As usual, feel free to use comments to discuss topics unrelated to recent posts.
Recently, I’ve been reading a fair bit of fiction, generally a book a day, and for the last week and a bit it’s been the Brother Cadfael novels by Ellis Peters.
Cadfael’s a monk in southwestern England in the late 12th century. He was a crusader before he made his vows, and as the monastery’s herbalist and healer, he gets out and about a lot more than most monks. Somehow, in the tradition of non-police detective novels, he becomes involved in a murder during every novel. There is also always at least one romance, and often two.
These are definitely what is known in the trade as cozies. Some bad things may happen, but everything will be put to right by the end of the novels; indeed, not just right, but better. Sometimes the murderer, if their murder is one we can sympathize with, is even let go.
Despite being set mostly during a civil war complete with burnings of entire towns, there’s a sunlit feel to these books; Cadfael is a lovely man, his friends are good people we can admire and even feel affection for, and the books have no excessive nastiness. Although they take place in the Middle Ages, they have virtually no misogyny, misandry, or misanthropy.
The actual murder plots vary. Sometimes what’s going on is obvious, a few times I haven’t figured it out before the reveal. The writing isn’t stellar, but it’s better than the norm for these sorts of novels.
Something else I particularly like about these books is that Cadfael is a believer. He’s not a closet atheist or agnostic, he’s not a hypocrite who’s a monk who doesn’t believe. I find that in too many books about religious believers in the past, the author clearly is not a believer and projects that into the character in a rather modern and anachronistic way.
Most people did believe, and a monk who took orders as an adult who didn’t believe would be a sad fellow indeed. (This is irrespective of the fact that I don’t believe.)
At any rate, I’ve enjoyed them a great deal. They are, indeed, cozy, and a fine way to spend a few hours with fictional friends in a world where you know that even if the big events are bad, the events close to Cadfael will work out.
If that’s your cup of tea, or the medicine you’d like right now, highly recommended.
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We now have two cases of the US claiming that hackers have gone after US Coronavirus vaccine data — first the Russians, then the Chinese.
The Chinese hacking claim is packaged up with a slew of other allegations, mostly about hacking “intellectual property,” which is to say ideas. The US has spent much of the last 50 years making IP laws last longer and more strenuous. Ideas, which is what IP laws cover, are not diminished if more than one person uses them. They aren’t like lawnmowers. I can’t use my lawnmower while you are using it, but I can use my idea of the printing press while you are using my idea of the printing press.
When the United States was the rising power, it routinely violated IP law, primarily British and German IP law. Now that it is the falling power, it seeks to extract as much as it can from its IP.
Perhaps the problem is that IP law isn’t old enough? If the Chinese could charge everyone using gunpowder and printing presses, a lot of nonsense might get sorted out quickly.
But fundamentally, this is a matter of power: An old power wanting to extract fees and rent from a new power. There is no great moral argument here, because, no, it isn’t about artists and authors or inventors, this is about big companies and big countries and the way IP law is set up clearly strangles innovation rather than encouraging it.
The idea of Covid-19 vaccine hacking is particularly ludicrous and insane. Any vaccine for an epidemic must belong to all of humanity. There is no public interest case of any significance in silo-ing vaccine data. Perhaps some US companies want to “win” the vaccine race and then charge as much as possible for a vaccine.
That’s monstrous and stupid on public welfare terms. Vaccines need to be had by virtually everyone, and thus need to be cheap and easily available.
Every country’s hackers should hack all vaccine info if the idea is that some country or company can own vaccine info and profit from it.
The larger truth is simple: The US has draconian IP laws which it has used its muscle to force other countries to take on, generally against their interests. Some of those countries do hack IP. This is to be expected. Making a huge deal out of it is a move in great power politics, where important forces in the US (with the UK now joining) want to divide the world into two power blocs and have a new cold war.
But even if in a 1950s style cold war of “Freedom” vs. “Equality,” there is no argument from principle for not sharing a vaccine or vaccine data.
Imagine the horror of everyone being vaccinated.
What a tragedy.
It’s all very silly, as we know that the people who will pay the most for any vaccine, if any country chooses to gouge, will be Americans.
Americans don’t need to worry about China or Russia. They need to worry about their own politicians and corporate leaders.
Those are the people primarily responsible for killing and impoverishing Americans.
Anyone who thinks otherwise is either part of the killing for money, or a fool.
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by Tony Wikrent
Neoliberalism requires a police state
“Federal Law Enforcement Use Unmarked Vehicles To Grab Protesters Off Portland Streets”
[Oregon Public Broadcasting, via Naked Capitalism 7-18-20]
“Federal law enforcement officers have been using unmarked vehicles to drive around downtown Portland and detain protesters since at least July 14. Personal accounts and multiple videos posted online show the officers driving up to people, detaining individuals with no explanation of why they are being arrested, and driving off. The tactic appears to be another escalation in federal force deployed on Portland city streets, as federal officials and President Donald Trump have said they plan to “quell” nightly protests outside the federal courthouse and Multnomah County Justice Center that have lasted for more than six weeks. Federal Officers Shoot Portland Protester In Head With ‘Less Lethal’ Munitions Federal officers have charged at least 13 people with crimes related to the protests so far, while others have been arrested and released, including Pettibone. They also left one demonstrator hospitalized with skull fractures after shooting him in the face with so-called “less lethal” munitions July 11. Officers from the U.S. Marshals Special Operations Group and Customs and Border Protection’s BORTAC, have been sent to Portland to protect federal property during the recent protests against racism and police brutality. But interviews conducted by OPB show officers are also detaining people on Portland streets who aren’t near federal property, nor is it clear that all of the people being arrested have engaged in criminal activity. Demonstrators like O’Shea and Pettibone said they think they were targeted by federal officers for simply wearing black clothing in the area of the demonstration.”
The Border Patrol Was Responsible for an Arrest in Portland
[TheNation, via Naked Capitalism 7-17-20]
A memo consisting of internal talking points for the federal agency responsible for the arrest, Customs and Border Protection (CBP), and obtained exclusively by The Nation provides some answers—and raises even more questions.
Dated July 1, the memo is titled “Public Affairs Guidance: CBP Support to Protect Federal Facilities and Property” and marked “For Official Use Only.” It describes a special task force created by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in response to President Trump’s Executive Order on Protecting American Monuments, Memorials, and Statues and Combating Recent Criminal Violence. That task force, the Protecting American Communities Task Force (PACT), has been tasked not only to assess civil unrest but also to “surge” resources to protect against it.
The Portland arrest of Mark Pettibone, first reported by Oregon Public Broadcasting, followed several similar arrests involving officers from a Border Patrol Tactical Unit (BORTAC)—CBP’s equivalent of a SWAT team—as well as the US Marshals Special Operations Group. A CBP spokesman confirmed to The Nation that CBP agents were responsible for the arrest, pointing to authorities under the Protecting American Communities Task Force.
Federal agents arrest Portland protesters in unmarked cars, sparking intense backlash
[Washington Post, via Naked Capitalism 7-18-20]Mayor of Portland to Trump: Get your troops out of the city
As you my have heard, masked men without badges are jumping out of unmarked vans and grabbing people in Portland.
This is a clear violation of due process. They appear to choose their victims primarily by looking at videos of protests, identifying people, and grabbing them when they see them.
This is essentially a light version of what the US taught Latin American nations to do at the School of the Americas. It doesn’t yet, so far as I know, include torture and rape once the victims reach the sites where they are held, but if this is allowed to continue, that sort of thing is next on the menu.
The people doing it appear to Department of Homeland Security; primarily ICE–border control agents. They’ve always obviously been trained as brownshirts; that’s why they brutalize powerless people for a living, including children (something that happened under Obama, though it became worse under Trump). Brownshirts need to be dehumanized, and you dehumanize thugs by making them dehumanize other people.
If it isn’t clear, such seizures are a terror tactic, designed to break the will to resist. They are enjoyed by authoritarian followers; they feel that the people being brutalized deserve what happens to them, which includes beatings, arbitrary arrests, torture and rape (when those last two occur).
Americans have spent a lot of time teaching other people how to do this, and in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere, where the US acted as “advisors” have engaged in such behaviour themselves. It was inevitable that such tactics would be used against American citizens when/ if they ever became too uppity.
Biden, or whoever runs his administration, will not take steps to change this. He may not do it himself, but he will not move to disband the Department of Homeland Security, get rid of the indefinite detention act, or end the Patriot Act, and so on. Children will no longer be detained in cages alone, they will be detained in cages with their families. Americans will continue to encourage other countries to engage in these behaviours, will continue to occupy Afghanistan, and will continue to degrade their military and police class to ensure that they will hurt civilians on command, and get off on it.
A momentary “cease fire” in this behaviour, assuming one happens (remember, Obama assassinated American citizens, killing without due process), is not a push-back. The second a Republican, or even a Democrat, wants to do this again, it will be easy to do–the people, organizations, precedents, and laws will all be available.
I don’t consider this a massive step up from what’s already existed (beatings and executions of Americans by people with badges), but it is a step down the path to authoritarianism. Fascism, if you like–but the model isn’t 1930s Germany, it’s Pinochet and El Salvador, and so on.
This is who and what the US is. It is what Americans have inflicted on others, and it is coming home. The question is whether enough non-degraded, non-authoritarian Americans remain to resist it.
I hope I’m wrong, but my suspicion is the answer is “not enough.” Certainly your lords and masters generally approve of the direction the US is headed, though they may “regret” this sort of activity, somewhat.
Make your own evaluation, and act based on it.
And remember, in a nation like The US is becoming, who you trust is the most important decision you will ever make. Trust one wrong person, and rape and torture will happen to you or those you care about.
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Feel free to use comments to discuss topics unrelated to recent posts.
… or a full fascist turn.
Jared Diamond wrote a long book on why societies collapse.
Let me summarize his findings.
Societies collapse when elites are isolated from the consequences of their decisions as experienced by the rest of the population.
Here’s America:
New York's billionaire class saw their collective net worth grow by $77,300,000,000 since the start of the pandemic.
For context, the state's budget deficit for 2020 and 2021 is $13,300,000,000.
Tax the rich.
— Robert Reich (@RBReich) July 16, 2020
Imagine that. The numbers nationally are worse. There is NO reason for the people who run America to change their Covid-19 strategy. None. Less than zero; the strategy is working brilliantly for them. Your suffering and deaths make them richer. Understand this. Understand it.
So, what does that mean?
"NYC saw 2,780 deaths per million people. A similar scenario across the South and West would kill over 550,000 more Americans in just a few months, moving the country to 680k dead. It is unthinkable, and yet, 130k deaths…was once unthinkable, too.
— Chris Hayes (@chrislhayes) July 16, 2020
It doesn’t mean that the US is likely to have 550K more deaths. Why not? Because the number one rule for understanding the US in the age of neoliberal greed is this:
No matter how bad you think something is in the US, it’s worse, even if you take this rule into account.
So, 550K is now the “good case scenario.” The case against it is based only on “lot of the old people have already died, and we’re better at keeping people alive now than at the start.” It’s not based on numbers of infections, which are already past the initial peak and nowhere near the top.
Then there’s those 32 percent of people who couldn’t make their housing payments in July, 22 percent of small businesses going bankrupt, etc.
So, I’ve been pounding this issue but today, looking at all this, it became utterly clear that the perceived self-interest of American elites is now so completely detached from the rest of American society and everyone else that there is no recovery without a revolution, peaceful or otherwise (and a non-peaceful revolution could trigger the collapse all by itself, while peaceful revolution is… unlikely).
Nonetheless, ordinary Americans are being pushed to the wall: broke, homeless and hungry will become normal for some number of Americans in the tens of millions. The actual economy will contract, but the rich will be richer.
Complete and absolute disconnect. This was visible in 2008, when the rich were bailed out despite being bankrupt and not just allowed, but encouraged, to set up an assembly line to steal ordinary Americans’ houses.
This is not recoverable.
It is not sustainable.
The Age of America is nearly done. Empires do not die cleanly. Russians died like flies when the USSR collapsed, and Russians were in far better shape to handle collapse than Americans are because they had garden plots and housing that wasn’t going to be taken from them.
Biden will probably win this election. He will not stop this. He will delay it somewhat, while furthering the conditions that made it happen.
Once Biden’s done, another right-wing “populist” will win the election, because the center would rather elect a fascist than even a 50s-style left-winger.
That President is likely to either turn the US full fascist or cause its collapse, or both.
When US passports start working again after Covid burns through the country, get out if you can. If you can’t, prepare as best you are able.
The time to get out or start preparing was 2008/9. But if you leave it too late, your life is on the line, or much worse.
Do not discount this, please. The numbers are staggering, but worse, those numbers are seen as good by the people who run US society. They want the displacement, because it is an opportunity for them to increase their wealth and power.
They will wind up ruling over rubble, but you will live in the rubble.
Do not discount this if you are American.
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The United States is moving into a time of catastrophe. Thirty-two percent of people were unable to make either their rent or mortgage payments in July. Twenty-two percent of small businesses seem likely to go bankrupt. One-third of small independent farms are on the verge of bankruptcy. When these people lose their homes and wind up on the street, there will be tens of millions of homeless Americans, with widespread hunger.
All this and the pandemic is reaching new highs.
It is natural to feel powerless in times like these. Indeed it is natural to feel powerless in most times.
As I wrote on Monday, “being weak and only one person, to you the system feels like a force of nature or God, given, not a man-made construction.”
Compared to the system, as an individual, you are weak. There are a few exceptions, but I doubt any of my readers are in that .0001 percent bucket.
But that assumes you act directly against the system, to change it.
You can’t fight a hurricane, but you can prepare for it. You can build your house in ways that mean it will hardly be damaged. You can flee before it arrives, perhaps, or at least take shelter. You can store food, make friends, and be ready.
In the 1930s, many people in Germany tried to stop the Nazis from taking power. They failed. Some stuck around, they wound up in camps and dead (and it wasn’t just Jews, they killed left-wingers, their direct opponents, first). Others said, “Woah, we lost that fight,” and left.
Those people survived, and they have descendants.
Now, I am not telling you to leave the United States. Right now, only about 20 countries will even let Americans in. I’ve been telling you for years, over a decade, to get the fuck out if you could (I know many people can’t). You either did that, or didn’t, and it’s too late now–at least for this catastrophe cycle.
What I am saying, instead, is this:
You can’t always stop history, but you can always decide how you act and react to history, and to catastrophe.
Martial arts instructors, the good ones, tell their students that the best thing to do in a fight is often to run or de-escalate. Fights are risky, and if you can run faster than the other guy, you don’t get hurt. Now, of course, there are times when you have to fight, but the point is, sometimes you don’t, and sometimes fighting is really, really stupid.
This is not counsel to not do what you can to change large forces. By all means demonstrate, organize, vote, and so on. But recognize that as one person, while you must contribute, you cannot determine the end result. You can only do your part, hope others do their part, and that it is enough. If it isn’t, it isn’t on you, unless perhaps you are leading the movement or are very senior in it.
When it comes to opposing large historical events, you should not put your ego or happiness on the line. You are not the determining factor, and feeling as if you are is foolishness.
The key to feeling powerful in bad times is determining what you control, and doing that. Perhaps you can stock up food. Perhaps you can move. Perhaps you can make friends with your neighbours so there is mutual aid right next door. Perhaps you can start a garden. Perhaps you can stockpile food and other essentials. Perhaps you have enough resources to go partially or full off grid. Perhaps you can create a bug-out bag and practice the route you intend to use if you need to leave. Perhaps you can get a new job in another part of the country. Perhaps you and some friends can live together and be safer and stronger and better prepared together. Perhaps you can learn practical skills which will help when things go bad.
Perhaps you can come up with many actions, unique to your situation, which I will never think of.
When you concentrate on what you can do, and what you can control, instead of what you can’t control, you increase your odds of survival, prosperity, and happiness, and you cut away hard at the feeling of powerlessness.
The great forces of history are not yours to control, but if you understand them (or listen to those who do, and that may not be me, but others) then you can prepare. You can outwit them and prosper or at least survive well despite them.
In WWII, there were places which were untouched. During the Bubonic plagues, there were places that lost no one or very few people. There were people who looked at the circumstances and used them to not only prosper but to take care of others.
Look at your current situation and ask yourself, “What can I do to prepare?” Make a list. Do something on the list.
Measure yourself and your power against what you do that you can do, not in fighting history.
And remember, those who survive and prosper in a crisis are those who have power afterwards and can support a better world.
With rare exceptions (and they do exist), you don’t need to feel powerless, or be powerless.
Everything I write here is free, but rent isn’t, so if you value my writing, please DONATE or SUBSCRIBE.