HOW DID WE GET HERE?
(a thread of threads, quotes, and links)
This is a collection of writings and research concerned with how we got where we are today, which is in fact the story of what has been done to us, and what has been taken from us.
By "us" we're talking about "the 99%", "workers", "wage slaves", all non-owners of private property, "the poor", unhoused people, indigenous people, even plenty of people who swear by capitalism and identify as "capitalist" yet have no capital of their own and no serious hope of ever having any worth speaking of. In other words almost everyone except for the very few who have had the power to exploit us and shape our lives to serve their agenda. We're going to examine institutions and concepts that have deeply altered our world at all levels, both our external and internal realities.
By "here" we are talking about climate crisis and myriad other environmental catastrophes resulting from hyper-excessive extraction, consumption and waste; a world of rampant inequality and exploitation, hunger and starvation; a world of fences, walls, tollbooths, prisons, police, bullshit jobs and criminalized poverty; a world overrun with cars and preventable diseases; a world of vanishing biodiversity and blooming fascism; a world where "democracy" results in being led by some of the worst of humanity; a world ruled by an imaginary but all-powerful and single-minded god: Capital.
Our inspiration and structural framework for this survey is this quote from "The Prehistory of Private Property", an important work from political philosopher Karl Widerquist and anthropologist Grant S. McCall:
"After hundreds of millennia in which all humans had direct access to the commons, it took only a few centuries for enclosure, colonialism, capitalism, and industrialization to cut off the vast majority of people on Earth from direct access to the means of economic production and therefore to rob them of the power to say no. It took only a few generations to convince most people that this situation was natural and inevitable. That false lesson needs to be unlearned."
A century & a half ago, Confederate Gen Joseph Orville Shelby splashed into the wild waters of the Rio Grande off this border city & fled to Mexico, refusing to surrender to Union soldiers.
Now the park named in his honor (?) has become a front line in a feud between the #state & the #federal govt — a power struggle over who ultimately has the right to control the border….
Failed republican lawmakers are suing #Michigan to block #state#constitutional amendment to #reproductive#rights, a ballot initiative approved by voters, arguing voters can’t create new rights. They fail to understand the basic concepts of democracy.
Logical arguments against the state are more powerful than appeals to morality.
The state's existence relies on an illogical premise: namely, that one group of rational agents arbitrarily have rights that another group of rational agents do not.
As former President Donald Trump dominates the Republican presidential primary, some liberal groups and legal experts contend that a rarely used clause of the Constitution prevents him from being president after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol....
Unlike other #nuclear#states , #France has chosen to reprocess its nuclear #waste on a massive scale, first at La Hague and then partly in... #Russia .While this saves 20% of #natural#uranium in #French nuclear #power#plants ,the #choice is politically highly questionable, since not only has it already accumulated 100 tonnes of #plutonium stored in France, which represents an enormous #risk , but it also contributes to financing the #Russian#state and, consequently, its #war in #Ukraine .
"In response to the attacks on the #Pentagon and #WorldTradeCenter 22 years ago, the #US showed that there is no tragedy that government can't make worse.
Neoconservatives led a bipartisan push to invade #Afghanistan and #Iraq. Congress passed the Patriot Act. The #FBI stepped up operations targeting Muslims, but also environmental activists. Politicians militarized the police.
The occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan cost nearly a million lives, driving more people to join the jihadists. The rise of the Islamic State a decade later showed that the invasions had only strengthened the forces that neoconservatives claimed to be attacking. The Taliban recapturing Afghanistan in 2021 confirmed the pointlessness of the invasions.
By any metric, the stability of the US government has eroded since 2001. Every time the authorities escalate the conflicts they expose us to and the control they hope to wield over us, they are taking a risk."
For a more detailed analysis: https://crimethinc.com/texts/french911
via @CrimethInc
#Florida should be expelled from the #UnitedStates. They are a disgrace to the nation, and are antithetical to the values, and best interests of us all. Let them operate as an independent #fascist state, and let them run the #state into the ground. Once they have sufficiently destroyed themselves, maybe we can reconsider their membership in our country provided they return to a policy of #democracy, decency, and good faith.
The #Biden admin has concluded it is “reasonable to assess” that #Israel’s military campaign in #Gaza has violated #InternationalLaw, but has not found specific instances that would justify the withholding of #military aid, #State Dept told #Congress Fri.
The #Jan6#insurrection …seemed to mark a new peak in #extremist intimidation targeting public ofcls. But it was hardly the only act of #PoliticalViolence to break the period of relative stability that followed the assassinations of the 1960s.
The state class is no longer a proxy itself but instead uses a proxy to guard access/update of states. This means instances/subclasses of State can now be persisted in JavaScript Database (JSDB)² objects. e.g., for use in Kitten³ apps.
[News] Liberal groups seek to use the Constitution's insurrection clause to block Trump from 2024 ballots (apnews.com)
As former President Donald Trump dominates the Republican presidential primary, some liberal groups and legal experts contend that a rarely used clause of the Constitution prevents him from being president after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol....