[Peace-discuss] Notes

[J.B. Nicholson]

Here are some topics for you to consider discussing. Have a good show guys, 
looking forward to seeing the next show.





Skripal affair: "Trump told Theresa May he doubted Russia was behind 
Skripal poisoning"

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/oct/05/trump-told-theresa-may-he-doubted-russia-was-behind-skripal-poisoning 
-- Russiagate takes another drubbing as the Skripal story looks like it is 
losing advocates.

> Donald Trump disputed that Russia was behind the attempted murder of a
> former Russian spy in a tense call with Theresa May, it has emerged.
> 
> Despite the widespread conclusion that Vladimir Putin’s regime was
> behind the poisoning of Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia last year,
> the US president is said to have spent 10 minutes expressing his doubts
> about Russian involvement.
> 
> According to the Washington Post, Trump “harangued” May about Britain’s
> contribution to Nato in a phone call with Britain’s then prime minister
> in the summer of last year, before disputing Russian involvement in the
> Skripal case.
> 
> “Trump totally bought into the idea there was credible doubt about the
> poisoning,” said a figure briefed on the call. “A solid 10 minutes of
> the conversation is spent with May saying it’s highly likely and him
> saying he’s not sure.”
> 
> The Skripals were left fighting for their lives after the novichok
> attack in Salisbury, while a policeman was also left seriously ill. A
> second policeman was recently discovered to have been injured in the
> attack.
> 
> Two Russian agents, Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov, were
> identified as the likely culprits. However, they later appeared on
> Russia’s state-funded TV station RT, claiming they visited the
> “wonderful” English city as tourists to see its cathedral.
> 
> Trump has been pursued over his relationship with Russia ever since
> allegations emerged that the country colluded with the Trump
> presidential campaign in 2016. The Robert Mueller report, which examined
> the claims, concluded Russia had been attempting to swing the
> presidential election in favour of Trump, but did not say whether there
> had been collusion.

jbn: The Guardian gets some information wrong here -- saying the Mueller 
Report "did not say whether there had been collusion" is not correct, the 
Mueller Report didn't prove there was collusion and it was that report's 
job to do so in order to bolster the long-held and widely-repeated baseless 
claim of Russian collusion (hello Rachel Maddow, chief Russiagator who now 
blames Russia for Ukrainegate -- see 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBLXZHTljTM for more!). As the Mueller 
Report publication neared it was increasingly clear that no such collusion 
proof would come (as information about it would have leaked) and indeed the 
entirety of Russiagate fell apart as investigative journalists (such as 
Glenn Greenwald, Aaron Maté, and others) made a greater name for themselves 
debunking Russiagate.

This take on the story is also compatible with what Seymour Hersh told 
Afshin Rattansi on Rattansi's program "Going Underground" in 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJgTiP6WBss -- the Skripal poisoning was 
not a Russian state operation despite that it involved some Russians:

> Seymour Hersh: Those two [Mishkin & Chepiga said to be using the names
> "Alexander Petrov" and "Ruslan Boshirov"] were helping the British
> intelligence services with information about the Russian mafia. That's
> what they were doing here [in the UK]. In other words, the people that
> were high on the list of people who would want to hurt him [Sergey
> Skripal] would be the Russian mafia. Russians, but not the Russian
> government.
> 
> Afshin Rattansi, RT host: Do you mean the Skripals?
> 
> Seymour Hersh: Yeah, I mean that was the understanding. There was also 
> some reporting out of Europe about that that's been pretty much 
> widespread.




Assange: Spying footage turns up showing Assange meeting with his guests 
inside the Ecuadorian embassy

https://elpais.com/elpais/2019/09/25/inenglish/1569384196_652151.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMnVput4sS8 -- A Spanish firm has given the 
CIA years of footage of Assange's visitors

 From El Pais:
> Undercover Global S. L., the Spanish defense and private security
> company that was charged with protecting the Ecuadorian embassy in
> London during the long stay there of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange,
> spied on the cyberactivist for the US intelligence service. That’s
> according to statements and documents to which EL PAÍS have had access.
> David Morales, the owner of the company, supposedly handed over audio
> and video to the CIA of the meetings Assange held with his lawyers and
> collaborators. Morales is being investigated for this activity by
> Spain’s High Court, the Audiencia Nacional.
> 
> The judicial investigation into the director of UC Global S. L. and the
> activities of his company were ordered by a judge named José de la Mata,
> and they began weeks after EL PAÍS published videos, audios and reports
> that show how the company spied on the meetings that the cyberactivist
> held in the embassy.
> 
> The secret probe is the consequence of a criminal complaint filed by
> Assange himself, in which he accuses Morales and the company of the
> alleged offenses involving violations of his privacy and the secrecy of
> his client-attorney privileges, as well as misappropriation, bribery and
> money laundering. The director of UC Global S. L. has not responded to
> calls from this newspaper in order to confirm his version of events.
> 
> Morales, a former member of the military who is on leave of absence,
> stated both verbally and in writing to a number of his employees that,
> despite having been hired by the government of then-Ecuadorian President
> Rafael Correa, he also worked “for the Americans,” to whom he allegedly
> sent documents, videos and audios of the meetings that the Australian
> activist held in the embassy. “We are playing in another league. This is
> the first division,” he told his closest colleagues after attending a
> security fair in the US city of Las Vegas in 2015 where he supposedly
> made his first American contacts.
> 
> Despite the fact that the Spanish firm – which is headquartered in the
> southern city of Jerez de la Frontera – was hired by Senain, the
> Ecuadorian intelligence services, Morales called on his employees
> several times to keep his relationship with the US intelligence services
> a secret.
> 
> The owner of UC Global S. L. ordered a meeting between the head of the
> Ecuadorian secret service, Rommy Vallejo, and Assange to be spied on, at
> a time when they were planning the exit of Assange from the Ecuadorian
> embassy using a diplomatic passport in order to take him to another
> country. This initiative was eventually rejected by Assange on the basis
> that he considered it to be “a defeat,” that would fuel conspiracy
> theories, according to sources close to the company consulted by this
> newspaper.
> 
> The meeting took place on December 21, 2017 in the meeting room of the
> diplomatic building and was recorded both on video and audio by cameras
> installed by Morales’ employees. A small number of people, among whom
> were the Australian’s lawyers, were aware of the plan. Hours after the
> meeting, the US ambassador informed the Ecuadorian authorities about the
> plan, and the next day, December 22, the US put out an international
> arrest warrant for Assange.
> 
> “It is absurd to spy on who has hired you if you are not going to hand 
> that material over to another country,” said a source close to UC
> Global S. L. This newspaper has had access to the video and the audio of
> the aforementioned meeting.
> 
> After the installation of new video cameras at the beginning of
> December 2017, Morales requested that his technicians install an
> external streaming access point in the same area so that all of the
> recordings could be accessed instantly by the United States. To do this,
> he requested three channels for access: “one for Ecuador, another for
> us and another for X,” according to mails sent at the time to his 
> colleagues. When one of the technicians asked to contact “the
> Americans” to explain the way that they should access some of the spying
> systems installed in the embassy, Morales would always be evasive with
> his answers.
> 
> Morales ordered his workers to install microphones in the embassy’s fire
> extinguishers and also in the women’s bathroom, where Assange’s lawyers,
> including the Spaniard Aitor Martínez and his closest collaborators,
> would meet for fear of being spied on. The cyberactivist’s meetings with
> his lawyers, Melynda Taylor, Jennifer Robinson and Baltasar Garzón, were
> also monitored.
> 
> The UC Global S. L. team was also ordered by its boss to install
> stickers that prevented the windows of the rooms that the WikiLeaks
> founder used from vibrating, allegedly to make it easier for the CIA to
> record conversations with their laser microphones. They also took a used
> diaper that from a baby that was on occasions taken to visit the
> activist in order to determine if the child was his by a close
> collaborator.

jbn: This footage includes Assange meeting with his attorneys. As George 
Galloway put it on RT (link above), "[This] is a breach of the law on 
multiple levels and surely prejudices any chance of a fair trial for Julian 
Assange back in the United States, something which should be weighed 
heavily by the British court now considering the extradition request.". 
Galloway was a frequent Assange guest in the Ecuadorian embassy.

On a lesser point, this footage also includes people on the toilet (a point 
being used to advertise the story -- see Pamela Anderson on the toilet). I 
figure the main takeaway from that is if the US or allies try to use this 
to somehow embarrass her it's not embarrassing in the least (remember the 
children's book "Everybody Poops"?) and it's a point of pride to have 
visited Assange and been his friend in his time of need. Anderson has 
spoken excellently on Assange, WikiLeaks, and why he's being imprisoned and 
really given us reason to reconsider the image Hollywood would have us 
believe -- that she's nothing but a good-looking woman running along the 
beach in Baywatch. She's quite the opposite of the celebrities I mention 
below by using her celebrity to speak on behalf of an excellent cause.

Galloway talks a bit about how Assange came to be ejected from the 
Ecuadorian embassy and the connection between when Assange was ejected and 
the recent IMF loan Ecuador got:

> George Galloway: The timing is obvious: they [Ecuador] wouldn't have got
> the loan if they hadn't played ball with the United States on that
> occasion. But the terms of the IMF loan were the savage brutalization of
> the conditions of life of the people of Ecuador. That was the quid pro
> quo -- we'll lend you all this money but you'll have to dispense with
> all this nonsense of public services, and decent wages for public
> service employees, and all this pandering to the ethnic majority in
> Ecuador. You'll have to cut all that out. [Lenin] Moreno played ball,
> cut it out, and now your watching the results: the people want the fall
> of the regime and I confidently expect that the regime will fall, and
> I've got to tell you that will be one of the sweetest moments of my
> life.




Haiti Revolution: Orinoco Tribune: "Haiti on Brink of Revolution to 
Overthrow US-Backed Regime"

https://orinocotribune.com/haiti-on-brink-of-revolution-to-overthrow-us-backed-regime 
--

> Revolutionaries destroyed police headquarters, attacked residences of 
> government officials, and burned a jail and courts to the ground in 
> different parts of Haiti on Friday.
> 
> Insurgents are fighting to overthrow the corrupt right-wing regime of 
> Jovenel Moise, who is backed by the US. Four people died in clashes in 
> recent days, with many reports of injuries.
> 
> In June, judges of Haiti’s High Court of Auditors said in a report that 
> Moise was at the center of an “embezzlement scheme” that had siphoned 
> off Venezuelan aid money intended for road repairs, laying out a litany 
> of examples of corruption and mismanagement.
> 
> The aid money came through Venezuela’s PetroCaribe program, which had 
> allowed Haiti to buy petroleum products at discount and on credit.
> 
> However, the program has now been suspended for more than a year
> because of the interests of US imperialism, which backs the Haitian
> regime and has supported coup attempts to install a right-wing regime
> in Venezuela.
> 
> The suspension has meant that Haiti’s long-suffering people have been 
> faced with an extra burden: an ever-worsening fuel shortage that has 
> resulted in closed service stations, rising prices and long lines to
> buy petrol.
> 
> In the wealthy suburb Petion Ville, entire blocks were set ablaze.
> 
> Protesters successfully drove the police out of Cité Soleil, 
> Port-au-Prince’s poorest neighborhood. Revolutionaries completely 
> destroyed the UDMO/police headquarters. Heavily armed units of police 
> abandoned it after hours of attacks by residents with molotov cocktails 
> and showers of rocks.
> 
> The UDMO (Departmental Unit for the Maintenance of Order), who have 
> murdered many Haitian people to protect the corrupt Moise regime in 
> power, have been trained by the US state in Austin, Texas where an 
> “Executive Leadership” training course was set up for Haitian security 
> forces.





Sanctions are war: But they don't call it the "permanent government" for 
nothing.

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2019/10/04/why-i-confronted-trumps-architect-us-sanctions-against-iran-and-called-her-weapon 
-- Jodie Evans of CODEPINK, describes her protest of Sigal Mandelker's work 
on the US's anti-Iran sanctions. As we know, sanctions are a very effective 
form of war that kill thousands.

> Last week I exposed the architect of the U.S.’s deadly ‘maximum
> pressure’ sanctions policy, Sigal Mandelker, in front of the United
> Against a Nuclear Iran conference in New York City.
> 
> The maximum pressure sanctions policy is responsible for the death of
> over 40,000 people. Mandelker said, twice in her speech, that Iran has
> weapons of mass destruction. She was knowingly dog-whistling, lying to
> the media and conference attendees, knowing this would feed the story
> Trump and Pompeo want to support war with Iran.
> 
> Iran doesn’t have weapons of mass destruction. The Trump administration
> knows they don’t have weapons of mass destruction.
> 
> Iran doesn’t have weapons of mass destruction. The Trump administration
> knows they don’t have weapons of mass destruction. We all know they are
> 10 years away from having WMDs.
> 
> So, I got up, holding a CODEPINK banner that says “Peace with Iran,” and
> disrupted her speech, walking to the podium and holding it for everyone
> to see.
> 
> “You are lying,” I said to her, and so attendees could hear. “There are
> no weapons of mass destruction in Iran. You are a weapon of mass
> destruction to the humanity of Iran. You are a weapon of mass
> destruction to the people of Iran, Cuba and Venezuela. You have killed
> people. You have denied sick people medicine.”
> 
> I was brutally stopped and carried out of the room.
> 
> But this moment was an impetus:
> 
> Mandelker is the Trump administration’s top sanctions official and the
> undersecretary at the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial
> Intelligence.
> 
> And she resigned this week from her position. Did she not want her lies
> and violence exposed?
> 
> Mandelker is one of the most hawkish members of the administration when
> it comes to Iran, directly responsible for expanding the use of
> sanctions as a primary tool of foreign policy against countries such as
> Iran as well as Venezuela, Cuba and Russia. Throughout her career, she
> has been in close step with the Israeli lobby, speaking at events hosted
> by the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and AIPAC and supporting
> their agenda to falsely frame Iran as a nuclear threat and sanction the
> nation into an economic crisis. Mandelker is a former clerk for Clarence
> Thomas, a current member of the conservative Federalist Society, and is
> one of the lawyers involved in brokering the Florida deal that allowed
> child sex-trafficker Jeffrey Epstein to avoid federal charges.

[...]

> While John Bolton and Mike Pompeo have been considered the main drivers
> of Trump’s maximum pressure campaign against Iran, Mandelker has been
> the person behind the scenes actually executing the policy, and has
> spoken of the “success” of the policy, though her definition of success
> seems to be destroying Iran’s economy through collective punishment.
> Since its founding and especially under Mandelker, the Treasury is
> responsible for its innovative ways to expand sanctions as a form of
> diplomatic isolation, going so far as to threaten fines and arrest to
> those who associate with sanctioned actors without any stated
> jurisdiction to do so in the regulations. The Office of Terrorism and
> Financial Intelligence itself was created due to the lobbying of AIPAC
> in 2004, and AIPAC also vetted the first person to fill the role
> Mandelker recently held, the ultra-Zionist Stuart Levey, cementing its
> very existence to the interests of the Israeli lobby. Under Mandelker,
> the administration went forward with the unprecedented move to designate
> the Iran Revolutionary Guard Corps as terrorists and leveled sanctions
> against institutions that collaborate with the U.S., including
> sanctioning the Jammal Trust Bank in Lebanon this year despite the fact
> that the bank partnered with USAID the year before on public initiatives
> to help impoverished communities.
> 
> Mandelker has made it explicitly clear that her hawkish Iran policy is
> acting on behalf of Israeli interests, claiming that the JCPOA did
> nothing to curb Iran’s threat to Israel. She has gone so far as to state
> that this is the reason “why we have this massive sanctions regime.
> Because we know Iran is threatening our great partner, Israel” at the
> Aspen Security Forum this year. She has been referred to as “Israeli
> born” and a “former Israeli” by right-wing Israeli press, but the
> Treasury Department has refused to answer inquiries as to whether or not
> Mandelker is still an Israeli citizen, an important piece of information
> when U.S. attacks in the region are often the result of Israeli
> partisans’ interests.
> 
> Her resignation is a victory for humanity. May it be the first of many
> of the warmongers; and then there were none.

jbn: While I am grateful for the protestations of murderous US policy I 
don't think that the resignations are that clearly a "victory for humanity" 
because a systemic analysis says that individuals are replaced with 
like-minded others to continue the same policy.




Exploitation economy: Turns out the 'gig' economy is not good for workers 
-- "Foodora" is a food delivery service in Toronto. Foodora couriers in 
Toronto are facing the same unstable, irregular conditions as other gig 
economy workers. They're organizing a union to fight back. We see the same 
tactic -- they're not employees, they're independent contractors -- used to 
deny the workers a union.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-1a6tJeQsQ -- The Real News video
https://therealnews.com/stories/toronto-couriers-unionize-gig-economy -- As 
of 2019-10-06 there's no transcript there but perhaps there will be later.

https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2019/09/10/future-of-gig-economy-workers-at-stake-in-foodora-couriers-unionization-battle.html

> In a potentially precedent-setting battle for the future of gig economy
> workers, Foodora couriers hoping to become the first app-based workforce
> in the country to join a union have had their first hearing at Ontario’s
> Labour Relations Board.
> 
> At issue is whether couriers are independent contractors with no right
> to unionize, as Foodora contends, or not.
> 
> The Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) says couriers for the food
> delivery company are dependent contractors who are economically reliant
> on the app, which under Ontario law gives them the ability to unionize.
> 
> The hearing Tuesday follows a union certification vote at Foodora in
> August, whose results were sealed until outstanding legal issues at the
> board are dealt with.
> 
> Lawyers representing Foodora told the board the company exerts “little
> to no control” over couriers’ work, making them independent contractors
> who cannot join a union.
> 
> In addition to the degree of control Foodora has over workers, couriers’
> level of economic dependence on Foodora will be a key debate in the
> proceedings — which could take months to unfold.

[...]

> Couriers for the company make a base rate of $4.50 per order, plus $1
> for each kilometre from the restaurant to the drop-off point. As first
> reported by the Star, workers launched a union drive in May arguing that
> many of their hours on the road go uncompensated and their health and
> safety protections are weak.
> 
> Ivan Ostos, who attended Tuesday’s hearing and has worked at the company
> for three years, said after he broke his arm on the job, he was asked by
> the company to complete his delivery and received “minimal” compensation
> for the four months he could not work. Foodora has maintained that
> “safety and superior customer service” are “tenets of our brand.”

jbn: Let's also remember that for all of the anti-union infrastructure and 
training Wal-Mart workers get in the US, German Wal-Mart workers were 
unionized when Wal-Mart started there and Wal-Mart couldn't break that up, 
so they worked with the union.






Economy: "Stockton Residents Who Received $500 a Month in Basic Income 
Experiment Spent Money on Food, Clothing and Bills"

https://ktla.com/2019/10/03/stockton-residents-who-received-500-a-month-in-basic-income-experiment-spent-money-on-food-clothing-and-bills/

jbn: The experiment (paying 100 Stockton, CA residents $500/month) started 
on Friday, February 15, 2019. It's not UBI because it's not universal -- 
not even all Stockton, CA residents were included in the experiment -- but 
it is still interesting to see how people spend the money. A related 
article published when the experiment began: 
https://ktla.com/2019/02/16/stockton-universal-basic-income/

> The first data from an experiment in a California city where needy
> people get $500 a month from the government shows they spend most of it
> on things such as food, clothing and utility bills.
> 
> The 18-month, privately funded program started in February and involves
> 125 people in Stockton. It is one of the few experiments testing the
> concept of “universal basic income,” an old idea getting new attention
> from Democrats seeking the 2020 presidential nomination.
> 
> Stockton Mayor Michael Tubbs has committed to publicly releasing data
> throughout the experiment to win over skeptics and, he hopes, convince
> state lawmakers to implement the program statewide.
> 
> “In this country we have an issue with associating people who are
> struggling economically and people of color with vices like drug use,
> alcohol use, gambling,” he said. “I thought it was important to
> illustrate folks aren’t using this money for things like that. They are
> using it for literal necessities.”
> 
> But critics say the experiment likely won’t provide useful information
> from a social science perspective given its limited size and duration.
> 
> Matt Zwolinski, director of the Center for Ethics, Economics and Public
> Policy at the University of San Diego, said people aren’t likely to
> change their behavior if they know the money they are getting will stop
> after a year and a half. That’s one reason why he says the experiment is
> “really more about story telling than it is about social science.”
> 
> Plus, he said previous studies have shown people don’t spend the money
> on frivolous things.
> 
> “What you get out of a program like this is some fairly compelling
> anecdotes from people,” he said. “That makes for good public relations
> if you are trying to drum up interest in a basic income program, but it
> doesn’t really tell you much about what a basic income program would do
> if implemented on a long-term and large-scale basis.”
> 
> The researchers overseeing the program, Stacia Martin-West at the
> University of Tennessee and Amy Castro Baker at the University of
> Pennsylvania, said their goal is not to see if people change their
> behavior, but to measure how the money impacts their physical and mental
> health. That data will be released later.
> 
> People in the program get $500 each month on a debit card, which helps
> researchers track their spending. But 40% of the money has been
> withdrawn as cash, making it harder for researchers to know how it was
> used. They fill in the gaps by asking people how they spent it.
> 
> Since February, when the program began, people receiving the money have
> on average spent nearly 40% of it on food. About 24% went to sales and
> merchandise, which include places like Walmart and discount dollar
> stores that also sell groceries. Just over 11% went to utility bills,
> while more than 9% went to auto repairs and fuel.
> 
> The rest of the money went to services, medical expenses, insurance,
> self-care and recreation, transportation, education and donations.
> 
> Of the participants, 43% are working full or part time while 2% are
> unemployed and not looking for work. Another 8% are retired, while 20%
> are disabled and 10% stay home to care for children or an aging parent.
> 
> “People are using the money in ways that give them dignity or that gives
> their kids dignity,” Castro-Baker said, noting participants have
> reported spending the money to send their children to prom, pay for
> dental work and buy birthday cakes.




Media: "WBAI Radio Station Abruptly Shuts Down"

https://patch.com/new-york/new-york-city/wbai-radio-station-abruptly-shuts-down

> NEW YORK — Financial woes forced the community radio station WBAI to
> abruptly shut down Monday morning after decades on the air in the latest
> loss to New York City's local news industry.
> 
> The Pacifica Foundation, WBAI's California-based nonprofit parent,
> announced the move to staffers in a letter and blamed the station's
> demise on "ongoing and continued projections of further financial
> losses."
> 
> "We realize this news will come as a deep and painful shock, but we can
> no longer jeopardize the survival of the entire network," Pacifica said
> in the message.
> 
> The foundation pledged to resurrect WBAI once it creates a "sustainable
> financial structure for the station." Listeners can hear programming
> from the foundation's Pacifica Across America network in the meantime,
> according to the note.
> 
> The news came as a shock to Jeff Simmons, a public relations executive
> and former journalist who was a volunteer host of two weekly WBAI
> shows.
> 
> Simmons said he had just listened to the Monday morning replay of his
> Sunday evening program a few hours before learning that WBAI's employees
> had been fired. The station had about half a dozen core staffers along
> with several paid and volunteer hosts, he said.



Censorship as goal: Chinese censorship makes an episode (S23E02 -- "Band in 
China") of 'South Park' harder to find online

https://reason.com/2019/10/07/china-south-park-ban-censorship/
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/south-park-banned-chinese-internet-critical-episode-1245783

jbn: I bring this to your attention not because I wish to promote 'South 
Park' in general or any particular episode of it, but because this is 
another example of how Chinese censorship is viewed as a goal by corporate 
power and governments around the world. The power to carry this out 
requires a kind of cooperation that is only feasible with allowing 
monopolies to form (which means fewer organizations to coordinate), and 
wielding control over those organizations (ala US/UK government control 
over Google, Facebook, and Twitter these days).

> South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone probably saw this coming,
> and to their credit, simply didn't care.
> 
> The most recent episode of South Park, "Band in China," has been
> generating loads of media attention for its sharp critique of the way
> Hollywood tends to shape its content to avoid offending Chinese
> government censors in any way whatsoever.
> 
> Now, those very same government censors, in the real world, have lashed
> back at South Park by deleting virtually every clip, episode and online
> discussion of the show from Chinese streaming services, social media and
> even fan pages.
> 
> A cursory perusal through China's highly regulated internet landscape
> shows the show conspicuously absent everywhere it recently had a
> presence. A search of the Twitter-like social media service Weibo turns
> up not a single mention of South Park among the billions of past posts.
> On streaming service Youku, owned by internet giant Alibaba, all links
> to clips, episodes and even full seasons of the show are now dead.
> 
> And on Baidu's Tieba, China's largest online discussion platform, the
> threads and subthreads related to South Park are nonfunctional. If users
> manually type in the URL for what was formerly the South Park thread, a
> message appears saying that, "According to the relevant law and
> regulation, this section is temporarily not open."
> 
> The draconian response is par for the course for China's authoritarian
> government, which has even been known to aggressively censor Winnie the
> Pooh because some local internet users had affectionately taken to
> comparing Chinese president Xi Jinping to the character.




Environment/Economy: "Capitalism Made This Mess, and This Mess Will Ruin 
Capitalism"

https://www.wired.com/story/capitalocene/ -- an interview with Jason Moore, 
environmental historian and sociologist at Binghamton University, [who] 
calls the problem something else: the Capitalocene [instead of the 
Anthropocene].

> You and I have the unfortunate honor of facing down a crisis the likes
> of which our species has never before seen. Rapid climate change of our
> own making is transforming every bit of ocean and land, imperiling
> organisms clear across the tree of life. It’s killing people by way of
> stronger storms and hotter heat waves and unchecked pollution.
> 
> We all can and should do our part—fly less if possible, buy local foods
> that haven’t been shipped thousands of miles, get solar panels and an
> electric car. But let’s not lose sight of the root cause of this crisis:
> rampant capitalism. Capitalism has steamrolled this planet and its
> organisms, gouging out mountains, overexploiting fish stocks, and
> burning fossil fuels to power the maniacal pursuit of growth and enrich
> a fraction of humanity. Since 1988, 100 corporations have been
> responsible for 70 percent of greenhouse gas emissions.

jbn: Certain sacrifices for consumers strike me as misidentifying the 
source of the problem and remind me of asking Californians to bathe less 
often ("Shorten your showers and avoid baths" and "Avoid flushing the 
toilet every time you go to the bathroom" says 
https://www.sbadventureco.com/blog/10-ways-to-save-water-in-this-california-drought/ 
) to save water instead of looking to agribusiness which uses orders of 
magnitude more water than any consumer can control.








Labor/class payment disparity: CBS says "The GM strike is really about the 
switch to electric cars" but one should wonder what lower CEO pay and 
post-bailout public ownership would have meant for the workers today. But 
corporate media won't ask about these things. Something similar regarding 
CEO pay is also happening at General Electric -- when workers are offered 
low pay, frozen pensions, and lump-sum payouts CEOs get millions in their 
pensions and "golden parachutes" to leave the organization.

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/guid/3870F370-E6CB-11E9-83E6-1366F1C3851C 
-- "GM CEO Mary Barra's compensation was $21.87 million in 2018, 281 times 
median GM worker"

CBS (Marketwatch.com) argues that "The GM strike is really about the switch 
to electric cars"; electric cars require less maintenance than combustion 
engine cars and can be built by fewer workers as well:

> UAW members’ anxieties and uncertainties are actually shared by GM and
> most other automakers, which know that it’s no longer a question of when
> internal combustion engine cars will be replaced by electric vehicles,
> but how quickly the changeover will take place.
> 
> The shift to electric means a fundamental transformation of what workers
> will do and how many are needed to do it.
> 
> Electric cars have far fewer parts, which means far fewer people are
> needed to put them together. When one analyst took apart a Chevrolet
> Bolt and Volkswagen Golf, he found that the Golf had 125 more moving
> parts than its electric counterpart. What’s more, the electric vehicles’
> parts are often easier to put in place using automated machines. The
> UAW’s own estimates that the move to electrification may cost 35,000
> members to lose their jobs may not be the most scientific study ever
> done, but it’s also probably not far off.

But according to the Free Press Auto Team 
(https://www.freep.com/story/money/cars/general-motors/2019/09/29/gm-strike-uaw-update-status/3788205002/) 
the strikers argue

> [...] that they made concessions a decade ago to help the companies
> through the recession — and GM to recover from bankruptcy — but they
> aren't adequately sharing in the billions in profits that have rolled in
> during recent years.

Who benefited from that bailout which put GM back into the hands of the 
management that bankrupted it?

> General Motors CEO Mary Barra took home slightly less in 2018 than the
> previous year, but remains one of the 20 highest-paid CEOs in America.
> 
> For 2018, Barra's total compensation was $21.87 million — about 281
> times as much as GM's median employee's compensation of $77,849,
> according to figures the company released Thursday. In 2017, Barra was
> compensated $21.96 million.
> 
> Barra's total compensation, which includes stock awards and pension
> payments, represents more than she actually saw in pay. She received a
> $2.1 million salary and $4.45 million from her nonequity incentive plan.
> She received a bonus of $811,684, down from $861,683 in 2017.

Relatedly, why did automakers make so many new cars? It's not at all clear 
that we needed more new cars.

According to 
http://www.epicdash.com/thousands-of-unsold-new-cars-are-being-abandoned-and-left-to-die-in-lots-this-is-insane/ 
"overproduction peaked in 2009, thousands of cars have been left in lots to 
waste away" and backs this claim up with pictures of large lots filled with 
new cars -- fleets of new cars -- sitting idle for years in towns around 
the world including: Port of Sheerness in Kent, England; off of Broening 
Highway in Baltimore (where 57,000+ cars sit); a location in Spain; another 
in St. Petersburg, Russia; Avonmouth, UK; Corby, UK; Port of Civitavecchia, 
Italy; Port of Valencia, Spain; and more showing this is a global problem.

This report makes an interesting point:

> At first I wondered why they weren’t simply put on sale, but the car
> industry won’t reduce their prices drastically for one simple reason:
> You can’t sell a car for $500 and expect someone to purchase a new one
> for $15,000.

So again we see a situation akin to paying for social services and domestic 
needs (national jobs program, purchasing our way out of homelessness, etc.) 
-- we have the money to spend on making sure people don't suffer. 
Nationally, we direct a lot of that money toward war. So why are we 
organizing the economy such that people who want a new car have to take out 
a loan to get one while surplus stockpiles sit idle? Why are we not instead 
organizing the economy to make sure everyone has a reasonably good life 
free from fears of becoming homeless, free to get a decent education, good 
food (no "food deserts" where nutritious food can't be found for miles and 
even then it's too expensive for the poor), and so on? Why do we choose to 
sustain poverty?

Related: 
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/10/07/workers-stuck-paying-ultimate-price-ge-freezes-pensions-20000-employees 
-- GE freezes pensions for 20,000 employees and offers 100,000 workers a 
lump sum payout to those who have not yet begun to take pension payments.

> The changes become effective January 1, 2021. At that point, affected
> workers will neither accrue additional benefits nor be able to
> contribute to the plan.
> 
> "Returning GE to a position of strength has required us to make several
> difficult decisions," said GE's chief human resources officer Kevin Cox,
> "and today's decision to freeze the pension is no exception."
> 
> The actions, as CNN Business reported, were made "to help clean up the
> company's beleaguered balance sheet." Yet, as progressive observer Miles
> Grant, they contrast greatly with the sweet deals the company gives its
> CEOs.

[...]

> The AARP has previously cautioned against lump sum options, warning they
> represent a bad financial move for individuals.
> 
> GE closed its pension to new entrants in 2012, adding to a trend of
> companies shifting away from traditional pensions. It's a shift
> progressive observers say bolsters the case for expanding Social
> Security.

Miles Grant wrote about how CEO pay also benefits disproportionately when 
workers suffer https://twitter.com/MilesGrant/status/1181225774281641985

> - GE gave its previous CEO a $10M golden parachute ([on] top of his
> $22M pension) despite losing >$100 billion in market value in his
> 14-month term
> 
> - GE hired a new CEO last year with a pay package worth up to $300 
> million https://t.co/DPWBG3ZTE9






Celebrity news: Millionaire comedians show whose side they're on -- Ellen 
DeGeneres continues her warm relationship with George W. Bush proving she's 
not just papering over his war crimes.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/10/07/ellen-degeneres-roasted-attending-football-game-absolute-fing-scum-george-w-bush

> Progressives looked on Sunday as popular television personality Ellen
> DeGeneres attended a football game with former President George W. Bush
> and surmised that President Donald Trump will be subject to the same
> kind of image rehabilitation after he leaves office.

jbn: I predicted as much when DeGeneres gave G.W. Bush a very warm welcome 
on her TV show in 2017. A frame from her war crime image-rehab show is 
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EGRw3BIWkAA6z8n.jpg

Recall some other corporate media advocates for softening G.W. Bush's image:

- Comic Joy Behar (one of the co-hosts of "The View") saying "I like George 
[W.] Bush now, is what I'm trying to say". 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yQd9O4MJTE has a clip of this.

- Comic Margaret Cho said something comparable telling Larry King on his RT 
show "I'm glad he [Trump] wasn't president during 9/11. You know, like? 
George W. Bush, actually you know, we...I miss him. Which I thought I'd 
never say. I was a really big critic of his but now you know I'm like he's 
kind of cute.". See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMooJf0FaJo for the 
recording.

- Comic Jimmy Kimmel joking about the "Mission Accomplished" banner in a 
light-hearted supportive manner instead of providing sharp critique of an 
ongoing war crime.

- Comic Rosie O'Donnell in 
https://twitter.com/Rosie/status/1180957320702021633 refers warmly to 
former President G.W. Bush:

> how comforting to see a real president - never thought his image would
> move me so #PresidentBUSH #USA #CountryOverParty #PatriotsUnite come on
> republicans - call bullshit on trump - save democracy #thisAINTnoMOVIE

It's not just comedians either:

- The Guardian called Bush's promo tour "a welcome return".

- Michelle Obama said George W. Bush is "my partner in crime" and "I love 
him to death" 
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2018/10/11/michelle-obama-george-w-bush-my-partner-crime/1603296002/

Black Agenda Report offers a much better view to put these and other image 
rehabilitation efforts in context:

    From 
https://www.blackagendareport.com/theory-101-state-personified-embrace-michelle-obama-and-george-w-bush

> Michelle Obama and George W. Bush provide a quintessential example of
> what ruling class unity in the governance of the imperialist state looks
> like. In response to the wall-to-wall media coverage that her hugs with
> George W. Bush received, the former First Lady told the corporate media
> that “I love him to death.” Michelle Obama’s love for Bush is proof that
> the state manages not only the class antagonisms of the system but also
> the contradictions within the ruling class. The state enforces the unity
> of ruling class interests; namely, profit, plunder, and the power
> necessary to obtain them. George W. Bush and Michelle Obama's sweet
> exchanges are thus much more than just a public relations stunt. They
> represent the dangerous forces that are unleashed when consensus
> between competing elements within the ruling class is achieved.

jbn: For anyone deluded enough to believe that these corporate 
representatives should be taken seriously on matters of ethics, consider 
Ellen DeGeneres' politics: in January 2017 she canceled an appearance on 
her TV show 'Ellen' by gospel singer Kim Burrell following a discovery that 
Burrell had given an anti-gay sermon which included Burrell claiming that a 
"perverted homosexual spirit, and the spirit of delusion and confusion, it 
has deceived many men and women". DeGeneres (famously a self-outed lesbian) 
offered a response which was short and to the point: "For those asking, Kim 
Burrell will not be appearing on my show." 
(https://twitter.com/TheEllenShow/status/816356807857684480). Bush's 
anti-gay choices included running for re-election on an anti-gay platform 
and calling for a Constitutional ban on gay marriage, something that would 
objectively adversely affect far more homosexuals than Burrell's sermon. 
But DeGeneres knows whose ass to kiss and this ugly history also wasn't 
subject to review on the 2017 'Ellen' show when she spoke with the former 
president.

Getting back to 2019, Ellen DeGeneres discussed attending a football game 
with former President G.W. Bush on her show 
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSZtjol7mJA starting at 2m20s):

> But during the game, they showed a shot of George
  and me laughing together.

> People were upset.
  They thought, why is a gay Hollywood liberal sitting next

> to a conservative Republican president?
  Didn't even notice I'm holding the
> brand new iPhone 11.

>  
> [LAUGHTER]

>  
> But a lot of people were mad, and they
  did what people do when they're mad--
> they tweet.
  But here's one tweet that I loved.
  This person says, "Ellen and
> George Bush together
  makes me have faith in America again."

>  
> [APPLAUSE]

>  
> Exactly.
  Here's the thing.
  I'm friends with George Bush.
  In fact, I'm friends
> with a lot of people who don't share
  the same beliefs that I have.
  We're all
> different, and I think that we've
  forgotten that that's OK that we're all
> different.
  For instance, I wish people wouldn't wear fur.
  I don't like it, but
> I'm friends with people who wear fur.
  And I'm friends with people who are
> furry, as a matter of fact.
  I have friends who should tweeze more.
  But just
> because I don't agree with someone on everything
  doesn't mean that I'm not
> going to be friends with them.
  When I say be kind to one another,
  I don't mean
> only the people that
  think the same way that you do.
  I mean be kind to
> everyone.
  Doesn't matter.

>  
> [APPLAUSE]

>  
> Even people who are already playing Christmas music.
  I mean, seriously, there's
> no excuse for that.
  But I'm kind to them.

DeGeneres consistently responded to misstatements never once fairly 
describing why people found her choices so objectionable. Her cognitive 
dissonance was palpable but this way she could claim that she didn't ignore 
the issue and simultaneously avoid getting into why people were 
disappointed in her or using her as an example of how class politics trumps 
identity politics (as she said, she's gay but as she doesn't talk about 
much, she's a multi-millionaire).

Jimmy Dore has a rather good response to this 
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGNebWt9_zI) which stays focused on the 
major issues here -- G.W. Bush, like every modern president since WWII, is 
a war criminal -- and includes quotes from a number of other responses:

Glenn Greenwald https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1181585597200310273
> "I’m friends with George W. Bush" - @TheEllenShow, explaining why she
> was sitting next to the torturer and war criminal, laughing it up at a
> football game, reflecting the prevailing liberal ethos.

Susan Sarandon quoted Nico Lang 
https://twitter.com/SusanSarandon/status/1181608640568025088
> “But missing the point entirely, DeGeneres framed the issue as simply a
> matter of her hanging out with someone with different opinions, not a
> man repeatedly accused of being a war criminal.”

The Nico Lang quote is from "Out" magazine 
(https://www.out.com/commentary/2019/10/08/ellen-friends-bush-he-was-no-friend-lgbtq-people) 
which raises some good points but still calls DeGeneres a "legend" in a 
seemingly complimentary sense which somewhat blunts what should be far more 
important points in the critique. No matter how funny or charming one finds 
DeGeneres' stand-up to be, a principled critique places top priority on 
killing over a million people, heading up a torture regime, lying the 
public into war, reducing our civil liberties, and costing us trillions 
which could have been spent saving lives, ending homelessness, putting 
people to work, laying potable water pipe, and so much more.

Ellen DeGeneres really is like the new Oprah: Oprah too knew whom to 
please. Recall that Oprah was a supporter of the US-led 2003 invasion and 
occupation of Iraq at a time when such support really counted (Oprah's show 
was also top-rated at the time). Oprah had an episode which famously 
included shutting down an audience member who dared to question the 
validity of the claim that Iraqis would somehow benefit from US military 
invasion and occupation without end. Skepticism was well justified then (as 
one could see from the millions of protestors on the streets of the world 
in coordinated protest actions) but not on Oprah's watch. Bill Moyers 
covered Oprah's Iraq war support based on a segment of Oprah's October 9, 
2002 episode where Oprah spoke with Judith Miller:

Bill Moyers episode title: "Buying the War"
Transcript: https://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/btw/transcript1.html
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W56Ezi3ZlzI
Excerpt of the following transcript: 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmevAN_FLnQ

> BILL MOYERS: EVEN OPRAH GOT IN ON THE ACT, FEATURING IN OCTOBER 2002
> NEW YORK TIMES REPORTER JUDITH MILLER.
> 
> JUDITH MILLER: (OPRAH 10/9/02) The US intelligence community believes 
> that Saddam Hussein has deadly stocks of anthrax, of botulinum toxin, 
> which is one of the most virulent poisons known to man.
> 
> BILL MOYERS: LIBERAL HAWK KENNETH POLLAK.
> 
> KENNETH POLLAK: And what we know for a fact from a number of defectors 
> who've come out of Iraq over the years is that Saddam Hussein is 
> absolutely determined to acquire nuclear weapons and is building them
> as fast as he can.
> 
> BILL MOYERS: AND THE RIGHT HAND MAN TO AHMED CHALABI.
> 
> OPRAH: And so do the Iraqi people want the American people to liberate 
> them?
> 
> QUANBAR: Absolutely. In 1991 the Iraqi people were....
> 
> WOMAN: I hope it doesn't offend you...
> 
> BILL MOYERS: WHEN ONE GUEST DARED TO EXPRESS DOUBT OPRAH WOULD HAVE
> NONE OF IT
> 
> WOMAN: I just don't know what to believe with the media and..
> 
> OPRAH: Oh, we're not trying to propaganda-- show you propaganda.
> ..We're just showing you what is.
> 
> WOMAN: I understand that, I understand that.
> 
> OPRAH: OK, but Ok. You have a right to your opinion.

And there's also 
https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/2600/1*1hDL3hsWqdNmZ3SynqmeYA.jpeg -- a 
picture of Oprah cozying up to G.W. Bush.





Class war: Billionaires complain about pointing out that the 99% don't like 
the 1%.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_hf599U1Fw -- RT report gets the timeline 
somewhat wrong in its recitation of quotes on this topic, not all were in 
response to Bernie Sanders, and the report fails to mention that Sanders' 
foreign policy poses no challenge to those made billionaires from war 
profiteering. But there does seem to be more sensitivity among current 
billionaires to being criticized for being billionaires and some of the 
quotes share a theme.

Stephen Schwarzman, CEO of Blackstone Group regarding the Obama 
administration increasing taxes on private-equity firms:
> It's a war. It's like when Hitler invaded Poland in 1939.
Ken Langone, founder of Home Depot:
> I hope [that populist political appeals are] not working. Because if you
> go back to 1933, with different words, this is what Hitler was saying in
> Germany. You don’t survive as a society if you encourage and thrive on
> envy or jealousy.

Tom Perkins, venture capitalist on paying higher taxes:
> Writing from the epicenter of progressive thought, San Francisco, I 
> would call attention to the parallels of fascist Nazi Germany to its
> war on the "one percent", namely its Jews, to the progressive war on
> the American one percent, namely the "rich." [...] This is a very
> dangerous drift in our American thinking. Kristallnacht was unthinkable
> in 1930; is its descendent “progressive” radicalism unthinkable now?




War/Imperialism: Another reason why liberals are fools to trust the CIA.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAfyTftDSMk -- It seems that recently the 
CIA has been getting a warm reception by liberals: trust that they'll help 
take Pres. Trump out of power, calling their spies "whistleblowers" when 
they're really just "spooks doing spook things" as Caitlin Johnstone 
rightly put it 
(https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2019/09/27/msm-defends-cias-whistleblower-ignores-actual-whistleblowers/). 
A brief history of how the US has been fomenting war and offering the Kurds 
a "Groundhog Day of American betrayal [...] for more than half a century" 
(as one RT host put it).

1950s-1960s: "The CIA pushed the Kurds to revolt against Baghdad as part of 
their efforts to overthrow their leader Abd al-Karim Qasim. Eventually he 
was toppled by a coup. But the new ruler wasn't a big fan of Kurdish 
independence, so he bombed them into submission; bombed with napalm kindly 
provided by the United States."

1970s: "The Kurds seem to have a short memory or a forgiving heart because 
in the '70s the US was back on their good side. Iraq and Iran were involved 
in a border dispute and Washington was covertly supplying the minority with 
weapons, once again pitching them against Baghdad. But then Iraq and Iran 
kissed and made up. And all of a sudden the Kurds were on their own being 
blown to pieces as their supposed transatlantic guardian angel was 
watching. Idly. Even the Americans admitted that keeping their involvement 
under wraps was simply no excuse.

> Pike Committee Report: This policy was not imparted to our clients
> [Kurds], who were encouraged to continue fighting... Even in the context
> of covert action, ours was a cynical enterprise.
and

> Henry Kissinger (former US Secretary of State 1973-1977): Covert action
> should not be confused with missionary work.
1980s: "In the late '80s, Saddam Hussein unleashed his chemical arsenal 
against the Kurds. An atrocity looking to draw the wrath of The World's 
Policeman. But it was still a long time before Saddam was to turn from 
friend to foe. American wrath didn't go further than statements like:"

> State Dept.: We want to maintain good political and economic relations
> with Iraq, but the issue of chemical weapons gets in the way of that.
2000s: "In 2003 it looked like the US was finally ready to make amends for 
its decades of forsaking the Kurds. Helping them was among the pretexts for 
invading Iraq. But then even in Washington many took such goals with a 
pinch of salt:"

 From a C-SPAN debate between Daniel Ellsberg and Bill Kristol:
> Daniel Ellsberg: The Kurds have every reason to believe, I think, that
> they will be betrayed again by the United States as so often in the
> past. In fact this spectacle of our inviting Turks into this war to
> bribe them into it could not have been reassuring to the Kurds. I've
> been under the Turks before.
> 
> Bill Kristol: I'm against betraying the Kurds. And surely your point
> isn't, yeah, because we've betrayed them in the past that we should
> betray them this time.
> 
> Daniel Ellsberg: Not that we should just that we will.
> 
> Bill Kristol: No, we will not.
"Uh, yes, they did. In 2007 the US let Turkey have its way with the Kurdish 
rebels in Iraq as Ankara launched a lethal bombing raid against them."

"This is nowhere near a full list. By 2019 America had left the Kurds for 
dead a few more times both in Iraq and Syria."

-J
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