JHB
JHB's JournalIt doesn't, but dealing with it is complicated and the provisions are relatively obscure...
...so the only people who lobby hard about it are the people who like the current setup and are pushing for more.
I'm not an expert, but my sense of it is that these games are responsible for most of the job losses usually blamed on "trade deals! NAFTA! RARRRW!"
When this subject comes up it's always instructive to break out the 1991 Philadelphia Inquirer series by Bartlett and Steele:
http://www.philly.com/philly/opinion/inq_HT_WhatWentWrong1991.html
How game was rigged against middle class
After three decades, American worker loses out to Mexico
Who - and how many - in America's middle class
DAY 2
The lucrative business of bankruptcy
DAY 3
Big business hits the jackpot with billions in tax breaks
DAY 4
Why the world is closing in on the U.S. economy
DAY 5
The high cost of deregulation: Joblessness, bankruptcy, debt
DAY 6
For millions in U.S., a harsh reality: It's not safe to get sick
How death came to a once-prosperous discount-store chain
DAY 7
Raiders work their wizardry on an all-American company
DAY 8
When you retire, will there be a pension waiting?
Workers saving for their retirement lose on junk bonds
DAY 9
How special-interest groups have their way with Congress
America's two-class tax system
This has been with us for a long time.
From what I've seen, they'll enjoy finally having some time to breathe
I forget who said it, but their situation has been described as "Trying to take a sip from a fire hose open full blast."
Oh, it goes farther back than the Diallo shooting
And, just keeping it to Rudy and not going back to stuff Frank Serpico shed light on, or any of the stuff before then...
Let's go to Rudy's unofficial mayoral campaign kickoff, the Sept. 16, 1992 police protest/riot about the Civilian Complaint Review Board:
https://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/rudys-racist-rants-nypd-history-lesson
By Nat Hentoff and Nick Hentoff, July 14, 2016
***
As many as 10,000 demonstrators blocked traffic in downtown Manhattan on Sept. 16, 1992. Reporters and innocent bystanders were violently assaulted by the mob as thousands of dollars in private property was destroyed in multiple acts of vandalism. The protesters stormed up the steps of City Hall, occupying the building. They then streamed onto the Brooklyn Bridge, where they blocked traffic in both directions, jumping on the cars of trapped, terrified motorists. Many of the protestors were carrying guns and openly drinking alcohol.
Yet the uniformed police present did little to stop them. Why? Because the rioters were nearly all white, off‐duty NYPD officers. They were participating in a Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association demonstration against Mayor David Dinkins’ call for a Civilian Complaint Review Board and his creation earlier that year of the Mollen Commission, formed to investigate widespread allegations of misconduct within the NYPD.
***
Newsday reported on other instances of racial abuse. City Councilwoman Una Clarke, a petite black woman, was blocked from crossing Broadway “by a beer‐drinking, off‐duty police officer who said to his sidekick: ‘This n***** says she’s a member of the City Council.’ ”
Mary Pinkett, another black councilwoman, was trapped on the Brooklyn Bridge as her car was rocked back and forth by off‐duty officers. The two elderly passengers in her car were terrified.
Much more at link, don't be put off by it being on the CATO Institute site.
After Diallo, there was Abner Louima, who wasn't killed but was horrifically assaulted by an officer within the precinct station house. I often come back to the Louima case because absolutely none of the usual excuses/rationalizations apply, yet it was all the "one bad apple" nonsense. They fought tooth and nail against prosecutions, and especially against any broader investigation of the precinct about what was happening on a daily basis that Volpe even imagined he could get away with something like that, and why others were so quick to aid in a coverup. Rudy never could bring himself to come out and say that there is simply no scenario where proper police procedure involves a plunger handle.
Still later there was Patrick Dorismond's death at the hands of undercover cops. They tried to sell him drugs, he refused, they wouldn't take no for an answer to the point where he took a slug at one of them, and in the ensuing scuffle he was shot dead. Rudy personally intervened there and unsealed Dorismond's juvie record to show what a bad guy he was. All it proved to everybody else is that Dorismond could have been a poster-guy for what juvenile justice is supposed to do to get someone who makes really bad decisions as a teenager to get back on track and contribute to society.
"America's Mayor" like hell. MAGAt Mayor, is what he was.
#ShutDownAcademia #ShutDownSTEM 10 June 2020
https://www.shutdownstem.com/https://www.particlesforjustice.org/
On edit: See also post #2 below for a Scientific American article and interview with one of the organizers, which may distill it better than the direct sources.
Note: STEM here is an abbreviation for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Medicine
I don't have a comprehensive list, but a lot of institutions and publishers across the world are participating today. That doesn't even get into the number of individuals.
No research
No meetings
No classes
No business as usual
On June 10, 2020, we will #ShutDownAcademia, #ShutDownSTEM, and #Strike4BlackLives.
In the wake of the most recent murders of Black people in the US, it is clear that white and other non-Black people have to step up and do the work to eradicate anti-Black racism. As members of the global academic and STEM communities, we have an enormous ethical obligation to stop doing “business as usual.” No matter where we physically live, we impact and are impacted by this moment in history.
Our responsibility starts with our role in society. In academia, our thoughts and words turn into new ways of knowing. Our research papers turn into media releases, books and legislation that reinforce anti-Black narratives. In STEM, we create technologies that affect every part of our society and are routinely weaponized against Black people.
Black academic and Black STEM professionals are hurting because they exist in and are attacked by institutional and systemic racism. Black people have been tirelessly working for change, alongside their Indigenous and People of Color allies. For Black academics and STEM professionals, #ShutDownAcademia and #ShutDownSTEM is a time to prioritize their needs— whether that is to rest, reflect, or to act— without incurring additional cumulative disadvantage.
Those of us who are not Black, particularly those of us who are white, play a key role in perpetuating systemic racism. Direct actions are needed to stop this injustice. Unless you engage directly with eliminating racism, you are perpetuating it. This moment calls for profound and meaningful change. #ShutDownAcademia and #ShutDownSTEM is the time for white and non-Black People of Color (NBPOC) to not only educate themselves, but to define a detailed plan of action to carry forward. Wednesday June 10, 2020 will mark the day that we transition into a lifelong commitment of actions to eradicate anti-Black racism in academia and STEM. We join with members of Particles for Justice in calling for a #Strike4BlackLives.
To be clear: #ShutDownSTEM is aimed at the broad research community who is not directly participating in ending the global pandemic, COVID-19. If your daily activities are directly helping us end this global crisis, we send our sincerest gratitude. The rest of us, we need to get to work.
Share your detailed plans and actions with the global community using the hashtags #ShutDownSTEM and #ShutDownAcademia.
Our collective efforts will lead to eradicating anti-Black racism because Black lives depend on it.
Any 2nd CC for the foreseeable future would quickly get highjacked by RWers
This is one of the items the Koch brothers, like-minded ideologues, and their corporate lobbyist allies have been quietly pushing for years. They would like nothing better than to rewrite the constitution to lock in their view of the way things ought to be and make reform impossible.
It would be a second Confederate Constitution, which did the same thing.
Don't think for a minute they don't have draft proposals that were written up years ago -- part contingency plan, part political wish list -- that can be dusted off and updated pretty damn quick.
Through money and connections they have the influence to be a huge or even dominant influence on a 2nd CC. No other group has anything like this kind of off-the-shelf game plan.
So what do we have to lose? Everything.
Remember When They Showed You Who They Are
That third panel is from 1984's What If #44, which echos so much today
The premise was "What If Captain America were revived today?" ("today" being 1984).
It has two different Caps being revived: First, the 1950's replacement Cap, who's a McCarthyite Bircher-in-all-but-name, who'd been created to get back that ol' WW2-Cap "living symbol of patriotism" spirit during the crusade against the commies. At some point in the '50s he became inconvenient and was put in some sort of suspended animation. Some time in the 70s he was released by a "patriotic citizen", who was a janitor at the secret facility where he was being kept on ice. Once again posing as WW2 Cap, he becomes a magnet for RW politicians and other zealots.
Including one who wants to put severe restrictions on immigrants, get tough with unruly minorities, and reinvigorate "the real America". With fake-Cap's backing he wins in a landslide. Fake-Cap endorses militias, the "Sentinels of Liberty", to confront protesters. At one such protest, fake-Cap's higher-level backers have a sniper shoot him so it can be blamed on the protesters and justify a crackdown, Reichstag-Fire-style.
Fake-Cap survived (believing it was the protesters who shot him), and went on to help his backers consolidate power under -- I kid you not -- the America First Party. The Sentinels of Liberty are elevated to practically an internal occupation army. They build walls to seal off minorities from the rest of the country, most notable the Harlem Wall. An Emergency Information Freedoms Act is passed to restrict the press. To maintain the appearance of following the 1st Amendment, some dissent (within limits) is allowed. One such dissident is the New York Daily Bugle's cantankerous and idiosyncratic editor/publisher, J. Jonah Jameson.
This is the environment in which WW2 Cap, Steve Rogers, is found in the ice and revived by a submarine crew (submarine duty being the main "See? We're not discriminating. We accept the good ones." job for minorities and Jews in the Navy).
The old-timer sub skipper is able to identify this Cap as the real one, and when they get back to port he sneaks Cap to the Resistance, led by Jameson, Nick Fury, Sam Wilson (who's not The Falcon here, but instead leads "the Black Cadres," intentionally modeled after the Black Panther Party), and Spider-Man.
I give the above rundown to set the stage for the couple of pages below. Clipping panels here and there don't do them justice.
The Resistance strikes back at the America First Party's first national convention in Madison Square Garden. With all the restrictions, its leader is a veritable shoe-in to win the election, and once he's in place he'll consolidate further and make himself the king of America.
First, however, the Resistance upstages the festivities...
Over the next several pages Cap & fake-Cap fight, and other Resistance members take out the Sentinels in the room and keep the TV cameras running. Being the real deal, Cap beats the fake. The crowd reacts, and Cap says his piece.
End scene.
The resolution is wildly simplistic, sure, but they had to wrap it up on a high note.
I need to collect these for my journal to archive them
The Door Buzzard Thread: https://www.democraticunderground.com/10027423760
Moon bombing: https://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=228x53129
and https://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x6728139 (529 posts. Wheee!)
The Corn Flakes (when frying chicken) thread: lost to DU v1, I think, but closest approximation at
https://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=105&topic_id=3499154
If anyone has a link to the original, please post it.
The Olive Garden Thread: again, apparently lost to DU v1, but thread explaining it around 2007: https://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=105x6957890
Young Children (in restaurants): A recurring topic with strong opinions. Typical example: https://www.democraticunderground.com/10027568476
Nursing/breastfeeding (in public spaces): Another recurring topic with strong opinions. (No examples I'm going to post).
Pit Bulls: Smeared sweeties and just misunderstood? Or purpose-bred killers?!? Aother recurring topic with strong opinions. Typical example: https://www.democraticunderground.com/10028908963
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