The fun thing about not only not using US media, but moving to another language

French media is talking about this in a disinterested manner.

And pointing out how much the Democrats have blown it with continuing their witch hunt on Trump while ignoring their own problems, which I'm not going to bother mentioning if you aren't aware of them by now.

This story is only "à la un" on the broadcast media. The print media are like the Private Eye "Heir of Sorrows" series where it listed off headlines from the British dailies. In this case, the French are concerning themselves with issues of French interest.

That is pretty much the strike relating to the change in retirement regulations making people have to wait longer to retire.

And you wonder why I prefer Europe to the US. Especially when the US has become a banana republic having to resort to political prosecutions instead of addressing the issues it needs to. The partisanism is totally disgusting to me.
 

As I said, I have no illusions about the reforms I wish the US would adopt

On the other hand, we can keep going with two parties which don't represent most people and are out of touch with the electorate.

Also, Italy uses first past the post (winner take all) instead of the ranked choice voting/instant run-off which is another reform I like. I am in favour of proportional representation and run off elections/ranked choice voting.

As the mans says: "democracy needs policies. And it needs effective policies."

Not the "partisan" bullshit that is going on the the US.

Dissent editor Michael Walzer on "the crisis of liberalism"

It's interesting what he is saying.  It's not exactly what my last two posts have been about, but very similar.

Liberalism in Europe, today, is something like “libertarianism”—it is a right-wing ideology. There used to be a left libertarianism, which is probably better called anarchism, and that persists in various sectarian versions, but it isn’t much in the public eye. And then in the United States, liberalism generally means “New Deal liberalism.” It’s our very modest version of social democracy, and it isn’t a very strong doctrine, since many of its practitioners became neoliberals much too easily. So, the -ism is not a strong or coherent doctrine. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t liberals. But liberals are people who are best defined morally or psychologically; they’re what Lauren Bacall, my favorite actress, called “people who don’t have small minds.” A liberal is someone who’s tolerant of ambiguity, who can join arguments that he doesn’t have to win, who can live with people who disagree, who have different religions or different ideologies. That’s a liberal. But those liberal qualities don’t imply any social or economic doctrine. So, there are liberals in the world, and I can recognize them, but liberalism does not describe their actual political commitment. The word is better used to qualify the kinds of commitments that I write about: democracy, socialism, nationalism, et cetera.

He's making a good point since "liberal arts" is a field of study "based on rational thinking, and it includes the areas of humanities, social and physical sciences, and mathematics. A liberal arts education emphasizes the development of critical thinking and analytical skills, the ability to solve complex problems, and an understanding of ethics and morality, as well as a desire to continue to learn." That means the division is between closed mindedness and open mindedness: not whether one is on the left or the right.

The problem with US politics is that it is based upon fallacious thinking. "The Democrats are progressives/socialists/liberals/etcetera" and "The Republican Trump supporters, etc." Is the divide that clear cut? Fox news calls the democratic party "socialist", yet that party has a long track record of destroying the moderate "socialist" policies of the new deal. What Sanders was proposing wasn't too far out from where FDR was going, and what is pretty much expected in the rest of the world as far as social policy goes.

As I said, not exactly what I have been saying in the past few posts, but definitely something I agree with:

Liberal Commitments An interview with Michael Walzer on The Struggle for a Decent Politics. in Dissent Magazine

I'm not sure how true this is, but...

I was told the French government subsidises newspapers, which is an interesting concept if it is
true. Although, I was under the impression I was reading a wider variety of viewpoints then just centrist. I read the following: Le Monde, Le Figaro, Libération, L'Express, and L'Obs. The first three being dailies and the last two are weeklies. This list puts me at being left of centre in French/European politics.

On the other hand, I am extreme fringe left in the United States being aligned with Bernie Sanders. I find my home in the US with the Green Party and Democratic Socialists. I'm trying to figure out which party comes closest when I start looking at European politics, which gets interesting since some things which are called "Socialist" in the US are taken for granted in European politics. In fact, trying to take them away would make one an incredibly unpopular candidate.

But the US doesn't talk about how overworked it is until someone mentions that Europeans usually start a job with 3 weeks of vacation and work up. They also don't work more than 40 hours a week.

It's things like that that make me question the 2020 election where people were prevented from working, yet a candidate who talked about not living in fear during a period of enforced unemployment lost the election. Things like Universal Basic Income make sense when someone is told they cannot work. Likewise, so does having housing and medical care paid for.

On the other hand, it is easier to play the ad hominem card of "that candidate/party/person is a progressive..." when it's obvious that the term doesn't really apply when one properly looks at the issues.

As I like to say, if the Democratic Party were as socialist or progressive as the right/Fox news likes to claim: wouldn't it have made sense to run Bernie Sanders instead of the candidates who they did run????  Of course, Fox news would be even more embarassed since it seems that Sanders was popular on a town hall they ran.

Anyway, despite this I have to admit that I am blissfully ignorant of US politics, which was made apparent since I had no idea who Ketanji Brown Jackson was or what made up the US Supreme Court. For good reason, the institution is blatantly political. It makes decisions which are not really based in law.

And it fucking well doesn't need to.

I'm not sure if being a US Supreme Court Justice is something worthy of being: especially since it it is a purely political position. The reason I go by Laci is that someone joked that my dog had been in more courtrooms than Harriet Miers, which was probably true.

It doesn't make a lot of sense to pretend reverence for a document most people don't understand and is horrible out of touch with modern society. And they forget can be amended. Even though they say they like certain of the Amendments.

Yes, diversity is a good thing, especially if it is properly applied. 

Unfortunately, there isn't too much diversity in the marketplace of US ideas, despite the First Amendment. Which is why it is amusing to me that French Newspapers could be government subsidised.

How the bloodless revolution will happen in the United States

The United State is locked in partisan nonsense and needs to get parties which actually represent the people. The only way that will happen is on a local basis, where the duopoly have less control. The non-duopoly parties begin to "infect" the legislature, which is where the real change comes. 

 I was pleasantly surprised when Doggone told me that Antonin Scalia agreed with me about the parliamentary system. 

I don't like it because of Westminster. I like it because the power is where it belongs: in the lesiglature. Additionally, because of that, there is an absolute necessity for political cooperation. One needs to come up with a consensus for a parliamentary system to work. The government literally falls if there can't be a consensus, which is why it is necessary. A lower house of parliament with an ability to dismiss a government by "withholding (or blocking) supply" (rejecting a budget), passing a motion of no confidence, or defeating a confidence motion.

Loss of supply occurs where a government in a parliamentary democracy using the Westminster System or a system derived from it is denied a supply of treasury or exchequer funds, by whichever house or houses of parliament or head of state is constitutionally entitled to grant and deny supply. A defeat on a budgetary vote is one way by which supply can be denied. Loss of supply is typically interpreted as indicating a loss of confidence in the government. Not all "money bills" are necessarily supply bills. For instance, in Australia, supply bills are defined as "bills which are required by the Government to carry on its day-to-day business".^[1]

When a loss of supply occurs, a prime minister is generally required either by constitutional convention or by explicit constitutional instruction to either resign immediately or seek a parliamentary dissolution.

Some constitutions, however, do not allow the option of parliamentary dissolution but rather require the government to be dissolved or to resign.

Given how many budget crises happen in the US, it would probably go through governments like Italy or Belgium until the teething period was over. On the other hand, digging in on the budget would make it clear where the real power lies in government.

The presence of third parties would ensure that there was a way to gain consensus, or withhold it to bring the government more in line with the will of the people. There's a reason why the duopoly do everything they can to keep the power to themselves.

I don't have any illusions about some of the reforms which would be nice to see in US politics since Europe has them and people like Marine Le Pen are prominent in politics. On the other hand, there is a far better representation of political viewpoints in Europe than the One Party-Duopoly United States.

There's a reason I don't like discussing politics with Americans: they are worse than people who lived behind the Iron Curtain in how badly they are propagandised.

There needs to be a real free market of ideas, which isn't happening in the US.

I'm not afraid of artificial intelligence: it's easy to defeat them--just pull out their plug.

I've had this problem quite a bit with voice recognition, which shows as anyone well versed in this technology will tell you: "it would make more sense to call it artificial stupidity, than intelligence." In fact, it was dealing with artificial intelligence only to be shunted to a call centre where they don't speak my language (yet again) that led to me writing this.

Yes, a computer can appear intelligent as can someone with dementia appear lucid. But as Alan Turing pointed out, a human can tell the difference. Where artificial intelligence appears superior is that it can process a lot of information quickly. But there'a another computer saying: "GIGO" or "Garbage in, Garbage out." I wouldn't trust a machine to make decisions without a human there to veto that decision. And computers need electricity or some sort of power. They can only run things as long as their batteries can power up. Otherwise they are just expensive paper weights. The reality is that they can only deal with what they are written to do. They might add some other variations to their data base, but it might confuse them since it's really just pattern recognition and not true knowledge. Or as this cartoon points out:

Of course, later versions of the Daleks could fly. The aliens in M. Night Shyamalan's Signs were able to achieve interstellar travel, yet were unable to deal with doorknobs. Or the fact that Earth is covered with water. I think Robots would have even more difficult tasks to deal with if they had to actually deal with the real world instead of their limited universes.

Fred Hampton talks anarchists, SDS, Weathermen and the white working class

I've known about Fred Hampton for a while, but I became much more interested in him post-Riots. I've tossed "gun rights" in here since he talks about "self-defence", which would be be a very heated argument since Hampton was assassinated by the Chicago Police. A lot of people, myself included, believe this was because Hampton was very charismatic and unified, rather than divided. I'm sorry I don't live in the alternative reality where Malcolm Little became the first black US Supreme Court Justice and Hampton the first black president.

And a black composer for you!

Black History Month - What we don't know and are not taught: "Black Mozart"

Joseph Bologne, lived during the era of the American Revolution, 1745 -1799. He was French, the son of a slave mother and a wealthy planter father. His father essentially bought a title in 1757, and had taken his son to France for his education, along with his mother who continued to be a slave. He excelled in swordsmanship. He was SO unusual, so excellent at this skill, that when he graduated he directly became a member of the King's bodyguard, and was knighted. He also fought duels with prominent swordsmen who insulted him because he was bi-racial.

An obvious polymath, Saint-Georges was also an accomplished violinist at an early age (hence the comparison to Mozart) and became an accomplished composer in his own right as well. Saint-Georges was subsidized during his younger years by his father, but that money went to his apparently white and legitimate half-sister when his father died, leaving Saint-Georges to support himself by what he earned from his music and from the Orchestras he conducted. He continued to enjoy both tremendous popularity, but also periodic racism against him. He became a great favorite of Marie Antoinette. Saint-Georges began writing operas, met other famous talents in the music world, including the actual Mozart and Haydn. During this time his mother, who had continued to live with him, died - apparently still at least technically a slave by legal status if not in how she lived.

Subsequently, Saint-Georges spent time in England, including rubbing elbows with the Prince of Wales. Throughout his life among the nobility and wealthy, Saint Georges was an ardent supporter of the abolition of slavery.

When the French Revolution began, Saint-Georges volunteered, and headed up a legion of 'colored' troops, holding the rank of colonel. He fought on the side of the Republic against the monarchists, was imprisoned during the 'Terror', was released when the worst excesses of the Revolution were over. Without the patronage afforded him by the nobility prior to the revolution, he was somewhat less successful.

At one point he left France for about two years when there was a slave revolt on Caribbean island where he was born. Two years later he returned to France, again tried to rejoin his legion and again began composing and conducting music, as well as resuming playing the violin. He died in 1799 in comparative poverty.  He left behind as his legacy a large body of musical compositions, including operas, symphonies, concertos, chamber music, music for string quartets, and vocal music, many of which are still performed and recorded.

And he was also a character in the TV Show Nicholas Le Floch (Le Dîner de Gueux)!

A Black Author for you!

Next time the Politically Correct crowd want you to read a "black author" tell them you are a fan of Alexandre Dumas.

And the more European the title sounds the better, but any of the Three Musketeers/The D'Artagnan Romances series (The Three Musketeers, Twenty Years After, and The Vicomte of Bragelonne: Ten Years Later) would be the best bet.  There was a reason the BBC cast a mixed race actor to play Porthos in their version of the books.

Alexandre Dumas, AKA Alexandre Dumas père, author of The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo (and father of Alexandre Dumas fils, who wrote La Dame aux Camélias). Alexandre père's father (or, if you prefer, the père's père), General Alexandre (Alex) Dumas, was black Haitian, the son of an aristocratic French father, Marquis Alexandre Davy de la Pailleterie, and a freed slave, Marie-Cesette Dumas. Toss in that the father was a general in Napoleon's grande armée!

The writer's father's dad sold the boy as a slave to pay for his passage to France (that's remedial parenting classes for you, Marquis de la Pailleterie) before buying his freedom. Later, Alex rose through the ranks of the army to become a general before he was 30. He was so effective that that the Austrians called him Der schwarze Teufel ("the Black Devil"). During the French revolution fought with other black men in a unit called the African Legion.

Study up on this French writer and have a great time challenging people's stereotypes on race.

Neil Oliver - '...new covid facts are starting to seep out...'

I've been a fan of Neil's for a long time now. I'm glad to see he's now on Patreon.

A vote for the Green Party is...a vote for the Green Party (or any other third party for that matter)

 OK, I didn't vote for John Fetterman in the last Pennsylvania Election (FYI once one emmigrates from the US, one votes in the last place they were domiciled--it seems I am currently stuck with Philadelphia due to bureaucratic BS). I don't like him for a variety of reasons, but I also Demexited in 2016 and haven't looked back on the duopoly since. I'm not going to get into why I dislike the "Berners" who have remained within the Democratic Party other than to say that I dislike them.

I voted Green in 2022 even though Dr. Oz was not my type. Although, I was walking around singing "Arc en Ciel" the day of the election...

 

De toute façon...

My point, My vote for Jill Stein in 2016 didn't change the election result, the electoral college did that. And the Russians had nothing to do with that, unless you want to tell me that Catherine the Great promised the Continental Congress a "Donkey Show" a few centuries later on.

My Green Party votes haven't changed the results since the duopoly pretty much runs things for the time being in the US. And no matter what Fox news tries to tell people, there really isn't that much of a difference between the two parties.

Seriously, if the "Democrats" really were socialists, they would have run Sanders in 2016 (and 2020) and won.

Electoral college or not.

But the duopoly doesn't want that to happen. And anyone who remains within the duopoly is a traitor to the movement behind Bernie.

The Real Reason to be Afraid of Artificial Intelligence | Peter Haas | T...

I definitely agree with this: AI needs to be taken with careful skepticism. My car can pretty much drive itself, but I wouldn't trust it to drive anywhere without me having a veto power over what it does.

Lets toss in mistakes Siri and other voice recognition systems make. I used to collect them, but they became overwhelming.

AI cannot be trusted blindly, but it can help make life better when used WITH a human check on the system.

'We the People' - the three most misunderstood words in US history | Mar...

Like it or not, the US Constitution, and the Declaration of Independence, are anything BUT popular documents. It was written in secret by a select group of people. Sure, there were debates, but they were anything open and above board until after the document was written. People forget that some people, the anti-Federalists, were against ratification of the constitution.

I don't totally agree with his analysis (the pronouns bit is anachronistic as heck), but he does make some very good points.

It wasn't written for the benefit of my ancestors who fought for independence and revolted at Morristown. It was written for the elite who said "We the people".

An interesting interview with Jeffrey Sachs

I agree with him about the quality of the current debate: especially that opposing opinions tend to be ignored.

Kari Lake and Election Denial

I occassionally watch Fox News for an opposing opinion, which is where I heard about Kari Lake. I am pretty sure I don't agree with her on most issues, but her being questioned about "election denial" was very interesting. One thing I learned is that one needs to use the same vocabulary when discussing an issue. If "election denial" is a term meaning that there is some sort of conspiracy to steal an election, then it makes things look like anyone who points out the fact that US elections are anything other than free and fair and held on a secret ballot sound cray-cray.

On the other hand, one of the essential principles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is:

Everyone has the right to take part in the government of his country, directly or through freely chosen representatives. . . . The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government; this will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures."

Article 21, Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948

The United States and other western nations spent a good part of the 20th Century pushing these principles on other countries, yet the US has moved further and further from this principle since the end of the Cold War.

The funny thing is that the election denial comes from the results of the electoral college and the fact that US elections are not "democratic".  Bernie Sanders would probably be president if that were the case.

And people would probably love him. Just remember that Vermont is pretty much a "red state", and I mean that in the ass backward US sense where "red" is conservative. Otherwise, it might make sense that they have a socialist representing them. Yet another thing which gets lost in the US media. 

Which is another thing Kari Lake attacks.

The reality is that the US needs serious election reform, yet it won't get it if it obfuscates the issues. The Electoral College is problematic, yet no one is willing to address it. Point out that Trump won the election despite losing the popular vote and his supporters aren't upset. I won't get into the machinations of the 2020 elections, but they are another glaring example of the need for election reform in the US. Had Barack Obama won an election with only 23% of the vote, I am sure that the people defending the "Constitution" would realise what an Amendment actually means and that the founders were well willing to use that process when the Constitution proved to need tweaking.

After all, the 12th Amendment was enacted in 1803 to reform the electoral college after a heavily contested election (Election of 1800).

Maybe what is needed is to have some serious, adult discussions about the issues facing the United States instead of tossing ad hominems.

See also: https://www.bitchute.com/video/P5ayS6uzV5c6/

Pew Charitable Trust on Cryptocurrencies

46% of Americans who have invested in cryptocurrency say it’s done worse than expected

Among the 16% of U.S. adults who say they have ever invested in, traded or used a cryptocurrency such as bitcoin or ether, 46% report their investments have done worse than they expected. By comparison, 15% of these Americans say their investments have done better than they expected; 31% say they’ve worked out about the same as they expected. The overall share of U.S. crypto users is unchanged since September 2021. 

• About half of Americans have heard about NFTs, but few have ever bought one

 

Three Arrows on "America's Coming Weimar Moment"

One of the reasons I Demexited in 2016 was that the Democratic Party really has no ideology: despite what Fox News and other rightwing media outlets would like to pretend. On the other hand, the Republicans have firmly planted themselved in the right. Had there been a real opposition, the US wouldn't be in the situation it is.

I strongly believe that there will be a radical reshaping of US Political system since it really isn't a Democratic Republic, or even the promised republic, by any stretch of the imagination. The founders knew there would have to be systemic changes, but the system has stagnated such that it is a one party system.

Three Arrows has a really super analysis of how the system will collapse: and it isn't from the duopoly kayfabe. 

Which is what Trump was really talking about, Not "Kovfefe".

Cut the distractions and work for change.

Is Crypto Really Going To Crash? (Yes) | Robert Reich

I'm not sure what to think about Robert Reich these days. OK, I have always liked him.

On the other hand, he is pretty much saying the same thing I have. Not sure if I would call this a Ponzi Scheme. I would go more with "pump and dump".

But Bob is usually pretty good in his analyses.

Please give this a squiz since it is worth it.

He surprises me that he aligns himself with the Democrats: especially post-Bernie.

The Crypto Crisis

Cryptocurrencies and Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) remind me of the stereotypical scam of buying the Brooklyn Bridge. NFTs could actuallty put that scam into practise since they are a digital asset that represents real-world objects like art, music, in-game items and videos.

I've got an NFT of the Brooklyn Bridge: you want to buy it?

Something about fools and money anyone?

Anyway, there has been a Cryptocurrency crash which has become public with Bitcoin, the largest cryptocurrency by market value, having a recent fall of more than 72 percent since its November high.

There is a great article on this by Trevor Jackson in Dissent, The Crypto Crisis. This pretty much sums up the problems with Crypto Currencies:

[At one time,] there were about 19,000 cryptocurrencies in existence. By the time you read these words, many of them will have failed. If you have heard of only one cryptocurrency, it is almost certainly Bitcoin. Bitcoin is a decentralized peer-to-peer network with no single clearinghouse and no equivalent to a central bank or money-issuing authority. Bitcoin the platform issues currency units called “bitcoins,” whose value is determined by supply and demand on several different exchanges. There is no single price of bitcoin. Demand is driven by its use in transactions. Supply is determined through “mining”: using computer processing power to solve increasingly complicated math problems. The inventors of Bitcoin have consistently maintained that there will be a finite supply of bitcoins, alleviating the danger of inflation and creating instead an intentionally deflationary system. All transactions are anonymous, and bitcoins are held in a digital “wallet.” A bitcoin spent in a transaction is really a unique code and a series of past transactions of that code in a kind of digital ledger, known as the blockchain. Imagine if every dollar you spend came with a list of every past transaction that dollar had been used in, thereby proving that you obtained it legally. It’s a way to verify transactions while preserving anonymity. Once a transaction happens, notice of it is sent to the entire Bitcoin network, and all the “miners” in the system race to verify the ledger of past transactions. If you win the verification race, you are awarded with new bitcoins.

He then gets into how problematic the crypto currency system happens to be, which is very.

As I said, if you don't like Fiat Currencies, you should avoid crypto like the plague. Fiat currencies at least have something backing them up. Crypto isn't even a commodity based currency, which also have their problems.

Crypto is the commidity.

And it's one that only exists in cyberspace.

It's unconstitutional if the rationale is based solely upon religious or ethical considerations

Big points to Judge Mitch Perry of the Jefferson County Circuit Court in Kentucky for doing what should be done in regard to this debate:

His July 22 ruling extended that order, saying there is “a substantial likelihood” that the new abortion ban violates “the rights to privacy and self-determination” protected by the state constitution, the Associated Press reported. 

But he also assumed that the laws are based on sectarian doctrine. 

“The General Assembly is not permitted to single out and endorse the doctrine of a favored faith for preferred treatment,” Perry wrote. “By taking this approach, the bans fail to account for the diverse religious views of many Kentuckians whose faith leads them to take very different views of when life begins.”

Perry said there is “nothing in our laws or history that allows for such theocratic based policymaking.”

 Exactly. The First Amendment, Freedom of Religion, and Separation of Church and State are based on the fact that a lot of early Americans came here for religious freedom. In other words, not to have the government, or anybody else, tell them how to practise their relgious beliefs.

This also gets down to what pro-choice means:

Don't have an abortion if you are against them, but don't tell someone else what to do with their body.

The founders were for a secular society because they didn't want a bunch of Catholics telling them What the Fuck to do in regard to religion. 

The Catholics on the Supreme Court should admit to that fact.

See also:

• Judge blocks abortion bans saying they are based on religious doctrine