Timothy Snyder on the Necessity of Journalists Covering Events of Ukraine, Its History & Lessons

Rachel Maddow would love Snyder's approach to history and human agency.

Famine is political history. Welsh reporter Gareth Jones was the only journalist who reported the enforced famine in Ukraine. Stalin's aim in 1932, 1933, was a colonial famine; it was also Hitler's corporate, wealth driven plan to control the fertile agricultural territory of Ukraine, because he thought Stalin was doing this.
Had journalists covered it at the time, had we known, and had historians written of it, events since might have been quite different.

In 2022, Putin is using the same strategy in Ukraine, and the world's food supply will suffer.
Prices of grain will go up worldwide (inflation); China will hoard agricultural goods (choke supply chains);
with Putin's blockade, the world will starve.

These events can be known in advance and are unfolding right now.

The West's story is that the Russian state is rational & Putin is a technocrat -- not true.
Also not true is the deeper, darker version of this war, which has been one of mass starvation.

Re journalists: that there are plenty of reporters doesn't mean that there isn't a real need for reporters from Africa and the global South.

Victim reversal has already begun -- blaming Ukrainians for their starving; calling journalists and Ukrainians Nazi for 90 years, which has chilled coverage.

Thus, the West's memory is faulty about Ukraine's colonial history.

Putin is still using the the same European colonial arguments used during the global historymaking of colonialism:
-- these people are not a nation
-- this political organization is not a state

These historical propaganda ideas set up the West to believe two policies and practices toward objectified people of both Africa and the West:
-- the people in Africa and Asia don't matter, and
-- the Ukrainians will be blamed if they do;

Imperial powers objectify the Ukrainians and the "others" around the world, seen as a 'means to an end' (or as 'collateral damage,' imo).

(My opinion: By "imperial powers" I mean today's corporations. Since their formation in the 13th Century, their lingo has been alienating language about us humans; e.g., "some say..." or "some believe..." the slaveowners' use of "we," also objectifying language which its media have helped us adopt about the 'other.')

Snyder's advice:
1. Execute a plan to free Ukrainian ports
2. Get reporters on the ground; get reporters from the global South to Kyiev
3. Reporters must frame Ukrainian, African and Asian agency all at the same time; do not let the Russian propaganda dominate
4. re the Future: what reporters report matters right now; what reporters must access is the background history of colonial Ukraine exploitations and mass death, and report how that is unfolding right now.


The West's biggest mistake happened in 1989 when it adopted the most dangerous idea of our time -- the future is going to be automatic -- and its corollaries that
-- capitalism's going to make everything okay, that
-- everyone's going to want to be democratic

That idea took us out of the future. That idea took our agency away. That idea gave our agency to all the "larger forces" (which I call the world's still-hidden corporate oligarchs). That idea made us educate a couple of generations to the idea of the automaticity of the future coming to you. Which it isn't.

And so the Fierce-Urgency-of-Now Goal for Journalists (as different from media):

Depending on how journalists cover the present -- the more concepts and values and knowledge journalists bring into their coverage of the present -- shapes the more and broader futures that people can be able to see.

The future isn't just one thing. So what people can see depends largely on what journalists write.

Cue Richard Engel and Rachel Maddow.


Start 3:18

Debate Between Val Demings and Marco Rubio

Space X and NASA News

Asking lawyers in the house: by my count, Trump broke 17 federal laws -- am I off?

Big Corps v Humans

Books reviewed in this article of The New York Review of Books:

Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber
by Mike Isaac
Private Government: How Employers Rule Our Lives (and Why We Don’t Talk About It)
by Elizabeth Anderson
Amazon Unbound: Jeff Bezos and the Invention of a Global Empire
by Brad Stone
Your Boss Is an Algorithm: Artificial Intelligence, Platform Work and Labour
by Antonio Aloisi and Valerio De Stefano


"The Boss Will See You Now," by Zephyr Teachout, reviews books that increase our knowledge of corporate surveillance, worker exploitation and other stealth anti-democratic operations. It complements our growing knowledge of corporate capture of our government, as shown by Sheldon follow-the-money Whitehouse.

If Republicans haven't sufficiently groomed Americans for fascist rule, their corporate bosses will. So far, what corporations have done in America have been legal, but not lawful, as Elizabeth Warren and Katie Porter have shown.

As Liz Cheney said today in the perhaps final Jan 6 Committee hearing, unlike Americans, most people of most countries have not been free. We are feeling the campaign onslaught of corporate dark money this year as corporations -- we like to keep it at the Republican bag man level -- go all out to end rule of law, by any means necessary, and move this nation into the global corporate network.

"Legal" is the language of the corporate world. "Lawful" is the language of the human world.

Judiciary Subcommittee Hearing On Transparency and Accountability for 21st Century Courts

Sheldon Whitehouse convenes this meeting to address the issue of judicial integrity, including information from Senator Sheldon Whitehouse on ’the amicus problem,’ ’the Justice recusal and conflict of interest problem,’ and ’the Justice willing exposure in resorts to lobbyist activities problem,’ and his legislative remedy in The Disclose Act.
His meeting convenes on the issue of judicial restructuring.

Kennedy says that this committee’s efforts to change SCOTUS destabilize SCOTUS, and he will not be a part of any effort to destabilize and challenge the integrity of justices of the SCOTUS. He bases his refusal to participate on what justices are supposed to do; and repeats his belief that he sees Americans as free to give their opinions, and that one side thinks it has a monopoly on the truth. Kennedy implies that one side is trying to tear down the courts while both sides are spending mightily to get rulings they profit from. Kennedy says, in effect, that things do look bad and I want to look into it, but I don’t intend to do anything about the court; instead, to find out what the Dept of Justice is made of in ferreting out the latest SCOTUS leaker.

Assuming that the witnesses give sufficient valued information re SCOTUS problems and solutions, the subcommittee should be able to move forward in the judicial reform path that Senator Whitehouse will try to move Congress.

Start: 11:10

FYI, 2022 Voter Registration numbers of the adult electorate (minus undocumenteds and minors)

are at 213,768,003 potential voters who are actually registered.

As of Nov 3 2020, there were 213,799,467 registered to vote. Can't explain the drop, but both figures are from the same site.

Total registered voters WHO VOTED BUT DID NOT VOTE TRUMP (D + 3rd party) = 84,174,344
Total registereds WHO DID NOT VOTE IN 2020 = 55,402,093

Total adult electorate WHO COULD HAVE REGISTERED, AND SO DID NOT VOTE IN 2020 = 87,605,395 = 35.6% of the 2020 adult population of the U.S.

Voter registration deadlines are any day now (Florida's is today).

Here is a good link for the 50 state counts of total registrations.
To use it, scroll down to the 3rd graphic of state-by-state numbers.
To get state party registration numbers, click the 4th graphic to get different states' source report of registrations by party.

Surprisingly, I've learned that Florida lets people register as "unaffiliated."



https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/number-of-registered-voters-by-state

President Biden's Full Remarks On the Economy-- ""Because of you all we can own the 21st Century."

MEMO TO DEMOCRATIC PARTY LEADERSHIP: 2022 IS IT.

My recent message to the DNC "Contact Us" headquarters.

"TO: Jaime Harrison, Democratic National Committee Chair
Chris Korge, DNC Finance chair
Jason Rae, DNC Secretary
430 South Capitol Street SE,
Washington, D.C., U.S. 20003-4024
(202) 863-8000

FROM: A lifelong Democratic voter of IL and now FL

RE: THIS 2022 MIDTERM IS IT. OUR WAR FOR DEMOCRACY.


30 DAYS OUT, party leadership let Dems of red states waste time arguing every day about where the DNC's candidate monetary support goes and won't go, and why and where it should.

Almost all Dems know the DNC does election financing. Many Democrats have decided that when they don't agree with where the DNC sends money, they will send money directly to the candidates they want (I became a direct full donor when I saw that the DNC was slow to support Barack Obama's candidacy in primaries).

BUT DEMOCRATS SHOULD NOT HAVE TO.

IF leadership is serious about this war for democracy, it MUST INVEST in red state Democrats, and early and often, tell Democratic donors where to donate.

AND not just donate through your website. You KNOW the state of broadband in red states. YOU DO.


Here in hard-to-love Florida, and in all other deep red states...

IS Democratic Party messaging lousy?
That's what I've read.

IS Democrats' messaging not enough?
That's what I've read.

ARE media doing their job to convey the Democratic Party message?

I've posted this media fault constantly on the Democratic Underground's site. Do I have lousy messaging?

In Florida, Democratic messaging is not for lack of trying.
Consider that Democrats AND LEADERSHIP ALSO have to DONATE to Florida's Democratic candidates the way they do candidates in other battleground states.

https://charliecrist.com
https://valdemings.com
https://www.rebekahjonescampaign.com
https://www.frostforcongress.com (Dist 1 -- vs Matt Gaetz)

But here?

Dist 2 Dem Al Lawson v Rep. Neal Dunn -- The fundraising email follows reports that the DCCC isn’t fighting for Lawson.
In the North Florida duel between U.S. Reps. Neal Dunn and Al Lawson, the underdog Democrat in FL's largest district is requesting individual contributions in the absence of national backup. WHY IS THAT? Or...

Dist 3 Dem Danielle Hawk v. incumbent (R) Kat Cammack
Dist. 16 Dem. Jan Schneider v incumbent (R) Vernon Buchanan (10th richest Chamber of Commerce man in Congress, who panders to middle class and retiree racism and ignorance in Sarasota County)
Dist. 24, Miami — Dem Frederica Wilson v (R) Jesus G. Navarro, Hispanic MAGA candidate

And those are just a few example districts in Florida.

You need to be able to answer Democrats who should rightly ask WHY.

ARE YOU SERIOUS?

Where are you on chipping away at 'LEAN DEMOCRATIC in red trifecta states?

30 days out, why haven't Democratic voters heard from party leadership? Emails? Pffft

WHY hasn't party leadership been on television shows BEFORE ELECTIONS, NOT AFTERWARD, as post mortem explanations of WHY WE LOST HOUSE SEATS??

Do not blame media horse race messaging at the expense of Democrats in deep red states.

Take Charlie Crist or Val Demings of Florida. In Florida, Democratic messaging is not for lack of trying.
But where is party leadership? Floridians do not see Democratic Party leadership behind even major candidates.

Is party leadership actually getting its messaging into MSNBC?? The ad buy hardly reflects even a liberal leaning cable news channel, nevermind saturating it.

From MSNBC's Mehdi Hasan:
"Why is your state party so bad at pushing back against these authoritarian measures?"

On politics and science, politicos and scientists.

Highly recommended, not because this short book is full of new information (though some might think so), but because it reminds average people of the top priority importance of science must be to humankind.

Because it is on time. At a time when we are living the consequences of our use or misuse or pure ignorance of science, and so we need scientists more than ever. We need science translators more than ever, from Rachel Carson to Jennifer Doudna to Neil deGrasse Tyson.

IMHO, deGrasse Tyson preaches to the choir.
But the choir's power isn't just in the song.
The choir's power is in how many times and in what variations it's sung.



1.
America's two political parties differ broadly and deeply. They reflect different views on humanity and who should benefit from the pursuit of science's research.

Democrats: science should be paid to research and learn.

Republicans: science should be paid to support ideology and business.

When American oligarchs and their corporations see science, they pick science that

a) promotes their "insider" interests
-- because most humans should be treated like animals
-- "improve the stock," "thin the herd," "lab subjects," or
b) promotes their profit while hiding
-- scientific research on effects of tobacco on humans;
-- effects of oil production on climate;
-- effects of injecting syphilis in black people to study it;
-- the effects of opioid addiction, etc.
-- health care billing markups that are many times higher than Medicare costs for the exact same treatments, and on and on.

2.
History shows the political uses of pseudo-science.

From Teddy Roosevelt, who believed the ills of modernity could be corrected in 3 ways:

a) return to the wilderness -- to toughen up for "the fight"
b) war -- raw fight for survival
c) breeding and eugenics-- boot camp for women, life-or-death struggle that strengthened the entire race; women who "shirked," or exhibited free will that would not submit to men, were worse than deserters

To Social/political "experts" on the pseudo-science of eugenics:
-- Charles Davenport, biologist and member of the Eugenics Section of the American Breeders Assoc.

-- Alexander Graham Bell, member of the same eugenics org,

-- Harry Laughlin, eugenics expert for the House Committee On immigration and Naturalization, who played a crucial role in shaping the 1924 Immigration Act, one of the most sweeping & restrictive laws in American history;

-- Mary Harriman, wife of Averell Harriman, railroad magnate, biggest donor to the Eugenics Record Office

-- wealthy horse breeder William Stokes, who contended that Americans could be bred to class, who wanted to segregate quarantine the unfit, castrate criminals, sterilize diseased and degenerate classes

-- 27 states with sterilization laws that put people into 34 categories fit for sterilization
-- William Taussig, Harvard professor who promoted sterilization

-- Henry Godard who invented the eugenic term "moron"
-- US Army who rounded up 30,000 prostitutes in WWI and put them in detention centers and jails to keep them and their "moronic" sexuality out of the reach of soldiers

-- Stanford's Lewis Terman who promoted the use of the I.Q. Test

To the US Supreme Court:
-- Albert Priddy, superintendent of the State Colony for epileptics and Feebleminded, won the SCOTUS test case decision for sterilization in Buck v Bell, that gave the state the power to regulate the breeding of its citizens ; Priddy helped make Virginia the national test case for weeding out "bad blood," "mongrel Virginians"

-- SCOTUS Justice Taney in the Dred Scott decision, wrote that he believed pedigree could be used to distinguish worthy citizens from waste people
-- SCOTUS Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, argued that sterilization was a civic duty... the humane option, as being sent to the colonies had been centuries before.

(Source: "White Trash -- The 400-Year Untold History of Class In America (2016) by Nancy Isenberg)

3.
Science -- run by men -- has historically been cherry picked by the wealthy -- men -- to promote their race, sex and therefore, their class preservation and power, placing whole regions of humans, impoverished by design and policy, into intellectual classes of "eugenic backwardness."


4.
No wonder science feels the blowback today. But scientists -- from the 3 Nobel winners in quantum physics to chemistry (atomically mapping RNA) to physiology & medicine -- do science. If we've lost ways of finding common ground, let science be the new arena of common ground effort. Even the US valued Nazi science and engineering after WWII.

Science has to sell itself -- Just like the Democratic Party does -- in the 3rd biggest country on a planet that has killed 99.9% of all species that ever lived, and couldn't care less what humans do to save themselves.

Many scientists, from Rachel Carson to Jennifer Doudna to Neil deGrasse Tyson, have tried to to just that. One way is that they've explained to laypersons how they and other scientists do their work.

Neil deGrasse Tyson says, "Science distinguishes itself from all other branches of human pursuit by its power to probe and understand the behavior of nature on a level that allows us to predict with accuracy, if not control, the outcomes of events in the natural world.

He lays out a kind of bottom line for the scientific method by quoting Arabic scholar Ahazen: "Do whatever it takes to avoid fooling yourself into believing something is true when it is fale, or that something is false when it is true."

He says, "Scientific discovery often carries the power to broaden and deepen perspectives on all things. Science especially enhances our health, wealth, and security, which are greater today than at any other time in human history."

When "selling" science is done well, transparently, and in the people's interests, not corporate interests, or the interests of the 36 million millionaires over 7 billion other humans. After scientists come patent holders, inventions, engineers, project prototypes, tests, and the greatest scientific good for the greatest number.

5.
If the wealthy own science, why should other humans trust their "commodification of research" when consumers have to ferret out the politics of their funders. If the wealthy lie to cover up any business predations of both science and human health, science suffers the public's lowered confidence. But deep down we know that doesn't make science any less good, beautiful and true. Which is why we jump up and down with every new space rocket or telescope photo.

It seems, more often than not, that as the public depend on the wealthy to support science for humanity, the sick and injured too often enter the wealthy's own self-named hospitals, research, academic endowment facilities -- places that are the wealthy's "gifts" to humanity to redeem their past sins toward humanity. Which reflects a privatization of the best things in life for the wealthiest.


6.
Such class wealth disparity does infect politics, and shows a kind of class war that's waged in a lane adjacent to they-don't-give-a-fuck-about-you politics.

Yes, Democrats and Republicans are different about science. Both want the benefits. One wants affordable benefits for the greatest number. The other wants maximum benefits at maximum profits for the number who can pay. They are different in how they fund science and sell science.

The wealthy who want to "capture" government for themselves had better develop a moral compass about both government AND science. Or else one of the political parties -- we Democrats -- will fight the wealthy behind corporate controlled science. But the Democratic Party will not attack scientists.