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Created
Fri, 26/05/2023 - 04:57
By recognising that the question of NATO enlargement is at the centre of this war, we understand why U.S. weaponry will not end this war. Only diplomatic efforts can do that. George Orwell wrote in 1984 that “Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.” Governments work relentlessly to distort public Continue reading »
Created
Fri, 26/05/2023 - 04:56
Two major international conferences concluded in the past week. They demonstrated very different approaches to international relations. The China-Central Asia Summit considered new paths to genuine economic co-operation and development. The G7 reaffirmed its support for the status quo in the face of a changing global environment.  It is useful to compare the two approaches Continue reading »
Created
Fri, 26/05/2023 - 04:53
While minds turn to an overhaul of Australia’s migration policies, anti-sex work sentiment may have created a parallel policy reality for some. System design to prevent migrant worker exploitation has yet not been fully explored in Australian politics, perhaps because orthodoxy dictates (rightly or wrongly) that a strong-arm criminal justice approach will be more popular. Continue reading »
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Fri, 26/05/2023 - 04:51
With more than 4.5m killed and millions displaced, American revenge for 9/11 attacks puts Ukraine in the shade for 21st century slaughter. What’s the deadliest conflict of the 21st century so far? No, it’s not the Ukraine war, not by a long shot. According to a new study by the Costs of War Project at the Watson Continue reading »
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Fri, 26/05/2023 - 04:50
60 Minutes Australia has been playing a leading role in saturating Australian airwaves with consent-manufacturing messaging in support of militarising to participate in a US war against China. A segment they ran a year ago is titled “Prepare for Armageddon: China’s warning to the world,” and features an image of Xi Jinping overlaid with war Continue reading »
Created
Fri, 26/05/2023 - 04:00
by Brian Czech

The merits and proper uses of GDP—gross domestic product—have been debated with increasing frequency and intensity in recent years. Neoclassical economists continue to view a growing GDP as the sign of economic success and even social health. Conversely, ecologists who have studied the issue view a growing GDP as an alarming indicator of unsustainability at this point in history.

Meanwhile, a growing number of individuals and organizations in the post-growth community have proposed to eliminate GDP altogether,

The post Using GDP to Estimate the Limits to Growth appeared first on Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy.

Created
Fri, 26/05/2023 - 03:00
All those people coming into our country to work are destroying the nation Meanwhile: Lawmakers in several states are embracing legislation to let children work in more hazardous occupations, longer hours on school nights and in expanded roles including serving alcohol in bars and restaurants as young as 14. The efforts to significantly roll back labor rules are largely led by Republican lawmakers to address worker shortages and in some cases run afoul of federal regulations. I’ve always wondered what the Republicans would come up with to fill a labor shortage since they hate foreigners. I assumed they would go to prisoner slave labor. We have millions behind bars, after all. I have to say that I didn’t think rolling back child labor laws was on the menu. Maybe this is why they are so bent on destroying the education system. This way the children will have more time to work their low paying jobs.
Created
Fri, 26/05/2023 - 00:54
Få frågor inom politik och ekonomi diskuteras nu för tiden så mycket — och förstås så lite — som offentlig skuld. Många höjer sina röster och uppmanar till att minska skulden, men få förklarar varför och på vilket sätt en minskning av skulden skulle främja en bättre ekonomi eller ett rättvisare samhälle. Dessutom finns det […]
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Fri, 26/05/2023 - 00:30
No. Just no. You’ve likely seen the videos I will not link to here. Jerks throwing “manly” public tantrums is the latest in ice-bucket challenges for right-wing assholes. They’ve succeeded in intimidating capitulation from retailers rather than the summary execution now endorsed by MAGAs experiencing social discomfort. Greg Sargent writes: It is sometimes said that corporate America is a battleground in the culture wars. This has taken on ugly new meaning in the case of Target, which just announced that it will pull some LBGTQ-friendly merchandise from shelves after experiencing threats that affected its employees’ “sense of safety.” Target’s surrender — which came after concerted attacks from MAGA media personalities — points to a bigger story: The anti-woke right is increasingly wielding heavy-handed tactics — including state power and violent threats — to block corporations from making their own decisions about how to adapt to social change. Though the right is losing this battle at large, it is innovating and having some success.
Created
Thu, 25/05/2023 - 23:45
Ending Zero-Covid Coming Home To Roost For China

So, as expected:

XBB is expected to result in 40 million infections per week by the end of May before peaking at 65 million a month later. This comes nearly six months after Beijing dismantled its Covid Zero curbs, allowing the virus to spread rapidly among the country’s 1.4 billion residents…

…Zhong’s estimate suggests that this latest wave of infections will be more muted compared to the previous wave that hit China late last year and into January. At that time, a different omicron sublineage likely infected 37 million people every day, overwhelming hospitals and crematoriums and causing residents to scramble for limited supplies of fever medicine.

Created
Thu, 25/05/2023 - 23:35

In the Blindman’s Buff variation of tag, a child designated as “It” is tasked with tapping another child while wearing a blindfold. The sightless child knows the other children, all able to see, are there but is left to stumble around, using sounds and knowledge of the space they’re in as guides. Finally, that child does succeed, either by bumping into someone, peeking, or thanks to sheer dumb luck. Think of us, the American public, as that blindfolded child when it comes to our government’s torture program that followed the 9/11 disaster and the launching of the ill-fated war on terror. We’ve been left to search in the dark for what so many of us sensed was there. We’ve been groping... Read more

Source: Blindman’s Buff appeared first on TomDispatch.com.

Created
Thu, 25/05/2023 - 23:10
Three years ago today, rumblings of a global reckoning on racial injustice took place that led many people to reconsider their own experiences and roles when it came to anti-Blackness and racial discrimination. And unfortunately it had to come after one more violent incident – the murder of an innocent Black man at the hands […]
Created
Thu, 25/05/2023 - 23:00
And as political strategy “[T]he American right wing is trying to create a Hobbesian state of nature where violence and fear of death is everywhere and the rule of law is increasingly meaningless,” writes Chauncey DeVega, Salon’s senior politics writer. Who needs random squads of brownshirts when everyone, everywhere is armed, anxious, and primed to go to guns at the slightest provocation? That’s “primed” in the psychological sense. As a political tactic. DeVega walks readers through how German legal philosopher and political theorist Carl Schmidt’s views of “sovereign authority.” Per the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, “Legal norms, Schmitt argues, cannot be applied to a chaos.” Thus the need for a sovereign. In post-Weimar Germany, read “dictator,” who might rule this “state of exception.” That’s not unlike the book of Revelation’s return of Jesus at Armageddon. It’s something that makes Christian nationalists and a self-described “Leninist” like Steve Bannon shiver with antici … pation.