Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz filed a resolution late Monday to oust Kevin McCarthy as speaker, setting up a likely showdown vote in the House in the days ahead.
If today’s “grow or perish” #capitalism is good for #innovation, how come that most of the exponential innovation in #computer technology (in #hardware) depends on a #German foundation which has in its rules to secure the right of the employees and to advance the craft — but not #economic growth?
1/ Today the #2024Election kicks off in earnest with #JoeBiden’s re-election bid announcement
There is 560 days to the #PresidentialElection. Much will happen, conditions will change but it as #Biden suggests a continuation of the battle for the soul of America
I’ll use this thread to comment periodically on the election over the next 80 weeks. It’s a long road to #ElectionDay2024, but the stakes couldn’t be higher
Saturday, #Austin witnessed the largest mobilization of the fascist hate group Patriot Front since their May 13 march in Washington, DC. With no warning of the event, antifascist groups were unable to stage any opposition.
Projection has become a hallmark of today's Republican party. At any time a GOP lawmaker is accused of something, they and their surrogates quickly turn to accusing a Democrat of doing the same thing.
The July/August issue is reaching mailboxes and select newsstands now!
Digital subscribers: Watch your email for your copy, coming later today. Enjoy, and share it with a friend who needs to discover why #TexasNeedsAnObserver!
📢 The EU Parliament will not be moving forward with chat control! The indiscriminate mass surveillance measures have been removed and secure end-to-end encryption will not be compromised! 🥳
Organizers from the Tampa 5 with @tampabaysds the Florida 4 with @sfl_arc and the Young Lords with @newerayounglordsflorida are joining us for a panel on political repression hosted by our chapter!
Florida is becoming an epicenter for the repression of mass movements and organizers, especially those who are BIPOC and LGBTQ, are facing violence from the state as well as from the far right.
We'll discuss the repression our panelists have faced and are currently facing, what it means to fight for bodily autonomy and public education in the era of Ron DeSantis, and how we can begin to fight back with a working class movement!
The panel will be held on Sept 22nd, hybrid and in-person, at Florida International University's Ryder Business Building room 140 and online at https://allmylinks.com/ydsafiu
Does anyone have concrete ideas on how to solve the situation in Gaza?
It appears that the attack on Israel was intended to launch the big war between Muslims and Jews. If that's true, how do they get the hostages out without force when negotiation is impossible?
Is it an option for Israel simply to take no action, let the chips fall where they may? Leave the hostages to their fates...
The heartbreaking, disgusting, and brutally tragic story of how we got to where we are today…
"Why action on the climate crisis is all hot air"
How did we reach this point of abject failure: where the greater the scientific consensus and real-world evidence, the smaller the impact that consensus has on decision-making?
The astonishing disjunct between threat and response is possible only because the oil lobby has historically shaped, and continues to shape, popular understanding of the gravity of what lies ahead.
Cognitive dissonance reigns.
It is true that the establishment media has, very belatedly, started to diagnose more unpredictable and extreme weather patterns as symptoms of a wider climate crisis. It is hard to deny reality when reality keeps slapping you in the face.
But otherwise, the media has been, and continues to be, the core of the problem. It still plays cover both for the oil lobby and for the global corporations whose bottom line depends on a continuing addiction to over-consumption and “economic growth.”
That should be no surprise, because media corporations, whose job it is to frame our understanding of the world, are themselves deeply embedded in corporate profiteering at the planet’s expense.
Under the capitalist system, the primary duty of oil corporations – like other corporations – is to maintain profitability and guarantee value for investors and stockholders. Ethics never got a look-in.
So the fossil-fuel industry spent part of its vast profits pursuing a twin-track: first, muddying the waters about the climate science, then channeling attention towards largely meaningless, small-scale fixes that fell to the public to implement.
For the critical years when urgent, state-backed action was needed on a massive scale, climate denial, funded by dark money from Big Business, was given regular airtime on influential media channels like the BBC. Ordinary people were left, as they were supposed to be, confused and unsure.
We are still encouraged through advertising to consume as much as possible and throw away items of new technology – from personal computers to phones – every few years through planned obsolescence.
But this individualised, competitive, wasteful way of life is being given a makeover. Cars are now hybrid or electric. Holidays are “carbon offset” somehow. Plastic on our food is described as recyclable. Advertising now explains to us how all the stuff we buy is saving the planet.
Living ever more of our lives online supposedly helps too, because it reduces our carbon footprint. It is a green revolution in which everything stays pretty much the same – including the ability of giant corporations to make massive profits.
Armed with warnings – decades in advance – from their own scientists, the oil industry had enough of a head-start to invent a self-serving narrative. It's one in which ordinary people are encouraged to consume as much as before, while being persuaded either that they are making a difference or that the damage they are causing will be reversed by imminent technologies.
The new watchword is “net zero”. But in truth, it is a giant psy-op, as climate scientists have gradually started to appreciate.
In 2021 a group of three leading academics admitted that for years they had been duped into championing the promises of the Green New Deal. Technological fixes, such as carbon capture, offsetting and geoengineering, were “no more than fairy tales”, they warned. Net zero policies “were and still are driven by a need to protect business as usual, not the climate”.
James Dyke, an expert in global systems at Exeter University, observed: “It’s astonishing how the continual absence of any credible carbon removal technology seems to never affect net zero policies. I've now realised that we have all been subject to a form of gaslighting.”
There's much more in this brilliant piece by Jonathon Cook, and I hope you will read the whole thing.
It’s incredibly dangerous how the richest man in the world — deluded by paranoia, narcissism, and far-right conspiracies — can get arms of the state to go after his perceived enemies instead of holding him to account as they should be doing.
As the year turns, it seems time to issue a warning about the game some people who are not operating in good faith will be playing on social media — especially as the 2024 US election approaches.
It's not uncommon for people posturing as "concerned"/"liberal"/"progressive" to come to social media feed of folks ACTUALLY trying to further progressive ends, with the intent of lobbing bombs into progressive conversations.
I find it disturbing that capitalism takes and creates wealth and then outsources the problems it creates to us.
I was at a restaurant (pay at counter) type, and my meal was like $35. And I had to pee. But they told me the “restroom is out of order”. But it wasnt because i saw employees use it.
Your yearly reminder that there are more than two political parties in the UK and despite the voting system being first-past-the-post, which favours the Reds and the Blues, you can + should vote for whoever you like. :face_sunglasses_fb:
I have always voted Green in the UK and if you like the sound of their policies, then you should consider it too. :tongue_wink_fb:
Lara Trump Says Joe Biden is Running For President To Avoid Going to Prison (hillreporter.com)
Projection has become a hallmark of today's Republican party. At any time a GOP lawmaker is accused of something, they and their surrogates quickly turn to accusing a Democrat of doing the same thing.