“Will The System Work” & Open Thread

I think a bigger question is, what happens if Biden disputes a narrow Trump victory? What does BLM do? What does Antifa do? How many “mostly peaceful protests” will there be?

@Zachary Smith,

I heard that same statement about how most of us Americans are going to sit on our ass and watch CNN ( or Fox News — to be fair to the quote). But I kept listening to the end anyway.

So two things, not related to eachother.

Thing One: It can be unpleasant listening to our foreign friends mock us and look down on us the way they do. Oh well . . . pigeons poo on statues too. Sucks to be a statue, I guess. I do note the internal illogic of on the one hand noting that America has no functioning democracy at the national level and there is precisely zero the average American can do about any of this election stuff now anymore . . . . and then turning around and saying “sit on our ass and watch CNN ( or Fox News – – to be fair to the quote) . . . like its a BAD thing.

Thing Two: Ian Welsh notes that our ( me’uns . . . your’uns) primary energy and attention should be going into personal and then family resiliency and robustitude in the face of coming shocks and declines and breakages. And then community and/or even inter-community resiliency and robustitude if we can do that too. In the semi-recent past, that was called “Survivalism”.

Survivalism is not the same as Prepperism. Kurt Saxon who coined the word “survivalism” to begin with, wrote against the equivalent of preppers in his own day. He called that little essay The Idiocy Of Space Capsule Survivalism.
https://www.survivalplus.com/philosophy/The-Idiocy-of-Space-Capsule-Survivalism.htm
In our own day we could say that “prepperism” is French for “space capsule survivalism”.

If you can up-survivalise yourself without down-survivalising anyone around you or downwind from you or downstream from you, then your survivalising will be more stable and perhaps more “permitted” than if your survivalising reduces someone else’s survivalising. If that someone else notices how your zero-sum survivalising de-survivalizes himself or his position, he will find some way to destroy your zero-sum survivalism preparations. So we should focus on non-harmful-to-others methods of increasing our survival capacity.

( With the exception of the UpperClass and the OverClass. Anyone who can partway defect from UpperClass/OverClass domination econ0mics will be seen by them as a threat to be liquidated. When THEYYYYY are the ones who deSERRRRVE to be liquidated. But be very careful to not look as if you can somehow help that process along. Our survivalising and economic defectionism should be under the radar as much as possible, and kept as low profile as the road shoulder.)

And so with regard to Thing Two, one hopes that Ian Welsh will not mind people bringing genuinely valuable and useful information and resources about successful survivalising to relevant threads.

Perhaps to the Open Threads. Perhaps to the Wikrent Weekly Roundup.

Has anyone been paying to the stock market for the past two weeks? The stock market has been IMPLODING this week.

Monday 📉 😨
Tuesday 📉 😮
Wednesday 📉 😲
Thursday 📉 😱
Friday 📉 😭

Stock Market Crash IS WORSE! ELECTION 2020 + STOCKS = BAD: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSs_mOpehck

Stock Market Collapses As Trump Virus Handling Is Trash: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBuwjDRGZ1g

Why Trump Isn’t Talking About The Stock Market Anymore: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PkpZkf9O9Oc

BREAKING: Stock Market PLUNGES | What Happened? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yegs_HrA9ZI

Why the Stock Market is Falling | Market Crisis: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sM6jEXkCnVg

Questions for the panel:

How has your life/lifestyle changed since the advent of the pandemic?

Will pandemic response policies be substantially better under a Biden regime or no?

Discuss.

If I found this at Naked Capitalism, it’ll likely be in tomorrow’s links. Still, this story was such a shocker to me I want to make sure it gets plenty of attention.

“The So-Called ‘Kidnapping Club’ Featured Cops Selling Free Black New Yorkers Into Slavery”

Nothing I’d read about that era had prepared me for learning kidnapping was one of the worst fears of northern “free” Black citizens. It’s going to be hard to study this one, for I’m finding books on the subject have astronomical prices.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/so-called-kidnapping-club-featured-new-york-cops-selling-free-blacks-slavery-180976055/

For the science orientated:

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Physics Today is providing complimentary access to its entire 72-year archive to readers who register.

https://physicstoday.scitation.org/journal/pto

In 2016 the system did not want Trump to win as well.

How has your life/lifestyle changed since the advent of the pandemic?

Not for the better! I’m not too surprised Trump has been such a moron, but I’ve been shocked to discover how many of my fellow citizens have turned off such brains as they possess to “follow” him.

Regarding Biden, I know nothing at all about his plans for the pandemic if and when he takes office. It’s been my impression the man has been running on a single issue “platform” of “I’m not named Trump.”

Che,

Climbed more mountains.

Bought more ammo.

Baked more bread.

Worked (way) fewer hours.

>Regarding Biden, I know nothing at all about his plans for the pandemic if and when he takes office.

Biden does not have to have a plan. All he has to do is to step aside and let DOCTORS and SCIENTISTS run the show, which Trump’s ego, stupidity and personal business interests have been preventing him from doing.

“For them, they don’t need or want an FDR. A ham sandwich will do just fine, thanks.”

At least a ham sandwich is useful. Biden – not so much.

Yes, those perfidious technocrats had impressed on Trump how bad the coronavirus was that by February 7 Trump was telling Bob Woodward this on tape. But publicly Trump blew it off and played havoc with all the people and ways the government could react. So naturally this is the technocrats’ fault.

Just another backhanded defense of Trump. Yeah, Trump wasn’t perfect, but it was really (fill in the blank)’s fault. Wash, repeat.

It’s obvious that the pandemic policy of the United States Government (not just Trump) is the development of so-called “herd immunity” through the mostly uncontrolled spread of the virus as widely as possible among the underclasses and the provision of limited and /or no social, healthcare and economic support services — leading to the deaths of hundreds of thousands and the permanent disability of an unknown number.

The government and the many think tanks game these things out and have shelves/hard drives full of response plans. What’s going on in response to the pandemic is the outgrowth of some of those plans. Our rulers have little or no concern about the health and well being of the proles, only of themselves. Those that are actually trying to control the Outbreak are in despair and at the point of giving up.

Biden has not presented a vigorous, comprehensive, coherent national plan for the control of the virus (though I’m sure one or more exist) and I’m not convinced that the Biden regime would do much differently than is being done now. His regime-in-waiting is preparing for a long wait — and not much else.

Ms. Ché and I are high risk and consequently we don’t travel like we used to or go more than about 50 miles from home, and then only for medical appointments, groceries and supplies more and more of which are being delivered or conducted on videophone. We don’t socialize in person, not even with friends and neighbors, but Zoom and other platforms get a workout around here. So many events are canceled, businesses closed, and what we used to do simply not possible.

I don’t see that changing soon. No matter who is placed in office. Ian says something similar, that we’re pretty much stuck with what we’ve got, make the best of it.

Trump and his worshippers remind me of Jim Jones and Jonestown:

https://www.rollingstone.com/feature/jonestown-13-things-you-should-know-about-cult-massacre-121974/amp/

@bruce wilder
“Just another backhanded defense of Trump.

Not everything is specifically and only about Trump.

Here is Wikipedia on the testing debacle: …..”

Excellent comment, bruce. Ché Pasa’s comment may be more entertaining, reading like science fiction. (I wonder if he’s in the arts?) But yours is more rational.

Maybe you should run for President. You can’t be worse than Biden or Trump; and I think you’d be much, much better.

Do not most citizens polled, already agree with most progressive values?

Maybe it’s just my imagination, maybe there’s an innocent explanation. Maybe there are protests in my part of town I don’t know about (Portland, where they are now perennial so I don’t follow them). But this last week or so there sure are a lot of helicopters overhead in my neighborhood. Or maybe just one or two that hang around a long time. They do not make me feel safe or optimistic about how trump will handle the election fiasco. Also noisy as fuck.

@KT Chong

You sound like Greta “listen to the scientists” Thunberg, of whom I’ve seen no evidence that she actually knows anything about science. She also shows no sign of recognizing that scientific consensus does not occur in climate science. (Of course, I’m not talking about the moronic propaganda meme of “climate change”, where the indisputable fact of climate changing is conflated with lots of baloney and lies). Nor does she show any signs of knowing that the scientific enterprise can be extremely dysfunctional. “Self correcting” is a nice aspiration, for scientists; the reality, especially when well-heeled funders of science have a clear notion of what they want, is very different.

Half of Trump’s problem is that he DID listen to doctors and scientists, in cases when he shouldn’t have; or else, shouldn’t have listened to them for as long as he did. I’m talking about doctors and scientists at the apex of political/scientific/medical power, like gain-of-function Fauci and Redfield.

I suggest that you, and everbody else in the English-speaking world, listen to 2 of the latest Chris Martenson, Ph.D., videos. He’s on youtube in the “peak prosperity” channel.
> “THE UGLY TRUTH: Your health isn’t their priority”
> “Vitamin D Reduces Mortality Risk by -89%”

Would you like it if Trump did everything that Dr. Fauci says, nothing more, nothing less? According to Dr. Campbell, a Ph.D. in nursing, also on youtube, he has email evidence that Fauci takes 6,000 IU of vitamin D, per day.

I’m not 100% confident that Campbell’s proof suffices, but if it did, it would underscore just how evil that little Nazi is. “Vitamin D in prophylactic dosage levels for me, but not for thee! Oh, but do wash your hands. And wear a mask. Want to hook up on Tinder? Just be careful!”. Unsaid is that if you suffer and die, and your economy crashes, due to following his advice, that’s your problem.

Even if it’s not true that Fauci takes 6,000 IU vitamin D per day, nothing is stopping Fauci from saying the magic words, “Get your vitamin D levels checked!”. I don’t know what his problem is, but I don’t need to know that, at least if you’re knowledgeable about the issue, following the little Nazi, or more generally, the CDC in all ways is a fool’s errand.

You may as well take directions from Greta Thunberg, to figure what would be the net/net from AOC’s Green New Deal. Neither Dr. Fauci, nor Greta Thunberg, is interested in equipping you with sufficient relevant knowledge to make a rational decision about what is optimal for you, or society. In gain-of-function Fauci’s case, he has access to the knowledge that he evidently doesn’t want you to have. (Thunberg is a semi-innocent dupe.)

You can take a look at my sub-reddit /r/bad_science_culture, for some leads into the mangled world of “science”.

If you want to get really deep into the weeds about covid treatments and prophylactics, but still at a layman’s level, it looks likt DrBeen youtube channel is what you want.

The Trump White House back in May 2018 eliminated The Global Health Security and Biodefense group put together back in 2015 during the Obama Administration and which was tasked with coordinating and overseeing the US response to a pandemic. The CDC fiasco followed. This was followed a few weeks later in March 2019 by an equally botched effort by a task force led by Jared Kushner which ordered a couple million contaminated/unusable Chinese test kits through a company in the UAE.

@cripes +1

“most Americans are going to sit on their ass and watch CNN”

That’s because, despite the hysterics about the US being overpopulated, we’re actually a low-density population country and ‘going to DC to protest’ is not an option for most in terms of time and money. So whether the pro- or anti-Trumpers flood into DC to storm either the courts or Congress or whatnot depends. My hunch is that the anti-Trumpers have an advantage in numbers living there (but most of them are poor and black and these will not play well to white America) whereas the Kochs and crew will bus in busloads of ‘freedumb-lovin’ ‘Mericans with guns from outside areas.

I do believe, as Keith Olbermann says, that the clearing of Lafayette Square was a test of what the military would do to peaceful protesters and the aftershocks of that was the top brass of all the services issuing statements reminding the troops that their loyalty was not to Trump, but to the Constitution. And while Trump probably has the loyalty of his DHS goons and the police, polls of the armed forces show that his approval rating is underwater and similar to that of civilians. So I feel better about that end of things. But as Chris Hedges said, the long-term effect of the military having to do the necessary thing to play kingmaker isn’t in the long-term best interests of what’s left of the American republic.

I do believe as Biden victory buys more time. *IF* this brush with fascism scares the elites, and *IF* they do something meaningful about it–not only throwing more crumbs at the plebes, but just as importantly, security American elections better and securing voting rights–it will be important. That’s because one must remember that Hitler only won like 32.8 % of the vote in a free and fair election. As I have posted, the Millennials will turn the whole country blue over the next several cycles, and blue not in terms of Clinton/Obama/Biden blue, but more like Bernie blues. The Right knows this too, which is why they’re (not just Trump) ready to ditch democratic rule *now*. I agree that by the time we might get a younger Bernie we’ll be at the point of managing, not preventing or mitigating, our problems, especially climate change. But as the coronavirus pandemic has shown, competent management of a problem is better than deliberate mismanagement.

If those two “IF”s do not hold true, then yes; all we have is a few more years. Use it wisely to implement what plans you have.

I don’t believe we’ll have a “competent smarter Trump” because a would-be autocrat doing even things necessary to secure his power will run afoul of interests determined to continue looting the country. You saw this with the 2nd coronavirus stimulus, it was in Trump’s own best interests to pass it but Mitch McConnell nixed it. Trump for his part was not willing or smart enough to play hardball, to rescind his nomination of Barrett (more in their interests than his) and go to KY and start campaigning against McConnell and any other Republican who opposed the relief bill (and I think he had started doing this a month or so ago, he probably would have won and they would have slunk back to doing as he ordered). One of Trump’s problems from Day One was that he appointed the looters to his administration to be his advisors, and he wasn’t as open as he should have been to triangulating with the Dems to say, make a better version of the ACA and call it “Trumpcare” instead of letting the Paul Ryans push their libertoon nonsense. I’m not sure a “smarter Trump” can solve this problem any better than Trump could.

I think if anything Ian is understating the ‘survivalist problem’. You do need a lot of resources/money to pull that off well. As my post on “Russian freedom” said, the fact we have so little land that’s not privatized is why you need significant money just to get the land for the house. I would also expect a decrease in life expectancy, as our future mis-rulers won’t make access to health care any cheaper. In fact, I think the ‘leave the US’ option actually can be far cheaper to pull off than they ‘stay here and gut it out’ option. The biggest obstacle there I can see, is that most Americans are loathe to leave their friends/family/loved ones, and/or have other ties, and moreover they are hesitant to learn a new language or experience a new culture. I have some of that too, I’ve stayed as long as I have o honor my obligations and promises (and also, to build a financial base) but I have discovered that life overseas seems to be both better and cheaper than life here.

What Trump has done is more than just a mere screw-up. The Trump administration has gone out of its way to prevent, in fact they instead hobbled and disabled even, any form of a constructive response to the pandemic. For that reason, they are mass murderers let alone traitors. Biden will not hold them to account and thus will enable the next iteration of fascism which will be many times worse that this latest iteration. If Trump loses and if Trump is removed from the White House. Those are still big ifs.

@cripes +1

Thanks Bruce Wilder for noticing.

Lest some think my comment about voter fetishism, and the futility of “hope” that a better Presnit will somehow deliver us from the Baaad Maaan is mere quitterism, I will add that I collected signatures to send a slate of progressive democrats to the National Convention and to register voters. My modest hope was slaughtered in two short days.

You all know what happened to the Bernie Pwogwessives in the Night of the Long Knives.

All I’m really saying is the Rot is so Deep that a new coat of paint ain’t gonna fix this.
Or, pick your favorite color.

But once the election is over, progressives disappear electorally until the next cycle starts.

Media attention disappears. And without widely distributed media stories, centrists argue that my demonstrations, letters and petitions, participation in group actions, time in meetings, donations to lefty media and causes don’t happen. I’m not sure whether it’s a problem of logic on their part or a simple use of power to denigrate opponents.