BeckyDem
BeckyDem's JournalThis Violent Piece of Insurrection Was Planned Openly on Unencrypted Channels'
CounterSpin interview with Dorothee Benz on January 6 insurrection
Janine Jackson
Excerpt: Joining us now is political scientist Dorothee Benz. A writer, organizer and strategist, she has many years of work in frontline struggles here in the US. She joins us by phone from Brooklyn. Welcome back to CounterSpin, Dorothee Benz.
Dorothee Benz: It’s great to be here.
JJ: My brain at first went to language, you know: Is “protester” the best label when the target is the democratic process? Is “chaos” the most evocative description for a planned and predicted action with some measure of evident official sanction? Now I’m reading “unprepared”; everyone was “unprepared.”
But there are deeper questions about corporate media’s role here. Just to throw a dart: While they’ve recently begun to qualify it, elite media spent years referring matter of factly to “voter fraud,” despite its virtual nonexistence, because they simply had to suggest a Democratic equivalent to evidence of Republican voter suppression, lest they be accused of bias. So the idea that you can just declare fraud without evidence has been well-established by the press itself.
https://fair.org/home/this-violent-piece-of-insurrection-was-planned-openly-on-unencrypted-channels/
( Excellent analysis )
Opinion: The Supreme Court isn't well. The only hope for a cure is more justices.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=
The Supreme Court building in Washington. (Stefani Reynolds/Bloomberg)
By Nancy Gertner
and
Laurence H. Tribe
Today at 5:01 p.m. EST
Nancy Gertner is a retired U.S. District Court judge. Laurence H. Tribe is Carl M. Loeb University Professor emeritus and professor of constitutional law emeritus at Harvard Law School. Both served on the Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court.
We now believe that Congress must expand the size of the Supreme Court and do so as soon as possible. We did not come to this conclusion lightly.
One of us is a constitutional law scholar and frequent advocate before the Supreme Court, the other a federal judge for 17 years. After serving on the Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court over eight months, hearing multiple witnesses, reading draft upon draft of the final report issued this week, our views have evolved. We started out leaning toward term limits for Supreme Court justices but against court expansion and ended up doubtful about term limits but in favor of expanding the size of the court.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/12/09/expand-supreme-court-laurence-tribe-nancy-gertner/
( It's time. )
Union calls Kellogg's latest offer 'a trojan horse.' The cereal company will replace strikers.
Updated: Dec. 08, 2021, 11:57 a.m. | Published: Dec. 08, 2021, 11:57 a.m.
Kellogg announced it plans to hire permanent replacements after union members voted against the cereal company’s latest offer this week.
For the past nine weeks, 1,400 Kellogg workers have been on the picket line in Michigan, Tennessee, Pennsylvania and Nebraska. In Battle Creek, where the company is headquartered, 325 hourly workers are standing with the union’s decision to not return until their demands are met.
Excerpt: “It’s kind of like a Trojan horse,” he said. “The long term effects of this would actually be negative upon where we’re sitting right now.”
The two-tier system remains the tension point as the company will not agree to a definitive cap on how many years before will move transitional workers into “legacy” status. Without a defined cap the union fears transitional workers will outnumber the legacy thus undermining future negotiations. Bidelman estimates 700 of the 1,400 workers are on track to retire within the next ten years.
https://www.mlive.com/public-interest/2021/12/union-calls-kelloggs-latest-offer-a-trojan-horse-the-cereal-company-will-replace-strikers.html
( The fight for equity continues. )
White Americans Fail to Address Their Family Histories
There is a conversation about race that white families are just not having. This is mine.
I am a historian of race and labor in the American South. I study slavery and its aftermaths for working people—particularly African Americans—and the ways in which those in power—usually wealthy whites—exploited and abused them.
As part of a personal project, I recently began going through my family’s historical papers. I had initially asked for the papers when, at a recent holiday party, one of my friends told me that his great-great-grandfather had been on Sherman’s march. Mine, I replied, had died in 1865 fighting Sherman. In the awkward silence that followed, I conceded, “they had it coming.” I meant it. You cannot exploit and abuse millions of people for profit without consequences.
That conversation reminded me of the ominous-looking box that held miscellaneous documents from my family’s past. Having advised other families to donate their historical collections to archives, it seemed only right that I should find an appropriate home for my own. With permission from my father, I started cataloging our papers with the goal of eventually donating it to an archive in Georgia.
https://activisthistory.com/2018/02/09/white-americans-fail-to-address-their-family-histories/
( Democrats should run away from CRT? Why? Who would benefit? )
A Lesson on Critical Race Theory
by Janel George
In September 2020, President Trump issued an executive order excluding from federal contracts any diversity and inclusion training interpreted as containing “Divisive Concepts,” “Race or Sex Stereotyping,” and “Race or Sex Scapegoating.” Among the content considered “divisive” is Critical Race Theory (CRT). In response, the African American Policy Forum, led by legal scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw, launched the #TruthBeTold campaign to expose the harm that the order poses. Reports indicate that over 300 diversity and inclusion trainings have been canceled as a result of the order. And over 120 civil rights organizations and allies signed a letter condemning the executive order. The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF), the National Urban League (NUL), and the National Fair Housing Alliance filed a federal lawsuit alleging that the executive order violates the guarantees of free speech, equal protection, and due process. So, exactly what is CRT, why is it under attack, and what does it mean for the civil rights lawyer?
CRT is not a diversity and inclusion “training” but a practice of interrogating the role of race and racism in society that emerged in the legal academy and spread to other fields of scholarship. Crenshaw—who coined the term “CRT”—notes that CRT is not a noun, but a verb. It cannot be confined to a static and narrow definition but is considered to be an evolving and malleable practice. It critiques how the social construction of race and institutionalized racism perpetuate a racial caste system that relegates people of color to the bottom tiers. CRT also recognizes that race intersects with other identities, including sexuality, gender identity, and others. CRT recognizes that racism is not a bygone relic of the past. Instead, it acknowledges that the legacy of slavery, segregation, and the imposition of second-class citizenship on Black Americans and other people of color continue to permeate the social fabric of this nation.
https://www.americanbar.org/groups/crsj/publications/human_rights_magazine_home/civil-rights-reimagining-policing/a-lesson-on-critical-race-theory/
PR Industry Has Been a 'Major' But 'Overlooked' Influence in Climate Politics for Decades,Says Study
By Nick Cunningham
Nov 30, 2021 @ 03:00 PST
.
America’s Power – Formerly American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE) - spread misinformation about "clean coal" with its "mobile classrooms." Credit: America's Power (CC BY 2.0)
From coining “clean coal” to “carbon footprint,” public relations firms have been instrumental in shaping the public discourse around climate and energy policy, and as a new study underlines, their powerful efforts have flown under the radar for too long.
PR firms have played a key role in obstructing action on climate change over the past 30 years, engaging in PR campaigns on behalf of the fossil fuel industry to not only downplay the seriousness of climate change, but also to position industry-favored solutions as the preferred course of action.
A new peer-reviewed study, published in Climatic Change on November 30 by Robert J. Brulle and Carter Werthman of Brown University, analyzes the role that PR firms have played in the climate misinformation ecosystem between 1988 and 2020. The study looked at 214 organizations across five major sectors — coal/steel/rail, oil & gas, utilities, renewable energy, and the environmental movement — and found that electric utilities hired and used PR firms the most out of any other sector analyzed, followed by oil and gas.
https://www.desmog.com/2021/11/30/pr-industry-major-overlooked-influence-climate-politics-brulle/
Does Brazil Proposal Hold Key to Ending Big Pharma's Stranglehold on Covid-19 Vaccines? ( Stiglitz,)
A proposal for the World Trade Organization to waive intellectual-property rights on pandemic-related pharmaceuticals is still languishing, owing to opposition from rich countries whose companies are reaping monopoly profits. Fortunately, a public-health bill in Brazil points the way to a promising bottom-up solution.
Joseph Stiglitz, Achal Prabhala, Felipe Carvalho
December 3, 2021 by Project Syndicate
The World Trade Organization was supposed to meet this week to consider a proposal that has been languishing for the past year: a temporary waiver of pharmaceutical intellectual property during the pandemic to allow poor countries to make many of the same tests, treatments, and vaccines that rich countries have had throughout the pandemic. Yet, in a cruel reminder of the urgency of the problem, the WTO meeting was postponed, owing to the emergence of the Omicron variant, detected by scientists in South Africa (though precisely where it originated remains unclear ).
There is near-unanimous agreement that vaccinating the entire world is the only way to end the pandemic. The higher the vaccination rate, the fewer chances the virus will have to acquire dangerous mutations. Before quickly becoming the leading global variant, Delta was first detected in India, where under 3% of the population had been vaccinated. Today, Africa has the world's lowest vaccination rates, with only 7% of Africans having been fully vaccinated.
https://www.commondreams.org/views/2021/12/03/does-brazil-proposal-hold-key-ending-big-pharmas-stranglehold-covid-19-vaccines
Accountability. We need it more than ever. n/t
Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar calls House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy "a liar and a coward"
https://twitter.com/CNNSotu/status/1467509144223686657( Pelosi has promised to address this issue and I'm sure she will. Republicans are despicable and dangerous. )
Bisexual goddess and anti-Nazi fighter Josephine Baker given one of France's highest honours
Dec 2, 2021
Emily Chudy
Josephine Baker to be the first Black woman to enter the Pantheon (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
French-American cabaret star and civil rights activist Josephine Baker has become the first Black woman to enter the Panthéon, nearly 50 years after her death.
The bisexual icon is the sixth woman to be honoured in the mausoleum of revered historical figures in Paris, and one of only three Black people, with author Alexandre Dumas and colonial administrator Félix Éboué also laid to rest in the temple.
The move to enter Baker into the Panthéon, considered one of France’s highest honours, was made after years of campaigning by her family.
https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2021/12/02/josephine-baker-france-pantheon-bisexual/
Can the Fed Overcome Its Transitory Policy Mistake?
Dec 2, 2021
Mohamed A. El-Erian
CAMBRIDGE – It took way too long, but key officials at the US Federal Reserve have finally acknowledged that for months they mischaracterized an inflationary surge that has proven larger and more persistent than they expected. That recognition is welcome, especially given the likelihood that inflation will remain uncomfortably high in the coming months. The challenge now, not just for the Fed but also more broadly for the United States and other major economies, is to navigate a policy terrain in which communication and implementation have been rendered significantly more complex by a fundamental misreading of inflation as “transitory.”
That initial characterization of inflation earlier this year was understandable. From March to May, in particular, strong base effects were at work, because inflation in the year-earlier period had been suppressed by the lockdown of the global economy in response to COVID-19. In addition, policymakers hoped that markets would quickly resolve the initial mismatch between robust demand and lagging supply as the economy continued to open up. By summer, it was clear to some of us that such transitory factors were being accompanied by longer-term issues. Firms were detailing the persistent nature of the disruptions in their supply chains. Labor shortages were multiplying, adding to the cost-push drivers of inflation. Few, if any, companies expected these two issues to be resolved any time soon – and said so on one earnings call after another.
https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/us-federal-reserve-transitory-inflation-trap-by-mohamed-a-el-erian-2021-12?
Additional source:
Excerpt: Remember the Fed mistakenly thinks it can stimulate growth when all it can stimulate is speculation in assets, but it can choke activity. It had all these years since the Taper Tantrum to try to take some air very slowly out of financial markets…and acts as if it has finally gotten the nerve. We’ll see how long its resolve holds.
For further confirmation and more detail on the sorry state of retail, van Metre below presents data. For instance, he shows at 8:58 that inventory levels rose even though the media reported them as falling.
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2021/12/why-has-the-press-ignored-retailers-crappy-black-fridays-as-experts-warn-of-coming-bankruptcies.html
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