On Nov 6 the Isreali military announces that it will not allow Palestinians to return to Northern Gaza.
This is ethnic cleansing & forced displacement. These are war crimes.
Joe Biden could stop funding this at any moment but even now he won't. Reckless.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/nov/06/palestinians-will-not-be-allowed-to-return-to-homes-in-northern-gaza-says-idf
The new generation of the dispossessed so their land can enrich the corrupt, cruel, & callous. Bribes for genocide.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/mar/19/jared-kushner-gaza-waterfront-property-israel-negev
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/jared-kushner-israel-gaza-waterfront-property
https://www.politico.eu/article/gaza-better-monaco-donald-trump/
A new seaside playground for the ultra wealthy?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_International_Golf_Links,_Scotland
Or oil field drilling & pollution?
https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2024/3/6/israel-is-pillaging-not-just-gazas-cities-but-also-its-waters
The perennial dilemma of the fossil fuel industry's real estate interests.
@Npars01 @QasimRashid
This is the new reality: no accountability for oligarchs.
A Republican congress guarantees that nothing will come of it.
Get used to it. It’s going to get a lot worse before it gets better.
@Joe_Hill @Npars01 @QasimRashid
We must adopt the same playbook they used. Slow, small changes, small wins, until we have enough power back to do as they did.
Just remember, we are the more intelligent party, so we should be able to get things back much quicker. They took decades to pull this off because that's what it takes for stupid to develop.
Truthfully, I expect the GOP to be too drunk on power to get anything done. Watch. Nothing meaningful to the country will get done. The economy, the food & gas prices, nothing will change.
Republicans want to dismantle the ACA, give tax cuts to the rich, deregulate pollution, thwart the phase out of fossil fuels, force women to boost the birth rate for economic reasons, suppress wages & voting, create slave labor camps for detainees, end federal agencies, end all social safety net programs, privatize & loot all federally owned assets, protect the gun lobby, reward megadonors using tax dollars, raise drug prices, adopt crypto,..
1/2
2/2
.. inflict ruinous tariffs on automakers, farmers & distilleries, end all unions, eliminate the minimum wage, end student loan relief, convert government jobs into Tamanny Hall style graft, and profit from war & pandemics.
Republicans have a false reputation for being a "Do Nothing" party.
They plan on making 99% of the country poorer, sicker, and less long lived, while the favored few reap the rewards of being loyal apparatchiks.
@Npars01 and I'm saying they are too stupid to make any of it work. When they deport everyone that does the manual labor in this country, then what? You don't think MAGA is going to pick fruit or work at McDonald's do you?
Watch and see. They "want" to do a lot, but per usual do not have the critical thinking skills to see beyond their hate. They think they will just bus everyone they hate to the border and kick them out, turn and drive away, and be done with it.
I am betting on many mistakes happening and when they meet resistance even more mistakes will happen. We can take this country back.
Trump's "deportation plan" is actually a plan for slave labor internment camps similar to Putin's gulags & China's Uigher "re-education camps".
He's rewarding his private prison donors.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-deportation-plans-private-prisons-opportunity_n_672d3faae4b01e5999fc97c0
Detainees will spend years incarcerated working for pennies while their deportation is slow-walked.
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/california-slavery-prison-vote-election-2024-1235155591/
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/06/us/politics/california-prop-6-measure-forced-prison-labor.html
100% resist. I luckily live in a state with a governor that just told Trump, "If you come for my people, you will have to go through me!"
@samhainnight @jeff @Npars01 I would like to see CA, OR. and WA succeed and form a new nation, possibly called Pacifica.
Putin would adore it if the USA became like the former Yugoslavian states: weak, small, fractious & exploited as an agricultural backwater.
Easily picked off, one by one.
Strength comes from unity.
@samhainnight we can do that economically together as blue states. Just California plus NY equals almost a quarter of the entire US GDP!
@sisu42 @samhainnight @jeff @Npars01
Republic of Cascadia would be an alternative name
Edit: This Republic doesn't normally include CA (but does include BC in Canada) however it's inclusion would be a valuable addition.
Here's another scary thought
Megadonors like #KochNetwork want to shut down the Dept. Of Education & privatize all schools
Guess who invests in both charter schools AND private prisons? Jeff Yass & Peter Thiel
Want CoreCivic & GeoGroup running your child's high school on a lucrative no-bid contract?
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/12-best-prison-law-enforcement-161158411.html
https://www.ft.com/content/88ba9e42-09c2-480a-8b21-43051707f84d
https://www.fool.com/investing/2024/11/07/billionaire-jeff-yass-sold-61-stake-in-palantir-ai/
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/06/us/politics/california-prop-6-measure-forced-prison-labor.html
@Npars01 @jeff@soapbox.hackdefendr.com fascism is at its heart a huge grift. Now all the other criminals are gonna climb aboard.
Republicans do nothing but reward their donors.
In effect, a Republican administration is a machine to convert taxpayer dollars into profits for their favored billionaires.
Bribery & kickbacks.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-04-17/trump-presses-republicans-for-kickbacks-when-using-his-likeness
https://gothamist.com/news/bronx-gop-official-indicted-boe-federal-corruption
https://www.propublica.org/article/clarence-thomas-scotus-undisclosed-luxury-travel-gifts-crow
@Npars01 @TheDailyBurble @jeff
But the machine is even more efficient then that. When the government debt gets too big, and/or a financial bubble bursts, the Democrats are allowed to take over and clean up the books - all while being constantly blamed by the GOP
Then, as we just saw, a Democrats can be leading an economy that is "the envy of the world" (Economist mag) yet somehow personally responsible for the price gouging that drove inflation.
I blame media for amplifying GOP lies
@TCatInReality @Npars01 @TheDailyBurble @jeff
Also it seemed to me the Democrats didn't run on those record breaking accomplishments, yielding (as they often do) to GOP lies.
@stargazersmith @TCatInReality @Npars01 @TheDailyBurble
With 38% of registered voters either not voting or were blocked/prevented from voting is the ultimate reason Trump won. Not the only reason, but a primary reason.
They did everything they could to change the rules in their favor and forced a lot of people to just give up and not vote.
As for the 32% that actually voted for Trump consists mostly of low information voters that just don't watch the news. Mixed in with try MAGA cult members gave them that 2% lead.
@jeff @TCatInReality @Npars01 @TheDailyBurble
Thanks for that information. I wasn't aware of all of it.
@stargazersmith @jeff @Npars01 @TheDailyBurble
100% agree with No Name
And I'll push back hard on the rightwing narrative that Dems didn't message well, or "yielded" to GOP messaging.
America essentially has two media:
- right wing propagandists and
- mainstream bothsides media that normalizes and sanewashes GOP insanity and downplays Dems
And that's because billionaires control the media and want this outcome. 9 years of relentless brainwashing made a criminal acceptable.
@jeff
It's not even the Felon that won...
Capitalism and the Heritage Foundation won.
That's who now controls our nation.
We are going to see a lot of deaths in the next couple of years because they will be removing anyone that they consider dead weight.
@TCatInReality @Npars01 @TheDailyBurble @jeff Democrats run Black, Gay, and Female candidates. It is forbidden to vote for them except in emergencies.
Except in those emergencies, nothing they say is to be taken seriously, everything said by Republicans is TRUTH.
@TCatInReality @Npars01 @TheDailyBurble @jeff Been like that as long as I can remember. Personally I am getting ready for the inevitable Republican recession and job layoffs. Probably have a few years to save up some cash, am going to need it.
I watched it and read the book on the Wannsee Conference.
Perplexed why Miriam Adelson, Stephen Schwarzman, Jeffrey Yass, Bernie Marcus, Ike Perlmutter, & Kushner funded a set of neo-Nazis for public office, while listening to Trump rant antisemitic slurs.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/24/us/politics/trump-ad-jewish-voters.html
https://www.npr.org/2024/09/20/g-s1-23859/trump-jewish-voters-israel-election-2024
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/sep/19/trump-jewish-voters-election
https://jweekly.com/2024/11/06/donald-trump-thanked-a-historic-coalition-for-his-election-he-didnt-include-jews/
https://thejewishindependent.com.au/jews-voted-against-trump-heres-why
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/25/us/politics/miriam-adelson-trump-israel.html
Republicans consider the American taxpayers as an exploitable resource to enrich their billionaire donors.
The 2008 Financial Crash taught Wall Street how to buy politicians to escape consequences & profit from the disasters they orchestrate.
Covid Pandemic relief made the rich a lot richer.
Both Trump presidencies will do the same. Enrichment & impunity for the moneyed.
Kings or any other dictator cannot cope with modern complexity.
Simplistic governance produces simplistic "solutions".
Converting modern government into a monarchy-style system of patronage hastens the collapse from crises like pandemics & prolong a painful recovery.
Population size wasn't restored for centuries after the Black Death because of the constant warfaring of despots between themselves.
Systems thinking seems to be a relatively new way of observing political decline.
The tech industry shares a lot of concepts that I wouldn't have encountered otherwise. Grateful for the broadening of horizons.
Not everyone sees that perspective. For them, knowledge is to be hoarded to benefit themselves personally.
Some use tech to narrow horizons, limit benefits to a tiny few, and manipulate others using information asymmetry.
Good books on Systems Thinking.
Derek & Laura Cabrera "Systems Thinking"
David Peter Stroh "Systems Thinking for Social Change"
Albert Rutherford "The Systems Thinker"
It can be applied to so many global problems, like backsliding democracies & fossil fuel funded fascism.
#KochNetwork & #AtlasNetwork spent 50 years building a right wing ecosystem to keep its captive consumers captivated.
A bandaid was attempted by focusing only on electing Democrats.
Voting is ...
1/2
2/2
... only one element of a larger & broader effort necessary to save democracy & the planet. Build communities & ecosystems.
Fund law students careers right in college like Koch does. Fund progressive influencers. Fund a ground game.
Start with not participating in or contributing to any venture funded by GOP billionaires.
AI. Cryptocurrency. SpaceX. Twitter. Walmart. Loans. RTO. Fox News. CNN. NYT.
If a Republican wants it, you don't.
Sabotage their efforts to divide & conquer.
One aspect of fascism is the development of dark economies & tax evasion.
Populist tax revolts are responses to being harvested like wheat by billionaires.
Republicans have used tax evasion & tax revolts to undermine the common good for half a century. Turn the tables.
Think about the significance of the cash-only economy of India in response to Modi.
If billionaires can evade taxation, so can the poor, and then how will Musk get his government subsidies for SpaceX?
https://caravanmagazine.in/vantage/india-attempts-curb-black-economy
@Npars01 @Nazani @jeff@soapbox.hackdefendr.com I’m not sure that ancient systems could cope with plague either. Look at what happened to Rome after the Antonine Plague (165-180 CE) and the Justinian Plague 541-549 CE. I think that the only difference now is that the consequences are more widespread and playing out more rapidly thanks to modern communications and technology.
@Npars01 Klingt nach einem guten kapitalistischen Geschäftsmodell.
@Npars01 @jeff Prison labor is happening now. Look, too, at the Prop. that was just voted on, in California, allowing the continuation of enslavement for purposes of punishment.
Shocking but nonetheless accepted is that CoreCivic in Tennessee is a donor to arts, the Middle Tennessee YMCA and other seemingly benign institutions. Here's a random article about prison labor:
Private prisons & detention centers are rewards for Republican donors like Schwarzman of BlackRock and New Times institutional investors like Vanguard .
https://www.cnn.com/2019/06/28/investing/prison-stocks-mutual-funds/index.html
https://theintercept.com/2022/06/27/esg-funds-corporate-responsibility-dei/
https://www.motherjones.com/criminal-justice/2018/09/corecivic-private-prison-shane-bauer-book/
Slave labor is returning, thanks to Trump's donors.
@Npars01 @jeff I think they will use all those „illegalizations“ (immigration, pregnancy, you name it) to increase pressure and incite fear. And then, immigrants‘ labour will be cheaper, women will be more subordinated (again), people will do their biddings and so on. 1984, The Handmaid‘s Tale and many other dystopian fantasies coming to life. That‘s what reactionaries dream of. Stupid? Of course. But also evil.
BTW: Coming soon: Bow to the royal family!
Well look. I get all that, I know that's what they'll try. I just don't think they are smart enough to pull it off. They'll be drunk with power for years, all the while people like me who haven't given up yet will sneak past their guards and take the castle back.
I'm not ready to give up!
I will die right here in my home under my own conditions before I give up and let some tiny handed moron win this way.