Month: May 2020
No matter what Donald Trump does, or says Fox News is right there to support him, get angry for him, apologize for him, reinterpret his meaning for him, and lie for him.
via Fox News Goes Berserk Over Twitter Flagging Trump’s Violent Tweet | Crooks and Liars
If it wasn’t so tragic, it would be laughable: the political brigands in North America and Europe are fuming, spitting and rolling their eyes upwards towards the ceiling. They are pointing fingers in all directions, shouting incoherently “China!”, “Russia!”, “Venezuela and Cuba!”, “Iran!”; “You, You, YOU!”.
China and Russia are quietly building a new world, which includes brand new infrastructure, factories and entire neighborhoods for the people. Hospitals are being constructed, and so are universities, parks, concert halls and public transportation networks. Both countries are doing all this quickly and noiselessly, and with great determination. And despite sanctions and embargos, they never shout back at the salivating, angry mouths of the Western gurus of brainwashing.
My ancestors came to Australia as prisoners, and some almost certainly would have played some role in the genocide against the people who’d been living here for more than 65,000 years before them. And now I live in a society that is dominated by whiteness, and I’ve benefited from that. I’ve never had cause to fear for my life in the presence of a police officer, in fact I’ve never hesitated to call them if I’ve needed their help. I had an easy youth because my parents came from the race that has been favored by generations of white supremacist policies in Australia. Media I consumed growing up consistently featured people who were the same color as me, consistently feeding me through my formative years the message that I can accomplish anything I want in life. I’ve gotten jobs because I understand the subtleties of white culture enough to know how to speak and dress for different interviews, and because I had many white contacts (it’s not what you know, it’s who you know). There are people who pay attention to my words today who wouldn’t give them as much respect if they appeared next to a profile picture with dark skin. There are many other advantages I’ve had that I can’t even know about, since I’ve never lived a day in brown skin.
Reopening doesn’t mean that the threat has passed. It could worsen. We don’t know how the virus will mutate or whether reopening will give its spread a second wind. Studies, for what they are worth, report that there are already a number of mutations of the virus. Given the lack of information and understanding and the many agendas operating, caution is the only responsible course.
via The Fear Is Real, Not Orchestrated, by Paul Craig Roberts – The Unz Review
Background: Trump as Liar in Chief
Trump posted a Tweet stating that mail-in ballots will be ‘substantially fraudulent’. Two points here: first there is no evidence that mail-in ballots are any more or less fraudulent than in-person voting. Second, the last time an election used mail-in ballots for a special election, the Republican won. It truly is remarkable how quickly Trump can utterly contradict himself. Vote by mail is totally fraudulent but the Republican won. Amazing. This is analogous to his 2016 claims that the electoral college was a disaster for democracy – when it looked like he would lose.
Australia needs a strong post-secondary education system. Vocational education and training is under-resourced and ideologically damaged. The starting points for reform need to be with its curriculum and connection with upper secondary education. Employers, employee organisations, and educators together with government need to work cooperatively so that our education sector can contribute to efforts to transition our economy. Policy warriors and slogans are unhelpful.
via JobMaker: sloganeering won’t fix a VET system gouged by profiteers – Michael West
Biggest ever has been accomplished by this LNP, Biggest budget error. Biggest turnaround, what next? (ODT)
Finally they have turned on Sky After Dark (OD)
ASIO says it has detected an increase in extremist activity online during the coronavirus lockdown period
Officers say there has also been a rise in “anti-China” and “anti-migration” sentiment in communities
Peter Dutton introduced a bill to allow ASIO to question 14-year-old suspects of extremist involvement
Spies kept busy by increase in suspicious internet activity during coronavirus lockdown – ABC News
and
Rio Tinto blasting of 46,000-year-old Aboriginal sites compared to Islamic State’s destruction in Palmyra
The Pulitzer-winning cartoonist Nick Anderson has described Donald Trump as an “adolescent wannabe authoritarian”, after the US president’s re-election campaign failed to pull one of Anderson’s cartoons mocking Trump’s inaccurate suggestion that injecting disinfectant could protect against Covid-19.
A victory over Trump and the GOP in November does not translate by itself into the kind of change we need. Nor does it provide any guarantee that advocates of a racist authoritarian state cannot roar back down the road. But only by preventing a Trump second term can the immediate threat Trumpism poses be averted. Only a Left that brings its determination and its vision of structural change to the fight that millions believe is priority number one — beating Trump — can come out of 2020 with sufficient strength and alliances to drive further toward our long-range goals.
“Those excessive practices have been again and again shown to disproportionately impact racial and language minority communities.”
Judicial Watch, which focuses on the courts and is funded primarily by large grants from conservative foundations, is suing Pennsylvania’s chief election official, along with county legislators and election officials in three of the state’s six counties with the most registered voters. Pennsylvania was critical to Donald Trump’s win in 2016. He won by less than 1 percentage point, losing only 11 counties, including the three suburban Philadelphia counties being sued by Judicial Watch. It was the first time Pennsylvania went red since 1988. Democrats almost certainly need to win the state — where former Vice President Joe Biden was born, and where his campaign is headquartered — to take back the White House.
via Right-Wing Group Aims to Purge 800,000 Voters in Pennsylvania
One man’s step closer to a Fascist State. Twitter didn’t block or stop Trump’s Tweets (ODT)
via Trump Signs Social Media Executive Order | HuffPost Australia
The World’s dirtiest President Making America Dirtier Again MADA (ODT)
Unfortunately for America during this national health crisis, people are dying because of his behavior. The Wall Street Journal is noticing because Trump’s behavior is taking down the Republican Party, and Rupert Murdoch’s as cuts, with him.
via Wall Street Journal Op-Ed: ‘Mr. Trump Is Debasing His Office’ | Crooks and Liars
This only occurs when The Administration fails to realise they work for the people and Americans don’t work for them (ODT)
“Our capital stock hasn’t been destroyed,” he said of the damage done by COVID. “Our human capital stock is ready to get back to work. There are lots of reasons to believe that we can get going way faster than we have in previous crises.”
“Our human capital stock is ready to get back to work.”
Stock (noun): farm animals such as cattle, pigs and sheep, bred and kept for their meat or milk; livestock.
Let that sink in good and deep, down through the skin and into the marrow within your bones. Hassett’s remarkable statement on Sunday puts into stark relief the reason why this disaster has unfolded as it has.
It is far more than mere gross incompetence. This White House does not see us as human beings with intrinsic value and rights of our own. We are cattle who exist only for the profit of the few, sheep to be sheared, pigs to be hung up for slaughter. To them, we are only meat for the machine, nothing more than an entirely expendable commodity.
via Trump Adviser Says “Human Capital Stock” Should Get Back to Work | The Smirking Chimp
THE VIRUS WE CALL THE LNP
Australia has a virus epidemic that is one thousand times worse than Corona virus. This virus is going to affect this once great country for at least a decade. The virus is the Liberal National party.
A broad overview of a planned Job Maker scheme will be unveiled against a backdrop of grim economic predictions including a record deficit, debt exceeding 30 per cent of GDP, unemployment “around 10 per cent”, and a fall in foreign investment by up to …
Trump is smashing China and needs a war (ODT)
via Trump’s ‘Uncreative Destruction’ of the U.S.-China Relationship
In a seven-paragraph press release issued late on Monday afternoon, Frydenberg said the change would protect companies from “opportunistic class actions” during the coronavirus crisis and allow them to raise much-needed capital. But experts say there is no evidence any such problem exists.
Labor also slammed the move for undermining confidence in the markets.
The change, which followed heavy lobbying by industry groups, is supposed to last for six months, but there are already calls for it to be made permanent.
It drew immediate fire from class-action lawyers, who described it as “cronyism” and a “green light for company directors to hide information from the people who actually own a company”.
This man calls for co-operation and sharing the load but locks out 1.5 mill workers.(ODT)
Tens of millions of Americans are cashless, many desperate to feed their children. Meanwhile the richest Americans merrily float on a rapidly rising tide of money thanks mainly to Trump & Co.
This is our “Friends for Life” we go to war and die for (ODT)
This could and should be great news for the Left. Working-class voters don’t want candidates to use ultra-liberal rhetoric but neither do they want them to tear up the important gains of the 1960s Rights Revolution. They do want health care, a decent job and pro-worker policies that make it easier to unionize — it would be wise to pitch campaigns that meet those demands. A simple message built around destroying the obscenity of inequality and providing universal public goods would likely do well to unite workers across race, gender, region, and ideology; it just can’t be paired with an alienating “woke” aesthetic.
That means we should avoid the culture war and battles over online discourse and get back to the business of organizing within our unions and beyond to build an institutionally vibrant and working-class public sphere.
When US propaganda overtakes any notion of necessary truth America is on the path of war no matter the cost. Trump is the man to take them there.(ODT)
olddogthoughts 
You must be logged in to post a comment.