Only Total Collapse Will Rouse Humanity from Its Suicidal Sleepwalk
Little wonder that I am Back on Dissident Voice, but not shouting at the ramparts or calling the bastards BASTARDS, since name calling is not allowed at Dissident Voice.
I called Stephen “I Am a California KKK Jew” Miller**, what, fascist (no neo in that term) and called him a Gestapo-Loving-Bar-Mitzvahed Cunt. Called him the architect of Trump’s White Man’s House rendition — kidnapping — of student protestors and anyone that looks “Latino/Central American” who might upset his racist supremacists psychotic white chosenness in a regime of Rapist in Chief Trump’s White Man’s (lots of Jews) House.
“A rose by any other name would still smell as sweet.”
“A Jew by Any Other Name — Talmudist, Orthodox, Reformed, Cultural, Settler, Colonialist, Perdatory — is Still a Genodicier that stinks like death!”
And thusly, calling this inverted totalitarian shit-hole anyting but corporate-conjoined-with-politics fascism is a lie, a big lie, and using a million words to describe the “birth of a nation,” man, you might as well just go to the racist and queer Peter Thiel for what he believes in:
Musk, Thiel, Murdoch, and their cronies are backing a movement against democracy.
Peter Thiel, the billionaire tech financier, has written, “I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.”
If freedom is not compatible with democracy, what is it compatible with?
Thiel donated $15 million to the successful Republican Ohio senatorial campaign of J.D. Vance, who alleged that the 2020 election was stolen and that Biden’s immigration policy meant “more Democrat voters pouring into this country.” (Vance is now high on the list of Trump vice presidential possibilities.)
Thiel also donated at least $10 million to the Arizona Republican primary race of Blake Masters, who also claimed Trump won the 2020 election and admires Lee Kuan Yew, the authoritarian founder of modern Singapore.
Billionaire money is now gushing into the 2024 election. Just 50 families have already injected more than $600 million into the 2024 election cycle, according to a new report from Americans for Tax Fairness. Most of it is going to the Trump Republican Party.
Stephen A. Schwarzman, the billionaire chairman and chief executive of the Blackstone Group — who had called the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol an “insurrection” and “an affront to the democratic values we hold dear” — is backing Trump because he believes “our economic, immigration and foreign policies are taking the country in the wrong direction.”
Trump recently solicited a group of top oil executives to raise $1 billion for his campaign, promising that if elected he would “immediately” reverse dozens of environmental rules and green energy policies adopted by President Biden. According to The Washington Post, Trump said this would be a “deal” for them “because of the taxation and regulation they would avoid thanks to him.”
Lies are truth, man:
Speaking from the World Economic Forum’s confab last January in Davos, Switzerland, Jamie Dimon — chair and CEO of JPMorgan Chase, the largest and most profitable bank in the United States, and one of the most influential CEOs in the world — heaped praise on Trump’s policies while president. “Take a step back, be honest,” Dimon said. Trump “grew the economy quite well. Tax reform worked.”
Rubbish. Under Trump the economy lost 2.9 million jobs. Even before the pandemic, job growth under Trump was slower than it’s been under Biden.
[JPMorgan Chase, the largest bank in the US, has faced allegations of fraud, manipulation, and costly mortgage-related settlements, raising concerns about its ethical practices and impact on the public.]
“The 1920s were the last decade in American history during which one could be genuinely optimistic about politics. Since 1920, the vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to women — two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertarians — have rendered the notion of ‘capitalist democracy’ into an oxymoron.” — Peter Thiel
If “capitalist democracy” is becoming an oxymoron, it’s not because of public assistance or because women got the right to vote. It’s because billionaire capitalists like Musk and Thiel are intent on killing democracy by supporting Trump and the neofascists surrounding him.
Not incidentally, the 1920s marked the last gasp of the Gilded Age, when America’s robber barons ripped off so much of the nation’s wealth that the rest of America had to go deep into debt both to maintain their standard of living and to maintain overall demand for the goods and services the nation produced.
When that debt bubble burst in 1929, we got the Great Depression. Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler then emerged to create the worst threats to freedom and democracy the modern world had ever witnessed.
If America learned anything from the first Gilded Age and the fascism that grew like a cancer in the 1930s, it should have been that gross inequalities of income and wealth fuel gross inequalities of political power — as Musk, Thiel, and other billionaires are now putting on full display. Inequalities of power in turn generate strongmen who destroy both democracy and freedom. [Elon Musk and Peter Thiel’s War on Democracy]
Names? Fucking South African Racist Semen Drips? Too much in a time of genocide?
Ahh, taxation for, by, with, because of the regular PEOPLE? NOPE.
Millions of Americans could lose access to housing assistance under a sweeping 2025 proposal known as the “One Big Beautiful Bill.” FingerLakes1.com recently covered cuts to other federal programs.
According to HUD, Section 8 currently supports more than 2 million households. This new bill includes major cuts to Section 8 and other rental aid programs — and it’s already raising alarms among housing advocates.
What’s in the bill? Section 8 and housing aid on the chopping block
The proposed legislation would:
- Eliminate new funding for Housing Choice Vouchers (Section 8)
- Freeze or reduce renewal funding for current voucher holders
- Add new income verification rules that could disqualify recipients
- End emergency rental assistance programs launched during COVID
Nothing is supposed to work in fascism: Head of controversial US-backed Gaza aid group resigns, citing concerns over independence and impartiality
“I am proud of the work I oversaw, including developing a pragmatic plan that could feed hungry people, address security concerns about diversion, and complement the work of longstanding NGOs in Gaza,” said Wood in a statement.
“However, it is clear that it is not possible to implement this plan while also strictly adhering to the humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality, and independence, which I will not abandon,” he added.
Duh, and he’s a GQ military boy!
Jews (you can’t call the Israel terrorists terrorists or Jews in mixed company!): Mossad Reps Working to Block Sale of Advanced Fighter Jets to Saudi Arabia
According to a report on the Intelligence Online website, Israeli security representatives in Tokyo — including a former deputy head of the Mossad whose identity was not disclosed — expressed direct concern to their Japanese counterparts regarding the inclusion of Saudi Arabia in the future fighter jet development project.
Israel has also shown growing concern over the possibility that sixth-generation fighter jets, equipped with advanced stealth technology and sensor fusion systems, might be delivered to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
This year, shortly after Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni publicly supported Saudi Arabia’s inclusion in the program, it was reported that Mossad liaisons contacted their counterparts in Tokyo, warning that cooperation with Saudi Arabia could “fundamentally alter the geopolitics of the Middle East” and even lead to the leakage of military technology to Russia.
The most retrograde, devolving and underdeveloping (that is, projects for, by, with, around, because of we THE PEOPLE) country on earth? As EPA Rolls Back Regulations on 4 PFAS, Thousands More Remain Unregulated
And the war lords/monsters keep beating their stock portfolios for more, more, more.
Raytheon has received a $580 million contract from the U.S. Navy to build more units of its Next Generation Jammer Mid-Band system. The system helps block enemy radar and communications using advanced electronic signals.
Ahh, all those states smacking their fucking War Lord Loving lips: Forest, Mississippi; McKinney, Texas; El Segundo, California; and Andover, Massachusetts.
Ahh, the backward fucking Cunt-Tree-Tis-Of-Thee! Fossil fuels are by far the largest contributors to global warming, accounting for more than 75% of global greenhouse gas emissions and nearly 90% of carbon dioxide emissions.
That was 2020!
When I say teachers saved my life, I mean it. In this essay, I wrote about the educators who saw something in me when I couldn’t see it in myself and why the current push to dismantle the Department of Education is not just misguided, but dangerous. We should be talking about how to find and keep more teachers like the ones I had—not about gutting the systems that help them reach the kids who need them most. If you’ve ever had a teacher who made a difference in your life, I hope you’ll read and share.
Finally, before the really depressing story, one once again proving birds are smarter than the average Cunt Musk Type and Cunt Musk Lover: Vladimir Dinets was driving his daughter to school one morning when a flash of movement caught his eye. He watched as a young Cooper’s hawk darted out of a tree, soared low to the ground along a line of cars and dove into a nearby front yard.
Dinets is a zoologist at the University of Tennessee who specializes in animal behavior and intelligence, so the scene naturally piqued his curiosity. But when he watched the exact same scenario play out a few days later, Dinets realized something scientifically interesting might be going on. He decided to investigate.
The bird seemed to understand that, whenever a human pushed the pedestrian crossing signal, a long line of cars would back up down the street. The savvy creature then used the vehicles as cover to launch a sneak attack on a group of unsuspecting birds gathered in a nearby home’s front yard. Dinets details the hawk’s clever behavior in a new paper published Thursday in the journal Frontiers in Ethology.
“When I figured out what was going on, I was really impressed. I didn’t expect that,” Dinets tells the Guardian’s Nicola Davis. “On the other hand, every time I study some animal species it proves smarter than I expect.”
Dinets observed the hawk for 12 total hours over the course of 18 weekday mornings in a neighborhood in West Orange, New Jersey, during the winter of 2021 to 2022. He watched as the bird attempted six attacks on the prey flock, but because of where Dinets was positioned, he couldn’t see how many of the hunts were successful. On one occasion, however, he did see the hawk fly away with a sparrow gripped in its talons, and on another, he saw the hawk eating a mourning dove on the ground.
+—+
A Big Bit of Reality:
Only Total Collapse Will Rouse Humanity from Its Suicidal Sleepwalk
As Gaza’s children burn while the world watches, it becomes clear: only climate catastrophe, nuclear armageddon, or World War III may force humanity to abandon Western capitalism’s suicidal path.
The brutal death march of global capitalism does not pause for our lamentations. It grinds forward with mechanistic certainty, reducing human bodies to raw material and human aspirations to market commodities. We stand now at the precipice of a darkness so profound that our collective imagination fails to grasp its dimensions.
Gaza Exposed the Multipolar Fantasy
Let us dispense with comforting illusions. The mythologies we have constructed about saviors – whether BRICS nations, ‘multipolar world orders’, institutions of international law, or benevolent statesmen – have disintegrated before our eyes. As Gaza burns and its children scream under collapsing concrete, we witness Russia making backroom deals with the architects of genocide. As Palestinian bodies pile in makeshift morgues, China issues empty declarations at the United Nations while its trade with the genocidal regime continues uninterrupted.
These are not the actions of counterweights to empire. They are the maneuvers of players within the same global system, differing perhaps in position but not in fundamental nature. They have shown themselves to be integral components of the very machinery we hoped they would dismantle.
We have watched, with desperate hope, the Palestinians stand against overwhelming military force, the Lebanese resisting occupation, Ibrahim Traore challenging neocolonial structures, Syrians and Yemenis enduring apocalyptic bombardment. We projected onto them our desperate yearning for liberation from the imperialist hellscape spreading like wildfire across our planet. But they cannot do it alone, and our delegation of hope to others is itself a form of moral abdication.
The Frightening Truth is: It Really Comes Down to Us
The terrible truth we must confront is this: the responsibility is ours. The revolution required is not national but global, because the capitalist system has metastasized globally. It has burrowed deep into the institutional structures of every society, captured the regulatory mechanisms that might constrain it, corrupted the informational systems that might expose it, and weaponized the technological systems that might liberate us.
Consider the grotesque spectacle of our current moment: we watch genocide in real-time on social media platforms owned by billionaires who fund that same genocide, we march in permitted protests that change nothing, we sign petitions that disappear into administrative voids. Meanwhile, the machinery of death continues unabated, and the architects of suffering retire to coastal mansions and mountain retreats after receiving fifty standing ovations for speeches that are nothing more than celebrations of mass murder.
The ruling classes have constructed a system of control so comprehensive, so technologically sophisticated, and so psychologically insidious that most cannot even perceive the depth of their enslavement. The surveillance apparatus tracks our movements and predicts our thoughts. The military-industrial complex develops weapons of terrifying precision to eliminate those who resist too effectively. The propaganda system manufactures consent with algorithmic efficiency.
All Wish to Sit at the Blood-Soaked Table of Imperialism
As vanessa beeley and Fiorella Isabel so meticulously lay out for us, Putin, for all his anti-Western rhetoric, demonstrates through his actions that he seeks merely better terms within the imperial arrangement, not its dissolution. His government works in tacit coordination with Israel while claiming to stand against Western hegemony. This is not resistance; it is negotiation for a better position at the blood-soaked table of imperialism.
And what of China? Does it dream of global equality? Let’s rephrase, do ruling elites anywhere envision a future where they stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the peasants in the villages they dominate? History speaks to us with terrible clarity. The powerful do not relinquish power voluntarily. Systems of exploitation do not reform themselves out of existence. The capitalist machine — whether neoliberal or state capitalism — will not decommission itself out of ethical awakening.
We have already weathered global catastrophes that should have taught us these lessons. World War I reduced a generation of young men to shredded flesh in muddy trenches, yet we learned nothing. World War II revealed the industrial-scale horror humans could inflict upon one another, yet we learned nothing. The grinding machinery reassembled itself, adapted, and continued its relentless accumulation.
“Humanity appears incapable of changing direction without first experiencing the catastrophic consequences of its current trajectory. We seem determined to learn only through suffering, to change only when continuation becomes impossible”
World War III
The terrifying conclusion becomes unavoidable: only the total breakdown of global society will create the conditions for fundamental transformation. This is not a wish but a recognition of historical pattern. The entrenchment is too deep, the control too complete, the psychological captivity too thorough for anything less than systemic collapse to break the spell.
What form will this breakdown take? Perhaps nuclear winter that eliminates most of humanity. Perhaps the collapse of ecological systems that sustain human life. Perhaps the return of fascistic brutality in World War III as soldiers march through our streets, rounding up our women and children to violate their dignity and take away their innocence while the men disappear into torture camps. The specific manifestation matters less than the certainty of its arrival if our course remains unchanged.
This is the darkness we must stare into without flinching. Humanity appears incapable of changing direction without first experiencing the catastrophic consequences of its current trajectory. Even high-definition genocide—burning children and prisoner rapes streamed directly to our iPhones—fails to move us to effective action. We seem determined to learn only through even more extreme suffering, to change only when our current path becomes literally impossible to continue.
Resistance
Yet within this terrible recognition lies a seed of possibility. If we understand the machinery of our destruction with unflinching clarity, if we abandon the comfortable myths that absolve us of responsibility, if we recognize that no external force will save us from ourselves – perhaps then we might begin the work of genuine resistance.
Not the performative — flag-waving, song-singing, tweet-sharing — resistance that leaves power structures intact, but the fundamental reimagining of human society. Not the delegation of hope to distant leaders, but the reclamation of our collective agency. Not the comfortable protest that returns home for dinner, but the sustained commitment to dismantling systems of death.
The machinery of global capitalism does not pause for our lamentations, but neither is it invulnerable to our determined opposition. The question remains whether we will summon the courage to oppose it before the breakdown comes, or whether we will continue sleepwalking until we awaken amid the ruins.
– Karim
Here’s the piece in Dissident Voice:
An “In” on Getting in Small Town Newspapers
Start with the national/international celebratory stuff, then go for the anti-Capitalist jugular
by Paul Haeder / May 24th, 2025
Thousand-word Opinion Editorials are a fine thing to pen, and you can cover a lot of ground in this amount of verbiage. Normally, local rags limit letters to the editor to 300 words, and alas, in this sound bite sort of scrolling-on-the-screen culture, going over a 500-words limit is the kiss of death — you lose your reader.
But there is a method and mad dash of hope in this formula of once-a-month tributes to hard work, that is, highlighting the hard work of “heroes” in this hard land of penury and disaster and predatory (retaliatory) capitalism.
Today’s piece in my local rag (5/21) is emblematic of my own proof that we can fight the surge of shallow thinking and even shallower writing.
Here, just heading home from assisting at the 60+ Center (senior adult center), I caught this show, on the radio station where I broadcast my own Wednesday show, Finding Fringe. 6 PM, PST, streaming live on kyaq.org.
Hard work of reporting: Thirsting for Justice: East Orosi’s Struggle for Clean Drinking Water (Encore)
East Orosi hasn’t had safe drinking water in over 20 years. The water is full of nitrates, runoff from industrial agriculture, which is harmful to human health. The community has taken action to find a solution, from lobbying at the state capital to working with neighboring towns.
And they may finally have one. New California laws, passed in the last five years, have opened up funding to build water infrastructure in small towns like East Orosi. But even as laws and funding develop, implementation has been challenging.
We visit East Orosi and talk to Berta Diaz Ochoa about what it’s like living without clean drinking water and the solutions on the horizon in part one of a two part series. — Listen.
Learn More:
So, imagine, a sound bite around the issues of field workers pulling up crops that are destroying healthy water systems, forcing them to have to drink that toxic water or paying for bottled water to survive. Is water a human right? In California is it.
So, take ANY community, not just the fenceline ones, the communities that are in the sights of the perveyors of criminal capitalism because they are poor and probably BIPOC, and then find how infrastructure and services and even bloody retail enterprises like pharmacies or grocery stores are being gutted by Capitalism, pre-Trump/post-Trump.
You have any axes to grind? You live in a flyover state or rural community?
Here,
Stop trying to save Rural America.
Efforts to write it off as “disappearing” are complicated by the 60 million Americans who call a rural community home.
We must recognize that innovation, diversity of ideas and people, and new concepts don’t need to be imported to rural communities – they’re already there. Rural entrepreneurs and community leaders have always, by necessity, been innovative.
Rural communities have faced some harsh realities in the last generation: they’ve seen manufacturing move overseas, farming monopolized by big outfits with only 5% of rural residents working in agriculture, generational migration to bigger cities, school consolidation, and the absence of basic community resources such as health care and broadband, and, more recently, threats to the lifeline that is the U.S. Postal Service. This, and the pandemic.
Every brightly lit corporate store on the edge of town is a monument to a system that does not build community or advance a healthy entrepreneurial ecosystem.
And before the super out-of-touch elite from err, New York City call us bumkins, get over it: Don’t Blame Rural Residents for a Broken Political System
While noting the decades of gerrymandering to enhance the power of rural officials, New York magazine author Ed Kilgore concludes, “Underlying it all are real differences in outlook between different parts of the country, made more important by the distinct institutional features of a constitutional system designed to protect the interests of small, largely nonmetropolitan states.”
Sorry, Ed; the values of citizens of rural areas have as much to do with school violence and immigration resistance as do video games. In fact, Kilgore undermines his own argument by citing Ronald Brownstein’s analysis in the Atlantic of the red-blue divide. Alas, the same Ronald Brownstein reported on CNN just one week later that a prosperity gap was the source of the split between Democrats and Republicans. “Observers in both parties agree that the sense of economic displacement in recent years has intensified the long-standing movement toward the GOP among small-town and rural communities initially rooted in unease over cultural and demographic change.” It’s fair to observe that gun-loving nativists did not create the dismal economic prospects that drove them to vote for candidate Trump.
It is true that after years of civic disengagement, rural voters turned out in record numbers to elect the only coastal elitist who showed up in their communities and asked for their votes. So, Trump won and Clinton lost. Beyond that, any generalization about the impact of rural citizens on national politics is just horsepucky. Rural citizens didn’t create the electoral system that permits unlimited campaign donations to state officials who draw Congressional districts to favor entrenched wealth. In fact, rural citizens are the victims of gerrymandering as much as any disenfranchised cohort that ends up in a noncompetitive legislative district.
Alas, here’s the Google Gulag AI response to “all the problems in rural America”:
Rural communities face numerous interconnected challenges that can be described as “broken systems” due to a combination of historical disinvestment, geographic isolation, and economic shifts.
Here’s a breakdown of some key broken systems in rural communities:
1. Healthcare:
Limited Access: Rural areas often have a shortage of healthcare providers, specialists, and hospitals, forcing residents to travel long distances for care.
Hospital Closures: Rural hospitals are closing at an alarming rate due to financial difficulties and staffing shortages, further limiting access to care.
Lack of Services: Rural areas may lack crucial services like mental health care, substance abuse treatment, and specialized medical care.
2. Economic Systems:
Job Losses: Rural communities have experienced significant job losses due to the decline of manufacturing and agriculture, leading to higher unemployment and poverty rates.
Limited Opportunities: A lack of diverse industries and businesses can limit economic opportunities for residents, particularly young people.
Brain Drain: Young, educated individuals often leave rural areas for better opportunities in urban centers, further weakening the local economy.
3. Infrastructure:
Poor Broadband Access: Many rural areas lack access to reliable, high-speed internet, hindering economic development, education, and access to telehealth.
Inadequate Transportation: Limited public transportation options can isolate residents and make it difficult to access jobs, healthcare, and other essential services.
Aging Infrastructure: Rural areas may have aging infrastructure, including roads, bridges, and water systems, which require significant investment to repair and upgrade.
4. Education:
School Consolidation: Rural schools have been consolidated, leading to longer commutes for students and the loss of local schools as community anchors.
Funding Challenges: Rural schools often face funding challenges, which can impact the quality of education and available resources.
Teacher Shortages: Rural schools may have difficulty attracting and retaining qualified teachers, impacting student outcomes.
5. Social Systems:
Social Isolation: Geographic isolation and limited social opportunities can contribute to social isolation and mental health challenges for residents.
Lack of Community Resources: Rural areas may lack access to essential community resources such as libraries, childcare facilities, and recreational opportunities.
It’s important to note: These “broken systems” are interconnected and often exacerbate each other. The challenges faced by rural communities vary depending on location, demographics, and economic conditions.
Addressing these challenges requires a multi-faceted approach involving government, businesses, non-profit organizations, and community members.
+–+ Here is May 21st’s piece.
Identify, Diversify, and Harmonize How We Think this May
By Paul Haeder/Lincoln County (Oregon) Leader
One may wonder how the heck did we get all these national and international days of celebration. It is a feature of Homo sapiens to celebrate accomplishments and honor causes and individuals who make the world, well, theoretically a better place.
May is no exception, and of course, the International Workers’ Day is May 1. In this time of rampant hatred of so many professions by Trump and Company, it goes without saying that his shallow but deeply narcissistic persona just will never grasp the value of the worker.
His entire raison d’être is about tearing down and imploding institutions and attacking individuals for which he deems “the enemy.”
The billionaire classless cabal sees workers as the enemy. And the goals of the International Workingmen’s Association in 1864 were clear: Shorter work hours; safer work environment; fair wages; elimination of child labor; the ability for the state to regulate labor conditions.
Ironically, I was in Ashland on International Firefighters Day, talking to two captains in the city’s two fire stations. I was told that a few years ago firefighters responded to 1,600 calls annually. Last year, Ashland’s stations went out over six thousand times.
Aging in place and lack of family and support precipitates many of the EMT calls. And a fire engine they are waiting for is still four years out, to the tune of $2 million once it’s completely outfitted.
If you watch the milquetoast mainstream media, you will have recalled the Accused Sexual Predator Trump made a mockery of National Teacher Day by laughing at all the cuts to the hundreds of educational initiatives smart and reasoned individuals over decades had initiated for the betterment of society through the intellectual progress of our youth.
Another group of workers in the bulls eye of Musk, Thiel, Stephen Miller and Vance/Trump is nursing professionals. We see the almost total breakdown of nursing and doctoring in Lincoln County because of the hard reality of a for-profit health care system putting profits over patients. Add to that the lack of affordable housing, and rural counties throughout the land are suffering massive nursing and doctor shortages.
Which then brings us to National Day of Reason, where groups of people see the value in enlightened thinking. You know, valuing the separation of church and state, which for all intents and purposes under this fascist regime has been imploded into a crusade against reasoned thinkers who do not see prayer or faith as central to their lives.
Humanists and Secularists created this National Day in response to the national day of prayer.
Celebrations have taken the form of blood drives, secular events and activities, and in some cases, protests against the National Day of Prayer. Imagine Trump and Company having the wherewithal to wrap their heads around this celebration – the Secular Week of Action when people volunteer to make the world a better place.
Two not necessarily different international recognition days in May include World Day for Cultural Diversity and International Day for Biological Diversity. Did you get the memo yet that Trump-Vance are on the attack against affirmative action and ecological health.
In fact, on the biodiversity front, Trump and Company have “redefined” harm as it is applied to the Endangered Species Act. This pinhead thinking is just the tip of the iceberg of clownish but dangerous moves.
Defenders of Wildlife explains:
“Trump administration is hell-bent on destroying the ESA to further line the pockets of industry. The vast majority of imperiled wildlife listed as endangered or threatened under the ESA are there because of loss of habitat. This latest salvo to redefine ‘harm’ to eliminate protection for wildlife from habitat destruction, if successful, will further imperil threatened and endangered species. We will fight this action and continue to protect the wildlife and wild places we hold dear as a nation.”
Are you seeing the pattern carried out by billionaires such as Miriam Adelson, Larry Fink and Larry Ellison? Given the fact half of American cities are under air advisories, we have International Asthma Day to lend pause to how destructive these executive actions have been and will continue to be decades from now.
‘Harm’ is what unchecked air pollution in many forms continues to do to young and old. Harmful air advisories come in daily, and the fear is that Trump will just ban the notifications as a way to say, “See, I have cleaned up the air since there are no more warnings.”
Maybe we can pray the polluted air away.
The backers of Trump’s ideal America will see our “secular humanist” society based on science and reason destroyed. The Ten Commandments will form the basis of the legal system.
Finally, we have World Press Freedom Day. If you have any deep regard for the so-called Fourth Estate, then shivers should be running up your spine under this anti-journalist regime.
Mickey Huff of Project Censored states press freedom succinctly:
“We have to remember that it’s the independent media that is often the grassroots voice of the people. It is often the independent press that is operating on ethical standards and principles, and it is the independent press that is reporting in the public interest, not the corporate media.”
Diversify your news media diets. Find independent outlets, and for journalists, we need to reform the media and create better avenues for news reporting, including better accuracy and what we call “solutions journalism,” which creates truly constructive dialogue in our communities.
*****
Footnote: And not one mention of the genocide in Gaza, the trillions stolen from Arab nations’ populations, the trillions stolen from citizens of Canada, EU, USA, for the starvation and immolation and rape of a people.
There are no other topics to write about with the same amount of importance that Palestine conveys, from every aspect of War Terror of the Capitalists of both Jewish and Goyim descent.
***
GUERRERO: Right. So this is one of the reasons I was drawn to Stephen Miller’s story, the fact that he grew up in Southern California in the ’90s at the same time that I did. You know, I’m a couple years younger than him, and I grew up just a couple hours south of where he grew up in Santa Monica, Calif.
And I remember, you know, the incredible anti-immigrant hostility that was pervasive in California at the time, which may be surprising to people because California is known as such a deep-blue state and kind of leads the charge against the Trump administration today. But in the ’90s, it was sort of ground zero, like a microcosm for what we’re seeing nationally today. There were unprecedented attacks on immigrants through a proposition called Prop 187, which, you know, targeted social services for children of undocumented migrants. It was later ruled unconstitutional. There was also attacks on bilingual education statewide. There were attacks on affirmative action.
And the Republican governor of California at the time, Pete Wilson, you know, was repeatedly railing against what he called the invasion at the border – the same language that you see Trump using today – and blaming all of the state’s fiscal problems on immigrants, you know, running these ads on television that I remember watching about how – you know, showing families coming across the border, and there’s this ominous narrator over the video saying, they keep coming.
And from my reporting, it became clear to me that Stephen Miller is truly a product of this environment. He was internalizing a lot of these white supremacist and racist narratives that were common in the state and acting them out, you know, in his high school. He ends up going to Santa Monica High School, this public high school that’s very diverse. And he would go around, from a very young age, expressing, you know, racist viewpoints, telling his Mexican classmates to speak English and to go back to their countries if they couldn’t learn the American way. He, you know, would go to school board meetings to argue passionately against measures to improve racial equity. Around this time, he broke – he ended a friendship with a Mexican friend, telling him that he could no longer be friends with him because of his Latino heritage.
So, you know, from a very young age, expressing these viewpoints that would later manifest in the immigration policy and the rhetoric that we’re seeing out of the White House. And I truly see it as a case study in radicalization.
GROSS: So during the period of Stephen Miller’s life when he started to be kind of radicalized about immigration, be very anti-immigration, it was also the period when his father had one or more economic setbacks. What was going on in his family at the time?
GUERRERO: So Stephen Miller’s family was going through a period of turmoil that, you know, kind of mirrored the period of turmoil that California was experiencing at the time. You know, Stephen Miller’s dad – he was tangled up in numerous legal disputes related to his real estate company. One of them was a fight that he got into with his brother, so Stephen Miller’s paternal uncle, about – you know, Stephen Miller’s uncle was accusing Stephen Miller’s father of dishonesty in the real estate company and not being honest with investors about how their money was being spent. And, you know, they get into this prolonged multiple legal disputes. And meanwhile, Stephen Miller’s father is also suing his former law firm for allegedly kicking him out of the law firm, which allegedly violated their partnership agreement.
And anyway, he ends up losing a lot of money during these legal disputes that he’s tangled up with. He also has a bunch of bankruptcies related to the fact that there’s this earthquake in Los Angeles at the time that leads to all this damage to his real estate properties. And Stephen Miller’s family at this time ends up having to move from this very affluent part of Santa Monica to a less – a slightly less affluent part. It’s still a nice house, but, you know, it’s a less affluent part of town, and it’s a more diverse neighborhood. And Stephen Miller, instead of attending a private high school the way that his brother – his younger brother later would, he ends up having to go to this public school, Santa Monica High School.
GROSS: Back when Stephen Miller was in high school, he listened to right-wing talk radio. He listened to Rush Limbaugh, who was broadcasting out of California then. And he listened to a show called “The Larry Elder Show” on KABC. The LA Times described Larry Elder as a darling of white listeners who seemed to almost gush when they telephoned him on KABC talk radio, astonished to find a Black man who not only wasn’t going to chastise them but who often agreed with them. So he starts off listening to “Larry Elder,” then he calls in to “Larry Elder,” then he becomes a guest on “Larry Elder.” How did he get to the point of being a guest on right-wing talk radio?
GUERRERO: Yeah. From a very young age, Stephen Miller has been really great about using the media to forward his views and to get power. And, you know, when he was a teenager, Larry Elder, when he heard Stephen Miller call in and start to criticize his high school for its multiculturalism and alleged lack of patriotism, you know, regurgitating a lot of the views that Stephen Miller had been hearing on “Rush Limbaugh,” Larry Elder was just super impressed. He tells me that he just couldn’t believe that there was this teenager who was so articulate and, you know, so passionate about these issues. Stephen Miller didn’t really, you know, um or like, like other teenagers. He was very articulate. And so Larry Elder starts to invite him as a guest regularly because he was so impressed with him.
‘Hatemonger’ Paints Trump Advisor Stephen Miller As A ‘Case Study In Radicalization’
Finally — Interesting. And possibly a sign of how completely FUCKED up capitalism was and is. Malls? How many are there, and how underutilized are they, and the fucking parking lot footprint, car spaces enough for that busy Xmas shopping one week before Santa. Montreal readies to turn east-end mall into densified neighbourhood with green space: Place Versailles redevelopment project promises to have 6,000 apartments, school, hotel and parks
A former mall in Montreal will soon gain new life as a mixed-use development with a “strong green vision,” reports Isaac Olson for CBC.
The site of Place Versailles, a 62-year-old shopping complex, will include roughly 6,000 housing units (including 1,000 social housing units), a school, and a hotel. The massive, $2.2 billion project will likely take as many as 25 years to complete.
Local residents worry about impacts on local infrastructure including the nearby Radisson Metro station, as well as the height of the proposed buildings (25 stories in a neighborhood where 2 stories is currently the norm).
“In response, the city has indicated that the building heights along the residential streets of Pierre Corneille and du Trianon will be adjusted to eight and six floors, respectively.” Julien Hénault-Ratelle, a city councillor in Mercier–Hochelaga-Maisonneuve, pointed out that the proposal does not include “adapted or adaptable” units that would enhance accessibility.
Vacant commercial space is everywhere, and a recent study from the real estate firm Cushman & Wakefield quantifies just how many buildings nationwide are mostly or partially empty. Overall, about a fifth of U.S. office space was vacant as of the end of last year.
We find an unprecedented imbalance in supply and demand which, by the end of the decade, will result in a surplus of 330 million square feet of vacant office space that hasn’t kept pace with demands to support hybrid working and efficiency/ESG priorities. The imbalance in demand is further accentuated by a growing quality gap: demand for high-quality office product that can accommodate hybrid strategies and provide a strong in-person experience is dramatically higher, while demand for product that cannot meet modern-era tenant requirements is dramatically lower.
Could vacant office spaces across the U.S. be the solution to a national problem?
Yet converting spaces has proved expensive, complicated and time-consuming, with the process often also steeped in bureaucracy. It’s also harder to do for buildings constructed after 1950, according to Robert Fuller of the architecture firm Gensler.
“A lot of the kind of older prewar office buildings have already been converted and tend to work fairly well,” Fuller told NPR last year. “What we’re seeing now is a flood of buildings built in the ’50s, ’60s, ’70s, ’80s that were much deeper. The advent of air conditioning and fluorescent lighting allowed these much larger floor-plate buildings, and those tend to be a little bit more challenging.”
That’s because the center is often darker and doesn’t get sunlight.
Paul Haeder, Author 