Ian Welsh

The horizon is not so far as we can see, but as far as we can imagine

Author: Ian Welsh Page 152 of 437

The Squad and Kabuki Votes

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On June 1, 2021

33 Comments

Back on May 20th, a bill passed to increase funding for the Capitol police. The idea is that the events of January 6th mean they need more funding. They’re already VERY well-funded, and the failure was not due to lack of funding, but lack of preparation for a forseeable event (as it was announced and organized on social media), and failure to call in help. The capitol will become even more locked down, and access of ordinary citizens to it and to their representatives and senators will be more restricted.

This bill passed by ONE vote.

Whenever you see this, you should suspect absolute and complete bullshit.

The progressive defectors have all called to “defund” the police in the past: Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Jamaal Bowman (D-NY), and Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) voted present, while Reps. Cori Bush (D-MO), Ayanna Pressley (D-MA), and Ilhan Omar (D-MN) voted against the bill, which includes funds for the Capitol Police.

This is an arranged vote. House members who need to be seen to oppose the bill were given “walks.” Because they needed the Squad to note vote against it, three didn’t, and the three who wanted/needed to keep their cred were allowed to vote against.

I am thinking back, and I can’t remember a time that the Squad, when they had the margin of victory, has ever cast the deciding vote against a bill that Democratic House leadership wanted passed. It may be that they have, and that I missed it; I don’t follow legislative matters super-closely.

But this vote was Kabuki, and unfortunately (I really did want to believe) I’m coming around to the view that the Squad is now basically onside. At a guess, I’d say a combination of co-option and punishment/threats have made clear to them their position, as when AOC didn’t get the committee assignment she wanted.

This is a genuinely difficult problem. People who go to Congress and want to play spoiler — to actually use their power when they have a veto, have to be willing to withstand both gestures of kindness and real punishment, along with the genuine hatred of their colleagues. If you’re not a “team player,” if you don’t do what leadership wants, there are prices to be paid.

It appears that those prices are too high for the Squad. Again, I may be wrong, but this isn’t a conclusion I come to anything but reluctantly. Nor, of course, does it not mean they aren’t “better” in some ways than other members. But there appears to be a fundamental dishonesty here that is disturbing, and a lack of willingness to use power when they have it.

(The more people subscribe or donate the more I write and the happier I am. So please consider doing so if you like my writing.)

How We’re Making Sure Covid Goes Chronic

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On May 30, 2021

38 Comments

So, you may all recall, for much of the first eight months or so of the pandemic, people would natter on about how “viruses always become less deadly.” I never bought that.

You may have noticed that Covid variants are not less deadly, but more deadly.

I was wondering about this the other day, and got my answer, courtesy of a specialist in mass murder.

In a vacuum, sure, viruses evolve towards a situation where they reproduce more, which tends toward lower lethatlity and more chronic infection. What they want, like most lifeforms, is more offspring. But this isn’t a vacuum, they’re evolving against public health measures

The first big breakout variant, the UK strain, was specifically adapted against masks. It was much more contagious, so minor mask lapses were more easily exploited. It spread more evenly, relying less on super-spreader events, and was more infectious to children, who mask poorly.

The next big breakout was the South African strain, which was part of the family of Covid strains that contain a mutation colorfully labeled “Eek” which evades antibodies, especially from natural infection or weaker vaccines, because that was/is becoming a bigger impediment than masks.

Now that MRNA vaccines are becoming the tool of choice, if the virus is allowed to continue to circulate in a partially vaccinated western population, it is only a matter of time before that becomes the biggest impediment to Covid’s success, and viruses are selected for resistance to it.

I feel a little silly not realizing this myself, as it’s Natural Selection 101.

What this means is that half-assing a workable measure only allows the virus to adapt to defeat it. If you don’t mask/shutdown/quarantine/track-and-trace properly, if vaccines aren’t quickly spread to virtually everyone, Covid adapts.

By leaving large chunks of the population effectively un-protected, we have ensured Covid’s continued evolution into forms optimized against our half-assed measures. This means everyone has to be protected and quickly, and that includes people in other countries. Just protecting your own population is not enough — especially if you half-ass it and don’t insist on compliance.

This suggests a rather bleak future for us v.s. Covid: A chronic, but still fairly deadly, disease which also gives some people long-Covid, i.e., impairment long after the initial infection.

This will allow pharma to sell booster shots every year. Pfizer wants to sell them for $150 a shot. Small and medium businesses will continue to shut and large businesses will continue to expand their market share since they can use the internet and delivery to cut around retail distribution. Those retail businesses which pretty much have to remain will continue to put workers at risk, and the same will be true of production and distribution centers, where low-paid workers must come together in large groups.

Countries which wish to opt-out of this future will have to go to hard borders with mandatory quarantines (jail sentence for skippers; track-and-trace and quick shutdowns against any break-outs). Although the main transmission vector is airborne, such countries will probably want both robots to offload freight, and then temporarily isolate shipped goods (especially anything coming in by air.)

I do hope this is all wrong and that vaccines can get Covid under control by main force, but I fear my desire for a decent future is overcoming my analytical sense when I wish for such.

In some ways, Covid has been a perfect test of humanity, which most of the “West” has failed abysmally, and we’ll discuss that more in a future article.

(The more people subscribe or donate the more I write and the happier I am. So please consider doing so if you like my writing.)

Open Thread

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On May 29, 2021

16 Comments

Use the comments to discuss topics unrelated to recent posts.

How Finance Sharks Destroy Industries: Chicago Tribune Edition

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On May 27, 2021

19 Comments

This isn’t going to be a long one. The way today’s private-equity and other takeover artists work is simple: They buy up a company, and then load it up with debt to pay for having bought it. They generally take healthy companies (ToysRUs was running a profit), then once it’s taken over, they slash and cut. The business will often go bankrupt — if it doesn’t, it operates as a shadow of its former self; its products are worse, it has fewer employees, and so on.

This is now being done to the Chicago Tribune Newspaper.

I don’t think a lot of commentary is necessary. This should be illegal. You should not be able to stiff the company you bought with a huge loan to pay off the expenses you incurred buying it out (while you also pay yourself bonuses in the tens of millions).

Just make it illegal. It has destroyed innumerable companies, and the overall affect is to reduce employment and economic activity. It’s nothing but damage to the economy at this point. Private equity doesn’t take over badly-run companies and make them better now (if it ever did, which is questionable), it just damages or destroys companies so that the people who take them over can have a third super-yacht and a tenth vacation home, and in many cases, be invited to the island run by whoever has replaced Epstein.

These people literally act as parasites. Make what they do illegal, and find a way to take back their stolen wealth.

(The more people subscribe or donate the more I write and the happier I am. So please consider doing so if you like my writing.)

CDC Decides to Just Not Count All Covid Cases

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On May 25, 2021

64 Comments

If you’re vaccinated, you can still get Covid, but… (courtesy of my favorite Dalek.)

Now, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention has stopped investigating breakthrough infections among fully vaccinated people unless they become so sick that they are hospitalized or die.

Now, this may seem reasonable, but people with breakthrough Covid can give it to other people, and they can get Long Covid from it.

And, yeah, you can still die.

Earlier this year, the agency was monitoring all cases. Through the end of April, when some 101 million Americans had been vaccinated, the CDC had received 10,262 reports of breakthrough infections from 46 states and territories, a number that was very likely “a substantial undercount,” according to a CDC report issued on Tuesday….(my emphasis)

Some 995 people were known to have been hospitalized, and 160 had died, though not always because of Covid-19, the new study said. The median age of those who died was 82.

So, we’re not going to count cases unless they wind up in the hospital, but the people with Covid are still infectious and can still die (looks like about a 1.5 percent chance, based on the numbers above).

This, along with the decision to stop recommending masks for people who are fully vaccinated (which, yeah, people who don’t believe in vaccination will lie about) smacks of “the pandemic is all but over, nothing to see here.”

“If we don’t measure it, it doesn’t exist!”

Neither the CDC, nor the WHO have covered themselves in glory during this pandemic. In fact, they have burned credibility like it’s ten cent oil, and they want to set the world on fire. They said masks didn’t help, then they changed their minds. They resisted evidence that the virus was airborne vigorously, and as a result, didn’t emphasize proper ventilation. They were wrong about schools, where, yes, children and teachers do get infected and pass it on.

What should have be a disease we stomped into the ground is now likely to become chronic (also because of refusal to share vaccine manufacturing information), which will, it must be admitted, earn Pharma tens of billions of dollars every year, so I guess that’s a win. And who really needed old people, or people who are immune-compromised? Think of all the saved money on pensions and healthcare for people who are mostly worth more dead than alive to governments and corporations. (Especially since the kids of old people can spend their money. It doesn’t require mom or dad or grandpa or grandma to be alive.)

Back in the Bush era, a joke I liked was: “Stupid or evil?”

“Why not both?”

It sure is fun to be ruled by incompetent psychopaths.

Over in Britain, the government is now trying to deny that they started off with a herd immunity strategy: “Let almost everyone get it and who cares if grandma dies?” But anyone with a memory span of more than year remembers that they did.

Psychopaths. The rich get richer if Covid isn’t stopped. The richest people in the world have seen massive increases in their wealth and income because of Covid. Life is fucking marvelous and Covid has been a blessing.

Understand this in your bones. The people making decisions not only don’t care if you die, if you dying will make them richer or more powerful, they’ll go with the decision path that leads to you or your mum or your best friend dying or winding up homeless. You are nothing to them, you’re meat. A prey animal.

Welcome to late-stage capitalism.

(The more people subscribe or donate the more I write and the happier I am. So please consider doing so if you like my writing.)

Types of Enlightenment #1: World As Self

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On May 24, 2021

17 Comments

In the West, this is probably the most common definition of enlightenment: You experience yourself as everything in the world, including people. Among others, this is the traditional definition for Hermetic Mages, though they don’t call it enlightenment. It is also the most common definition of enlightenment in Hindu folk tradition (though full Hinduism has many.) If someone says “non-dual” this is what they’re talking about.

This type of enlightenment is based on the simple fact that we never experience the world directly, but only through symbols created by our consciousness. You don’t see a tree, you see a symbol of a tree. You don’t know your body as it actually is, but only feelings from the body and reflections. You never experience another person as they experience themselves (their consciousness), but only see their bodies and actions — though we may get some hints of their inner experience through the various mechanisms of empathy.

But even with empathy, what we experience is ourselves, trying to mimic another’s state.

Human consciousness, which is all we ever know, is hopelessly symbolic. It is nothing but symbols for a world we will never feel directly. You cannot directly experience anything that is not you.

In this style of enlightenment, what changes is that you no longer feel an inner or outer; everything is you and it is felt to be you. This often occurs in stages, we have a hard time feeling animals and especially humans as ourselves, and they are generally the last to be integrated.

Unlike some other forms of enlightenment, this one is entirely theoretical to me: I’ve never had even a glimpse of it. But those who have, describe it as immensely enjoyable and freeing.

It is also in some ways a more truthful way of seeing the world, including yourself. A world may or may not exist, but you live in your consciousness and, in this style of enlightenment, you know that you are consciousness. This is the style of mysticism where the mystic talks about being the sun, the moon, the reeds in the river, the wind on flesh, and so on.

Getting this sort of enlightenment, or a glimpse of it, usually requires specific types of meditation. You can find some of them in this series of guided meditations from Michael Taft (to teach you how to do them on your own).

I’ll continue this series with other definitions of enlightenment such as “the end of suffering” and the Indian Jiva Mukti, which is the breaking of conditioning and thus the enlightenment of freedom (it also breaks the bonds of karma/fate/wyrd and so on, which is a lot less esoteric than it sounds; karma needs to no mystical mumbo-jumbo to explain). Tune in next time for more.

(The more people subscribe or donate the more I write and the happier

Open Thread

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On May 22, 2021

44 Comments

Use the comments to discuss topics unrelated to recent posts. In particular, please do not discuss the Israel/Palestine issue here.

Protecting Diaspora Jews and Ending the Israeli Threat to Jews

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On May 20, 2021

33 Comments

Last week, I argued you couldn’t be Jewish (in any religious sense) and defend Israel’s actions.

The great Rabbi Hillell, challenged to teach the Torah while standing on one leg, said:

“What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow: this is the whole Torah; the rest is the explanation; go and learn.”

It should then be obvious that stealing people’s houses, beating them, destroying their orchards, and killing them is in complete opposition to the whole Torah.

Now everyone who isn’t a bald-faced liar or a fool knows that Israel uses its “Jewish” status as a shield. If you criticize Israeli crimes against humanity or war crimes, you are called an anti-semite. Lives are destroyed, routinely, by accusations of anti-semitism.

Meanwhile, we have actual anti-semitism caused by the reaction to Israel’s crimes. People get mad, and a very few attack Jews.

“Somebody in one of the cars driving by started throwing glass bottles or glass cups at the tables and they shattered everywhere,” she said. A bunch of the cars stopped, and maybe 30 of the men in the cars got out, started running towards the tables and asking indiscriminately, ‘Who’s Jewish?’”

No one was seriously hurt. Los Angeles police said they are investigating this as a hate crime, with five victims who were either punched or injured by broken glass.

Obviously this is horrible, though nothing near as bad as what is happening to Palestinians as I write. But it could be a precursor of far worse actions.

Anti-semitism is terrible. It shouldn’t be tolerated.

And Israel creates it on a vast scale by claiming to be a Jewish state, then committing atrocities, then using that they are Jewish as a shield from criticism or change.

In effect, Israel claims that its crimes are Jewish crimes. To criticize them is to criticize Jews.

This is bullshit. Israel is a settler apartheid state, but it’s not Jewish except somewhat ethnically, because what it does routinely; what it did to create itself (cleanse Palestinians at its birth, and steal their homes) is against the whole Torah.

Israel isn’t Jewish. They’re an evil state who has stolen the cloak of a great religion, which under Rabbinical guidance has largely been peaceful, and used abhorrence of the Holocaust and anti-semitism to allow them to steal and murder.

Stealing and murdering aren’t Jewish, they are what Judaism stands against.

The way forward is simple: Jews and non-Jews need to push back, at every chance, when Israel claims to be Jewish. It isn’t

When it is seen that it isn’t, this will both make Jews outside of Israel (and within Israel who oppose Israel’s crimes) safer, and make a one-state settlement which makes everyone in Israel-Palestine a citizen and equal before the law more likely.

If Israel isn’t Jewish, then it’s no big deal to have Palestinians be citizens.

Israel as a state that claims to be Jewish, and uses its supposed Judaism as a shield against criticism of its crimes, needs to end.

What will remain is a state that by treating everyone equally (do not do to your fellow what is hateful to you) will be more Jewish for proclaiming it less.

May God, in all his forms, bless those who seek equality and peace and cast his gaze upon Israel, who claim to be his children, and bring to them Justice with Mercy.

(The more people subscribe or donate the more I write and the happier

 

 

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