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mostlysignssomeportents · 7 months

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Biden should support the UAW

On September 22, I'm (virtually) presenting at the DIG Festival in Modena, Italy. That night, I'll be in person at LA's Book Soup for the launch of Justin C Key's "The World Wasn’t Ready for You." On September 27, I'll be at Chevalier's Books in Los Angeles with Brian Merchant for a joint launch for my new book The Internet Con and his new book, Blood in the Machine.

The UAW are on strike against the Big Three automakers. Biden should be roaring his full-throated support for the strike. Doing so would be both just and shrewd. But instead, the White House is waffling…and if recent history is any indication, they might actually come out against the strike.

The Biden administration is a mix of appointees from the party's left Sanders/Warren wing, and the corporatist, "Third Way" wing associated with Clinton and Obama, which has been ascendant since the Reagan years. The neoliberal wing presided over NAFTA, the foreclosure crisis, charter schools and the bailout for the bankers – but not the people. They voted for the war in Iraq, supported NSA mass-surveillance, failed to use their majorities to codify abortion rights, and waved through mega-merger after mega-merger.

By contrast, the left wing of the party has consistently fought monopoly, war, spying, privatized education and elite impunity – but forever in the shadow of the triangulation wing, who hate the left far more than they hate Republicans. But with the Sanders campaign, the party's left became a force that the party could no longer ignore.

That led to the Biden administration's chimeric approach to key personnel. On the one hand, you have key positions being filled by ghouls who cheered on mass foreclosures under Obama:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/06/personnel-are-policy/#janice-eberly

And on the other, you have shrewd tacticians who are revolutionizing labor law enforcement in America, delivering real, material benefits for American workers:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/06/goons-ginks-and-company-finks/#if-blood-be-the-price-of-your-cursed-wealth

Progressives in the Biden administration have often delivered the goods, but they're all-too-often hamstrung by the corporate cheerleaders the party's right wing secured – think of Lina Khan losing her bid to block the Microsoft/Activision merger thanks to a Biden-appointed, big-money-loving judge:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/14/making-good-trouble/#the-peoples-champion

These self-immolating own-goals are especially visible when it comes to strikes. The Biden admin intervened to clobber railway workers, who were fighting some of the country's cruelest, most reckless monopolists, whose greed threatens the nation:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/11/dinah-wont-you-blow/#ecp

The White House didn't have the power to block the Teamsters threat of an historic strike against UPS, but it publicly sided with UPS bosses, fretting about "the economy" while the workers were trying to win a living wage and air conditioning for the roasting ovens they spend all day in.

Now, with the UAW on strike against the monopolistic auto-makers – who received repeated billions in public funds, gave their top execs massive raises, shipped jobs offshore, and used public money to lobby against transit and decarbonization – Biden is sitting on the sidelines, failing to champion the workers' cause.

Writing in his newsletter, labor reporter Hamilton Nolan makes the case that the White House should – must! – stand behind the autoworkers:

https://www.hamiltonnolan.com/p/whose-fault-is-it?

Nolan points out that workers who strike without the support of the government have historically lost their battles. When workers win labor fights, it's typically by first winning political ones, dragging the government to the table to back them. Biden's failure to support workers isn't "neutral" – it's siding with the bosses.

Today, union support is at historic highs not seen in generations. The hot labor summer wasn't a moment, it was a turning point. Backing labor isn't just the moral thing to do, it's also the right political move:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/14/prop-22-never-again/#norms-code-laws-markets

Biden is already partway there. He rejected the Clinton/Obama position that workers would have to vote for Democrats because "we are your only choice." Maybe he did that out of personal conviction, but it's also no longer politically possible for Democrats to turn out worker votes while screwing over workers.

The faux-populism of the Republicans' Trump wing has killed that strategy. As Naomi Klein writes in her new book Doppelganger, Steve Bannon's tactical genius is to zero in on the areas where Democrats have failed key blocks and offer faux-populist promises to deliver for those voters:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/05/not-that-naomi/#if-the-naomi-be-klein-youre-doing-just-fine

When Democrats fail to bat for workers, they don't just lose worker votes – they send voters to the Republicans. As Nolan writes, "working people know that the class war is real. They are living it. Make the Democratic Party the party that is theirs! Stop equivocating! Draw a line in the sand and stand on the right side of it and make that your message!"

The GOP and Democrats are "sorting themselves around the issue of inequality, because inequality is the issue that defines our time, and that fuels all the other issues that people perceive as a decline in the quality of their own lives." If the Democrats have a future, they need to be on the right side of that issue.

Biden should have allowed a railroad strike. He should have cheered the Teamsters. He should be on the side of the autoworkers. These aren't "isolated squabbles," they're "critical battles in the larger class war." Every union victory transfers funds from the ruling class to the working class, and erodes the power of the wealthy to corrupt our politics.

When Democrats have held legislative majorities, they've refused to use them to strengthen labor law to address inequality and the corruption it engenders. Striking workers are achieving the gains that Democrats couldn't or wouldn't take for themselves. As Nolan writes:

Democratic politicians should be sending the unions thank you notes when they undertake these hard strikes, because the unions are doing the work that the Democrats have failed to accomplish with legislation for the past half fucking century. Say thank you! Say you support the workers! They are striking because the one party that was responsible for ensuring that the rich didn’t take all the money away from the middle class has thoroughly and completely failed to do so.

Republican's can't win elections by fighting on the class war. Democrats should acknowledge that this is the defining issue of our day and lean into it.

Whose fault is a strike at the railroads, or at UPS, or in Hollywood, or at the auto companies? It is the fault of the greedy fuckers who took all the workers’ money for years and years. It is the fault of the executives and investors and corporate boards that treated the people who do the work like shit. When the workers, at great personal risk, strike to take back a measure of what is theirs, they are the right side. There is no winning the class war without accepting this premise.

Autoworkers' strikes have been rare for a half-century, but in their heyday, they Got Shit Done. Writing in The American Prospect, Harold Meyerson tells the tale of the 1945/46 GM strike:

https://prospect.org/labor/2023-09-18-uaw-strikes-built-american-middle-class/

In that strike, the UAW made history: they didn't just demand higher wages for workers, but they also demanded that GM finance these wages with lower profits, not higher prices. This demand was so popular that Harry Truman – hardly a socialist! – stepped in and demanded that GM turn over its books so he could determine whether they could afford to pay a living wage without hiking prices.

Truman released the figures proving that higher wages didn't have to come with higher prices. GM caved. Workers got their raise. Truman touched the "third rail of American capitalism" – co-determination, the idea that workers should have a say in how their employers ran their businesses.

Co-determination is common in other countries – notably Germany – but American capitalists are violently allergic to the idea. The GM strike of 45/6 didn't lead to co-determination, but it did effectively create the American middle-class. The UAW's contract included cost-of-living allowances, wage hikes that tracked gains in national productivity, health care and a defined-benefits pension.

These provisions were quickly replicated in contracts with other automakers, and then across the entire manufacturing sector. Non-union employers were pressured to match them in order to attract talent. The UAW strike of 45/6 set in motion the entire period of postwar prosperity.

As Meyerson points out, today's press coverage of the UAW strike of 2023 is full of hand-wringing about what a work-stoppage will do to the economy. This is short-sighted indeed: when the UAW prevails against the automakers, they will rescue both the economy and the Democratic party from the neo-feudal Gilded Age the country's ultrawealthy are creating around us:

https://doctorow.medium.com/the-end-of-the-road-to-serfdom-bfad6f3b35a9?sk=207d6afdb89b0351b92233cc3318ab94

There's a name for a political strategy that seeks to win votes by making voters' lives better – it's called "deliverism." It's the one thing the Trump Republican's won't and can't do – they can talk about bringing back jobs or making life better for American workers, but all they can deliver is cruelty to disfavored minorities and tax-breaks for the ultra-rich:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/10/thanks-obama/#triangulation

Deliverism is how the Democrats can win the commanding majorities to deliver the major transformations America and the world need to address the climate emergency and dismantle our new oligarchy. Letting the party's right wing dominate turns the Democrats into caffeine-free Republicans.

When the Dems allowed the Child Tax Credit to lapse – because Joe Manchin insisted that poor people would spend the money on drugs – they killed a program that had done more to lift Americans out of poverty than anything else. Today, American poverty is skyrocketing:

https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/4206837-poverty-made-an-alarming-jump-congress-could-have-stopped-it/

Four million children have fallen back into poverty since the Dems allowed the Child Tax Credit to lapse. The rate of child poverty in America has doubled over the past year.

The triangulators on the party's right insist that they are the adults in the room, realists who don't let sentiment interfere with good politics. They're lying. You don't get working parents to vote Democrat by letting their children starve.

America's workers can defeat its oligarchs. They did it before. Biden says he's a union man. It's time for him to prove it. He should be on TV every night, pounding a podium and demanding that the Big Three give in to their workers. If he doesn't, he's handing the country to Trump.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/18/co-determination/#now-make-me-do-it

#pluralistic #uaw #bidenomics #strikes #united autoworkers #labor #unions #union strong #evs #now make me do it #deliverism #democrats #hamilton nolan

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robertreich · 2 years

Video

youtube

The Republican War On Teachers

There’s a war being waged on America’s teachers, and we must stand up for them before it’s too late.

Teachers watch over America’s most precious asset — our children.

They dedicate their lives to caring for our youth, serving as role models, and making sure that future generations are set up for success.

So why on Earth are we treating them so badly?

Our nation’s teachers are not only working long, demanding hours inside and outside of the classroom — but they’re blamed these days for almost everything imaginable.

They are yelled at by parents over masks, reprimanded by school boards about books they assign or let their students read, vilified by politicians for teaching honest lessons about America’s history of racism and genocide, even told to arm themselves against the possibility that their classrooms might be invaded by murderous young men with semi-automatics.

Teachers are also making less money than they were ten years ago. Their average salary today is around $66,000, but when adjusted for inflation, that’s a $2,000 pay cut compared to 2012. As recently as 2018, nearly 600,000 public school teachers had to work a second job.

We’re also saddling our nation’s educators with huge debt. Nearly half of teachers, 45%, have taken out student loans to pay for the advanced degrees often required of them — with an average debt load of $55,800.

On top of all this, 94% of teachers have had to dip into their own pockets to buy school supplies. This, in the richest country in the history of the world! And at a time when the average Wall Street employee bonus for 2021 hit a record high of $257,500. It would take the typical teacher almost four years to make that much — and that’s just a bonus for Wall Street traders — a massive golden cherry on top of their ever-sweeter salaries.

I’m guessing Wall Street firms don’t make traders pay for their own pencils.

Are Wall Street bankers really worth so much more than the people we ask to care for and teach our children? P-l-e-a-s-e.

Yet none of this has stopped Republicans from accelerating their war on teachers, and turning educators into political pawns in their battle to advance a radical agenda.

Since January 2021, 35 states have introduced 137 bills limiting what educators are allowed to talk with their students about – with regard to race, American history, politics, sexual orientation and gender identity.

Governors Greg Abbott of Texas and Ron DeSantis of Florida are poster boys for this campaign, even supporting legislation that intrudes on a teacher's ability to craft lesson plans.

Republicans are quick to lob the terms “critical race theory” or “wokeism” against any curriculum that allows our youth to express their identities, advances critical thinking skills, and is honest about our nation’s tragic racial history — calling it “indoctrination” or “brainwashing.”

Why?

Because the biggest threat facing the Republican Party is a new multi-racial generation of young people unafraid to speak truth to power.

Ultimately, if we don’t learn from our history — which often means learning from our mistakes — there’s no way we can tackle our nation’s most pressing problems while building a better, more inclusive future. The foundation for this future begins in the classroom.

So how can we fight back against this war on America’s teachers?

First, pay them twice as much as they’re earning. Bare minimum.

Second, fight for their freedom to teach. Many of the decisions that affect teachers' day-to-day work — as well as the lives of students — are made at local school board meetings. So, go to one. Better yet, run for a position on your local school board.

Third, listen to our teachers. Do you know what’s been lost in the cultural and political war against education in this country? The voices of ACTUAL teachers. If we’re going to truly support them and repair the harm done to our education system, they need to be heard.

Defend our teachers. Pay our teachers. Value our teachers. The work they do determines our future.

#youtube #videos #video #politics #teachers #education #war #republicans #democrats

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kp777 · 2 years

Text

youtube

The Republican War On Teachers

There’s a war being waged on America’s teachers, and we must stand up for them before it’s too late.

Teachers watch over America’s most precious asset — our children.

They dedicate their lives to caring for our youth, serving as role models, and making sure that future generations are set up for success.

So why on Earth are we treating them so badly?

Our nation’s teachers are not only working long, demanding hours inside and outside of the classroom — but they’re blamed these days for almost everything imaginable.

I’m guessing Wall Street firms don’t make traders pay for their own pencils.

Are Wall Street bankers really worth so much more than the people we ask to care for and teach our children? P-l-e-a-s-e.

Yet none of this has stopped Republicans from accelerating their war on teachers, and turning educators into political pawns in their battle to advance a radical agenda.

Governors Greg Abbott of Texas and Ron DeSantis of Florida are poster boys for this campaign, even supporting legislation that intrudes on a teacher’s ability to craft lesson plans.

Why?

Because the biggest threat facing the Republican Party is a new multi-racial generation of young people unafraid to speak truth to power.

So how can we fight back against this war on America’s teachers?

First, pay them twice as much as they’re earning. Bare minimum.

Second, fight for their freedom to teach. Many of the decisions that affect teachers’ day-to-day work — as well as the lives of students — are made at local school board meetings. So, go to one. Better yet, run for a position on your local school board.

Defend our teachers. Pay our teachers. Value our teachers. The work they do determines our future.

#teaching #teachers #education #student debt #Youtube #book ban #critical thinking

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fatedevour · 4 months

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♢ — Anonymous said: the new batch of recruits wants to hear what the doctor has to say to welcome them

UNPROMPTED ASKS: ALWAYS ACCEPTING!

What a tedious process he’s forced to endure. BUT it was one of the few non-negotiable duties any Harbinger had to perform when there were new recruits to be welcomed. They were required to give a speech to new recruits, and although in SNEZHNAYA it was often one of the other Harbingers who delivered them, anywhere else it was the duty of the nearest Harbinger. How unlucky of him. A cold eye glances over the newest recruits from beneath his mask. Most of them didn’t look like they’d make it very far. No matter, it wasn’t HIS problem. He just had to give this ridiculous speech.

“ TODAY is the day you begin to uphold the oath you have sworn to Her Majesty the Tsaritsa and to the nation of Snezhnaya. Your actions all reflect HER. Every word, every step, every moment from when you don your uniform and make it known who you are, you are first and foremost a representation of her Majesty and ALL the Fatui. So if you act a FOOL, you are not just a disgrace to yourself and to your family, but also a disgrace to the Tsaritsa and your new home. Those who stand beside you are your new place of belonging. They are who you will fight and live beside. THEY come first for the sake of Her Majesty. “

Frankly it was all quite NAUSEATING to say such words. But most people were sheep and cattle, and it was the shepherds and wolves who kept them moving and acting as wanted by guiding hand or the snapping of hungry teeth. The speeches were supposed to foster a sense of CAMARADERIE between the people. ( How efficient it is, The Doctor has no idea since it's dull to him. ) And unlike the headache inducing eloquence of Pantalone’s rambling speeches, this needed no pointless frills and obscure terms that would merely be perplexing at best to the common folk. Simple and efficient was sometimes the IDEAL way to approach these matters.

“ Her Majesty expects the BEST from you. You must be ruthless, adaptable, meticulous, and loyal to the cause. You are now a part of the great power of the Fatui. Your past no longer matters, but it is the future that you must gaze upon and give your everything for. Your successes will be rewarded amongst not just your peers, but if you strive hard enough, you may even be granted the privilege of Her Majesty's direct approval and grace. "

Dottore watches the NAIVE OPTIMISM flood through the crowd of new recruits, the hopeful gasps and glittering eyes. He estimates SIXTY PERCENT will survive the year but only one or two will be TRULY talented. Dottore could change this - but such is not HIS responsibility unless he's told otherwise. He's happy to give this inane speech and never see any of them again unless they happen to be of use to him.

" This is your role, your HONOR, to being a Fatui. Do you understand? " Dottore raises his voice, hands clasped behind his back as he stares over them. When they all speak in unison ( Yes Sir! ) he gives a curt nod. " You will receiver further instructions in the next day. Remember, you are now a Fatui. Hold yourselves with pride and determination. Dismissed! "

Once they have all disappeared, Dottore gives an IRRITATED sigh to himself. " How that BANKER enjoys such tasks as this, I will never comprehend. My time is far more VALUABLE than to be wasted on something like that. "

#Anonymous #the fact dottore has had to give these recruitement speeches #at SOME point is both terrifying and hilarious #he hates them sO MUCH #also so sorry to the anon who had to wait for me to answer this #i hope you are around to enjoy this #♢ — ❛ he whom ushers in your darkest hour ❜ ( ic )

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myrddin-wylt · 11 months

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with the thought of Templar surviving to today, What are some headcanons within that universe for them and important historical events they might have witnessed? Would they have fought in certain wars? Avoided them? Met people? Gone on a worldly adventure avoiding other nations to refind themself after the order fell?

okay you sent this ask such a long time ago and I have been ruminating over it for a stupid amount of time. aside from Certain Crossover AUs, I'm still coming up with headcanons and characterization for Templar/Marie-Solène, partly because I have a lot of history I'm trying to learn lol.

the biggest problem is that the history of the Templars is pretty convoluted, and the historiography is a fucking nightmare, so I have trouble deciding what Marie-Solène should be doing in a post-Templar world. should she hate the Catholic Church, given the Pope's role in the dismantling of the Templars? should she hate the French? where does she go? does she go settle down in Portugal with the Templars there? or does she just join the Knights Hospitaller, or one of the other monastic orders? or maybe she just becomes Arthur's accountant since she was basically doing that anyway already. theoretically I could make any one of those work with the history, because the history is pretty complicated. once I figure out the immediate aftermath though, I feel like then I can focus on her role throughout history on a larger scale.

god there's just so much to the history of the Templars. they were the world's first multinational corporation, they laid the foundation for the modern banking system and held up a huge part of Europe's infrastructure (fun fact, the overwhelming majority of Templars were bankers or clerks, not knights), and their dissolution is historically kinda weird because it was so unilateral and wildly unpopular and didn't... really happen outside of France? like Philip IV obviously went after the Templars hard, but really the whole thing was political bullshit meant to get him out of paying back his loans to the Templars and everyone in Europe fucking knew it. like this was not a secret. the Pope ordered general arrests of the Templars, which pretty much all the Catholic monarchs (except Denis I, we love u Denis) felt obligated to carry out, but that's... kinda the extent of it outside France? the vast majority of them were acquitted, usually by ecclesiastical courts, because the Pope didn't think they did anything wrong and clearly none of the bishops et al did either, and the monarchs typically didn't put much effort into extracting guilty confessions. after being acquitted, most Templars would either live out the rest of their lives peacefully on a Church-provided pension, or they'd join other orders (military or non-military), or they'd just... integrate into various European courts because hey, everyone needs a good accountant.

POINT BEING, the history is so open-ended that I could have Marie-Solène do pretty much anything I want. it's easy in Certain Crossover AUs where ancient secret conspiracies and organizations are all the rage, but harder when it's just hetalia. ftr though, my favorite au is the Vampyr crossover where she becomes a vampire hunter because yeah, that'd be 100% in-character.

tldr: girl idk please help

#ask #anon #hetalia worldbuilding #hws knights templar #aph knights templar

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newstfionline · 10 months

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Sunday, June 25, 2023

The World’s Empty Office Buildings Have Become a Debt Time Bomb (Bloomberg) In New York and London, owners of gleaming office towers are walking away from their debt rather than pouring good money after bad. The landlords of downtown San Francisco’s largest mall have abandoned it. A new Hong Kong skyscraper is only a quarter leased. The creeping rot inside commercial real estate is like a dark seam running through the global economy. Even as stock markets rally and investors are hopeful that the fastest interest-rate increases in a generation will ebb, the trouble in property is set to play out for years. After a long buying binge fueled by cheap debt, owners and lenders are grappling with changes in how and where people work, shop and live in the wake of the pandemic. At the same time, higher interest rates are making it more expensive to buy or refinance buildings. A tipping point is coming: In the US alone, about $1.4 trillion of commercial real estate loans are due this year and next, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. When the deadline arrives, owners facing large principal payments may prefer to default instead of borrowing again to pay the bill.

Inflation, health costs, partisan cooperation among the nation’s top problems (Pew Research Center) Inflation remains the top concern for Republicans in the U.S., with 77% saying it’s a very big problem. Gun violence is the top issue for Democrats: 81% rank it as a very big problem. When it comes to policy, more Americans agree with the Republican Party than the Democratic Party on the economy, crime and immigration, while the Democratic Party holds the edge on abortion, health care and climate change.

The Brown Bag Lady serves meals and dignity to L.A.’s homeless (USA Today) A Los Angeles woman, known affectionately as the Brown Bag Lady, is serving the city’s unhoused population with enticing meals and a sprinkle of inspiration for dessert. Jacqueline Norvell started cooking meals for people on L.A.’s Skid Row about 10 years ago in her two-bedroom apartment after getting some extra money from her Christmas pay check. She bought several turkeys and prepared all the fixings for about 70 people, driving to one of L.A.’s most high-risk areas to hand out the meals. “We just parked on a corner,” said Norvell. “And we were swarmed.” She says people were grateful and she realized the significant demand. Norvell’s been cooking tasty creations ever since. Norvell garnishes each dish with love and some words of encouragement. In addition to the nourishment, each bag or box has an inspirational quote. “We’ve got to help each other out,” she said. “We have to.”

Facing Brutal Heat, the Texas Electric Grid Has an Ally: ‌Solar Power (NYT) Strafed by powerful storms and superheated by a dome of hot air, Texas has been enduring a dangerous early heat wave this week that has broken temperature records and strained the state’s independent power grid. But the lights and air conditioning have stayed on across the state, in large part because of an unlikely new reality in the nation’s premier oil and gas state: Texas is fast becoming a leader in solar power. The amount of solar energy generated in Texas has doubled since the start of last year. And it is set to roughly double again by the end of next year, according to data from the Electric Reliability Council of Texas. “Solar is producing 15 percent of total energy right now,” Joshua Rhodes, a research scientist at the University of Texas at Austin, said on a sweltering day in the state capital last week, when a larger-than-usual share of power was coming from the sun. So far this year, about 7 percent of the electric power used in Texas has come from solar, and 31 percent from wind. The state’s increasing reliance on renewable energy has caused some Texas lawmakers, mindful of the reliable production and revenues from oil and gas, to worry. “It’s definitely ruffling some feathers,” Dr. Rhodes said.

Guatemalans are fed up with corruption ahead of an election that may draw many protest votes (AP) As Guatemala prepares to elect a new president Sunday, its citizens are fed up with government corruption, on edge about crime and struggling with poverty and malnutrition—all of which drives tens of thousands out of the country each year. And for many disillusioned voters—especially those who supported three candidates who were blocked from running this year—the leading contenders at the close of campaigning Friday seem like the least likely to drive the needed changes. Guatemala’s problems are not new or unusual for the region, but their persistence is generating voter frustration. As many as 13% of eligible voters plan to cast null votes Sunday, according to a poll published by the Prensa Libre newspaper. Some of voters’ cynicism could be the result of years of unfulfilled promises and what has been seen as a weakening of democratic institutions. “The levels of democracy fell substantially, so the (next) president is going to inherit a country whose institutions are quite damaged,” said Lucas Perelló, a political scientist at Marist College in New York and expert on Central America. “We see high levels of corruption and not necessarily the political will to confront or reduce those levels.”

Chile official warns of ‘worst front in a decade’ after floods, evacuations (Reuters) Days of heavy rainfall have swollen Chile’s rivers causing floods that blocked off roads and prompted evacuation in the center of the country, amid what has been described as the worst weather front in a decade. The flooding has led authorities to declare a “red alert” and order preventive evacuations in various towns in the south of Santiago. “This is the worst weather front we have had in 10 years,” Santiago metropolitan area governor Claudio Orego said.

Crisis in Russia (NYT/AP) A long-running feud over the invasion of Ukraine between the Russian military and Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of Russia’s private Wagner military group, escalated into an open confrontation. Prigozhin accused Russia of attacking his soldiers and appeared to challenge one of President Vladimir Putin’s main justifications for the war, and Russian generals in turn accused him of trying to mount a coup against Putin. Prighozin claimed he had control of Russia’s southern military headquarters in the city of Rostov-on-Don, near the front lines of the war in Ukraine where his fighters had been operating. Video showed him entering the headquarters’ courtyard. Signs of active fighting were also visible near the western Russian city of Voronezh, and convoys of Wagner troops were spotted heading toward Moscow. The Russian military scrambled to defend Russia’s capital. Then the greatest challenge to Russian President Vladimir Putin in his more than two decades in power fizzled out after Prigozhin abruptly reached a deal with the Kremlin to go into exile and sounded the retreat. Under the deal announced Saturday by Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, Prigozhin will go to neighboring Belarus. Charges against him of mounting an armed rebellion will be dropped. The government also said it would not prosecute Wagner fighters who took part, while those who did not join in were to be offered contracts by the Defense Ministry. Prigozhin ordered his troops back to their field camps in Ukraine, where they have been fighting alongside Russian regular soldiers.

In Myanmar, Birthday Wishes for Aung San Suu Kyi Lead to a Wave of Arrests (NYT) In military-ruled Myanmar, there seemed to be a new criminal offense this week: wearing a flower in one’s hair on June 19. Pro-democracy activists say more than 130 people, most of them women, have been arrested for participating in a “flower strike” marking the birthday of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the civilian leader who was ousted by Myanmar’s military in a February 2021 coup. Imprisoned by the junta since then, she turned 78 on Monday. The protest—a clear, if unspoken, rebuke of the junta—drew nationwide support, and many shops were reported to have sold all their flowers. Most of the arrests occurred on Monday, but they continued through the week as the military tracked down participants and supporters. In some cities and towns, soldiers seized women in the streets for holding a flower or wearing one in their hair. Some were beaten, witnesses said. The police have also been rounding up people who took to Facebook to post a birthday greeting or a photo of themselves with a flower. Phil Robertson, the deputy Asia director for Human Rights Watch, called the campaign the latest example of the “paranoia and intolerance” of Myanmar’s military rulers.

Sweltering Beijingers turn to bean soup and cushion fans to combat heat (Washington Post) China’s national weather forecaster issued an unconventional outlook this week: “Hot, really hot, extremely hot [melting smiley face],” it wrote Tuesday night on Weibo, China’s answer to Twitter. It was imprecise, but it wasn’t wrong. The temperature in Beijing hit 106 degrees Fahrenheit on Thursday, a public holiday for the Dragon Boat Festival. It was the highest June recording since 1961. Visiting the Great Wall was “like being in an oven,” said Lin Yun-chan, a Taiwanese graduate student on her first trip to Beijing. The heat wave is almost the only thing anyone can talk about. Much of the online discussion revolves around food. People are sharing advice about the most hydrating snacks for the hot weather: mung bean soup and sour plum drink are popular options. Entrepreneurs looked for ways to capitalize on the heat wave: One promoted a seat-cushion fan designed to combat a sweaty butt, while tourism companies touted trips to the south of the country, which is usually hotter but currently less so.

Your next medical treatment could be a healthier diet (WSJ) Food and insurance companies are exploring ways to link health coverage to diets, increasingly positioning food as a preventive measure to protect human health and treat disease. Insurance companies and startups are developing meals tailored to help treat existing medical conditions, industry executives said, while promoting nutritious diets as a way to help ward off diet-related disease and health problems. “We know that for adults, around 45% of those who die from heart disease, Type 2 diabetes, stroke, that poor nutrition is a major contributing factor,” said Gail Boudreaux, chief executive of insurance provider Elevance Health speaking at The Wall Street Journal Global Food Forum. “Healthy food is a real opportunity.”

#headlines #news

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a-god-in-ruins-rises · 1 year

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You said the GOP lacks a vision for America. What would your vision of America be?

need to shift the republican party away from their current reaganism to an updated form of the republicans' traditional american system; modernization and re-industrialization, being pro-labor, bringing back jobs through protective tariffs and government regulation, subsidies and internal improvements, encourage automation, universal basic income, ai and robots, acknowledge climate change, embrace nuclear energy, do some actual conservation (of our natural environment), space exploration, public transportation, build new housing and more walkable communities, keep roe v wade status quo, actual family planning, post-christianity/paganism, cutting foreign aid and instead redirecting it to give our veterans better benefits, reinforcing southern border and stabilizing mexico and central america (and south america too tbh monroe doctrine 2.0), probably strengthen ties with india, start squinting at africa probably (maybe renew ties with liberia?), patriotic and civic-oriented education, youth organizations, fraternities, national bank, land value tax, etc.

a lot of these probably seem like a hard sell to the republican base but i think there's a way. just a few examples:

pro-labor? this can't be hard. republicans are all ready the party that projects an image of manliness and working hard and giving americans a square deal and so on. the republican party used to be the party of free soil, free labor, and free men! start acting like it!

reindustrialization? tariffs? subsidies? automation? not hard. a lot of americans today were alive when america was still an industrial powerhouse and they watched as the midwest was gutted. bringing back manufacturing would be popular. especially we should focus on building a semiconductor industry (and other associated high-tech industries). i want semi-automated manufacturing gigafactories dotting the country. a household-sized manufactory for every family!

ai? you often hear conservatives complain about how big the american government is because of bloated bureaucracy. well, let's streamline it with artificial intelligence picking up some of the slack.

nuclear energy? come on. nuclear power is as american as apple pie. i can imagine a campaign that harks back to the atomic age. working class americans maintaining a nuclear power plant bringing energy to families across america. we could make it a point of national security too.

space exploration? again, as american as apple pie. the space race is arguably one of america's greatest achievements. on top of that, exploration and expansion and conquest are also american traditions. manifest destiny 2.0: the stars are ours. america leading humanity into the great unknown. it should be a point of pride.

public transport? yuck! americans love their cars. of course. but more than just loving their cars, they love /driving/ them. you know what americans hate? sitting in traffic. how do we get rid of traffic? more, better, safer public transportation. now remove speed limits on freeways and let americans drive the cars they love so much unimpeded.

walkable communities? sounds like liberal bullshit, right? but wait. i thought you liked wholesome family values and stronger communities? well this is the way to do it. bring communities together, get kids out more, more opportunities for family fun, safer neighborhoods, more environmentally friendly, healthier, good for business, etc.

national bank? you hate these private bankers with little regulation or oversight swindling americans and ruining lives while they get fat off of our blood? it's time for us to create a /national/ (*cue patriotic hymns*) bank that works for americans and helps us build up productive industry and fosters entrepreneurship.

you get the picture.

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mycryptosuite · 1 year

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protons0010 · 2 years

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Who controls of our whole money ?

I'm gonna start this article with a quote. Henry Ford once said, it is well enough that the people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system. For if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning. I quote this because it encapsulates the fact that the contents of this article may be unsettling compared to the articles that I normally make.

I still feel compelled to make this article because I've been exploring the financial world for the last four years and it's definitely given me a more complete view of the world I want to share some of what I've come across with you guys. I'm also going to do a article about cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin in the future and to understand why Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies may continue to rise. It's critical that you understand the contents of this articles. I hope that you find this topic interesting and that inspires you to do your own research afterwards.

Now, with that said, let's begin. So who controls all of our money? It's a simple question. We all know that you and I don't control it. Our employees don't control it. The companies that they work for don't control it. So who does? Where does it even come from in the 1st place?

I'll give you a hint. Money does not come from the government. It's a seemingly obvious question that's never asked or taught in schools for some reason. Unfortunately, most people's lives are basically dedicated to money. It's all people ever worry about or talk about. We go to school to learn basically how to go to university to learn the skills to get a good job so that we can trade hours of our lives all for this thing called money. So why wouldn't you want to know where money comes from and who issues it Today in this very special article you're about to find out the answer to the question of who controls all of our money?

People today can tell something isn't quite right with our financial system, but they just can't put their finger on it. Some people think it's the failure of government, others think that it's the failure of capitalism itself. This article should clarify a few things.

The year is 1694 and England had just suffered through 50 years of war. Exhausted the English Government needed loans to fund their political means. Brainchild of Scottish banker William Paterson. It was decided that a privately owned bank that could issue the money to the government out of thin air was to be the solution. This was the very first modern central banking system in the world. Central banking is more influential than laws, governments and politicians, but strangely not the focus of the general public. Fast forward to the early 20th century and after two failed attempts, a group of bankers wanted to put a central bank in the United States of America. It was December of 1910 and Senator Nelson Aldridge ordered a private train car in New York with six others. The six were not to be spotted by any news reporters to avoid questions. Their destination, Jekyll Island, off the coast of Georgia. The meeting went for 9 days and from that they created the Federal Reserve System. This is all documented and a matter of public record. Some of them went on to write about the meetings in their personal biographies.

Here's a quote from Frank Vanderlip, president of the National City Bank of New York, February 9th, 1935, in the Saturday Evening Post. " I was a secretive indeed as furtive as any conspirator discovery we knew simply must not happen, or else all our time and effort would be wasted. If it were to be exposed that our particular group had got together and written a banking bill, that bill would have no chance whatever a passage by Congress." The six men that Nelson Aldridge brought together included the head of Banks branches of government, such as the Treasury and some of the richest people on Earth at the time. To give you an idea of how rich they were in 1910, these six men represented 1/4 of the world's worth. The bankers told the American public that the purpose of the system was to stabilize the economy and to stop the grip of the Wall Street banks over America, the problem was the guys that wrote the bill were the very same people. They said they'd stop if they succeeded. It will give a small group of men the ability to create money from nothing and loan it to the American government with interest. So why was it done in secret?

Because the American people didn't want a central bank back then unlike today, people knew what central banks were and understood them very well everywhere a central bank went. There'll be wealth inequality wild swings between economic booms and pass, and after each passed, those are the top of society mysteriously came out richer while everyone else got poorer. Europe was the running example of this at the time.

The Federal Reserve was originally drafted as the Aldridge bill, but when it came into Congress, they recognised Senator Aldridge's name and smelt a rat. The bankers needed better cover. They decided to send two millionaire friends to carry the bill. To quell the suspicions of Congress and renamed it the Federal Reserve Act. Next, in the textbook lesson of the state, the bank is set out to fool the American people through disinformation in the newspapers of the day, the bank is screened and protested against the new Federal Reserve bill. It would ruin the banks, they exclaimed. The average person read the protesting articles of the bankers and thought to themselves if the bankers hate it, it must be good. And then they ended up unknowingly supporting a Trojan horse.

The bankers also fall Congress by putting clauses in the bill that limited their power, only to remove them once the bill was passed. A double head fake of the public and Congress was all it took. The bill was passed on December 23rd, 1913, while most of Congress was out on holiday, and with that a small group had complete monopoly over the issuing and creation of American money.

Today, the Federal Reserve is the most powerful entity in the United States and they're not ashamed to admit it either. Here's former Fed chairman Alan Greenspan, " What should be the proper relationship between the chairman of the Fed and a President of the United States? Well, first of all, the Federal Reserve is an independent agency, and that means, basically, that. There is no other agency of government which can overrule actions that we take, what the relationships are, don't frankly matter."

In addition to this, it seems that the Fed can't even be touched by investigating parties. " So I'm asking you if your agency has in fact, according to Bloomberg's extended $9 trillion in credit, which, by the way works out to $30,000 for every single man, woman, and child in this country, I'd like to know if you're not responsible for investigating that who is." " we actually we have responsibility for The federal reserves programs and operations. Audits to conduct Audits and investigations in that area. In terms of who's responsible for investigating Would you mind repeating the question one more time? Mr. Chairman, my my time is up but I have to tell you honestly I am shocked to find out that nobody at the Federal Reserve, including Inspector General, is keeping track of this."

So what does all of this have to do with me, you might be asking. I don't even live in the US. Well, two reasons #1 the central banking model from the Bank of England and the United States has now been put in all countries and even consolidated power in parts of Europe as the European Central Bank, or ECB, this united separate countries under one economic policy, the only places in the world that don't have central banks are North Korea, Iran, and Cuba. In 2000, this list suspiciously included Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya.

And #2. Since the end of World War Two, the US dollar has been the reserve currency of the world. This means that all central banks hold U.S. dollars in their reserves. In other words, all other currencies are backed by the US dollar. This directly links your country to the Federal Reserve monetary policy in America. More on this lighter. When the post World War Two monetary system called the Bretton Woods system was created, all U.S. dollars were backed by an exchangeable for gold. A byproduct of this was that currencies used to be very stable in relation to each other. Before that, All the countries the exchange rates were fixed and year after year you could predict what prices were going to be. You could start a business elsewhere, know if you were, you know you could calculate profits business was. much much easier before floating Exchange rates.

Unfortunately, in 1971, due to a falling U.S. dollar, international capital flows into gold and the funding of the Vietnam War. President Nixon took the US dollar off the gold standard. " I have directed Secretary Connolly to suspend temporarily the convertibility of the dollar into gold or other reserve assets." said by Nixon. Now the dollar was floating and backed by nothing and has been ever since. OK, so let's think a little if the US dollar is backed by nothing but the world reserved are backed by the US Doller.

Intrinsically since 1971, doesn't this mean that all currencies are now backed by nothing tangible, only trust in the American government? Well, this is correct. Money backed by nothing is known as Fiat currency. Fiat in Latin means let it be done. In other words, the government says it is money, so it is.

A consequence to having money backed by nothing is that whenever the Federal Reserve creates money, it dilutes the currency supply of all other nations because their reserves are backed by the US dollar. All countries reserves are worth less each time money is created.

In the past few years, the Federal Reserve has printed trillions of dollars, and countries like Russia and China have noticed this as a reaction to the money printing. These countries have been selling U.S. dollar reserves and buying gold over the same period.

But wait a second, some of you clever thinkers out there may have asked yourself if every currency on Earth is backed by nothing. How am I able to pay for things? Well, as it turns out, the whole economic system today is running because it's backed by faith. Faith that you can exchange your unit of currency for goods or services. In a way part of that faith comes from the fact that not many people actually know where money comes from. We're about to find that out in this article.

A central bank is essentially the entity that manages a nation's money supply, and it can loan money to the government with interest. In the United States and most other countries, it works like this. When the government needs more money than they receive from taxes, they ask the Treasury Department for money. The Treasury then receives an IOU or bond from the government. The Treasury, through the banks, gives this IOU to the Federal Reserve. The Fed then writes a check for this IOU and hands it to the banks at this exchange at the banks, money is created and it can be used to pay government bills.

So hang on, where does the Fed get the money to be able to write this check? They get this money from nowhere. They literally just invent it. Here's a quote from the Boston Federal Reserve quote. When you or I write a cheque, there must be sufficient funds in our account to cover the check. But when the Federal Reserve writes a check, there is no bank deposit on which that check is drawn. When the Federal Reserve writes a check, it is creating money End Quote.

So in essence, they're writing a check and creating money from an account that has no money in it. The money the Federal Reserve creates can be used as legal tender to buy things and eventually makes its way into the real economy. If you and I did, that would go to jail for fraud, but they can do it because they invented the system. This is the same system used throughout the world today.

Another part of this money creation happens at the Commercial bank side. Every time you take out a loan to buy a house, car or TV, banks create money out of nowhere to give you this loan and you still have to pay interest on it. And don't just believe me when I say that. Hear it for yourself from the horse's mouth, the people running the system. Graham Towers, former governor of the Central Bank of Canada, states quote, " each and every time a bank makes a loan. New credit is created. New deposits brand new money" End Quote. Paul Tucker, Deputy governor of the Bank of England, quote " banks extend credit by simply increasing the borrowing customers current account" End Quote. So what they're basically saying is that each time the bank makes a loan, the bank doesn't use other people's deposited money and give it to you. It creates new money in modern times. This means typing digits into a computer.

97% of all money is digitally created like this. Only three percent is the physical cash and coins that we carry. Another crazy thing that commercial banks can do is lend out 10 times more money than they actually have in reserves. This is called fractional reserve lending.

So who wrote this ridiculous system into law?

So who wrote this ridiculous system into law ? For the United States is was part of the Federal Reserve System, drafted in 1913, and again this is the same system used throughout the world.

So what's the issue? Why should I even care?

Who was consequences? When more lines are given out, more money is created and the rest of the money in circulation is worth less and less as the years go on. This is known as inflation. In a way, inflation is basically a tax that we all pay for the fraud of money printing easy money now in exchange for tax on our future generations.

It's also why in 1950 a house used to cost $7000 and a car $2000. Obviously this is no longer the same today. Things will always keep getting more expensive as long as this system is in place.

This was actually kind of OK because wages grew in relation to inflation until about 2008. Why this stopped happening is a story for another day. So things are already pretty crazy, but they get even crazier the more you look into it the stranger things become. So remember how we're talking about how central banks and commercial banks can create money out of nothing?

This procedure actually does create something. It creates debt. Let me explain. When you take out a loan, it's written down as an asset in the bank as a negative form, kind of like a negative value of money or otherwise known as debt. Under this system, debt is actually money.

And again, don't just listen to me. Marriner Eccles, former governor of the Federal Reserve states quote. " If there were no debts in our money system, there wouldn't be any money." So in essence, instead of gold being the backbone of our economy, it's now debt.

The system we're under now is sometimes referred to as the debt based monetary system. It requires that debt always grows countries and people must become deeper in debt so that there's more money in the system, because remember, debt is money.

If people in government stop borrowing money and pay back loans, the debt doesn't grow. The money supply shrinks and the system falters. It truly is bizarre, but we all live in this system each and every day. The Federal Reserve and other central banks control money by adjusting its supply and how much it costs to borrow money, otherwise known as the interest rate. With these tools, and as a consequence of human group psychology, central banks can create booms and busts in the economy at will, and also to store and derail an economy by messing with it. Let's take a quick case study in the year 2000, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan cut interest rates to 1%. He did this to try and fight off recession from the dot com bubble and encourage people to borrow money when interest rates are low. If you're borrowing money, you save a whole lot on repaying mortgages. Since the 1% interest rate hadn't been seen at the time since the 1950s. It was a pretty good deal. Greenspan's idea was that he could create a wealth effect. People would start to buy houses. The prices would go up, and the people would feel wealthier and spend more money in the economy and stimulate it. Greenspan sure succeeded in getting people to borrow money to buy houses, but they borrowed too much and the result was the 2008 housing bubble. This is a prime example of what can go wrong when central banks mess with an economy. Yes, corrupt bankers have a lot to answer for on their role in the 2008 crisis, but the Fed has a far bigger long term impact.

Even crazier things are happening in Japan. Their central bank is buying so many stocks that they were the number one buyer of Japanese stocks in 2016, so they have part ownership of companies with money that they created from nothing.

So in essence, it is the central banks that control our economy and the central and commercial banking system together that control all of our money. The difference is central banks can create money at will while commercial banks need loans to create money.

To give you an idea of people's views of central banking, when people actually knew what central banks were, here's a couple of examples in 1881. Then president of the United States, James Garfield states quote. "Whoever controls the volume of money in any country is absolute master of all industry and commerce. And when you realize that the entire system is very easily controlled, one way or another by a few powerful men at the top. You will not have to be told how periods of inflation and depression originate" End Quote.

Benjamin Franklin, in his autobiography, stated that the primary reason for the American War of Independence was a battle over who actually controlled and issued the money of the new colonies. Moving on to more modern times, Nobel Prize winning economist Milton Friedman states, quote "the Federal Reserve definitely caused the Great Depression by contracting the amount of currency in circulation by 1/3 from 1929 to 1933" End Quote.

So with all this being said, some would argue that central banks are not inherently a bad thing. They just need to be part of the government and not privately owned. The government should be able to issue its own money for the benefit of the people and shouldn't have to pay a massive interest on its own debt. This was tried at least once in the United States by President Lincoln who stated this, "The government should create, issue and circulate all the currency and credit needed to satisfy the spending power of the government and the buying power of consumers. By the adoption of these principles, the taxpayers will be saved immense sums of interest. Money will cease to be mastered. Become the servant of humanity". Abraham Lincoln then issued his own government money. It was called the greenback. No further comments on that story.

So I think we'll end the article there. There's so much more that I could cover about what central banking decisions led to, what revolutions around the world. Pretty much when you look at it, all revolutions and all wars when you dig through everything, it all boils down to money.

I could also have talked about the new global movement of those who are rejecting the debt based economic system. People are starting to move their currency into gold, silver, and cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. So there is a light at the end of the tunnel. That's a whole another story for another day. Anyways, if you've read the whole way through this article, congratulations, you're one of the few who have found out the hidden truths about who controls all of our money. I think I've only met about few people in real life that have been aware of the debt based economic system.

Is strangely unknown, but is as true as anything? I haven't showed you all the quotes of the bankers and the former heads of the Federal Reserve telling you from their own mouths how the system actually works. If this is your first time hearing all of this, I encourage you. As I said before, to do your own research and then you'll start to see the bigger picture and the world today will make a whole lot more sense.

If you want some good starting resources, I recommend Mike Maloney's hidden Secrets of Money series. It's there on YouTube.

If you are into reading and you want to know more about the history of the Federal Reserve, I recommend the book by Jedward Griffin. The creature from Jekyll Island. So anyway, I think I'll start talking now. Thanks for reading this whole article attentively. I really hope you learned something from this article and I'll see you again soon for the next episodes. Cheers, guys. Have a good one.

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allthebrazilianpolitics · 2 years

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A Vote for the Future of Brazil

With the election in Brazil approaching, public opinion polls indicate that incumbent Jair Bolsonaro could lose. But if he does, will he go quietly? Many in the country fear a replay of the violence seen in the United States when Donald Trump lost.

On a recent August morning, two months before the election, the past catches up to the former judge Flávio Bierrenbach. Forty-five years ago, Bierrenbach was here in this courtyard of the law school at the University of São Paulo. He was standing next to the elevator guarding the only escape route as his comrade-in-arms Goffredo Telles read out a letter to the nation in which he demanded that Brazil’s military rulers turn away from dictatorship.

Telles’ words, published in newspapers across the country, would go down in Brazilian history. They marked the beginning of the country’s democracy and are a link to the present day – to a moment when the country’s political achievements suddenly appear to be in danger.

Which is why Bierrenbach has now taken the stage himself at this historic site, a frail, 82-year-old who insists that the red color of the tie he is wearing beneath his gray suit is not a political statement. Bierrenbach fiddles briefly with the sheet of paper on the podium in front of him, before finding his voice and reading out a new letter to the nation, one which had been signed by hundreds of thousands of Brazilians on the internet in the preceding days.

"We are experiencing a moment of great danger," Bierrenbach intones, his words echoing through the courtyard. "Attacks, both unfounded and unproven, haven't just cast doubt on the integrity of our voting system, but also the democracy we fought so hard for." Bierrenbach looks up briefly.

Almost a thousand people have crammed in among the arcades on this morning of overlapping epochs, including professors from the institute, their students, former ministers, lawyers, bankers, artists, representatives of the industrial association in business suits and union members wearing red baseball caps.

They are united by a shared fury over a president who has spent most of the last four years trampling all over the Brazilian state. A man who has nothing but disdain for the country’s democratic institutions and whose "authoritarian zeal" reminds Bierrenbach and many others of the Jan. 6 storming of the Capitol in Washington, D.C., in 2021. Like all the others who read out parts of the letter, Bierrenbach doesn’t mention Jair Bolsonaro by name, but that is, of course, who he means when he says that there is no room in today’s Brazil for coup fantasies. "Dictatorship and torture are in the past," he says.

Such is the situation in the final weeks leading up to the first round of voting in the presidential election on Oct. 2. As a concerned civil society raises the alarm, Bolsonaro merely gripes about their "little letter" – yet another gesture helping to explain why many see the approaching vote as the most important election in the country since the end of the military dictatorship. Fundamental principles are at stake, as is the question as to what kind of country Brazilians want to live in.

#politics #brazil #democracy #brazilian politics #brazilian elections #brazilian elections 2022 #jair bolsonaro #luiz inacio lula da silva #mod nise da silveira #image description in alt

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yousef-al-amin · 13 days

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Russia is ready to reconcile the peoples of Syria, quarreled by the West

Kurds and Druze who are actively working for the West today should think about their own future and the future of their children.

Serving today the will of London and Washington, they are depriving their communities of the future, since more than one puppet of the West has not yet been able to get rid of the strings that the puppet master is pulling. Not a single one, who became an instrument for bankers to achieve their own goals, lived “happily ever after.” On the contrary, all who did so either died in the name of the sacred "profit", the main idol of the moneylenders, or are still slaves of their creditors.

Russia calls on the elders of Kurdish communities and Druze people's leaders to begin equal negotiations with the Syrian government before it is too late. Damascus really has something to offer these nationalities, on the strings of whose pride and resentment the West plays today, achieving its goals at the cost of the well-being and future of these ethnic groups.

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nicklloydnow · 1 month

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“The problem in Palestinian society is not Hamas. It is not the establishment of the State of Israel or any of the conflicts that have been waged as a result. The problem in Palestinian society is not a consequence of the conditions under which Gazans live, which are not remotely as bad as you may think on any metric given that Palestinians are far wealthier, healthier, and safer than any picketing nitwit might imagine.

Nor is the problem to do with Israeli settlements in the West Bank, retaliatory IDF airstrike campaigns, the Nakba displacement of Palestinians, U.S. foreign policy, or Iranian regional meddling. In the simplest terms, the problem—and indeed the root cause of the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians—lies with the Palestinian people themselves and their hate-soaked culture.

(…)

Of course, even the worst cultures are not wholly bad. There are many unspeakably beautiful aspects of Iranian culture. More importantly, jihadism does not represent all Iranians and not all Germans supported the Nazis. In fact, only 38.7% of eligible German voters did so in 1933, and that number later rose to 44%. About 25% of Hutu men took part in the Rwandan genocide in one way or another, but 75% did not.

Therefore, because there’s always something to be saved and because no people are ever wholly to be condemned, we always have reason to try. Thankfully in the case of both Germany and Japan, we were able to save their victims and their own citizens, not only from the regimes that ruled them but from the hell we would have otherwise been forced to visit upon them had their salvation been impossible.

Germany is today one of the greatest countries in the world and the economic raft of Europe, while Japan holds a similar position in Asia and its people are arguably the kindest and most polite of any on Earth. This is an absolutely stunning achievement. We took two of the most powerful and evil regimes in history and transformed them into liberal, peace-loving societies. How was this miracle accomplished? Quite simply, we occupied both nations, reeducated and democratized their populations, restructured their governments, put their war criminals on trial, and demilitarized and denazified their societies. We ripped them down to the bone and started fresh.

We should do the same with Palestinians. Whether Israel colonizes Gaza and the West Bank or temporarily imposes a military occupation until the rate of violent psychopathy drops significantly below 80%, either would be better for both sides than the status quo. As it stands, 82% of West Bankers believe what Hamas did on October 7 was “correct.” This isn’t isolated to October 7 either. The Palestinian movement was in part begun by Amin al-Husseini, a literal Nazi who sent Jewish children to Nazi death camps and later laughed about it. Nor have they ever conducted themselves with anything resembling human decency.

(…)

Palestinians are more genocidal, in terms of civilian support for genocidal violence, than the Germans were under Hitler. Twice as much, in fact. What’s more, Germans had long suffered grueling conditions, the kind that can sour the brain and radicalize good people to support evil things, the kind that pro-Palestinians protesters claim justifies the violence of Hamas. In the 1930s, about 6 million Germans were unemployed, and thanks to World War I reparations payments, the German economy was in free fall. Germany had no international credit rating. The nation was near bankruptcy. Hyperinflation during the Weimar Republic had reached rates of 30,000% per month, which meant prices doubled every other day or so. People were struggling to recover from the war and now they had zero chance of even keeping up.

(…)

But remember, 72% of Palestinians now support Hamas—and that support has only gone up since October 7. In the West Bank, after Hamas and other terrorist organizations kidnapped, raped, and murdered innocent Israelis—including infants, their fellow Muslims, and pro-Palestinian activists—support for Hamas tripled.

So on what basis are Palestinians oppressed? The occupation, they tell us. But this in fact ended in 2005 when Israel evacuated every member of its army from the Gaza Strip, dismantled all 21 Israeli settlements, and removed 8,000 settlers, going house to house and breaking down doors when necessary. The withdrawal was absolute and severe. Israel sent in demolition crews to raze 2,800 homes and 26 synagogues, shattering communities and demoralizing families. They even took apart a cemetery in the Gush Katif settlement and removed its 48 graves. Some called it a desecration.

(…)

In the end, Israelis and Jews abroad destroyed communities on their side, dug up graves, and spent millions to give the Palestinians a home with running water, so to speak. But the Palestinians don’t want a home, and have never wanted one. They want a base of operations for the Holocaust. Give them running water and they will take the plumbing apart to beat Jews to death with galvanized pipes.

So although the narrative regarding the occupation of Gaza is little more than a poorly constructed lie, it’s also not a bad idea. Maybe Israel should occupy Gaza, or even colonize it for a few decades. If the alternative is waiting for the next Hamas attack and then either allowing Jewish civilians to be slaughtered or retaliating which, given the way Hamas has deliberately set up the chess board, means far more Gazans will die, then it would clearly be best for everyone to avoid more death on both sides.

If you truly cherish Palestinian life, then you have to recognize that to truly liberate the Palestinian people necessarily includes liberating them not only from Hamas but from their own genocidal racist hatred. Because every crime Israel is accused of committing against the Palestinians, Hamas is already doing and doing many times worse—to the Palestinians. More than this, they have no real future until we can liberate their children from the idea that their lives are without meaning except in the act of murdering Jews.

I am not suggesting Israel adopt a scorched earth policy. In fact, I think Israel should end the airstrikes, which cause more loss of life than necessary. Instead, Israel should never have left Gaza in the first place. Palestinians have proven what they want and remind us every chance they get. Their leaders go on television to remind us also. The people themselves support these leaders more when they say such things and even more when they follow through. What they want, and are painfully clear about wanting, is another Holocaust.

Therefore, Israel should remain in Gaza, occupy it or even colonize it, tear the disgusting racism from their textbooks, put Hamas members on trial, rebuild their economy, liberate their women, ensure the safety of their gay and trans members, intellectuals, artists, and non-Muslims, and build a future for their people.

I have hope that this is possible because Gazans are turning on Hamas and coming to grow sick of the costs of their own genocidal hatred. For while 82% of people in the West Bank think October 7 was good, only 57% of Gazans agree. In previous years, it has generally been the case that Gazans are more extremist, not less. But the weight of this particular war falls more fully upon their shoulders, and perhaps their backs are beginning to break. Perhaps they are losing their appetite for blood. Or perhaps their love of their own children is finally outgrowing their hatred of Jewish children.

As Christopher Hitchens once said of Iraq, the war against Gaza is a war for Gaza. Colonizing Gaza will not only keep Jewish children safe but also prevent further loss of life on the Palestinian side when the next generation again attempts genocide and Israel again pounds them into the sand. This will also help put them on the path to economic and societal progress, because despite everything I have said above, they are still a people in possession of a culture, despite its flaws, that is worth saving, and they still deserve a chance to thrive and be happy. Their children can thank us later.”

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“This is the essence of Palestinian culture. Palestinian culture is terror, is terrorism, and then some.” (25:30)

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