#and for another I basically get to have direct impact on public policy

[21st-century-minutiae]

Survey selection bias is a common problem in early twenty-first century demographic analysis. It is well understood and accounted for (as much as possible) by competent statisticians. Any good faith demographer will include a methodology section in their report that should help identify potential sources of bias, and savvy individuals will use this information to properly interpret the data. For example, low sample sizes, restricting surveys to students at a particular college (who might be answering the questions for class credit or money), or (as listed above) telephone surveys can lead to nuances in the results.

However, laymen might lack the knowledge to account for these nuances. This can be exacerbated when media reports on the results, but fails to include the methodology (this is actually a good judgement of media impartiality and accuracy: if they include the survey size when reporting or other methodology details, especially in graphics, that is a good sign. If they omit it, that is a bad sign). People also are very prone to report simple summaries, such as final percentages, without including methodology detail, which leads to the spread of misinformation.

One extremely famous example of methodology bias was in the 1948 US Presidential Election. Based on confident polling data, the Chicago Tribune printed a newspaper headline "Dewey Beats Truman" when, in fact, Truman had won. The polls were all flawed in methodology, often directly polling individuals on a street corner where they could find people instead of stochastically selecting individuals from the entire population. There is a famous picture of Truman holding up this particular newspaper headline in triumph. Many people in the early twenty-first century are aware of this picture, as it has had a substantial cultural impact.

Let's consider the sampling bias of a classic polling method: the telephone survey.

In many jurisdictions, robo-calling cell phone numbers is illegal, so right off the jump, our sample is limited to people with landlines.

Second, our survey's calling centre probably doesn't operate 24/7, and you can only answer a home landline when you're at home, so we're also selecting for people who tend to be at home during our calling centre's office hours.

Third, most people who have landlines probably also have answering services and caller ID, so we're additionally selecting for people who answer unknown numbers rather than letting them go to the machine.

Fourth, our recipient needs to be able to participate in the survey, so we're also selecting for people who speak the language(s) in which the survey is being administered.

Finally, after all this, most people will just hang up once they figure out they're being polled, so in sum, we're selecting for people who:

have landlines;

are usually at home during our calling centre's office hours;

customarily answer unknown numbers;

speak the language(s) in which the survey is administered; and

are actually interested in responding to surveys.

Any one of these factors is likely to introduce very serious bias into our results; all of them taken together are going to render our data practically meaningless for most purposes.

Now, understand that this still represents less selection bias than trying to do demographic surveys by reblogging Tumblr polls.

[a-god-in-ruins-rises]

☕️Voting is meaningless because your vote doesn't really matter.

generally disagree.

this argument usually from from the angle of rationality. it's not "rational" to vote. but i think voting can be very meaningful for a number of reasons, even if it's not exactly rational. i generally encourage people to vote and believe voting is a civic duty, but also if someone doesn't want to vote i don't really press the issue for reasons i'll get into.

first, just because something is irrational doesn't mean it's meaningless. on the contrary, a lot of the most meaningful parts of our lives are irrational. there are a lot of ways in which voting can be irrational but meaningful. there is the "expressive" view. the idea that voting is a chance for people to express themselves and affirming their identity, to themselves and others.

there's also the "mandate" theory. that a candidate who gets significantly more votes than his opponent will have a greater mandate to rule rather than someone who only barely won. it signals to lawmakers and other politicians that this candidate and whatever his policies are have broad popular support (and this works in the opposite direction too). this is a powerful message. and i'd take this a step further and say that if a new, more radical candidate gets a considerable number of votes but still loses (say 15 or 20%), there is an increased chance that in the next election the winning candidate will try to appeal to the people who voted for that candidate or in order to. so voting is essentially a measurable expression of a particular politician's "mandate" to rule.

sometimes people like to compare voting to a "meaningless ritual" like rain dancing. but it's hardly meaningless and so what if it's just a ritual? i've always said we need more ritual in our life. but like rain dancing, voting is an ancient, noble tradition that (if done right) fosters a sense of community and civic-mindedness and can be a spiritually fulfilling act. it symbolizes our dignity and freedom and kinship, for we are all equals and our vote -- our judgements and opinions -- are given equal weight. no one is above us.

another point, littering. do you litter? probably not. by why not? you're just one person. you littering isn't going to make a difference in the grand scheme of things. the impact of you littering in the world is negligible, basically 0. but you don't do it, because part of what makes "not littering" work is that everyone collectively agrees not to. it might make rational sense for a person to just throw his trash on the ground rather than expend the energy to walk 20 feet to the nearest trash can. but you don't, because you do what's right. you do your part to make the world a better place. to make it more like how you want it to be. and so does everyone else. and the world is better for it, than if everyone behaved "rationally". sometimes being irrational is, ultimately, the more rational choice.

same goes for voting. i believe voting is a civic duty. but even excluding that, voting gives you a say (though small, at least it's equal to all others) in how the world should be. and so if you believe in doing good and making the world better you should vote. not because your vote is going to make a difference on its own, but because it's the right thing to do. it's you doing your part, as a matter of principle, however irrational it might be.

and that's another thing. if not voting is the "rational" choice to make then you leave the voting in the hands of the irrational. so now you have the rational subject to the whims of the irrational and the irrational get to influence public policy. idk. it's starting to look like it's more beneficial to be irrational and being "rational" only lets you feel smugly superior.

there are also all the myriad intangible benefits that come from voting. there's the above mentioned "expressive" point (letting everyone know what type of person you are), feeling good about your choice (especially if your choice wins, but also just in participating), fun (maybe i'm weird or my town is weird but it's usually a pretty big community event and i enjoy it.), educating yourself and raising your awareness, the bandwagon effect (i know this from personal experience. in 2016 none of my family was going to vote until i said i was voting. then everyone voted and so did some of their friends. so my one vote actually resulted in probably another 15 or 20 votes.), etc.

also, you gotta play to win.

i will say though i think principled non-voting can be meaningful. and while i generally encourage people to vote as a matter of civic duty i don't really press people i disagree with too hard (never interrupt your enemy when he's making a mistake). because the fewer people that vote actually increases the weight of individual votes. this is a part of the reason why i'm not a fan of compulsory voting.

[blackswaneuroparedux]

Anonymous asked: Do the intellectual elites basically set the direction of how society thinks? Over the centuries, the general public has followed philosophical trends in the academic world so how do these beliefs and academic theories filter down into the mainstream? Is there anything we can do to stop it?

It may seem like in our current turbulent times that the elites do the thinking for the masses. And if one stands back to look at the flash points of intellectual history that indeed feels true. But equally one can stand back and ask critically if this is really so? 

Who are you actually talking about? Who are these intellectual elites? I dislike these generalisations because they are unhelpful. How does one define elite? Is it intellect? Is it cachet of social position? I think our so-called university elites - professors etc - are in their own existential crisis because of how commodified a university education is becoming. They are beholden to students as consumers. It’s a worrying trend.

Of course it didn’t use to be like that because then our intellectual elites had both recognised intellectual prowess and a social cachet. In other words they had power. I think the modern day academic is many ways a powerless and even pitiful figure at the mercy of university managers and money men.

Nor do I think one thinker dominates over others as they might have done in the past.

A case van be made that ideas today are democratised. Power resides wherever their is a vacuum. It doesn’t reside in the class room but on social media.

In our more recent times intellectual trends like post-modernism and now social critical theory have been seeping into the mainstream. Even Donald Trump has brought up critical race theory to the wider watching populace as a beating stick over the left.

But many ordinary people would be hard pressed to name the actual thinkers (outside of just lumping people together as an amorphous mass e.g. cultural marxists or far right conservatives). It’s more true to say that all ideas now fight in the market place of ideas as a product for people to consume blindly.

But why one idea takes off and another doesn’t is something I don’t have answer for. Or where is the point where ideas from top down meet reality from bottom up and create some kind of intellectual and social momentum? I don’t have time to get into that here.

Another thing is that like an MP4 download the compression size of the complexity gets eroded the more it is downloaded and passed around. In other words people start arguing over labels and top line arguments than actually grapple with the deeper and more complex ideas contained.

This isn’t to say there are no problems with such theories - e.g. critical race theory - because there are. For the record, I am hostile to such philosophies as a Tory as I am towards many lefty isms plaguing the modern university campus that find their way into the public square.

Rather than attack the messenger (ie people) one should critically examine the arguments from every side. This is true for any theory and wherever it comes from. We engage ideas not people.

I don’t want to sound like a broken record so let me play devil’s advocate and suggest an alternative if only to muse upon on it.

I was having a stimulating series of conversations with a professor of intellectual history and other academic historians and political scientists from prestigious French institutions at a friend’s dinner party not so long ago. Like any French dinner good conversation is expected along with good food and wine. Arguments are meant to be robust and even heated but never personal. Arguments are won as much by charm and wit as it is by intellect. It’s all very convival and civilised.

Anyway, we touched on many things from the sorry state French politics, Brexit, Trump, and Covid of course. The usual stuff I imagine. But because of who was around the table the discussion enjoyably explored much wider issues.

For me it’s always interesting to hear the premise from where people build their arguments. For the left secularist the Enlightenment becomes the cornerstone from which the lens of history is viewed and interpreted. For the conservative it’s anything before the 1789 Revolution. Both actually looked at change and the ideas therein as from top down. The ground up (or the view from below) was given short thrift.

I suggested an alternative premise more from a playful motivation than absolute empirical evidence - if only to liven things up a little as the conversation was becoming stale and even predictable.

Perhaps the direction of influence could also be seen the other way round? That is to say that philosophical theories formalise and develop ideas that are already in circulation in society and culture.

Did you get that? Let me explain.

Remember Hegel's beautiful and profound observation that 'the owl of Minerva spreads its wings only with the falling of the dusk. In the words what Hegel was saying was that philosophical theory comes afterwards, reflectively, when a development of ideas or institutions is complete and (he would add) in decline.

Plato's 'Republic', at least its political portion, was as the late Michael Oakeshott once put it, 'animated by the errors of Athenian democracy'. Any citizen could participate in politics and help determine policies and legislation without any knowledge of the relevant matters. Plato saw democracy as the politics of ignorance. If every other human inquiry or activity recognised expert knowledge - in his famous example, you wouldn't let just anyone, regardless of their lack of specialist skills, navigate a ship - why not politics, too ? Why should politics be special in not requiring knowledge of the proper ends and means of political action as a condition of participation. Think of this what you will, but the 'Republic' was rooted in its contemporary context and was a response to it.

Aristotle's 'Politics' is a theorisation of the Greek polis, which was already passing out of independent existence under the impact of Alexander the Great's conquests. Athens was a city-state, and a democracy (albeit a limited one). Even though Aristotle was not born in Athens his views were accepted until he was shunned after the death of Alexander.

Aquinas' 'Summa' was a response to the recovery of Aristotle's writings and to the ongoing beliefs and practice of the Catholic Church - as well, of course, to movements which he opposed in theology.

Hobbes' 'Leviathan' is clearly a recipe for avoiding the kind of political and social chaos caused by the French Wars of Religion and the English Civil Wars. They were in his rear-view mirror when he wrote his tome.

Hume's 'atomistic' view of the nature of experience as composed of distinct impressions and ideas drew on the model of Newtonian 'corpuscular' physics.

Kant's Critique of Pure Reason asks how knowledge is possible, with the glories of Newtonian physics in the background. His emphasis on the place of reason in ethics is fully in the spirit of the Enlightenment's celebration of reason.

John Stuart Mill's 'On Liberty' was a counter-blast to the pressure toward conformity which he thought he saw in the England of his day.

Logical Positivism was a response to the huge, brilliant developments in science - relativity and quantum theory - and took the form of scientism, the view that scientific knowledge is the only form of deep and accurate knowledge (of all real knowledge).

Marxism was a response to the embryonic birth of the modern capitalist system after the industrial revolution in Britain. Both Hegel and Marx formulated their theories by what they observed was happening with the birthing pains of modern industrial capital society. Cultural Marxism is a different beast entirely.

I could go on.

I am not suggesting, of course, that there was anything crude or mechanical in the way these philosophies emerged from their contexts. They all added independent thought of great subtlety. But their problems and the terms of their solutions were set by their times, at least as they understood them. It’s plausible but may not be completely true. But that’s part of the enjoyment of musing upon whimsical thoughts without the conceit of being certain.

Anyway something to think about.

Thanks for your question.

[edaworks]

This. Equal access to resources and social assistance programs is so important. And if you're U.S.-based and in need of support to combat poverty or inequality issues, or just want a fair shake at getting a freaking job, you've just been effectively abandoned by our federal government: many social assistance programs and/or safefuards against discrimination/unequal implementation of assistance will be defunded.

For instance - goddamnit, fine, I'll talk about it - the recent Executive Orders (EOs). The following EOs related to assistance programs and inequality/poverty issues were just rescinded by Trump:

(Summaries in part sourced from https://www.insidegovernmentcontracts.com/2025/01/president-trump-issues-numerous-executive-orders-with-potential-impacts-on-federal-contractors-and-grant-recipients/, with my own commentary in bold.)

EO 14096 (Revitalizing Our Nation’s Commitment to Environmental Justice for All), which directed agencies to ensure all programs or activities receiving Federal financial assistance “that potentially affect human health or the environment do not directly, or through contractual or other arrangements, use criteria, policies, practices, or methods of administration that discriminate on the basis of race, color, or national origin.” (Good luck ensuring that those in marginalized communities have any protection against federal agencies or contractors coming into their communities and subjecting them to toxic and harmful environments from industrial, military, or infrastructure activities from now on.)

EO 14052 (Implementation of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act), which established an Infrastructure Implementation Task Force to implement the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) (This was to include funding for and development of improved public transit programs. No longer. Good luck accessing any resources without even basic, half-functioning public transit.)

EO 14091 (Further Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government), which established a government-wide goal of 15 percent of federal procurement dollars awarded to small business concerns owned and controlled by socially and economically disadvantaged individuals in Fiscal Year 2025. (What was that? Yet another bullshit bootstraps argument? I thought so.)

EO 13985 (Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government), which directed agency heads to review and report on potential barriers to full and equal participation in agency procurement and contracting opportunities. (No oversight? No problem...I guess.)

And the following EOs negatively impacting these issues were just implemented by Trump:

Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government EO Defines sex as an “immutable biological classification.”  All federal agencies “shall enforce laws governing sex-based rights, protections, opportunities, and accommodations to protect men and women as biologically distinct sexes.”  Federal funds “shall not be used to promote gender ideology,” including pursuant to federal grants. (Say goodbye to any federal funding for social assistance programs that have as any part of their mission provision of assistance to, or even breathe in the direction of, trans- and queer-inclusive communities.)

Regulatory Freeze Pending Review EO Orders all executive departments and agencies to not propose or issue any rules until a department or agency head appointed or designated by the President after Noon on January 20, 2025 reviews and approves the rule. (Meaning not a single federal agency can do ANYTHING to implement ANY programs - social welfare programs or otherwise - or generally create administrative rules and federal regulations without being specifically endorsed by Trump - this just means literally nothing will get done. Thank SCOTUS - they paved the way for this bullshit by overturning Chevron.)

Ending Radical And Wasteful Government DEI Programs And Preferencing EO Orders Director of Office of Management and Budget (OMB), Attorney General (AG), and Director of Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to “coordinate the termination of all discriminatory programs, including ‘illegal DEI’ and ‘diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility’ (DEIA) mandates, policies, programs, preferences, and activities in the Federal Government, under whatever name they appear.”  OPM immediately issued a memo to all federal agencies to provide initial guidance regarding this portion of the EO.  This includes a directive that each agency terminate, to the maximum extent allowed by law, all “equity-related” grants or contracts and that each agency provide a list of “[f]ederal grantees who received Federal funding to provide or advance DEI, DEIA, or ‘environmental justice’ programs, services, or activities since January 20, 2021 to the Director of the OMB.” (Self explanatory. Good luck getting federal employment or contracts if you are part of a marginalized community once the hiring freeze is off.)

Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity EO Revokes several previous EOs, including EO 11246 (Equal Employment Opportunity), which prohibited contractors from discriminating in employment decisions on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, or national origin and required contractors to take affirmative action to ensure equal opportunity in all aspects of employment.  Requires agency heads to include two terms in every contract or grant award: (1) “requiring the contractual counterparty or grant recipient to agree that its compliance in all respects with all applicable Federal anti-discrimination laws is material to the government’s payment decisions for purposes of section 3729(b)(4) of title 31, United States Code;” and (2) “requiring such counterparty or recipient to certify that it does not operate any programs promoting DEI that violate any applicable Federal anti-discrimination laws.”  Further, directs OMB, with the assistance of the AG to “[t]erminate all ‘diversity, ‘equity,’ ‘equitable decision-making,’ ‘equitable deployment of financial and technical assistance,’ ‘advancing equity,’ and like mandates, requirements, programs, or activities, as appropriate.” (I CANNOT BEGIN TO STRESS what a huge problem rescindment of EEO is. THIS HAS BEEN IN PLACE SINCE THE 1960s AND WAS ONE OF THE PRIMARY GUARANTORS OF DISCRIMINATION CONTROL AT THE FEDERAL LEVEL.)

That's just a smattering. That's without even getting into the horribly discriminatory immigration/citizenship-related EOs or new legislation which will all but ensure immigrant communities are cut off from access to social assistance they might have otherwise received. Why? Because they will probably feel the need to avoid public places swimming in government officials where they might become visible targets. Why “targets,” you ask? Because now even allegations of certain criminal acts, paired with questioned immigration status, will require ICE to detain - no conviction needed. This is disgustingly rife with pitfalls. I won't go into more detail about the hows and whys because I think it unethical to publish what could effectively be a roadmap for exploitation.

"But if immigrants are here illegally-" No. This issue affects EVERYONE, no matter their status, and EVERYONE is a human and deserves access to these resources. Plus: your status can be 100% valid - you can even be a citizen - and you can still be stripped of status, arrested, detained, or deported due to administrative error or due to racial or ethnic profiling. Not convinced? The US Government Accountability Office confirmed that "ICE arrested 674, detained 121, and removed 70 potential U.S. citizens from fiscal year 2015 through the second quarter of fiscal year 2020 (March 2020)." That's right: We deported 70 people that ICE itself had cause to believe were citizens, and arrested and jailed hundreds more...for alleged immigration offenses. Whoops.

All it takes is bad luck, or to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and suddenly those who don't care about these issues now might find they care a hell of a lot.

[benevolentbirdgal]

worldbuilding asks --- my friend and I do this thing where we ask each other "multiples of" since I'm not sure what you've already answered or want to !! so do as many multiples of 4 or 11 as you would like!!

Thank you for asking! So I have two stories in progress/writing/worldbuilding land writing now, a sci-fi space dramedy that’s aimed at adults and a a modern-take-on-Jewish folklore (like YA fantasy novel set in the modern-day but make it Jewish). The latter takes place in United States, so I’ll tell you about the former. 

I also don’t know how much detail is too much detail, so here we go! 

For the former: 

#4. What kind of government do they have in theory? What kind of government do they have in practice?

So there are a ton of governments and government-like entities in this universe because space exploration and meeting beings from other planets, but the most relevant ones are: 

The Collective Association For Governing Earth, which is hypothetically a united democratic alliance for the betterment of earth. In practice, most of its power is in space exploration and it has very little influence on the home planet itself. The CAFGE organizes the official diplomatic missions for earth and official exploration, and while theoretically, all members get an equal vote, but money talks. The characters we interact with, who live and work on a CAFGE spaceship that runs a regular-ish route checking in on far-out human settlements, are employed by CAFGE and impacted by its policies, get their paychecks from CAFGE, but it’s through the branch that checks in on outer space stuff. It has a similar level of impact and direct interaction as the federal government does in the U.S. for lower ranked federal employees. 

The Big United Bridge Between Litigious Entities (BUBBLE) is basically CAFGE but on a galactic scale, although a much lower percentage of empires have signed on to it than percentage of countries on earth who have signed on to CAFGE. 

#11. How is the country subdivided? How many subdivisions are there and what are they called? How do different states (or territories or provinces or whatever) feel about one another?

So I’m going to take some creative license with this question, and interpret “country” as “earth’s galactic holdings.”

Although CAFGE has limited power on Earth (which, a few mergers and new countries notwithstanding, has very similar countries under CAFGE as exist today), it does exert pretty good control on its holdings in space, at least for zones one and two. Earth’s empire is geographically divided into three zones based on distances, and within zones solar systems are grouped into the kinds of settlements and outposts hosted on planets and certain clusters get nicknames (like an economic cluster of planets that’s often called “The Outlet Mall”). 

It should be noted that faster-than-light-speed but not instant travel exists in this story. 

Zone One is the “home zone,” a concept adapted from BUBBLE which basically describes an empire’s home planet, solar system, and other close stars whose settlements are heavily influenced by the homeworld. If you tune your radio you can often catch the recast on Earth shows. CAFGE and its agencies exert a lot of influence here and have pretty good control on the economics and social structures. Most places in the home zone take less than three days to get to from Earth on the better end of normal commercial and business spacecraft. There’s excellent public transit to and fro within the Home Zone. Mainstream culture, politics, and social norms are crafted in the home zone and life moves pretty quickly. Insiders love the Home Zone because it’s exciting and the place to be for movers and shakers, those outside the Home Zone find it exhausting, too fast-paced, and on occasion, snooty. The Home Zone is characterized by expectations, influence, and safety. It’s roughly the equivalent of a big, exciting, culturally relevant, politically powerful city at the core of a country. 

Zone Two is officially the “Middle Zone” which CAFGE made up on its own but has since been adopted by a few other BUBBLE member states. The Middle Zone is also colloquially known as the “Suitcase Settlements,” because while they’re definitely still Earth-influenced, you probably need to back a suitcase for the length of the trip. The Middle Zone has many of the niceties of the Home Zone, but is much more laid back. You’ll get Earth shows and news out here, it’ll just take a minute and the economic subsidies and interactions are consistent. People living in the Suitcase Settlements are satisfied with the predictable, generally safe flow of life. The Suitcase Settlements almost pride themselves on being boring, which Home Zoners and Outlanders (Zone Three) dislike. The Middle Zone is characterized by safety, quietness, and predictability. The Suitcase Settlements are roughly the equivalent of the suburbs or the exburbs. 

Zone Three is officially known as the “Outer Zone” but more commonly as the “Telescope Zone” or the “Outzone.” The Outzone is kind of like rural areas and small towns. CAFGE comes out sporadically and on as-needed basis, as opposed to regular checks in Zones 1 & 2. Depending on where you land in the Outzone, it could be anything from a pirate outpost to a lone mining settlement to a small town but in space to a cult. The Outzone is technically part of Earth’s empire, but not a part it particularly cares about. Although citizens both inside and outside the Outzone describe it as characterized by chaos and freedom and by life in the extremes, both social and planetary (at least as far as inhabitable planets go), the true defining trait is the variety: the Out Zone is an unpredictable place with much more local variety than either of the first two zones. Out Zoners find this exciting and liberating, Home Zoners and Middle Zoners find it terrifying and unpredictable. 

[psychicanchortimemachine]

12 Terminal Commands

Every Web Developer Should Know

The terminal is one of the foremost vital productivity tools in a developer's arsenal. Mastering it will have an awfully positive impact on your work flow, as several everyday tasks get reduced to writing a straightforward command and striking Enter. In this article we've ready for you a set of UNIX system commands that may assist you get the foremost out of your terminal. a number of them square measure inbuilt, others square measure free tools that square measure reliable and may be put in but a moment.

Curl

Curl may be a program line tool for creating requests over HTTP(s), FTP and dozens of different protocols you will haven't detected concerning. It will transfer files, check response headers, and freely access remote information.

In net development curl is usually used for testing connections and dealing with RESTful APIs.

# Fetch the headers of a URL. curl -I http://google.com HTTP/1.1 302 Found Cache-Control: private Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8 Referrer-Policy: no-referrer Location: http://www.google.com/?gfe_rd=cr&ei=0fCKWe6HCZTd8AfCoIWYBQ Content-Length: 258 Date: Wed, 09 Aug 2017 11:24:01 GMT   # Make a GET request to a remote API. curl http://numbersapi.com/random/trivia 29 is the number of days it takes Saturn to orbit the Sun.

Curl commands can get much more complicated than this. There are tons of options for controlling headers, cookies, authentication,and more.

Tree

Tree may be a little instruction utility that shows you a visible illustration of the files during a directory. It works recursively, going over every level of nesting and drawing a formatted tree of all the contents. this fashion you'll quickly skim and notice the files you're trying to find.

tree . ├── css │   ├── bootstrap.css │   ├── bootstrap.min.css ├── fonts │   ├── glyphicons-halflings-regular.eot │   ├── glyphicons-halflings-regular.svg │   ├── glyphicons-halflings-regular.ttf │   ├── glyphicons-halflings-regular.woff │   └── glyphicons-halflings-regular.woff2 └── js ├── bootstrap.js └── bootstrap.min.js

There is also the option to filter the results using a simple regEx-like pattern:

tree -P '*.min.*' . ├── css │   ├── bootstrap.min.css ├── fonts └── js └── bootstrap.min.js

Tmux

According to its Wiki, Tmux may be a terminal electronic device, that translated in human language would mean that it is a tool for connecting multiple terminals to one terminal session.

It helps you to switch between programs in one terminal, add split screen panes, and connect multiple terminals to a similar session, keeping them in adjust. Tmux is particularly helpful once functioning on a far off server, because it helps you to produce new tabs while not having to log in once more.

Disk usage - du

The du command generates reports on the area usage of files and directories. it's terribly straightforward to use and may work recursively, rummaging every directory and returning the individual size of each file.  A common use case for du is once one in every of your drives is running out of area and you do not understand why. Victimization this command you'll be able to quickly see what proportion storage every folder is taking, therefore finding the most important memory saver.

# Running this will show the space usage of each folder in the current directory. # The -h option makes the report easier to read. # -s prevents recursiveness and shows the total size of a folder. # The star wildcard (*) will run du on each file/folder in current directory. du -sh * 1.2G Desktop 4.0K Documents 40G Downloads 4.0K Music 4.9M Pictures 844K Public 4.0K Templates 6.9M Videos

There is also a similar command called

df

(Disk Free) which returns various information about the available disk space (the opposite of du).

Git

Git is far and away the foremost standard version system immediately. It’s one among the shaping tools of contemporary internet dev and that we simply could not leave it out of our list. There area unit many third-party apps and tools on the market however most of the people choose to access unpleasant person natively although the terminal. The unpleasant person CLI is basically powerful and might handle even the foremost tangled project history.

Tar

Tar is the default Unix tool for working with file archives. It allows you to quickly bundle multiple files into one package, making it easier to store and move them later on.

tar -cf archive.tar file1 file2 file3

Using the -x option it can also extract existing .tar archives.

tar -xf archive.tar

Note that almost all alternative formats like .zip and .rar can't be opened by tar and need alternative command utilities like unfasten.

Many trendy operating system systems run associate expanded version of tar (GNU tar) that may additionally perform file size compression:

# Create compressed gzip archive. tar -czf file.tar.gz inputfile1 inputfile2 # Extract .gz archive. tar -xzf file.tar.gz

If your OS doesn't have that version of tar, you can use

gzip

,

zcat

or

compress

to reduce the size of file archives.

md5sum

Unix has many inbuilt hashing commands together with

md5sum

,

sha1sum

and others. These program line tools have varied applications in programming, however most significantly they'll be used for checking the integrity of files. For example, if you've got downloaded associate degree .iso file from associate degree untrusted supply, there's some likelihood that the file contains harmful scripts. To form positive the .iso is safe, you'll generate associate degree md5 or alternative hash from it.

md5sum ubuntu-16.04.3-desktop-amd64.iso 0d9fe8e1ea408a5895cbbe3431989295 ubuntu-16.04.3-desktop-amd64.iso

You can then compare the generated string to the one provided from the first author (e.g. UbuntuHashes).

Htop

Htop could be a a lot of powerful different to the intrinsic prime task manager. It provides a complicated interface with several choices for observation and dominant system processes.

Although it runs within the terminal, htop has excellent support for mouse controls. This makes it a lot of easier to navigate the menus, choose processes, and organize the tasks thought sorting and filtering.

Ln

Links in UNIX operating system square measure the same as shortcuts in Windows, permitting you to urge fast access to bound files. Links square measure created via the ln command and might be 2 types: arduous or symbolic. Every kind has totally different properties and is employed for various things (read more).

Here is associate example of 1 of the various ways that you'll be able to use links. as an instance we've a directory on our desktop referred to as Scripts. It contains showing neatness organized bash scripts that we have a tendency to ordinarily use. on every occasion we wish to decision one in every of our scripts we'd need to do this:

~/Desktop/Scripts/git-scripts/git-cleanup

Obviously, this is isn't very convinient as we have to write the absolute path every time. Instead we can create a symlink from our Scripts folder to /usr/local/bin, which will make the scripts executable from all directories.

sudo ln -s ~/Desktop/Scripts/git-scripts/git-cleanup /usr/local/bin/

With the created symlink we can now call our script by simply writing its name in any opened terminal.

git-cleanup

SSH

With the ssh command users will quickly hook up with a foreign host and log into its UNIX operating system shell. This makes it doable to handily issue commands on the server directly from your native machine's terminal.

To establish a association you just got to specify the proper science address or URL. The primary time you hook up with a replacement server there'll be some style of authentication.

ssh username@remote_host

If you want to quickly execute a command on the server without logging in, you can simply add a command after the url. The command will run on the server and the result from it will be returned.

ssh username@remote_host ls /var/www some-website.com some-other-website.com

There is a lot you can do with SSH like creating proxies and tunnels, securing your connection with private keys, transferring files and more.

Grep

Grep is the standard Unix utility for finding strings inside text. It takes an input in the form of a file or direct stream, runs its content through a regular expression, and returns all the matching lines.

This command comes in handy once operating with massive files that require to be filtered. Below we tend to use grep together with the date command to look through an oversized log file and generate a brand new file containing solely errors from nowadays.

// Search for today's date (in format yyyy-mm-dd) and write the results to a new file. grep "$(date +"%Y-%m-%d")" all-errors-ever.log > today-errors.log

Another nice command for operating with strings is

sed

. It’s additional powerful (and additional complicated) than grep and may perform nearly any string-related task together with adding, removing or replacement strings.

Alias

Many OS commands, together with some featured during this article, tend to urge pretty long when you add all the choices to them. to create them easier to recollect, you'll produce short aliases with the alias bash inbuilt command:

# Create an alias for starting a local web server. alias server="python -m SimpleHTTPServer 9000" # Instead of typing the whole command simply use the alias. server Serving HTTP on 0.0.0.0 port 9000 ...

The alias are offered as long as you retain that terminal open. to create it permanent you'll add the alias command to your .bashrc file. We will be happy to answer your questions on designing, developing, and deploying comprehensive enterprise web, mobile apps and customized software solutions that best fit your organization needs.

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[sexyolddudes]

As millions of people across the country take to the streets and raise their voices in response to the killing of George Floyd and the ongoing problem of unequal justice, many people have reached out asking how we can sustain momentum to bring about real change.

Ultimately, it’s going to be up to a new generation of activists to shape strategies that best fit the times. But I believe there are some basic lessons to draw from past efforts that are worth remembering.

First, the waves of protests across the country represent a genuine and legitimate frustration over a decades-long failure to reform police practices and the broader criminal justice system in the United States. The overwhelming majority of participants have been peaceful, courageous, responsible, and inspiring. They deserve our respect and support, not condemnation — something that police in cities like Camden and Flint have commendably understood.

On the other hand, the small minority of folks who’ve resorted to violence in various forms, whether out of genuine anger or mere opportunism, are putting innocent people at risk, compounding the destruction of neighborhoods that are often already short on services and investment and detracting from the larger cause. I saw an elderly black woman being interviewed today in tears because the only grocery store in her neighborhood had been trashed. If history is any guide, that store may take years to come back. So let’s not excuse violence, or rationalize it, or participate in it. If we want our criminal justice system, and American society at large, to operate on a higher ethical code, then we have to model that code ourselves.

Second, I’ve heard some suggest that the recurrent problem of racial bias in our criminal justice system proves that only protests and direct action can bring about change, and that voting and participation in electoral politics is a waste of time. I couldn’t disagree more. The point of protest is to raise public awareness, to put a spotlight on injustice, and to make the powers that be uncomfortable; in fact, throughout American history, it’s often only been in response to protests and civil disobedience that the political system has even paid attention to marginalized communities. But eventually, aspirations have to be translated into specific laws and institutional practices— and in a democracy, that only happens when we elect government officials who are responsive to our demands.

Moreover, it’s important for us to understand which levels of government have the biggest impact on our criminal justice system and police practices. When we think about politics, a lot of us focus only on the presidency and the federal government. And yes, we should be fighting to make sure that we have a president, a Congress, a U.S. Justice Department, and a federal judiciary that actually recognize the ongoing, corrosive role that racism plays in our society and want to do something about it. But the elected officials who matter most in reforming police departments and the criminal justice system work at the state and local levels.

It’s mayors and county executives that appoint most police chiefs and negotiate collective bargaining agreements with police unions. It’s district attorneys and state’s attorneys that decide whether or not to investigate and ultimately charge those involved in police misconduct. Those are all elected positions. In some places, police review boards with the power to monitor police conduct are elected as well. Unfortunately, voter turnout in these local races is usually pitifully low, especially among young people — which makes no sense given the direct impact these offices have on social justice issues, not to mention the fact that who wins and who loses those seats is often determined by just a few thousand, or even a few hundred, votes.

So the bottom line is this: if we want to bring about real change, then the choice isn’t between protest and politics. We have to do both. We have to mobilize to raise awareness, and we have to organize and cast our ballots to make sure that we elect candidates who will act on reform.

Finally, the more specific we can make demands for criminal justice and police reform, the harder it will be for elected officials to just offer lip service to the cause and then fall back into business as usual once protests have gone away. The content of that reform agenda will be different for various communities. A big city may need one set of reforms; a rural community may need another. Some agencies will require wholesale rehabilitation; others should make minor improvements. Every law enforcement agency should have clear policies, including an independent body that conducts investigations of alleged misconduct. Tailoring reforms for each community will require local activists and organizations to do their research and educate fellow citizens in their community on what strategies work best.

But as a starting point, here’s a report and toolkit developed by the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights and based on the work of the Task Force on 21st Century Policing that I formed when I was in the White House. And if you’re interested in taking concrete action, we’ve also created a dedicated site at the Obama Foundation to aggregate and direct you to useful resources and organizations who’ve been fighting the good fight at the local and national levels for years.

I recognize that these past few months have been hard and dispiriting — that the fear, sorrow, uncertainty, and hardship of a pandemic have been compounded by tragic reminders that prejudice and inequality still shape so much of American life. But watching the heightened activism of young people in recent weeks, of every race and every station, makes me hopeful. If, going forward, we can channel our justifiable anger into peaceful, sustained, and effective action, then this moment can be a real turning point in our nation’s long journey to live up to our highest ideals.

Let’s get to work.

[newstfionline]

Headlines

Virus numbers show normal life still far away (AP) South Africa was poised on Saturday to join the top five countries most affected by the coronavirus, while breathtaking numbers around the world were a reminder a return to normal life is still far from sight. Confirmed virus cases worldwide have topped 14 million and deaths have surpassed 600,000, according to Johns Hopkins University data, a day after the World Health Organization reported a single-day record of new infections at over 237,000. Death tolls in the United States are reaching new highs, and India’s infections are over 1 million. Iran’s president made the startling announcement that as many as 25 million Iranians could have been infected, the state-run IRNA news agency reported Saturday. Iran has seen the worst outbreak in the Middle East with more than 270,000 confirmed cases. South Africa on Saturday could join the U.S., Brazil, India and Russia as the most badly hit countries as its cases near 350,000. Current case trends show it will surpass Peru.

Millions of kids told full return to school in fall unlikely (AP) Millions more children in the U.S. learned Friday that they’re unlikely to return to classrooms full time in the fall because of the coronavirus pandemic as death tolls reached new highs. It came as many states—particularly in the Sunbelt—struggled to cope with the surge and governments worldwide tried to control fresh outbreaks. In a sign of how the virus is galloping around the globe, the World Health Organization reported nearly a quarter-million new infections in a single day. In the U.S., teams of military medics were deployed in Texas and California to help hospitals deluged by coronavirus patients. The two most populous states each reported roughly 10,000 new cases and some of their highest death counts since the pandemic began. Big numbers in Florida, Arizona and other states also are helping drive the U.S. resurgence that’s forcing states to rethink the school year.

Stress rises for unemployed as extra $600 benefit nears end (AP) A major source of income for roughly 30 million unemployed people is set to end, threatening their ability to meet rent and pay bills and potentially undercutting the fragile economic recovery. In March, Congress approved an extra $600 in weekly unemployment benefits as part of its $2 trillion relief package aimed at offsetting the impact of the coronavirus pandemic. That additional payment expires next week unless it gets renewed. For Henry Montalvo, who was furloughed from his job as a banquet server and bartender in Phoenix in mid-March, the expiration of the $600 will cut his unemployment benefits by two-thirds. He uses the money to help support his three children and pregnant girlfriend. “Now that it’s about to end, that grim and uneasy feeling is coming back and really fast,” Montalvo said. The unemployment insurance program has emerged as a crucial source of support at a time when the jobless rate is at Depression-era levels. In May, unemployment benefits made up 6% of all U.S. income, ahead of even Social Security.

Half of Oklahoma is ‘Indian country.’ What if all native treaties were upheld? (The Intercept) The U.S. Supreme Court issued a decision last week that altered the map of Oklahoma. The eastern half of the state, including much of Tulsa, is now, for legal purposes, Indian country. The Supreme Court decision was uncommon—Indigenous people have seen few victories so sweeping in the high court—but treaty violations like those that occurred in Oklahoma are not. “The rule of thumb is every treaty’s been broken,” said Matthew Fletcher, director of the Indigenous Law and Policy Center at Michigan State University. Going back to the original treaty texts would make broad swaths of the nation Native territory. That means Indigenous people would have a stronger voice on environmental enforcement, more of a say on fossil fuel infrastructure construction, be able to better control the fate of Native children removed from their parents’ home, and less likely to be tried in local courts where district attorneys are elected using racist, tough-on-crime politics. Beyond control over the land itself, the treaties lay the groundwork for obligations requiring the federal government to provide adequate resources to support health care, safety, and education—which have never been fulfilled.

Mexican cartel shows its might as president visits its heartland (Reuters) A video depicting a sprawling military-style convoy of one of Mexico’s most powerful drug cartels circulated on social networks on Friday just as President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador visited the group’s heartland. In the two-minute clip, members of the fearsome Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) stand in fatigues alongside a seemingly endless procession of armored vehicles. The video’s release coincided with Lopez Obrador’s visit to the states of Guanajuato, Jalisco and Colima, some of the cartel’s strongholds. “They are sending a clear message... that they basically rule Mexico, not Lopez Obrador,” said Mike Vigil, a former chief of international operations for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.

Panama extends suspension of international flights by a month due to coronavirus (Reuters) Panama’s civil aviation authority said on Friday it will extend a suspension of international flights by another month due to the coronavirus crisis. International flights were first suspended in March as the spread of the virus prompted authorities to impose measures to better contain it.

Richardson meets with Maduro, but fails to secure release of American prisoners (Washington Post) Former New Mexico governor Bill Richardson concluded a four-day special mission to Venezuela on Friday, succeeding in opening a direct channel with President Nicolás Maduro but failing in his immediate objective: the release of eight high-profile prisoners being held in Caracas, including seven Americans. In a telephone interview with The Washington Post—his first since leaving Caracas—Richardson, an elder statesmen of the Democratic Party and former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said his initial optimism about securing the rapid release of at least some of the prisoners had turned to disappointment after catching Maduro “on a bad day.” The trip nevertheless amounted to the most significant diplomatic effort in Caracas by an American since Washington severed ties with Maduro and shuttered the U.S. Embassy there early last year. Though officially a private humanitarian mission, the trip was “coordinated” with the U.S. government, Richardson said.

EU tells US: Stop threatening our companies with sanctions (AP) The European Union is warning the Trump administration to hold off threatening trade sanctions against EU companies involved in the completion of new German-Russian and Turkish-Russian natural gas pipelines and instead discuss differences as allies. This week, the Trump administration warned companies involved in the projects they will be subject to U.S. penalties unless they halt their work. The move has further increased tension in already fraught U.S.-European ties. “I am deeply concerned at the growing use of sanctions, or the threat of sanctions, by the United States against European companies and interests,” EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said in a statement, adding similar attempts had already been made in cases involving Iran, Cuba and the International Criminal Court. “Where policy differences exist, the European Union is always open to dialogue. But this cannot take place against the threat of sanctions,” Borrell said. “European policies should be determined here in Europe, not by third countries.”

Greece’s great declutter at battle coastline (AP) Greece is commemorating one of the greatest naval battles in ancient history this year at Salamis, the claw-shaped island skirting the mainland near Athens. It’s where the invading Persian navy suffered a heavy defeat 2,500 years ago, their large vessels unable to properly maneuver in the narrow seaways. Salamis, now known as Salamina, has become an extended suburb of the capital, a blue-collar retirement and summer home spot. It still looks out over a fleet of sunken and partially sunken vessels. Heavily rusted cargo ships and tugboats, battered sailboats and fishing trawlers are scattered and abandoned between Salamina and Greece’s largest industrial zone with oil refineries, shipyards and a massive Chinese-owned container port. With the main commemoration events just months away, Greece is in a race to declutter the coastline and has already salvaged dozens of ships, which are dragged to shore, cut up and transported to scrapyards in central Greece.

Mass protests rock Russian Far East city again (AP) Tens of thousands of people in the Russian Far East city of Khabarovsk took to the streets on Saturday, protesting the arrest of the region’s governor on charges of involvement in multiple murders. Local media estimated the rally in the city 6100 kilometres (3800 miles) east of Moscow attracted from 15,000 to 50,000 people. The protests against the arrest of Furgal have taken place every day this week, with hundreds of people rallying in the city center every day, and reflected widespread anger over the arrest of the popular governor and a simmering discontent with the Kremlin’s policies. Furgal, a member of the nationalist Liberal Democratic Party, was elected governor in 2018. His unexpected victory in the gubernatorial election reflected growing public frustration with President Vladimir Putin’s policies and marked a painful setback for the main Kremlin party, United Russia.

China says it’s not trying to replace US, won’t be bullied (AP) China isn’t seeking to confront or replace the United States as the world’s top technological power, but will fight back against “malicious slander” and attacks from Washington, a foreign ministry spokesperson said Friday, responding to a litany of recent accusations from the Trump administration. Hua Chunying said China’s chief concern is improving the livelihoods of its citizens and maintaining global peace and stability, despite what critics say is an increasingly aggressive foreign policy that looks to expand Chinese influence in the military, technology, economic and other spheres. Her comments came in response to a speech Thursday by U.S. Attorney General William Barr in which he cautioned American business leaders against promoting policies favorable to Beijing. He asserted that China at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic had not only dominated the market for protective gear, exposing American dependence on Beijing, but had also hoarded supplies and blocked producers from exporting them to countries in need. Barr also accused hackers linked to the Chinese government of targeting American universities and businesses to steal research related to coronavirus vaccine development, leveling the allegation against Beijing hours after Western agencies made similar claims against Russia. “The People’s Republic of China is now engaged in an economic blitzkrieg—an aggressive, orchestrated, whole-of-government (indeed, whole-of-society) campaign to seize the commanding heights of the global economy and to surpass the United States as the world’s preeminent technological superpower,” Barr said.

Major Beirut medical centre lays off hundreds as crisis bites (Reuters) Zawqan Abdelkhalek, a nurse at the American University of Beirut’s (AUB) medical centre since 2012, was laid off on Friday along with hundreds of colleagues as even hospitals buckle under the weight of Lebanon’s economic collapse. “I have a baby daughter, I need to get her food and water and pay for her vaccines,” the 29-year-old said. A currency crash means his pension in Lebanese pounds is now worth just around $500, he said. He blamed the ruling elite for daily power cuts, skyrocketing prices and pushing the country to the brink. Local media and employees said the AUB, one of the country’s oldest universities and a regional medical hub, laid off more than 500 workers. At least 220,000 jobs in the private sector were shed between October and February, a survey by research firm InfoPro showed, with the figures only expected to get worse.

[amberjordanschool-blog]

Slavery to Mass Incarceration

Slavery to Mass Incarceration 

“I’m beginning to believe that U.S.A stands for the Underprivileged Slaves of America'' wrote a prisoner from Mississippi who witnessed the constant violence behind bars in the 20th century. There are over 2.3 million people behind bars which over the past 40 years has increased 500 percent. In the book, Essentials of Sociology: a Down to Earth Approach states that African Americans take up 38% in America’s prisons. America is home to five percent of the world’s population but 25 percent of the world’s prisoners, which is one out of four people, in this nation we call, “ land of the free”. In 1865 the 13th amendment in the constitution was put in place to make slavery illegal. However there is a loophole that states people in America are granted freedom; however, if you are a criminal, you lose all freedom privileges. Ever since the civil war, the Southern states were left broken. There were about 4 million people that were once “property” who held an important role in the economic production system in the South that are now free. What is there to do? How do you rebuild the economy? The loophole in the 13th amendment was then explioded and African Americans were arrested in masses. It was the nation's first prison boom. The 13th amendment basically says yes everyone in America is granted freedom but once you’re criminalized, you’re a slave once again. These injustices led to Blacks being apprehended for very minor crimes such as loitering or vagrancy. Once these African Americans were incarcerated, they essentially had to provide labor to rebuild the economy of the South after the Civil war which then led to the rapid transition on black criminology. “They would say that the negro was out of control, that there is a threat of violence to white women”, says Jelani Cobb in the film, 13th by Ava DuVernay. These untrue assumptions, allegations, and biases shaped the very negative view people of color had. Newspapers, officiers, people in high figure positions would describe African Americans as animals, predators, and criminals. The stereotypical depictions of the Black male as hyperbolized predator, societal menace, and perpetual threat lead to the legitimization of state police violence against the African American male (Powell). This then shifted to the creation of the Jim Crow Laws. These were laws that regulated African Americans to a permanent second-class status. No one could describe the situation African Americans feel better than Bryan Stevenson, the founder of the Equal Justice Initiative, as he says,” Everytime you see a sign that said “white and colored”, everytime you were told you couldn’t go through the front door, everyday you weren’t aloud to vote, everyday you weren’t aloud to go to school, you were bearing a burden that was injurious”.  In the 1960’s through the late 1970’s, there were civil rights movements, human rights movements. These people, not only African Americans but Latinos, Hispanics, people of color, started gaining a poor profile as more and more people are getting arrested for disobeying these segregation laws labeling them now as criminals. Criminals for fighting for equality. 

During the Nixon campaign, he presented the phrase, “Law and Order”. Basically a war on crime that was later demonstrated by President Reagan. People, predominantly people of color (African Americans, Latinos, Hispanics), were getting sent to prison for low level offenses like marijuana. It was a backlash toward the civil rights movement. John Ehrlichman who was Nixon’s advisor at the time admitted to the campaign being a front to essentially do what they want to people of color by saying,”The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what i'm saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black...but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and the blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities…We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did” (Newman et al). Crack was all over black communities and cocaine was all over white communities; however, crack had harsher criminal sentences than cocaine did. People of color were getting life in prison for the same amount of crack that White Americans had in cocaine who would get a slap on the wrist. 

Soon after, CCA (Corrections Corporation of America) became the leader in private prisons. It is a multi-million dollar business today that essentially gets rich off punishment. Because the War on Drugs was giving people harsher sentencing, this fueled a rapid expansion in the nation's prison population in the 1980s. This led to the modern emergence of for-profit private prisons in many states and at the federal level (The Sentencing Project). The CCA pushed law, SB 1070 in Arizona, which gave the police the right to stop anyone who they thought looks like an immigrant. This law essentially filled immigration detention facilities which then benefited the CCA. We call them “detention facilities” but really they are a prison for immigrants. The CCA profits greatly by locking up immigrants and people of color because the more people locked up equals a bigger payday. We went from slavery, to innmates, to dollar signs. It seems as though the government will never see us as actual human beings. See that we are more than labor workers, more than animals in a cage, or more than just a profit. 

We forget that history is a component of power. What I mean by that is history is a field of power that is shaped by dominant structures or parties. We do not learn the harsh realities of slavery, the Jim Crow laws, mass incarseration, or African American history in general and the trama that came from them. We learn the most simplified version. History has always been told to benefit the white race or benefit European cultures. This will come off with a conspiracy tone, but we only know what they want us to know and we are only taught what they want us to learn, which is true. I also would like to point out how many movies and TV shows are being made about different struggles African Americans face, however, it's never accurate and very simplified. 

. Dr. Raymond Winbush said it best in an interview, “It is a straight historical line. And so these words “mass incarceration” do not make you think of White people or women. You think of Black men. And that again is a straight line. This silly show on T.V., Orange is the New Black was written by a White woman who was in jail for a year. She does not have a history…….what do you mean, the new Black? In other words, we are supposed to think that mass incarceration is not happening to us. So when I think of mass incarceration, to me, as a scholar, there is a direct connection between enslavement and mass incarceration” (Winbush). We watch Orange is the New Black and think we know everything. But these are voices of people who don’t know the full story or never experienced such trauma and because of that, they add on to the misconceptions created for the public knowledge. We can see this in movies like Hidden Figures and 42. Both amazing movies on very important and impactful moments in history, but both directed by White men. I’ve learned that the struggles that people of color face, the struggles that we try all our life to fight out of, are used for political gain, for money. The difference from the past and now is we can force conversation. We have the power of technology to share our experiences, to show the world the injustices that are happening. We the people are stronger and more connected now than we were in 1865. To have people understand and change the notion of human dignity is powerful, it’s not one life is more valuable than another each life is valuable. For all lives to be valuable we the people need to understand that we the people need to be treated as equal first and foremost. 

Work Cited

Ava DuVernay, Ava, director. 13th. Netflix, Kandoo Films , 7 Oct. 2016.

Gotsch, Kara, et al. “Capitalizing on Mass Incarceration: U.S. Growth in Private Prisons.” The Sentencing Project, 2 Aug. 2018, www.sentencingproject.org/publications/capitalizing-on-mass-incarceration-u-s-growth-in-private-prisons/.

Henslin, James M. Essentials of Sociology: a down-to-Earth Approach. Pearson, 2019.

Newman , Tony, and Anthony Papa. “Top Adviser to Richard Nixon Admitted That 'War on Drugs' Was Policy Tool to Go After Anti-War Protesters and 'Black People'.” Drug Policy Alliance, Drug Policy Alliance , 22 Mar. 2016, www.drugpolicy.org/press-release/2016/03/top-adviser-richard-nixon-admitted-war-drugs-was-policy-tool-go-after-anti.

Powell, Cedric Merlin. “The Structural Dimensions of Race: Lock Ups, Systemic Chokeholds, and Binary Disruptions.” SSRN Electronic Journal, 1 Sept. 2018, pp. 8–41., doi:10.2139/ssrn.3353527.

Von Robertson, Ray. “The Impact of Mass Incarceration on Peoples of African Descent: An Interview with Dr. Raymond A. Winbush.”  Journal of Pan African Studies, vol. 7, no. 6, Oct. 2014, pp. 4–8.

[theliberaltony]

via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

The staggering economic toll of the new coronavirus is becoming abundantly, unavoidably clear. On Thursday, a Department of Labor report showed that a record-shattering 3.3 million people applied for initial unemployment claims last week. And with entire industries shuttered for the foreseeable future, economic output will almost certainly shrink dramatically.

As economic forecasts grow darker, talk of tradeoffs is getting louder: Is protecting Americans from COVID-19 really worth all this disruption and economic pain?

On March 22, before President Trump floated the idea of reopening the economy by Easter, against the recommendations of his own public health experts, he tweeted, “WE CANNOT LET THE CURE BE WORSE THAN THE PROBLEM ITSELF.” Other politicians, meanwhile, rejected the idea that economic costs should be a factor at all. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo dismissed Trump’s push to get the economy moving again, saying, “No American is going to say, ‘accelerate the economy at the cost of human life.’ Because no American is going to say how much a life is worth.”

Cuomo’s sentiment might be a nice bit of political rhetoric, but it’s not really true. Economists might not be able to say how much an individual person’s existence is worth, but they have figured out a way to calculate how much how much the average person is willing to pay to reduce the risk of death — which allows them to put a price tag on the collective value of saving one life. That figure, which currently hovers somewhere around $9 or $10 million, is known as the “value of statistical life,” and it’s the basis for all kinds of high-stakes decisions that involve tradeoffs between public safety and economic cost — from food and automobile regulations to our responses to climate change.

As cold-blooded as it might seem, several economists told me that, at least in theory, a pandemic is exactly the kind of situation this metric is designed to help with. “Essentially, we’re trying to figure out what our society is willing to pay to reduce the risk of mortality,” said W. Kip Viscusi, an economist at Vanderbilt University and one of the leading experts on these calculations. “In that sense, a pandemic isn’t so different from a terrorist attack or a pollutant that’s threatening to kill large numbers of people — it’s just happening very quickly and on a very large scale.”

The idea that a life could have a monetary value isn’t necessarily easy to swallow from an ethical perspective. Economists and government regulators have to balance the risk of death against all kinds of other factors, though, and the concept of the VSL was developed several decades ago because economists didn’t like the idea of assigning that value through other, more intuitive means, like our contributions to the economy as workers. “It’s fairly simple to value someone’s life based on how much money they make,” said Spencer Banzhaf, an economist at Georgia State University who has written about the history of the VSL. “But in addition to being baldly crude, that’s just not reflective of the way we think about people. We don’t think a retired person is worth nothing.”

The VSL, instead of trying to sum up the value of a life, approaches the question from the other direction — how much are we willing to spend to reduce the odds of dying?

Economists draw the numbers from multiple sources, including surveys and assumptions about our own choices, like how much additional money people earn for especially dangerous jobs, or how much a premium they’ll pay for a safer car. The estimates do vary, but they fall in the same basic range — the EPA’s valuation falls around $9.4 million, while Viscusi’s latest calculation is $10 million. To put it another way, Viscusi’s estimate means that if a group of 10,000 people is facing a 1-in-1000 risk of death, they’re willing to pay $1,000 per person to reduce the odds that any given member of the community will die.

These numbers show why spending trillions of dollars to combat a threat like the coronavirus pandemic can be a good investment, despite the high cost. “Let’s say one of our worst-case scenarios comes to pass, and 2 million people die,” said James Hammitt, an economist at Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health and the director of the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis. “Multiply that by $9 million or $10 million and we’re talking about up to $20 trillion as the value of preventing those deaths. That suggests it’s worth expending a fair amount of our resources to mitigate this.”

But back-of-the-envelope calculations can obscure some of the knottier questions that plague economists who have studied this issue for decades. The VSL varies by country, because the wealth of the average person in a rich country like the United States is much higher than that of a person in a poorer country like India, which means Americans can “pay” more to avoid risk. That outcome is liable to make most people uncomfortable, and weighing the value of other types of lives — for example, the young versus the old — is tricky, too .

For example, even though the coronavirus appears to result in much a higher mortality rate for older people — prompting some politicians to propose that they should consider sacrificing themselves to save the economy — trying to put a lower price tag on their lives hasn’t worked well in the past. Joseph Aldy, a public policy professor at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, said that under President George W. Bush, the EPA tried to put a lower value on the life of an older person in calculating the benefits of air quality regulations. In their analysis, the life of a person over the age of 70 was worth 37 percent less than the life of a younger person.

“It was a political disaster,” Aldy said. The policy was christened the “senior death discount” and in response, AARP ran ads featuring a picture of an elderly woman with a “37 percent OFF!” tag hanging from her glasses. The EPA backed off and never implemented the proposed changes.

Outside the glare of the political spotlight, though, that experience hasn’t stopped economists from exploring whether age-based valuations are right in some circumstances. There’s evidence, Aldy said, that people’s willingness to pay to reduce the risk of mortality starts to decrease after age 50. But those kinds of calculations, he added, are sometimes disconnected from the moral valuations we make collectively. “We spend the vast majority of our health care dollars on people over the age of 65, and yet one might say the age-adjusted value of statistical life for that population is lower,” Aldy said. “It’s a kind of social compact — we recognize your contributions to our society and will provide the resources to keep you healthy as you age. So how far can this economic analysis really go when we’ve made that decision as a society?”

And even accounting for age might not provide a compelling argument against the measures currently being taken in response to the pandemic. Two economists used age-adjusted VSL in a recent analysis of the economic cost of social distancing — and they still found that the public health response to coronavirus had “substantial economic benefits.”

The sheer uncertainty of the coronavirus crisis is another problem — both in terms of the potential death toll and economic impact. Estimates of how many people might die in the U.S. are all over the place — some as low as 200,000, others as high as 2 million. And Banzhaf said that just as age-based calculations have their limitations, the scope of the economic costs has to go beyond earnings or GDP. “Depending on how long this shutdown goes on, we’re talking about a huge hit to the common good and our way of life,” he said. “If symphonies, hotels, art galleries, restaurants close and can’t come back — that’s a loss that goes way beyond earnings dollars. I don’t know how you begin to quantify it.”

If anything, though, the uncertainty and fear of the coronavirus pandemic could drive the value of statistical life even higher. Studies have shown, Hammitt said, that because people are more afraid of flying on airplanes than driving in cars, they are willing to shell out for airplane safety measures. “We see the same thing with terrorism risk,” Hammitt said. “When a kind of death is more dreaded or ambiguous, people are willing to pay more to avoid dying that way.”

But Aldy told me that cost-benefit analyses would have been most helpful at earlier stages of the crisis, when the government had the opportunity to invest in testing and surveillance. At this point, he told me, he wasn’t sure why a cost-benefit analysis was needed to drive home the cost of a huge loss of life — particularly since he, like many other economists and public health experts, thinks that containing the virus is the best way to ensure the economy rebounds quickly.

“Let’s say we’re talking about 1 million deaths or 2 million deaths,” he said. “When you think about the economic damage and the damage to families and communities all over the country, I don’t think you need an egghead like me to try to put a price on that. It’s catastrophic.”

[laurellynnleake]

Fight To Protect Immigrants! - Resource & Organization Masterlist (updated: 6/22/18)

If you need help and/or want to help others trapped in the brutal US immigration system, let me get you started! Regardless of your time and abilities, you can help in countless ways big and small. Head to Informed Immigrant to find local/national/global orgs supporting undocumented immigrants - you can donate money/time/transportation, join protest actions, register voters, cook dinners, watch kids, and simply provide emotional support to people!

I’ve gathered together some useful links and resources here - please help me spread ‘em around, and add any of your own links and info too (and let me know if you donate/contact reps and I’ll draw you some art).

Calling Scripts: 

Check out Celeste Pewter’s twitter for up-to-date call scripts and resources for contacting your reps and fighting for human rights (@ her or use #Icalledmyreps after you call to get a boost and/or share info). She eventually transcribes most scripts here, but can take several days, so while these links below go to images on twitter I’ve also included captions under the cut.

Tips for calling your electeds

Calling Senate/House for Feinstein/Nadler’s Keep Families Together Act post EO (6/22), and for Texans near the border (6/13)

Call scripts pushing for House/Senators to investigate DHS’s Zero Tolerance Policy (6/22), and for contacting the DOJ/DHS to protest the Zero Tolerence Policy post executive order (6/20)

Call scripts for governors to refuse to send the National Guard to the border (6/22) and calling for Sec Nielson’s resignation (6/18)

Calling Congress re: Kids already separated, and rumors of military lawyers (06/22)

Calling governors, federal reps, and state attorney’s about joining the multi-state lawsuit (6/22)

General Guides for Contacting Reps:

Find My Reps

Resistbot (emails and faxes reps for you)

5calls

Herd on the Hill a FB group of dedicated volunteers who will print out your letters, and deliver them.

How to Call Your Reps When You Have Social Anxiety

Legislative & Organizing Resources:

Join a local protest at FamiliesBelong.org. Donate here.

ACLU Know Your Rights pocket guides includes ICE Visits (ICE Visitas), If Questioned About Imm. Status (Que Hacer Si Le Preguntan Acerca de su Estatus Migratorio), and What To Do If Stopped By Police (Qué Debe Hacer Si la Policía/Agentes de Inmigración/FBI) in English and en Español, as well as guides for protests.

Know Your Rights Handouts: If ICE Raids a Home/Employer/Public Space (AILA) in Español, Chinese, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, & Punjabi

Indivisible’s Immigration News Resources

Indivisible’s Immigrant Ally Toolkit

Tisp for attending protests and rallies and advice for white allies

Look up ICE detention centers here

Internet security: FB centric, basic computer security, more elaborate

Organizations to Join/Support:

Use the Informed Immigrant to find groups near you, find legal aid, and join the fight!  

Pueblos Sin Fronteras provides humanitarian aid to migrants and refugees. Donate here.

Al Otro Lado is a bi-national, direct legal services organization serving indigent deportees/migrants/refugees in Tijuana, Mexico. Donate here.

The Florence Project provides free legal services to adults and unaccompanied children in imm. custody in Arizona. Donate here.

Border Angels serves San Diego County’s immigrant population through various migrant outreach programs such as Day Laborer outreach, a free legal assistance program, and more. Donate here.

RAICES provides free and low-cost legal services to underserved immigrant children, families, and refugees in Texas. Donate here.

The Immigrant Children’s Assistance Project is an American Bar Association project currently helping unaccompanied children in South Texas w/ knowing their rights. Donate here.

United We Dream is the largest immigrant-youth led group in the USA, and their site provides news, event info, as well as guides and toolkits for fighting the system, protecting LGBTQ immigrants, and taking care of your mental health. Donate here.

The Black Alliance for Just Immigration “educates and engages African American and black immigrant communities to organize and advocate for racial, social, and economic justice.” Donate here.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is one of the largest civil rights and advocacy organizations dedicated to fighting against discrimination against Muslims. Click here to donate to the national organization or a specific campaign, or click here to find your local CAIR chapter (which needs your support as much/even more).

CUNY CLEAR provides representation and rights training to Muslim communities targeted by law enforcement. Donate here.

Families for Freedom fights on behalf of families facing deportation. “We are immigrant prisoners (detainees), former immigrant prisoners, their loved ones, or individuals at risk of deportation.” Donate here.

The Immigrant Defense Project uses impact litigation, advocacy, and public education to fight to stop mass deportations and an unjust immigration system. Donate here.

The Immigrant Legal Resource Center (ILRC) is a national resource center that helps train immigration lawyers and advocates on the local, state and federal level. Donate here.

The International Rescue Committee works to provide aid to people affected by humanitarian crises. You can donate to specifically support U.S. refugee resettlement programs re: Trump’s Muslim Ban here, and see other ways to get involved (volunteering/calling reps) here.

The International Refugee Assistance Project works to organize lawyers and law students to fight for the human and legal rights of refugees through legal aid and policy advocacy. For legal help click here, and to donate click here.

Make the Road New York uses policy advocacy, organizing, education, and survival services (including workforce training and adult education) to improve the lives of immigrants—in particular Latino and working class communities—in NYC. Donate here, get involved here.

Mariposas Sin Fronteras works with LGBTQ people detained in immigration facilities and works to get vulnerable detainees out on bond. Donate here.

MPower Change does grassroots organizing, campaigning, and storytelling to empower Muslim communities in the USA. Donate here.

National Immigration Law Center works for the rights of low-income immigrants through impact legislation, policy analysis and advocacy, communications, and education programs. Donate here.

Northwest Immigrant Rights Project offers legal services directly to immigrants with its network of 350 pro-bono attorneys. Donate here.

Remember, one person alone can’t do everything, so please take care of yourself and each other - but if we all do a little, we can make a difference together!

Captions for the Pewter call scripts under the cut, as well as a list of pro-bono legal aid and therapist volunteers organized by Joanna Rothkopf.

Tips for calling your electeds, especially if you’re leaving a VM

If you’re leaving a voicemail, make sure you clearly state your name and where you are calling from. (Zip, etc.)

Make sure you have a concrete ask, or specify a specific opinion. Imagine a staffer asking: “What’s the best outcome/resolution for you?” and frame your comment that way. E.g. If you want them to specifically oppose an amendment, say that, and explain why.

Always clarify if you would like a response, and leave a way for the office to reach you. (Phone number, email, etc.)

If you have another issue, bring it up on the phone at the time. Always personalize your comments.

For Cruz/Cornyn constituents on the TX detention facilities: (06/18, tweaked by OP)

You: Hi, my name is [name]. I am calling from [zıp code]. You: I am calling today to ask [Cruz/Cornyn] take a stand... 

Opposing the detention facilities for young people in Texas, and

To also oppose the DHS’s overall zero tolerance policy.

You: The horrific conditions being experienced by these children are absolutely unacceptable, and betray the values of our state.

You: <Insert optional comments here>

You: Furthermore, I am also calling on [Cruz/Cornyn] to support their colleague Senator Feinstein’s Keep Families Together Act. President Trump has clearly and repeatedly stated he would support a bill to keep families together, so I expect [Cruz/Cornyn] to follow the GOP agenda.

Call the capitol switchboard: (202) 224-3121 #ICALLEDMYREPS @CELESTE PEWTER

Talking points for Texas residents re: local/state electeds re: the detention facilities (06/13)

What did the city/county/state know about these proposals to hold children in warehouses, with limited access to fresh air? Does local city/county/state official condone these practices?

If yes: does [official] understand that these kids are in conditions that are comparable to what certain criminals experience in jail?

If no: great. How will [elected] address this with their federal counterparts? I do not support facilities like these, and want [elected] to exert all possible pressure with their federal counterparts.

Will [elected] come out with a public statement condemning these facilities?

Call the capitol switchboard: (202) 224-3121 #ICALLEDMYREPS @CELESTEPEWTER

For House/Senators re: DHS’s Zero tolerance policy (opening investigations) Talking points post-Trump executive order (6/20)

The Executive Order would only create family detention centers which would continue to lead to expanded camps.

The executive order doesn't offer recourse for reuniting already- separated families The EO gives wide discretion to DHS Secretary Nielsen

Crossing the border will be deemed a criminal violation, vs. a civil one (which will lead to parents being charged criminally; and children likely being taken)

The EO doesn't address asylum seekers, and will still prohibit anyone seeking asylum under domestic violence/gang violence from seeking asylum

The House bill (Border Security and Immigration Reform Act) will also not fully address these concerns.

Call the capitol switchboard: (202) 224-3121 #ICALLEDMYREPS @CELESTE PEWTER

Talking points re: the DOJ/DHS following Trump's Executive Order signing (6/20)

Ask the DOJ/DHS stop lying about the origins of zero tolerance policy - it's well documented it's a Trump Administration policy

Stop using Flores to justify this policy.

Stop saying it's about the wall. Democrats have actually offered funding for the wall before (during the DACA debate) and the GOP/Trump Administration passed. This is NOT about the wall

Per news reports this morning, DHS thought the zero tolerance policy would deter border crossings. According to public documents sited by outlets like the Hill, crossings have actually gone up, including crossings by unaccompanied minor children

The Executive order doesn't have a recourse for how families will be reunited. How will the DOJ/DHS address this?

Stop insisting this is up to Congress to act - this is a DHS/DOJ created problem

Call your SENATORS post-Trump's executive order signing re: family separation (06/22)

You: Hi, my name is [name]. I am calling from [zip code} You: I am calling to ask Senators to continue to do everything in their legislative power to address the DHS/DOJ's zero tolerance policy. You: This week's executive order does not adequately solve the problem of family separation; it just creates family detention centers, and doesn't address the overarching problem. You: We also need clarity on how this executive order helps the children who have already been separated. The administration is claiming 500 kids have been reunited. When will we get proof? When is this rumored staging ground in Texas supposed to be complete?

Dem Senators: Finally, I'd like to call on [Senator] to continue to express support for Feinstein's Keep Families Together Act. GOP Senators: I am calling on [Senator] to support Feinstein's Keep Families Together. You: <Additional comments>

Call the capitol switchboard: (202) 224-3121 #ICALLEDMYREPS @CELESTE PEWTER

Call both chambers re: asking for Secretary Nielsen's resignation (06/18)

You: Hi, my name is [name]. I am calling from [zip code]. You: I am calling on [elected] to issue a public statement to ask for Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen's resignation. Not only has she been complicit in helping the Trump Administration institute their new zero tolerance policy, she has lied repeatedly to the public on the policy, and what it does and doesn't do. You: I am calling on [elected] to follow in congressional colleague Senator Kamala Harris's footsteps, and call for Secretary Nielsen's resignation immediately. You: <insert optional comment>

Call the capitol switchboard: (202) 224-3121 #ICALLEDMYREPS @CELESTE PEWTER

Call your GOVERNORS and ask them to direct the national guard to NOT send resources to the border (06/18)

You: Hi, my name is [name]. I am calling from [zip code].

You: I am calling to ask [GOVERNOR] to please follow Governor Baker of Massachusetts, by instructing the national guard to not deploy to the US-Mexico border. The National Guard cannot and should not be used to further assist in enforcing the Zero Tolerance policy being enacted by the Trump Administration.

You: I am also calling on [GOVERNOR] to commit to signing an executive order similar to Governor Hickenlooper of Colorado, prohibiting any state resources from being used to asssist the Trump Administration's efforts to enforce the zero tolerance policy. I understand it's largely ceremonial, but I want [GOVERNOR] to commit to taking a stand.

You: <insert optional comments here>

Find your governor's contact info here: https://openstates.org #ICALLEDMYREPS @CELESTE PEWTER

Talking points re: JAG corps allegedly being assigned to try cases at the border (06/22)

JAG lawyers have different rules to follow than civilian lawyers. How can we be sure they'll follow proper procedure when trying cases? How will any appeals process on behalf of the defendant be impacted (if applicable) given that military and civilian appeals are different?

WHY are we letting DHS/HHS utilize DOD resources, for something that is strictly in DHS/HHS territory? What is the justification?

Should we not be concerned we're allowing military personnel to handle civilian affairs? This is conflating multiple departments and cross issues.

Call the capitol switchboard: (202) 224-3121 #ICALLEDMYREPS @CELESTE PEWTER

Call your GOVERNORS and ask them to continue issuing directives to NOT support border efforts + support their requests for clarity on children in their respective states (06/22)

You: Hi, my name is [name]. I am calling from [zip code]

You: I am calling to ask [GOVERNOR] to continue to refuse to utilize any state resources that would help the federal government's zero tolerance policy. [GOVERNOR] should commit to signing an executive order similar to Governor Hickenlooper of Colorado.

If there are children in your state: I am also calling on [Governor] to continue to be vocal on the need to get accurate numbers on how many children are in our state, and where these facilities are. I ask [Governor] to do everything in their power to tour these facilities. Accountability is needed. You: <insert optional comments here>

Find your governor's contact info here: https://openstates.org #ICALLEDMYREPS @CELESTE PEWTER

Call your local electeds to request a resolution condemning the zero tolerance policy/family separation (6/22)

You: Hi, my name is [name]. I am calling from [address/zip code].

You: I am calling to ask [MAYOR/CITY COUNCILMEMBER] to please endorse a resolution that makes clear [CITY] does not condone the Trump Administration's current immigration practices, including family separation, family detention centers, and the refusal to provide asylum to those who are seeking it under domestic violence and gang violence.

You: Yesterday's federal executive order does little to solve the problem. Families are still separated, and the executive order only opens up the pathway to family detention centers.

You: I am calling on [MAYOR/CITY COUNCILMEMBER] to show what our city stands for, and take a stand. You: <insert optional comment here>

#ICALLEDMYREPS @CELESTE PEWTER

Call your Attorneys general, and ask them to join the multi-state lawsuit. (06/22)

You: Hi, my name is [name]. I am calling from [zip code].

You: I am calling on [AG] to join the other state attorneys generals who are planning on suing the Trump Administration to compel reunification for the 2.3K children separated from their families.

You: As Maryland's AG Frosh confirmed in an interview: the executive order does not adequately address the problems that have resulted in family separation; including how to reunite the families, and the government appears to not have a concrete plan.

You: Please sign onto the lawsuit and compel the administration to act.

You: <insert optional comment>

Find your AG: http://www.naag.org/naag/attorneys- general/whos-my-ag.php

Attorneys:

Ted Colquett, Birmingham, AL -  ted@colquettlaw.com, (205) 245-4370

Morgan Petriello, Los Angeles, CA - mpetriello@frandzel.com, (323) 651-2577

Elleni Kalouris, Chicago suburbs, IL - ekalouris@kalourislawfirm.com

Therapists:

Muni Olia, Philadelphia, PA - Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist - munira.olia@nyu.edu

Ruth Durack, MSW, Peoria, IL - Social Worker - ruth.durack@lssi.org

Lauren Fallon, LCSW, IL - Social Worker - lauren.brown04@gmail.com

Jennifer Goldstein, Chicago, IL - Therapist - jennifergoldstein2@gmail.com

Gloria Jetter, LMSW, New York, NY - Social Worker - glojetter@gmail.com

Note: These attorneys and therapists/psychiatrists were shared via Jezebel, and have not been vetted by the website; their inclusion on the list is by request.If you are an attorney or therapist who would like to offer your services to immigrants and refugees pro-bono, email Joanna Rothkopf with your contact information at joanna@jezebel.com. The descriptions I found for many of these resources are also courtesy of Rothkopf and Pewter.

Please consider boosting this post, @phonescripts​, @justsomeantifas​, and @nativenews​! 

[theseaeaglelives]

Round 18

THE SEA EAGLE

MAKING RUGBY LEAGUE GREAT AGAIN!!!

Round 18 

Manly Sea Eagles 36

Defeated   

Parramatta Eels   24

A sunny Sunday afternoon, a packed Brookie up against the old enemy, the despised Eels and a victory. The only missing ingredient of a perfect afternoon being the absence of the dulcet tones of Rex “the Moose” Mossop calling the action.   

There were however some ominous signs for Manly though when it was reported that Brad Parker had been recalled into the team as a late replacement for an injured Cade Cust.   

Notwithstanding the inclusion of Parker, Manly opened the scoring after 5 minutes when improving winger Rueben Garrick crossed in the corner. Garrick then duly converted his own try. Young Garrick is but another example of a player improving in season 2019 as compared to last year, with the Sea Eagle still somewhat dumfounded as to the reason for this repeated and strange phenomenon. . The Sea Eagle vows to get to the bottom of this and seek a rational explanation.

The Eels then hit back with two tries of their own, the first as a result of a Horhay Torfua howler. Young Horhay has the turning circle and mobility of a Mk1 Abrams tank and the sooner he is moved into the forwards the better for all concerned.

Defence then took a back seat for the remainder of the half, particularly from the Eels and Manly ran in four tries including a screamer from Tommy Turbo. Even the much-maligned Brad Parker managed to cross for a try as Manly held a 26-12 lead at the break.   

The second half was less than inspiring with plenty of mistakes from both teams. Manly took their foot off the accelerator but made less mistakes than the Eels running in a further two tries with Rueben Garrick chalking up his first career hat-trick.   

Two late tries to the Eels added some respectability however the final 36-24 scoreline did not justify the commanding nature of the Manly victory.

What a hapless mob the Eels are, and it was interesting to note the prevalence of Manly discards (David Gower, Shaun Lane, Clint Gutherson, Coach Brad Arthur etc.) within their ranks, indeed further proof positive that no-one goes better when they leave the nest.

The win not only consolidates Manly within the top 8, but provides some hope for even better things to come as they now knock on the door of the top 4. Next week against the filthy wrestling, cheating rorters from Melbourne will provide a more accurate gauge on where Manly sit in season 2019.   

More Embarrassment for the NRL- Mark Coyne   

Since the off-season from hell the NRL has done a fair job in improving player behaviour however, the latest in a long stream of embarrassments comes directly from head office.   Proving that you can take the man out of the NRL, but you can never take the NRL out of the man, former Dragon and now NRL Commissioner, Mark Coyne has found himself in hot water and on the wrong side of the Singaporean legal system.

It has been reported in the press that Mr Coyne has unleashed an expletive laden tirade along the lines of "you are a f---ing stupid idiot", a "f---ing dickhead" and a "cock", "f---ing cock" and "f---ing dog", he also threatened to "sue you through your f---ing arse" and adding "if some f---ing stupid c--- sues me, I don’t f---ing care. Especially you". And then finally "you are f---ing crazy", "you must be f---ing embarrassed" and "you must be so f---ing proud of yourself"   

Such a tirade could have been excused and even justified had it taken place at an NRL Board meeting (and merely represented a rehash of the minutes of said meeting), or perhaps having been directed at incumbent NRL Chairman, Peter Beattie (given his many public statements in the past have only but confirmed his mastery of embarrassment).   

However poor old Mr Coyne made the fatal mistake of directing it towards a police officer in Singapore. Whilst the Australian judicial system seems to tolerate verbal and physical abuse directed towards the constabulary, such is not the case in Singapore and Mr Coyne was duly arrested, his passport confiscated and then detained in Singapore for seven weeks. 

The Sea Eagle can report that Mr Coyne got off lightly and was very fortunate not to have been sentenced to the traditional Singaporean punishment for such an indiscretion. 

Compounding this indiscretion, Mr Coyne then thought it would be acceptable to withhold informing the NRL of his misdemeanour, allegedly suggesting something about an ear infection which prevented him from returning from Singapore. Mr Coyne also pulled out that old and well used NRL chestnut, claiming that he was too intoxicated to remember the incident and that his behaviour was completely out of character (aren’t they all!!).  

It has since been reported in various outlets that Mr Coyne is a “good bloke and irreplaceable on the NRL Commission”. Be that as it may, and the Sea Eagle does not doubt it for one moment, with the power of an NRL independent Commissioner comes great responsibility. The first is not to embarrass oneself or the code (Mr Peter Beattie not knowing who the Sharks were is but one example of this), and the second it would seem, is not to go on drunken tirades in foreign lands and abuse the local police. Such things never end well.

The Sea Eagle notes that it has also been reported that Israel Folau is a “good bloke” but the NRL won’t allow him within a bull’s roar of participating in the greatest game of all.   

 As far as the Sea Eagle is concerned and bearing in mind that Clubs are required to immediately self-report any incident involving players/officials, in the interest of consistency (particularly given the Dylan Walker banning despite being found ultimately NOT GUILTY), the NRL, must enact its no-fault policy and Mr Coyne should be sacked from the Commission.

In the words of the great man President Trump, Mark Coyne “You’re Fired”.  

The Sea Eagle’s only other comment on this unmitigated debacle, is to urge those that actually control the independent commission of the NRL, to resist the temptation (largely from the News Limited and Fairfax media) to appoint someone on the commission who has a so called rugby league background. 

Everybody knows that sooner or later anyone with a significant rugby league background is more  likely than not going to have some sort of unsavoury incident surface. This is due basically to the rugby league  DNA factor .   Regrettably only those who are regular participants in rugby league seem to fully understand and appreciate how to control and limit  the impacts of this DNA chromosome mismatch, but as everybody knows, despite the best efforts all concerned, sooner or later the rugby league gene will kick in, and create embarrassment for all and sundry.  

It can't be stopped, it can only be managed.   This is not a criticism , as no other code on the planet seems to have this ability to recover from such significant embarrassment on a regular basis. But to put it as simply as one can, it is the reason why rugby league  is the greatest game of all and not the game they play in heaven (rugby union ). 

Trent Barrett

The Sun Herald reported that on Saturday 19 July 2019, Trent Barrett’s coaching tenure at Manly officially came to an end. The same publication also reported said Mr. Barrett has somehow managed to land a gig as part of the All Blacks support crew. The Sea Eagle is not in a position to verify the accuracy of this allegation but if it is true you can expect that the All Blacks will not win the 2019 World Cup.  

Moreover, if indeed it is true, the mind boggles at who actually thought this was a good thing to do in New Zealand rugby. For a nation who on any objective basis is by far and away the best managed and performing rugby union outfit on the planet, it beggars belief that they thought they even need to go anywhere near the former Shark/Dragon playing, DFI infected, ex-Manly coach. A quick review of his coaching record and the fact that he's never won a premiership as a player or as a coach only confirms the folly of such a decision (if indeed it has been made).  

Erskineville Toxic Waste Real Estate Developments   

We have all read about the recent debacle that is new home unit construction in Sydney and Melbourne but in particular in the area starting from South of the Harbour Bridge heading towards Botany and Mascot.

The latest in this sad and sorry saga is a revelation that a block of units in Erskineville will not be approved by the Council as fit for human habitation, because it has not complied with environmental rules. That is to say it was built on a toxic waste dump much in the same way that the Sydney Olympic Stadium was built on a toxic waste dump in Homebush.   

Seemingly it is not acceptable for a few 100 people to live in a block of units on a toxic waste dump in Erskineville but it is perfectly reasonable to put 80,000 people on a regular basis into a stadium in Homebush with possibly even more alarming environmental issues underneath it.   

The poor old punters who have bought these units off the plan can rightly feel that they have been Piss&d on from a great height.   Given the developer is an entity known as Golden Rain Development Pty Limited (apparently a Chinese backed real estate development firm), the Sea Eagle can confirm that the Director of Controversy is currently looking into whether or not a new name would be more appropriate. 

Something in the order of Golden Shower Development Pty Limited. But at this stage that is mere conjecture.

THE SEA EAGLE

[antoine-roquentin]

One of the pretenses of right-wing energy policy is that conservatives support a “level playing field,” upon which energy sources can compete without subsidies. Let the market decide!

As I have written many times, this is a juvenile notion. Markets are powerful tools for directing private capital and innovation, useful in the right circumstances. But the idea that there ever has been, or ever can be, an open, unbiased, “free” market for energy sources is a fantasy that should stay in the college library with the Ayn Rand novels. It is analytically inert; it does nothing to illuminate whether current markets are working or help us decide how best to use markets to serve our greater goals.

The fundamental reason the “free market” ideal is unhelpful in energy is that it’s impossible to ever truly settle what is and isn’t a market-distorting subsidy. Some subsidies, like explicit cash grants or tax breaks, are easy enough to identify, but beyond that there is a whole complex world of implicit subsidies.

If an energy source has negative impacts that are not incorporated in its market price (negative “externalities,” in the jargon), that means other people are paying for those impacts. The source is implicitly subsidized.

Here’s the thing: Every energy source and energy industry has both positive and negative externalities. Deciding which ones “distort markets,” which ones count as implicit subsidies (or implicit taxes) virtually always comes down to a subjective judgment.

And the implicit subsidies dwarf the explicit subsidies, so arguing about the latter while unable to agree on the former is uniquely pointless.

In practice, most political disputes over subsidies just end up obscuring values-based arguments about what kind of future we want behind a veil of pseudo-objective economic jargon. One’s own favored energy sources receive commonsense support; the other side’s energy sources are on corporate welfare. And so it goes.

This week brought an excellent example, in the form of a new paper from Securing America’s Future Energy (SAFE), a clean-energy advocacy group composed of retired military and business leaders. It attempts to put a number on one of the great, neglected implicit subsidies for oil: the costs to the US military of defending oil supplies, everything from guarding shipping lanes to maintaining troop commitments in key oil-producing nations.

The number, it turns out, is high: $81 billion a year at the low end, which is almost certainly conservative.

But is that a subsidy for oil? It is certainly one way oil dependence has shaped the country, its history, and its institutions — one of countless ways — but does putting a dollar figure on it and calling it a “market distortion” clarify anything or convince anyone?

We will ponder those questions in a moment, but first, a quick look at the study.

Given that almost any military procurement or deployment has multiple, overlapping objectives, it is obviously difficult to pick out exactly which ones are devoted to protecting oil supplies. Consequently, the methodology for a study like this is going to be full of assumptions and judgment calls. But SAFE did its best to stay reasonably conservative.

Its research surveyed the literature on the costs of defending oil supplies, eliminated some of the extreme estimates on the high and low ends, settled on six core studies, and then updated the numbers in those studies based on current DOD costs. The idea was to get at least a rough sense of how much the US military currently spends guarding oil.

That’s how SAFE developed the $81-billion-a-year estimate, which represents 16 percent of DOD’s base annual budget. “Spread out over the 19.8 million barrels of oil consumed daily in the U.S. in 2017,” SAFE writes, “the implicit subsidy for all petroleum consumers is approximately $11.25 per barrel of crude oil, or $0.28 per gallon of transportation fuel.”

That’s a lot! But it’s almost certainly too low.

One conservative move in the analysis was to exclude DOD’s Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) budget, which basically covers the incremental costs, over and above the base DOD budget, of the Afghanistan and Iraq Wars. By excluding OCO, SAFE does not count those wars among the costs of defending oil.

Some of the retired military leaders it interviewed questioned that assumption.

“I would make the case that the OCO spending is related to oil protection,” said former Secretary of the Navy John Lehman. “More than half the Defense budget is for the security of Persian Gulf oil.” His comments were echoed by numerous other ex-military officials.

If the OCO costs, or some portion of them, are included in the tally, the subsidy number obviously rises, “to over $13 per barrel or $0.31 per gallon.”

And that’s still only direct military costs, which are just one piece of the puzzle. The economists Linda Bilmes and Joseph Stiglitz have done extraordinary work attempting to tally up the full costs of the wars, including higher oil prices, debt service, obligations to returning veterans, lost wages, lost lives, and much else. They estimated the total at somewhere between $4 and $6 trillion.

If you take the midpoint estimate of $5 trillion, “a conservative estimate of the per gallon cost for these wars easily exceeds $30 per barrel (over $0.70 per gallon) over a 20-year period.” And that’s separate from the other $0.28 per gallon SAFE calculated from DOD’s base annual budget.

Add all that up, and it’s close to a $1 subsidy for a gallon of gas. That roughly translates to a subsidy of $100 per ton of carbon dioxide emissions. That’s a lot to pay to destroy the atmosphere!

Now, of course, people of good faith can disagree about the right estimate, whether $81 billion or something higher. Like I said, there are plenty of judgment calls about what to include in the tally.

But no one can justify the current practice of US government agencies, which is to put the cost of defending global oil supplies at zero dollars.

Yes, zero. When assessing policies meant to reduce oil consumption, agencies give no weight at all to the benefits of reduced military spending. SAFE puts it this way, in its striking opening sentence: “According to the calculations of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), the cost to the United States of defending the global oil supply is zero.”

Why do they do this? It has to do with the way DOD is budgeted. To make a long story short, the assumption is that if the money wasn’t spent defending oil, it would go to some other military objective. DOD budgets would not decline, and thus there would be no savings to taxpayers. Thus: $0.

Obviously that’s silly. Just because the money would be budgeted to something else doesn’t mean it’s imaginary. The whole point is that reducing reliance on oil would free up that money to do other things.

“If we can reduce our dependence on oil, we could reduce our presence in the Gulf and use the funds for other critical military priorities, like cybersecurity or hypersonic weapons,” said General Duncan McNabb, former commander of the US Transportation Command. “We would make different choices that would make us safer and more secure.”

These are the perpetually overlooked “opportunity costs” of oil — all the other stuff we could be doing if we weren’t hunched over the globe, guarding our black gold.

Federal agencies shouldn’t ignore those costs. Policies that reduce oil dependence should be credited in some way for also reducing the costs of oil protection. In that sense, it very much makes sense to frame oil-protection costs as subsidies for oil.

The language of “subsidies” often obscures an essentially moral argument

But I wonder whether the language of “subsidies” is really the right way to understand what’s going on here. (I have no idea if it’s effective messaging that can sway policymakers or the public; maybe so! That’s a separate question.)

We defend oil because we depend on it, and so does everybody else. It’s the lifeblood of the global economy; controlling it makes us powerful. As Vice President Dick Cheney said in 2004: “Oil is unique in that it is so strategic in nature. We are not talking about soapflakes or leisurewear here. Energy is truly fundamental to the world’s economy. The Gulf War was a reflection of that reality.”

Everything is a reflection of that reality. Because oil is fundamental to our economy and our ability to project power, it shapes our foreign policy in myriad direct and indirect ways. Securing oil supply is not always the proximate or primary cause of what we do — it’s too simple to say we “fought wars for oil” — but it always sets the conditions and limits of our engagement. It’s always a baseline. We simply cannot afford to do things that might seriously threaten our control over the energy that runs our economy and our military.

You can draw a line around some part of that geopolitical and military maneuvering and call it a “subsidy” — for oil producers? for oil consumers? for the military itself? — but where you draw that line will always come down to subjective judgment. Oil powers everything, so everything is, in some way or another, about oil.

To call this maintenance of global status a “subsidy” is to translate the language of security, power, and moral tradeoffs into the language of economics. But does that help us understand it any better? Does it convince anyone?

People these days seem to think the language of economics has a kind of magical power, as though money, in the end, is all people really care about — as though all other concerns must be translated to dollar values to have any weight.

I’m skeptical about that. (I think it has more to do with the outsized influence of economics on American elites than it does with real-world sociology.) I can’t imagine anyone who currently supports the fossil fuel-based global order being convinced to oppose it by the realization that it knocks the equivalent $1.74 off their monthly paycheck.

People come to their political opinions based on stories and narratives, based on identity affiliation and sorting, not based on nickel-and-dime calculations regarding their own household budgets. We are social creatures, not the calculating self-interest maximizers of economic lore.

If I wanted to convince someone that US oil dependence is bad, I wouldn’t focus first, or at all, on the few cents it adds to their daily expenses. I would begin with a moral argument.

To wit: The world’s countries have long been trapped in a corrupt struggle for finite resources that has carried untold colonialist oppression and ecological ruin in its wake. Oil has sullied everything it touches, very much including the US government. It has led us to ally with evil regimes, to empower autocrats, to bully vulnerable populations, to start unjust and pointless wars, to foul our land, water, and air, and to bloat the size of our military beyond all reason — all while we neglect the needs of US citizens at home.

Perhaps at one time it could have been argued that the benefits outweigh the costs. But climate change has settled that argument, as has the plunging cost of energy alternatives. We now understand that the costs oil dependence are potentially existential and that the costs of freeing ourselves from oil are manageable.

i like how this article begins to grapple with the notion that military control over oil is how america maintains a global empire, but backs off before it realizes that all this military spending is really a net surplus for america because it ensures the dollar is the global currency sovereign, thus america can just print whatever it needs to buy whatever it want because other countries are obligated to get their hands on it to buy and sell goods on the international market.

[xarciel]

Why Megatron’s Redemption Arc Falls Flat - Part 2

So I realised as I was writing this that I have way too much to say for a single post. There’s a lot to unpack in the metatextual promotion of Megatron in s2 of MTMTE and LL, so instead of this being Part 2/2 as expected it will be Part 2/??. I’ll update the links at the bottom if/when more posts gets written.  

Since his introduction to the crew at the beginning of Season 2 Megatron has fundamentally changed the way the ensemble cast interacted and resolved situations. This is to be expected, of course, since Megatron is a divisive, dynamic character, but the issue isn’t that this /has/ happened, but /how/ it has happened. Specifically, Megatron is positioned as the main protagonist in the ensemble, at the expense of other characters’ arcs.

To make Megatron sympathetic we see the same four steps used throughout the series: -> Raise an issue as something current Megatron cares about -> Retcon the issue through flashbacks as something that Megatron has always cared about -> Resolve the issue in the present, allowing Megatron to show off his ethical ways -> Refuse to acknowledge specific actions taken by Megatron during the war, and preceding the start of MTMTE

This is used in conjunction with positioning all those against Megatron’s rehabilitation as villains (Rodimus on Cybertron, Starscream at the trial, Getaway on the Lost Light and the DJD on Necroworld), ensuring that we get plenty of shots of Megs looking sad (I counted 42 in MTMTE, not including #50-55) and introducing new, even more heinous villains (the DJD) to undermine Megatron’s atrocities up to this point. We’re given extensive monologues from Megatron as his journey progresses, and when he does act in ways that undermine his redemption the story sweeps them under the rug, focussing on other more positive areas instead.

A simple example: Megatron hates mneumosurgery. He considers it a violation of the highest order, as no-one should be able to alter the mind or mental state of another without their permission. At the beginning of Season 2 however, he permanently activates Trailcutter’s FIM chip without his consent, and aside from a single line from Trailcutter this is never brought up again. This is, in fact, altering Trailcutter’s mental state without his permission, but because it’s not done in the same invasive way the narrative skips over the ethical ramification of Megatron’s actions, to focus on the positives they bring.

On the subject of mneumosurgery, this presents the perfect Raise, Retcon, Resolve method described above. Issue #28: Megatron’s hatred of mneumosurgery is Raised when Optimus offers using it as a way to expedite Megatron’s trial. Issue #34: Megatron’s hatred for mneumosurgery is Retconned to stem from a lobotomisation he was forced to undergo by the Functionists when he was still a miner. Issue #48: Rodimus orders Chromedome to use mneumosurgery to determine Atomizer’s guilt in the attack on Megatron - Megatron Resolves his status as the more moral of the pair by being against this use of mnuemosurgery. The Refuse step comes into play with one of Megatron’s schemes from #14 of Robots in Disguise, which takes place roughly 12 months before #28. This issue involves Megatron revealing that he has had Prowl under mind control via Bombshell for months, using him to grow Decepticon sympathy and having him commit atrocities as a Decepticon plant. Nowhere in MTMTE is this even vaguely referenced- pre-MTMTE Megatron is never reflected on within the text.

The fact that the narrative simultaneously punishes Rodimus and Optimus for committing morally questionable actions for good reasons means that Megatron is portrayed in a more positive light than his actions deserve. We are shown, and focus on, Megatron’s suffering from mneumosurgery - the more complex arguments from the practice are laid aside in search of a simple morality arc.

To help further develop sympathy for Megatron, the narrative introduces a new set of villains to replace and even outstrip the atrocities Megatron has committed in the past. This group, the DJD, commit heinous acts against established ensemble characters and their own faction for personal and professional pleasure, and are shown to be incalcitrant to change, even when negotiating with Megatron. Language used by Megatron to describe them repeatedly emphasises his opinion they are more morally corrupt than he ever was, calling them ‘the biggest monsters of all’ and ‘the dark side of the Decepticon cause’. This both distances Megatron from the DJD in the readers minds, and again reinforces the idea that Megatron is no longer the evil mastermind from previous arcs, furthering his redemption arc without any significant character growth on his end.

In the lead up to the Dying of the Light two issues are dedicated to recalling the specific atrocities committed by Tarn on Skids during the war, specifically to prime the audience for the DJD’s appearance as main villains in the finale. Simultaneously, Megatron is undergoing a vow of pacifism, using the four steps to invite audience sympathy and further drive a wedge between past Megatron and redeemed Megatron. Raise: #32 - Megatron talks with Ravage about how he is tired of fighting Retcon: #37 - Megatron the miner originally promoted ‘non-violent direct action’ Resolve: #49 - Megatron takes a vow of pacifism Refuse: Megatron the gladiator, the assassination of the Senate, literally anything from the last 4 million years

While undertaking this vow of pacifism, however, Megatron fails to consider the impact of it on those around him - specifically, by marking himself as a strict non-combatant, he refuses to provide back up to the LL crew in any situation they may need it. Compared with other pacifistic characters such as Ratchet and Rung, this simplistic ‘fighting is bad’ policy demonstrates how Megatron is rewarded within text without considering the issue on a complex level. He is granted moral superiority by simple virtue of refusing to fight, even if his decision may lead to preventable deaths. This view is ultimately self-centric - when compared to Drift’s arc and how he uses his skills to protect others as redemption for committing crimes against them in the first place, Megatron’s redemption is tea tray shallow.

The issues of how Megatron is positioned as sympathetic through framing those against his rehabilitation as antagonists is a post for another time (since this one’s already getting pretty long), but consider the following: from issue #28 to issue #49, there are 42 panels of Megatron looking sad. These panels come either as individual closeups, or panels where Megatron is in the mid-ground and additional body language as well as his face are used to convey his sadness. Once you remove the DJD and Scavengers issues, this is 15 issues, and roughly three panels per issue of Megatron looking sad. This strong emphasis on Megatron’s feelings, and specifically his negative emotions, are used to create sympathy for him by using basic story-telling techniques - to use an old fashioned term, Megatron is being Woobified.

Making Megatron into a ‘relatable’ character was not something that happened in MTMTE by accident. There was extensive planning on the story and art side to make sure that Megatron came across as sympathetic, even though through his actions Megatron never truly shows much evidence of redemption. The Dying of the Light and the Functionist Universe arcs are entire suitcases that still need unpacking here, but for now I’ll leave it with this: a redemption arc is a character making up for past mistakes - a process of self-reflection and action taken to make amends for things they’ve done in the past.

Where is it that we see Megatron making amends for those he’s hurt in the past?

[Link to Part 1]

A quick recap on Megatron (and his sad faces), issue by issue for those interested:

#28: Megatron argues that ‘tampering with someone’s head’ (accessing or altering their mental state) is the one place he will not go. Rodimus tells him he deserves to die for his crimes, and we get 3 panels of Megs looking sad. LL members graffiti his door and Whirl attacks him. Megatron tells Whirl that Whirl is only alive due to Megs’ mercy because of their interactions 4 million years ago.

#29: Flashback to the trial: Starscream says Megatron deserves pity - 3 panels of Megs looking sad. Megatron permanently enables Trailbreaker’s FIM chip without his consent (thereby altering his mental state).

#30: More flashbacks to the trial - Megs gives his statement, manipulates the trial using a legal loophole to avoid judgement and issues a public renouncement of the Decepticons (under duress by Optimus) - 8 panels of Megs looking sad.

#31: Megs is accused of being responsible for crew members disappearing - 3 panels of Megs looking sad. When Nightbeat works out the cause Megatron berates him and blames the disappearances on Nightbeat for not being faster, even though knowing the cause could not have prevented it.

#32: Megatron is accused of killing crew members as the corpses bear wounds from a fusion cannon - he agrees to stay stationary while the others investigate further. We learn Megatron destroyed his signature weapon (under duress from Optimus). Megatron discusses his change of heart with Ravage, describes the DJD as ‘the biggest monsters of all’. Speaks of how old and tired he feels - 7 panels of Megs looking sad.

#33: the team wants to save a planet from destruction, Megatron says it’s not worth it because the planet doesn’t contain Cybertronians. Skids confronts him on his xenophobic views.  2 panels of Megs looking sad. Megatron reveals he can help the team as a last resort. Convinces Ravage to remain on the LL by arguing that he has seen ‘the dark side’ of the Decepticon cause. #34: Flashback to Megatron’s beginnings as a miner on Tarn. Foundation of Towards Peace and the Decepticon manifesto are retconned to being about equality only, and contain no xenophobia. Megatron loses his friend Terminus and is lobotimised by a mneumosurgeon - 6 panels of Megs looking sad.

#35: Megatron loots Trailcutter’s forcefield generator from his corpse. 2 panels of Megs looking sad. Megatron further distances himself from the DJD when Rodimus comes to see him, and the discussion of Megatron’s connection with the DJD is swept under the rug by the next plot thread. Megatron’s role in Trailcutter’s death is never revisited.

#36: Megatron speaks to Orion Pax from 4 million years ago about his moral dilemma - 2 panels of Megs looking sad.

#37: Flashback to the bar fight that got Megatron arrested - this fight is retconned to be caused by the modern day LL crew. Megatron’s manifesto is retconned to originally be about non violent direct action, with Impactor the one who dragged Megatron into the bar fight that gets him arrested.

#38: Megatron attacks Perceptor and demands to be sent through time. Magnus brings him under control. Megatron warps his behaviour from attacking to ‘remonstrating’ and offers no apology for it. The LL crew discovers how much the universe would have benefited from Megatron’s death and tries to enact it, but are betrayed by Whirl’s hatred of Functionism - 4 panels of Megs looking sad.

#39: The DJD find out about Megatron’s renouncement of the Decepticons and decide to continue their work regardless.

#40: Megatron is tricked by Ratchet into giving a poetry reading at ‘Visages’ which nobody attends. Megatron steals one of the time briefcases, which Rodimus and Perceptor are destroying.

#43: Megatron’s intuitive human avatar wields a Decepticon cane, which he discards when he realises its existence. 1 panel of Megs looking sadly at his old age in a mirror.

#44: Megatron agrees to detouring the ship to Necroworld as a way to postpone the search for the Knights. Megatron finds his field of death flowers while a monologue from the Necrobot about how all Cybertronians are killers is superimposed on the page. 1 panel of Megs looking sad.

#47: Megatron wakes up to find Tailgate beside him with mneunosurgeon needles on his fingers. He grabs Tailgate by the head. Cyclonus enters to this scene and attacks Megatron, leaving him with a dent in his head and a hole in his chest.

#48: Megatron apologises to Cyclonus, says he was not going to hurt Tailgate. The ethical question of Rodimus instructing Chromedome to probe Atomizer’s mind is called into question by Cyclonus and Megatron. Flashbacks to Skids time on Grindcore, where Tarn is the principle villain.

#49: Megatron refuses to fire on Sunder, even as he attacks the entire crew of the LL, states he is now a pacifist. Megatron attempts to persuade Rung to continue in his role, attempting to sweep Rung’s mistakes under the rug. We witness the full horror of Grindcore as Tarn’s pet project.

[Issues #50 onwards coming when I get around to it]

[iconiceyesleedswestyorkshir-blog]

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[phroyd]

A FEW YEARS before Jay Hammond, a Republican, was elected to serve as Alaska’s governor in 1974, he worked as mayor of the small borough of Bristol Bay. There, he watched as nearly all of his town’s rich salmon resources were extracted from the region, with virtually none of the profits or job opportunities going to locals. He fashioned the idea of a 3 percent tax on fish catch, and using the money raised for an investment fund that would pay Bristol Bay residents an annual dividend from its returns.

Voters rejected Hammond’s idea, but he’d have several more opportunities to promote it in the following years. As governor, in 1976, he pushed for a constitutional amendment that would direct 25 percent of all lease sale payments and oil royalties to a fund that could only be used for income-generating investments. Hammond originally kept quiet about his desire to direct those returns back to citizens, and it was understood primarily as a proposal to prevent the waste of oil revenue. But after the amendment passed by a 2-to-1 margin, Hammond made it his central mission to push for the citizens’ dividend idea. His persistence paid off and in 1982, Alaskans received their first check from the so-called Permanent Fund, a dividend that has flowed annually ever since.

At the end of 2017, over 600,000 Alaskan citizens received dividends of $1,100. In prior years, checks have been as high as $2,000 per person. The fund is massively popular — recent polling showed that Republicans, Democrats, and independents all would rather pay higher income taxes to reduce the deficit than see their annual dividend cut. In no small part due to the Permanent Fund, Alaska is the most economically equal state in the country.

“It’s certainly the most popular political program in Alaska,” Bill Wielechowski, a Democratic state senator, told The Intercept. “It’s a really significant amount of money and has a huge impact. There have been studies that show the majority of people put it towards savings and paying ordinary bills.”

The Alaska Permanent Fund is what’s known as a “social wealth fund” — also sometimes called a “sovereign wealth fund” or a “citizens’ wealth fund.” There are more than 70 such funds across the world, in countries like Australia, Japan, New Zealand, Qatar, and Norway. The number of social wealth funds has risen considerably since 2000, and a new report produced by Matt Bruenig, founder of the crowd-funded socialist think tank the People’s Policy Project, advocates for expanding Alaska’s model to create a national social wealth fund in the United States. Doing so, Bruenig argues, may be the best shot Americans have to stop a decades-long trend of accelerating inequality.

Bruenig dubs his idea the “American Solidarity Fund.” The government would gradually accumulate assets such as stocks, bonds, and real estate, and as the value of the publicly managed assets increases, the value of the shares would also rise. Citizens would receive a “universal basic dividend” every year from the income earned from the fund’s investments.

While Alaska’s Permanent Fund was built around a rich natural resource, Bruenig points to Sweden’s short-lived experiment with a social wealth fund in the 1980s, where Swedes used taxes on corporate profits to fill it up. (Conservative legislators ended Sweden’s fund in 1991.)

Bruenig explores five different ways to bring in assets to a national U.S. fund, ranging from voluntary contributions from the superrich to a host of new taxes and fees. While he acknowledges many different types of levies could work, he focuses on wealth taxes, like market capitalization taxes, financial transaction taxes, and steeper inheritance taxes.

Unlike Alaska’s model, which does not grant dividend recipients any formal ownership, Bruenig proposes giving every qualifying citizen one nontransferable share of the fund. The idea is to give citizens some power they could then collectively exert over corporate board decision-making. Individuals could also track their share online, similar to the way individuals can track their growing capital investments on Vanguard. “This is partially a communications gimmick,” he acknowledges. “But no more so than many of the hyper-abstracted ownership gimmicks that already exist in the country’s capital markets.”

Also unlike Alaska’s model, which distributes dividends to all citizens, Bruenig proposes issuing dividends to every citizen above age 17. (He advocates monthly child allowances for families with children, not administered through a social wealth fund.)

The national social wealth fund idea has gotten some high-profile attention, including in Hillary Clinton’s recent memoir, “Hard Choices.” Clinton said she first learned about the idea after reading a 2014 book published by Peter Barnes, an entrepreneur who also proposed a national fund like the model in Alaska. “Besides cash in people’s pockets, it would also be a way of making every American feel more connected to our country and to one another—part of something bigger than ourselves,” she wrote. “I was fascinated by this idea, as was my husband, and we spent weeks working with our policy team to see if it could be viable enough to include in my campaign.” Clinton said they shelved the “Alaska for America” idea when they “couldn’t make the numbers work.” Still, the political appeal of a policy like this might be hard to shelve permanently. Whether or not robots are really coming for our jobs remains hotly disputed, but what’s not up for debate is that voters increasingly fear it is happening and want political solutions to it. In 2015, Pew Research Center found that 65 percent of Americans anticipate that robots and computers will “definitely” or “probably” do the work currently under human control within the next 50 years. Politicians will be on the lookout for ideas to ease public insecurity.

Bruenig also points to the problem of growing wealth inequality, one that has shown no sign of reversing course. Analyzing the Survey of Consumer Finances, he found that between 2007 and 2016, the average wealth of the top 1 percent increased by $4.9 million as the wealth of the median family declined by $42,000.The top 1 percent of families, he adds, owns more wealth than the bottom 95 percent combined.

By putting more wealth under government control, Bruenig reasons, the U.S. can then redistribute it back to the people.

Peter Barnes, author of “With Liberty and Dividends for All” — the 2014 book Clinton cited in her memoir — told The Intercept that any version of a social wealth fund should be expected to start very small, but grow over time. “Getting it started would be a breakthrough,” he said. “Social Security started in 1935 at a 1 percent payroll tax and the benefits for the elderly were trivial at the beginning.”

Still, not all who’ve explored the idea see it as the right move for the United States to address its growing inequality and insecurity. Mike Konczal, a fellow at the left-leaning Roosevelt Institute, is skeptical about establishing a U.S. social wealth fund, and says it’s not only a particularly difficult way to achieve the desired redistributive goals, but could also easily have negative effects.

“If you’re thinking that the government should spend more on ‘Medicare for All,’ or for a basic income, then we can both tax wealthy people and capital income more,” he said. “If a sovereign wealth fund reinforces the deficit mentality that we have to save money to spend money, or we can’t spend money if we don’t have a special fund, that would be counterproductive.”

Another problem Konczal highlights is that social wealth funds are more difficult tools to capture privately held wealth. “This is a hard way to get at a lot of income. Koch Industries, for example, would not interact with a fund like this.” Rather than a market capitalization tax on public companies, Konczal says, why not just tax all companies through a higher corporate income tax?

And lastly, with regard to tying citizenship to capital income, he worries this could reinforce, rather than weaken, the view that the economy should only work for shareholders. Would making capitalists out of everybody drive up support for deregulating Wall Street or repealing environmental protections?

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