Are Riots Counterproductive?

opendemocracy  |  When some of the recent Black Lives Matter protests against the murder of George Floyd ended in riots, the pushback was immediate and predictable: different visions of Martin Luther King’s legacy were fought over, rival interpretations of the Civil Rights Movement were deployed, and contrasting lessons were identified.

There can be no single interpretation of the turbulent 1960s, but there is much we can learn from historical work on this period. In particular, Omar Wasow’ s recent analysis of the tactics of the Civil Rights Movement makes a provocative argument that “nonviolent” protest helped to shape a national conversation which raised the profile of the civil rights agenda and led to electoral gains for the Democrats in the early 1960s.

By contrast, he argues, rioting in US cities after the assassination of Martin Luther King pushed white Americans towards the rhetoric of ‘law and order,’ causing large shifts among white voters towards the Republican Party and helping Richard Nixon to win the 1968 presidential election shortly thereafter.

This is a controversial argument, even costing political analyst David Shor his job when he recently tweeted about Wasow’s thesis and received an angry response from those who saw it as a “tone-deaf” attack on legitimate protest. At the root of this controversy are important questions about whether framing riots as a ‘tactical choice’ is appropriate, who that framing makes responsible for ongoing racial injustice, and what the fact that we’re having this debate says about people’s views of politics and priorities. As King warned in 1968:

“A riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it America has failed to hear?...it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquillity and the status quo than about justice and humanity.”

But social movements can’t afford to ignore these arguments completely. The idea that violent protests might be risky is not surprising, since in societies that pride themselves on being ‘peaceful,’ riots violate many taken-for-granted liberal values. Wasow’s rigorous, quantitative analysis gives this argument a historical foundation but it also has obvious resonances for today, at a time when President Trump is running for re-election on a ‘law and order’ platform against the background of street protests in cities like Portland and Kenosha.

However, the implications of Wasow’s arguments are not as straightforward as they might appear. One immediate issue concerns his methodology and the size of the effects he estimates. The models reported in Wasow’s paper don’t include any controls for time, which are normally included in statistical analyses to control for general trends affecting society as a whole, trends we assume would have happened anyway.

The Future Of Government-Like Organizations (GLO's) Same As The Past...,

nakedcapitalism  |  This is the fourth installment of a six-part interview. For the previous parts, see Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3. Red indicates exact quotes from Hans-Hermann Hoppe’s 2001 book “Democracy: The God That Failed.” 

ANDREW: The GLOs in your future libertarian society will be continuations of GLOs that exist now – basically large corporations and high net worth individuals. And the modern GLOs are continuations of GLOs that existed in the past.

On The Question Of Property Rights 

ANDREW: Can you give me some real historical examples of how GLOs have justly appropriated rights?

CNC: [T]he English settlers [in] North America… demonstrated how… private property originated naturally through a person’s original appropriation… of previously unused land (wilderness). [267]

ANDREW: North America was uninhabited when the English settlers got there?

CNC: Opponents of libertarianism love saying “What about the Indians?” They get excited at the thought that libertarians will be forced to defend the property rights of dispossessed native peoples, which a lot of libertarians would rather not do. What they don’t realize is that John Locke solved this problem three hundred years ago. Locke explained that …the Benefit Mankind receives from [an acre of land in England], is worth 5 [pounds], [whereas the benefit from an acre of land in America] possibly not worth a Penny, if all the Profit an Indian received from it were to be valued, and sold here; at least, I may truly say, not 1/1000. ‘Tis Labour then which puts the greatest part of Value upon Land, without which it would scarcely be worth any thing…

ANDREW: Wait. Did Locke just start to suggest that since the Indians did not do efficient agriculture, they did not really own the land?

CNC: Exactly. To properly claim land, you have to do real economic work on the land, and the Indians did not do that because they were too primitive. So Locke proved that that the Indians did not own the land. That meant the settlers could treat the land as if it was unclaimed.

ANDREW: Are you sure that’s what Locke meant? Locke is famous for defending liberty and natural rights.

CNC: Why are you surprised? In this example, Locke defended the liberty of settlers to claim unused land, and their natural right to keep that land once they had claimed it. And yes, I’m sure that’s what Locke meant – go read his second Treatise on Government.

ANDREW: Were the original territory GLOs in Europe also security GLOs?

What To Do When There's Nothing Left To Do?

technologyreview  | The founder of macroeconomics predicted that capitalism would last for approximately 450 years. That’s the length of time between 1580, when Queen Elizabeth invested Spanish gold stolen by Francis Drake, and 2030, the year by which John Maynard Keynes assumed humanity would have solved the problem of our needs and moved on to higher concerns.

It’s true that today the system seems on the edge of transformation, but not in the way Keynes hoped. Gen Z’s fate was supposed to be to relax into a life of leisure and creativity. Instead it is bracing for stagnant wages and ecological crisis.

In a famous essay from the early 1930s called “Economic Possibilities for Our Grandchildren,” Keynes imagined the world 100 years in the future. He spotted phenomena like job automation (which he called “technological unemployment”) coming, but those changes, he believed, augured progress: progress toward a better society, progress toward collective liberation from work. He was worried that the transition to this world without toil might be psychologically difficult, and so he suggested that three-hour workdays could serve as a transitional program, allowing us to put off the profound question of what to do when there’s nothing left to do.

Well, we know the grandchildren in the title of Keynes’s essay: they’re the kids and younger adults of today. The prime-age workforce of 2030 was born between 1976 and 2005. And though the precise predictions he made about the rate of economic growth and accumulation were strikingly accurate, what they mean for this generation is very different from what he imagined.

Instead of progress toward a labor-free utopia, America has experienced disappearing jobs as a kind of economic climate change. Apocalyptic forecasts loom while poor and working-class communities take the brunt of the early impacts: wage stagnation, deregulated and unsafe workplaces, an epidemic of opioid addiction. The increasingly profligate wealth on the other end of society is no less disturbing.

What the hell happened? To figure out why Generation Z isn’t going to be Generation EZ, we have to ask some fundamental questions about economics, technology, and progress. After we assumed for a century that a better world would appear on top of our accumulated stuff, the assumptions appear unfounded. Things are getting worse.

How Will THIS "Civil" Society Fare In The Coming Storm Of Pedestrian Violence?

theamericanconservative |   Teenager Kyle Rittenhouse’s shooting of three men in Kenosha, Wisconsin, has sharpened the debate between left and right over whether rioting can be justly met with violence. Opinions about Rittenhouse’s attempt to interpose himself and his AR-15 between rioters and buildings in Kenosha have become entangled with beliefs about the relative value of property versus people, a juxtaposition dishonestly advanced by the left.

Writing in The Nation, R.H. Lossin captured the Left’s point of view artfully, proclaiming: “Plateglass [sic] windows don’t bleed. They don’t die and leave loved ones grieving. They don’t contribute to the collective trauma and terror experienced by their communities. They just break, and then, at some point, they are replaced by identical sheets of glass.”

Leaving aside her comical lack of curiosity about where, exactly, sheets of glass come from, Lossin expresses a widespread sentiment, and it has a certain indisputable logic: things are not, after all, people.

The response of too many on the right, unfortunately, has been to take the bait. They’re ably represented by National Review editor Rich Lowry, who argued that the person-property distinction neglects how people depend on their property for shelter and sustenance. Destroy or steal it, and you inflict physical harm.

This argument, while true, is the ante in a utilitarian shell game, wherein we must weigh the value of property against the cost of harming someone who wants to take it. Whether a store owner can resist people trying to burn down his business suddenly turns on whether he has insurance. Or his track record in the community, as when the author of the newly released book, In Defense of Looting (on sale in soon-to-be looted stores near you!) told NPR that small, locally owned businesses don’t do enough for workers, and are therefore no more deserving of protection than large chain stores. This property versus people framing pushes conservatives into a losing corner: if you’re really pro-life, how can you justify firing a shotgun at someone who just wants to smash a window and take some of your stuff?

As with so many other debates, conservatives lose the moment they adopt the left’s materialism. What’s at stake in these riots is not property, but the civic order. The most honest, ardent leftists admit as much. Looting is imperative, writes R.H. Lossin, “not because property destruction has any moral or political value in itself, but because it is coercive. It is an actual threat to order and a very real threat to capital.” Describing looting advocate Vicky Osterweil’s point of view, her fawning NPR interviewer exclaims that rioters “are engaging in a powerful tactic that questions the justice of ‘law and order,’ and the distribution of property and wealth in an unequal society.”

While we quibble with a leftist intellectual vanguard about the relative value of plate glass windows versus human life, mob rule is being solidified as the new norm in our cities. The question is not whether this should be met with force because of the inherent damage it inflicts on property. The question is whether civil society is worth preserving with violence.

This question answers itself. When civil society disappears, individualized violence is the only means of resolving disputes. In the state of nature, red in tooth and claw, might makes right. Withdraw the police long enough, and you get Kyle Rittenhouse. The shame of it is that so many able-bodied men in Kenosha relied on a boy from Illinois to defend their streets. The danger is that masses of them will begin to feel similarly responsible for confronting hoodlums—as witnessed recently in the streets of Portland.

Sherriff David Beth - SAY IT WITH YOUR CHEST - Kill'em All!!!!

kiro7  |  Kenosha County Sheriff David Beth in 2018 told reporters that five Black shoplifters who stole about $5,000 worth of clothing before crashing into a teenage driver while fleeing police should be “warehoused” and not allowed to father children.

Beth, who is already under fire following the Aug. 23 shooting of Jacob Blake by Kenosha city police officers, as well as the killings of two men subsequently protesting Blake’s shooting, is now facing calls for his immediate resignation. Those calls stem from, in part, Beth’s comments regarding a group of Black shoplifters arrested in January 2018.

“I have no issue with these five people completely disappearing,” Beth said during the controversial news conference. “At (this) point, these people are no longer an asset to our community, and they just need to disappear.”

The Washington Post reported that Beth made his incendiary comments in January 2018 after three men and two women from Milwaukee shoplifted clothing from a Tommy Hilfiger outlet store in Kenosha.

Before he even began speaking, Beth admitted that what was to come would be “un-politically correct.” Four days later, he was forced to issue a public apology amid backlash from the community and faith leaders in Kenosha County.

Beth apologized to anyone he offended but refused to retract the comments he’d made.

The 2018 statements are but one of the issues for which the American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin has demanded he resign. The organization has also called on Kenosha city police Chief Daniel Miskinis to tender his resignation.

One of the reasons: The Aug. 23 shooting of Blake, a Black man shot at least seven times in the back by a Kenosha police officer as he tried to get into his vehicle, where his three children sat waiting for him. According to Blake’s family, he was partially paralyzed by the shooting.

Jordan Peterson vs. Queer-Eye: The Battle For Aimless And UNLOVED Men....,

opendemocracy |  In each ‘Queer Eye’ episode, the ‘Fab Five’ co-hosts give a struggling hero – usually a depressed man – a lifestyle refresh: teaching him to cook something scrumptious, buying him stylish clothes, grooming him, doing up his house and supporting him to confront troubles in their life.

What this means for each character varies. But the underlying message of every cry-athon episode is the same. Toxic masculinity and competitive ultra-capitalism have taught men life lessons which make us miserable. To find joy, we need to unlearn.

While reality TV is notoriously cruel, the ‘Queer Eye’ cast specialise in kindness. Each of them opens up about their own struggles: grooming expert Jonathan Van Ness is an HIV+ non-binary former sex worker and ex-meth addict. Interior designer Bobby Berk is estranged from his Bible-belt family, and was a homeless teenager.

Culture expert Karamo Brown is of Jamaican-Mexican heritage, grew up “very poor” and became a father at 17. Fashion aficionado Tan France comes from a “very strict” Muslim household in Doncaster, and is one of the first openly gay people of South Asian descent on a major show. Chef Antoni Porowski, the son of Polish migrants to Canada, is estranged from his mother.

Each episode, I would sob to a stream of touching moments and familiar feelings, and an unbearable pressure would slip from my chest.

Far Right masculinity 

As I gossiped around that Veronese conference hall, I realised I had rarely met people who so desperately needed to learn from the Fab Five.

The event was a sort of rally for far Right forces hoping to storm the European elections. But the combination of speakers seemed a bit incongruous: Catholic bishops and alt-Right YouTube stars; Italian far Right politicians and American evangelical pastors. While most started their speeches by announcing the enormous number of children they had fathered – as though success comes with the capacity to ejaculate – they were otherwise an odd mix.

When you met their audience, it all made sense. This was a world which gave struggling men meaning. Rather than helping us confront our demons, it suggested we worship them, weaving myths about masculine superiority, encouraging a world in which husbands and fathers are mini-dictators. A world where “the strong and the weak will know their place”, as Franco’s great grandson, the self-proclaimed heir to the French throne, declared from the main stage.

The key preacher in this world wasn’t any priest. He wasn’t even there: it was Jordan Peterson.

Michael Forest Reinoehl: Not Just Boys - Aimless Old Men Out'Chere Looking For Meaning Too!!!

oregonlive |  A 48-year-old man who was accused of carrying a loaded gun at an earlier downtown Portland protest is under investigation in the fatal shooting Saturday night of a right-wing demonstrator after a pro-Trump rally.

Michael Forest Reinoehl calls himself an anti-fascist and has posted videos and photos of demonstrations he attended since late June, accompanied by the hashtags #blacklivesmatter, #anewnation and #breonnataylor.

Reinoehl was raised in Sandy and has had recent addresses in Northeast Portland, Gresham and Clackamas. He described himself on social media and in a video interview with Bloomberg QuickTake News as a professional snowboarder and contractor who has former military experience but “hated” his time in the army.

Sources familiar with the case but not authorized to speak said police are investigating Reinoehl. A family member also identified him as a man captured in photos and video seen leaving the shooting scene shortly before 9 p.m. Saturday.

Aaron Danielson, a supporter of the conservative group Patriot Prayer, was shot in the chest and died in the street. It was soon after most cars in a caravan of supporters of President Donald Trump had left the city’s downtown streets.

Reinoehl’s posts indicate he attended many protests in Portland that began three months ago after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis under the knee of a police officer.

On July 5 at one of the demonstrations, Reinoehl was cited at 2:10 a.m. in the 700 block of Southwest Main Street on allegations of possessing a loaded gun in a public place, resisting arrest and interfering with police

He was given a date to appear in court later that month, but the allegations were dropped on July 30 with a “no complaint,” according to court records. The documents don’t indicate why prosecutors decided not to pursue the accusations. Reinoehl spent no time behind bars.

Brent Weisberg, a spokesman for Multnomah County District Attorney Mike Schmidt, said the office is still reviewing that July case involving Reinoehl.

Kyle Rittenhouse: Dust In The Wind Of Competing Narrative Hegemons...,

thesource |  Kyle Rittenhouse, the 17-year-old thug suspected of shooting three people and killing two during protests in Kenosha over the police shooting of Jacob Blake was recently caught on camera assaulting a woman. Camera footage shows the troubled teen jumping in a fight amongst two women and punching a girl from behind.

Rittenhouse, who lives in Antioch, Illinois—which is about an hour north of Chicago and about 30 minutes west of Kenosha and another teenage male can be seen getting in a girl’s face and shouting at her.

He is also wearing the same red, white and blue Crocs shown in the viral photo of him holding an assault rifle. After about 30 seconds, a fight breaks out, and Kyle can then clearly be seen punching one of the girls. Soon after a group o black men filming the incident jump Kyle for assaulting the woman. Rittenhouse was charged Thursday by Wisconsin prosecutors with six criminal counts—including two counts first-degree intentional homicide and one count of attempted homicide. He also faces charges of recklessly endangering the safety of two other victims and possessing a weapon while under the age of 18. If convicted of the two first-degree intentional homicide charges, he could face life in prison.

Tens Of Millions Of Untethered, Aimless Young Men Looking For Something To Do....,

notesfromdisgraceland  |  In the next few years, social disorder in developed countries could take new dimension as demographic imbalances continue to weaken state structures further. This could be expressed through two different modes. 1) The discontent of ethnically excluded (e.g. Western Europe’s post-colonial minority populations) spreads to absorb and articulate the sentiments of other exclusions. 2) The discontent of the permanently excluded, like African Americans, provokes a reaction of the redundant natives, the white underclass, and triggers their uprising and backlash. Civil warfare, initially misdiagnosed as increase in crime, would escalate.

The scramble for protection (which has already begun) assumes new forms, as the states cannot provide it due to lack of funding and legitimation. The state’s monopoly on violence is breached and reorganized through the expansion of private protection armies, right-wing militias, and different privatized police structures. This process had already been accomplished in the post-socialist countries about 25 years ago and is likely to serve as a blueprint for a similar transformation in the western world.

Western democratic states where these transformations take place will gradually converge towards failed states. Contours of this program are already inscribed in the appointments for high public offices by the current administration. Combined with the other side-effects of globalization and the underlying social fragmentation, these developments will lead to further criminalization of societies and polarization of distribution with escalation of corruption and dismantling of the institutions of the democratic state as a natural consequence, implying further instabilities. Organized crime will blossom and reinforce its legitimacy, while developed countries will converge closer towards criminal oligarchies or other authoritarian structures.

Trump's Most Conspicuously Racist Policy Goes Not-Seen...,

theamericanconservative  |  Since at least the inauguration, a central question of this presidency has been whether Trump could cease campaigning and learn to govern. Now, with less than 70 days until the general election, a contrary question is equally pressing: will Trump stop governing like a Republican and start campaigning again as a populist?

Gone from Trump 2020 are the effective—if crass—messages to truckers, miners, and bikers that carried Trump 2016 to victory. The overt appeals now go to“beautiful boaters” and “suburban housewives.” The emphasis on protecting entitlements and building infrastructure has given way to a payroll tax deferral and a capital gains tax cut.

The recent foray into housing policy induces particular whiplash. Republicans have long criticized President Obama’s “Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing” (AFFH) policy, under which the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) could require local governments receiving federal funding to analyze the demographic makeup of their communities and pursue policies to redress racial segregation. However laudable the goal, the policy was overly ponderous and essentially toothless, conditioning HUD funding to state and local governments on drafting lengthy reports, not reforming actual policy. Trump and his HUD Secretary, Ben Carson, had attempted to improve upon AFFH policy by tying federal funds to local policies that would reduce regulatory barriers and increase housing supply. Deregulation on behalf of families seeking affordable housing would seem to lie at the intersection of conservative and populist priorities. But last week they executed a campaign-season reversal.

In an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal, Trump and Carson essentially renounced their own AFFH policy and instead pledged to “protect America’s suburbs,” advancing a new policy that allows states and localities to fulfill fair housing requirements by doing anything that “rationally relates” to AFFH objectives. Whereas just months ago the federal government sought affirmatively to expand housing supply, now Trump and Carson claim such efforts offer a “path to tyranny” and a “dystopian vision of building low-income housing units next to your suburban house.” Federal incentives themselves represent a “radical social-engineering project” and an attempt “to put the federal government in charge of local decisions.”

Who Armed. Indoctrinated, And Transported This Boy Across The State Line?

the-sun |  WENDY Rittenhouse is a nurse’s assistant and the mom of Kyle Rittenhouse, the alleged suspect of the two murders in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

Wendy and Kyle Rittenhouse lived in an apartment south of the Wisconsin border in Antioch, Illinois. It is unclear if she drove him to the protest. 

Wendy Rittenhouse is a single mom to Kyle, the alleged suspect responsible for the murders during the Jacob Blake protests in Kenosha, according to cops.

She works as a nurse’s assistant and lived with Kyle in a small apartment in Antioch, which is south of the Wisconsin border.

Kyle Rittenhouse, 17, allegedly shot at demonstrators who were marching to protest the Black Lives Matter shooting of Jacob Blake, according to authorities. 

A third night of protests was underway when an “unidentified young white man” was caught on video spraying rounds of bullets in point-blank range at protesters in the middle of the street. 

Twitter users began pointing fingers at Rittenhouse, who they claimed was part of a “police explorer” program with Kenosha cops.

Photos of Rittenhouse holding an AR-15 gun surfaced on Twitter, and many believe the weapon was used to harm the demonstrators. 

A picture surfacing the internet shows Wendy and Kyle with the caption "We Back the Blue," allegedly supporting the Blue Lives Matter movement.

Peggy Gurrrrlll...., That Invisible Knapsack Like Savoir Faire!!!

americanthinker |  Two weeks ago, we learned that Sandia National Laboratories, one of only three National Nuclear Security Administration research and development laboratories in the United States, was mandating that its white, male executives attend anti-white training sessions. Since then, a whistleblower has emerged, describing in detail the anti-white “critical race theory” that Sandia's management is foisting on employees at all levels, even though this racial attacks in the material manifestly violate federal law.

In mid-August, Christopher Rufo published a Twitter thread about a blatantly anti-white seminar at Sandia. To understand how wrong that seminar was, you need to know that Sandia, as a taxpayer-funded contractor for the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration, must comply with federal anti-discrimination regulations. Thus, Executive Order 11246 Subpart B, sec. 202 states in relevant part:

The contractor will not discriminate against any employee or applicant for employment because of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, or national origin. The contractor will take affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed, and that employees are treated during employment, without regard to their race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, or national origin. 

Last I looked, white employees ticked off two boxes in the protected classes above: race and color.

Casey Peterson, an electrical engineer, has been unhappy about the direction that Sandia is taking. The seminar described in Rufo’s Twitter thread – as well as the fact that it was required only for white men – struck him as discriminatory. Moreover, Peterson believes that critical race theory is a dangerous form of anti-white discrimination premised up false facts and crackpot theories.

Peterson did something audacious in today’s environment: He pushed back hard, creating a lengthy, detailed, factually-supported video challenging the critical race theory that forms the basis of Sandia’s undoubtedly illegally and contractually-violative race-based discrimination. Christopher Rufo picks up the story:

 

Why Have Police Ties To Violent Far Right Extremism Been Ignored?

guardian  |  For decades, the Federal Bureau of Investigation has routinely warned its agents that the white supremacist and far-right militant groups it investigates often have links to law enforcement. Yet the justice department has no national strategy designed to protect the communities policed by these dangerously compromised law enforcers. As our nation grapples with how to reimagine public safety in the wake of the protests following the police killing of George Floyd, it is time to confront and resolve the persistent problem of explicit racism in law enforcement.

I know about these routine warnings because I received them as a young FBI agent preparing to accept an undercover assignment against neo-Nazi groups in Los Angeles, California, in 1992. But you don’t have to take my word for it. A redacted version of a 2006 FBI intelligence assessment, White Supremacist Infiltration of Law Enforcement, alerted agents to “both strategic infiltration by organized groups and self-initiated infiltration by law enforcement personnel sympathetic to white supremacist causes”.

A leaked 2015 counter-terrorism policy guide made the case more directly, warning agents that FBI “domestic terrorism investigations focused on militia extremists, white supremacist extremists, and sovereign citizen extremists often have identified active links to law enforcement officers”.

If the government knew that al-Qaida or Isis had infiltrated American law enforcement agencies, it would undoubtedly initiate a nationwide effort to identify them and neutralize the threat they posed. Yet white supremacists and far-right militants have committed far more attacks and killed more people in the US over the last 10 years than any foreign terrorist movement. The FBI regards them as the most lethal domestic terror threat. The need for national action is even more critical.

In recent years, white supremacists have engaged in deadly rampages in Charleston, South Carolina, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and El Paso, Texas. More ominously, neo-Nazis obtained radiological materials to manufacture “dirty” bombs in separate cases in Maine in 2009 and Florida in 2017, which were only avoided through chance.

But in June 2019, when Congressman William Lacy Clay asked the FBI counter-terrorism chief, Michael McGarrity, whether the bureau remained concerned about white supremacist infiltration of law enforcement since the publication of its 2006 assessment, McGarrity indicated he had not read it. Asked more generally about this infiltration, McGarrity said he would be “suspect” of white supremacist police officers, but that their ideology was a first amendment–protected right.

The 2006 assessment addresses this concern, however, by summarizing supreme court precedent on the issue: “Although the First Amendment’s freedom of association provision protects an individual’s right to join white supremacist groups for the purposes of lawful activity, the government can limit the employment opportunities of group members who hold sensitive public sector jobs, including jobs within law enforcement, when their memberships would interfere with their duties.”

Kyle Rittenhouse Perfectly Exemplifies American Not-Seeism

chicago-suntimes  |  A white police officer in Kenosha, Wisconsin, shot Jacob Blake Jr., a Black man, in the back, for reasons that are still unclear; a Black man whose three young children were sitting in the back seat of his SUV; a Black man who is now paralyzed from the waist down and might never walk again; and that Black man initially was chained to a hospital bed to fight for his life.

But a white teenager, Kyle Rittenhouse, could walk down a public street in that same city during a chaotic protest — in violation of a curfew — with a military style semi-automatic long gun strapped over his shoulder, and police officers didn’t stop him.

Instead, they tossed him a bottle of water and thanked him for his help.

If you haven’t been able to see the injustice that has moved thousands of people across the nation to march in support of the Black Lives Matter movement, then this stark contrast of how two human beings of different races are treated by police should wake you up.

This is the problem.

And it is a problem that can’t be solved by people who are blind to their racial biases. 

Do you really think a young African American male could walk down the middle of the street during a protest march carrying a semi-automatic weapon, and police wouldn’t stop him?

So why was Rittenhouse treated like a hero?

Anthony Huber, 26, of Silver Lake, Wisconsin, and Joseph “Jojo” Rosenbaum, 36, of Kenosha, were killed, and Gaige Grosskreutz, 26, of West Allis, Wisconsin, was wounded.

According to news reports, protesters actually shouted to police officers riding in armored trucks that the 17-year-old Rittenhouse had shot someone.

Yet not one officer grabbed hold of him.

Not one officer used a Taser.

Not one officer drew a weapon.

When reporters asked Kenosha County Sheriff David Beth why Rittenhouse — who walked toward the police with his arms raised after the shootings — wasn’t taken into custody right then and there, Beth said he wasn’t sure but suspected the chaotic scene that included people running and screaming might have given officers “tunnel vision.”

On Friday, Daniel Miskinis, Kenosha’s police chief, told reporters, “There was nothing to suggest [Rittenhouse] was involved in any criminal behavior.”

My officers did nothing wrong in allowing teen gunman to walk away after allegedly killing 2 protesters, Kenosha police chief says

Let that marinate for a moment.

Real Resistance Has No Political Allies Or Patrons...,

downwithtyranny |  Now for the call to change our ways: At the beginning of the third decade of the 21st century, Americans face a crossroads. For everyone who isn't either independently wealthy (like most of the donors who make up the real Republican base), or comfortably tucked into the professional managerial class (whose interests the Democratic Party seems most to serve), daily life is a both horror show now and collapsing fast to something even worse.

If there were ever a time to rise up, it's today. And rise up Americans will, I'm sure of it. With Covid deaths high (1,000 a day as I write this), incomes insecure for all but work-at-home professionals, and evictions just one or two missed paychecks away, even for the pre-Covid comfortable — with all this at the door, why would they not?

The question isn't will they rise up, but how will they revolt?

Will Americans rebel in an organized, focused way — like colonial Americans, for example, rose against British taxes, with planned resistance and coordinated action?

Or will the next rebellion devolve to the kind of battle that Jay Gould contemplated more than a century ago, a civil war where half of the suffering class attacks the other half, a chaotic free-for-all that allows the muscular security state to bootstomp in and "restore order" — all while our modern Jay Goulds (Jamie Dimon, Jeff Bezos, our hedge fund kings and queens, our CEOs of Google, Disney and Comcast), sail blindly off to their private-jet cocktail sunset, feeding on caviar and broken hearts?

Will Americans rise up effectively, with targets in mind — Medicare for All, Student Debt Forgiveness, Free Public Colleges and Universities, an actual End to Police Violence and Murder — and fight the misery descended upon them all?

Or will they rise up chaotically, their legitimate protests hijacked by Boogaloo Boys and FBI provocateurs, a faux-revolt where fascists battle anti-fascists, the former aided by violent, racist police, until the nation, getting nowhere, yearns for the security of a rapid but "managed" decline over the insecurity of a state-funded free fall to despair?

The time to decide all this is now, before the real first spark, the one that starts the American Arab Spring, is lit. If a General Strike seems frightening, consider the alternative, a five-way civil war with armed cops permanently stationed in the streets and skirmishes everywhere.

Distinguishing "Friend From Foe" In The Coming Troubles...,

oftwominds |  Class wars are the inevitable result of an economic system in which 'anything goes if you're rich enough and winners take most'. 

The traditional class war has been waged between wage-earners (who sell their labor) and their employers (owners of capital and the means of production). These classes have been assigned various names (proletariat, bourgeoisie, capitalists, etc.) but these broad class definitions don't describe all the class conflicts emerging in the modern U.S. economy.

Before we dig deeper, let's stipulate that ownership of various forms of capital still defines class: the wealthy live off unearned income skimmed from capital and everyone else lives off earned income from selling their labor. (Those without either source of income become dependents of the State).

What you own or don't own defines your class interests, but these have been fragmented into a multitude of sub-classes. Six years ago I took a stab at defining America's Nine Classes: The New Class Hierarchy (April 29, 2014), to which I would now add a tenth class, gig economy precariat, who paradoxically may own one of the means of production such as the car needed to become an Uber driver, but the precariat doesn't own the controlling means of production, which is the Uber platform. 

Cell phone video shows Kenosha Wisconsin police officers in an military vehicle telling armed White militia members they "appreciate them being there" and giving them bottled water; while in the background cops can be heard ordering protestors to disperse. pic.twitter.com/73SsfCUYWj

— Rebecca Kavanagh (@DrRJKavanagh) August 26, 2020

As a consequence, all the profits flow to the owners of the platform. Since the gig economy is not traditional hourly employment, there is no employer-provided security at all.

My taxonomy of class in America:

1. The Deep State.

2. The Oligarchs.

3. New Nobility.

4. Upper Caste.

5. State Nomenklatura.

6. The Middle Class.

7. The Working Poor.

8. State Dependents.

9. Mobile Creatives.

To which we add a new category of the working poor who lack even the minimal security of the conventional Working Poor (such as Amazon fulfillment center workers):

10. Gig economy precariat.

For the purposes of today's discussion, let's focus on the conflicts between four classes:

1. The Central State, which includes the elected government, the permanent Deep State, the Federal Reserve and and the managers/technocrats who run the State Nomenklatura.

2. The owners of Capital and political influence (The Oligarchs and New Nobility).

3. The Upper Caste, the top 10% of the private sector.

4. The lower classes of wage-earners and state dependents.

Is Q-Anon A Virus Specifically Designed For The Evangelical Mind?

technologyreview  |   The first family to quit Pastor Clark Frailey’s church during the pandemic did it by text message. It felt to Frailey like a heartbreaking and incomplete way to end a years-long relationship. When a second young couple said they were doubting his leadership a week later, Frailey decided to risk seeing them in person, despite the threat of covid-19. 

It was late May, and things were starting to reopen in Oklahoma, so Frailey and the couple met in a near-empty fast food restaurant to talk it over. 

The congregants were worried about Frailey’s intentions. At Coffee Creek, his evangelical church outside Oklahoma City, he had preached on racial justice for the past three weeks. He says the couple didn’t appreciate his most recent sermon, which urged Christians to call out and challenge racism anywhere they saw it, including in their own church. Though Frailey tries to keep Coffee Creek from feeling too traditional—he wears jeans, and the church has a modern band and uses chairs instead of pews—he considers himself a theologically conservative Southern Baptist pastor. But at one point, the couple Frailey spoke to said they believed that he was becoming a “social justice warrior.” 

Pastors and congregants disagree all the time, and Frailey doesn’t want to be the sort of Christian leader whom people feel afraid to challenge. But in that restaurant, it felt to him as if he and they had read two different sacred texts. It was as if the couple were “believing internet memes over someone they’d had a relationship with for over five years,” Frailey says. 

At one point he brought up QAnon, the conspiracy theory holding that Donald Trump is fighting a secret Satanic pedophile ring run by liberal elites. When he asked what they thought about it, the response was worryingly ambiguous. “It wasn’t like, ‘I fully believe this,’” he says. “It was like, ‘I find it interesting.’ These people are dear to me and I love them. It’s just—it felt like there was someone else in the conversation that I didn’t know who they were.”

Frailey told me about another young person who used to regularly attend his church. She was sharing conspiracy-laden misinformation on Facebook “like it’s the gospel truth,” he said, including a quote falsely attributed to Senator Kamala Harris. He saw another post from this woman promoting the wild claim that Tom Hanks and other Hollywood celebrities are eating babies. 

Before the pandemic, Frailey knew a little bit about QAnon, but he hadn’t given such an easily debunked fringe theory much of his time. The posts he started seeing felt familiar, though: they reminded him of the “Satanic panic” of the 1980s and 1990s, when rumors of secret occult rituals tormenting children in day-care centers spread quickly among conservative religious believers who were already anxious about changes in family structures. “The pedophile stuff, the Satanic stuff, the eating babies—that’s all from the 1980s,” he says. 

That conspiracy-fueled frenzy was propelled in part by credulous mainstream news coverage, and by false accusations and even convictions of day-care owners. But evangelicals, in particular, embraced the claims, tuning in to a wave of televangelists who promised to help viewers spot secret satanic symbols and rituals in the secular world. 

If the panic was back with fresh branding as QAnon, it had a new ally in Facebook. And Frailey wasn’t sure where to turn for help. He posted in a private Facebook group for Oklahoma Baptist pastors, asking if anyone else was seeing what he was. The answer, repeatedly, was yes. 

The pastors traded links. Frailey read everything he could about QAnon. He listened to every episode of the New York Times podcast series Rabbit Hole, on “what happens when our lives move online,” and devoured a story in the Atlantic that framed QAnon as a new religion infused with the language of Christianity. To Frailey, it felt more like a cult. 

He began to look further back into the Facebook history of the young former member who had posted the fake Harris quote. In the past, he remembered, she had posted about her kids every day. In June and July, he saw, that had shifted. Instead of talking about her family, she was now promoting QAnon—and one member of the couple that had met with him in May was there in the comments, posting in solidarity. 

Suddenly he understood that his efforts to protect his congregation from covid-19 had contributed to a different sort of infection. Like thousands of other church leaders across the United States, Frailey had shut down in-person services in March to help prevent the spread of the virus. Without these gatherings, some of his churchgoers had turned instead to Facebook, podcasts, and viral memes for guidance. And QAnon, a movement with its own equivalents of scripture, prophecies, and clergy, was there waiting for them.

Masks A Dry Run For The Mark Of The Beast?

pulpitandpen |  The gist is this: Prior to the return of Christ, his followers are going to become increasingly unpopular and the world will grow increasingly wicked. It will be characterized by unruly children, self-centered vanity (food selfie, much?), homosexuality, and general ungodliness. Although all ages have had these sins to varying degrees, the generation before Christ returns will actually take pride in them.

This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come.² For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy,³ Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good,⁴ Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God;⁵ Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away.⁶ For of this sort are they which creep into houses, and lead captive silly women laden with sins, led away with divers lusts,⁷ Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.
2 Timothy 3:1-7

This will be accomplished by incredible technology that allows the comings-and-goings of people to be micromanaged and they will be excluded from buying or selling things in the marketplace. This is to accomplish a “soft extermination,” basically starving out believers or forcing them to assimilate.

¹⁶ And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:¹⁷ And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.
Revelation 13:16-17

After it’s clear from muscling non-conformists into a corner by restricting their access to the market, a global, powerful government will then begin a “hard extermination,” rounding up believers and murdering them like dogs in a persecution worse than anything the world has ever seen (including the Holocaust). 

Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name’s sake…²¹ For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be.Matthew 24:9,21

 

This will, in part, be possible by some kind of contraption – whether natural or supernatural – that will detect believing non-conformists who have refused to identify with the global grand poobah (known as the anti-christ) and it will sound an alarm, alerting people that an ‘unauthorized person’ is nearby.

¹⁵ And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed.
Revelation 13:15

You can figure out how that will be done, because it doesn’t leave much to the imagination in a period in which we’re talking about “health passports” scanning temperatures of passing crowds of people, putting everyone into a facial recognition database (even liberals in America’s cities are scared over this one and have started to ban the tech), and are micro-chipping Lassie. I’m not a prophet or the son of one, but I surmise it will be one of these things, a combination thereof, or something eerily similar. In one way or another, those little images are going to scream out and snitch, something that John was seeing in his revelation and trying to convey to us with his 1st Century vocabulary.

And when all this fails to round up believers for the gas chamber, people will snitch on each other. Even family members will turn one another in for not conforming to the government regulations.

Is Neuralink Something You'd Willingly Sign Up For?

theverge |  Elon Musk has said that his secretive neurotech firm Neuralink will demonstrate a working “device,” presumably a brain-machine interface, at 6PM ET on Friday. Musk has spoken repeatedly about his belief that BMI devices are needed to help humans keep up with AI by supplementing our brainpower, but right now, his goal is much simpler: to create an implantable device that lets people control phones or computers with their mind.

Musk initially announced the August 28th “progress update” back in July, and has now offered more details on what will be shown. He says the update will include the unveiling of a second-generation robot designed to attach the company’s technology to the brain, and a demo of neurons “firing in real-time,” though it’s not clear exactly what is meant by this. 

Even compared to Musk’s other ventures like Tesla and SpaceX, Neuralink is ambitious. The company wants to connect to the brain using flexible electrodes thinner than a human hair that it calls “threads.” Current BMI devices use stiff electrodes for this job, which can cause damage. But inserting flexible electrodes is a much more delicate and challenging task, hence the company’s focus on building a “sewing machine” like robot to do the job.

 

These Devices Will Be Priceless Magical Artifacts After The Great Fall.....

techcrunch |  Pleasanton-based green energy startup NDB, Inc. has reached a key milestone today with the completion of two proof of concept tests of its nano diamond battery (NDB) . One of these tests took place at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and the other at the Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge University, and both saw NDB’s battery tech manage a 40% charge, which is a big improvement over the 15% charge collection efficiency (effectively energy lossiness relative to maximum total possible charge) of standard commercial diamond.

NDB’s innovation is in creating a new, proprietary nano diamond treatment that allows for more efficient extraction of electric charge from the diamond used in the creation of the battery. Their goal is to ultimately commercialize a version of their battery that can self-charge for up to a maximum lifespan of 28,000 years, created from artificial diamond-encased carbon-14 nuclear waste.

This battery doesn’t generate any carbon emissions in operation, and only requires access to open air to work. And while they’re technically batteries, because they contain a charge which will eventually be expended, they provide their own charge for much longer than the lifetime of any specific device or individual user, making them effectively a charge-free solution.

NDB ultimately hopes to turn their battery into a viable source of power for just about anything that consumes it — including aircraft, EVs, trains and more, all the way down to smartphones, wearables and tiny industrial sensors. The company is currently now at work creating a prototype of its first commercial battery in order to make that available sometime later this year.

It has also just signed its first beta customers, who will actually be receiving and making use of those first prototypes. While it hasn’t named them specifically, it did say that one is “a leader in nuclear fuel cycle products and services,” and the other is “a leading global aerospace, defense and security manufacturing company.” Obviously, this kind of tech has appeal in just about every sector, but defense and power concerns are likely among the deepest-pocketed.

Who Believes The Lava Tubes In Question Haven't Already Been Extensively Prospected?

CNN | The study published this month in the journal Earth-Science Reviews.

The lava tubes beneath the surface of the moon have also remained largely intact due to low gravity. Any collapsed lava tubes on the moon are likely due to asteroid impacts, the researchers said. And those skylights could actually provide access to the tubes. 

These lava tubes could help shelter astronauts, as well as provide new information about the moon and Mars. 

"The existence of stable huge voids below the Moon subsurface, potentially accessible through skylights, could change the paradigm on how we approach planetary exploration in terms of mission design, planetary human outposts and scientific research," said Pozzobon and Franceso Sauro, study author and professor in the department of biological, geological and environmental sciences at the University of Bologna. 

"Accessing these caves and (analyzing) this type of subsurface environment will present new technological challenges but also could provide unexpected scientific discoveries."

For astronauts exploring the harsh environments and fluctuating temperatures of the moon and Mars, the lava tubes could provide natural shelter from radiation, impacts by micrometeorites and unstable temperatures.  

Micrometeorites pose a danger not only to astronauts, but the habitats and life support equipment they'll need on the moon and Mars. The caves could be used to live in and store equipment. 

It's even possible that the tubes could provide access to water ice reservoirs, the researchers said.

"But the challenges in order to access these caves and sustain human activity are nonetheless massive," the researchers said.

About These Lava Tubes....,

Forbes |  Lava tubes on the moon and Mars may be large enough to fit city center-sized groups of astronauts living on these other worlds, a new study finds.

Lava tubes are an underground tunnel that happens due to the flow of molten rock during a volcanic explosion. We get lava tubes on Earth as well, but the ones on the moon and Mars are likely much larger — allowing huge communities of people to work, live and explore on other worlds.

A typical tube on Earth will be roughly 30 feet to 100 feet (10 to 30 meters) in diameter. But one on Mars could be the height of the Empire State Building, with a diameter 10 times that of Earth. If that sounds big, consider the moon, where its even lower gravity produces a tube up to 1000 times larger than Earth’s — much taller than the massive Burj Khalifa tower in Dubai.

It’s an exciting find because these small, cramped spaces on Earth would instead open up into vast caverns of space on other worlds. Rather than imagining future astronauts working shoulder to shoulder all the time, these space explorers could easily stroll through otherworldly boulevards, all sheltered from deadly outside radiation (and in the case of Mars, fierce dust storms).

 "These [lava tubes] represent ideal gateways or windows for subsurface exploration,” said study lead author Francesco Sauro in a statement. While we’ve known about these lava tubes for a while, the new study shows just how large they are — able to contain the same space as the city center of Padua, Italy in at least one case, Sauro said.