Old Fucking Punk @lwriemen@librem.one

Why the House Democratic Caucus Was Able to Move So Rapidly Toward Impeachment

“We spent all summer getting the shit kicked out of us back home,” said one Democrat who received such treatment.

The post Why the House Democratic Caucus Was Able to Move So Rapidly Toward Impeachment appeared first on The Intercept.

Pelosi Just Launched an Impeachment Probe

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Tuesday announced plans to launch formal impeachment proceedings against President Donald Trump. In recent days, a growing number of Democrats have argued that Trump’s efforts to pressure Ukrainian leaders to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son could be grounds for removing the president from office. “This is […]

At this point, understanding computers isn't even about understanding the difference between GOTO and GOSUB or knowing what TCP/IP stands for - or even *is*. It's about understanding power. If you buy a laptop off Amazon, boot into Windows, log into Facebook, and check your Gmail, you're entering into exploitative power relationships where you - like the workers who made the laptop, sold you the laptop, delivered the laptop, the workers who manually moderate your Facebook feed, like the miners who dug up the copper and cobalt - are at the bottom.

Much like a job where you exchange your time and labor for capital, you are exchanging your personal relationships for convenience.

In order to get out from under this, you *do* need to educate yourself somewhat. You gotta know how certain things work. You don't have to become a programmer or hacker though. It's not the fucking Matrix. You just have to understand things enough to manipulate them and know where you stand.

The first Librem 5 smartphones are shipping https://puri.sm/posts/first-librem-5-smartphones-are-shipping/ “This is a big moment, not just for us as a company, but for everyone concerned about issues of privacy, security, and user freedom. The Librem 5 represents years of work, building the software and hardware required to make this phone a reality.” - Todd Weaver, founder and CEO of #Purism #Librem5 #Librem5Aspen #Linux #LinuxPhone #LinuxMobile #GNOME #FOSS

Hikers, Trump, and the Capitalist Conspiracy to Ruin Public Lands

An Interview with Christopher Ketcham about his book “This Land” and the threats to 450 million federal acres.

The post Hikers, Trump, and the Capitalist Conspiracy to Ruin Public Lands appeared first on The Intercept.

Model helps choose wind farm locations, predicts output

The wind is always blowing somewhere, but deciding where to locate a wind farm is a bit more complicated than holding up a wet finger. Now a team of researchers has a model that can locate the best place for the wind farm and even help with 24-hour predictions of energy output.

We Should Integrate Schools Based on Class, Not Race

Sean Reardon has some interesting new research on the black-white achievement gap in primary school today. It’s mostly contained in Table 5 of his report, which is a little hard to read, but here it is: Even after controlling for economic status, attendance at a school with a big racial attendance gap (i.e., heavily black) […]

Happy Trump Maybe Impeachment Day! Here Are the Latest Developments.

The calls to impeach President Donald Trump are growing louder after he admitted to discussing former Vice President and current presidential candidate Joe Biden on a phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. In the days leading up to the phone call, he withheld $391 million in military funds from the country, suggesting the possibility […]

Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez Call for Reversal of Puerto Rico Austerity Measures

Thirteen members of Congress signed a letter demanding that the Puerto Rico fiscal oversight board, known as “la junta,” disclose its conflicts of interest.

The post Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez Call for Reversal of Puerto Rico Austerity Measures appeared first on The Intercept.

Neurotoxin lead sometimes added to turmeric for brighter color

Some spice processors in Bangladesh use an industrial lead chromate pigment to imbue turmeric with a bright yellow color prized for curries and other traditional dishes, elevating blood lead levels in Bangladeshis.

The “Democratic” in DSA

As the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) met August 2 in Atlanta for its biennial convention, a number of the 1,056 delegates did so with trepidation. They feared the gathering could devolve into factionalism, splintering the organization that, in the last five years, has grown from 6,000 to 55,000-plus members across 150 chapters.

Chris Riddiough was among those worried, a socialist feminist from Washington, D.C., who has been a leading DSA figure since its founding in 1982. For the past two years, Riddiough served on the strife-riven 16-member National Political Committee, the group’s elected governing body.

“Going into the convention, there were aspects that were reminiscent of the whole mischegas with SDS,” Riddiough says, referring to the implosion of Students for a Democratic Society at its 1969 convention. “The Left has a long history of shooting itself in the foot. My concern was that we not repeat that history.”

A few shots were fired in Atlanta, but none likely to cause irreversible damage. “I came out more optimistic than when I went in,” Riddiough says.

Convention delegates affirmed that participation in electoral politics is worthwhile. By passing the “Class-Struggle Elections” resolution, DSA committed itself to using “elections, public offices and legislation as vehicles to encourage working-class organization, promote progressive legislation and build support for democratic socialist ideas.” The resolution included a caveat that says DSA’s ultimate goal is to break with the Democrats “and their capitalist donors,” and “form an independent working-class party,” rather than reform the party from within.

A new party? It’s socialist Dems who are already changing the nation’s political conversation. DSA members Rashida Tlaib (Mich.) and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.) were elected to the House as Democrats in 2018. And across the country, DSA members continue to be elected to state and local office, 29 of whom attended the convention. Most of these pols have run as Democrats (without “capitalist donors”) and won by turning out registered Democratic voters.

One such elected official at the convention was Ruth Buffalo, a North Dakota Democratic state representative and member of the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation who works as a public health professional in Fargo. In 2018, she ousted a Republican incumbent who had led a GOP effort to suppress the Native vote.

Another is Gabriel Acevero, a Maryland Democratic state representative and an Afro-Caribbean LGBTQ activist who organizes for the United Food and Commercial Workers Union (wonderfully, he swore his oath of office on a copy of James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time).

No DSA resolution will alter the fact that the majority of progressives in America, including the majority of people of color and union members, identify as Democrats. The “Class-Struggle Elections” resolution concedes as much, noting that DSA-endorsed candidates can, for tactical reasons, run on the Democratic Party line “for now,” which means that DSA is not breaking with its decades-long tradition of working within the Democratic Party.

That “for now” could be quite a long time—given that America’s first-past-the-post elections prevent the emergence of new parties.

The future of democratic socialism in America is bright. To wit, DSA resolved to become an organization of 100,000 members by 2021. For an organization that has grown by 800 percent in the last five years, it’s an ambitious but achievable goal. At its Atlanta convention, DSA demonstrated that, despite growing pains, it can accommodate disagreement, unite around common principles and not be torn asunder by sectarian posturing that has so often divided the Left.

How the U.S. Left Should Approach China

While Trump's trade war with China threatens to trigger a global recession, Trump is reacting by continuing his economic attacks as well as blaming supposed internal enemies, such as the “fake news media.” This emerging feedback loop between deepening nationalism and economic dysfunction is reminiscent of dynamics that led to World War II. 

To halt our descent into this abyss, and to defeat Trump, we must reject this false choice between Trump’s anti-China protectionism and the “free trade” status quo that preceded him. The way forward is not mutual attacks on each other’s economies. Instead, in solidarity with labor activists in China, we should demand U.S. politicians commit to ending the trade war and renewing trade negotiations centered on global standards for wages, working conditions and labor rights to improve living conditions and create jobs in the United States, China and beyond.

To get significant concessions from China, a progressive U.S. government must make proposals in our mutual interests. The United States could offer, for example, to collaborate with China’s Belt and Road Initiative, a massive program financing infrastructure around the world—on the conditions that it focus on clean energy and transportation infrastructure, with protections for workers and communities. Another possibility would be to cooperate in the reform of the World Trade Organization and other transnational institutions, correcting the biases that favor the business interests of wealthier countries over those of the Global South. 

But, progressives may ask, how could we seek deescalation and cooperation with a country engaged in human rights abuses? We must also address the China-backed crackdown on anti-government protesters in Hong Kong and the internment of more than 1 million Uighur Muslims in re-education labor camps. Protecting civil rights and political freedoms in Hong Kong is strategically necessary; labor organizations in Hong Kong, such as China Labour Bulletin and Students and Scholars Against Corporate Misbehaviour (SACOM), serve as a source of training and support for activists and progressives within mainland China, and also link mainland Chinese activists to international organizers. This link is essential to efforts to build grassroots solidarity and counter nationalism in both the U.S. and China.

One obstacle to this solidarity is that, in the West, concerns about Chinese rights abuses can easily be co-opted for racist right-wing politics. For example, at one Canadian university, after messages posted on a campus bulletin board in support of Hong Kong protesters were vandalized, a popular student Facebook group circulated a meme accusing mainland Chinese students of being spies.

For years, the most prominent Washington ally for Uighur and Hong Kong activists has been Republican Sen. Marco Rubio, a right-wing nationalist positioning himself as a top anti-China hawk. Rubio-backed legislation—some of which has won the support of progressive politicians, including Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders—is shaped by anti-China politics, threatening punishment against the Chinese government and China’s economy in the name of human rights. 

This “all sticks, no carrots” approach will not be effective. Just look to Trump’s trade war: While it’s damaged China’s economy, it has not convinced the Chinese government to concede to U.S. demands. Instead, offering new forms of cooperation around shared goals can increase our leverage to end human rights abuses.

This strategy will also address the root causes of the crackdowns, which get too little attention in Western discourse: the pressure on the Chinese government to maintain economic development and social control in the face of worsening economic conditions, which are only exacerbated by U.S. economic attacks. In cities across China, as in Hong Kong, there is growing discontent with inequality, overwork, the loss of upward mobility and a sense of powerlessness. The Chinese government manages this specter of social unrest through censorship and crack-downs on civil society, which is why China has been so un-compromising with Hong Kong protesters: Conceding to their demands could delegitimize the regime in mainland cities as well.

Meanwhile, the Uighur concentration camps—which the government justifies with Islamophobic “war on terror” rhetoric borrowed from the United States—serve the purpose of securing the territory of Xinjiang for the exploitation and transportation of natural resources, especially oil and gas. U.S. economic cooperation could be an opportunity to reduce this oppression.

This internationalist frame-work is not yet common sense among U.S. progressives. To make it so, we need greater political education within our movements. We must also organize within diaspora communities, of people with roots in both mainland China and Hong Kong, to pressure politicians around these issues. Meanwhile Uighurs and Muslim Americans of any origin can lead other progressives in understanding the need to combat the cultural genocide of Muslims in Xinjiang.

De-escalating U.S.-China tensions while simultaneously addressing human and labor rights abuses is the only path forward to secure global peace, a just global economy and a global response to the climate crisis. There are tensions between these goals, but only by confronting them can we develop a response that rises to meet the present crisis.

Boosting daily nut consumption linked to less weight gain and lower obesity risk

Increasing nut consumption by just half a serving (14 g or ½ oz) a day is linked to less weight gain and a lower risk of obesity, suggests a large, long term observational study.

A Bridge Too Far

Did you hear what Trump did this time? Right out in the open?

Legacy Kid

Joe Kennedy III is taking on Ed Markey in a primary.

Aw, We Can’t Stay Mad at You

We cant stay mad at these little rascals!

Hello fediverse!
We would like to introduce ourselves. We are working on a film about the effects of burnout on our movements, the reasons for it, as well as collective&individual strategies for preventing and/or dealing with it better.

Due to illness, the project has taken longer than planned but the film is nearing completion.

On our website you can learn more about the film. There are also interesting links around sustainable activism. When the film is finished we will post it there, as well as more in depth interviews.

The film will be in documentary format of around 1 hour. Please contact us if you would be interested to organise a screening in your community or want to support the project somehow.

Addressing these issues is key to building movements that grow from strength to strength, that have the stamina needed to be successful, and effect the change needed. Too often, people burn out and are forced to leave their movements, and with them goes their knowledge, their skills, and the relationships and networks they have formed.

Blog: https://radicalresilience.noblogs.org/

Love and Rage!

GOP Racial Gerrymandering Mastermind Participated in Redistricting in More States Than Previously Known, Files Reveal

Thomas Hofeller and GOP strategists experimented with using race as the primary factor in drawing districts in Alabama, Florida, and West Virginia.

The post GOP Racial Gerrymandering Mastermind Participated in Redistricting in More States Than Previously Known, Files Reveal appeared first on The Intercept.

When It Comes to Bereavement Leave, the U.S. Is Unspeakably Cruel

On March 19, 2018, Cindy Christensen took her husband, who had suddenly fallen ill, to the emergency room. Within one or two days, Christensen estimates, her husband was diagnosed with lymphoma. He was promptly transferred to a hospital that could provide more specialized treatment.