Category Archives: Uncategorized

Two-Party Duopoly’s Effect on Climate Change Policy

Politics, Uncategorized, ,

If we had a multiparty system, do you think conservative partisans would be so intensely skeptical to climate change?

My idea is that part of the reason why climate change is regarded as such among the American right is because the big-tent nature of the Republican Party forces even those conservative or libertarian partisans who are sympathetic to the idea of climate change from the perspective of free-marketism or religious conservatism to put that on the shelf for the sake of party unity and getting other policies which they may favor into law.

The free-marketism of the oil, coal and natural gas barons and those citizens – entire states of citizens – who depend on their money is a third rail in the Republican Party, and needs to bar climate change as a logical possibility from their minds.

But not every Republican politician or voter lives in an oil/coal/gas-dependent state. And among that subset are those who may be skeptical about the skepticism. And they don’t have control of the party at this moment. Where is their representation?

In a multiparty system, I think they’d have their own party separate from those who are climate change-skeptical/beholden to big oil. And climate change would have far more acceptance than it does right now.

 

What a #DemExit Could Look Like

Politics, Uncategorized, , ,

#DemExit folks who are looking for a left-wing alternative party after yesterday can either join the Greens, Rocky Anderson’s Justice Party, Kshama Sawant’s Socialist Alternative, or build yet another party.

Out of all the alternatives, the Green Party is the only one with ballot access in at least 4+ states. As of this year, they have access in 19 states, with chapters in all 50 states, 3 of which are currently unaffiliated.

Oh, and if you want to be a viable party at all, you’ll need chapters in all 3,142 counties and county-equivalents in the US (threshold 1,571). You’ll have to build that all by yourselves. Otherwise, you’ll have no presence in the Electoral College vote.

Good luck.

 

I supported Ellison, but I didn’t really think that Ellison would make much more headway after that first round. The fact that this went to the mat as it did is a first for the DNC. Perez appointing him as deputy chair is a good first move. Much is owed to Bernie and Randi and so many others who invested in his campaign.

I welcome Perez as chair if he and Ellison as deputy chair can together implement the 3k+ county strategy. Ellison cannot be merely the outreach face of the DNC. And if Perez proves problematic, he should go.

I’m also glad to have seen this firsthand, to have been here for this. I was here for history, and I hope the DNC will change for the better. #DNCchair

Factoid: Barbados Has Quite the Calendar

Uncategorized, , , , ,

#Barbados celebrates an entire annual “Season of Emancipation” running from April 14 to August 23:

  • the anniversary of the Bussa’s rebellion, a major slave rebellion in 1816, April 14
  • National Heroes Day, April 28;
  • Crop Over festival, which includes May, June and the first week of August
  • Africa Day, May 25
  • Day of National Significance, which commemorates the Labour
  • Rebellion of 1937, July 26
  • Emancipation Day, August 1
  • birthday of Marcus Garvey, August 17
  • International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition, August 23

 

Fun Black History: Preston Theodore King

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Preston Theodore King is an African-American academic and civil rights activist from Albany, GA. The son of Clennon Washington King, Sr., who served as Booker T. Washington’s chauffeur and co-founder of the Albany GA NAACP, Preston King fled to the UK in 1961 from charges of draft evasion at home for refusing to report for his conscription until an all-white draft board addressed him as “Mr.”, the same way that it addressed white draftees.

While in exile, he married Mureil Hazel Stern, a Jewish-British social justice activist and had two children, Oona King (Baroness King of Bow, formerly member of parliament) and Slater King (named after Preston’s brother Slater King, the vice-president of the Albany Movement). He later divorced Stern and, after an escapade with the children to Nairobi which ended with Stern retrieving the children back to London, King moved to Australia to teach at the University of New South Wales in the 1970s and marry a woman of Lebanese descent.

He returned to Georgia after being pardoned by President Clinton in 2000, after an exile of 39 years. He has since taught at Morehouse and Emory.

“Mental Illness” as Insult

Politics, Uncategorized,

I’ve stopped using the word “mentally ill” or “needs help” as an insult, perhaps for months.

Because really, if you’re “mentally ill” or you “need help”, is that really an insult or is it an acknowledgement of your condition?

If you have gender dysphoria, autism, Tourette’s, or extreme stuttering, those aren’t things which can be “fixed”. Their most debilitating aspects can be moderated and accommodated in order to allow optimal function within larger society.

The neurodiversity movement hit upon language which claims these conditions away from being “diseases”, “illnesses” and “disorders” toward “states of being” within a spectrum of “neurological pluralism”.

But accommodation within the larger society for those states of neurological being is still few and far between, because it challenges what we have been taught about how the brain intersects with our senses, speech patterns, knowledge, education, sex, gender and health. And a lot of people would rather see the “degenerates” removed from sight and mind rather than become “woke” to neurological diversity.

They’re states of neurological diversity, and they need to be accommodated with respect and inclusion.

Mark My Words: For Islam and Whiteness, This Too Shall Pass

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Decades from now, Islam will integrate into the realm of “respectable American religions” for White Americans (Lindsay Lohan?) to join.

The hysteria of today will fade, and “Judeo-Christian” social conservatism will be replaced by “Abrahamic” social conservatism. Some of the most media-savvy conservative ideologues and hucksters of tomorrow will be wealthy, White paragons of family/free-market values who just happen to be Muslim.

This happened to Catholics, Mormons and Jews, who only integrated after the ruling class of this country found that these hated groups could be exploited for their wedge usefulness against some other existential enemy.

Eventually, White-enough American Muslims will become useful to our ruling class against America’s next great existential enemy. And those who engage in cultural warfare and nativism against Muslims will either look pretty stupid or just disappear under the rug of ugly-American provincialism, as do Judeophobes, anti-Catholics and anti-Mormons.

Rinse and repeat….

Terrible Person Gets Canned from CPAC, Simon & Schuster, Breitbart

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Some racist pro-Trump fop from the UK has had a bad 48 hours.

First, The Reagan Battalion, a #NeverTrump conservative blog with interesting origins, posted clips from his interviews in different venues:

This ended up with voices from left and right calling for him to be disinvited from a speaking role at this year’s CPAC, the Conservative Political Action Conference. The CEO of CPAC, Matt Schlapp, tried to run cover for him on Twitter, but eventually acceded to this demand:

But then the hits kept coming.

And finally, after this:

the final shoe dropped:

NOTE:

In the end, feminist writer Roxane Gay was vindicated in pulling her book from Simon & Schuster in protest against Hanrahan’s book deal:

But of course, he then held a press conference announcing another media venture, just like he did at least three times before becoming the “tech editor” for Breitbart, where he ran a group of 44 interns to write his articles.

He’s a lazy writer, and also a lazy, vindictive, harassing, petty publication editor who prefers to rage against both perceived rivals to his business interests as well as perceived enemies of Western civilization. But his antics reached so many lows with which the likes of Steve Bannon and his successor were OK until he lost the support of 6 of his coworkers at Breitbart over his off-color statements and jokes on pedophilia.

Pedophilia/child abuse – not racism, misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, immigrant-bashing, Muslim-bashing, Jew-bashing, ableism, and support for fascist behavior by governments – was the deal-breaker for the far-right.

And ironically, his rhetoric will provide more fodder for those who unjustly believe that LGBT people – even those on the far-right – are uniformly lecherous child abusers. This lie is as disgusting and inhumane as the act of child abuse.

This grifter cynically helped traffic this garbage, and he has temporarily fallen on the sword of the far-right’s literalism which he gleefully helped craft since joining Breitbart.

I hope he keeps losing until he learns humility, honesty and empathy.