Wednesday, October 14, 2020

Mandatory Suicide

Considering Options,​

​  ​I voted for Tulsi Gabbard for President about 5:50 yesterday afternoon, after standing in a long snaking line in the shade for a little over an hour and a half. 
​  ​Why did I do that? There were 2 places to vote early on my hour bike ride home, and the first one had long snaking lines through a sunny parking lot, so I rode to the second one, with the shade of oak trees.
  I just wanted to vote for an honest candidate who advocates for peace, based upon her personal experience in America's wars.​
I am now done with that. I suspect a lot of the other people in line wanted to be done with that.
​  ​I wore my Chairman Mao t-shirt from China. I saw an Ozzie for President T-shirt, and a pretty good Grateful Dead t-shirt with a skeletal Uncle Sam riding a chopper. Everybody was pleasant and polite.
​  ​At least 2/3 of the machines had nobody voting. The bottleneck was at the ID and sign-in stations, just 2 of them. 
The elderly black lady who told everybody in line how to do it from time to time was the more efficient. Nobody knew how to do a write-in when I asked, but they found out, and told me, and it was easy. I had not done it before. 
I was going to write-in Cynthia McKinney for VP, but it would still have been the same vote on the same line, my protest-vote. 



Trump Vs COVID, Who Won? Russel Brand video. I rarely include a video. This is well considered and Russel Brand clearly lays out how Donald Trump is directly accessing human perceptions, using visual media to resonate with archetypes in our psyches.
​https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mR52Cg__xYM

Capitalism, global financial capitalism​, has perfected the game of isolating a group of people from what they need to survive, forcing them to hand over all that they hold title to, then giving them less than they need, while slowly bleeding them to death. It is now the only game in the world.​
IMF Seizes on Pandemic to Pave Way for Privatization in 81 Countries
​  The enormous economic dislocation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic offers a unique opportunity to fundamentally alter the structure of society, and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) if using the crisis to implement near-permanent austerity measures across the world.
​  ​76 of the 91 loans it has negotiated with 81 nations since the beginning of the worldwide pandemic in March have come attached with demands that countries adopt measures such as deep cuts to public services and pensions — measures that will undoubtedly entail privatization, wage freezes or cuts, or the firing of public sector workers like doctors, nurses, teachers and firefighters.
https://www.mintpressnews.com/imf-seizes-on-covid-crisis-to-pave-way-for-privatization-in-81-countries/271917/

​And there is no way to stop the destruction. 
Countries, peoples and ecosystems must continually be destroyed to feed the centers of financial capitalism.​  until...
Fifth of countries at risk of ecosystem collapse, analysis finds
Trillions of dollars of GDP depend on biodiversity, according to Swiss Re report
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/oct/12/fifth-of-nations-at-risk-of-ecosystem-collapse-analysis-finds

​Giants, Who Really Rules The World?
T​he 7 richest people own as much as the poorest half in our world, but the richest 300 literally control everything. 
They do it through a few overarching financial corporations, interwoven into the central brain of global financial capitalism. 
This is it. This is what rules and decides in global capitalism. 
It's about as big as it can be and still make decisions, still rule. It does not seem to be able to re-format, though.​
(I just ordered a copy from Amazon. What's wrong with me? It was so easy, though.)
​First is the book review, then a 20 minute interview with Anthropologist Peter Philips, who did exhaustive research.
​  ​Phillips employs a very clear and easily readable structure to layout his analysis. He divides the new “Global Power Elite” into four sections—(i) Managers (i.e., the financial elite); (ii) Facilitators (i.e., bureaucrats and policy planners); (iii) Protectors (i.e., military-intelligence apparatus of power); and (iv) Ideologists (i.e., public-relations operatives and propagandists). Like a good research resource, each section is divided between an overview analysis and a series of detailed profiles of about 300 of the leading power players in today’s world economy.  
https://www.nyjournalofbooks.com/book-review/giants-global
​https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUGh1Su7-ok

How We Institutionalized Incompetence, Charles Hugh Smith​
And so we face the ultimate irony: 'bailing-out-everything' destroys the entire rotten system.
​  ​You've probably noticed things no longer work as well as they once did. For example, the store's online inventory says something is in stock and when you get to the store, it's not on the shelf. A small issue, but telling nonetheless.
​  ​Or you might call a local government agency to get an explanation of how a new fee is calculated, and nobody's ever available to explain it--or sort out your punitive late fee even though you paid on time.
​  ​You've probably noticed services cost a lot more now, but the quality has eroded. Sure, it's easy to blame it all on the pandemic, but quality has been eroding as costs have risen for years.
https://www.oftwominds.com/blogoct20/incompetence10-20.html

Will Confucius marry Marx?​   Pepe Escobar
​  ​Chinese scholar Lanxin Xiang has written a book , The Quest For Legitimacy In Chinese Politics, that is arguably the most extraordinary effort in decades trying to bridge the East-West politico-historical divide...  
​  ​He identifies two key sources for the Chinese problem: “On the one hand, there is the project of cultural restoration through which Chinese leader Xi Jinping attempts to restore ‘Confucian legitimacy’ or the traditional ‘Mandate of Heaven’; on the other hand, Xi refuses to start any political reforms, because it is his top priority to preserve the existing political system, i.e., a ruling system derived mainly from an alien source, Bolshevik Russia.” ​  ​ Ay, there’s the rub: “The two objectives are totally incompatible”.  ​...​
​  ​Essentially, the Mandate of Heaven is “an ancient Chinese belief that tian [ heaven, but not the Christian heaven, complete with an omniscient God] grants the emperor the right to rule based on their moral quality and ability to govern well and fairly.”  
http://thesaker.is/will-confucius-marry-marx/

​Supreme Court Hearings update (They say it's a done-deal, but there is this process.) 
 On abortion and Roe v. Wade: Barrett repeatedly declined to give her views on high-profile, contentious issues like abortion rights and the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act. She was repeatedly asked about her views of Roe v. Wade, the 1973 landmark case establishing a constitutional right to abortion, and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, which reaffirmed its central holding in 1992.
  The Affordable Care Act: Barrett also rejected Democratic senators' questions on the Affordable Care Act, citing Ruth Bader Ginsburg's response to answering hypothetical questions during her hearing in 1993. "No hints, no previews, no forecasts," said Barrett.
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/watch-live-day-3-judge-barretts-supreme-court-confirmation-hearings

It is interesting to observe how for example the main version from Turkish and Azerbaijani sources about the Turkish F-16 jets switched from public denial of their presence to claims that they are not involved directly in the conflict and are just needed to deter Armenian aggression. Reports from the ground and the diplomatic posture of the sides indicate that Azerbaijan, supported by Turkey, is preparing a new military push against Armenian forces in the Nagorno-Karabakh region to consolidate and expand its initial gains before the winter.  
https://southfront.org/turkey-threatens-armenia-with-direct-military-intervention/

​Thanks Marjorie for the Ivermectin/zinc/doxycycline for COVID update:
​  Goa’s Chief Minister Pramod Sawant alongside State Health Minister Vishwajit Rane launched the ‘Home Isolation Kit’ to combat COVID-19. Apparently, the Indian state was influenced by Australia’s Dr. Thomas Borody and his combination treatment involving ivermectin and doxycycline (and zinc) targeting SARS-CoV-2, the virus behind COVID. Dr. Tarek Alam at the Bangladesh Medical College has also demonstrated the efficacy of the treatment in a hospital-approved case series study and is now conducting a randomized controlled study in that country. Back to beautiful southwestern India in Goa, calling it a “game-changer,” the Health Minister of this small Indian state is targeting the complete eradication of the virus in a people-centric home-based program.
https://www.trialsitenews.com/goa-game-changer-indian-states-health-authority-approves-distributes-ivermectin-doxycycline-to-treat-covid-19-as-prophylaxis/

Nihilism?
​  ​Through constant vigilance and some good fortune, astronomers have managed to capture the moment a supermassive black hole in a galaxy 215 million light-years away tore a star apart.
The so-called ‘tidal disruption event’ (TDE) is the closest such death of a star humanity has ever witnessed.
​  ​Astronomers were alerted by the intense flash of light, visible hundreds of millions of light years away, just before parts of the star disappeared into the black hole’s event horizon after being ‘spaghettified’ by the immense gravity.

https://www.rt.com/news/503240-black-hole-devours-entire-star/

​Destined to Die​ 

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