An excerpt of a Raw Story exclusive from neuroscientist Seth D Northolm: I was dying…It was just a matter of time. Lying behind the wheel of the airplane, bleeding out of the right side of my devastated body, I waited for the rapid shooting to stop. —Former Representative Jackie Speier in her memoir Undaunted: Surviving Jonestown, Summoning Courage, and Fighting Back recounting her experience after being shot five times during an ambush during her fact-finding visit to Jonestown, Guyana where Jim Jones and his cult, Peoples Temple, had built a compound. It, combined with everything else that was going on, made it difficult to breathe…Being crushed by the shield and the people behind it … leaving me defenseless, injured. —Metropolitan police officer, Daniel Hodges, describing being crushed in a doorway during the January 6, 2021, attack by Trump supporters on the U.S. Capitol In both of the examples above, the individual speaking was the victim of extreme violence perpetrated by followers of a single person whose influence had spread to hundreds of people (in the January 6th case, thousands of people).
Reading
Perhaps surprisingly, I don’t particularly like technology. And certainly not technology for technology’s sake. My brother was always the one who picked up every new gadget to see what it did. I tended to shrug and go back to reading a book. I still do. That said.. Like most people, I enjoy technologies that improve […]
49 years ago… Note the “support ebbs.” Make America Great Again.
Extreme climate impacts are exploding in this year’s Northern Hemisphere summer. We urgently need to understand how climate disruption will affect Australians: their safety and well-being in the face of ever-more-extreme climate events, the viability of public and private infrastructure, communications and logistical systems, challenges to food security, and much more. The Australian Government is Continue reading »
In an age when the mainstream media scene is monotone and superficial, Pearls and Irritations covers important stories that would otherwise be ignored, and offers a refreshing diversity of opinion. It needs your support to survive and grow. Regular contributors provide insights in public policy areas including the economy, defence and foreign relations, religion and Continue reading »
It’s hard to credit, but the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) continues its incessant grumbling about forms of interference across a number of areas of Australian political and economic debate. What stands out in this method of noisy declaration is the tactic of sidelining legitimate public debate. Such interference supposedly impairs the credibility of the Continue reading »
What are we to make of what we’re witnessing on our TV screens – the fires, the floods, the storms, the loss of life and habitat? It certainly appears deadly – and monumentally serious. July was the hottest month ever recorded. Words like crisis and emergency no longer seem to cut it. They fail to Continue reading »
Wars the US waged in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, and Pakistan following September 11, 2001 caused at least 4.5 million deaths and displaced 38 to 60 million people, with 7.6 million children starving today, according to studies by Brown University. The wars the United States waged and fuelled in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, and Pakistan Continue reading »
The Robodebt Royal Commission has shown that the Australian Public Service is at a crossroads. It can be a professional and ethical APS that serves the public interest through the government of the day. Or it can be an overtly politicised service, little different from the staff in ministerial offices. What must not persist is Continue reading »
The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) held its annual summit on 11–12 July in Vilnius, Lithuania. The communiqué released after the first day’s proceedings claimed that ‘NATO is a defensive alliance’, a statement that encapsulates why many struggle to grasp its true essence. A look at the latest military spending figures shows, to the contrary, that NATO Continue reading »
Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – August 6, 2023
by Tony Wikrent
Climate and environmental crises
Is A Mega Ocean Current About to Shut Down?
[Scientific American, via Naked Capitalism 7-30-2023]
The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC). Commentary:
You’d think it would cross their minds. But it doesn’t seem to.
“Never forget that the economy is a wholly owned subsidiary of nature”. Global Boiling – Kate Mackenzie and Tim Sahay Many of us have grown up with the story of …
The post Economic delusions cannot save us from the climate crisis and societal decay appeared first on The Gower Initiative for Modern Money Studies.
The Cold War never ended for the American right Cliff Schecter posted the clip below last night and it’s a fine example of the conservative reflex for branding as communist everything and everybody they dislike. Three-plus decades after the end of the Cold War that they declared Saint Ronald of Reagan had won, they still can’t let it go. They’re still looking for commies in woodpiles and for Reds under their beds before they cower beneath the sheets. Upon review, I was surprised to see that Ed Kilgore wrote in response to Donald Trump branding his opponents communists that he “hadn’t heard a Republican call a Democrat a commie since the high tide of McCarthyism.” Looking at the clip Cliff posted, where’s Ed been all this time? Kilgore wrote in March 2022: It’s not just Trump throwing the term around.
More smoke grenades It’s time to revisit some old posts about a tactic used by the right now being deployed against the supposed “Biden crime family.” It is a variety of throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks (All the president’s lawyers; 9/7/22): It is a time-tested tactic on the right. Practiced and perfected. Gin up fake controversy over anything and everything. From tan suits to sloppy salutes. From Benghazi to emails. Pimp it like hell until the press can’t stop itself from reporting the controversy. Rush Limbaugh built a career on serving up a daily dose of outrage to his listeners until they would go into withdrawal if it stopped. I’ve described the decades-long, Republican phony effort to convince the public there is massive voter fraud as them lobbing smoke bombs into newsrooms. By the time the smoke clears and we discover, yet again, there was never a fire, all the public remembers is they saw smoke and heard someone yelling, “Fire!” Lather, rinse, repeat. Digby calls it the “where there’s smoke there’s fire” gambit.
In today's BCTV Daily Dispatch: Musk/Carano, The Sandman, Good Omens 2, WWE SummerSlam, Star Trek: Prodigy, Ms. Marvel, Doctor Who, and more!
Henry’s post on the correct way to argue with Hanania was good. In light of late revelations (probably you’ve heard), revisitation, for extra emphasis, may not be taken amiss. (Or skip it, if it looks like a dead horse.) Henry’s point, riffing on DD (riffing on Galbraith, riffing on Friedman) is: you don’t want to […]
The Modi government has weaponized India’s sedition and anti-terror laws to disappear Khalid and other political critics from public life.
The post Umar Khalid Challenged Modi’s Anti-Muslim Agenda. India Accused Him of Terrorism and Locked Him Up. appeared first on The Intercept.
The Modi government has weaponized India’s sedition and anti-terror laws to disappear Khalid and other political critics from public life.
The post Umar Khalid Challenged Modi’s Anti-Muslim Agenda. India Accused Him of Terrorism and Locked Him Up. appeared first on The Intercept.
‘All I can do is pray – earnestly, relentlessly – for world peace.’ Fujio Torikoshi was eating breakfast with his mother when the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. Feeling a rumble underneath his feet, Fujio stepped outside into the front garden and saw a black dot in the sky. That’s when it burst outwards, […]
Six months after the East Palestine derailment disaster, the only safety victory on our nation’s railroads came from workers.