t give anybody ideas.
Airbnb scams
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/43k7z3/nationwide-fake-host-scam-on-airbnb?utm_source=pocket-newtab
When I stayed at an AirBnb in Philly, in a nice area, a different people emailed me instructions than the person that seemed to own the account. It certainly seemed bizarre.
Just like Amazon, AirBnb has no incentive to enforce their terms of service on hosts. They get paid whether you’re scammed or not. Just like buying fake merchandise or expired food on Amazon.
Being a platform means being able to say: “Watch your back, sir… No one else will!” – The Edge of Tomorrow
Important point: platforms need to be clear about who is their customer.
The customer of AirBnB is the homeowner, not you
Thanks for posting this. I enjoy staying in AirBNBs but have been lucky so far, I think, in that all the places I’ve rented were actually owned/managed by the owner and not “professional landlords.” I’m looking for a place again for the middle of the month and am noticing a lot of reviews where the names mentioned in reviews do *not* match the people listed as owner/contact person.
This plague of fake things requires intervention from the FTC or some gov’t agency, but as they are completely toothless and captured, it seems that we as consumers have to make sure…that we’re actually buying the thing we’re buying.
For the Hill article:
So how did the author reckon they performed well if there was no audience to provide that important metric?
More astro-turfing on NPR this morning, as the MSM goes full pivot from Biden to Buttigieg. In the meantime, for those of us who are long-time Sanders supporters, the Warren campaign is actually helping as it appears to be the primary target of the centrists.
“performed well”
For the decadent elite, it’s about the show. Sanders unusual appearance aside demands critical thinking and action from the audience, the exact opposite of decadence.
Even Nate’s article about why Beto failed misses the point, the audience for banal personalities offering nothing and not much more simply doesn’t exist. Obama at least nominally opposed the Iraq War. All of these would be Obamas don’t have that to peddle.
> Even Nate’s article about why Beto failed misses the point
“Even”?
Look for a huge media boost for Buttigeg. I expect ther DNC strategy is to get him up to 15% so that he gets delegates, while encouraging most other moderate candidates to drop out. That way Biden + Buttigeg + Superdelegates can together break the 50% mark at the DNC.
If the race is a 3-way with just Warren, Biden, and Sanders clearing the 15% threshold, it is actually great news, as Warren+Sanders delegates would be enough to beat Biden in the first round.
Thus DNC will need another besides Biden to get delegates. The danger for DNC is that they overshoot and Mayor Pete takes knocks Biden’s numbers down too far. (Biden was alarmingly below the 15% threshold in one recent Iowa poll, albeit with many undecided’s).
It is shaping up to be an interesting race.
I pretty much feel the fix is in with the DNC now pulling strings to create the “Buttigieg Boom”. I have never met anyone who supports Mayor Pete. If he becomes the nominee I expect there will be a strong progressive third party candidate. From what I can tell he is essentially a Republican.
Mayor Pete won’t be the nominee. they need him just to try to save Biden.
ps… the 3 polls released today [link, Axios] have Bernie + Warren combined beating Biden by enough delegates w/ the 15% rule that even superdelegates would not save Biden if Bernie endorsed Warren or vice versa. As of today’s national polls, Biden absolutely needs a fourth person making 15% to be nominated.
Great news if you ask me.
You don’t save somebody by taking their votes. Buttigieg boomlet is only bc they’re giving up on biden… their metric is always pleasing donors enough to bring in the big bucks, and he’s failed.
Who gets Biden votes? Buttigieg gets some until he stumbles, then what? (Really can’t see him lasting.) If they wanted a woman before dying they’d have already gone to warren. But conservative oldsters not logically sanders supporters… not that that group is so logical… seems odd that quite a few pick sanders as second choice. Great if true.
Beyond that… would warren ever endorse sanders? And if so, would sanders get most of those votes? Her demo more like Biden’s.
Sanders winning depends on the young turning out as if his election is of critical importance to them.
> Sanders winning depends on the young turning out as if his election is of critical importance to them.
Sanders winning depends on the
young working class turning out as if his election is of critical importance to them.Fixed it for ya. True in the primary, true also in the general, as he can flip back those who voted for Obama, and then Trump.
I betcha he’ll be Biden’s VP – combining old and new (as in young) shining object, to appeal to all age groups. (Remember quail – worked wonders for papa B.)
If it’s a male at the top of the ticket it absolutely 100% will be a female in the Veep spot. With Dem Govs in WI, MI and NV my money would be on a senator from one of those states getting the nod.
Not that I support her in any way, but you forgot the Dem governor of Minnesota and third tier presidential candidate Senator Amy from Minnesota. Perfect fit for Biden.
I didn’t forget and they’ll be in the running, but I’d put my chips on one of Tammy Baldwin, Debbie Stabenow (both from states the dems won from 1992-2012 but lost in ’16), or Catherine Cortez-Masto ( she’s a Latina and the dems may wanna try to shore up 2 bases with one candidate). I should probably add Tammy Duckworth to the mix she’s in a dem safe state but she’s a quadruple threat female, asian, vet and disabled.
Stabenow? She hasn’t done us in Michigan any favors. But she plays the identity politics game quite nicely while governing for corporations. She certainly hasn’t met a tax break for the wealthy that she doesn’t fail to oppose.
I ain’t defending her just pointing out the she is a female senator from a State that was won by Bill Clinton (twice), Gore, Kerry and Obama (twice) and lost by HRC that the Dem nominee likely needs to win to have any shot at the White House. Making her a strong contender for the VP slot if a man is at the top of the ticket.
I could vote for Stabenow (in fact I do — she’s my Senator), but not as Biden’s VP.
Amy Klobuchar for Vice President….because we heard you when you said Tim Kaine was too exciting.
> Amy Klobuchar
Suitably directed, Klobuchar’s viciousness can be an asset. She could be Sanders’ Rahm Emmanuel. Wouldn’t you like her to throw a binder at Joe Manchin?
(Kidding mostly, but not entirely. Part of me responds to Klobuchar because she’s genuinely Midwestern, unlike Warren, who keeps trying to shove her Methodist Church supper-type Lime Jello Salad with Marshmallows in my face, even though I’m sure she didn’t make it.)
Gee! Only two months to the first actual voting unless Iowa has moved itself to stay first in line on the campaign cash gravy train. I long for the days when it was New Hampshire first. It is a three way race. Mayor Pete (Is he referred to as Mayor Pete because no one can spell his last name without looking it up?) may be the darling of the DNC, but he is utterly unqualified for the office of president. Go home. Get elected. Get some seasoning. Come back in 12 years.
Compare Teddy Roosevelt’s various iterations to that of John Kennedy or Barack Obama or Mayor Pete. In each case it is a man of many and varied experiences to earnest young men with narrow experience and much intellectual arrogance. How many books did TR write? Kennedy had a pretty good ghost written one and Obama published two. Sanders has been around the track more than once. He appears more vigorous than Biden. I happen to prefer his ideas. Pair him with a young vice president and give it a shot.
Sanders-Gabbard
The fact that a short, gay mayor of a two-bit town, with an unpronounceable last name that sounds like a slur, a questionable track record, and who espouses mainstream Republican policies, is being foisted on us by Our Betters as a Serious Democratic Contender tells you everything you need to know.
(No, I’m not antigay whatsoever. In the privacy of the voting booth across the length and breadth of this great land however ask yourself what percentage of people will hesitate to pull the lever for precisely that reason).
They. Don’t. Want. To. Win.
Yelling from the sidelines is nirvana for them, they get the money and the prestige and an impenetrable Cloak of Moral Outrage That Justifies Everything. Trump is The Permanent Monstrous Other to fund raise and virtue signal against: “See? I’m not him. Now back to the salt mines, you plebes, and don’t forget to keep woke’íng as you circle the drain.”
To be fair, people said something very similar about Obama in 2008, that voters in the general election are too bigoted to elect him etc, so I don’t buy that. Buttigieg is a solid speaker, give him credit there, I just think he used his time on stage to pander to so-called moderates, and he is plain wrong on issues relating to inequality.
Also as a side note, he was in the running for DNC chair in 2017, so he had the connections lined up all along. [For example see the nice set-up for him here: link].
Pete’s job in 2019 was to show that he was corruptible (and how much it was going to cost to buy him). Mission accomplished. The Dems know they won’t beat Trump. They are getting ready for 2024.
Hillary 2024.
Warren 1/1024.
Democrats do not know anything of the sort.
I think the Democrats are going to have a choice of winning with Sanders or get another 4 years of Trump. Sanders can easily take Trump on Trump’s own talking points, because he knows history a lot better. Trump was busy making money while everyone else was making history.
It’s official, the establishment has had enough of Hillary by a measure that I have watched for decades.
They did it to Nixon, they did it to LBJ and now they are doing it to Hillary.
The choice of photographs that are disseminated is really important and is used as a tool to communicate things to the masses.
i.e.
Only adulatory pictures of Kamala are used; the perfect makeup, toothy smile, yet the serious look, the strength of character.
The deep in thought, Roman Emperor jaw muscles flexed shots of Gavin Newsom.
Only shots of Bernie showing him to be a rumpled hair, hand behind the ear straining to hear, old man are used.
it’s all in the pictures they choose to use.
Here’s the image of Hillary that now being put forth: Holy Shyit, it doesn’t get worse than this:
https://s.hdnux.com/photos/01/06/61/03/18551011/7/920×920.jpg
> Here’s the image of Hillary that now being put forth: Holy Shyit, it doesn’t get worse than this:
What’s the venue?
https://www.sfgate.com/cnet/article/Hillary-Clinton-Zuckerberg-should-pay-a-price-14805012.php
This idea that Trump is unbeatable by someone like Biden or Buttgieg is kinda absurd. Trump is imminently beatable. Now I think with a moderate Dem it’s another close race that could go either way and Dems are unlikely to take back the senate, but that’s assuming there is no economic downturn or some other crises whose fault the public lays on Trump (whether deserved or not), if there is Trump is toast. Trump may popular with his fan club but outside of it he is very much not.
In 2016, Trump had the benefit of being an unknown political quantity and could get away with populist lies about standing up for Middle Americans who’ve been screwed over by the elites, draining the swamp, and bringing employment back to job starved industrial areas of the country. Well, he gave massive amounts of “welfare” to the elites and the MIC, he’s filled the swamp even more with corrupt cronies of his own, and the rust belt areas of the country have not benefited significantly in job growth. He can keep dyed in the wool republicans, but how can he keep people who voted for him who are not hard core goopers and now see him for flim flam man that he is? Trump benefited from a depressed vote helped by an unpopular, outside of beltway circles, democratic opponent that many dems couldn’t see fit to vote for. With so much anger against Trump coming up on 2020, how does he grow his base to win against a roused democratic and independent vote that may end up voting for any candidate in the general election with a D (outside of Hillary pulling a crazy stunt of running)?
Oh I’m pretty sure that your Democrats will come to his aid by selecting as their Presidential candidate the worse possible human that they can find and who will announce beforehand that they will sell out the voters at first opportunity in favour of Wall Street. It worked in 2016.
Like this? :-)
https://s.hdnux.com/photos/01/06/61/03/18551011/7/920×920.jpg
If Rasmussen can’t even jiggle their poll results to get Trump into positive territory in his approval ratings (they have him at -2% in their latest poll of “likely” voters) he is in some trouble.
Trump was underwater in 2016 too. Hillary was just more hated. Think Joe Biden and his swarmy son. Trump doesn’t have to be attractive, he just has to be less ugly than Joe.
Unless they run HRC again that’s advantage Dems, none of the current field has or will have the high negatives that HRC has. There was a not insignificant portion of the electorate that was willing to crawl through glass to vote against HRC. Assuming the Dem nominee comes out of the current field that person will not engender the same level of animus that HRC did. The hatred for HRC was built over decades of her being in the public eye.
here’s another way to look at it
trump’s populist lies may be exposed as lies to you
and they are indeed a flaming pile of crap
but the dems are giving him all sorts of help
in making them seem a little plausible to millions of voters
who the hell else would let him run as some sort of tough guy non-interventionist?
only committed, koolaid imbibed, bloodthirsty, liberal interventionists
who the hell else would try to impeach him on grounds so wrapped up in their own, obvious corruption, that it allows him to pose as anti-corruption?
only our dim dollar dems
Trump is beatable, no lie there
and you will need actual populism to do that
but nearly every actual democratic candidate either has no idea how to do this, or more likely pretends that they don’t, out of fear of losing control of their party in the process
there is only one i can count on to run to the left
or whichever direction in an open terrain that may be
only one whose aim will be true
you know of whom i speak
So you believe that even Bernie, with his policies, doesn’t know how to do “actual populism”? Or is your frame of reference the other competitive democratic candidates who will struggle with populism to one extent or another, assuming the DNC buries Bernie again?
I think 2008 is worlds away from where we are now, in ’08 people were confronted with political and economic collapse as Bushism/Wall Street/War Street reached their inevitable exhausted conclusions. People were ready for something, anything that pretended to be an antidote and a way forward and The Big O lied his way in with hand waving and soaring rhetoric. Nothing about his details mattered (skin color, age, experience). But today his *results* get a much harder look by those hoodwinked many, and so do the poseurs lining up to pretend their way in.
i know what you mean and agree
but in another sense
2008 is one of those undealt with betrayals that will never leave us
hangs around like a pissed off ghost
like 1876
or 1914
I’m sure you all got other years to throw in there
also 2014 (the patriots use dark arts to beat the seahawks, jk)
> 2008 is one of those undealt with betrayals that will never leave us
hangs around like a pissed off ghost
like 1876
or 1914
And 1876 and 1914 are connected, in that 1876 led to Jim Crow, and 1914’s Woodrow Wilson showed Birth of a Nation at the White House and resegregated the Federal government.
the fix is always in, until it isn’t. the nature of revolutions is to overwhelm this trash, and I hope and expect the Bernie forces are doing exactly that.
“the fix is always in, until it isn’t”
a well put antidote to hopelessness
“Saudi Aramco Launches Long-Awaited IPO”
‘Aramco has chosen nine banks to act as joint financial advisers on its listing: JPMorgan Chase & Co., Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Citigroup Inc., HSBC Holdings PLC, Credit Suisse Group AG and two domestic investment banks.’
After reading this, for some reason I keep on thinking about Judas goats. Can’t think why though.
[snipped from the BBC story]
Also: on the BBC site it says this is today’s most-viewed story.
Does anybody know who’s buying? Would you not be entertained to read the CALPERS memo on to buy or not to buy that is the question?
What are some *modern* protest anthems? I assume there must be some….I been too damn busy making $ for food, that I haven’t really kept up.
Or, put differently, what will you be blasting on the car stereo when the Man Come With A Gun To Take You Away?
I mean, several of the Classics age pretty gawddammed well:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeCu3pm8IxE
But there must be some new ones….lay em on me.
There’s always that old nugget Fight the Power.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8PaoLy7PHwk
Never goes out of style.
Strauss — Also Sprach Zarathustra
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Szdziw4tI9o
How about this one to stir defiance-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-tJYN-eG1zk
But while I am at it, I have one for Beto O’Rourke-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rY0WxgSXdEE
RUSH — Bastille Day
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mT1gmKUoqbY
Older Neil Young, once of Buffler Springfield:
About The Monsanto Years
And some music—
He has never been one to mince words—
somehow not getting the airplay that For What Its Worth still commands- small wonder
La Marseillaise, lyrics and a catchy tune.
Aux armes, citoyens !
Formez vos bataillons !
Marchons ! Marchons !
Qu’un sang impur
Abreuve nos sillons !
Grab your weapons, citizens!
Form your battalions!
Let us march! Let us march!
May impure blood
Water our fields!
+1
The best version of La Marseillaise I’ve ever heard. After 50 years it still brings chills.
Not to mention the followup line, “I’m shocked…”
Watch and listen to Jessye Norman (recently deceased, btw; what a loss) singing La Marseillaise on the Place de la Concorde for the 200th anniversary celebration of the French Revolution.
Here’s one from Street Sweeper Social Club, an extremely political and unfortunately short lived project by Boots Riley from the Coup and Tom Morello from Rage Against the Machine. Should be played at every political protest if you ask me, and loudly.
This puts the fear of god into the PTB a lot more than a pink pussy hat – 100 Little Curses
And a little less anthemic, but watching Lemmy punch out bankers always makes me smile – Get Back in Line.
Then there’s this one from Soungarden’s last album – Non State Actor
Thank you lyman. I liked that song Promenade as well that you tube took me to next (hey, the algorithm worked that time).
till all are fed and all have beds
my skin is black and my star is red
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Um7pMggPnug
Katie Perry – Chained to the Rhythm
Not comparable to the older songs, in that it decries our society without advocating much… but still a banger (and the video is pretty caustically insightful.)
“It is my desire
Break down the walls to connect, inspire
Ay, up in your high place, liars
Time is ticking for the empire
The truth they feed is feeble
As so many times before
The greed over the people
They stumblin’ and fumblin’ and we’re about to riot
They woke up, they woke up the lions (woah)”
Katie Perry?! The one with the shark?
2 sharks. *orwell alert* Left shark and right shark! Man, the news just loved those guys. Goofy Left shark just couldn’t seem to get with the program!
This was after her whole lion phase, which was after her 2012 video where she’s singing about a boyfriend but the video has her join the military.
In honesty, I cry when I watch it. Speaking of which, another strong protest anthem that brings me to tears is “Ukelele Anthem” by Amanda Palmer (formerly of the Dresden Dolls, whose song “sing” is on another level)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZaR_4us6Ec
“Imagine there’s no music, imagine there are no songs
imagine that john lennon wasn’t shot in front of his apartment
imagine if john lennon had composed “imagine” on the ukulele
maybe folks would have more clearly got the message
You may think my approach is simple-minded and naïve
like if you want to save the world then why not quit and feed the hungry
but people for millennia have needed music to survive
and that’s why i’ve promised john that i will not feel guilty
So play your favorite Beatles’ song
and make the subway fall in love
they’re only $19.95, that’s not a lot of money
play until the sun comes up
and play until your fingers suffer
play LCD soundsystem songs on your ukulele
quit the bitching on your blog
and stop pretending art is hard
just limit yourself to three chords
and do not practice daily
you’ll minimize some stranger’s sadness
with a piece of wood and plastic”
NPR piece on Left Shark from last year.
https://www.npr.org/2018/01/31/581059016/unmasking-katy-perrys-backup-dancer-left-shark
Recent (2016) – from Drive-by Truckers:
What it Means
https://youtu.be/mY0qOCUy27Q
Nice one
A classic that I grew up with, and it remains literally and figuratively true:
“… and admit that the waters around you have grown,
and accept it that soon you’ll be drenched to the bone..”
Dylan: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90WD_ats6eE
PePeMar, a late performance, with a completely on point intro:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8pB9ULvK4w
Earlier, remastered: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tElw0Cvh7ZA
One of my faves:
Sepultura – Refuse/Resist
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPR-HyGj2d0
Patti Smith- People have the power
A very oldie, but a goodie:
Solidarity Forever (Pete Seeger cover)
Excellent modern version of “Which side are you on?” by Rebel Diaz and Dead Prez
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSZWslqjfPE
I’m with workers uprising and the right to unionize
We ain’t crossed the border so you better legalize
I’m with Penã la Bronx, I’m still with Victor Toro
‘Cause gentrification is pollutin’ my borough
Sell out? Never! South Bronx forever
Decolonize the block, make your neighborhood better
I ain’t down with the rich, I’m more Richie Perez
Don’t talk to grand juries or cooperate with feds
I’m with students, doctors, janitors, teachers
We need living wages but they don’t believe us
Radio is still an important medium, but like television and the internet increasingly run by the powers that be first for profit and then to control the masses; as music has always, always been the way to stir us all, it must become commercialized pap good for only making a buck and making us bovines.
I don’t do YouTube so’ve no idea if one of those links is to this same song, but Black Sabbath’s War Pigs still sounds pretty good to me.
In that same theme but from the 90’s:
L7 “Wargasm”
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=nbMyELNEDLs
All about the way the media sells us war like entertainment. Best lyric: “the Pentagon really knows how to turn us on”
Another anti-war song, from 2004. Was a diehard fan of this band and they were rising fast having signed to Joan jett’s Blackheart Records but in the middle of recording their first album the drummer (and co-writer of the songs) was deported so the album was never finished.
This is the demo I uploaded to YouTube a while back. The first song is “Pogrom” and it’s an amazing anti war song. Heavy guitars, solid female vocals, and an urgency and intensity to the message that felt essential in the early days of the Iraq invasion.
Sin Sin, “Pogrom”
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KQJTArRehR0
“Wargasm,Wargasm, one, two, three, tie a yellow ribbon around the amputee”.
We love to celebrate them, but we’re thinking, “glad it ain’t me”.
This album from last year by the band Palodine has a few great protest songs.
https://palodine.bandcamp.com/album/lowborn
“In the Bellows” is my favorite and was inspired by the Water Protectors. “Miner’s Union” is also a powerful song.
The band’s sound is a fusion of folk/country with alternative/prog rock lead by a phenomenal female singer.
Absolutely love their music and the messages in them. Of course, they’re obscure because they don’t sing about being rich, dancing, or generic love songs. They make real music about real stuff. If you like new music and want to support real artists I highly recommend them.
Here’s direct links to the songs I recommended:
In the Bellows:
https://palodine.bandcamp.com/track/in-the-bellows-2
(This one has an energy that’ll make you want to storm the barricades)
Miner’s Union:
https://palodine.bandcamp.com/track/miners-union
(This one is a somber song about the loss of life and livelihood in small towns)
One more. This is from about ten years ago but still an amazing protest song, simply called “Rise Up and Fight”. It sounds exactly like the name implies and is an epic rock track by an amazing and under appreciated band. Sound is like Muse meets Pink Floyd.
“Rise Up and Fight”
Crippled Black Phoenix
https://riseupandfight.bandcamp.com/track/rise-up-and-fight
I think all of the above are great but too passive and hopeful, in my view the only thing that will work is much more apocalyptic and violent. Between smashing stuff up The Who nailed the vibe IMO:
We’ll be fighting in the streets
With our children at our feet
And the morals that they worship will be gone
The men who spurred us on
Sit in judgment of all wrong
They decide and the shotgun sings the song
I’ll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I’ll get on my knees and pray
We don’t get fooled again
The change it had to come
We knew it all along
We were liberated from the fold that’s all
The world looks just the same
And history ain’t blamed
Cause the banners, they are flown in the last war
I’ll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I’ll get on my knees and pray
We don’t get fooled again
No, no!
We don’t get fooled again
I’ll move myself and my family aside
If we happen to be left half alive
Get all my papers and smile at the sky
Though I know that the hypnotized never lie
Do ya?
There’s nothing in the street
Looks any different to me
And the slogans are replaced, by-the-bye
The parting on the left
Is now parting on the right
And the beards have all grown longer overnight
I’ll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I’ll get on my knees and pray
We don’t get fooled again
Don’t want to get fooled again
No, no!
Meet the new boss
Same as the old boss
Not sure how you got “passive” from them. One is literally called “Rise Up and Fight” and “Bellows” speaks about genocide and land theft ending with the idea that they won’t let anymore be taken from them even if it means blood is lost.
Also, without some aspect of hope, doesn’t a song lose impact as a protest song and merely become nihilistic? From Nina Simone’s “Backlash Blues” to Rage Against the Machine’s “Killing in the Name of”, all great protest songs offer the hope of overcoming adversity. Otherwise, why protest?
“Miner’s Union” is less a protest song and more just a cry to be heard and seen by a forgotten people.
The Who song is a classic protest song but not sure how it is any less “passive”. Doesn’t inspire hope though which makes it timeless since, when it comes to power structures, nothing much has really changed since that song came out.
Yes, good points. But I see we came to the same “timeless” conclusion, the *only* thing that works is blood. I suppose Gandhi in India was a counter-example, at least in concept, but lots of blood drained there as well
Not really, really new, but The Coup reminds us that, historically, the power of the people, in extremis, has the same root as the power of the state: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acT_PSAZ7BQ. I find it most encouraging.
Alice In Chains – Fear the Voices
https://invidio.us/watch?v=MEIBILvXPa8&listen=1
Alice In Chains was a sort of grungy/metal band that was around from the late-1980’s until 1998 or so. They are frequently lumped in with the grunge movement, but they were very complex from a musical standpoint and focused a lot on topics like despair and social isolation.
Eminem Mosh! (YouTube)
Una Sangre (Spanish), Lila Downs. Less protest, more revolution.
The Clash – The Guns of Brixton
https://youtu.be/JcW8VNwYvL0
The Clash – Know Your Rights
https://youtu.be/5lfInFVPkQs
Paris – Guerilla Funk
https://youtu.be/-15gV2fDdvs
Made For TV – So Afraid of the Russians
https://youtu.be/AVf7m_YZ2zY
Solomon Burke – None Of Us Are Free
https://youtu.be/eFkmRp_G2uo
Denzel Washington on drums.
> The Clash – Know Your Rights
“Number one
You have the right not to be killed”
Rule #2 of neoliberalism.
The Coup – The Guillotine
https://youtu.be/acT_PSAZ7BQ
How about Muse – Uprising it’s from 2009.
I recommend anything by my buddies The Last Internationale – contemporary players touring Europe right now as we speak. https://www.tlinyc.com/
Also, me! Check out my internet hit “Never Talk to Cops” here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3mVTTBcswk&t=4s
And … I got a new one inspired by Naked Capitalism called “It’s a Plan” – here’s a video of me performing it 2 months ago to 5 people – because that’s the reality of most protest singers. Power to the people, sure, but every protest I’ve joined people only want to hear Bruce Springsteen. And he ain’t coming.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yMyKeoRoPg
General Mattis – The American Civil War may have ended quite differently if left to the professionals – Generals Scott and McClellan.
Good to know, via NYRB, that Mattis hates the nickname “Mad Dog.” Truth hurts. Even Fred Kaplan’s tender assessment avers “Surely, I thought, he couldn’t believe that” (that generals should have a say in war and peace).
Brad Pitt made a satirical movie called War Machine about our anything but humble fighting generals–McChrystal being the target in that case. Highly recommended.
The Kaplan piece amounts to an extended lament that Mattis didn’t feed the insatiable maw of the TDS beast.
he says nothing about the man without whom his life story would be of little interest to the broader public.
FFS, get a grip Fred.
The “silly season” is in permanent session.
I couldn’t make it through War Machine. Having being reading NK for over a decade, it struck all familiar themes and I found it impossible to watch.
I thought the film struck the right tone by treating these self important clowns as…clowns. Naturally this didn’t go over well, including one suspects in Hollywood where valorizing the military is now a staple of the comix movies and others.
Which reminds me, man, I liked F Troop and Gomer Pyle:).
Phil Silvers as “Sergeant Bilko” made a very pointed commentary about the American military and the Spirit of Capitalism. (The remake was an unfortunate aberration.)
The big tell was when Mattis took apart in the Theranos scam as he planned to cash in by having the Pentagon adopt this ‘technology’-
https://www.vox.com/2018/3/16/17124288/mattis-theranos-board-trump
I have severe reservations about any former 16 year olds eager to go to a service academy being allowed In positions of authority. I’very convinced myself we need to draft the officer corps from college bound seniors.
I think that the officer corps should be taken from men and women who have done at least two year’s service as ordinary soldiers as in the past, quite a few officers were soldiers who received field commissions. About 25,500 men received field Commissions in WW2 alone. I think that this was dropped decades ago in the US military as nobody remembers when this was last done-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battlefield_promotion
I could not agree more. Either mustangs up from the ranks by direct commission, more likely to happen in wartime, or, as now, if you aspire to be an officer do a term of service in the ranks before appointment to the academy.
There is a need for a leaner officer corps who can lead and are not bureaucrats in uniform. Everybody works. Everybody fights.
How about “everybody stands down?” The silent assumption that we Imperials “ need us the worlds greatest military,” and that somehow in this multipolar world “we just needs us some real fighting leaders to get us some hegemony” and somehow win those foreign wars,” kind of sickens this disabled Vietnam veteran.
What’s the mission all you folks have in mind with the prescriptions for how not to fail , to not end up with McChrystals and Westmorelands?
Maybe it behooves is all to read and re-read Sun Tzu’s The Art of War, and be a little discerning about how all these failures by Our Team come about. Service academy types are supposed to be familiar with that wisdom, but here things are, the Empire fighting endless stupid wars at the ends of incredibly long supply chains with a hollowed out and bankrupt state and peasantry at home base.
The first question is always “is this war necessary?” Somehow never asked, or just brushed aside.
Absolutely Sun Tzu, especially where he says that ‘To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill’. Right now I am remembering stuff from that book that America is currently not doing. It’s a bad idea to ignore the lessons of Sun Tzu.
Scott wasn’t the problem unless you blame him for the state of the officer Corp, but his plan was still the basic plan that won. Yeah, there was a reason Scott brought Lee out of retirement for Harper’s Ferry. Scott knew how terrible military leaders actually are. Not hiring a noted drunk to run the Army of the Potomac isn’t really a mishap. That falls under unknown unknowns. Who knew the greatest soldier in US history post 1781 was a literature professor?
First modern industrial war & I think due to that fact that no matter who was leading them the South would eventually lose due to attrition. The North had by far the largest resources & could much easily replace weapons, ammunition & men, as for example about 180,000 German & Irish served many of them straight off the boat.
Resources usually eventually win in modern warfare, except in the case of those pesky Afghan & Vietcong villagers. The Nazis lost in the East after losing around 87% of the Wehrmarcht’s resources, which due to Stalin’s industrialisation, unlimited supply of cannon fodder & about 20% lend lease kept thing ticking over, while Germany did not have the resources to replace their own massive losses on the dreaded Eastern front.
Sorry, a per peeve of mine, so can’t let it pass… but Soviet Union did not have unlimited supply of cannon fodder. They did suffer horrible casualties 1941-42, that is undeniable. Reasons for that are many, so let’s just say that regardless the Red Army still managed to cause also significant casualties to Wehrmacht.
Basically enough to render two whole army groups (North and Center) static until being destroyed later in the war. Neither Soviet doctrine nor training called for human waves, but during that critical period of the war, when Wehrmacht had the numbers and the momentum, sometimes it was that was all they had.
When the immediate crisis was over, they recovered* fast. By 1944-45, according to John Erickson and David Glantz, the Red Army was the most efficient in combined arms warfare, and suffered less casualties that German, US or UK armies.
* Red Army also developed a habit of disbanding depleted units, and using the veterans as a core of new units, which threw the German intelligence off regarding the ‘unending supply of new units’. That combined with the need for the German ubergenerals to explain how they lost to subhumans has resulted in this somewhat misguided image of the Red Army.
Thanks, if we had a less west-tilted world, more would know the accurate history of WWII, and would be able to appreciate the incredible effort that went into the final victory… alas, we do not, and so many still think that the d-day was it. A part of the big effort was the dismantling of factories, hospitals, etc. to move them east, away from the front… then re-assembling all to continue production and care of the wounded. (Not to mention the pre-war ramping up of industrial production and post-war recovery.)
Just the size of the battlefield & the front line in comparison to the size of the western front tells it’s own story Olga. The million dead in Leningrad & the often overlooked 40,000 civilians who died from bombing in Stalingrad – & of course the list goes on & on. The Western Allies never had to face a full & fresh panzer army with the assistance of Stuka divebombers & medium bombers when they had control of the skies – something the Red Army faced time after time.
The transportation of the factories behind the Urals was critical but even in Stalingrad T-34’s rolled off the production line & drove straight into the fray. as for D-day IMO but for the Nazis being so stretched for resources due to the East it might have been a whole different story.
Let’s mention the utter practicality of the Soviet military philosophy: have essentially one tank, the T-34. Completely interchangeable repair and parts and expertise up and down the extended supply chains.
A bit like their military philosophy today. Huge smarts required to deliver a missile precisely to a target. But where to put those smarts? Put them in each missile, at huge expense, and they get destroyed each time? Or put them in the jets orchestrating the battle, which means the missile itself is simplified and expendable.
And Olga mentions the incredible dismantling and moving of factories past the Urals, it’s difficult to overstate the scale of this effort. Something like 120,000 factories were disassembled and moved including very heavy machinery and industrial plants.
And few stop to ask: if you looked at the engine under the hood of a Wehrmacht truck, what badge would you see? Does it start with the letter F and end with the letters ORD? And where did all of the aluminum for the Luftwaffe aircraft come from, was it a company starting with an A and ending with LCOA? All financed by a bank beginning with a C and ending with HASE? Hmm.
OTPDH – Perhaps the ultimate in never let a crisis go to waste.
I always wondered how many US business people wormed their way into the planning sections in the European Theater.
“Er, um, let’s not bomb this factory. That’s one of ours. How about this on over here?”
Actually we did bomb many of those factories and then the American taxpayer had to pay to rebuild those factories after the war ended.
The ‘Nazi war/genocide machine was made right here in the USA’ shtick can be overdone. It’s about as accurate to assert the Arsenal of Democracy sprang out of the Rhineland. Capital is inherently internationalist and apatrid, that shouldn’t surprise any comrades here.
Yes, Ford had a prewar alliance with Opel. Also, the Red Army rolled to victory on Ford trucks, both Lend-Lease and license-built in the huge Volga plant that gave the Republican Party apoplexy when it was built.
The Germans actually blew an excellent opportunity to win in 1941, after virtually disemboweling the hollowed out Red Army in 8 weeks. Except that in its supreme bigoted arrogance the Reich didn’t bother to mobilize the economy for total war. In fact, they demobilized about a dozen divisions in spring 1941 and embarked on a programme to boost civilian production, die Herrenvolk enjoying the fruits of conquest. Meanwhile, the Russians pulled 150 new divisions together to hold the line at Moscow.
The Wehrmacht might even have managed a draw at Stalingrad had they had 25 extra infantry divisions in reserve instead of the Italians and Rumanians who melted like butter before Operation Uranus. Speer et al. hastily came up with 40 divisions in 1943 to replace the lost 6th Army forces (and again after each subsequent disaster, to the end of the war), so it was always doable given a will.
But by 1943 they were facing a Red Army that was the Wehrmacht’s peer tactically and logistically, and superior operationally. They were kaput after that, and most of the German generals knew it. ‘Make peace you fools….’
Plus, after the war proper was won, the dismantling and moving East of remaining German industrial stock.
Even the Allied generals understood that the Westfront was manned by Germany’s second string troops. (The West Allies were very lucky in that Hitler denied Rommel’s demand for the release of the armoured reserves the day after D-day to drive the allies back into the sea for several days. Berlin expected Normandy to be a feint and thus waited for the real invasion to hit Calais. by the time everyone in Berlin figured it out, it was too late.)
Niall Ferguson’s War of the World book (2006) and TV series got the word out on the Red Army’s true contribution.
PS – yes you are correct my bad & it was obviously not unlimited & I agree with everything else you state. Much of the initial rout was due to a wrong footed Stalin & the purging of around 3,500 generals & staff officers, a good number of whom who had trained with Germans in mobile war proceeding the hostilities. They were I think forced to learn from their mistakes which resulted in huge sacrifice, but I think that they really started that steamroller when they virtually destroyed the Luftwaffe, whose pilots in that theatre had the highest casualty rate, worse than that of U-boat crews.
The Generals most famously Zhukov got their game together & my favourite is Rokossovsky who was Polish & survived the purge after losing his finger & toe nails & quite a few fake executions before being called up & earning the title Marshall of the soviet Union. According to his daughter he always carried a pistol after having vowed that they would never take him again.
I saw a YouTube video of a lecture at a military think tank that said the Soviets started out with a 14 million man reserve while the Germans didn’t have anyone. I agree that’s not “unlimited” but it allowed the Russians to absorb huge casualties while every German killed or wounded was basically irreplaceable.
” about 180,000 German” – among them my grandfather. Story is he never quite recovered.
On paper, yes, but the reality was a little different. People don’t look at the statistics. If they did, the Taliban would not be winning Afghanistan. There were a few points in which the South could have gotten independence, but Antietam and Gettysburg put paid to them. Battles that could have easily been decisive Union defeats especially on the first and second day of Gettysburg. If the 20th Maine had been overrun, which should have happened, the Army of the Potomac’s left flank would have been turned, or if some of the Confederate officers been more proactive in seizing some crucial ground, the piecemeal destruction of the Union army would likely have occurred.
Really the two most important things that determined the war was almost random chance or plain luck, good and bad, and the continued acceptance of the massive casualties by the public. Over a million casualties in total combined population of roughly 30-31 million Americans. It was a near thing, much like the American Revolution. The British Empire was still powerful in 1787, but after over a decade of war and having two entire armies surrender, the general consensus was no more of this regardless of the relatively weak losses. But if General Washington had lost the Continental Army while escaping the British after the Battle of Brooklyn Heights, which on paper should have happened, or if General Burgoyne had not been trapped, the war might have been completely different.
Good point on Scott, his main problem was that he was past his use-by date and could not handle the enormous amount of work required.
Scott was well out of the picture by the time Grant rose. Although Grant was an admirer of Scott.
IIRC Grant had left the U.S. Army and at the beginning of the war joined an Illinois volunteer unit. He worked his way up to command the Army of the West and was picked for overall command of the Union forces (a newly created position) in 1864. He never directly commanded the Army of the Potomac although it was subordinate to him as overall commander.
> Who knew the greatest soldier in US history post 1781 was a literature professor?
Grant was not a literature professor.
Scott’s Anaconda Plan was one element, a basic element of the Union’s war-winning strategy. However, Scott adopted that plan exactly because he wanted to avoid what we today call “total war” against the Slave Power, with the attendant slaughter. McClellan had the same hope. After Shiloh, the Union recognized that total war was a requirement. Sherman’s March to the Sea was the result, as was the Emancipation Proclamation, which at a stroke devalued billions in Slave Power Capital and encouraged slaves to cross the lines and join the Union Army which they did in large numbers.
The Slavocracy started the war because it wanted *everything* its way, which included the perpetual existence of the “Peculiar Institution,” the expansion of slavery, if not in the North and Western part of the United States, then México, Cuba, and Central America for starters, and finally the legal acceptance of armed gangs of slave raiders roaming the entire country who ostensibly were only taking back escaped slaves.
The plantation owners did not dream small.
In reality, being black enough was enough to be sold into slavery. The only legal hope was to appeal to *a* judge to prove your free status, not for the heavily armed gang to prove its claim of you being an escaped slave. Bribery seasoned with the occasional threat usually meant that the black person lost.
The Fugitive Slave Act really enraged the Northern public. Regardless of one’s views on slavery and race, having armed gangs kidnapping people and the increased judicial corruption was not liked.
So in trying to get and keep everything, without compromising, the plantation owners lost everything. Although people could see the oncoming violence, most people really wanted a civil war. Regardless of their views, most sane people don’t want a civil war. By succeeding when Lincoln became President, and not for anything he had yet done, and then firing on Fort Sumter, the South made a war of rebellion for slavery. Which is what President Lincoln wanted. Make the South throw the first punch.
At least the American Civil War ended.
Some say it is still being fought today.
Actually, it was General Winfield Scott’s grand strategic plan (Anaconda Plan) that ultimately won it for the north. It was just left to the younger (and less grotesquely corpular) Grant and Sherman to put the plan into action.
Also, McClellan was a top notch administrator. Lincoln did not quite understand that McClellan could weld a quarter million cowherds and factory hands into a first rate fighting force and logistical machine within a year but that he could not actually manage a campaign. (he did just OK at Antietam) Lincoln’s expectations of total, single battle victories like Wagram or Rossbach were unrealistic in the modern age. General Lee suffered similar illusions.
As a fake Prussian of the old school, I tip my spikey helmet to these great men.
See above; the Anaconda plan was necessary but not sufficient. The Union won with the Emancipation Proclamation and the March to the sea (plus Grant pinning Lee in place while Sherman gutted the Confederate heartland. The Union won with total war.
McClellan was a political general and slavery-supporting weasel who wanted to make peace with the Confederacy without abolition, and thought he should be determining war aims, not Lincoln.
Here is the key incident that shows the difference between McClellan and Grant (besides Grant splitting the Confederacy in two at Vicksburg). The the incident is described in many secondary sources:
Not just Hooker, McClennan, too.
From a primary source, with as little triumphalist rhetoric as possible:
And:
The Democrats have needed a Grant for a long time.
> General Mattis – The American Civil War may have ended quite differently if left to the professionals – Generals Scott and McClellan.
Mattis really said that? Astonishing. [Adding: I missed the irony. –lambert]
Hilariously, McClellan, the political general par excellence, schemed to get rid of Scott. And succeeded.
RE: Even Louisiana’s Wealthier Neighborhoods Can’t Escape Toxic Air in “Cancer Alley” ProPublica
The story is mediocre at best. But the photo of the enormous “red mud” retaining pond looming over the golf course community is as fascinating as it is terrifying.
I just kept wondering about the people living in those houses. Especially the ones whose “French Artist-style homes” are right on the edge of the development with a great view of the sludge.
Looks to me like the Afghanistan of the War on Cancer.
It is amazing how smoothly Sanders is erased from stories about the 2020 election. The authors make it seem so natural. Was Bernie even at that event in Iowa? You can’t tell by the stories. And FYI, political reporters, no one cares about Obama’s soaring and inspirational speeches anymore. The space you (Politico) wasted there could have been used for a word or two about Sanders.
Sad. And the “horse race” aspect of the news omits Sanders completely. It is very telling that the elites, from news to economics, are united in their hatred of Sanders who only promises to do his best to stop their looting of our nation and provide a little justice to labor. And after looking at Warren’s plan for M4A, which promises to be nothing because of it’s lack of speedy implementation and burden upon low-wage workers, I don’t think I could even hold my nose and vote for the lesser evil.
And, regarding M4A, I continually wonder how we have lost the lessons from the past, that the most successful programs, like Medicare, had very simple enabling legislation that directed an agency of professionals to provide guidance for its implementation. In comparison, merely contemplating the ACA legislation and one knew it was designed to fail. We are governed by midgets, all clamoring to be the tallest midget in the room.
Now to make my monthly donation to Bernie.
I can’t wait for when he wins Iowa, “Biden surges to strong finish, Warren takes second, Buttigieg still in the fight.”
IMO, swap Buttigieg and Biden, and it will be perfect. Looking very much like Biden may end up below Buttigieg, spurring articles like “How Biden will stage a Comeback” and the like.
The PG&E disaster in California is going to get a lot of Bernie votes in the upcoming primary.
Hundreds of thousands of pissed off furious PG&E affected people are not going to treat the mainstream Democratic incumbents like Kamala Harris kindly.
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2019/09/while-pge-played-cat-and-mouse-game-with-california-regulators-where-was-kamala.html
This will benefit Bernie. People need to get the message out in their daily dealings with any voting age individual they interact with. People working in shops and stores, those go door to door, like mailmen, truck drivers and package delivery are especially good subjects to discuss this with as they then interact with hundreds of voters a day.
If you want your vote in the California Primary to be counted you had best register as a Democrat or a Republican.
Are we saying that the Democratic Party will not “misplace” any inconvenient votes for Sanders? The Republican Party as well, when considering just how effective Sanders is likely to be against Trump.
I think that we should ask Jimmy Carter to help monitor the elections.!
When the lights go down in the city,
and the ballots float in the bay…
Ooh, I want to be there,
in my city…
Ooooh oooh ooooooh.
Background to help Rhondda:
“For decades, activists in San Francisco have fought to build a municipal electricity system. San Francisco is the only city in the country that has a federal mandate for public power, but PG&E has blocked every effort.”
On the night the ballots were being counted, with one of the public power measures looking like a winner, Elections Director Tammy Haygood announced that she was afraid there might be anthrax in some of the ballot boxes and had them removed from City Hall. By the end of the counting, PG&E had won. The Coast Guard later found parts of ballot boxes floating in the Bay.”
https://48hills.org/2017/06/sf-public-power-agency-attack/
Caucus state person here. I’ve noticed lots of Bernie Blackout tweets. Saw my first Biden yard sign awhile ago while walking. There are too many Pete signs around here for my taste, but it does fit for this neighborhood.
RE: The Disastrous Arrival of Video Replay in English Soccer
Great article. Same problems with US sports using replays. As the article mentions, video replay officials are often not inclined to overturn calls on replay, so why bother? Most blatantly bad calls can be fixed if the officials just huddle up and decide among themselves. It worked well in baseball before they decided to bring in replay, and it would have worked last year in the NFL playoffs if other officials had been allowed to weigh in on the pass interference non-call that put the Rams in the Superbowl. And yet even with replay the NFL refs are still atrocious. They took a victory away from Detroit against Green Bay this year on several blatantly bad calls where they just made up penalties, to name just one example. I think replay has made on field refs second guess themselves too much to the point where they call stuff they wouldn’t have otherwise.
Might have something to do with the betting industry and punters.
“US Needs To Occupy Syria Because Of Kurds Or Iran Or Chemical Weapons Or Oil Or Whatever”
Actually Trump is wrong. He is not keeping the oil. He is pumping it and sending it out of the country under guard by US servicemen (“Thank you for your service?” Maybe “What did you do in the war, daddy?”). This has been going on for a very long time and the US is making about $30 million a month out of this operation which several major international treaties recognize as ‘pillage’ and is actually a war crime. The Russians have published satellite images proving this is happening-
https://sputniknews.com/middleeast/201910261077154752-russian-military-releases-satellite-images-confirming-us-smuggling-of-syrian-oil/
I don’t know where this oil ends up. When ISIS was pumping that oil and selling it to Turkey, it was then sent on to Israel. Although this was the major source of financing for ISIS, the US and the Coalition somehow missed the steady horizon-to-horizen convoys of oil trucks going to Turkey. That is, until the Russians turned them to ash.
I cannot prove it but I think that a turning point has been reached. The world has seen how Trump tried to steal Venezuela’s oil and actually came out and said that that was why they were doing it. And now they are stealing Syria’s oil with a Boss Tweed-like “What are you going to do about it”. There will be blowback for this as countries will start to wonder if they too will have their resources stolen by the US but I am not sure how it will play out. I just don’t know.
Maybe some countries will move closer to Russia and China for protection. Maybe some will adopt Russian/Chinese weaponry to make them a more difficult target. Certainly Iran and Venezuela’s S-300 missile systems have proven problematic to US airpower. Egypt is doing this too with their purchase of Russian Su-35s which will put them more on par with Saudi Arabia & Israel which the US never allowed them to be. In any case, I do think that there will be consequences for this oil theft.
The Saudi oil will slow one day and when it does where will we turn? We have no ‘friends’ and our abilities at plunder seem to be lessening.
Whatever happened to the good ol’buying of oil?
Whoever has oil would be happy to sell…
Two issues here – the US is not in the ME for oil … it is there to make sure oil continues to be denominated in the USD$$ (without that, the end of the reserve currency status is near, which will force US to live within its means, so bye, bye, endless wars), and just to keep an eye on the neighbourhood (i.e., watching and listening to all that is going on over there). It also may be there to make sure Golan stays with its new master – or something like that.
From what i’ve read the US has been doing this since 2014, smuggling the oil out of syria. Funny that its almost right around the time oil crashed from about 100 a barrel to where we’ve been the past five years.
Think of the oil primarily in terms of a real estate development asset instead of just a hydrocarbon. You use that oil to pay for achievement of other ME goals, as the bottom line is blacker with more oil than with more tax dollars. Use what Onassis called Other People’s Money, or Oil, or whatever may be liquified and transacted to meet your goals.
You don’t need to own the asset, in the more conventional sense, to use it. You can option it by force or whatever means, or by getting others like the GCC to do some or all of that for you. That identifies and limits more downside risk. Very clinical, astringent and antiseptic.
The oil field seizure is weird; totally un-American. As Stephen Ambrose said of WWII only the American Army was welcomed as liberators. This century is filled with wartime propaganda at a time of pretend peace. But the whole Syrian campaign has been covered with disinformation, lies, false flags, incompetence, and looking the other way. This despite horrendous outcomes; thousands killed, a million refugees flooding Europe, and an utter failure for NATO.
The Middle East Holy War is like Donald Trump; it cannot continue like it has over the past years. Something’s going to collapse and take us with it.
As Trump pushes to halt ‘endless wars’, the War on Terror continues unabated
There are many possible explanations. My own guess is that Trump’s instincts are soundly anti-war but that his ability to turn those instincts into effective policies is limited by the fact that almost everybody in Washington is opposed. It’s nigh impossible for him to man a bureaucracy with people who agree with him, who are sufficiently experienced to bring about the changes he wants, and who are capable of stomaching his management style.
Maybe a President with a subtle intelligence and a backbone of steel could pull it off but more likely he’d be Russiagated to distraction, or Watergated, or simply shot.
If there were any good evidence that JFK had upset the Establishment then I could believe that his assassination was a Deep State coup. But the little I’ve read about it seems to me to be mere romanticising of the dead man, and projection of the desires of the writer onto him. JFK seems to me to have been a rather ordinary, slightly gangsterist politician, not a King Arthur determined to wrestle power back from the CIA. Anyway, his private life gave the security people plentiful ammunition with which to blackmail him, so why take the risk of assassination?
Even if “they” we worried he’d spill beans on them, he would have been easy to get rid of. 100% see no way JFK was any kind of threat.
Well . . . SOMEbody felt JFK was a threat to SOMEbody. SOMEbody took that feeling of threat seriously enough to have JFK killed. And then to have X and King and RFK killed after that.
SOMEbody felt JFK was a threat to SOMEbody.
Evidence? Maybe it was nothing to do with a threat, maybe it was revenge.
Or maybe it was to do with LBJ’s monster ego.
Or maybe it really was that inadequate communist ex-marine acting on his own.
“JFK and the Unspeakable. Why He Died & Why it Matters” ~ James W Douglass.
We had a military coup in this country November 22, 1963.
Don’t forget Peter Dale Scott’s book on the topic, which has a footnote section as big as the book itself.
And adding to those tomes, Conspiracy, by Anthony Summers. Doesn’t proselytize, but is solid shoeleather journalism that gives you enough interviews and evidence connected to the crime that it is hard to come to a conclusion other than conspiracy.
Yes, and in that sense – the US really became and still is a military-intelligence (although the word ‘intelligence’ really is not appropriate) dictatorship, with – perhaps – a thin veneer of whatever used to be ‘a democratic system.’ A few noticed, most don’t.
(Come to think of it, Nixon was likely a coup, too – just cannot figure out why.)
“(Come to think of it, Nixon was likely a coup, too – just cannot figure out why.)”
Possibly due to his thoughts on implementing wage and price controls, in light of going off the gold standard. Thats my theory anyways.
There is a pathetic aspect to Nixon and to Hillary, via taking actions or having them taken, when they didn’t really need to be taken.
In Nixon’s case, the Watergate break-in and subsequent acts by him and those around him weren’t necessary for him to win as there was virtually no chance for McGovern to prevail.
In Hillary’s case, the front-runner campaign of 2008 was botched by arrogance, among other factors. That led to her pull-out-all-the-stops campaign of 2016 with a gigantic unofficial supporting cast. That election was hers to lose, and she really outdid herself in squandering what so many perceived to be a certain victory.
We’ll see the markers for house money get called in, stops pushed back in, organs tuned up, images mangled and cliches run into the ground until viewers are finally disgusted enough to engage and direct their elected representatives. Then we may get some music that the citizenry can enjoy.
Liz/Buttgig 2020, widespread apathy, low turnout. 2024 even lower turnout, 2028 even lower still. Eventually the joint Facebook/CIA committee selects the leader and his policies and nobody gives a solitary f*ck because there’s nothing they can do about it. Historians intoning with great gravitas that 10% turnout is okey dokey, in fact the Founding Fathers actually intended it that way, here take your soma pill.
I would not be shocked, if the Deep State did have JFK assassinated much like it did with MLK, but history has any number of crazy, vengeful, fanatical, or just disgruntled individuals who take a weapon and kill an important leader. Two of the four American presidents assassinated were killed by obviously individual men unhappy and possibly mentally ill. Part of the reason for the wacky “investigation” such as it was of JFK’s assassination was probably because of the fear of another Sarajevo.
The assassination of the Archduke and his wife in their car that triggered the First World War was only 49 years earlier. All the senior leadership had direct experience of the assassination’s unintentional consequences. I think that there must have been an incredible effort to avoid, or at least downplay, any of Lee Harvey Oswald’s connections to the Soviet Union.
So, if there was any conspiracy, it was obscured by the panic afterwards.
Thanks for the Stoller tweet. Not being on social media and I can’t for the life of me figure out what all the fuss is about. Can’t stand Zuckerberg and would like to see Fleecebook go the way of the dodo, but I fail to see why they should have to vet political ads for truthfulness or stop them altogther when there has never been such a standard for traditional media ads on TV and radio where politicians lie all the time. This makes sense to me though –
That, or people could just wake up and stop using Facebook. Not like they’re being forced to.
I stand corrected. Just ran across this one from Dean Baker and evidently there is a standard for traditional media – http://cepr.net/blogs/beat-the-press/mark-zuckerberg-is-a-rich-jerk
Now I’m guessing the bar for what constitutes truthfulness is pretty low based on the political ads we do see on TV, but there is something and Zuckerberg is exempt from it. So it appears we’d need Congress to do their job in order for significant change to happen here but if they haven’t been doing it for decades I’m sure they aren’t about to start now. That leaves stop using it.
Easy for you to say! You didn’t see a $1M+ social media spend fail. If you had, you might want Facebook and Twitter pilloried.
Where’s the Google and their YouTube while all this is going on? Them and their mysterious algorithms, and the wildly uneven responses to reported content and scams.
I like Baker, but I think he’s a bit behind the curve sometimes. Cable and print media make not be exempt from Section 230 explicitly, but the FCC is so bad on enforcement that the stuff that flies on the internet seems to be making its way over to regular media.
Did anyone see the AOC-Khmer Rouge ad that a lot of the Sinclair affiliated TV stations ran? It was an absurdly nonsensical red-scare-type of message. I can’t recall anything quite so slimy in recent memory.
I guess if you wanted to argue otherwise, you could point to LBJ’s nuclear bomb ad against Goldwater.
‘Fraid I disagree with you and Dean Baker. TV stations are subject to Federal licensing. They are entirely different from a website as any rich guy can start up an alternate Facebook. The last thing we need are dubious fact checkers policing the Internet. And in fact Facebook is already employing these and arguably has thereby transitioned from a “platform” to a “publisher”–indeed subject to libel.
Well, a traditional publisher has to take a lot of positive actions before something appears. Facebook is more like a public bulletin board where anyone can post anything, and the owner has to come along after the fact and take down stuff he doesn’t like. Who knows how long it sits there meanwhile. Seems like Facebook wants to have it both ways though, being a publisher or not as it suits them. Does not compute.
Why is Assange vilified and especially why now? This piece is TLDR but this story is being told and documented nowhere else. Scan halfway ’til you see the Grey box about the Rohrbacher meet with Assange. It’s all about Russia Russia and those damn emails.
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2019/11/03/the-scale-and-scope-of-the-doj-control-agents-doj-fisa-official-quietly-removed-after-ig-draft-report-sent-to-bill-barr/amp/?__twitter_impression=true
“Modern Cities Breed Alienation. Insurgent Urbanists Are Pushing Back.”
If groups like this are coming together, then the obvious conclusion is that modern architecture and city planning are failing massively and that they are not meeting the needs of the people who have to live in these buildings and cities. Sometimes when I am in the city I look around and it all looks so hideous and unfriendly which is not what it should be all about. It is not so much that it is utilitarian by design but it feels like the lack of actual planning.
In Britain at least brutalist architecture was central to “actual planning” in the postwar years. The spawn of the brutalists still infests many cities, some of which may never recover because the attractive old stuff that survived the Luftwaffe was bulldozed by the city planners.
Or, too much planning. Witness the destruction of the old Western Addition neighborhood in San Francisco. An area vacated of Japanese, who were sent to concentration camps in the 1940s, it became an instant black area to accommodate sharecroppers brought up from the south to work in the new war industries, principally shipyards.
It was crowded, as was the entire west coast, it was dirty, but it was interesting.
Twenty years later, through planned “redevelopment zones”, spearheaded by a property development puppet named Justin Hermann, high rise housing projects were built, the area became a dismal concrete box slum and finally those buildings were torn down and replaced with poorly built low rise housing projects. Lots of banners on street lights in the redevelopment zone proclaim what a great area it is and try and pretend that nothing has changed.
https://sfpublicpress.org/news/2019-09/fillmore-revisited-how-redevelopment-tore-through-the-western-addition
This was an area of Victorian and mixed architecture that could have been restored like the nearby Castro District, and surrounding areas, where homes are now highly valued for their architectural beauty. The areas left alone are “vibrant” and desirable. The planned areas are an embarassing souless blight. Check out the pictures:
http://www.foundsf.org/index.php?title=Western_Addition:_A_Basic_History
The “city” is nothing more than a low-density concentration labor-camp. “Urban planning” is the art of hanging pretty tinsel on the barbed wire.
Egg consumption in India and malnutrition.
This article, or rather the author, is unbelievablely obtuse. She goes on and on about egg consumption (aka cheap protein) in the diet and its relation to health and nutrition across India. Yet, stunningly, never ties protein consumption to income/wealth/resources/caste until the end (actually, caste is never mentioned). How do Dalits compare to Brahmins or Chetris? Only towards the end does she acknowledge ….
“It must be noted, however, that there are several other factors at play in determining rates of stunting, including […] the wealth of the child’s family.” You mean rich kids might have better health than poor ones?! The word “poverty” is never mentioned at all.
“Despite substantial economic growth, stunting still remains alarmingly high.” Another word never mentioned is “inequality”.
The ground-breaking conclusion?
“Taken together, malnutrition appears highly correlated with lack of consumption of eggs and meat across age groups.” Well, blow me down. Protein is important in the diet? Who knew?!
From what I’ve seen, the poor in India eat rice or rotis with a few vegetables, when they eat. Depending on the state, a person could get some subsidized or free food – this is mostly whole wheat flour (atta) for rotis, rice and pulses.
I have no idea why caste and ethnicity wasn’t invoked at all in that silly article. Maybe someone else can figure it out.
The Times has a story today about Breathalyzers, the original code-is-law scenario before the machine learning blackboxes of today:
What happened to having the right to face one’s accuser in court? Will the software engineer behind the curtain please come forth?
Cabo Delgado, Mozambique: Russia has been aligned with Mozambique since the 1960s.
“As LNG projects in the north of Mozambique progress, the government faces two major hurdles: financially, to find capital for its share of the investment needed to develop the Rovuma basin world-class natural gas reserves, which could top US$1 billion; militarily, to ensure safety in Cabo Delgado province from Islamist insurgents. In both instances, Russia has come to the rescue.”
https://macauhub.com.mo/feature/russia-to-the-rescue-for-mozambican-government-in-lng-projects/
“Seven Russian Wagner Group mercenaries have been killed in two separate shooting incidents involving Islamic State-linked insurgents in Mozambique’s northern Cabo Delgado province this month, two Mozambique army sources told The Moscow Times.
In a previously unreported attack that took place on Oct. 10 in Cabo Delgado’s Macomia district, two Russian Wagner soldiers were shot dead after their group was ambushed by Islamist militant insurgents, a soldier with the Mozambique Defense Armed Forces (FADM) who witnessed the incident told The Moscow Times.
Five more Russian Wagner mercenaries were ambushed on Oct. 27 in Cabo Delgado’s Muidumbe district, a separate FADM source told The Moscow Times.
According to the second source, four of the Russians were shot dead at the scene of the attack, then beheaded, and the fifth was wounded and later died at the local Mueda District Hospital. ”
https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2019/10/31/7-kremlin-linked-mercenaries-killed-in-mozambique-in-october-sources-a67996
From “Now Comes the Naked Truth NYT. MoDo.”:
“He said that iPhones and social media have so reshaped culture that older people would have to accept the new and sometimes naked reality.”
The “generational” contrast in this piece is amnesiac, because the now-Boomers specialized in mass, public nudity when they were young. Lingering pieces of the counter-culture, like the Oregon Country Fair, still do. I have hundreds of pictures of naked strangers from Vortex, the Sky River Festival, and visiting various friends in those days. (It recently occurred to me that I’m sitting on considerable history – partly because someone asked about some of it.)
It’s about the Katy Hill scandal, of course; but the problem wasn’t the naked pictures, although those would have been uncomfortable around Congress, it was the affair with a staffer – which probably seemed pretty innocent at the time. Among other things, it’s a reminder that #MeToo can work both ways, and that it’s unfinished business: the new etiquette to clarify work relationships doesn’t really exist yet. Somehow, I don’t think people will stop having affairs at work or marrying colleagues, awkward or not.
From the Matt Stoller tweet: ” No ads on FB means no political speech on FB. ”
??? I know the Green Party has a significant FB presence; I assume the other parties do, too, to say nothing of people’s personal pages. That sentence strikes me as nonsense.
I’m okay with Facebook pouring anti-whatever speech Draino all over itself. If they want to censor their platform out of existence, seems like win-win.
Unfortunate phrasing on the part of the writer of that sentence. It should be; “No ads on FB means no [paid] political speech on FB.”
The 2016 Dem primary was the crookedest primary of my 66 years and I don’t expect 2020 to be any better.
Pelosi has made it clear that she prefers four more years of Trump to having Bernie win and several big investors have explicitly said that they will fund Trump if the Dems nominate either the uppity squaw or the Socialist Jew.
Pelosi is no fool, barring a successful impeachment (Unlikely) the only Dem with a solid chance against Trump is Bernie.
No Bernie and we’re looking at a factional fight among the Dem power brokers, the Clinton faction being the gorilla in the room.
If Pelosi wanted the Clinton faction weakened ( And it is quietly hated and feared by many in the establishment) she’d do everything she could to ensure HRC got the Nomination.
It’s a win/win for Pelosi.
If Clinton became Prez she’d owe Pelosi big time, if she lost Pelosi would gain power as the Clinton’s weakened.
I don’t give Bernie a snowball’s chance in hell and since that’s the case I want the best show possible.
And that would be a rematch of 2016.
High drama, low comedy, slapstick,the grotesque and macabre!
What’s not to like?
What’s not to like?
That Hillary Rodham Caligula might win by accident.
Pelosi needs to be primaried and or have some rather severe voter protests around her offices, just to remind her
The really interesting bit to me is that The Clinton Cabal have the press and the billionaires, so after some sturm und drang at the convention the plebes will be told loud and clear that It’s The Best Of All Possible Worlds and Are You Not Being Represented?, only to wake up on the day after the election to be told “Well we tried our best” and “Here’s how the Russians stole it for The Bad Man” and also “In the meantime look at these other shiny little sh*t sandwiches you’ll really enjoy eating, 1-click Buy Now on Amazon”.
> The 2016 Dem primary was the crookedest primary of my 66 years and I don’t expect 2020 to be any better
Don’t worry about the general. DHS will be monitoring the situation carefully to make sure there’s no interference.
In keeping with the theme of ‘Banana Republics,’ your first sentence should read: “Don’t worry about the Generals.”
Hundreds of Nurses Stage Die-In in Front of Speaker Pelosi’s San Francisco Office
On Friday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in an interview that she is “not a big fan of Medicare for All” despite strong support for the proposal among the majority of her caucus, three-quarters of Democratic voters, and two leading 2020 Democratic presidential candidates.
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/11/02/hundreds-nurses-stage-die-front-speaker-pelosis-san-francisco-office
But a solid majority of her donors don’t like it… and she is speaker only bc she fullers large amounts of cash to incumbents that know the score.
If s single person is to be a major donor conduit to the faithful, that person must be in close alignment with substantially all of the major donors.
Good work!
Even Louisiana’s wealthy can’t escape the toxic air from ‘cancer alley’?
Good. They make the money from it. Let them get the cancer from it. Fair is fair.
Taibbi swatting back the msm fan mob:
https://twitter.com/mtaibbi
“Embassy seizure four decades ago leaves a legacy of bitterness between Iran and the United States”
I’m sure that you can say that Iran is more sinned against than sinning here. As an example, that article mentioned the shoot down of that Iranian jet liner but forgot to mention that the US never apologized for it. In fact, they gave their Navy officers medals for doing so.
It is widely acknowledged that US Embassies are the source of money, training, sanctuary, propaganda, etc. for revolutions and it has been joked that the US will never have another revolution because they do not have a US Embassy there. Iranians have different memories of the US Embassy in Tehran. Just as the 1979 revolution was gathering pace, the Shah’s government asked the military officer at the US Embassy for advice about the protesters. His suggestion? Shoot them.
Want to know something? Going off on a tangent here. All this skullduggery has now come back to America’s shores and is now being turned against Americans themselves. Proof of this was the Trump Task Force set up by Brennan and made up of CIA/FBI officers to subvert the US government instead of a foreign one-
https://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2019/11/growing-indicators-of-brennans-cia-trump-task-force-by-larry-c-johnson.html
They need to clear a wing at Fort Leavenworth for future arrivals for this one.
https://www.washingtonian.com/2019/11/03/ralph-nader-is-opening-up-about-his-regrets/
Ralph Nader talks about his regrets
Ed Rendell while saying Nader “deserves every bit” of the hatred and demonizing he’s received from the Dems also says “His run for President was narcissistic and caused nothing but harm.”
Gee, I can think of another recent Presidential candidate whose run can be described the same way (and unlike Nader’s it really was narcissistic and harmful) but she hasn’t been ostracized from DC has she?
Really don’t like having their monopoly challenged, do they?
Ed Rendell, DNC chair at the time, called on Gore to concede the election less than an hour after the Supreme Ct handed down its ruling. Rendell was also reported to have said that, during the recount, he considered a run for president in 2004, if Gore would have not won the recount and would have decided not to run again (Jake Tapper article “Philly Blunt” in Salon 2001).
Ultimately, Gore won a FL recount at the University of Chicago that was funded by a number of news organizations and included statewide undervotes and overvotes. Bush would still have won if the more limited recount had been completed.
Funny how Nader is still ostracized, while GWB is now embraced by the Democratic establishment. And speaking of ostracized, in the fifth photo set down in the article is a picture of Susan Sarandon campaigning for Nader.
For those who say that Bernie should have run as a third party candidate, Nader regrets that he did not run within the Democratic party. He said that when he made his decision, he thought that he would have been excluded from the debates and would have essentially been treated as a third party candidate, anyway.
Thanks for the article. Nader is still a hero to me.
My recollection is Gore challenged the voting in several counties not the entire state of Florida. The NY Times did an investigation I think in 2002 and stated that if Gore won his Supreme Court challenge he would of still lost. If instead he challenged the entire state he win. Only Gore could pick ‘Democratic’ counties and still lose.
Nader had nothing to do with Gore’s loss. Who told Bill Clinton not to campaign in Arkansas? Probably Gore’s campaign people like Donna Brazille. Democrats were still being elected in Arkansas back then. Bill Clinton would of made the difference I believe but I assume blaming Nader is more fun for the Democrats. Blaming others for their failures is what they do best (see Hillary Clinton).
FWIB: https://www.facebook.com/KSTPTV/videos/410963339579469/