| Time |
Event |
| 10:45a |
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| 10:45a |
Musk giveaway lawsuit
*Philadelphia DA sues Elon Musk and America Pac over $1m voter
giveaway,* calling
it *running an illegal lottery.*
I am surprised that it is not a crime that can be prosecuted.
Prosecution might make Musk stop, but I think he will disregard have
his lawyers just let the process proceed, and resolve the suit next
Wednesday Nov 6 by paying whatever penalty is imposed, The amount he
would lose is probably insignificant to him.
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| 10:46a |
Trump VA warning
The wrecker is threatening to upend the Veterans Administration, which
is likely
to kill many US veterans.
It appears that he despises living veterans as much as he despises
veterans who are dead.
He also expressed his support for the Confederacy, and thu sin directly
for slavery, by saying he would rename Fort Liberty back to Fort Bragg.
Soldiers, would you want your base to be named after an enemy general
that fought
against the United States?
Soldiers, would you want your base to be named after an incompetent
general whose decisions helped the US so much that US generals said it
was unfortunate to have killed him?
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| 10:46a |
NAFTA jobs
* The working class saw Clinton’s support of Nafta, which cut most
tariffs between US, Mexico and Canada, as "a betrayal".* They continue
to
blame Democrats for it.
It was a betrayal and it was promoted by Democrats (though not as
many
Democrats as Republicans).
But what counts in the election is what
they would do next year. Overall, Democrats are inclined to resist the
demands of rich people and the businesses they own somewhat more
than Republicans would,
though not as much as
Bernie Sanders would.
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| 10:46a |
Israeli publishers
Some famous writers have supported a campaign to boycott Israeli cultural
institutions, except those that have taken a stand
against the
occupation or atrocities.
The reason I call Isreal's massacres of Palestinians "atrocities" but
not "genocide" is that the meaning of the latter word is a matter of
magnitude of the acts in question, not just the kinds of acts.
Killing 20 people in cold blood is clearly an atrocity, but it is not
genocide. Killing 40,000 people out of 2.3 million, by violence or
starvation, is a series of atrocities, but is it genocide? I think
that is still stretching the word. Killing 10% of the population of
Gaza might be genocide. Enough additional killing (which I hope will
not occur) would surely make it genocide. But I don't think there is
a precise line.
Why argue about that question of the meaning of the word? Killing
tens of thousands of people is a grave and vicious act, and calling it
a series of atrocities expresses the gravity of the crime in a way
that is totally clear.
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| 10:46a |
Georgian Dream party
Russia has more or less taken unofficial control of Georgia, through
the opposition is still fighting and claim that the
election was
rigged.
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| 10:46a |
Marwan Barghouti
*Israeli prison staff accused of assaulting
Marwan Barghouti [in his cell],*
causing several wounds.
He is kept in solitary confinement, which is effective a form of torture,
and rarely allowed visits, even from lawyers.
So the attack could hardly have been done by anyone but the prison guards.
|
| 10:46a |
Harris endorsement
The billionaire owner of the LA Times blocked it at the last minute
from publishing an already-written endorsement of Harris for
president. Some editors resigned in protest, and
many subscribers
have quit.
Bezos blocked at the last minute an already written endorsement of
Harris for president, according to staff. Some editors,
staff and
subscribers are quitting.
Since Bezos is not an ideological right-wing extremist, there are
suspicions that he was afraid the bully would punish his other
companies if he allowed an endorsement of Harris and then the bully
somehow became president.
People have asked what Musk hopes to get
if he can make the bully
president.
I think Musk wants to be emperor.
The danger that billionaires pose to the American republic somewhat
resembles the way concentration of wealth destroyed the Roman Republic
(1). Eventually the richest Roman of all, Julius Caesar, became so
powerful that no few in Rome could go against his wishes, not enough
to succeed in denying him anything. He aimed for total power.
Later his nephew, Octavian, actually got that total power, so that no
one could safely oppose him at all. This he obtained the official
position that we nowadays call "emperor".
If we defeat the bully this time, he may go away and leave us alone,
but Vance won't refuse the "support" of Musk, and they are not old
enough to be likely to disappear soon. To be safe, we will have to
take away most of Musk's wealth. And likewise for other billionaires.
1. There are many differences, of course. The Roman Republic never
had goals such as democracy or equal rights. The vote of a rich
citizen counted for more than that of a poor citizen, and a
sufficiently rich citizen was automatically a senator. Wives had
little more rights than slaves. Notwithstanding the revolt of
Spartacus, few ever said that slavery was wrong in general.
Nonetheless, there are similarities in the evolution of the system
into instability as the richest fortunes became greater.
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| 10:46a |
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| 10:46a |
Working-class Britons
*…Working-class white people were actually the
dispensable pawns of white supremacy. Or as Lyndon B Johnson put
it: "If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best
coloured man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him
somebody to look down on, and
he’ll empty his pockets for you."
I made a link to that article because it tells us something important
about racism. Racism is an intense form of bigotry; it is a
collective injustice that I condemn, and support the campaign against.
I think posting a link to that article will help that campaign.
Ironically, that article itself embodies symbolic bigotry by
capitalizing "black" but not "white". (To avoid this bigotry,
capitalize both words or neither one.) I denounce lesser forms of
bigotry too, and I don't want to normalize symbolic bigotry by letting
it pass without calling it out. Normally I avoid any menton of
articles that practice it.
I had conflicting feelings about that article based on these two valid
goals: to make a link, because of its important point about racism, or
not to link, to avoid normalizing the article's own bigotry. I
concluded that the first goal could not be neglected, and made the
link. But the second goal also should not be neglected — hence this
note to criticize the article's own bigotry.
|
| 4:45p |
California high school to invest in clean energy
* A high school in California has decided not to invest in coal, oil
or [fossil] gas, instead pledging to put money into clean energy..*
This was a demand made my the students. Bravo!
But what we really need is to stop anyone from "investing" in fossil fuels.
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| 4:45p |
Spain's apocalyptic floods
*Spain's apocalyptic floods [following others in countries around the
world] show two undeniable truths: the climate crisis is getting worse
and Big Oil is killing us.*
The annual COP conferences that was created to get the world o the
road to safety has been captured by planet roasters, and it is hard to
see how the US and Russia could negotiate any sort of agreement about
fossil fuels.
Some large countries could set up a carbon tax system on their own,
using the tax money to help the poor
not to subsidize specifically fossil fuel for poor people.
Maybe then other countries would join.
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Urgent: Ban surveillance pricing
US citizens: call on lawmakers to ban surveillance pricing.
They should go further than that and ban collecting personal data about
the purchaser.
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