It looks like Kamala is the lefts nominee, as in, the best American leftism can do given current circumstances. I’ve been asking for options and strategies around here for a while now, and the best folks seem able to do is to purity police the occasional commenter, do their tiny bit to accelerate ‘hit bottom’ by enabling Trump (after which a socialist utopia would emerge?), or to crap on Ukraine and the v-word.
I’ll go ahead and take the blame. I could’ve been talking up Howie Hawkins (howie who?) or another better recommendation that whole time. But now we’re stuck with a centrist who could completely disregard anything “socialist”, even though Sanders still seems to have a voice.
Speaking of Bernie, his former campaign strategist Mark Longabaugh is warning “giddy dems” that they need to get ready for the inevitable bullshit and meme attacks the plutocratic right is famous for. I wonder what the course of action should be.
I was beginning to worry that the Axis of Resistance (Iran, Russia, China, Lebanon, Yemen etc.) was bluffing AGAIN about retaliating for the murder of Cease Fire negotiator Haniyeh in Iran, but watched the Duran, Alexander Mercouris in an update titled “Iran US Prepare Forces” (etc.) reasonably points out that it will take time for them to disperse their forces for the response. The US has shifted a massive Naval Force to the Mideast, nothing better than starting a World War just before a presidential election I guess?
Of course that sounds insane, but the actual directors of the Axis of Evil, US-NATO-the 3 letter agencies & coup-sponsoring NGOs, MICIMAC, Blackrock, Goldman Sachs, Peter Thiel etc. via Jake Sullivan & Tony Blinken see the entire rest of the World as a Nail, “Exceptional” US as a hammer so blundering into war we go!!
Yes, Willie, keep that dialogue going in your head between the greater and lesser Evils of the “choice” we are offered? Perhaps in a previous life you were a good German and argued that Hitler was a little over the top, but Himmler was performatively a little more “left” & could’ve triumphed? The rest of the Reich’s citizens did not bother with such How Many Angels can dance on the head of a pin metaphysics at the time, poor fools.
Last night, I saw “Deadpool and Wolverine” at our local theater.
It’s not my sort of genre, so I was at most more bemused than entertained, as this particular Marvel Movie was a weird mix of violence and gore interspersed with self-referencing humor where among other things the movie is very much self-aware of it being a movie (like in a desert-like place called the Void, Deadpool remarks how “isn’t this like the scenery from Mad Max, and isn’t that a copyright infringement?”). There are several pointed digs at 20th Century Fox having been bought out by Disney, and in the Void there are ruins of the Brooklyn Bridge as well as the 20th Century Fox logo sticking out of the sand.
But what got me was the gore of the movie. Bodies run through, heads expoloding, blood everywhere, all during the wisecracking. I recall that in my childhood, one of my favorite TV shows was “The Wild Wild West” starring Robert Conrad and Ross Martin, and how it was cancelled in 1969 due to charges of it being “too violent”, yet it’s not remotely even in the same league, even considering it’s a TV series versus an R-rated movie. Both in the number of deaths and the goriness of the deaths, there’s no comparison.
I find it disturbing we’ve become we’ve become so desensitized to this.
“To live is to find out for yourself what is true –Jiddu Krishnamurti
“Blind belief in authority is the greatest enemy of truth.” ― Albert Einstein
—–
The NIMH did a 8 year study on the effects of stimulant use for those labeled with ADHD. The authors received numerous payments from pharmaceutical companies and were hoping to show the drugs were effective.
The study started by randomizing kids into 4 different treatment groups. After 14 months the kids were able to switch treatment modalities.
In table 1 the different outcomes between those who were off stimulant drugs long term, and those on them are stated.
Those on the drugs had worse outcomes. The drug group had worse:
ADHD symptoms by 26-575%
Contacts with police by 644%
Functional impairment by 351%
Depression by 619%
Anxiety by 966%
psych hospitalizations by 77%
Accidents 56%
Worse educational outcomes
The common trope from psychiatry is that “the on drug group must have started out sicker.” Even the conflict of interests authors of this study shared this hypothesis.
Lucky for those concerned with science and the well-being of children the study had the data to refute or prove this hypothesis.
In a follow up the authors state:
“counter to our hypothesis, the severity of ADHD symptoms was not related to the use of medication those cases most likely to use medication had lower rather than higher ratings of ADHD symptoms (end of page 31)”
“the propensity score analyses did not provide statistical support for the basic hypothesis” (page 32)
“we found no support for the hypothesis that selection biases were “carrying” this lack of long-term benefit from medication” (page 34 section 3 Qualifications:)”
Those taking the drugs in fact started off with less symptoms. Those not taking the drugs started with worse demographics, worse health, and worse ADHD. Despite this as you can see in table 1 those on the drugs had horrendously worse outcomes.
This study also disproved the psych spread myth that stimulant use in kids do not reduce growth. Stimulants impaired growth and harmed physical health. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18573924/
The Paywall can be bypassed with https://sci-hub.se/
—-
In Quebec a natural experiment occurred when the province increased the prevalence of stimulant use compared to other Canadian provinces. The long term results replicated the NIMH study and found stimulants did nothing but worsen outcomes.
“we find a consistent negative effect of the ADHD score on all of the outcomes measured”
“The effect is large and the magnitudes are consistent with previous work”
“increase in the anxiety and depression score”
“increase in the unhappiness score, and a decline in the quality of relationships”
“Overall there is no evidence of any improvement”
“Overall, we find considerable evidence of a decline in both behavioral and educational outcomes” https://www.mcgill.ca/socialstatistics/files/socialstatistics/mark_stabile_oct_2_2013.pdf
—
Another long term study –performed by the government of Western Australia– found similar results.
These were the effects of long term simulant use:
-Stimulants increased the odds of being a grade behind by 10.5x.
-Worse ADHD symptoms
-Worse heart and pulmonary health such as increased blood pressure.
-Worsening self-esteem, depression and social functioning over time
-Reduced height https://www.health.wa.gov.au/~/media/Files/Corporate/Reports-and-publications/PDF/MICADHD_Raine_ADHD_Study_report_022010.pdf
—————–
Great is truth, but still greater, from a practical point of view, is silence about truth. –Brave New world
“All that you touch, you change. All that you change, changes you.” ― Octavia E. Butler
“Each generation must discover its mission, fulfill it or betray it, in relative opacity.” ― Frantz Fanon
Dolphins–those brainy animals we so love–actually do very poorly in captivity. Just like we would, the exhibit signs of boredom and depression living a life doing silly tricks. They sometimes engage in self-mutilation and self-injury, they are deprived of interaction with other dolphins, and they live shorter lives than wild dolphins.
Ric O’Barry, the dolphin trainer who trained dolphins for the 1960s TV show “Flipper”, went from being a dolphin trainer to a anti-captivity dolphin activist when one of the dolphins used for that TV show died, and O’Barry is convinced the dolphin (“Cathy”) committed suicide.
I find myself wondering, who is running the country (USA)? And, how likely that will be revealed.
Are the political structures on autopilot?
I line up in my mind the political machinations of the Democrats: Russiagate, two impeachments of Trump, Hunter’s laptop being declared Russian disinformation, lawfare against Trump, the open border immigration policy, blowing up Nordstream, the determined effort to avoid an open Primary on the Democrat side, the early debate between Biden and Trump revealing that Biden was not in fact sharp as a tack, the failed assassination, the accession of Harris by carefully orchestrated acclamation.
I watch incredulous as memes circulate. Trump and Vance are weird. Biden has been cross with Netanyahu about genocide and/or creating a general Mideast conflagration.
I recognize that U.S. political elites are in the grip of a major competency crisis. COVID-19. Infant formula. Boeing. Bird flu. Intel. The incapacity of the U.S. Navy: cannot beat Yemen. Cannot deliver aid across that ridiculous pier to Gaza. Losing the Ukraine War on so many levels.
And we political news junkies know very little about anything that is going on. Who was behind the plan to have Biden debate Trump so very early? A non-story apparently.
It’s not necessarily the gratuitous violence I find grating in many modern movies. It’s that so much of movies consist of references, explosions, ridiculous action scenes, and any serious emotional character development is quickly followed by some snide joke.
Despite advancements in technology even the aesthetics of modern movies are cringeworthily. Characters always have their fashion hair style, and make up slathered on even after an action scene. Supposedly “Poor” characters wear 100$ pants and somehow live upper class lifestyles. The color palate is neonish, most scenes are done with CGI causing the physical movements to be unnatural and stiff.
Modern media is becoming less and less about telling an engaging story and developing interesting characters.
Mago, if Shapiro is the VP pick, Harris and the Dems lose. American public opinion is now decidedly turning against Israel, which is why Netanyahoo is desperately trying to provoke his longed for general war before the American election. Furthmore Harris/Shapiro will inevitably be seen as West Coast/East Coast elitist, out of touch with and not interested in anyone not in their own PMC class.
We had all best be working on our plans for surviving or profiting from, as the case might be, another Trump presidency. Not forgetting that, given Trump’s age and state of health, Senator Punk might become the President. Testosterone addled goofballs everywhere will rejoice.
Willy, where I think the left went wrong, besides betraying it’s working class base, is the failure to understand that socialism, and the Marxist variant in particular, is an imported European ideology which never took hold in the USA. Look at a map sometime. Unlike Europe and India, North America is not a subcontinent of Eurasia and the United States IS NOT part of Europe. NA and Asia are even geologically distinct in any timeframe which matters for human history. Lefties are still imagining themselves the reincarnation of Lenin, not wanting to understand that there are significant differences between centuries old autocratic monarchy and a still new constitutional republic.
I hope the VP pick will be Senator Kelly because a West Coast ticket will be a living symbol that us basics, us normies and ordinaries are fed up with the intrusion into our politics of Old World resentments and rivalries. I do not hate Russia. I have no reason to hate Russia. Ancestors of mine served in the Revolutionary War, Union army in the Civil War, and both World Wars. In all four of those conflicts, Russia was our ally. Willy, I know nothing about your own ancestry, but I will say that I DO NOT CARE what atrocities were commited by what teenaged, half-starved and brutalized Czarist soldier in whose ancestor’s village over a century ago. I don’t see the Pakistani diaspora demanding that other nations go to war with India, or visa versa, but significant numbers of Jewish Americans, Polish Americans, Ukrainian Americans, et al have no shame about demanding that the USA spend it’s wealth, man and woman power and such international respect as we might still have taking out their hated, hereditary enemy. Some of the folks who love to accuse others of “hate” should look in a mirror.
Willy
If this is what you view as purity police comment, apologies.
Anyone viewing Harris as Left is unaware that although there are many leftists in the US all of us are excluded from participatory politics other than at local levels. And even then we can’t do much. In the bay area we’ve got peter dreyfuss contributing millions to unseat DA’s who enforce the laws when police malfeasance arises. $ and media and raw brutality suppress everything the Left supports. Harris knows which way the wind blows and adjusts appeals to voters accordingly. her non-public persona mirrors Biden – mean, stupid and self centered.
Howie Hawkins is a soft zionist, I guess that would make him more acceptable than the other third party candidates.
I’ve heard Stein make a case for third party voting which I can’t recall right now but nevertheless I’ll cast a vote for Claudia de la Cruz.
As far as what we do right now, I’d say keep your head down and keep on doing whatever you do if you’re in the streets/putting in local work and if you aren’t, look out for family and friends best you can.
reading about Dolphins and captivity brings me close to tears. Awful that we as a species need to entertain ourselves in the same way we choose to feed ourselves – inflicting pain and suffering. Awful.
Observed dynamic: Birthrates fall –
1) When societies shift from agrarian to industrial production; from rural to urban; from low or no social safety net to substantial levels of support.
2) When life starts to suck because of crowding, inter-generational competition, lack of SE mobility, lack of demonstrable opportunity.
Every major nation has demographic issues because people simply do not want to have kids. Kids are expensive to have, raise. Kids transitioning to adulthood in a society without real opportunity is emotionally fraught and socially destructive.
China may have the worse demographic crisis. Xi seems satisfied to hunker down and keep the Party both intact and in power. The immiseration and de-vitalization of, and possible death of, a possible billion people doesn’t seem to interfere with his sleep.
Russia is frittering away a chance to moderate their crisis by losing more than a thousand (estimate 1/3 dead) a day in Ukraine. And this before their near-perpetual SE stagnation is considered. Lets hear it for kleptocratic oligarchies under a dictatorship. Soon enough the US may slide into this modality. Late-state capitalism, particularly if not firmly regulated, tend to slow-walk in that direction.
The US has avoided some of the worse with immigration. Both in terms of direct population transfer and that, for first and second generation immigrants, the move from relatively poor and violent nation to the US represents real SE progress and hope. This hope dissipates with time.
Understanding this dynamic, perhaps only tacitly, the Opus Dei led Heritage Foundation and Federalist Society, et al, have a solution. They simply use The Handmaids Tale as a manual. Violating basic ethics, and Kant’s dictum, you reduce women to birthing machines.
Those paying attention to the backwaters of political, as informed by religion, conservatism have long heard the whispers of how things were better before women got the vote; birth control; the right to own property; divorce; the right to control their own bodies.
This is considered doable. Just a matter of using the right persuasion to socially engineer the peasants to comply, and the right propaganda for them to accept. Lashings of ‘God fearing religion’ will have them thanking you for the change. No doubt, given enough resources it can be made to ‘work’, at least nominally, for some time. Then …
I doubt many have considered the obvious alternative: A just society, meritocracy, a society that promotes fairness, that allows people to have hope. Hope for themselves, and for their children.
Fentanyl, the synthetic opioid that has become the number-one killer of Americans between the ages of 18 and 45, can be made by combining chemicals that anyone can order online. Most of these precursors, as the chemicals are known, ship from China. To investigate this dangerous pipeline, Reuters became customers. Reporters bought chemicals with names such as 1-boc-4-AP and 1-boc-4-piperidone and had them delivered to apartments in Mexico and the United States. The shipments showed up disguised as adapters or sealed in cat-food bags. All told, the investigating team purchased enough chemicals to make 3 million tablets of fentanyl, a process that cost them only $3,600 and required only clicking buttons on a smartphone or laptop.
Unemployed between gig economy gigs, I had to choose between
1. an evil boss
2. a lesser evil boss
3. starving
According to you, I chose none of the above but instead chose Hitler. Maybe instead of being so silly, you could help advise a plan for leftism going forward?
StewartM,
My namesake Willy the freed Keiko was after many years of captivity, lived in the wild for several years before succumbing to pneumonia in relatively old age. He rarely strayed far from humans, mostly because of his fame he was well-monitored and cared for. He’s said to have presented himself to orca pods but none ever offered to take him in.
I think of the released dolphin I read about which kept trying to keep up with its release boat as best he could, with his releasers wondering about that ‘strange behavior’. I think it should’ve been obvious that the dolphin was trying to say: “WHAT THE FUCK? ARE YOU SERIOUS? I’M HEARING SOME DANGEROUS SHIT OUT HERE! IT’S SCARY AS HELL BEING ALL ALONE OUT IN THIS ENDLESS EXPANSE”
bruce,
The corporate equivalent of the mafia is in control. Kennedy had to pressure Hoover against the mafia, but it took years before Henry Hill would submit himself to the witness protection program. Seems there was a bit of an inertia there.
A bit of a stretch, but I since see Sanders as having to pressure Biden against our current corporate mafia, I don’t think he was behind the plan to debate early.
I suspect somebody from the Pfizer, Nestle, Boeing, Cargill, Intel, Raytheon, AIPAC and Drone Industry Insights Dubai Creek Golf and Yacht Club buddy cabal. But don’t quote me on that. I think they were operating covertly.
Since no one’s looking and no one cares about this open thread which has reached its expiration date, I have no problem posting whatever pops up.
bruce wilder poses an interesting question when he asks who was behind the Biden Trump debate. Nobody is asking that question. Or if they are, no one is listening.
Who was behind the Trump assassination attempt thingy?
Lotsa theories behind that.
When the Kamala bala takes a hit it will be final and with prejudice.
Who’s gonna drive you home tonight?
Thomas Crooks was a conservative incel doing exactly as trained by libertarians, to try and make a name for himself to any interested ladies and gentlemen peers by whatever individual means he alone deemed necessary. Sadly, he died before learning the truth, that not even fellow shooter hero Kyle Rittenhouse is above MAGA law, no matter what the libertarians say.
As for the secret service, I ask you this. How much would your own heart be into your work if it involved serving and protecting blithering idiots?
@ mago – I care! We should mourn our dying threads like we do songs sung in the shower.
Who was behind the Biden Trump debate? Nobody is asking that question. Or if some are, no one is listening.
I see a few ask, but, no, apparently no one who matters is listening, let alone answering.
This mostly unasked, completely unanswered question reveals the pervasive unreality that has enveloped American national political discourse. It sits there with the assassination attempt, amidst the continuing flood of propaganda on all topics, challenging us to think. It makes me think that no one is interested in making the public informed about the real political dynamics and machinations, confirming that democracy is dead, suffocated.
I have looked on over the decades as a consensus formed and then solidified that the CIA had a hand in killing Kennedy and backdating the loss of American democracy and virtue to that fateful day in Dallas. Whatever the factual truth may have been about the act, the CIA certainly prevented the public from knowing what happened and why. Democracy died in the coverup and the lies, if not in the convertible.
The generation of massive lies to drive democratic consent to America’s dark and self-destructive foreign policy ventures became routine after that. The Gulf of Tonkin incident to WMDs in Iraq to Russiagate, the Ukraine War to the Gaza genocide, they never stop. And, somehow, the lies never, ever become a focal point for the massive surplus of “outrage” that pervades American political discourse. It doesn’t seem to matter if the lies are even superficially credible, as neither WMDs nor Russiagate could bear scrutiny and any suggestion that the Gaza genocide isn’t happening is delusional.
I don’t know why “they” hate Trump so very much. I do notice that many of the most celebrated and repeated calumnies against him, including those repeated by Biden in the infamous debate, are fabrications or gross exaggerations. I, personally, look at Trump and see very little to like in a vulgarian con man of no convictions. I am old enough to remember Watergate and the destruction of Nixon. A lot of people viscerally hated Nixon, but when “they” went after — that is, when the institutional pursuit began in earnest __ the Democrats were very, very careful to go after him for crimes his Republican supporters would recognize as crimes. Trump Agonistes is pursued in a way that never tries to persuade his supporters.
The attempt to assassinate Trump looks suspiciously like a plan, but it has plausible deniability in that it could be just part of the fabric of incompetency and negligence. The Secret Service can be nudged so easily by bureaucratic clumsiness into being less effective than a local sheriff’s office. So, we are left with that perennial pair of questions, “are they deliberately malevolent? or, are they just incompetent?” Is this a plan, a conspiracy? Or, is this an “accident”? You can waste a lot of brain cells on such dilemmas. Which is why leaving such questions open is a key part of the propagandist’s art of manipulation.
That is also why the question of who intervened to set Biden up for an early debate with Trump is dangerous and is not being “answered.” It is not being answered even falsely, though I think a false answer may be issued shortly. It will be a false answer designed to set up that dilemma again, to make it appear that setting up the early debate was a fumble, a mistake. The problem is, it wasn’t a mistake. It was deliberate. And, it was, for a lack of a better word, “competent.” So, someone somewhere in the apparatus can use power deliberately and with intended effect. That is a dangerous story. People could start to see “intended” everywhere.
Preventing “competence” in governance would seem to be Job 1 for the Powers that Be. Why Trump is somehow not the right kind of incompetence remains a mystery to me.
Brand management imperatives to identify Kamala Harris with the “good intentions” that will persuade Willy that she represents a “lesser evil” will shape the official propaganda, I suppose.
Reality bites. This is like watching not just one train wreck unfolding but a chain reaction accelerating.
I shall speak to mago (while actually speaking to bruce),
mago, I have a helluva time figuring out where bruce comes from partly because he’s so slippery, but mostly because he never, ever clearly reveals the precise direction which he wishes civilized society would go in. Ian in stark contrast, has always been quite clear.
bruce is an unfunny version of a George Carlin monologue. But we forgive Carlin because although he made us feel powerless, at least we got a laugh.
So I must divine bruce’s latest profound analysis.
Biden (“the most progressive President since FDR” as many pundits seem to want to declare) was most hated by the PTB (who control all) and was set up to fail in an early debate. This was easy because nobody likes a weak POTUS.
Trump is hated second most by these PTB, because he’s “somehow not the right kind of incompetence”.
This leaves Harris, who bruce proclaims the PTB wanted all along going back to the planning for that first ridiculous debate. And now, Trump (being strongly advised by his PTB handlers) is trying to do what he can to avoid debating Harris, which will make him look weak, thereby ensuring a Harris victory for the PTB.
@ Willy “Biden (“the most progressive President since FDR” as many pundits seem to want to declare) was most hated by the PTB (who control all) and was set up to fail in an early debate.”
The PTB (good name for a band..) were quite happy with “progressive and lesser” Genocide Joe, but it was clear the facade of mental competency would not hold till November, and meanwhile the old demented guy digs in. “No! I’m not movin’! Tell ’em, Jill”. Soo, whadya do? Set him up.
–
Had a great feed of wild raspberries a couple days ago (and the bugs fed on me). Best crop in years, dry no mold.
–
Meanwhile, the buildup to WW3 continues in the ME. Best wishes to all Open Threaders.
Yeah, PTB was old school Ian Welsh comment-speak for those fingers tired of always typing out “Powers That Be”, or “Wall Street, billionaire heirs, corporate cronies, bribed government officials, and the neoliberal economists who make excuses for them all”. I liked “The Man” or “fat cats”, but it’d make me sound like a tired old hippy.
Now all bruce needs is a money trail. One problem, is that MAGA has been setting the stage for a new and improved “stolen election” steal, complete with election interfering henchmen and all. Do the PTB pay off the judges?
The link below is good. But it does not go far enough. The ultimate implication of what Brian is saying is that the editors of the think tank publications are in ultimate control of the US foriegn policy, and by extention this would work for other policie issues as well. The editors after all decide what does or does not get printed in their publciations.
But if one wants to go deeper down the rabbit hole one would have to ask does anyone control the editors of the think tank publications. It is simalar to asking the question does anyone control the President of the United States. I have maintained that the President of the United States is controlled by the Joint Chiefs of Staff. What I can not answer is, is the President controlled through intimidation, or by controlling the information that the President sees, or a combination of these things. Or I guess that one could also say these things are not neccessary because any candidate who is allowed to become a serious contender for the presidency learns far in advance that he is just a public affairs officer for a behind the scenes team.
The same issues would come up in relation to the editors of the think tanks. There has to be some sort of leadership to ensure the coherence of what is printed by the think tanks. The question is who could the unelected deciders be that enforce obedience, or coherence in the public writings or utternances of the think tanks?
Is money the ultimate decider. Money talks and when money talks people listen and obey?? Or is money only one tool in the tool chest of a group of deciders that set an agenda based upon motives that are known only by the most inner circle of the controling system?
I wonder if this should be placed in the next open trade thread. As this one would normally be replaced tommorrow and then largely forgotten. Who knows maybe it should be largely forgotten. Anyways I have noticed from comments about the most evil aspect of religion that it probably would not matter who does or does not read this as it will be forgotten 15 minutes latter because the reader knew this already, or they have some other idea that is very unlikely to change based upon anything that I just wrote. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-MvPLV1Rf8
mago
Ultra Zionist and former IDF dude Josh Shapiro is Kamala’s rumored VP pick.
The clown show grows ever more deadly.
Willy
It looks like Kamala is the lefts nominee, as in, the best American leftism can do given current circumstances. I’ve been asking for options and strategies around here for a while now, and the best folks seem able to do is to purity police the occasional commenter, do their tiny bit to accelerate ‘hit bottom’ by enabling Trump (after which a socialist utopia would emerge?), or to crap on Ukraine and the v-word.
I’ll go ahead and take the blame. I could’ve been talking up Howie Hawkins (howie who?) or another better recommendation that whole time. But now we’re stuck with a centrist who could completely disregard anything “socialist”, even though Sanders still seems to have a voice.
Speaking of Bernie, his former campaign strategist Mark Longabaugh is warning “giddy dems” that they need to get ready for the inevitable bullshit and meme attacks the plutocratic right is famous for. I wonder what the course of action should be.
Mark Level
I was beginning to worry that the Axis of Resistance (Iran, Russia, China, Lebanon, Yemen etc.) was bluffing AGAIN about retaliating for the murder of Cease Fire negotiator Haniyeh in Iran, but watched the Duran, Alexander Mercouris in an update titled “Iran US Prepare Forces” (etc.) reasonably points out that it will take time for them to disperse their forces for the response. The US has shifted a massive Naval Force to the Mideast, nothing better than starting a World War just before a presidential election I guess?
Of course that sounds insane, but the actual directors of the Axis of Evil, US-NATO-the 3 letter agencies & coup-sponsoring NGOs, MICIMAC, Blackrock, Goldman Sachs, Peter Thiel etc. via Jake Sullivan & Tony Blinken see the entire rest of the World as a Nail, “Exceptional” US as a hammer so blundering into war we go!!
Yes, Willie, keep that dialogue going in your head between the greater and lesser Evils of the “choice” we are offered? Perhaps in a previous life you were a good German and argued that Hitler was a little over the top, but Himmler was performatively a little more “left” & could’ve triumphed? The rest of the Reich’s citizens did not bother with such How Many Angels can dance on the head of a pin metaphysics at the time, poor fools.
StewartM
Last night, I saw “Deadpool and Wolverine” at our local theater.
It’s not my sort of genre, so I was at most more bemused than entertained, as this particular Marvel Movie was a weird mix of violence and gore interspersed with self-referencing humor where among other things the movie is very much self-aware of it being a movie (like in a desert-like place called the Void, Deadpool remarks how “isn’t this like the scenery from Mad Max, and isn’t that a copyright infringement?”). There are several pointed digs at 20th Century Fox having been bought out by Disney, and in the Void there are ruins of the Brooklyn Bridge as well as the 20th Century Fox logo sticking out of the sand.
But what got me was the gore of the movie. Bodies run through, heads expoloding, blood everywhere, all during the wisecracking. I recall that in my childhood, one of my favorite TV shows was “The Wild Wild West” starring Robert Conrad and Ross Martin, and how it was cancelled in 1969 due to charges of it being “too violent”, yet it’s not remotely even in the same league, even considering it’s a TV series versus an R-rated movie. Both in the number of deaths and the goriness of the deaths, there’s no comparison.
I find it disturbing we’ve become we’ve become so desensitized to this.
Oakchair
“Suffer the little children” -Jesus Christ
“To live is to find out for yourself what is true –Jiddu Krishnamurti
“Blind belief in authority is the greatest enemy of truth.” ― Albert Einstein
—–
The NIMH did a 8 year study on the effects of stimulant use for those labeled with ADHD. The authors received numerous payments from pharmaceutical companies and were hoping to show the drugs were effective.
The study started by randomizing kids into 4 different treatment groups. After 14 months the kids were able to switch treatment modalities.
In table 1 the different outcomes between those who were off stimulant drugs long term, and those on them are stated.
Those on the drugs had worse outcomes. The drug group had worse:
ADHD symptoms by 26-575%
Contacts with police by 644%
Functional impairment by 351%
Depression by 619%
Anxiety by 966%
psych hospitalizations by 77%
Accidents 56%
Worse educational outcomes
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3063150/
The common trope from psychiatry is that “the on drug group must have started out sicker.” Even the conflict of interests authors of this study shared this hypothesis.
Lucky for those concerned with science and the well-being of children the study had the data to refute or prove this hypothesis.
In a follow up the authors state:
“counter to our hypothesis, the severity of ADHD symptoms was not related to the use of medication those cases most likely to use medication had lower rather than higher ratings of ADHD symptoms (end of page 31)”
“the propensity score analyses did not provide statistical support for the basic hypothesis” (page 32)
“we found no support for the hypothesis that selection biases were “carrying” this lack of long-term benefit from medication” (page 34 section 3 Qualifications:)”
Those taking the drugs in fact started off with less symptoms. Those not taking the drugs started with worse demographics, worse health, and worse ADHD. Despite this as you can see in table 1 those on the drugs had horrendously worse outcomes.
This study also disproved the psych spread myth that stimulant use in kids do not reduce growth. Stimulants impaired growth and harmed physical health.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18573924/
The Paywall can be bypassed with https://sci-hub.se/
—-
In Quebec a natural experiment occurred when the province increased the prevalence of stimulant use compared to other Canadian provinces. The long term results replicated the NIMH study and found stimulants did nothing but worsen outcomes.
“we find a consistent negative effect of the ADHD score on all of the outcomes measured”
“The effect is large and the magnitudes are consistent with previous work”
“increase in the anxiety and depression score”
“increase in the unhappiness score, and a decline in the quality of relationships”
“Overall there is no evidence of any improvement”
“Overall, we find considerable evidence of a decline in both behavioral and educational outcomes”
https://www.mcgill.ca/socialstatistics/files/socialstatistics/mark_stabile_oct_2_2013.pdf
—
Another long term study –performed by the government of Western Australia– found similar results.
These were the effects of long term simulant use:
-Stimulants increased the odds of being a grade behind by 10.5x.
-Worse ADHD symptoms
-Worse heart and pulmonary health such as increased blood pressure.
-Worsening self-esteem, depression and social functioning over time
-Reduced height
https://www.health.wa.gov.au/~/media/Files/Corporate/Reports-and-publications/PDF/MICADHD_Raine_ADHD_Study_report_022010.pdf
—————–
Great is truth, but still greater, from a practical point of view, is silence about truth. –Brave New world
“All that you touch, you change. All that you change, changes you.” ― Octavia E. Butler
“Each generation must discover its mission, fulfill it or betray it, in relative opacity.” ― Frantz Fanon
StewartM
Something I learned recently.
Dolphins–those brainy animals we so love–actually do very poorly in captivity. Just like we would, the exhibit signs of boredom and depression living a life doing silly tricks. They sometimes engage in self-mutilation and self-injury, they are deprived of interaction with other dolphins, and they live shorter lives than wild dolphins.
https://www.dolphinproject.com/blog/the-effects-of-captivity-a-mermaids-view/
Ric O’Barry, the dolphin trainer who trained dolphins for the 1960s TV show “Flipper”, went from being a dolphin trainer to a anti-captivity dolphin activist when one of the dolphins used for that TV show died, and O’Barry is convinced the dolphin (“Cathy”) committed suicide.
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/whales/interviews/obarry2.html
bruce wilder
I find myself wondering, who is running the country (USA)? And, how likely that will be revealed.
Are the political structures on autopilot?
I line up in my mind the political machinations of the Democrats: Russiagate, two impeachments of Trump, Hunter’s laptop being declared Russian disinformation, lawfare against Trump, the open border immigration policy, blowing up Nordstream, the determined effort to avoid an open Primary on the Democrat side, the early debate between Biden and Trump revealing that Biden was not in fact sharp as a tack, the failed assassination, the accession of Harris by carefully orchestrated acclamation.
I watch incredulous as memes circulate. Trump and Vance are weird. Biden has been cross with Netanyahu about genocide and/or creating a general Mideast conflagration.
I recognize that U.S. political elites are in the grip of a major competency crisis. COVID-19. Infant formula. Boeing. Bird flu. Intel. The incapacity of the U.S. Navy: cannot beat Yemen. Cannot deliver aid across that ridiculous pier to Gaza. Losing the Ukraine War on so many levels.
And we political news junkies know very little about anything that is going on. Who was behind the plan to have Biden debate Trump so very early? A non-story apparently.
Oakchair
It’s not necessarily the gratuitous violence I find grating in many modern movies. It’s that so much of movies consist of references, explosions, ridiculous action scenes, and any serious emotional character development is quickly followed by some snide joke.
Despite advancements in technology even the aesthetics of modern movies are cringeworthily. Characters always have their fashion hair style, and make up slathered on even after an action scene. Supposedly “Poor” characters wear 100$ pants and somehow live upper class lifestyles. The color palate is neonish, most scenes are done with CGI causing the physical movements to be unnatural and stiff.
Modern media is becoming less and less about telling an engaging story and developing interesting characters.
Mary Bennet
Mago, if Shapiro is the VP pick, Harris and the Dems lose. American public opinion is now decidedly turning against Israel, which is why Netanyahoo is desperately trying to provoke his longed for general war before the American election. Furthmore Harris/Shapiro will inevitably be seen as West Coast/East Coast elitist, out of touch with and not interested in anyone not in their own PMC class.
We had all best be working on our plans for surviving or profiting from, as the case might be, another Trump presidency. Not forgetting that, given Trump’s age and state of health, Senator Punk might become the President. Testosterone addled goofballs everywhere will rejoice.
Willy, where I think the left went wrong, besides betraying it’s working class base, is the failure to understand that socialism, and the Marxist variant in particular, is an imported European ideology which never took hold in the USA. Look at a map sometime. Unlike Europe and India, North America is not a subcontinent of Eurasia and the United States IS NOT part of Europe. NA and Asia are even geologically distinct in any timeframe which matters for human history. Lefties are still imagining themselves the reincarnation of Lenin, not wanting to understand that there are significant differences between centuries old autocratic monarchy and a still new constitutional republic.
I hope the VP pick will be Senator Kelly because a West Coast ticket will be a living symbol that us basics, us normies and ordinaries are fed up with the intrusion into our politics of Old World resentments and rivalries. I do not hate Russia. I have no reason to hate Russia. Ancestors of mine served in the Revolutionary War, Union army in the Civil War, and both World Wars. In all four of those conflicts, Russia was our ally. Willy, I know nothing about your own ancestry, but I will say that I DO NOT CARE what atrocities were commited by what teenaged, half-starved and brutalized Czarist soldier in whose ancestor’s village over a century ago. I don’t see the Pakistani diaspora demanding that other nations go to war with India, or visa versa, but significant numbers of Jewish Americans, Polish Americans, Ukrainian Americans, et al have no shame about demanding that the USA spend it’s wealth, man and woman power and such international respect as we might still have taking out their hated, hereditary enemy. Some of the folks who love to accuse others of “hate” should look in a mirror.
Osori
Willy
If this is what you view as purity police comment, apologies.
Anyone viewing Harris as Left is unaware that although there are many leftists in the US all of us are excluded from participatory politics other than at local levels. And even then we can’t do much. In the bay area we’ve got peter dreyfuss contributing millions to unseat DA’s who enforce the laws when police malfeasance arises. $ and media and raw brutality suppress everything the Left supports. Harris knows which way the wind blows and adjusts appeals to voters accordingly. her non-public persona mirrors Biden – mean, stupid and self centered.
Howie Hawkins is a soft zionist, I guess that would make him more acceptable than the other third party candidates.
I’ve heard Stein make a case for third party voting which I can’t recall right now but nevertheless I’ll cast a vote for Claudia de la Cruz.
As far as what we do right now, I’d say keep your head down and keep on doing whatever you do if you’re in the streets/putting in local work and if you aren’t, look out for family and friends best you can.
Osori
StewartM
reading about Dolphins and captivity brings me close to tears. Awful that we as a species need to entertain ourselves in the same way we choose to feed ourselves – inflicting pain and suffering. Awful.
Art
Observed dynamic: Birthrates fall –
1) When societies shift from agrarian to industrial production; from rural to urban; from low or no social safety net to substantial levels of support.
2) When life starts to suck because of crowding, inter-generational competition, lack of SE mobility, lack of demonstrable opportunity.
Every major nation has demographic issues because people simply do not want to have kids. Kids are expensive to have, raise. Kids transitioning to adulthood in a society without real opportunity is emotionally fraught and socially destructive.
China may have the worse demographic crisis. Xi seems satisfied to hunker down and keep the Party both intact and in power. The immiseration and de-vitalization of, and possible death of, a possible billion people doesn’t seem to interfere with his sleep.
Russia is frittering away a chance to moderate their crisis by losing more than a thousand (estimate 1/3 dead) a day in Ukraine. And this before their near-perpetual SE stagnation is considered. Lets hear it for kleptocratic oligarchies under a dictatorship. Soon enough the US may slide into this modality. Late-state capitalism, particularly if not firmly regulated, tend to slow-walk in that direction.
The US has avoided some of the worse with immigration. Both in terms of direct population transfer and that, for first and second generation immigrants, the move from relatively poor and violent nation to the US represents real SE progress and hope. This hope dissipates with time.
Understanding this dynamic, perhaps only tacitly, the Opus Dei led Heritage Foundation and Federalist Society, et al, have a solution. They simply use The Handmaids Tale as a manual. Violating basic ethics, and Kant’s dictum, you reduce women to birthing machines.
Those paying attention to the backwaters of political, as informed by religion, conservatism have long heard the whispers of how things were better before women got the vote; birth control; the right to own property; divorce; the right to control their own bodies.
This is considered doable. Just a matter of using the right persuasion to socially engineer the peasants to comply, and the right propaganda for them to accept. Lashings of ‘God fearing religion’ will have them thanking you for the change. No doubt, given enough resources it can be made to ‘work’, at least nominally, for some time. Then …
I doubt many have considered the obvious alternative: A just society, meritocracy, a society that promotes fairness, that allows people to have hope. Hope for themselves, and for their children.
Chuck Mire
We bought everything needed to make $3 million worth of fentanyl. All it took was $3,600 and a web browser:
https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/drugs-fentanyl-supplychain/
Fentanyl, the synthetic opioid that has become the number-one killer of Americans between the ages of 18 and 45, can be made by combining chemicals that anyone can order online. Most of these precursors, as the chemicals are known, ship from China. To investigate this dangerous pipeline, Reuters became customers. Reporters bought chemicals with names such as 1-boc-4-AP and 1-boc-4-piperidone and had them delivered to apartments in Mexico and the United States. The shipments showed up disguised as adapters or sealed in cat-food bags. All told, the investigating team purchased enough chemicals to make 3 million tablets of fentanyl, a process that cost them only $3,600 and required only clicking buttons on a smartphone or laptop.
Willy
Mark Level,
Nice ad hominem.
Unemployed between gig economy gigs, I had to choose between
1. an evil boss
2. a lesser evil boss
3. starving
According to you, I chose none of the above but instead chose Hitler. Maybe instead of being so silly, you could help advise a plan for leftism going forward?
StewartM,
My namesake Willy the freed Keiko was after many years of captivity, lived in the wild for several years before succumbing to pneumonia in relatively old age. He rarely strayed far from humans, mostly because of his fame he was well-monitored and cared for. He’s said to have presented himself to orca pods but none ever offered to take him in.
I think of the released dolphin I read about which kept trying to keep up with its release boat as best he could, with his releasers wondering about that ‘strange behavior’. I think it should’ve been obvious that the dolphin was trying to say: “WHAT THE FUCK? ARE YOU SERIOUS? I’M HEARING SOME DANGEROUS SHIT OUT HERE! IT’S SCARY AS HELL BEING ALL ALONE OUT IN THIS ENDLESS EXPANSE”
bruce,
The corporate equivalent of the mafia is in control. Kennedy had to pressure Hoover against the mafia, but it took years before Henry Hill would submit himself to the witness protection program. Seems there was a bit of an inertia there.
A bit of a stretch, but I since see Sanders as having to pressure Biden against our current corporate mafia, I don’t think he was behind the plan to debate early.
I suspect somebody from the Pfizer, Nestle, Boeing, Cargill, Intel, Raytheon, AIPAC and Drone Industry Insights Dubai Creek Golf and Yacht Club buddy cabal. But don’t quote me on that. I think they were operating covertly.
mago
Since no one’s looking and no one cares about this open thread which has reached its expiration date, I have no problem posting whatever pops up.
bruce wilder poses an interesting question when he asks who was behind the Biden Trump debate. Nobody is asking that question. Or if they are, no one is listening.
Who was behind the Trump assassination attempt thingy?
Lotsa theories behind that.
When the Kamala bala takes a hit it will be final and with prejudice.
Who’s gonna drive you home tonight?
Willy
Well, there’s still you and Ian.
Thomas Crooks was a conservative incel doing exactly as trained by libertarians, to try and make a name for himself to any interested ladies and gentlemen peers by whatever individual means he alone deemed necessary. Sadly, he died before learning the truth, that not even fellow shooter hero Kyle Rittenhouse is above MAGA law, no matter what the libertarians say.
As for the secret service, I ask you this. How much would your own heart be into your work if it involved serving and protecting blithering idiots?
bruce wilder
@ mago – I care! We should mourn our dying threads like we do songs sung in the shower.
I see a few ask, but, no, apparently no one who matters is listening, let alone answering.
This mostly unasked, completely unanswered question reveals the pervasive unreality that has enveloped American national political discourse. It sits there with the assassination attempt, amidst the continuing flood of propaganda on all topics, challenging us to think. It makes me think that no one is interested in making the public informed about the real political dynamics and machinations, confirming that democracy is dead, suffocated.
I have looked on over the decades as a consensus formed and then solidified that the CIA had a hand in killing Kennedy and backdating the loss of American democracy and virtue to that fateful day in Dallas. Whatever the factual truth may have been about the act, the CIA certainly prevented the public from knowing what happened and why. Democracy died in the coverup and the lies, if not in the convertible.
The generation of massive lies to drive democratic consent to America’s dark and self-destructive foreign policy ventures became routine after that. The Gulf of Tonkin incident to WMDs in Iraq to Russiagate, the Ukraine War to the Gaza genocide, they never stop. And, somehow, the lies never, ever become a focal point for the massive surplus of “outrage” that pervades American political discourse. It doesn’t seem to matter if the lies are even superficially credible, as neither WMDs nor Russiagate could bear scrutiny and any suggestion that the Gaza genocide isn’t happening is delusional.
I don’t know why “they” hate Trump so very much. I do notice that many of the most celebrated and repeated calumnies against him, including those repeated by Biden in the infamous debate, are fabrications or gross exaggerations. I, personally, look at Trump and see very little to like in a vulgarian con man of no convictions. I am old enough to remember Watergate and the destruction of Nixon. A lot of people viscerally hated Nixon, but when “they” went after — that is, when the institutional pursuit began in earnest __ the Democrats were very, very careful to go after him for crimes his Republican supporters would recognize as crimes. Trump Agonistes is pursued in a way that never tries to persuade his supporters.
The attempt to assassinate Trump looks suspiciously like a plan, but it has plausible deniability in that it could be just part of the fabric of incompetency and negligence. The Secret Service can be nudged so easily by bureaucratic clumsiness into being less effective than a local sheriff’s office. So, we are left with that perennial pair of questions, “are they deliberately malevolent? or, are they just incompetent?” Is this a plan, a conspiracy? Or, is this an “accident”? You can waste a lot of brain cells on such dilemmas. Which is why leaving such questions open is a key part of the propagandist’s art of manipulation.
That is also why the question of who intervened to set Biden up for an early debate with Trump is dangerous and is not being “answered.” It is not being answered even falsely, though I think a false answer may be issued shortly. It will be a false answer designed to set up that dilemma again, to make it appear that setting up the early debate was a fumble, a mistake. The problem is, it wasn’t a mistake. It was deliberate. And, it was, for a lack of a better word, “competent.” So, someone somewhere in the apparatus can use power deliberately and with intended effect. That is a dangerous story. People could start to see “intended” everywhere.
Preventing “competence” in governance would seem to be Job 1 for the Powers that Be. Why Trump is somehow not the right kind of incompetence remains a mystery to me.
Brand management imperatives to identify Kamala Harris with the “good intentions” that will persuade Willy that she represents a “lesser evil” will shape the official propaganda, I suppose.
Reality bites. This is like watching not just one train wreck unfolding but a chain reaction accelerating.
mago
Yeah, and we ain’t seen nothin yet. Thanks for your insights mr wilder.
Willy
I shall speak to mago (while actually speaking to bruce),
mago, I have a helluva time figuring out where bruce comes from partly because he’s so slippery, but mostly because he never, ever clearly reveals the precise direction which he wishes civilized society would go in. Ian in stark contrast, has always been quite clear.
bruce is an unfunny version of a George Carlin monologue. But we forgive Carlin because although he made us feel powerless, at least we got a laugh.
So I must divine bruce’s latest profound analysis.
Biden (“the most progressive President since FDR” as many pundits seem to want to declare) was most hated by the PTB (who control all) and was set up to fail in an early debate. This was easy because nobody likes a weak POTUS.
Trump is hated second most by these PTB, because he’s “somehow not the right kind of incompetence”.
This leaves Harris, who bruce proclaims the PTB wanted all along going back to the planning for that first ridiculous debate. And now, Trump (being strongly advised by his PTB handlers) is trying to do what he can to avoid debating Harris, which will make him look weak, thereby ensuring a Harris victory for the PTB.
So mago, am I on the right track here?
capelin
@ Willy “Biden (“the most progressive President since FDR” as many pundits seem to want to declare) was most hated by the PTB (who control all) and was set up to fail in an early debate.”
The PTB (good name for a band..) were quite happy with “progressive and lesser” Genocide Joe, but it was clear the facade of mental competency would not hold till November, and meanwhile the old demented guy digs in. “No! I’m not movin’! Tell ’em, Jill”. Soo, whadya do? Set him up.
–
Had a great feed of wild raspberries a couple days ago (and the bugs fed on me). Best crop in years, dry no mold.
–
Meanwhile, the buildup to WW3 continues in the ME. Best wishes to all Open Threaders.
capelin
New moon now. Energy is about to shift and build.
Willy
Yeah, PTB was old school Ian Welsh comment-speak for those fingers tired of always typing out “Powers That Be”, or “Wall Street, billionaire heirs, corporate cronies, bribed government officials, and the neoliberal economists who make excuses for them all”. I liked “The Man” or “fat cats”, but it’d make me sound like a tired old hippy.
Now all bruce needs is a money trail. One problem, is that MAGA has been setting the stage for a new and improved “stolen election” steal, complete with election interfering henchmen and all. Do the PTB pay off the judges?
Curt Kastens
Hahahaha
Hahahaha
This is a good one.
https://www.msn.com/en-ie/news/offbeat/man-missing-for-30-years-reappears-wearing-the-same-clothes-he-left-in-and-with-no-idea-of-what-happened-to-him/ar-AA1ooR7K?ocid=msedgntp&pc=ACTS&cvid=200fa343738845b4a8d418cd7f984d3b&ei=11
Curt Kastens
The link below is good. But it does not go far enough. The ultimate implication of what Brian is saying is that the editors of the think tank publications are in ultimate control of the US foriegn policy, and by extention this would work for other policie issues as well. The editors after all decide what does or does not get printed in their publciations.
But if one wants to go deeper down the rabbit hole one would have to ask does anyone control the editors of the think tank publications. It is simalar to asking the question does anyone control the President of the United States. I have maintained that the President of the United States is controlled by the Joint Chiefs of Staff. What I can not answer is, is the President controlled through intimidation, or by controlling the information that the President sees, or a combination of these things. Or I guess that one could also say these things are not neccessary because any candidate who is allowed to become a serious contender for the presidency learns far in advance that he is just a public affairs officer for a behind the scenes team.
The same issues would come up in relation to the editors of the think tanks. There has to be some sort of leadership to ensure the coherence of what is printed by the think tanks. The question is who could the unelected deciders be that enforce obedience, or coherence in the public writings or utternances of the think tanks?
Is money the ultimate decider. Money talks and when money talks people listen and obey?? Or is money only one tool in the tool chest of a group of deciders that set an agenda based upon motives that are known only by the most inner circle of the controling system?
I wonder if this should be placed in the next open trade thread. As this one would normally be replaced tommorrow and then largely forgotten. Who knows maybe it should be largely forgotten. Anyways I have noticed from comments about the most evil aspect of religion that it probably would not matter who does or does not read this as it will be forgotten 15 minutes latter because the reader knew this already, or they have some other idea that is very unlikely to change based upon anything that I just wrote.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-MvPLV1Rf8
Curt Kastens
Oh, I should have added above that the link is by Brian Bertilic