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The Chris Hedges Report: COVID-19 Proved Workers, Not the Bosses, Make the World Run

https://scheerpost.com/2023/03/04/the-chris-hedges-report-covid-19-proved-worke…
Created
Sun, 05/03/2023 - 06:39

Maximillian Alvarez discusses his most recent book on so-called ‘essential workers’ at the start of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, ‘The Work of Living’, with Chris Hedges.

The post The Chris Hedges Report: COVID-19 Proved Workers, Not the Bosses, Make the World Run appeared first on scheerpost.com.

Workers, Machines, and ‘Bonus Depreciation’

https://scheerpost.com/2023/03/04/workers-machines-and-bonus-depreciation/?utm_…
Created
Sun, 05/03/2023 - 06:24

By Bob Lord / CounterPunch Bernie Sanders and Bill Gates don’t agree on many things, but they both want to see a “robot tax,” a special levy on companies that replace workers with machines. Sanders and Gates may be well-intentioned with this call for a robot tax. But that doesn’t make their call on this […]

The post Workers, Machines, and ‘Bonus Depreciation’ appeared first on scheerpost.com.

The Valdai meeting: Where West Asia meets multipolarity — Pepe Escobar

http://mikenormaneconomics.blogspot.com/2023/03/the-valdai-meeting-where-west-a…
Created
Sun, 05/03/2023 - 06:19
The 12th “Middle East Conference” at the Valdai Club in Moscow offered a more than welcome cornucopia of views on interconnected troubles and tribulations affecting the region.

But first, an important word on terminology – as only one of Valdai’s guests took the trouble to stress. This is not the “Middle East” – a reductionist, Orientalist notion devised by old colonials: at The Cradle we emphasize the region must be correctly described as West Asia.

Some of the region’s trials and tribulations have been mapped by the official Valdai report, The Middle East and The Future of Polycentric World. But the intellectual and political clout of those in attendance can provide valuable anecdotal insights too. Here are a few of the major strands participants highlighted on regional developments, current and future:
The Cradle
The Valdai meeting: Where West Asia meets multipolarity
Pepe Escobar

‘Proud widow of wrong sort of Jew’ tells Starmer: Mike faced antisemitism from you, not members

https://skwawkbox.org/2023/03/04/proud-widow-of-wrong-sort-of-jew-tells-starmer…
Created
Sun, 05/03/2023 - 06:07
Dee Howard’s husband Mike died in 2021 while suspended by Labour for supporting Palestinian rights, without even receiving an acknowledgment of his appeal In 2020, not long after Keir Starmer conned his way into the Labour leadership and began his purge of the left – and especially left-wing Jews who support Palestinian human rights – […]

How does JK Galbraith’s The New Industrial Estate hold up after 6 decades?

https://www.profstevekeen.com/2023/03/04/how-does-jk-galbraiths-the-new-industr…
Created
Sun, 05/03/2023 - 05:30
I was asked to contribute to an Italian online publication‘s tribute to John Kenneth Galbraith, by answering some questions about the relevance of his major work The New Industrial State (Galbraith and Galbraith 1967) six decades later. These were my responses. About sixty years later, how relevant and actual is the vision of the American … Continue reading "How does JK Galbraith’s The New Industrial Estate hold up after 6 decades?"

If a libel lawsuit falls in the woods

https://digbysblog.net/2023/03/04/if-a-libel-lawsuit-falls-in-the-woods/
Created
Sun, 05/03/2023 - 05:30
The wingnuts aren’t hearing anything about the Dominion lawsuit revelations — not even from Fox’s rivals: Fox News and its sister network, Fox Business, have avoided the story. Newsmax and One America News, Fox’s rivals on the right, have steered clear, too. So have a constellation of right-wing websites and podcasts. Over the past two weeks, legal filings containing private messages and testimony from Fox hosts and executives revealed that many of them had serious doubts that Democrats stole the 2020 presidential election through widespread voter fraud, even as those claims were made repeatedly on Fox’s shows. The revelations, made public in a defamation lawsuit against Fox brought by Dominion Voting Systems, have generated headlines around the world. But in the conservative media world? Mostly crickets. On 26 of the most popular conservative television news networks, radio shows, podcasts and websites, only four — National Review, Townhall, The Federalist and Breitbart News — have mentioned the private messages from Fox News hosts that disparaged election fraud claims since Feb.

Environment: does bad news about the environment create doom loops?

https://johnmenadue.com/environment-does-bad-news-about-the-environment-create-…
Created
Sun, 05/03/2023 - 04:57
We are losing trees and insects at alarming rates and Australia’s land and sea temperatures continue to rise. But does too much bad news create ‘Doom Loops’? How to lose 15 billion trees On February 23rd, David Lindenmayer, one of Australia’s many excellent ecologists who continue to highlight in the public domain the multiple threats Continue reading »

Modern Olympics: Russian athlete bans violate the charter

https://johnmenadue.com/modern-olympics-russian-athlete-bans-violate-the-charte…
Created
Sun, 05/03/2023 - 04:56
Will Australian athletes face a similar ban on participation in the Olympics for their government’s wars of aggression? Anthony Albanese’s government is violating the Olympic Charter by supporting bans on Russian and Belarusian athletes attending the Paris games in 2024. Since 2015, the Olympic Charter’s Article Six states, The Olympic Games are competitions between athletes in individual Continue reading »

The sin of Robodebt

https://johnmenadue.com/the-sin-of-robodebt/
Created
Sun, 05/03/2023 - 04:55
What appears to be absent from the politicians and public servants appearing in the Robodebt Royal Commission is an understanding that it was a moral failure – a sin. Finding the sinners to punish in atonement might make us feel better for a moment, but it might not fix the sin. One of the recurring Continue reading »

Brexit over; now for common sense

https://johnmenadue.com/brexit-over-now-for-common-sense/
Created
Sun, 05/03/2023 - 04:54
The Brexit saga has played itself to death with much relief all round except perhaps at Britain’s political margins. The just agreed ‘Windsor Framework’ resolving the remaining issues between the UK and the EU following Brexit provides a real opportunity to restore something of normality in the European space. A transcending factor driving this change Continue reading »

China’s peace plan for Ukraine

https://johnmenadue.com/chinas-peace-plan-for-ukraine/
Created
Sun, 05/03/2023 - 04:53
Recent Chinese Government peace proposals offer new hope for political settlement of the Ukraine crisis. The tragic year-long war in Ukraine has already transformed the world’s geopolitical landscape. Historic global power shifts towards the Eurasian heartland, centred on China, are accelerating. China and Russia have drawn together in a strong ‘no limits’ partnership, that is Continue reading »

Western leaders privately say Ukraine can’t win the war

https://johnmenadue.com/western-leaders-privately-say-ukraine-cant-win-the-war/
Created
Sun, 05/03/2023 - 04:51
The German and French leaders have told Ukraine they must seek peace with Russia in exchange for a post-war defence pact, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal.  Western leaders privately told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that Ukraine can not win the war against Russia and that it should begin peace talks with Continue reading »

Democracy-Autocracy divide will not serve global – or even Western – interests

https://johnmenadue.com/democracy-autocracy-divide-will-not-serve-global-or-eve…
Created
Sun, 05/03/2023 - 04:50
Taking on autocratic powers has given the West a new-found sense of purpose, but it risks alienating emerging global players with its simplistic world view. A narrative that focuses on the clash between world orders does not resonate with countries more concerned about economic struggle and the climate crisis. National leaders and foreign policy experts Continue reading »

Congress MIT graduate demonstrates reification error

http://mikenormaneconomics.blogspot.com/2023/03/congress-mit-graduate-demonstra…
Created
Sun, 05/03/2023 - 04:44

 

STEM graduate from MIT exhibits the most sophomoric of cognitive reification errors and thinks Accounting abstractions are real:




Maybe should have taken some Accounting and Finance STEM electives… 

Analogy doesn’t work…  No forms of figurative language work…  

This thing going viral on Truth Social with numerous likes….





Trump’s CPAC

https://digbysblog.net/2023/03/04/trumps-cpac/
Created
Sun, 05/03/2023 - 04:00
He’s speaking today. Here’s a preview: Former President Trump plans to draw a sharp ideological contrast between his MAGA movement and Bush-era Republicans in his speech at CPAC on Saturday — and will urge GOP voters to finish the job of remaking the party by backing him for president. The CPAC conference, now dominated by the MAGA movement, offers Trump a home-field advantage. He first spoke there in 2011, where he previewed many of the populist themes that fueled his 2016 campaign. Trump’s keynote address, scheduled for 5:30 p.m. ET Saturday, is expected to last about 90 minutes. “The issues that brought Trump to the fore in 2016 are still with us,” one Trump aide told Axios. “These issues have never left. He’s going to remind people of the bigger picture. There’s a longer struggle here — in terms of finishing the job.”  Trump’s finish the job rhetoric is somewhat reminiscent of President Biden’s message in his State of the Union speech last month, in which he called on lawmakers to “finish the job” of rebuilding the economy and unifying the country.

Whole lotta debunkin’ goin’ on

https://digbysblog.net/2023/03/04/whole-lotta-debunkin-goin-on/
Created
Sun, 05/03/2023 - 02:30
Better David Dale than you CPAC is in session, and the lies, smears, and distortions are flying. Liberally, ironically. There’s a whole lotta fabulizing goin’ on. If like me you are seeing a flood of conservative tweets and memes that make you baroo and think, That can’t be right, you’re right. I’ve wasted too much time already chasing down where the truncated quotes, ugly rumors, inaccurate statistics, and other RW nonsense originated. Thankfully, CNN’s new, oft-derided CEO Chris Licht has not fired fact-checker Daniel Dale. Not yet. Dale is still doing the debunking so you don’t have to. CPAC has kept him busy: Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio uttered two false claims about President Joe Biden. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia repeated a debunked claim about Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Sen. Tommy Tuberville of Alabama used two inaccurate statistics as he lamented the state of the country. Former Trump White House official Steve Bannon repeated his regular lie about the 2020 election having been stolen from Trump, this time baselesly blaming Fox for Trump’s defeat. Rep.

Do we have a deal?

https://digbysblog.net/2023/03/04/do-we-have-a-deal/
Created
Sun, 05/03/2023 - 01:00
NC Republicans announce Medicaid expansion The vote is not planned until later this month. Until then anything can happen. On Thursday, however, Tar Heel State Republicans in firm control of the state legislature announced a deal for Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act. North Carolina would be the 40th state to expand Medicaid after a decade of Republican resistance. The Washington Post reports: The deal marks a stark turnaround for Republican leaders that played out over years in North Carolina and in states across the country, as more and more governors and legislatures expanded Medicaid to low-income residents. When that stopped working years ago, advocates put the measures on the ballot in seven conservative-leaning states, and voters approved expansion in every one.  Associated Press: “This is something that we can all be very proud of,” House Speaker Tim Moore said at a Legislative Building news conference with Senate leader Phil Berger. “What a huge announcement this is for North Carolina.