human_rights - BLOGS - Blacksciencefictionsociety2024-03-29T10:30:17Zhttps://blacksciencefictionsociety.com/profiles/blogs/feed/tag/human_rightsW in the Absolute F...https://blacksciencefictionsociety.com/profiles/blogs/w-in-the-absolute-f2020-10-02T18:59:29.000Z2020-10-02T18:59:29.000ZReginald L. Goodwinhttps://blacksciencefictionsociety.com/members/ReginaldLGoodwin<div><p><img class="align-center" src="https://www.monkeyland.co.za/userfiles/mkboe/article/news/news12/monkeys_fling_poo.jpg" alt="This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is monkeys_fling_poo.jpg" /></p><p style="text-align:center;"><span style="font-size:8pt;"><a href="https://www.monkeyland.co.za/monkeys-throw-throwing-poop_article_op_view_id_1892" target="_blank">Monkeyland</a>: There's a website for everything.</span></p><p> </p><p><span style="font-size:12pt;"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;">Topics: Civics, Civil Rights, Dark Humor, Existentialism, Fascism, Human Rights</span></span></p><p> </p><p><span style="font-size:12pt;"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;">We started with Tuesday’s “debate,” where one candidate came for the debate, while the other as an orange primate slinging shit, trying to get his opponent to stutter and literally, “seeing what sticks.” Every <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/01/politics/donald-trump-debate-polls-joe-biden/index.html" target="_blank">post-debate analysis</a> gave it to his opponent.</span></span></p><p> </p><p><span style="font-size:12pt;"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;">Now, he’s tested positive for the Coronavirus.</span></span></p><p> </p><p><span style="font-size:12pt;"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;">The sad part is, we’ve been lied to SO many times, <a href="https://physicsandnano.com/2020/10/02/w-in-the-absolute-f/" target="_blank">we have a right</a> to doubt the report.</span></span></p><p> </p><p><span style="font-size:12pt;"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;">It is a bit “convenient” after a disastrous debate, isn’t it? After 20,000+ lies, 200,000+ dead Americans, and counting, he’s caused us to question our reality.</span></span></p><p> </p><p><span style="font-size:12pt;"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;">He saw his internal polling numbers, and his howling, feces sling fest didn’t move the needle. He is a faux billionaire that played one on The Apprentice reality-TV show. He was so broke, the <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/01/07/how-mark-burnett-resurrected-donald-trump-as-an-icon-of-american-success" target="_blank">showrunners rented the furniture</a> seen on the set because his office looked like the remains of "Sanford and Son." Methinks this is the Occam's razor reason why he's desperately terrified for anyone to see his taxes: his net worth is in the crapper.</span></span></p><p> </p><p><span style="font-size:12pt;"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;">He knew the employment numbers were going to be disappointing. Dow futures went negative at the news of his infection. He knew it as he went to a fundraiser in New Jersey. He knew it as shook hands with supporters. He planned a rally in Wisconsin, despite the protestations from the democratic governor. <strong>IF</strong> (& that’s a BIG if) he’s got it, he did it, I think, HOPING he contracted the virus from his previous super spreader events, so he could change the subject, and NOT have to debate further. He’s going for a medical resignation, and you can’t get called a quitter if you’re “legitimately” (wink, wink) sick.</span></span></p><p><img class="align-center" src="https://physicsandnano.files.wordpress.com/2020/10/image.png?w=693" alt="This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is image.png" /></p><p style="text-align:center;"><span style="font-size:8pt;">Nuff said.</span></p><p> </p><p><span style="font-size:12pt;"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;">“Stand back and stand by” made the “Proud Boys” little mushrooms poke there rusty, racist zippers. He's disavowed them like he did <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/02/28/in-1927-donald-trumps-father-was-arrested-after-a-klan-riot-in-queens/" target="_blank">his father's attendance</a> at a Klan rally in New York City in 1927; as he did ever knowing David Duke, or what the Klan is; as he did after Charlottesville when he called Neo-Nazis "very fine people," making them equivalent to Antifa (which means, say it WITH me now: ANTI-fascist). He's disavowed them because that's just another crime he could be convicted for if he foments violence at what's looking to be a landslide defeat. He knows he’s losing, and losing means prison: the Manhattan DA, SDNY, the NYS DA Letitia James could give a shit about any pardon Mike Pence can worm out of his complicit, faux-Christian ass: no president, no matter how brief the tenure can do anything about state crimes. His best move in 2016 was to lose and inaugurate “Trump TV,” not this American Carnage of apathetic ineptitude he’s unleashed on this nation.</span></span></p><p> </p><p><span style="font-size:12pt;"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;">Speaking of Christians, what EXACTLY are white evangelicals going to do after this? WHO in their right minds would seek out their example? They couldn't even be street guards at an elementary after this debacle of epic hypocrisy. After decades of facade piety, <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/11/09/how-the-faithful-voted-a-preliminary-2016-analysis/" target="_blank">they voted for the vagina grabber</a>! Their median age is a matched set to Fox viewership: white and getting older. Religious organizations survive from the free-will charitable contributions ("tithes and offerings") from their congregations. Congregations only grow when YOUNG people join them, get married, have babies, and stay awhile. Good luck paying your mortgages. Hit up Franklin Graham or Paula White for a loan to float you.</span></span></p><p> </p><p><span style="font-size:12pt;"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;">A seventy-four-year-old racist (allegedly) has COVID-19, with associated morbidities: he’s overweight, his diet is disastrous, and yet he’s managed to fire off tweets with supposedly mild symptoms between the land of the living and the hereafter.</span></span></p><p> </p><p><span style="font-size:12pt;"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;">A malignant narcissist hates the idea of losing, or quitting while he’s clearly behind.</span></span></p><p> </p><p><span style="font-size:12pt;"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;">This is the equivalent of a more noble and honorable man falling on his sword.</span></span></p><p> </p><p><span style="font-size:12pt;"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;">I'm voting. I'm voting as SOON as the polls open. He can promise to make Juneteenth a federal holiday. He can promise to give us our "40 acres and a mule" WITH interest. None of these flaccid, half-assed, shoot-from-the-hip promises mean anything to the functioning of this republic, that since I'm LIVING in it, I desperately WANT to function.</span></span></p><p> </p><p><span style="font-size:12pt;"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;">I need him gone. Quoting his well-worn, rehearsed phrase that made him famous: YOU'RE FIRED. Because in the words of Joy Reid: I "really WOULD like to sleep at night!"</span></span></p><p> </p></div>Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc...https://blacksciencefictionsociety.com/profiles/blogs/post-hoc-ergo-propter-hoc2020-09-04T10:00:00.000Z2020-09-04T10:00:00.000ZReginald L. Goodwinhttps://blacksciencefictionsociety.com/members/ReginaldLGoodwin<div><p><img class="align-center" src="https://spaceenoughandtime.files.wordpress.com/2017/05/post-hoc-ergo-frazz.jpg?w=640" alt="Frazz - fz170507comb_ts.tif" /></p><p style="text-align:center;">Image from <a href="https://www.gocomics.com/" target="_blank">GoComics.com</a> and <a href="https://spaceenoughandtime.com/2017/05/10/post-hoc-ergo-propter-frazz/" target="_blank">SpaceAndTime.com</a></p><p> </p><p><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;">Topics: Civics, Civil Rights, COVID-19, Existentialism, Fascism, Human Rights</span></span></p><p> </p><p><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;"><em>Public-opinion polling shows that Trump’s low opinion of American elections has practically become Republican Party orthodoxy. According to <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-poll-rigging-idUSKCN12L2O2?feedType=RSS&feedName=politicsNews&utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=Social" target="_blank">a Reuters/Ipsos poll released </a>on Friday, Republicans have an “unprecedented” level of “concern and mistrust in the system.” Roughly 70 percent of Republican voters believe that if Hillary Clinton wins the election, it’ll be due to fraud. In both this poll and an <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/poll-clinton-won-final-debate-53-republicans-would-accept-election-n670626" target="_blank">NBC News/SurveyMonkey poll</a>, only half of Republicans say they’d accept a Clinton victory. (In the latter poll, by contrast, 82 percent of Democrats said they would accept a Trump victory.)</em></span></span></p><p> </p><p><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;"><em>This suspicious Republican electorate is joined by growing ranks of conservative politicians, pundits, and intellectuals. They’re all increasingly willing to say that the existing American political system is hopelessly flawed and needs to be rolled back to the days before blacks and women could vote. On the most obvious level, this can be seen in moves by Republican governors all over America to make voting more difficult, through stringent voting ID laws, new hurdles to registration, and the curtailment of early-voting options. Equally significant has been the gutting of key provisions of the Voting Rights Act by conservative Supreme Court justices in the 2013 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shelby_County_v._Holder" target="_blank">Shelby Country v. Holder</a> ruling.</em></span></span></p><p> </p><p><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;"><em>Suspicion of the democratic system is so pervasive on the right because it’s driven by the fear that white Christian America is facing demographic doom. The evidence is right there in the election results: Republicans have lost the popular vote in five of the last six presidential elections, and if current polling trends hold, the GOP will be batting one for seven when the results come in on November 8. Thanks to gerrymandering, Republicans may hold on to a U.S. House majority for a while, and they’ll remain competitive in state capitols in the near future. But a whites-only party can’t win national elections. And over time, the GOP’s congressional and state fortresses will crumble if the party doesn’t change dramatically. Or if the democratic system doesn’t change dramatically.</em></span></span></p><p> </p><p><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;"><a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/138019/right-giving-democracy" target="_blank">The Right Is Giving Up on Democracy,</a> Jeet Heer, The New Republic, October 24, 2016</span></span></p><p> </p><p><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;">The 2008 electorate was on-record as the <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/2008/11/13/young-voters-in-the-2008-election/" target="_blank">youngest</a> and <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/hispanic/2009/04/30/dissecting-the-2008-electorate-most-diverse-in-us-history/" target="_blank">most diverse</a> in Pew Research history. It's why I think the right had a visceral reaction to President Barack Obama. He was the seventh African American to run for president in the modern era, and the first one to actually win. The trial balloon of a "post-racial" society was floated (see? We're not racist, you finally have a negro president). The 2012 re-election sent them over a cliff of brief self-reflection with the post-election <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/03/what-you-need-to-read-in-the-rnc-election-autopsy-report/274112/" target="_blank">GOP Autopsy</a>, officially the <a href="https://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/RNCreport03182013.pdf" target="_blank">Opportunity and Growth Project</a>. That revelation was short-lived, and with past indicative revelations as prologue, quite reasonable and sane. State media/Fox propaganda and other conservative outlets couldn't help themselves. The faux "controversies" from Michelle Obama's bare arms (but not Melania Trump's bare behind), Grey Poupon mustard on hot dogs and tan suits seems delirious, hilarious, and deranged. It was a parade of the insane.</span></span></p><p> </p><p><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;">There are a <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1071634/" target="_blank">pro</a> and <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1071635/" target="_blank">con</a> to whether racism qualifies as a mental disorder. To those recipients of its attacks and largesse, it seems to fit the bill. I was the victim of a "Zoom bombing" recently, pornographic materials, and the n-word repeated to an online crowd of African Americans in a Sunday School meeting studying the Book of James: We'd lean "pro."</span></span></p><p> </p><p><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;">This demographics time bomb was set off by the aftermath of 1865: no longer having free slave labor, many legal machinations were attempted to re-enslave previously free African Americans using vagrancy laws, see "<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Slavery-Another-Name-Re-Enslavement-Americans/dp/0385722702" target="_blank">Slavery By Another Name</a>," by Douglas A. Blackmon. The <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/arts/5-ways-prisoners-were-used-for-profit-throughout-u-s-history" target="_blank">American Prison System</a> exploits a loophole in the 13th Amendment: anyone arrested by the system - state, federal or for-profit - according to The Constitution is <a href="https://www.history.com/news/13th-amendment-slavery-loophole-jim-crow-prisons" target="_blank">technically a slave</a> of the state. We have Asian citizens because Chinese immigrants were imported to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Labor_in_the_Southern_United_States#:~:text=After%20slavery%20was%20abolished%20in,freed%20Blacks%20on%20the%20plantations." target="_blank">replace freed slaves</a> on plantations. ICE likes to raid Hispanics/Latinos at <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/28/us/mississippi-ice-raids-poultry-plants.html" target="_blank">food processing plants</a>, but are missing the bonanza of brown targets at <a href="https://www.urban.org/urban-wire/hispanics-housing-industry" target="_blank">home builders</a>, who probably couldn't offer their great home prices without company owners paying undocumented immigrants cash off-the-books, so as not to incur tax liabilities. Not a single home builder, for example, has done a perp walk.</span></span></p><p> </p><p>*****</p><p> </p><p><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;">Excerpt from "<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Black-Labor-White-Wealth-Economic/dp/0966170210" target="_blank">Black Labor, White Wealth: The Search for Power and Economic Justice</a>," (August 1, 1994) Claude Anderson, Ed. D., Chapter 2: Power and Black Progress:</span></span></p><p> </p><p><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;">Chapter 2, page 33, subsection titled: <strong><em>Numerical Population Power</em></strong><em> </em></span></span></p><p> </p><p><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;"><em>In a democratic society, the numerical majority wins, rules, and decides. The theoretical rights of a minority, may or may not be respected, especially if they are a planned minority. Numerical population power is the power that comes to those groups that acquire power through their sheer size. The black population peaked in the 1750s when slaves and free blacks accounted for approximately 33 percent of the total population. The high numerical strength of blacks caused fear and concern among whites. <u>They feared the loss of their own numerical power</u>. Word of black Haitians successful slave revolt in the 1790s had spread across America and reportedly ignited several slave revolts in Southern states.</em></span></span></p><p> </p><p><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;"><em>The First U.S. Congress enacted the first naturalization law that declared America to be a nation for "whites only." The naturalization act and other income incentives attracted a mass influx of legal and illegal European ethnics, followed by Asian and Hispanic immigrants a century later. The immigration quota for blacks remained zero until their total percentage of the population declined to nine percent. By making blacks a planned numerical minority, white society assured its dominance in a democratic society <u>where the majority always wins</u>.</em></span></span></p><p> </p><p><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;"> Source: <a href="https://issuu.com/iesu9/docs/blacklabourwhitewealth_part1" target="_blank">Sample chapter</a></span></span></p><p> </p><p><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;"><em>Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc</em> (Latin): <a href="https://physicsandnano.com/2020/09/04/post-hoc-ergo-propter-hoc/" target="_blank">after this, therefore because of this</a>. It is an informal fallacy, meaning the fallacy originates in an error of reasoning rather than a flaw in the logical form of the argument. (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy#Informal_fallacy" target="_blank">Wikipedia</a>) So, what <em>WAS</em> the original "argument"?</span></span></p><p> </p><p><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;"><em>American mythology teaches that the early United States was founded by men of conscience who came to the "new world" in order to practice their religious convictions in peace and freedom. John Winthrop (1588–1649), the first governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, in particular, has been quoted as a source of inspiration by U.S. presidents from John F. Kennedy to Ronald Reagan.</em></span></span></p><p> </p><p><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;"><em>Yet Winthrop did not represent a tradition of either democracy or religious tolerance. He hated democracy with a passion. The state he created did not hesitate to execute people like the Quakers and even brought to the "new" world the very popular tradition of medieval Europe, the trial and execution of witches.</em></span></span></p><p> </p><p><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;">"A Shining City on a Hill": Troubling information about a famous quote. The Puritan tradition of intolerance and John Winthrop, <a href="http://www.worldfuturefund.org/wffmaster/Reading/Religion/John%20Winthrop.htm" target="_blank">World Future Fund</a></span></span></p><p> </p><p><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;">We've taken The Constitution, our founding document, through historical apotheosis. Strict constructionists will say it is without flaw, and we should look for "original intent"; "breathing document" aficionados want constant change and continuous improvement, ever-becoming a "more perfect union."</span></span></p><p> </p><p><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;">The story we tell ourselves becomes muddled over time. This is similar to the game of "<a href="https://www.wikihow.com/Play-the-Telephone-Game" target="_blank">telephone</a>," where my teacher whispered instructions to the first student in a line of fifth-graders from a 3 x 5 index card. Twenty-students deep, what we said and the meaning of what they said has irrevocably changed, similarly through essentially a <a href="https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/the-day-the-constitution-was-ratified#:~:text=On%20June%2021%2C%201788%2C%20the,a%20long%20and%20arduous%20process." target="_blank">232-year relay</a>.</span></span></p><p> </p><p><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;">We are here from Crispus Attucks to George Floyd, from sacrifices in revolts from England to knees-on-necks, no-knock raids, and killing teenagers carrying Arizona Tea and a bag of Skittles. We are here from Manifest Destiny, Trail of Tears, <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/2020/06/remembering-red-summer-white-mobs-massacred-blacks-tulsa-dc/" target="_blank">Black Wall Street-like genocides</a> to Coronavirus pandemic. We are here because the original story of this country has become horribly distorted. That's not to say the original picture was perfect. For this republic's continuance, we desperately need to be honest with ourselves.</span></span></p><p> </p><p><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;">We're here because the country was based on slavery: the wealth of the nation built on the backs of free, uncompensated, kidnapped-from-Africa labor for generations.</span></span></p><p> </p><p><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;">We're here because those persons were described as a fraction, 3/5th's, and their children sold away like so much cattle.</span></span></p><p> </p><p><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;">We're here because the same slave owners defining us as inferior beings had unsolicited sex with us, siring Mulatto children in heterosexual rape of African women and "<a href="https://face2faceafrica.com/article/5-horrifying-ways-enslaved-african-men-were-sexually-exploited-and-abused-by-their-white-masters/3" target="_blank">buck breaking</a>" in homosexual encounters meant to emasculate African males in front of their females and families. Sally Hemings was not Thomas Jefferson's "lover": the relationship (or, the rape), started when <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/sally-hemings-wasnt-thomas-jeffersons-mistress-she-was-his-property/2017/07/06/db5844d4-625d-11e7-8adc-fea80e32bf47_story.html" target="_blank">she was fourteen</a>. That is BY definition, pedophilia, and like all the aforementioned sexual acts above, sadistic.</span></span></p><p> </p><p><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;">We're here because the slaves, nor their descendants received reparations for years of enslavement, murder, and terrorism by the KKK, "<a href="https://gen.medium.com/think-sundown-towns-are-a-thing-of-the-past-think-again-21b9e025157b" target="_blank">sundown towns</a>" requiring a <a href="https://www.history.com/news/the-green-book-the-black-travelers-guide-to-jim-crow-america" target="_blank">Green Book</a> to navigate around, and <a href="https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/white-citizens-councils-wcc" target="_blank">white citizen's councils</a>.</span></span></p><p> </p><p><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;">We're here because such wealth exchange as reparations would dismantle the current biased system of white supremacy, and the reason it is opposed so strongly.</span></span></p><p> </p><p><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;">We're here because to justify the system, this nation built-in mythologies of superiority and inferiority, socially-engineered the society to self-fulfill the delusion, and codified it into laws. African Americans can be prejudiced, but they cannot be racist. Racism = prejudice + political power; the ability to codify your hatred with the strength of judiciary. Hitler did not "overthrow" the <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/germany/weimar-republic#:~:text=The%20Weimar%20Republic%20was%20Germany's,after%20Kaiser%20Wilhelm%20II%20abdicated." target="_blank">Weimar Republic</a>: he won the election, <a href="https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/how-did-hitler-happen#:~:text=Adolf%20Hitler%20was%20appointed%20chancellor,rally%20in%20Nuremburg%20in%201928." target="_blank">seized control</a>, and <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/11/what-america-taught-the-nazis/540630/" target="_blank">cloned Jim Crow</a> on steroids in Europe, the only lesson the United States refuses to take ownership of.</span></span></p><p> </p><p><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;">We are here because unlike the logical fallacy: our current "this" is logically followed by the obvious "that." For us to have a new tomorrow - "[Built] Back Better," we're going to have to admit the sins of the nation's past, and in the vernacular of scripture: repent.</span></span></p><p> </p></div>Call It by Its Name...https://blacksciencefictionsociety.com/profiles/blogs/call-it-by-its-name2020-08-28T10:00:00.000Z2020-08-28T10:00:00.000ZReginald L. Goodwinhttps://blacksciencefictionsociety.com/members/ReginaldLGoodwin<div><p><img class="align-center" src="https://static01.nyt.com/images/2018/12/03/opinion/international-world/03snyderHRjpg-INYT/23serners-leeHRjpg-INYT-articleLarge.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp&disable=upscale" alt="23serners-leeHRjpg-INYT-articleLarge.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp&disable=upscale" /></p><p style="text-align:center;"><span class="font-size-2">Image Source: New York Times, excerpt below</span></p><p><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;">Topics: Civics, Civil Rights, COVID-19, Fascism, Human Rights</span></span></p><p><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;"><strong><em>Turning Point:</em></strong><em> China removes presidential term limits.</em></span></span></p><p><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;"><em>First we see the face. The face of America’s Donald Trump, or Hungary’s Viktor Orban, or Russia’s Vladimir Putin, or Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the face of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/01/world/middleeast/trump-sisi-egypt-strongmen.html">men who wish to transform democracies</a> into personality cults.</em></span></span></p><p><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;"><em>The face is the oldest mark of leadership, the mark that works for clan or tribe. If we see only the face, we are not thinking about policies or politics; instead, we are accepting the new regime and its rules. However, a democracy is about the people, not a single mythicized person.</em></span></span></p><p><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;"><em>People need truth, which a cult of personality destroys. Theories of democracy, from the ancient Greeks through the Enlightenment to today, take for granted that the world around us yields to understanding. We pursue the facts alongside our fellow citizens. But in a cult of personality, truth is replaced by belief, and we believe what the leader wishes us to believe. The face replaces the mind.</em></span></span></p><p><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;"><em>The transition from democracy to personality cult begins with a leader who is <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/06/23/opinion/trumps-lies.html">willing to lie all the time</a>, in order to discredit the truth as such. The transition is complete when people can no longer distinguish between truth and feeling.</em></span></span></p><p><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/03/opinion/authoritarian-leaders-trump-putin-orban.html" target="_blank">The Cowardly Face of Authoritarianism</a>, Yale Historian Timothy Snyder, New York Times</span></span></p><p><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;">Yesterday, a demagogue spoke to a former political party that for the first time in its history, doesn’t have a platform.</span></span></p><p><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;">Remove “R” and “D.” What are national conventions, other than platforms, or means, to lay out the vision of the standard-bearer for the country, and thus the party itself? To give a compelling reason to vote for a party’s vision, or colloquially, “what’s in it for me?” The chaos candidate who became the chaos president foamed at the mouth at a super spreader event breaking the <a href="https://osc.gov/Services/Pages/HatchAct.aspx" target="_blank">Hatch Act</a> on the White House lawn made no improvement – in FOUR YEARS – on my observations years ago, posted September 1, 2016: <a href="https://www.scribd.com/document/322705458/Party-of-Apocalypse" target="_blank">Party of Apocalypse</a>.</span></span></p><p><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;">Excerpt:</span></span></p><p><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;"><em>The first night of the RNC convention could have been a success with the noted exception of Melania Trump lifting whole cloth parts of now First Lady Michelle Obama’s speech to the DNC convention in 2008. An out-of-work journalist was the first to catch and tweet it (a sad indictment of the employed journalists ACTUALLY at the RNC convention) [1]. The last night of the RNC was like “The Dark Knight Returns”: the world was essentially a shit show like Gotham, and Batman screamed for 75 minutes incoherent, semi-form, hand-tossed Word Salad anointing himself Bruce-Wayne-Almighty-Cheetos-Jesus savior of the planet by the strength of his will alone (no cool gadgets – just a Galaxy Smart Phone and a twitter handle he misspells as he jacks off on almost daily). The Bat’s bravery was previously demonstrated during his selfless sacrificed Vietnam five deferments to let others more worthy die in his place.</em></span></span></p><p><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;"><em>My coworkers on the first night’s events had statements like: “that is not plagiarism” (it was); or “what she said (Mrs. Trump) in her speech most people say in one form or another every day!” 38 hours later: a phantom ghostwriter emerged – Meredith Melver, who apparently conveniently works for a man that’s on record imitating his own publicist. [2] The name sounds suspicious enough with the possibility of two plagiarisms vis-à-vis Mrs. Trump and his educational ventures. Trump Institute and University lifted content whole cloth [3]. There are suspicions like his publicist, Ms. Melver may have been a convenient creation, but it seems she’s legit [4]. But more importantly, the Meredith mea culpa was enough for my coworker Trumpism fans. Never mind Mrs. Trump had previously revealed to Matt Lauer of NBC she had “written it all herself.” They pivoted to the next talking point with the ease of any group studied by Leon Festinger.</em></span></span></p><p><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;"><em>Don’t know this guy? He studied an apocalyptic UFO cult in the 1950s – a precursor to the Heaven’s Gate Cult of the 1990s. They were ABSOLUTELY sure the world would end and had a date. The faithful sold all their worldly goods and waited for the apocalypse…and waited…and waited… Some of the former faithful felt discouraged and left. Others felt their “vibrations” had saved the Earth from destruction. [5] Simple Psychology defines it thus: “Cognitive dissonance refers to a situation involving conflicting attitudes, beliefs or behaviors. This produces a feeling of discomfort leading to an alteration in one of the attitudes, beliefs, or behaviors to reduce the discomfort and restore balance, etc. “For example, when people smoke (behavior) and they know that smoking causes cancer (cognition). “Festinger’s (1957) cognitive dissonance theory suggests that we have an inner drive to hold all our attitudes and beliefs in harmony and avoid disharmony (or dissonance).”</em</em></span></span>></p><p><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;">This is a full-blown <a href="https://physicsandnano.com/2020/08/28/call-it-by-its-name/" target="_blank">cult of personality</a>.</span></span></p><p><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;"><em>A <strong>cult of personality</strong> or <strong>cult of the leader</strong>,<sup><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cult_of_personality#cite_note-mudde-1">[1]</a></sup> arises when a country’s regime – or, more rarely, an individual – uses the techniques of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_media">mass media</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda">propaganda</a>, the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_lie">big lie</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spectacle">spectacle</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_arts">the arts</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriotism">patriotism</a>, and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government-organized_demonstration">government-organized demonstrations</a> and rallies to create an idealized, heroic, and worshipful image of a leader, often through unquestioning <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flattery">flattery</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Praise">praise</a>. A cult of personality is similar to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apotheosis">apotheosis</a>, except that it is established by modern <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_engineering_(political_science)">social engineering techniques</a>, usually by the state or the party in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-party_state">one-party states</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominant-party_state">dominant-party states</a>. It is often seen in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Totalitarian">totalitarian</a> or <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authoritarian">authoritarian</a> countries.</em></span></span></p><p><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;"><em>The term came to prominence in 1956, in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikita_Khrushchev">Nikita Khrushchev</a>‘s secret speech <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Cult_of_Personality_and_Its_Consequences">On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences</a>, given on the final day of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/20th_Congress_of_the_Communist_Party_of_the_Soviet_Union">20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union</a>. In the speech, Khrushchev, who was the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Secretary_of_the_Communist_Party_of_the_Soviet_Union">First Secretary of the Communist Party</a> – in effect, the leader of the country – criticized the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalin%27s_cult_of_personality">lionization and idealization</a> of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Stalin">Joseph Stalin</a>, and by implication, his Communist contemporary <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mao_Zedong%27s_cult_of_personality">Mao Zedong</a>, as being <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revisionism_(Marxism)">contrary</a> to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marxism">Marxist doctrine</a>. The speech was later made public and was part of the “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De-Stalinization">de-Stalinization</a>” process in the Soviet Union.</em> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cult_of_personality" target="_blank">Wikipedia</a></span></span></p><p><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;">Making political speeches from the White House lawn is as illegal as making political speeches as Secretary of State from Jerusalem. They are violations of the <a href="https://osc.gov/Services/Pages/HatchAct.aspx" target="_blank">Hatch Act</a>, which prohibits such actions. If this treatment of The Constitution like toilet paper is going on in plain sight, what happens when American becomes a failed state?</span></span></p><p><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;">WHICH Amendment will matter, or be reinforced? Forget birthright citizenship: you are citizen if the KING says you’re a citizen. Forget voting rights for African Americans, or women, or their autonomy over their own bodies. Mashing up George Carlin and Margaret Atwood, I can see a dystopian scenario where women become “broodmares of the state” for people screaming about “<a href="https://www.adl.org/resources/glossary-terms/white-genocide" target="_blank">white genocide</a>,” doing much meth and little coitus. I can think a party, afraid of losing political power to demographics, could easily make the case the 2nd Amendment restricted to citizens with a LACKING preponderance of Melanin. In Putin’s Russia, <a href="https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2016/04/27/russians-their-guns-and-the-state-a52720" target="_blank">there is no such thing</a> as a 2nd Amendment, or a <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-53055857" target="_blank">preponderance of Melanin</a>, for that matter.</span></span></p><p><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;">My “Party of Apocalypse” essay has, unfortunately, aged well.</span></span></p></div>Entropy and Existence...https://blacksciencefictionsociety.com/profiles/blogs/entropy-and-existence2020-08-21T10:00:00.000Z2020-08-21T10:00:00.000ZReginald L. Goodwinhttps://blacksciencefictionsociety.com/members/ReginaldLGoodwin<div><div><div><div><div class="block-editor-block-list__layout is-root-container"><p id="block-b50393d6-c12e-4ac5-a92d-c75f5dc85560" class="block-editor-block-list__block wp-block rich-text block-editor-rich-text__editable" style="text-align:center;"><a href="https://1uv0y2g38q13bxedh1lznow1-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Depositphotos_102544000_l-2015.jpg" target="_blank"><img class="align-center" src="https://1uv0y2g38q13bxedh1lznow1-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Depositphotos_102544000_l-2015.jpg?profile=RESIZE_400x" alt="Depositphotos_102544000_l-2015.jpg?profile=RESIZE_400x" width="564" height="408" /></a><span style="font-size:8pt;"><a href="https://www.weinbergerlawgroup.com/blog/divorce-family-law/5-ways-to-safeguard-yourself-after-divorcing-a-narcissist/">5 Ways To Safeguard Yourself After Divorcing a Narcissist</a><a href="https://1uv0y2g38q13bxedh1lznow1-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Depositphotos_102544000_l-2015.jpg" target="_blank">, Weinberger Divorce and Family Law Group</a></span></p><p class="block-editor-block-list__block wp-block rich-text block-editor-rich-text__editable"><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;">Topics: Civics, Civil Rights, Existentialism, Fascism, Human Rights</span></span></p><p id="block-1db2f74a-6c07-4563-abc0-40f1a059278c" class="block-editor-block-list__block wp-block rich-text block-editor-rich-text__editable"><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;">Entropy as Time's Arrow: <em>"One of the ideas involved in the concept of <a href="http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/thermo/seclaw.html#c4">entropy</a> is that nature tends from order to disorder in isolated systems."</em> <a href="http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/Therm/entrop.html#:~:text=Entropy%20as%20Time's%20Arrow,to%20disorder%20in%20isolated%20systems.&text=For%20an%20isolated%20system%2C%20entropy,will%20be%20later%20in%20time." target="_blank">Hyperphysics</a></span></span></p><p id="block-0f4b23f1-8129-40eb-bde5-d5a148efa76e" class="block-editor-block-list__block wp-block rich-text block-editor-rich-text__editable"><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;">The Senate Intelligence Committees' bipartisan <a href="https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/press/senate-intel-releases-volume-5-bipartisan-russia-report" target="_blank">report</a> confirming Russian interference in the 2016 election, and that Putin's puppet; his coterie lied in official testimony to Congress and the <a href="https://www.justice.gov/storage/report.pdf" target="_blank">Mueller Report</a> should be a damning indictment to a criminal enterprise masquerading as a political party with a doofus, bizarro mob boss at its helm. You should download both documents and READ them.</span></span></p><p id="block-90346cc4-07a0-453c-aeb8-a45eaa94fbcd" class="block-editor-block-list__block wp-block rich-text block-editor-rich-text__editable"><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;">Crimes-in-progress is being confessed to <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-admits-to-ukraine-military-aid-quid-pro-quo-tv-2019-11" target="_blank">on camera and in real-time</a>. You likely think a guilty person wouldn't confess to a crime he's committing, but a brazen criminal unburdened by guilt or a conscious would, and say you shouldn't believe your "lying eyes," or "fake news." Jeb Bush said, <em>"he was a chaos candidate, and he'll be a chaos president."</em> Orange Satan asked African Americans <em>"what the hell do you have to lose?"</em> That hypothesis, as said at the end of a proof, has clearly been shown - <a href="https://time.com/5861290/affordable-care-act-obamacare-trump-biden/" target="_blank">healthcare</a> during a pandemic, <a href="https://www.bls.gov/web/empsit/ceshighlights.pdf" target="_blank">jobs</a>, the <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/louis-dejoy-naacp-lawsuit-jesse-helms-1047358/?fbclid=IwAR0t70qMYxNwzEg8ITAXhTH3YV1TkBwNgL3IG6LSv0bW1nGYpXDYhjjGaII" target="_blank">post office</a>: <a href="https://mathworld.wolfram.com/QED.html#:~:text=%22Q.E.D.%22%20(sometimes%20written%20%22,proof%20to%20indicate%20its%20completion." target="_blank">QED</a>.</span></span></p><p id="block-8e7ecbda-1e1a-4ad3-8ae7-f81ce22d305e" class="block-editor-block-list__block wp-block rich-text block-editor-rich-text__editable"><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;">As a nation and a world, we are all in an abusive relationship with someone that has no real relationship with facts, data, or reality. We're being gaslighted by a narcissist, whose puppeteer is a KGB agent. His ascension was by design. Trigger warning for what follows:</span></span></p><p id="block-5f35c42a-0d7c-4a61-9fa3-d1402e9cd898" class="block-editor-block-list__block wp-block rich-text block-editor-rich-text__editable"><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;"><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/here-there-and-everywhere/201701/11-warning-signs-gaslighting" target="_blank">11 Warning Signs of Gaslighting</a>, <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/experts/stephanie-sarkis-phd" target="_blank">Stephanie A. Sarkis Ph.D.</a></span></span></p><div id="block-83c3d95d-a22b-4ab1-8085-bc83da08fbe0" class="block-editor-block-list__block wp-block" style="text-align:left;"><table><tbody><tr><td class="rich-text block-editor-rich-text__editable wp-block-table__cell-content">1. They tell blatant lies.</td><td class="rich-text block-editor-rich-text__editable wp-block-table__cell-content"><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/07/13/president-trump-has-made-more-than-20000-false-or-misleading-claims/" target="_blank">President Trump has made more than 20,000 false or misleading claims</a></td></tr><tr><td class="rich-text block-editor-rich-text__editable wp-block-table__cell-content">2. They deny they ever said something, even though you have proof. </td><td class="rich-text block-editor-rich-text__editable wp-block-table__cell-content"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/aug/14/do-you-regret-all-your-lying-white-house-reporters-question-startles-trump" target="_blank">'Do you regret all your lying?' White House reporter's question startles Trump</a></td></tr><tr><td class="rich-text block-editor-rich-text__editable wp-block-table__cell-content">3. They use what is near and dear to you as ammunition.</td><td class="rich-text block-editor-rich-text__editable wp-block-table__cell-content"><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/insight-is-2020/201807/what-makes-some-narcissists-mean-competitive-and-jealous" target="_blank">What Makes Some Narcissists Mean, Competitive, and Jealous</a></td></tr><tr><td class="rich-text block-editor-rich-text__editable wp-block-table__cell-content">4. They wear you down over time.</td><td class="rich-text block-editor-rich-text__editable wp-block-table__cell-content"><a href="https://tinybuddha.com/blog/from-the-spouse-of-a-narcissist-heres-what-you-need-to-know/" target="_blank">From the Spouse of a Narcissist: Here’s What You Need to Know</a></td></tr><tr><td class="rich-text block-editor-rich-text__editable wp-block-table__cell-content">5. Their actions do not match their words.</td><td class="rich-text block-editor-rich-text__editable wp-block-table__cell-content"><a href="https://afternarcissisticabuse.wordpress.com/2018/12/28/a-narcissists-actions-or-intent-never-match-up-with-their-words/#:~:text=By%20truly%20observing%20the%20Narcissist's,aimed%20directly%20at%20controlling%20YOU." target="_blank">A Narcissist’s actions or intent NEVER match up with their words.</a></td></tr><tr><td class="rich-text block-editor-rich-text__editable wp-block-table__cell-content">6. They throw in positive reinforcement to confuse you.</td><td class="rich-text block-editor-rich-text__editable wp-block-table__cell-content"><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/18/politics/donald-trump-pardon-susan-b-anthony/index.html" target="_blank">Trump's pardon may be undermining Anthony's wishes, historians say</a></td></tr><tr><td class="rich-text block-editor-rich-text__editable wp-block-table__cell-content">7. They know confusion weakens people.</td><td class="rich-text block-editor-rich-text__editable wp-block-table__cell-content"><a href="https://www.heraldopenaccess.us/openaccess/dissociation-and-confabulation-in-narcissistic-disorders" target="_blank">Dissociation And Confabulation In Narcissistic Disorders</a></td></tr><tr><td class="rich-text block-editor-rich-text__editable wp-block-table__cell-content">8. They project.</td><td class="rich-text block-editor-rich-text__editable wp-block-table__cell-content"><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/freud-lives/201807/the-projector-in-chief" target="_blank">The Projector in Chief</a></td></tr><tr><td class="rich-text block-editor-rich-text__editable wp-block-table__cell-content">9. They try to align people against you.</td><td class="rich-text block-editor-rich-text__editable wp-block-table__cell-content"><a href="https://www.divorcenet.com/resources/top-tips-for-surviving-your-divorce-with-a-narcissist.html" target="_blank">Top Tips for Surviving Your Divorce With a Narcissist</a></td></tr><tr><td class="rich-text block-editor-rich-text__editable wp-block-table__cell-content">10. They tell you or others that you are crazy.</td><td class="rich-text block-editor-rich-text__editable wp-block-table__cell-content"><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/here-there-and-everywhere/201907/why-relationships-gaslighters-or-narcissists-can-be-so-painful" target="_blank">Why Relationships with Gaslighters or Narcissists Can Be So Painful</a></td></tr><tr><td class="rich-text block-editor-rich-text__editable wp-block-table__cell-content">11. They tell you everyone else is a liar.</td><td class="rich-text block-editor-rich-text__editable wp-block-table__cell-content"><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/tech-support/201808/the-narcissist-and-his-lies-how-theyre-different" target="_blank">The Narcissist and His Lies: How They're Different</a></td></tr></tbody></table>Your succinct guide to malignant narcissism</div><p class="block-editor-block-list__block wp-block rich-text block-editor-rich-text__editable"> </p><p id="block-191663ea-c819-42e6-b175-9065fe755dab" class="block-editor-block-list__block wp-block rich-text block-editor-rich-text__editable"><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;">A lot of the links above are about interpersonal relationships with women and their narcissistic partners. The <a href="https://physicsandnano.wordpress.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=199&action=edit&block-editor=1&frame-nonce=84e488d633&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwordpress.com&environment-id=production&support_user&_support_token#MeToo" target="_blank">#MeToo</a> and <a href="https://physicsandnano.wordpress.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=199&action=edit&block-editor=1&frame-nonce=84e488d633&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwordpress.com&environment-id=production&support_user&_support_token#TimesUp" target="_blank">#TimesUp</a> movements gained significant steam after the "American Carnage" speech at his pitifully-attended inauguration, which turned out to be both projection and promise.</span></span></p><p id="block-e0713205-4f16-4177-9137-57a3d86b6e40" class="block-editor-block-list__block wp-block rich-text block-editor-rich-text__editable"><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;">As a country and world, we are all in a wearing, abusive relationship with the current occupant/Russian asset in the Oval Office. It is not hyperbole or hubris to state this election is not just for the "<a href="https://youtu.be/HFUgU1v-XiI" target="_blank">soul of America</a>," but for the very <a href="https://www.democracynow.org/2020/5/25/noam_chomsky_on_trump_s_disastrous" target="_blank">existence of the species</a>.</span></span></p><p id="block-95bfd24d-503f-4d5a-8c6c-09d29c654401" class="block-editor-block-list__block wp-block rich-text block-editor-rich-text__editable"><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;">Whoever is in the next administration in America will have an impact on policies regarding <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/08/climate-crisis-still-crisis/615319/?utm_content=edit-promo&utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_term=2020-08-19T10%3A00%3A03&utm_campaign=the-atlantic&fbclid=IwAR3VG4qh_iACE19UuLoA6Fd3C2DTzuAXGan0Aj5avUoXw3JZ4XYO7Q-VkC8" target="_blank">climate change</a> (this is <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/07/climate-change-500-percent-increase-california-wildfires/594016/?utm_campaign=the-atlantic&utm_medium=social&utm_term=2020-08-19T20%3A04%3A47&utm_content=edit-promo&utm_source=facebook&fbclid=IwAR0XQNUXCIih2EPkmvg251oYBPFKuokLmFAADlPS5T_ay_Indf2DAqBV5cI&fbclid=IwAR1gXfceGYibSW2bSK7fflI3S-mpDKtHggyZ4SPr5knE8XwlEy_oVPiwaJ4" target="_blank">still a thing</a>). Concerning the deregulation of the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/climate/trump-environment-rollbacks.html" target="_blank">fossil fuel industry</a> during our current dystopian nightmare, under a second term (or, a lifetime according to Orange Satan), it can only exacerbate a precarious situation, <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/superstitions-can-make-you/" target="_blank">magical thinking</a> may create rainbows, and <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/people-drawn-to-conspiracy-theories-share-a-cluster-of-psychological-features/" target="_blank">conspiracy theories</a> make you feel smart, but neither has ever solved a problem relying on a knowledge and appreciation of <a href="https://www.livescience.com/20896-science-scientific-method.html" target="_blank">The Scientific Method</a>. Can you see <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QAnon" target="_blank">QAnon</a> in Starfleet? Do you want <em>these</em> <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-53692545" target="_blank">people</a> piloting your starship?</span></span></p><p id="block-6b42a4e4-8fdb-423e-bb33-19993b388536" class="block-editor-block-list__block wp-block rich-text block-editor-rich-text__editable"><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;">The following are excerpts from my previous blog post two years ago this month, <a href="https://physics4thecool.blogspot.com/2018/08/the-mendacity-of-dopes.html" target="_blank">The Mendacity of Dopes...</a>:</span></span></p><p id="block-1d1c0f50-36d9-40a8-ac1a-baea519b4dc9" class="block-editor-block-list__block wp-block rich-text block-editor-rich-text__editable"><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;"><em>“Putin’s thesis is that the American constitution is an experiment that will fail if it is challenged in the right way from within,” Mitchell continued. “Putin wants to break apart the American republic not by influencing an election or two, but by systematically inflaming the fault lines within our society. Accepting this fact is absolutely essential for developing a long-term response to the problem.” The problem Mitchell was describing has a kind of heads-I-win-tails-you-lose quality to it as far as Putin is concerned: <u>Not only has the Russian leader tried to exploit political polarization over issues like race and guns, his attempts to do so have themselves become deeply divisive</u>—to the point where even Trump’s advisers frequently find themselves at odds with the man they serve.</em></span></span></p><p id="block-d3abc185-f8c1-47e5-a367-daa95272f656" class="block-editor-block-list__block wp-block rich-text block-editor-rich-text__editable"><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;"><em>Part of Mitchell’s argument—which might be viewed favorably by a president who has taken particular umbrage at the notion that Putin sought to help him defeat Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential race—was that the Russian government <u>isn't necessarily interested in supporting a specific politician, party, or ideology</u>. Instead, it simply wants to sow chaos in the United States to advance its own goals, which it sees as threatened by America’s preeminent position in the world. Mitchell cited the revelations on Tuesday that suspected Russian government hackers have been targeting conservative U.S. think tanks and promoting “fringe voices” on both the left and the right on social media sites like Facebook.</em></span></span></p><p id="block-c88fd61c-1b3a-48c1-b01c-63d96edf3b7e" class="block-editor-block-list__block wp-block rich-text block-editor-rich-text__editable"><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;">Uri Friedman, The Atlantic: <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/08/russia-senate-hearing-wess-mitchell-mueller/568015/" target="_blank">Even Trump’s Own Adviser Is Warning About ‘Politicizing’ the Threat From Russia. But the danger he sees is already here.</a></span></span></p><p id="block-ec93f874-5544-415a-8c53-9cd24119d71f" class="block-editor-block-list__block wp-block rich-text block-editor-rich-text__editable"><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;">This is the metastasis of "<a href="https://physics4thecool.blogspot.com/search?q=the+southern+strategy" target="_blank">The Southern Strategy</a>" a rancid, racist tactic that was birthed on the heels of the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert F. Kennedy. It was and is a desperate bid for power. It predates itself as the definition of "white" changed from excluding everyone except "<a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/white-u-s-immigration-policy" target="_blank">Nordic stock</a>" Europeans (the English, mostly) to eventually including the previously excluded: Italians, Jews [and ironically] Russians all had tiny quotas. The resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan and the nascent eugenics movement in the United States fueled and influenced immigration policy in the earlier part of the last century. Admittedly, despite its reprehensible aims, it worked remarkably well for quite a while.</span></span></p><p id="block-036f08aa-a965-426a-9c7e-fddfe81c89ac" class="block-editor-block-list__block wp-block rich-text block-editor-rich-text__editable"><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;"><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;">A president with decidedly African features, he and his wife both educated at Ivy League schools and a pitch-perfect family did not personify the fictional "Huxtables" before the fall of Mr. Cosby to their many detractors. The continual reminder that the country is becoming browner only ignited more fear and resolve to fight a demographic shift not in their favor of continual predominance <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/the-avenue/2018/03/14/the-us-will-become-minority-white-in-2045-census-projects/" target="_blank">circa 2042 - 2045</a>. Their resident at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2018/08/23/africa/trump-south-africa-intl/index.html" target="_blank">transmitted a well-worn, white supremacist trope</a> regarding farmland in South Africa (it's returning the farmland to their original, African owners), but he needs a distraction since his former <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2018/08/23/politics/manafort-jury-form-split-11-1/index.html" target="_blank">campaign manager</a> and former <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2018/08/21/politics/michael-cohen-plea-deal-talks/index.html" target="_blank">personal lawyer</a> were both found guilty on a total of 16 felony counts in a matter of minutes. Their visceral reaction to them was an existential crisis, a call to arms; a "white genocide," ironically feared by the descendants of those that caused it well before the "<a href="https://www.history.com/topics/native-american-history/trail-of-tears" target="_blank">Trail of Tears</a>" for Native Americans. It caused <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/may/19/roger-ailes-nightmare-world-fox-news" target="_blank">Roger Ailes</a> to see the power of televised propaganda and cater to an audience that was well past facts post the repeal of the <a href="https://fair.org/extra/the-fairness-doctrine/" target="_blank">Fairness Doctrine</a> and the rise of listening to Rush Limbaugh on AM Talk Radio and his "<a href="https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=ditto%20head" target="_blank">ditto head</a>" clones; well past reasoned discourse before Twitter came online. What facts can be revealed are rebuffed by an avalanche of lies, there are no "gotchas" for a party that with the help of Karl Rove started "<a href="https://www.globalresearch.ca/karl-roves-prophecy-were-an-empire-now-and-when-we-act-we-create-our-own-reality/5572533" target="_blank">creating their own realities</a>" a long time ago. A sizable chunk of the electorate has been in this "post-truth" Twilight Zone for decades.</span></span></span></span></p><p><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;">Added: The NY Times reported <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/20/world/europe/navalny-poison-russia.html?referringSource=articleShare&fbclid=IwAR1KzGKcQHj3unbJclrqb6uGFl8aPH5Ocogys0WzhIlAENYe8LhwkqGo5T8" target="_blank">Aleksei Navalny Hospitalized in Russia in Suspected Poisoning</a>.</span></span></p><p><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;">This is what the “end of the American experiment” would look like. Foreign nations would pick our leaders. If republicans can visit Moscow <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/gop-senators-tell-contradictory-stories-about-moscow-trip" target="_blank">July 4, 2018</a>, before the midterm elections, what would prevent democrats from visiting Beijing summer of 2022? Could we protest in the streets, or dissent from the state on systemic racism during a pandemic without getting tear-gassed, flash bombed, rubber bullets shot at our heads, or kidnapped in unmarked cars? Would we see poisonings, or people spontaneously “<a href="https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2020/07/16/russian-police-major-falls-from-window-after-testifying-against-boss-reports-a70895" target="_blank">falling off buildings</a>?” Would AG Bill Barr rescue the rule of law? Would VOTING matter?</span></span></p><p><br /> <span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;">That’s the essence of the somber warning President Obama gave Wednesday night, and this is an example of what a sham democracy would be like. Democracies that fail do so slowly – behind the scenes – the rapid fall only seems quick when it’s all over. Russia, like Iraq under Saddam Hussein has “elections,” but they’re fraudulent shows at gunpoint for a despot, thus ensuring high participation numbers in both totalitarian states. NO ONE represents the Russian people. They are ruled by a junta, led by a criminal sociopath. We are barely represented here. We have the nightmare choices of a marginally functional party and a dystopian, dysfunctional one led by a psychopath.</span></span></p><p><br /> <span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;">The bedrock of democracy, “an informed citizenry” would cease to exist: we would put in earbuds to jam out, or binge-watch streaming video and “mind our own business.”</span></span></p><p><br /> <span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;">Engaged citizens protesting racism during a pandemic looks like anarchy to tyranny.</span></span></p><p><br /> <span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;">Fearful, self-centered citizens are what authoritarian regimes crave and need: apathy.</span></span></p><p id="block-ee07208e-07ac-4e1a-9b59-9a28a9447755" class="block-editor-block-list__block wp-block rich-text block-editor-rich-text__editable"><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;">All they needed was a useful idiot avatar, and a master spy to push the republic over the precipice. Ironically, if successful, the 2nd Amendment along with all others in a theoretical fall of our republic would become meaningless as in Russia, there is no <a href="http://www.loc.gov/law/help/firearms-control/russia.php" target="_blank">right to bear arms</a> that "former Americans" would recognize or appreciate. The imagined confiscation by government "<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1995/07/05/opinion/l-what-exactly-does-a-jackbooted-thug-wear-387695.html" target="_blank">jackbooted thugs</a>" may be under the flag of a foreign power that duped the gullible:</span></span></p><p id="block-dcb32879-010a-484a-88a9-6f3808057627" class="block-editor-block-list__block wp-block rich-text block-editor-rich-text__editable"><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;"><em>“One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we've been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.”</em></span></span></p><p id="block-3c4aa40f-edad-4560-abfe-b314d2db80c7" class="block-editor-block-list__block wp-block rich-text block-editor-rich-text__editable">― <span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;">Carl Sagan, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Demon-Haunted-World-Science-Candle-Dark/dp/0345409469" target="_blank">The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark</a></span></span></p><p id="block-585b1a1a-94c9-46ae-b4cb-de9539476e1c" class="block-editor-block-list__block wp-block rich-text block-editor-rich-text__editable"><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;">For the sake of all liberal democracies and humanity on the PLANET, they...MUST...fail.</span></span></p><div class="block-list-appender"> </div></div></div></div></div><div> </div></div>Pig Slop...https://blacksciencefictionsociety.com/profiles/blogs/pig-slop2020-08-14T10:00:00.000Z2020-08-14T10:00:00.000ZReginald L. Goodwinhttps://blacksciencefictionsociety.com/members/ReginaldLGoodwin<div><p><img class="align-center" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-oZrfn_gNVac/XuwgR_BVQYI/AAAAAAAAO4w/zBP3t4-OdI01BiMtKS_BA9YpzIqjIkLqQCK4BGAsYHg/s937/3145162135_9a9492b1b5_469504744.jpg" alt="This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is 3145162135_9a9492b1b5_469504744.jpg" /></p><p style="text-align:center;"><span style="font-size:8pt;">A fan-made cover for George Orwell's novel. "Animal Farm" is one of Orwell's most well-known works and gained unlikely popularity with Ukrainian refugees. (Photo from Flickr user Ben Templesmith.) <a href="https://www.pri.org/stories/2012-04-04/george-orwells-animal-farm-resonated-ukrainian-refugees" target="_blank">PRI.org</a></span></p><p></p><p><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;">Topics: Civics, Civil Rights, Existentialism, Fascism, Human Rights</span></span></p><p> </p><p><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;"><em>Farmers feed their <strong>pigs slop</strong>, a messy, wet mix of various leftovers—and when they do, they can say they <strong>slop</strong> the <strong>pigs</strong>. A derogatory way to talk about food that doesn't look very tasty is to call it to <strong>slop</strong>. And you can call sticky, overly sentimental music, writing, or film <strong>slop</strong> as well.</em> Source: <a href="https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/slop#:~:text=Farmers%20feed%20their%20pigs%20slop,or%20films%20slop%20as%20well." target="_blank">Vocabulary.com</a></span></span></p><p> </p><p><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;">When President Obama used an executive order for deferred action for childhood arrivals (DACA), that was considered <a href="https://www.factcheck.org/2018/01/the-facts-on-daca/" target="_blank">constitutional overreach</a> and tyranny from the executive branch. That was likely the executive at the time and the children in question are both brown. This was due to the GOP-dominated Congress not passing a DREAMS Act for those same children's path to citizenship. Immigration reform used to be a thing with republicans: Saint Ronald Reagan made <a href="https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128303672" target="_blank">a whole bunch of illegal immigrants citizens</a>, and that might have contributed to the high numbers his republican successor, George W. Bush enjoyed for his <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/hispanic/2005/06/27/iv-how-latinos-voted-in-2004/" target="_blank">2004 reelection</a>. That compassionate conservatism advantage has been <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2013/03/18/the-republican-problem-with-hispanic-voters-in-7-charts/" target="_blank">dwindling ever since</a>, at least until our current moment of discontent</span></span>.</p><p> </p><p><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;">Ben Sasse called Orange Satan's executive orders <a href="https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2020/08/10/donald-trump-stimulus-democrats-diamond-lead-vpx.cnn" target="_blank">unconstitutional slop</a>, which it is. His clap back to the middle school mean-girl tweetstorm from Mango Mussolini is an admittance: "I don't need you to get reelected, you need me." He like a lot of other Republican senators had their constitutional duty to remove a criminal from office. They are the beneficiaries of Jim Crow, the Southern Strategy, Voter Purging, and Suppression. They shirked it because they are criminals themselves. Conditional integrity is still cowardice.</span></span></p><p> </p><p><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;"><em>HuffPost senior White House correspondent S.V. Dáte asked the president during Thursday’s <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/feature/coronavirus" target="_blank">coronavirus</a> task force briefing if, after 3½ years, “do you regret at all the lying you’ve done to the American people? All the dishonesties?”</em></span></span></p><p> </p><p><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;"><em>“That who has done?” Trump replied. </em></span></span></p><p> </p><p><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;"><em>“You have done,” said Dáte, who wrote at length about <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-untruth-lies-false_n_5e0bac46e4b0843d360c94ea" target="_blank">Trump’s “Ministry of Untruth”</a> earlier this year. </em></span></span></p><p> </p><p><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;"><em>Trump paused and then moved on to the next question.</em></span></span></p><p> </p><p><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;"><em>In his report, Dáte noted that Trump’s stream of falsehoods across nearly every topic and in any setting is corroding America’s democracy as it normalizes lies coming from the nation’s highest office.</em></span></span></p><p> </p><p><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;"><a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-asked-regrets-lies-told-american-people_n_5f35b9d8c5b69fa9e2f8c551" target="_blank">Trump's Response When Asked If He Regrets All The Lies He's Told America: None</a>, Josephine Harvey, HuffPost</span></span></p><p> </p><p><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;">We have a view of history that fascism doesn't need competency. Hitler was <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/hitler-incompetent-lazy-nazi-government-clown-show-opinion-1408136" target="_blank">quite literally a shit show</a>, and the mythology of Nazi efficiency is...just that.</span></span></p><p> </p><p><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;">It's poignant that Senator Kamala Harris is African Diaspora through her Jamaican father and Indian Diaspora through her mother - both immigrants who met in Oakland, California where she and her sister were born as American citizens. Both marched and shouted for Civil Rights for all its citizens, especially their daughters, as civil rights have never had a hue, simply for and of humans. America, India, Germany have had and have caste systems that assign portions of humanity to either the apex of the pyramid where all riches are siphoned to or the base where all the weight of society crushes pariahs beneath it. She's a woman that self-identifies with black culture through her HBCU - Howard University and her Sorority, Alpha Kappa Alpha. She married another human that happens to be of European descent. She is above all, an earthling, and Oakland isn't a crater on Mars. Her fraternity brother, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr - found himself in an inflection of revelation.</span></span></p><p> </p><p><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B084FLWDQG/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1" target="_blank">Caste (Oprah's Book Club): The Origins of Our Discontents</a>, Isabelle Wilkerson</span></span></p><center><iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/SDdIqoBUKlI" width="560" height="315" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe></center><p> </p><p><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;"><em>In 1935, <a href="http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/nazi-party">Nazi</a> Germany passed two radically discriminatory pieces of legislation: the Reich Citizenship Law and the Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor. Together, these were known as the <a href="http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/nuremberg-race-laws-imposed">Nuremberg Laws</a>, and they <a href="https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007902" target="_blank">laid the legal groundwork</a> for the persecution of Jewish people during the <a href="http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/the-holocaust">Holocaust</a> and <a href="http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/world-war-ii-history">World War II</a>.</em></span></span></p><p> </p><p><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;"><em>When the Nazis set out to legally disenfranchise and discriminate against Jewish citizens, they weren’t just coming up with ideas out of thin air. They closely studied the laws of another country. According to <a href="https://law.yale.edu/james-q-whitman" target="_blank">James Q. Whitman</a>, author of Hitler’s American Model, that country was the United States.</em></span></span></p><p> </p><p><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;"><em>“America in the early 20th century was the leading racist jurisdiction in the world,” says Whitman, who is a professor at Yale Law School. “Nazi lawyers, as a result, were interested in, looked very closely at, [and] were ultimately influenced by American race law.”</em></span></span></p><p> </p><p><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;"><em>In particular, Nazis admired the <a href="http://www.history.com/news/ask-history/was-jim-crow-a-real-person">Jim Crow</a>-era laws that discriminated against black Americans and segregated them from white Americans, and they debated whether to introduce similar segregation in Germany.</em></span></span></p><p> </p><p><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;"><em>Yet they ultimately decided that it wouldn’t go far enough.</em></span></span></p><p> </p><p><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;"><a href="https://www.history.com/news/how-the-nazis-were-inspired-by-jim-crow" target="_blank">How the Nazis Were Inspired by Jim Crow</a>, Becky Little, History.com</span></span></p><p> </p><p><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;">Fascism, like its cousin racism, doesn't need rationality over "us" and "them." It allows one group to dominate another without guilt, or blame for the consequences. It allows you to long for mythological glory times where Germany and America were "great again."</span></span></p><p> </p><p><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;">Fascism in Germany or America just needed enablers, and frankly, intellectuals that underestimate how a cornered animal - hog, rodent or narcissist - is its most dangerous and cunning when it figures it's going to die in prison and has nothing - other than its freedom - to lose.</span></span></p><p></p></div>Occam's Razor and Scorched Earth...https://blacksciencefictionsociety.com/profiles/blogs/occam-s-razor-and-scorched-earth2020-08-07T14:55:47.000Z2020-08-07T14:55:47.000ZReginald L. Goodwinhttps://blacksciencefictionsociety.com/members/ReginaldLGoodwin<div><center><iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/OitSV9ihcGg" width="560" height="315" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe></center><div><div><div><div class="block-editor-block-list__layout is-root-container"><p class="block-editor-block-list__block wp-block rich-text block-editor-rich-text__editable"> </p><p id="block-756fd3cd-72f2-4448-8c9b-3f828cb6122d" class="block-editor-block-list__block wp-block rich-text block-editor-rich-text__editable"><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;">Topics: Civics, Civil Rights, Existentialism, Fascism, Human Rights</span></span></p><p id="block-dbf7cd1e-3164-4f24-8106-3d9d5a30d1ae" class="block-editor-block-list__block wp-block rich-text block-editor-rich-text__editable"><em><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;">As Chancellor, Gerhard Schröder was a strong advocate of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nord_Stream">Nord Stream</a> pipeline project, which aims to supply Russian gas directly to Germany, thereby bypassing transit countries.</span></span></em></p><p id="block-10e97ceb-2f4a-4985-9245-5b7ce9d55b4d" class="block-editor-block-list__block wp-block rich-text block-editor-rich-text__editable"><em><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;">At the time of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_German_federal_election">German parliamentary election</a>, according to Rick Noak of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Washington_Post">The Washington Post</a>:</span></span></em></p><p id="block-cb359228-7fe4-440d-94bc-8edbfdb9aa88" class="block-editor-block-list__block wp-block rich-text block-editor-rich-text__editable"><em><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;">In 2005, <strong>Russian President Vladimir Putin’s friend Schroeder</strong> hastily signed the deal just as he was departing the office from which he had been voted out days earlier. Within weeks, he started to oversee the project implementation himself, leading the Nord Stream AG’s shareholder committee.</span></span></em></p><p id="block-65d67cd6-ec20-4fa4-83cb-5d5f85c32dec" class="block-editor-block-list__block wp-block rich-text block-editor-rich-text__editable"><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;">Wikipedia: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerhard_Schr%C3%B6der#Relationship_with_Gazprom_and_Rosneft" target="_blank">Gerhard_Schröder-Relationship_with_Gazprom_and_Rosneft</a></span></span></p><p id="block-b01849f7-0f03-453a-8a12-8f4e3e07bb4d" class="block-editor-block-list__block wp-block rich-text block-editor-rich-text__editable"><span style="font-size:12pt;"><em><strong><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;"><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;"><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;">Occam’s razor</span></span></span></span></span></span></strong>, also spelled <strong>Ockham’s razor</strong>, also called <strong>law of economy</strong> or <strong>law of parsimony</strong>, principle stated by the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Scholasticism">Scholastic</a> philosopher <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-of-Ockham">William of Ockham</a> (1285–1347/49) that pluralitas non est ponenda sine necessitate, “plurality should not be posited without necessity.” The principle gives <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/precedence">precedence</a> to simplicity: of two competing theories, the simpler <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/explanation">explanation</a> of an entity is to be preferred. The principle is also expressed as “Entities are not to be multiplied beyond necessity.”</em> Source: <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Occams-razor" target="_blank">Britannica online</a></span></p><p id="block-e8feca30-c62a-4207-ad99-051be7dc9649" class="block-editor-block-list__block wp-block rich-text block-editor-rich-text__editable"><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;"><a href="https://physicsandnano.com/2020/08/07/occams-razors-and-scorched-earth/" target="_blank">Occam's razor</a>: Orange Satan spoke <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/492190-trump-putin-speak-for-second-consecutive-day" target="_blank">two consecutive days</a> to Grand Pooh-Bah Putin; <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2019/10/04/trump-has-spoken-privately-with-putin-least-times-heres-what-we-know-about-conversations/" target="_blank">16 or more private conversations</a> last year (in the current Coronavirus apocalypse, we'll refer to that as the "before times"). He's managed to without fail insult <a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/2020-02-10/saving-americas-alliances" target="_blank">every [former] ally we've had since the end of the Second World War</a>, but not even a nickname for Vlad the Impaler of democracies. What he says in those conversations that like his salary, we're paying is apparently <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2019/06/26/donald-trump-vladimir-putin-g-20-1384037" target="_blank">none of our business</a>. We can't see his <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/christopherrim/2019/02/28/heres-why-donald-trump-doesnt-want-anyone-to-know-his-grades-or-sat-scores/#31f5f81c3764" target="_blank">grades, SAT scores</a>, or his <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/david-cay-johnston-trump-tax-returns/" target="_blank">taxes</a>. Al Capone wasn't too keen about the idea of <a href="https://www.fbi.gov/history/famous-cases/al-capone#:~:text=On%20June%2016%2C%201931%2C%20Al,tax%20evasion%20and%20prohibition%20charges.&text=On%20October%2018%2C%201931%2C%20Capone,interest%20due%20on%20back%20taxes." target="_blank">revealing his taxes either</a>, and that ultimately is what landed him in prison. A guy who had "<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jan/03/donald-trump-new-years-eve-2017-joseph-cinque-mob" target="_blank">Joey No Socks</a>" at his New Year's bash after Pooh-Bah gifted him the 2016 election and planet is probably a crook. The producers and showrunners of "The Apprentice" was <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/working-trump-was-making-court-jester-king-says-apprentice-producer-1274414" target="_blank">in on the joke</a>, as well as most residents of New York City. He's not a businessman, except of the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Keystone-Kops" target="_blank">Keystone Cop</a> variety, every decision is a pratfall and every pronouncement <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/insight-therapy/202005/emperor-s-new-words-trump-insists-word-salad-is-steak" target="_blank">word salad</a>. Case-in-point: you're reading this during a pandemic. His lack of talent in his 74 years of wasting oxygen and producing flatulence at wee tweet hours has been covered by white male privilege, his father, the <a href="https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/tv/a33350476/fear-city-new-york-mafia-donald-trump-tower-mob-ties-explained/" target="_blank">Mafia</a>, Russian <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/if-trump-is-laundering-russian-money-heres-how-it-works/" target="_blank">money laundering</a>, and republicans that never once believed their own shtick. Enter Bizarro Capone with a dead Propecia ferret on his head yelling manically "he can fix it."</span></span></p><p id="block-b9482514-147a-4a96-837d-f1df9f6f0c39" class="block-editor-block-list__block wp-block rich-text block-editor-rich-text__editable"><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;">The "<a href="https://heraldcourier.com/opinion/an-empty-vessel-with-nothing-to-say/article_8bd54e2d-c6ac-5b1e-a7b4-d5104c8f11f8.html" target="_blank">empty vessel</a>" model was introduced by Reagan: as he deteriorated, others like William Barr worked the marionette strings from the shadows as Ronnie "aw shucks" himself into B-movie legend. Mind you, "nature abhors a vacuum," but Donnie just "isn't there." He doesn't say "aw shucks": he might say "oh, fuck," or "oh, I'M fucked."</span></span></p><p id="block-114cf3b1-2625-45d1-a516-4153d098c030" class="block-editor-block-list__block wp-block rich-text block-editor-rich-text__editable"><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;">Nixon - Roger "rat fuck" Stone's back tattoo totem - was unscrupulous, but he was competent: Affirmative Action and the Environmental Protection Agency just two of his accomplishments, other than the whole Watergate Plumber's thing. Simultaneously insulting a landmark and a culture by saying "<a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2020/08/04/trump-mispronounces-yosemite-white-house-event/3289122001/" target="_blank">yo-Semite</a>" ("yo-sim-e-T," idiot!) isn't the "stable genius" his twisted mind and cognitively dissonant followers believes himself to be.</span></span></p><p id="block-3abf3553-754d-482c-a9b8-c6f0852de3b6" class="block-editor-block-list__block wp-block rich-text block-editor-rich-text__editable"><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;">EIGHT republican "patriot" senators were in Moscow on <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/gop-senators-tell-contradictory-stories-about-moscow-trip" target="_blank">July 4, 2018</a>, months before the midterms. That's strange for patriots (Tom Clancy is confused in the hereafter), especially on the nation's birthday. Probably totally innocent. Good luck with the 2nd Amendment, over there: <a href="https://www.rbth.com/history/326865-guns-rifles-russia-revolution" target="_blank">it doesn't exist</a>.</span></span></p><p id="block-843348ad-267b-44fa-bf15-0f7e597cef5a" class="block-editor-block-list__block wp-block rich-text block-editor-rich-text__editable"><span style="font-size:12pt;"><a href="https://thehill.com/hilltv/what-americas-thinking/397695-pollster-gop-base-is-shrinking" target="_blank"><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;">The Republican Party is shrinking</span></span></a>. The Southern Strategy was great for Nixon in 1968, and cool for Reagan in the 80's nostalgic "<a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/exclusive-lee-atwaters-infamous-1981-interview-southern-strategy/" target="_blank">Back to the Future</a>" decade, when Lee Atwater resurrected the ghoulish grog in "welfare queens", "young bucks", and Willie Horton when Pappy ran in '88, which <a href="https://www.adl.org/education/references/hate-symbols/88" target="_blank">actually means something</a> to white supremacists. 52 years into the future, any milk left on the shelf that long would be rancid, if not mummified.</span></p><p id="block-042a17b2-fe3c-48ef-9500-1c7b4a232340" class="block-editor-block-list__block wp-block rich-text block-editor-rich-text__editable"><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;">So, what do you do when your shtick is shit, your base is melting by the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics and you just can't win legitimate elections anymore? Domestically, that takes the form of a faux war on faux voter fraud, voter purges and voter suppression of the groups that probably won't vote for endless tax cuts for the 1%, genteel racism and not-so-subtle sexism and homophobia. Internationally, you might "get a little help" from your Russian friends, and <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/house/482569-senate-gop-blocks-three-election-security-bills" target="_blank">make sure they can still help</a>.</span></span></p><p id="block-cb510b8d-4089-400d-845d-49802ff5713e" class="block-editor-block-list__block wp-block rich-text block-editor-rich-text__editable"><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;"><a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/russians-launched-pro-jill-stein-social-media-blitz-help-trump-n951166" target="_blank">Jill Stein</a>, <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2016/09/gary-johnson-aleppo-227873" target="_blank">Gary "Aleppo" Johnson</a>, and for God's sake, red hat <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/republican-operatives-tied-trump-camp-working-kanye-west/story?id=72200390" target="_blank">KANYE</a> are not going to BE president!</span></span></p><p id="block-703f6df4-62b2-45f0-856e-c930bb4abab8" class="block-editor-block-list__block wp-block rich-text block-editor-rich-text__editable"><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;">And, what if you lose and <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/carpet-bombing#ref1235042" target="_blank">you don't accept it</a>? A lunatic currently has the nuclear codes and twitchy Twitter fingers.</span></span></p><p id="block-9c5ca9a8-23c8-4818-967d-6218be98dd83" class="block-editor-block-list__block wp-block rich-text block-editor-rich-text__editable"><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;">It's 87 days to the election (yesterday was 88).</span></span></p><p id="block-5a952497-1737-4d4a-8924-4f6d6e5c5aab" class="block-editor-block-list__block wp-block rich-text block-editor-rich-text__editable"><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;">It's 165 days to the inauguration of the NEXT president.</span></span></p><p id="block-d24e11f9-9741-448f-8f7f-d77e6cdf6856" class="block-editor-block-list__block wp-block rich-text block-editor-rich-text__editable"><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;">Tomorrow is after that.</span></span></p><div class="block-list-appender"> </div></div></div></div></div><div> </div></div>Gaming This Out...https://blacksciencefictionsociety.com/profiles/blogs/gaming-this-out2020-08-01T01:41:46.000Z2020-08-01T01:41:46.000ZReginald L. Goodwinhttps://blacksciencefictionsociety.com/members/ReginaldLGoodwin<div><p><span style="font-size:12pt;"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;">Because of the recent changes in my previous platform, I am discontinuing <a href="https://www.physics4thecool.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">https://www.physics4thecool.blogspot.com</a> and continuing on <a href="https://physicsandnano.com/2020/07/31/gaming-this-out/" target="_blank">WordPress</a> and BSFS. What follows is the post I meant for Blogger. I will miss it.</span></span></p><center><iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/8P3X9AiN8E4" width="560" height="315" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe></center><p> </p><p><span style="font-size:12pt;"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;">Topics: Civics, Civil Rights, COVID-19, Existentialism, Fascism, Human Rights</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size:12pt;"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;">The current first Tuesday of November came into law in the year 1845, when America was <a href="https://www.history.com/news/why-is-election-day-a-tuesday-in-november" target="_blank">an agrarian society</a>, and it took a day’s travel to get to one’s polling place to exercise the franchise. It was also 15 years before the Civil War that ripped the country apart pitting north against south, industrialists against plantation slavery owners. It was a time when my people were considered 3/5th of a person, and the conception of John Robert Lewis and Barack Hussein Obama never would have entered the mostly white male property owner's thinking.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size:12pt;"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;">Orange Satan doesn’t have the power to alter the date of the November 3rd election. His tweet came 16 minutes into the speech above. It was also minutes from the <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/07/30/896714437/3-months-of-hell-u-s-economys-worst-quarter-ever" target="_blank">GDP dipping 32.9%</a>, lower than it’s ever dipped in history. The Coronavirus has defied all happy talk, magical thinking and <a href="https://couriernewsroom.com/2020/07/31/kushner-had-a-national-testing-strategy-until-he-decided-it-was-better-to-let-blue-states-struggle/" target="_blank">vindictive revenge porn</a>, seeing the initial infection hot spots were in blue states. I probably would have wanted to talk about something else as well.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;font-size:12pt;">But, what if it’s something far more sinister entirely? He will sincerely try to steal <a href="https://money.yahoo.com/president-trump-casts-doubt-november-175247552.html" target="_blank">or cast doubt</a> in the election. He will use Russia, China, Iran; the Abominable Snowman, because “playing by the rules” is something his spoiled brat ass never had to do. He will behave like a cornered rat, he’ll do anything to survive, not excluding refusing to leave the Oval Office. We should have contingency plans for a protracted, dramatic, televised brawl: worthy of reality TV. He’s preparing to do what he does best: tie it up in court to wear down his opponents – the American people – to just quit. “Peaceful transition” means prison time for him, and until January 20, 2021, Mango Mussolini has the nuclear codes.</span></p><p><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;">The hallmark of American Democracy was always the “peaceful transition of power.” This assumed everyone played by the same rules, abide by the same reality, and generally of good character, thinking of the country far above anything they could achieve for themselves. We’re obviously not there now. Orange Satan is the personification of fear: fear of the future and the inevitable change in demographics the passage of time brings. It was the core of right wing AM talk radio that evolved to the airwaves and a certain network owned by an Aussie and Saudi prince (so “American”), spewing nightly feces that amounts to mental <a href="https://www.thebrainwashingofmydad.com/" target="_blank">propaganda and bullshit</a>.</span></span></p><p><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;">In yesterday’s final lauding of John Robert Lewis by three presidents that didn’t need foreign help and could actually string coherent sentences together, each took their subtle and not-so-subtle swipes at the current Manchurian Puppet. The Civil Rights Movement only looked at the founding documents of this republic, and asked the simple question: are we Americans? After 400 years, and serving this country in every war since Crispus Attucks first died for the American Revolution, the compound interest from “40 acres and a mule” is astronomical, but the wounds of daily racial hatred; the perpetual knee-on-neck of the body politic is exhausting. 400 years to George Floyd is literally, the “patience of Job” on steroids.</span></span></p><p><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;">The United States is a democracy because of black people.</span></span></p><p><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;"><em>When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation</em>.</span></span></p><p><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;"><em>We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.</em></span></span></p><p><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;">Now, that’s the “noble” part.</span></span></p><p><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;">Peruse down a little further in the document: “He (ahem: King George of England) has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.” That part wasn’t covered in the Broadway Musical, “Hamilton.”</span></span></p><p><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;">Reference: U.S. History: <a href="https://www.ushistory.org/declaration/document/index.html" target="_blank">Declaration of Independence</a></span></span></p><p><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;">Frederick Douglass said: “Knowledge makes a man unfit to be a slave.” As Joy Reid of MSNBC eluded, we read it. We decided we wanted it. People like Crispus Attucks, Frederick Douglass, Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King and John Robert Lewis struggled and died for it, and their progeny have decided we WANT it.</span></span></p><p><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;">The United States is nominally a Christian nation because of black people.</span></span></p><p><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;">The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God. <strong>Leviticus 19:34</strong></span></span></p><p><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;">I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me. <strong>Matthew 25:35</strong></span></span></p><p><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;">Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares. <strong>Hebrews 13:2</strong></span></span></p><p><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;">We are the 400-year strangers and angels among you, that you hang, shoot, and strangle all day long.</span></span></p><p><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;">We are either human or not. We are either fully Americans or not.</span></span></p><p><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;">This is either a democracy, or it’s a modern <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2017/06/american-nazis-in-the-1930sthe-german-american-bund/529185/" target="_blank">American Bund</a>.</span></span></p><p><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;">Or:</span></span></p><p><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;"><em>“Though I may not be here with you, I urge you to answer the highest calling of your heart and stand up for what you truly believe. In my life, I have done all I can to demonstrate that the way of peace, the way of love and nonviolence is the more excellent way. Now it is your turn to let freedom ring.</em></span></span></p><p><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;">“When historians pick up their pens to write the story of the 21st century, let them say that it was your generation who laid down the heavy burdens of hate at last and that peace finally triumphed over violence, aggression and war. So I say to you, walk with the wind, brothers and sisters, and let the spirit of peace and the power of everlasting love be your guide.” John Robert Lewis, the Angel that was among us, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/30/opinion/john-lewis-civil-rights-america.html" target="_blank">New York Times</a></span></span></p></div>Good, and Faithful Servant...https://blacksciencefictionsociety.com/profiles/blogs/good-and-faithful-servant2020-07-31T00:41:02.000Z2020-07-31T00:41:02.000ZReginald L. Goodwinhttps://blacksciencefictionsociety.com/members/ReginaldLGoodwin<div><table class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" align="center"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align:center;"><a style="margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;" href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6FRRexcnqTA/XyNjLqv16yI/AAAAAAAAPIE/pv2G9NJRdi4ABBs7OWKG5LN14RmUAq5pQCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/John%2BLewis.jpg"><img src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6FRRexcnqTA/XyNjLqv16yI/AAAAAAAAPIE/pv2G9NJRdi4ABBs7OWKG5LN14RmUAq5pQCLcBGAsYHQ/w311-h400/John%2BLewis.jpg" width="311" height="400" border="0" alt="John%2BLewis.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align:center;">Image Credit: <a href="#">New York Times</a></td></tr></tbody></table><p> </p><p><span style="font-family:georgia;">Topics: Civil Rights, Human Rights, John Robert Lewis</span></p><p><span style="font-family:georgia;">"I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith." 2 Timothy 4:7</span></p><div style="text-align:justify;"><em><span style="font-family:georgia;">While my time here has now come to an end, I want you to know that in the last days and hours of my life <a href="https://physics4thecool.blogspot.com/2020/07/good-and-faithful-servant.html" target="_blank">you inspired me</a>. You filled me with hope about the next chapter of the great American story when you used your power to make a difference in our society. Millions of people motivated simply by human compassion laid down the burdens of division. Around the country and the world, you set aside race, class, age, language and nationality to demand respect for human dignity.</span></em></div><div style="text-align:justify;"> </div><p style="text-align:justify;"><em><span style="font-family:georgia;">That is why I had to visit Black Lives Matter Plaza in Washington, though I was admitted to the hospital the following day. I just had to see and feel it for myself that, after many years of silent witness, the truth is still marching on.</span></em></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><em><span style="font-family:georgia;">Emmett Till was my George Floyd. He was my Rayshard Brooks, Sandra Bland, and Breonna Taylor. He was 14 when he was killed, and I was only 15 years old at the time. I will never ever forget the moment when it became so clear that he could easily have been me. In those days, fear constrained us like an imaginary prison, and troubling thoughts of potential brutality committed for no understandable reason were the bars.</span></em></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><em><span style="font-family:georgia;">Though I was surrounded by two loving parents, plenty of brothers, sisters, and cousins, their love could not protect me from the unholy oppression waiting just outside that family circle. Unchecked, unrestrained violence and government-sanctioned terror had the power to turn a simple stroll to the store for some Skittles or an innocent morning jog down a lonesome country road into a nightmare. If we are to survive as one unified nation, we must discover what so readily takes root in our hearts that could rob Mother Emanuel Church in South Carolina of her brightest and best, shoot unwitting concertgoers in Las Vegas and choke to death the hopes and dreams of a gifted violinist like Elijah McClain.</span></em></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><em><span style="font-family:georgia;">Like so many young people today, I was searching for a way out, or some might say a way in, and then I heard the voice of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on an old radio. He was talking about the philosophy and discipline of nonviolence. He said we are all complicit when we tolerate injustice. He said it is not enough to say it will get better by and by. He said each of us has a moral obligation to stand up, speak up, and speak out. When you see something that is not right, you must say something. You must do something. Democracy is not a state. It is an act, and each generation must do its part to help build what we called the Beloved Community, a nation and world society at peace with itself.</span></em></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><em><span style="font-family:georgia;">Ordinary people with extraordinary vision can redeem the soul of America by getting in what I call good trouble, necessary trouble. Voting and participating in the democratic process are key. The vote is the most powerful nonviolent change agent you have in a democratic society. You must use it because it is not guaranteed. You can lose it.</span></em></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><em><span style="font-family:georgia;">You must also study and learn the lessons of history because humanity has been involved in this soul-wrenching, existential struggle for a very long time. People on every continent have stood in your shoes, through decades and centuries before you. The truth does not change, and that is why the answers worked out long ago can help you find solutions to the challenges of our time. Continue to build union between movements stretching across the globe because we must put away our willingness to profit from the exploitation of others.</span></em></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><em><span style="font-family:georgia;">Though I may not be here with you, I urge you to answer the highest calling of your heart and stand up for what you truly believe. In my life, I have done all I can to demonstrate that the way of peace, the way of love and nonviolence is the more excellent way. Now it is your turn to let freedom ring.</span></em></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><em><span style="font-family:georgia;">When historians pick up their pens to write the story of the 21st century, let them say that it was your generation who laid down the heavy burdens of hate at last and that peace finally triumphed over violence, aggression and war. So I say to you, walk with the wind, brothers and sisters, and let the spirit of peace and the power of everlasting love be your guide.</span></em></p></div>Betwixt Eddie and Mary...https://blacksciencefictionsociety.com/profiles/blogs/betwixt-eddie-and-mary2020-07-24T10:00:00.000Z2020-07-24T10:00:00.000ZReginald L. Goodwinhttps://blacksciencefictionsociety.com/members/ReginaldLGoodwin<div><div class="separator" style="clear:both;text-align:center;"><a style="margin-left:1em;margin-right:1em;" href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mUpR7uNFVdg/XxmkX5W8XZI/AAAAAAAAPHU/c4b9U8cFRrEUP9ELSD61MGkql2yA3auywCLcBGAsYHQ/s821/Betwixt%2BEddie%2Band%2BMary.PNG"><img src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mUpR7uNFVdg/XxmkX5W8XZI/AAAAAAAAPHU/c4b9U8cFRrEUP9ELSD61MGkql2yA3auywCLcBGAsYHQ/w500-h301/Betwixt%2BEddie%2Band%2BMary.PNG" alt="Betwixt%2BEddie%2Band%2BMary.PNG" width="500" height="301" border="0" /></a></div><p> </p><p><span style="font-family:georgia;">Topics: Civics, Civil Rights, COVID-19, Existentialism, Human Rights, LGBT Rights</span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:georgia;"><em>We have always held to the hope, the belief, the conviction that there is a better life, a better world, beyond the horizon.</em> Franklin D. Roosevelt</span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:georgia;">At 1 pm eastern, 12 noon in San Antonio, my wife's family laid her favorite uncle to rest, a U.S. veteran. He died due to health complications, non-COVID. Because of the pandemic, we had to say our tearful goodbyes over Facebook live, the participants' voices muffled by masks singing "It is Well." He lived a good life, into his eighties, longer than my own father, but his sons probably don't take solace in his longevity: their hero is gone for now.</span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:georgia;">Dr. Eddie Glaude, Jr's book on James Baldwin downloaded on my Kindle about a week before Dr. Mary Trump's book about her uncle. They are my mental comfort food between writing a research proposal: a book written by an African American heterosexual professor about an LGBT Civil Rights icon, and a book about an unstable, reckless sociopath, written by his niece, a Lesbian, a notion now in a world with Ellen DeGeneres and Rachel Maddow is almost cliche. "Jimmy" was out and proud before it was relatively safe, or sane. He literally could have been killed for "the color of his skin, and the content of his character." But that did not stop or stifle his boldness.</span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:georgia;"><em>“I love America more than any other country in the world and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually.”</em> ― James Baldwin</span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:georgia;">We are "betwixt and between" the <a href="https://physics4thecool.blogspot.com/2020/07/betwixt-eddie-and-mary.html" target="_blank">past and the future</a>: one written and one yet-to-be written, first by John Lewis and now, Black Lives Matter et al. We are betwixt and between love and hate, democracy and fascism; working towards a more perfect union, and barreling towards totalitarianism. The philosophies of Hitler, Goebbels and Himmler are personified in Bannon, Gorka and Miller, fascist whisperers recycling hate in the 21st century: the ovens now microscopic, efficient, utterly malevolent, and unseen. We are seeing the NRA's "jackbooted thugs" deployed in American cities - Portland, Oregon, soon Chicago, Illinois; our nation's birthplace in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and any other blue-governed city, without a <em><strong>peep</strong></em> from them, as deafening a silence now as for the death-by-police of the licensed gun owner, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2017/06/18/some-gun-owners-are-disturbed-by-the-philando-castile-verdict-the-nra-is-silent/" target="_blank">Philando Castile</a>. The second amendment might be outlawed to Melanin in a dictatorship.</span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:georgia;"><em>The best political weapon is the weapon of terror. Cruelty commands respect. Men may hate us. But, we don't ask for their love; only for their fear.</em> Heinrich Himmler, commander of the German Schutzstaffel (SS) and Gestapo.</span></p><p>*****</p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:georgia;"><em>“We are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today. <u>We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now</u>. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there "is" such a thing as being too late. This is no time for apathy or complacency. This is a time for vigorous and positive action.”</em> ― Martin Luther King Jr.</span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:georgia;">For Dr. Eddie Glaude, Jr., that fierce urgency is he, I and previously "Jimmy" living in these black bodies, witnessing the country careen from "hope and change" to this dark moment of running over civil rights demonstrators in Charlottesville, Nazis in polo shirts carrying tiki torches; or <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/6/5/21281604/lafayette-square-white-house-tear-gas-protest" target="_blank">teargassing peaceful George Floyd demonstrators</a> on the Washington Mall. Once we got over the "post-racial America" shtick, it didn't take long to see the new black president hung in effigy, called the n-word almost daily, burned at the stake, bone through the nose as witch doctor for the pejorative: Obamacare. They prayed <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm+109%3A8-15&version=NIV" target="_blank">Psalm 109:8-15</a>, for his death and desolation. They are anti-Christians for an Antichrist. Their hatred of immigrants in chat rooms and over the pit of hell summoned eventually a demon, who recycled for them <a href="https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/make-germany-great-again/" target="_blank">Hitler</a>, the <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/03/donald-trump-kkk/473190/" target="_blank">Klan</a> and <a href="https://www.reagan.com/ronald-reagans-commitment-to-make-america-great-again" target="_blank">Reagan's</a> slogan: make America great again. Exposed in Dr. Glaude's treatise was what Eddie and "Jimmy" referred to as the American lie, broadcast with the hubris of a birther foghorn.</span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:georgia;">For Dr. Mary Trump, that fierce urgency was living through a slow train wreck: watching her father, Freddy - Fred Trump's namesake - taken apart by her grandfather brick-by-brick until there was nothing left. She could still live in the comfort of privilege, station and American aristocracy: her bloodline leading directly to the seat of power almost infinite. All she had to do was keep her head low and flatter a narcissist. Her clinical training tells her there is no pleasing such a person. His needs are a bottomless pit next to a black hole. His loyalty is demanded of others and expendable to the same. Just as the senior sociopath dismantled her father, her training said a prolific lying, mentally disturbed, gaslighting and violent man could dismantle a nation.</span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:georgia;">Mary L. Trump, <a href="https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Too-Much-and-Never-Enough/Mary-L-Trump/9781982141462" target="_blank">Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man</a></span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:georgia;">Perhaps she thought of <a href="https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/martin-niemoeller-first-they-came-for-the-socialists" target="_blank">Martin Niemöller</a>:</span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><em><span style="font-family:georgia;">First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.</span></em></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><em><span style="font-family:georgia;">Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a trade unionist.</span></em></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><em><span style="font-family:georgia;">Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.</span></em></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><em><span style="font-family:georgia;">Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.</span></em></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:georgia;">It is easy to fill in the blank now: African Americans, Hispanics/Latinos, Women, Homosexuals, Lesbians, Transgenders: if we do not speak for our fellow humans, we follow them into the COVID ovens. A pandemic as eugenics is far more efficient, less visible and more excusable than public crematoriums.</span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:georgia;">I still have hope. I have to. I have a granddaughter barely over a year old, and she DESERVES a future.</span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:georgia;">Politics in America especially is organized tribalism. The factions George Washington warned about in his farewell address express themselves as republicans and democrats, along with greens and independents.</span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:georgia;">We are all between yesterday and tomorrow, living out our hyphens. We are ever all in "the fierce urgency of NOW" for tomorrow. We all have children, or know children, and a world that looks like a dystopian novel is only appealing to sociopaths, mass murderers and death cult members. A world like that has few children, and the human species - Coronavirus, climate change, or nuclear exchange - is then in peril.</span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:georgia;">For this election, for humanity, we have to ALL be Americans, and heroes in the spirit of John Lewis: voting by mail, voting early, getting in "good trouble" for this fleeting, precious thing called democracy: made real by the struggles of the downtrodden and "the least of these." For "the fierce urgency of now," for a "better world beyond the horizon"... for tomorrow.</span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:georgia;"><em>“never lose sight, as we finger the pain and disillusionment of our after times, of the possibility of a New Jerusalem.”</em> ― Eddie S. Glaude Jr., <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/575725/begin-again-by-eddie-s-glaude-jr/" target="_blank">Begin Again: James Baldwin's America and Its Urgent Lessons for Our Own</a></span></p></div>This House of Usher...https://blacksciencefictionsociety.com/profiles/blogs/this-house-of-usher2020-07-17T10:00:00.000Z2020-07-17T10:00:00.000ZReginald L. Goodwinhttps://blacksciencefictionsociety.com/members/ReginaldLGoodwin<div><table class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" align="center"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align:center;"><a style="margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;" href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ume8xH-qPGA/XxDaBrktmAI/AAAAAAAAPF8/vScDmWIrr4o3xHyszYGq7yl8pnmbknlQACLcBGAsYHQ/s700/murder_fbiposter_700.jpg__700x617_q85_crop_subsampling-2_upscale.jpg"><img src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ume8xH-qPGA/XxDaBrktmAI/AAAAAAAAPF8/vScDmWIrr4o3xHyszYGq7yl8pnmbknlQACLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h353/murder_fbiposter_700.jpg__700x617_q85_crop_subsampling-2_upscale.jpg" width="400" height="353" border="0" alt="murder_fbiposter_700.jpg__700x617_q85_crop_subsampling-2_upscale.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align:center;">Image Source: Freedom Summer link below</td></tr></tbody></table><p> </p><p><span style="font-family:georgia;">Topics: Civics, Civil Rights, COVID-19, Existentialism, Human Rights, Politics</span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><em><span style="font-family:georgia;">On June 21, 1964, three young men disappeared near the town of Philadelphia, Mississippi. Michael (Mickey) Schwerner and James Chaney worked for the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) in nearby Meridian; Andrew Goodman was one of the hundreds of college students from across the country who volunteered to work on voter registration, education, and Civil Rights as part of the 1964 Mississippi Summer Project. The three men believed their work was necessary, but also dangerous: Ku Klux Klan membership in Mississippi was soaring in 1964 -- with membership reaching more than 10,000. The Klan was prepared to use violence to fight the Civil Rights movement; on April 24 the group offered a demonstration of its power, staging 61 simultaneous cross burnings throughout the state.</span></em></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><em><span style="font-family:georgia;">The case was drawing national attention, in part because Schwerner and Goodman were both white Northerners. Mickey Schwerner's wife Rita, who was also a CORE worker, tried to convert that attention to the overlooked victims of racial violence. “The slaying of a Negro in Mississippi is not news. It is only because my husband and Andrew Goodman were white that the national alarm has been sounded,” she told reporters during the search.</span></em></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><em><span style="font-family:georgia;">Throughout July, investigators combed the woods, fields, swamps, and rivers of Mississippi, ultimately finding the remains of eight African American men. Two were identified as Henry Dee and Charles Moore, college students who had been kidnapped, beaten, and murdered in May 1964. Another corpse was wearing a CORE t-shirt. Even less information was recorded about the five other bodies discovered.</span></em></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><em><span style="font-family:georgia;">Finally, after six weeks of searching, a tip from an informant -- later identified as Mississippi Highway Patrol officer Maynard King -- sent investigators to an earthen dam on the Old Jolly Farm outside Philadelphia. It was there that the FBI uncovered the bodies of Schwerner, Chaney, and Goodman on August 4.</span></em></p><p><span style="font-family:georgia;">Excerpt from <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/freedomsummer-murder/">Freedom Summer: Murder in Mississippi</a>, American Experience, PBS</span></p><p>*****</p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:georgia;">Russian financial traffic got to the Taliban in Afghanistan: intelligence wouldn't use the word "<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/07/politics/us-russia-afghanistan-bounty-intelligence/index.html">bounty</a>." The scandal is there was no reaction or retaliation from the Commander-in-Chief*. In schoolyard parlance, Putin knocked the board off Orange Satan's shoulder, and he slunk away to get into a Twitter spat with a pack of mean middle school students. Twitter saw hacks Elon Musk, Barack Obama, Joe Biden (hopefully, the successor of Satan), and a lot of other prominent American accounts for a <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-53425822">bitcoin scam</a>. I can't imagine this wasn't Putin: he has no push back to any actions in the world he's taking. (Noticeably, Tangerine Nit Twit's account was fine.) Russians are also interested in <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/International/us-uk-canada-claim-russia-hack-coronavirus-vaccine/story?id=71818654">our vaccine information</a>, because a recovering America during a pandemic to them, is a threat.</span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:georgia;">Deafening silence (still) from a law-and-order president* and his politically compromised party complicit with a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/eight-republicans-spent-july-4-in-russia-where-are-the-fireworks/2018/07/06/beae30be-812e-11e8-b658-4f4d2a1aeef1_story.html">hostile foreign power</a>.</span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:georgia;">* Putin's puppet, if you didn't already know.</span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:georgia;">Realize: This republic's unraveling has been an ongoing project. It was held together by spit, glue and duct tape. Every step forward by the marginalized has always experienced backlash. Corey Robin in "<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Reactionary-Mind-Conservatism-Edmund-Burke/dp/0199959110">The Reactionary Mind: Conservatism from Edmund Burke to Sarah Palin</a>" states: <em>Conservatism is the theoretical voice of this animus against the agency of the subordinate classes,</em> i.e. people get pissed off about getting pissed on, and the ones over them calling it rain. This spawns Civil Rights, Women's Rights, LGBT rights movements, because a few of us actually read The Constitution. Jimmy Carter was our first openly evangelical president, and supported by none other than types like <a href="http://physics4thecool.blogspot.com/2020/07/death-cult.html">Michelle Bachmann</a>. However, he ran afoul when he tried to get Bob Jones University to follow the law, and <a href="https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/05/religious-right-real-origins-107133">not be so racist</a> with miscegenation (a fancy word for no interracial dating). Hopping on the abortion bandwagon was an easy dodge that I don't think they ever meant to win, as Corey Robin noted, the war against an enemy was the most important thing. This led them to their first sale of a piece of their souls to a B-movie actor, Ronald Reagan.</span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:georgia;">Reagan knowingly started his campaign <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reagan%27s_Neshoba_County_Fair_">within meters</a> of the murders of Chaney, Goodman and Schwerner in Philadelphia, Mississippi. This was genteel wink-and-nod politics, giving plausible denial to moderate whites and black republicans that could then both deny the subtle racism directly before them. Since Charlottesville and before it when IT descended that escalator in Trump tower, it's been a foghorn, and only a blind/deaf/dumb man could miss his self-admittance the alt-right, Neo Nazis and KKK can recognize. Every tax cut, then and since Reagan, has been <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/eight-republicans-spent-july-4-in-russia-where-are-the-fireworks/2018/07/06/beae30be-812e-11e8-b658-4f4d2a1aeef1_story.html">a damned lie of trickle down</a>; pissing on us, and still telling us it's rain. Hell, why change the shtick if it's still working after forty years? It's not a huge stretch from a B-movie actor to a reality show nincompoop.</span></p><p>*****</p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:georgia;">I purchased <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Too-Much-Never-Enough-Dangerous/dp/1982141468/ref=sr_1_1?crid=WBXVHACQFNJN&dchild=1&keywords=mary+trump+too+much+and+never+enough&qid=1594948162&s=books&sprefix=ma%2Cstripbooks%2C168&sr=1-1">Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man</a>, by Dr. Mary L. Trump, feeling better contributing to its rise on the New York Times Bestseller List than John Bolton's (I canceled it when I found out he influenced the <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/487581-bolton-defends-decision-to-shutter-nsc-pandemic-office">disbanding of the pandemic response team</a>). Not that there wasn't a cottage industry that's used their access to this criminal to like Bolton, cash-in. Dr. Trump is a clinical psychiatrist specializing in psychopathy and sociopathy. She is also, by her last name: his niece. She is similar (to me) <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marilyn_Munster">Marilyn Munster</a> - "plain" by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Munsters">Munster norms</a> - but normal to everyone else viewing the sitcom. In it, the mansion that Fred Trump met out his sociopathic abuse that produced our current president* was simply referred to as "<a href="http://physics4thecool.blogspot.com/2020/07/this-house-of-usher.html" target="_blank">The House</a>."</span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:georgia;">The "<a href="https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/poestories/section3/">Fall of the House of Usher</a>" is a classic Gothic short story by the master of the macabre, Edgar Allen Poe. In it, the unnamed narrator makes the dysfunction of the Usher family - only one heir per generation - and the house itself one in the same. There is a suggestion this genetic problem might be the result of incest, since they only manage to have one heir per generation.</span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:georgia;">The narrator's friend Roderick buries his twin sister, Madeline after suffering catalepsy, defined as the loss of control of one’s limbs. Dictionary.com says <em>"a physical condition usually associated with catatonic schizophrenia, characterized by suspension of sensation, muscular rigidity, fixity of posture, and often by loss of contact with environment."</em> Poe sure could pick the sickness!</span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:georgia;">Madeline "dies" (even before comics, there's a loophole), buried; only to emerge bloodied from the grave she escaped and attacks her brother (who wouldn't, buried alive?). She dies from her wounds, Roderick dies from apparent cardiac arrest and the house poetically collapses with the death of both heirs as the narrator sprints.</span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:georgia;">Brian Kemp is <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/16/politics/georgia-kemp-mask-mandate/index.html">suing the city of Atlanta</a>, its mayor and other municipalities to stop them from wearing masks, so...he can spread Coronavirus more efficiently? It's about as sensible as <a href="https://youtu.be/AXu0OvdZzFU">hocking Goya beans</a> as <a href="https://www.star-telegram.com/news/coronavirus/article244267152.html">refrigerator trucks</a> and bodies are piling up.</span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:georgia;">I voted for the smart woman last time. I'm voting for the sane candidate this time as well: he models wearing a mask. I will crawl over broken glass, swim molten lava; wrestle man-eating crocodiles to end this dystopian nightmare. It's way past if we "love" Joe Biden: we need to overwhelm the cheating, voter suppression, the Russians hacking/disinformation and affect repairs to the framework of a crumbling republic.</span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:georgia;">However: <em>If</em> this house disintegrates, this narrator's passport is current.</span></p></div>Death Cult...https://blacksciencefictionsociety.com/profiles/blogs/death-cult2020-07-10T18:55:18.000Z2020-07-10T18:55:18.000ZReginald L. Goodwinhttps://blacksciencefictionsociety.com/members/ReginaldLGoodwin<div><table class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" align="center"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align:center;"><a style="margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;" href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-xNpbCdFn2tw/XwiffBNnPKI/AAAAAAAAPEM/bF7BlksmsuARCD7-Qc2Nphjyv9UogNVfQCLcBGAsYHQ/s799/newsweek-bachmann-cover_vert-4d583458b8ddbeca3c06d7cf049d2c2cc464c98a-s800-c85.jpg"><img src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-xNpbCdFn2tw/XwiffBNnPKI/AAAAAAAAPEM/bF7BlksmsuARCD7-Qc2Nphjyv9UogNVfQCLcBGAsYHQ/w300-h400/newsweek-bachmann-cover_vert-4d583458b8ddbeca3c06d7cf049d2c2cc464c98a-s800-c85.jpg" width="300" height="400" border="0" alt="newsweek-bachmann-cover_vert-4d583458b8ddbeca3c06d7cf049d2c2cc464c98a-s800-c85.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align:center;">Image source: <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2011/08/08/139221587/newsweeks-michele-bachmann-cover-the-eyes-have-it" target="_blank">NPR</a></td></tr></tbody></table><p> </p><p><span style="font-family:georgia;">Topics: Civics, Civil Rights, Existentialism, Human Rights</span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><em><span style="font-family:georgia;">Barbara Stanwyck: “We're both rotten!”</span></em></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><em><span style="font-family:georgia;">Fred MacMurray: “Yeah – only you're a little more rotten.” -“Double Indemnity” (1944)</span></em></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><em><span style="font-family:georgia;">Those lines of dialogue from a classic film noir sum up the state of the two political parties in contemporary America. Both parties are rotten – how could they not be, given the complete infestation of the political system by corporate money on a scale that now requires a presidential candidate to raise upwards of a billion dollars to be competitive in the general election? Both parties are captives to corporate loot. The main reason the Democrats' health care bill will be a budget buster once it fully phases in is the Democrats' rank capitulation to corporate interests – no single-payer system, in order to mollify the insurers; and no negotiation of drug prices, a craven surrender to Big Pharma.</span></em></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><em><span style="font-family:georgia;">But both parties are not rotten in quite the same way. The Democrats have their share of machine politicians, careerists, corporate bagmen, egomaniacs and kooks. Nothing, however, quite matches the modern GOP.</span></em></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><em><span style="font-family:georgia;">To those millions of Americans who have finally begun paying attention to politics and watched with exasperation the tragicomedy of the debt ceiling extension, it may have come as a shock that the Republican Party is so full of lunatics. To be sure, the party, like any political party on earth, has always had its share of crackpots, like Robert K. Dornan or William E. Dannemeyer. But the crackpot outliers of two decades ago have become the vital center today: Steve King, Michele Bachmann (now a leading presidential candidate as well), Paul Broun, Patrick McHenry, Virginia Foxx, Louie Gohmert, Allen West. The Congressional directory now reads like a casebook of lunacy.</span></em></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><em><span style="font-family:georgia;">It should have been evident to clear-eyed observers that the Republican Party is becoming less and less like a traditional political party in a representative democracy and becoming more like <u><strong>an apocalyptic cult</strong></u>, or one of the intensely ideological authoritarian parties of 20th century Europe. This trend has several implications, none of them pleasant.</span></em></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:georgia;">Excerpt from "<a href="https://truthout.org/articles/goodbye-to-all-that-reflections-of-a-gop-operative-who-left-the-cult/" target="_blank">Goodbye to All That: Reflections of a GOP Operative Who Left the Cult</a>," Mike Lofgren, Truthout, September 3, 2011</span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:georgia;">September 3, 2011 was a year before the re-election campaign of the first African American president, and the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_United_States_presidential_election" target="_blank">quixotic attempt</a> to make him a "one-term president" by now <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/06/mitt-romney-black-lives-matter/612808/" target="_blank">Black Lives Matter Senator Mitt Romney</a>, the goal was clearly stated by Michele Bachmann, Moscow Mitch McConnell and a whole host of characters that might as well have been the compost for the garden variety bullshit metastasized into our current COVID harvest.</span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:georgia;">Arizona <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/tommybeer/2020/06/22/coronavirus-hospitalizations-are-spiking-in-arizona-where-trump-is-scheduled-to-speak-tuesday/#23c4c788202c" target="_blank">has spiked</a>. Oklahoma <a href="https://apnews.com/245057f1c2211c7ea2fc7b0e9d6e5686" target="_blank">has spiked</a>. Orange Satan's resuming in-person campaigning, and <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/09/europe/schools-reopening-europe-coronavirus-wellness-intl/index.html" target="_blank">bullying schools</a> to put their children through the flaming arms of Moloch this fall, so that the remnant of parents, teachers, principals and janitors that SURVIVE limp the hulking carcass of this economy over the finish line November 3, 2020 towards the re-election of <a href="http://www.thehypertexts.com/Donald%20Trump%20parallels%20Damien%20Thorn%20Omen%20movies.htm" target="_blank">Damien Thorn</a>. Whatever the previous Republican Party's "principles" were, they jettisoned when an improbable black man with a funny name actually won the presidency, making history of course, but he wasn't supposed to. Running's aloud; winning's not.</span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:georgia;">Frederick Douglass was nominally a presidential candidate at the 1888 Republican convention by one vote. George Edwin Taylor became a candidate of the newly-formed (and brief) National Negro Liberty Party in 1904. Channing E. Phillips received 67.5 votes at the 1968 Democratic convention, the same year Nixon won. Shirley Chisholm was a candidate four years later for the DNC, earning 152 delegates. Jesse Jackson (Aggie Alumnus) garnered 3 million votes in 1984 and 7 million votes in 1988. Reverend Al Sharpton and Senator Carol Moseley-Braun and republican Alan Keyes also ran (2000, 2008). Herman Cain, Ben Carson, Kamala Harris, Cory Booker and Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick was a late entrant into the race for this cycle. Source: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African-American_candidates_for_President_of_the_United_States" target="_blank">Wikipedia</a></span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:georgia;">Until President Obama, the "<a href="https://physics4thecool.blogspot.com/2018/04/systemic.html" target="_blank">hounds tooth</a>" of white supremacy was remarkably efficient in barring people of any color from the nation's highest office. We also stand firmly as the only nation that has NEVER had a female executive, and until 2008, firmly held the line that whether (D) or (R), the reins of ultimate power would be held by white males 43 times from George Washington to George W. Bush. November 4, 2008 rocked their world.</span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:georgia;">Barack Obama was to them, a living nightmare: the personification of the demographics bomb they themselves caused with free trade policies that all but eliminated the central class in Central America. It was essentially an extension of <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/03/american-immigration-service-slavery/555824/" target="_blank">slavery and indentured servitude</a>. Builders et al., who payed workers in bags of cash so they didn't have to report them to the IRS, are suddenly freaked out those same people had children, who become citizens and most likely: won't understand their nostalgia for white picket fences and red-lined districts. Superbowl commercials celebrating diversity were denigrated if they didn't remind them of Norman Rockwell paintings, i.e., of themselves as the epitome of humanity. The "evil empire" of their patron, Saint Reagan, didn't look so evil and <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/12/false-romance-russia/603433/" target="_blank">the PR was changed</a> - common sense ignored - to reflect it. Fascism is nothing if not <a href="http://physics4thecool.blogspot.com/2020/07/death-cult.html" target="_blank">based on fear</a>.</span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:georgia;">Death cult: A fringe religious group that glorifies or is obsessed with death. <a href="https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/death_cult" target="_blank">Oxford English dictionary</a></span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><em><span style="font-family:georgia;">That Monday night, Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick seemed to go full Midsommar—a horror movie about a fictional Swedish death cult that sacrifices their elders—by saying that ”as a senior citizen” he was “all in” on “willing to take a chance on [my] survival in exchange for keeping the America that all America loves.”</span></em></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><em><span style="font-family:georgia;">Right-wing internet commentator Jesse Kelly tweeted on Tuesday morning that, “If given the choice between dying and plunging the country I love into a Great Depression, I’d happily die.”</span></em></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><em><span style="font-family:georgia;">Glenn Beck on Wednesday said that he too was ready to risk his life for the stock market, in a stream following a town hall in which Trump floated a return to reopening businesses and public gatherings by April 12, an ambition that Beck conceded could be a death sentence for thousands of Americans—himself included.</span></em></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><em><span style="font-family:georgia;">If all that sounds to you like the dangerous, macabre ramblings of a movement willing to sacrifice human life for illusory gains, you’re not alone. “I dealt with suicidal cults before. I encountered people who are willing to die for their faith, ideology, race, etc. But, I never encountered anyone who is willing to die for someone else’s 401k,” tweeted Ali Soufan, a former FBI agent who now runs an intelligence and security consultancy. “This is a whole new level of craziness.”</span></em></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><em><span style="font-family:georgia;">Formal experts on destructive cults agreed with Soufan’s diagnosis of Trump and his base’s support for letting some die. When I reached him via a Zoom video call, Steve Hassan, a mental health professional and cult expert, started nodding immediately when I asked if he saw parallels between, say, the Jonestown Massacre and Trump’s willingness to put the elderly on a near literal chopping block. Ben Zeller, a professor at Lake Forest University who focuses on new religions and Daniel Shaw, a New York-based psychoanalyst who has helped counsel people who have left cult religions, agreed with almost no hesitation. </span></em></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:georgia;"><a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/04/trump-death-cult/" target="_blank">Cult Experts Warn That Trumpism Is Starting to Look Awfully Familiar</a>, Ali Breland, Mother Jones</span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:georgia;">Mike Logren called it. We are now well past the bug-eyed point with Bachmann.</span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:georgia;">Fear can motivate irrational behavior. A party with authoritarian tendencies will ignore facts, science and reality, thus, climate change, universal healthcare and COVID mask protocols are immediate non-starters. A party that cannot garner enough votes or convince enough women, LGBT, black or indigenous people of color and youth will simply <a href="https://www.aclu.org/news/civil-liberties/block-the-vote-voter-suppression-in-2020/" target="_blank">block, or purge them</a>. A party that fears oblivion might sell our national soul to a Russian devil, cavorting with them openly <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/eight-republicans-spent-july-4-in-russia-where-are-the-fireworks/2018/07/06/beae30be-812e-11e8-b658-4f4d2a1aeef1_story.html" target="_blank">July 4, 2018</a>. What then, are the "in the event of election landslide, break glass" instructions?</span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:georgia;">We're beyond the crazy bug-eyed, chrysalis of madness to fully-emerged, political dementia - the kool-aid moment of the republic, and we're a tweet away from Armageddon.</span></p></div>Xenophobic Idolatry...https://blacksciencefictionsociety.com/profiles/blogs/xenophobic-idolatry2020-07-08T20:10:56.000Z2020-07-08T20:10:56.000ZReginald L. Goodwinhttps://blacksciencefictionsociety.com/members/ReginaldLGoodwin<div><table class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" align="center"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align:center;"><a style="margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;" href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-fXcuuiIXztQ/XwYi8SJeGMI/AAAAAAAAPDk/12GDTsanHC0Hv7Zm-0NB7v6-_7jqPd2PACK4BGAsYHg/s1180/quaranteens%2Bagainst%2Bxenophobia%2Bteen%2Bvogue%2Bop-ed.jpg"><img src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-fXcuuiIXztQ/XwYi8SJeGMI/AAAAAAAAPDk/12GDTsanHC0Hv7Zm-0NB7v6-_7jqPd2PACK4BGAsYHg/w400-h225/quaranteens%2Bagainst%2Bxenophobia%2Bteen%2Bvogue%2Bop-ed.jpg" width="400" height="225" border="0" alt="quaranteens%2Bagainst%2Bxenophobia%2Bteen%2Bvogue%2Bop-ed.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align:center;">Teen Vogue: <a href="https://www.teenvogue.com/story/quaranteens-against-xenophobia-youth-coalition-anti-asian-sentiments-coronavirus" target="_blank">Quaranteens Against Xenophobia</a>, Karma Samtani</td></tr></tbody></table><p> </p><p><span style="font-family:georgia;">Topics: Civics, Civil Rights, Existentialism, Human Rights, Politics</span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:georgia;">I sent the following article to my advisor and our Dean:</span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:georgia;">NEW YORK (Reuters) - <em>Foreign students in the United States, numbering in the hundreds of thousands, will have to leave the country if their classes are all taught online this fall or if they transfer to another school with in-person instruction, a government agency said.</em></span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><em><span style="font-family:georgia;">It was not immediately clear how many student visa holders would be affected by the move, but foreign students are a key source of revenue for many U.S. universities as they often pay full tuition.</span></em></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><em><span style="font-family:georgia;">China ranked first among countries of origin for international students in the United States with nearly 370,000 during the 2018-2019 academic year, according to data published by the Institute of International Education.</span></em></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><em><span style="font-family:georgia;">The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency said it would not allow holders of student visas to remain in the country if their school was fully online for the fall. Those students must transfer or leave the country, or they potentially face deportation proceedings, according to the announcement.</span></em></p><p><span style="font-family:georgia;"><a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-immigration-visas-students/us-to-force-out-foreign-students-taking-classes-fully-online-idUSKBN2472TT" target="_blank">U.S. to force out foreign students taking classes fully online</a>, Mimi Dwyer, Reuters</span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:georgia;">He has lost his goddamn Nazi, <a href="http://physics4thecool.blogspot.com/2020/07/xenophobic-idolatry.html" target="_blank">rabbit-ass mind</a>!</span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:georgia;">The only thing "exceptional" about us now is the depths of this nation's racism, stupidity and depravity. We're essentially telling foreign students - many of them my friends and colleagues - they're "canaries in a [COVID] coal mine" before its collapse on the entire enterprise of democratic-republican governance. NO magical thinking is going to get some blond haired, blue-eyed "superior" assholes to design the next innovation, or allow us to compete on a global stage. We're literally NANOMETERS away from the world economy quarantining the (dis) United States as a failed state. I'm sure the NYSE will like Brussels better; "Hamilton" can play Europe and we can go from the dollar as trade currency to the Yuan with the FLIP of a switch!</span></p><p><span style="font-family:georgia;">Short list of things created by immigrants:</span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:georgia;">1. Blue Jeans (Jacob W. Davis, Latvia; Levi Strauss, Germany); 2. Hamburgers (Louis Lassen, Denmark); 3. Doughnuts, (Adolph Levitt, Russia); 4. Budweiser Beer (Adolphus Busch, Bavaria); 5. Apple Computer (Steve Jobs, father-Syria); 6. Google (Sergey Brin, Soviet Union); 7. Sara Lee (Nathan Cummings, Canada; parents-Lithuania); 8. Hot Dogs (Charles Feltman, Germany); 9. Basketball (James Naismith, Canada); 10. "God Bless America" Song (Irving Berlin, Siberia); 11. YouTube - 2 of the 3 founders (Jawed Karim - Germany, Steve Chen - Taiwan, Chad Hurley - U.S.); 12. KISS, rock band (Chaim Witz - Israel, known by his stage name, Gene Simmons); 13. Kraft Cheese (James L. Kraft, Ontario, Canada); 14. Van Halen, rock band (Eddie Van Halen, Netherlands); 15. Ketchup (Henry John Heinz, Bavaria).</span></p><p><span style="font-family:georgia;"><a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/alisoncaporimo/inventions-made-by-famous-immigrants-america" target="_blank">15 Iconic American Things That Wouldn't Exist Without Immigrants</a>, Alison Caporimo, BuzzFeed Staff</span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:georgia;">Short list of things created by orange dumb ass Satan: _______ (Does chaos count?)</span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:georgia;">But no worries: some racist assholes deathly afraid of circa 2042, waving the flags of traitors and Nazis will "feel better" about themselves and make it all "great again," while all of the previous "melting pot" collapses to dystopian shit!</span></p></div>Wrestle Mania...https://blacksciencefictionsociety.com/profiles/blogs/wrestle-mania2020-06-26T21:14:33.000Z2020-06-26T21:14:33.000ZReginald L. Goodwinhttps://blacksciencefictionsociety.com/members/ReginaldLGoodwin<div><table class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" align="center"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align:center;"><a style="margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;" href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-_vozga5m5gc/XvZcU8AHQsI/AAAAAAAAO9M/caq_er3sY_AkVKkxWsxxXyPuCJ-FahSdQCK4BGAsYHg/s364/MilM%25C3%25A1scaras2009.png"><img src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-_vozga5m5gc/XvZcU8AHQsI/AAAAAAAAO9M/caq_er3sY_AkVKkxWsxxXyPuCJ-FahSdQCK4BGAsYHg/s320/MilM%25C3%25A1scaras2009.png" height="320" border="0" alt="MilM%25C3%25A1scaras2009.png" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align:center;">Mil Máscaras, 2009. Source: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mil_M%C3%A1scaras" target="_blank">Wikipedia</a></td></tr></tbody></table><p> </p><p><span style="font-family:georgia;">Topics: Civics, Civil Rights, COVID-19, Existentialism, Human Rights, Humor, Politics</span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><em><span style="font-family:georgia;">In the old days, wrestlers would meet, and fans would be interested in knowing who wins and how. There were stories, but there were also plain old matches. Now, there are writers. Every match, every encounter, is designed to advance a character. And all the matches fit in to the general theme of the broadcast, which is given a title. For last week's Raw, the backstage title was "The Evolution of Justice." It's a reference to two sets of wrestlers who are on a collision course.</span></em></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><em><span style="font-family:georgia;">Your WWE wrestling script begins with background: What happened the last time WWE played to this area. Knowing what the fans remember is very important motivation for the wrestlers.</span></em></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><em><span style="font-family:georgia;">Then there are the "dark matches." Before WWE Raw goes live on the USA Network, WWE tapes two matches that will air exclusively on the company's own TV network.</span></em></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><em><span style="font-family:georgia;">Then there's the audience prep. Just like any TV show, the audience has to be conditioned to react to certain things. On April 14, WWE was going to mourn the death of the Ultimate Warrior, felled from a heart attack a few days before. So WWE announcer Jerry Lawler, who gets his own pre-event, full-stage introduction, is instructed to remind fans to put on their masks so that WWE can go live on the air with a tribute.</span></em></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><em><span style="font-family:georgia;">Then comes the first match. It'll be interrupted by a commercial break, which is something that the wrestlers know — they can't decide to go to "the finish" when the TV audience is watching a Pringles commercial. Match number one is between Rob Van Dam and Alberto Del Rio.</span></em></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><em><span style="font-family:georgia;">The announcers know who will get "over," i.e. win, but they don't know how. This allows them to actually announce the action in the match legitimately.</span></em></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:georgia;">Excerpts from: "<a href="https://theweek.com/articles/447375/heres-what-prowrestling-script-looks-like" target="_blank">Here's what a pro-wrestling script looks like</a>," by Mark Ambinder, Newsweek</span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:georgia;"><a href="http://physics4thecool.blogspot.com/2020/06/wrestle-mania.html" target="_blank">My last foray</a> with pro wrestling was about 1974 (age 12) with both of my parents at the Winston-Salem Memorial Coliseum.</span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:georgia;">These were originally father-son outings, but my mother decided she wanted to go, so we let her tag along for more than a few times. Generally, she was quiet during the action as my dad and I shouted either our approval or disdain for the admitted actors in the ring: The "<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dusty_Rhodes_(wrestler)" target="_blank">American Dream</a>," Dusty Rhodes, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulldog_Brower" target="_blank">Dick, the Bulldog Brower</a> (I know the definitions of his first two names, I'm clueless as to what a "Brower" is); <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mighty_Igor" target="_blank">The Mighty Igor</a> and "the man of a thousand masks," Mil Máscaras. Mil and the Brower were in heated, pitched mock battle in the ring, when mom suddenly yelled out:</span></p><p style="text-align:center;"><strong><span style="font-family:georgia;font-size:x-large;">Break it off, it don't belong to you!</span></strong></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:georgia;">This was from my mother, mind you. My father and I were speechless. As if reading my embarrassed young mind, Pop said: "I expect we'll go home now." We did, and I never went to a wrestling match again. Mom wasn't exactly fuming: I think SHE was as shocked by what she said as WE were!</span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:georgia;">Previously, I've speculated this reality show carnival barker is <a href="https://physics4thecool.blogspot.com/2019/09/man-without-country.html" target="_blank">running an episodic tragedy</a>, only because as a terrible B-movie actor with zero empathy and no social graces, this is the only show he knows how to produce. Twitter is just a bullhorn for a snake oil salesman and carnival barker.</span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:georgia;">I posit here, instead of a reality show, he's running a typical pro-wrestling script. He's <a href="https://youtu.be/jkghtyxZ6rc" target="_blank">fake wrestled</a> before and sent a doctored version of the video out personifying CNN as his adversary. He probably bathed in Ben Gay after the stunt.</span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:georgia;">My mother when she was alive was five foot, two inches, petite and well, motherly. Yelling like the rest of the crowd was a response of being in the crowd, being influenced by my father's and my actions as well as theirs. Orange Satan's spawn following is in-the-crowd: following every inane tweet, every suggesting this pandemic would be 15 people, then zero, every prediction from a faux "<a href="https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/revisiting-mike-pence-s-unfortunate-memorial-day-prediction-n1214711" target="_blank">cubic model</a>" this would be over by Memorial Day (it's late June), every suggestion hot weather would diminish the infections (it's not), every suggestion to drink bleach or shine a flashlight up our asses; every stupid example of NOT wearing a mask, until it's become a culture war issue.</span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:georgia;">"Stable genius" maybe should have asked Mil Máscaras?</span></p></div>Columbusing Juneteenth, and Other Absurdities...https://blacksciencefictionsociety.com/profiles/blogs/columbusing-juneteenth-and-other-absurdities2020-06-19T10:00:00.000Z2020-06-19T10:00:00.000ZReginald L. Goodwinhttps://blacksciencefictionsociety.com/members/ReginaldLGoodwin<div><p> </p><table class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" align="center"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align:center;"><a style="margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;" href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-oZrfn_gNVac/XuwgR_BVQYI/AAAAAAAAO4w/zBP3t4-OdI01BiMtKS_BA9YpzIqjIkLqQCK4BGAsYHg/s937/3145162135_9a9492b1b5_469504744.jpg"><img src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-oZrfn_gNVac/XuwgR_BVQYI/AAAAAAAAO4w/zBP3t4-OdI01BiMtKS_BA9YpzIqjIkLqQCK4BGAsYHg/w400-h225/3145162135_9a9492b1b5_469504744.jpg" alt="3145162135_9a9492b1b5_469504744.jpg" width="400" height="225" border="0" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align:center;">A fan made cover for George Orwell's novel. "Animal Farm" is one of Orwell's most well-known works and gained unlikely popularity with Ukrainian refugees. (Photo from Flickr user Ben Templesmith.) <a href="https://www.pri.org/stories/2012-04-04/george-orwells-animal-farm-resonated-ukrainian-refugees" target="_blank">PRI.org</a></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear:both;text-align:center;"> </div><p><span style="font-family:georgia;"> </span></p><div><span style="font-family:georgia;">Topics: Civics, Civil Rights, Human Rights, Politics, STEM</span><p> </p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:georgia;">Columbusing: <em>The art of discovering something that isn't new; "1492, Columbus was Columbusing the 'new world' one journal entry at a time"</em> Source: <a href="https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Columbusing" target="_blank">Urban Dictionary</a></span></p><p><span style="font-family:georgia;">Black Wall Street:</span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><em><span style="font-family:georgia;">On the morning of May 30, 1921, a young black man named Dick Rowland was riding in the elevator in the Drexel Building at Third and Main with a white woman named Sarah Page. The details of what followed vary from person to person. Accounts of an incident circulated among the city’s white community during the day and became more exaggerated with each telling.</span></em></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><em><span style="font-family:georgia;">Tulsa police arrested Rowland the following day and began an investigation. An inflammatory report in the May 31 edition of the Tulsa Tribune spurred a confrontation between black and white armed mobs around the courthouse where the sheriff and his men had barricaded the top floor to protect Rowland. Shots were fired and the outnumbered African Americans began retreating to the Greenwood District.</span></em></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><em><span style="font-family:georgia;">In the early morning hours of June 1, 1921, Greenwood was looted and burned by white rioters. Governor Robertson declared martial law, and National Guard troops arrived in Tulsa. Guardsmen assisted firemen in putting out fires, took African Americans out of the hands of vigilantes and imprisoned all black Tulsans not already interned. Over 6,000 people were held at the Convention Hall and the Fairgrounds, some for as long as eight days.</span></em></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><em><span style="font-family:georgia;">Twenty-four hours after the violence erupted, it ceased. In the wake of the violence, 35 city blocks lay in charred ruins, over 800 people were treated for injuries and contemporary reports of deaths began at 36. Historians now believe as many as 300 people may have died.</span></em></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:georgia;"><a href="https://www.tulsahistory.org/exhibit/1921-tulsa-race-massacre/" target="_blank">1921 Tulsa Race Massacre</a>, Tulsa Historical Society and Museum</span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:georgia;">In popular culture, it was reenacted in the opening scenes of <a href="https://youtu.be/Shw2-7uazc0" target="_blank">Watchmen</a> on HBO. Today is my sister's, and what would have been my father's 95th birthday. What would have been my mother's 95th is this September 15: on that date in 1963, the <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/1960s/birmingham-church-bombing" target="_blank">Sixteen Street Baptist Church Bombing</a> happened in Birmingham, Alabama. I was one year, one month and one day old. As with my own granddaughter now, I was likely full of happy smiles, and blissfully unaware the world was so complicated.</span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:georgia;">But today, it is also, <a href="http://physics4thecool.blogspot.com/2020/06/columbusing-juneteenth-and-other.html" target="_blank">Juneteenth</a>.</span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><em><span style="font-family:georgia;">Juneteenth is a holiday celebrated across the country commemorating the formal emancipation of slaves in the United States. Although the Emancipation Proclamation was scheduled to be effective on January 1, 1863, slavery continued after that date in many states. It was not until two years later, on June 19, 1865, in Galveston, Texas that a Major General from the Union Army informed some of the last remaining slaves of their freedom. This day marked the formal end of slavery in the United States, and Juneteenth was born in celebration of that day. Today the summer holiday is often celebrated by large get-togethers, cookouts, music, and food. But this holiday has evolved significantly over the century. Let's take a look back at some memorable past Juneteenth celebrations and events as reported in many of the popular African-American newspapers of the time, all available through The New York Public Library's electronic resources.</span></em></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><em><span style="font-family:georgia;"> The first Juneteenth celebrations were especially important. Many African-Americans who were enslaved participated in the celebrations and passed on their experiences to the next generation. In Parsons, Kansas in 1895, the Parsons Weekly Blade, told how they celebrated the thirtieth anniversary of the emancipation by, "indulging in various pleasures," followed by "sumptuous repasts." Then came a series of speeches about the importance of Juneteenth and the experience of slavery still fresh for many African-Americans. After the speeches the celebrations continued with, "an animated game of baseball."</span></em></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><em><span style="font-family:georgia;">In 1915, The Chicago Defender wrote, "Texas is a wonderful state in more ways than one. Looking at it from our point of view, they can can deal out some of the most unjust justice and then, as if to relieve their conscience, they can flop over and do the most gracious things." That year, in celebration of Juneteenth, Governor Ferguson pardoned forty prisoners from the state penitentiary.</span></em></p><p><span style="font-family:georgia;"><a href="https://www.nypl.org/blog/2017/06/19/celebrating-juneteenth" target="_blank">Researching Juneteenth Celebrations at The New York Public Library</a>, Rhonda Evans, Assistant Chief Librarian, JBH Research and Reference Division, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, June 19, 2017</span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:georgia;">The 80s G.A.P. Band derived their name from three corners that intersected Black Wall Street: <a href="https://www.okhistory.org/publications/enc/entry.php?entry=GA009" target="_blank">Greenwood, Archer and Pine</a>. Orange Satan thinks he's "<a href="https://www.axios.com/trump-juneteenth-38ee6f09-5741-47ef-9c4b-3e0a35b8a267.html" target="_blank">made Juneteenth famous</a>." I tweeted this yesterday to him, with the following: "Juneteenth didn't need you. Did you EVER walk into this building (NYPL), or did I answer my own question?" I think I did.</span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><em><span style="font-family:georgia;">President Donald Trump planned to hold a rally Friday in Tulsa, Oklahoma – the site of the worst racial attack in U.S. history, by many accounts. After days of controversy over that choice, he changed the date.</span></em></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><em><span style="font-family:georgia;">The history of the massacre in the area, which was known as "Black Wall Street," spotlights the formation of an affluent Black community and the gruesome events that destroyed it.</span></em></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><em><span style="font-family:georgia;">In 1921, a white mob attacked a predominantly Black area in Tulsa, killing hundreds of people and destroying the country’s wealthiest African American community. Its abrupt demise and similar incidents around the country during that period played a role in widening the racial wealth divide, experts say.</span></em></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><em><span style="font-family:georgia;">Part of what enraged critics, Trump had planned to speak to supporters June 19, or Juneteenth, known as Emancipation Day – the date in 1865 when a Union general traveled to Galveston, Texas, to read President Abraham Lincoln’s orders freeing the slaves.</span></em></p><p><span style="font-family:georgia;"><a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2020/06/15/trump-tulsa-rally-juneteenth-black-wall-street-massacre-greenwood/3179886001/" target="_blank">'Black Wall Street': Trump's plan for rally in Tulsa calls attention to 1921 race massacre</a>, Paul Davidson, USA Today</span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:georgia;">He's planning to accept the nomination of his party on the 60th anniversary of <a href="https://www.jacksonville.com/article/20100822/NEWS/801246165" target="_blank">Ax Handle Saturday, August 27, 1960</a>, when peaceful sit-in activists for civil rights were clubbed by whites and local KKK members. Once is an "oops"; twice is trolling.</span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:georgia;">A simple search of this blog finds entries on the term "war on science," to which this entry is now added. Paraphrasing George Orwell, ignorance has become a sort of strength, or at least a hammer; an ax handle clubbing everyone into submission. Authoritarians have been skittish of science since Galileo. When science confirms their dogma: good. When instrumentation and discoveries go against holy writ from the Bronze Age, literally all HELL breaks loose! <a href="http://www.worldfuturefund.org/wffmaster/Reading/Religion/John%20Winthrop.htm" target="_blank">Winthrop's Puritanism</a> is pumped up on steroids. Chest are beaten and noses flare, the adrenaline rush falsely empowering the faithful with a sense of mission: a holy grail quest. The most vile heresies can be justified and covered if it's under two words: "God's will," typically interpreted by white, Anglo Saxon Protestant, Cisgender males and their misogynistic, homophobic, racist, xenophobic and patriarchal worldviews.</span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:georgia;"><a href="https://physics4thecool.blogspot.com/2020/05/masks.html" target="_blank">Masks</a> are now a culture war issue, despite the science that says they help slow the spread of the virus and allow us to SAFELY open. Despite the Coronavirus numbers spiking in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where the Black Wall Street massacre (not riot), his supporters are signing his waiver, and they are showing up without first notion of protecting others. Though he's dodged a huge bullet up to now, I don't think magical thinking will inhibit an aggressive virus, whose only basic program is to replicate itself, whether in the pews of ardent followers, or on the podium of their reconstructed "<a href="https://youtu.be/XvGmOZ5T6_Y" target="_blank">Two-Minutes Hate</a>" orange god. We have confused skepticism with contrarianism and intelligence with brute ignorance. There is a pride in exceptionalism Americans have, that has crossed over to haughtiness, and the rest of the planet frankly, could give a shit, which matches the attitude of "<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/06/17/trump-pence-dont-care-if-you-get-sick-die/?fbclid=IwAR1AZjP0ZoY_xCqTAmS0fj7zqoXHPv79S5_RoHB56X6GPXM9i2RCcd8blOw" target="_blank">dear leader</a>." The faithful may only "get it," when they and their bizarre cult leader are under clinical <a href="https://youtu.be/8AOB2PtHfVM" target="_blank">endotracheal intubation</a>.</span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:georgia;">The world is studying STEM with vigor, and we are falling behind because of a world changed by anthropomorphic climate disruption, income inequality, employment replaced by - in the words of James Boggs - <a href="https://physics4thecool.blogspot.com/2011/10/for-what-its-worth.html" target="_blank">"automation and cybernation"</a>. Backwards time travel only happens on the quantum level and in science fiction stories. We will soon "reap the whirlwind" when instead of blaming China for the pandemic; stealing secrets from us: we may have to eat crow if the plant a communist flag on the moon we, to this DAY, deny we ever visited. Technology will only accomplish one of two things: liberate us superficially, while our minds further atrophy by not exercising it, or efficiently enslave us physically, the strings pulled by an authoritarian puppet master, fearful and manipulative, with enough dexterity and remaining motor skills...to tweet. Both possibilities are "equally terrifying."</span></p></div><p style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:georgia;"><em>"Two possibilities exist: either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying."</em> Arthur C. Clarke</span></p></div>#ShutDownSTEM...https://blacksciencefictionsociety.com/profiles/blogs/shutdownstem2020-06-11T12:25:45.000Z2020-06-11T12:25:45.000ZReginald L. Goodwinhttps://blacksciencefictionsociety.com/members/ReginaldLGoodwin<div><table class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" align="center"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align:center;"><a style="margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;" href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-d6S0Fmq1yp8/XuG9fIwApqI/AAAAAAAAO1U/_xsCMPY1sJIJUN1Wlj0nEgsYei35gjMVQCK4BGAsYHg/s1200/theytriedtoburyus-but-they-didnt-know-we-were-seeds-1200x796.jpg"><img src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-d6S0Fmq1yp8/XuG9fIwApqI/AAAAAAAAO1U/_xsCMPY1sJIJUN1Wlj0nEgsYei35gjMVQCK4BGAsYHg/s320/theytriedtoburyus-but-they-didnt-know-we-were-seeds-1200x796.jpg" alt="theytriedtoburyus-but-they-didnt-know-we-were-seeds-1200x796.jpg" width="320" border="0" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align:center;">Greek poet <a href="https://poets.gr/en/poets/christianopoulos-dinos" target="_blank">Dinos Christianopoulos</a></td></tr></tbody></table><p> </p><p><span style="font-family:georgia;">Topics: Civics, Civil Rights, Human Rights, LGBT Rights, Women's Rights</span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:georgia;">I participated in JSNN's version of <a href="http://physics4thecool.blogspot.com/2020/06/shutdownstem.html" target="_blank">#ShutDownSTEM</a> yesterday. It was a discussion led by the Dean about the situation we all find ourselves in post the deaths of Ahmaund Aubrey, Breonna Taylor and George Floyd, laid to rest next to his mom in Houston, Texas.</span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:georgia;">It was a tentative meeting, thankfully from the Zoom participants extremely diverse. The Joint School of Nanoscience and Nanoengineering is by its construction diverse: Afghanistan, Brazil, Chad, India, Iran, Nigeria, Pakistan, Puerto Rico, Saudi Arabia, Sierra Leone and the United States represented in its student body and faculty. It's quite easy - at least, before the pandemic - to get lulled by the interactions that are often taken as routine, and that the entire country and world are doing exactly what you're doing.</span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><em><span style="font-family:georgia;">On June 10, 2020, we will #ShutDownAcademia, #ShutDownSTEM, and #Strike4BlackLives.</span></em></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><em><span style="font-family:georgia;">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.</span></em></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><em><span style="font-family:georgia;">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.</span></em></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><em><span style="font-family:georgia;">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.</span></em></p><p><span style="font-family:georgia;">Site: <a href="https://www.shutdownstem.com/" target="_blank">#ShutDownSTEM.com</a></span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:georgia;">I recalled my asking Mr. Tedford - my middle school science teacher - a question on the coefficient of linear expansion: I was answered with "no, you big dummy!" Upset, in tears, I relayed the encounter to my parents, who promptly made an appointment with Mr. Tedford and the principal at Mineral Springs Middle School. We got a sweaty apology, and I got all my questions answered the rest of that semester year.</span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:georgia;">I recalled my own interactions with a store detective at Kings Department Store in Winston-Salem, NC, 1976. I was body slammed and frisked while four white males robbed "Deputy Do Wrong" blind in the tennis shoe section. Despite my trying to bring this to his attention, he was convinced that "nigras steal" despite my objections and his lack of evidence.</span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:georgia;">I recalled asking a rhetorical question of the Brigade Commander: "what does it take to get to your rank" as a ninth grade, shy and impressed Neo ROTC cadet, answered with: "YOUR KIND will never get to this rank!" I did actually, three years later.The Ku Klux Klan (or, someone pretending to be them) left me a death threat: "don't show up for the Brigade Review (parade), nega, or we'll shoot your azz!" I showed up and commanded 180 cadets in formation in front of onlookers that included my parents and girlfriend at the time: anyone that spells that horribly, can't be serious or aim a gun! I'm sincerely glad I wasn't wrong.</span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:georgia;">These roadblocks are the moments that either break you, or make you, our Nietzsche ("that which does not kill us makes us stronger") Négritude.</span></p><p><em><span style="font-family:georgia;">Négritude:</span></em></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><em><span style="font-family:georgia;">The concept of Négritude emerged as the expression of a revolt against the historical situation of French colonialism and racism. The particular form taken by that revolt was the product of the encounter, in Paris, in the late 1920s, of three black students coming from different French colonies: Aimé Césaire (1913–2008) from Martinique, Léon Gontran Damas (1912–1978) from Guiana and Léopold Sédar Senghor (1906–2001) from Senegal. Being colonial subjects meant that they all belonged to people considered uncivilized, naturally in need of education and guidance from Europe, namely France. In addition, the memory of slavery was very vivid in Guiana and Martinique. Aimé Césaire and Léon Damas were already friends before they came to Paris in 1931.</span></em></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><em><span style="font-family:georgia;">Beyond the encounter between Africa and the French Caribbean Césaire, Senghor and Damas also discovered together the American movement of <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/roaring-twenties/harlem-renaissance" target="_blank">Harlem Renaissance</a>. At the “salon”, in Paris, hosted by sisters from Martinique, Jane, Paulette and Andrée Nardal, they met many Black American writers, such as <a href="https://poets.org/poet/langston-hughes" target="_blank">Langston Hughes</a> or <a href="https://poets.org/poet/claude-mckay" target="_blank">Claude McKay</a>. With the writers of the Harlem Renaissance movement they found an expression of black pride, a consciousness of a culture, an affirmation of a distinct identity that was in sharp contrast to French assimilationism. In a word they were ready to proclaim the négritude of the “new Negro” to quote the title of the anthology of Harlem writers by Alain Locke which very much impressed Senghor and his friends (Vaillant 1990, 93–94).</span></em></p><p><span style="font-family:georgia;">Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/negritude/" target="_blank">Négritude</a></span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:georgia;">I didn't say any of the above stories, or relate our Zoom meeting to Négritude, but they are not very far behind me.</span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:georgia;">The deaths of Ahmaund Aubrey, Breonna Taylor and George Floyd sparked a Neo-Négritude, that instead of remaining indigenous has spread throughout the world. Most marches have been peaceful and multicultural, with a few knuckleheads looting. That's important, because to deconstruct white supremacy, we need the creators of it to <em>do it</em>. We also need certain public African American figures to get a little Négritude, get diagnosed for Stockholm Syndrome or enough sense to shut up such that they get out of the way of progress.</span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:georgia;">This is the minefield/mind-field blacks in STEM have to navigate. Teachers, counselors and what should be "role models" feel an almost instinctive, no: tribal obligation to reinforce the status quo. They will say hateful, hurtful, disappointing things to diminish you; to "keep you in your place." A cursory review of history had only the comfortable roles of the buck boy, mammy, sex slave and step-n-fetch for the African Diaspora. The system reinforces itself by backlash politics, cognitive dissonance and a propagandized, false narrative of history that makes the descendants of the original perpetrators "feel good." Like a membrane disturbed and a nerve throbbed, it responds with cold, robotic efficiency.</span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:georgia;">This time, it's different. We've taken time out from the orgy of violent shooting incidents our news would report and naval gaze on until the next shiny object; the next shooting. We just couldn't take a break from the 401 year orgy of knees-on-necks, even during a pandemic: it's endemic to the American experiment, that currently, is not giving the results posed by the <a href="https://www.ushistory.org/declaration/document/" target="_blank">original hypothesis</a>.</span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:georgia;"><em>"For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places."</em> Ephesians 6:12</span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:georgia;">No truer words uttered at George Floyd's home going. He is NOT, however, a martyr:</span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><em><span style="font-family:georgia;">1: a person who voluntarily suffers death as the penalty of witnessing to and refusing to renounce a religion 2: a person who sacrifices something of great value and especially life itself for the sake of principle</span></em></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:georgia;">George Floyd is not a Messianic figure. He never wanted to be. He was a man, like all of us, with his flaws, horrible choices and sins. He was a man that like any man, can learn from his sins and seek redemption, if he so chose. He was a man that had a little brother and children that looked up to him. He was a man that wanted to breathe.</span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:georgia;">Perhaps, STEM has finally inhaled the stench of racism, and instead of spraying <a href="https://www.febreze.com/en-us" target="_blank">Febreze</a> to mask the odor, found it finally, rancid. Perhaps it will exhale in meetings to come, solutions. This will take time. It will be worth the effort.</span></p></div>Biff, Galileo and Gaslighting...https://blacksciencefictionsociety.com/profiles/blogs/biff-galileo-and-gaslighting2020-05-15T10:00:00.000Z2020-05-15T10:00:00.000ZReginald L. Goodwinhttps://blacksciencefictionsociety.com/members/ReginaldLGoodwin<div><center><iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/zeAEFEXvcBg" width="560" height="315" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe></center><p> </p><p><span style="font-family:georgia;">Topics: Civics, Civil Rights, COVID-19, Existentialism, Fascism, Human Rights</span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><em><span style="font-family:georgia;">On April 12, 1633, chief inquisitor Father Vincenzo Maculani da Firenzuola, appointed by Pope Urban VIII, begins the inquisition of physicist and astronomer Galileo Galilei. Galileo was ordered to turn himself in to the Holy Office to begin trial for holding the belief that the Earth revolves around the Sun, which was deemed heretical by the Catholic Church. Standard practice demanded that the accused be imprisoned and secluded during the trial.</span></em></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><em><span style="font-family:georgia;">This was the second time that Galileo was in the hot seat for refusing to accept Church orthodoxy that the Earth was the immovable center of the universe: In 1616, he had been forbidden from holding or defending his beliefs. In the 1633 interrogation, Galileo denied that he “held” belief in the Copernican view but continued to write about the issue and evidence as a means of “discussion” rather than belief. The Church had decided the idea that the Sun moved around the Earth was an absolute fact of scripture that could not be disputed, despite the fact that scientists had known for centuries that the Earth was not the center of the universe.</span></em></p><p><span style="font-family:georgia;"><a href="https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/galileo-is-convicted-of-heresy" target="_blank">Galileo is convicted of heresy</a>, History.com</span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:georgia;">Authoritarians have a long history of defying science and reality. No one questions now that the Earth isn't the center of the solar system and our understanding of the universe has expanded since Galileo confirmed Copernican Heliocentric Theory. Modern authoritarians resort to pathological lying.</span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:georgia;">I've discussed Biff's proclivities <a href="https://physics4thecool.blogspot.com/2018/11/on-teargas-and-positive-thinking.html" target="_blank">here</a> and <a href="https://physics4thecool.blogspot.com/2019/06/liar-eschatology.html" target="_blank">here</a> before. The video above is homage to him without invoking his hideous visage.</span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><em><span style="font-family:georgia;">You look scared, Donald.</span></em></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><em><span style="font-family:georgia;">You should be.</span></em></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><em><span style="font-family:georgia;">A pandemic is problematic for you.</span></em></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><em><span style="font-family:georgia;">You can’t <a href="http://physics4thecool.blogspot.com/2020/05/biff-galileo-and-gaslighting.html" target="_blank">gaslight a pandemic.</a></span></em></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><em><span style="font-family:georgia;">You can’t bully it into compliance.</span></em></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><em><span style="font-family:georgia;">You can’t lie to it and hope it won’t run a fact check.</span></em></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><em><span style="font-family:georgia;">You can’t pay for its silence or promise immunity.</span></em></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><em><span style="font-family:georgia;">You can’t threaten its reelection bid if it breaks ranks.</span></em></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><em><span style="font-family:georgia;">You can’t fire it when it dissents from your ramblings.</span></em></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><em><span style="font-family:georgia;">You can’t impugn its character with baseless attacks.</span></em></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><em><span style="font-family:georgia;">You can’t fool it with talk about God.</span></em></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><em><span style="font-family:georgia;">You can’t bury it with FoxNews fluff pieces.</span></em></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><em><span style="font-family:georgia;">You can’t drown it in nationalism.</span></em></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><em><span style="font-family:georgia;">You can’t dismiss it with cries of fake news.</span></em></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><em><span style="font-family:georgia;">You can’t pardon it after it completes its assaults.</span></em></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><em><span style="font-family:georgia;">You can’t give it a demeaning nickname and hope to deflate it.</span></em></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><em><span style="font-family:georgia;">You can’t rage-Tweet it into exhaustion.</span></em></p><p><span style="font-family:georgia;"><a href="https://johnpavlovitz.com/2020/02/27/you-cant-gaslight-a-pandemic-donald/" target="_blank">You Can’t Gaslight a Pandemic, Donald</a>, John Pavlovitz, Stuff That Needs To Be Said</span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:georgia;">By golly, Biff damned sure is trying!</span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:georgia;">I wrote this on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/rlgoodwin/posts/10158137367394360" target="_blank">Facebook</a>, May 8th:</span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:georgia;"><em>He’s wrecked the economy like 1 of his casinos.</em></span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:georgia;"><em>He sucks as a moral leader, or comforter-in-chief.</em></span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:georgia;"><em>Expect Biff to go full Brown People-Chinese-Mexican-Muslim racist, because, why not?</em></span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:georgia;">May 8th was Friday. He managed to fulfill my predictions by <a href="https://youtu.be/9zBCeS7wf7w" target="_blank">Monday</a>.</span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:georgia;">Like all authoritarians, fascists, Nazis and racists: facts don't matter. What matters is emotion, what a certain thing makes "the base" feel. Most of them, like Biff feel threatened by changing demographics. Fascists take advantage of <a href="https://www.gzeromedia.com/strongmen-heart-this-pandemic" target="_blank">disasters and chaos</a>, as rampant confusion consolidates their power, and a pandemic is made-to-order. For his bewildered, <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-52496514" target="_blank">gun-toting herd</a>, it's like the last gasp of Archie Bunker. They're worried about <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB121867492705539109" target="_blank">2042</a>. I'm worried about Dr. Bright's ominous prediction of this being our "<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/13/politics/rick-bright-testimony-congress/index.html" target="_blank">darkest winter</a>." I'm worried about the Forbes article four years ago that capitalism MUST change, or humanity will starve itself to death eight years later in 2050. The so-called white majority becoming numerical minorities will be short-lived, and moot:</span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><em><span style="font-family:georgia;">Corporate capitalism is committed to the relentless pursuit of growth, even if it ravages the planet and threatens human health.</span></em></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><em><span style="font-family:georgia;">We need to build a new system: one that will balance economic growth with sustainability and human flourishing.</span></em></p><p><span style="font-family:georgia;"><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/drewhansen/2016/02/09/unless-it-changes-capitalism-will-starve-humanity-by-2050/#35a5a88c7ccc" target="_blank">Unless It Changes, Capitalism Will Starve Humanity By 2050</a>, Drew Hansen, Forbes, 2016</span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><em><span style="font-family:georgia;">In one of a number of revolts against colonial rule, in a corner of what is now Tanzania, the <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-african-history/article/organization-of-the-maji-maji-rebellion/7DD8298B261E754471EAD710BAEAFBF5" target="_blank">Maji Maji Rebellion</a> sought to drive out German colonialists. The rebels were partly incited by a spirit medium who claimed to be possessed by a snake spirit and to have a “<a href="https://brill.com/view/title/16864" target="_blank">war medicine</a>” that would turn German bullets into water. In one of the saddest and most surreal episodes in anti-colonial history, thousands of Africans who put their faith in this magic perished before German machine guns.</span></em></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><em><span style="font-family:georgia;">It has been axiomatic in anthropology since Bronislaw Malinowski’s <a href="https://monoskop.org/images/4/41/Malinowski_Bronislaw_Magic_Science_and_Religion_and_Other_Essays_1948.pdf" target="_blank">seminal work</a> in the early 20th century that people turn to magic when they feel powerless. Soldiers, for example, may repeatedly practice mastery of their weapons, but they know there is still a strong element of chance in whether they live or die in combat, and so they also pray, wear talismans, and develop superstitions about weapons, clothes, or routines that bring luck. In this spirit, the Maji Maji rebels—outgunned but unwilling to tolerate German occupation—put their faith in magic water, as well as their own martial skills, as they rose up.</span></em></p><p><span style="font-family:georgia;"><a href="https://www.sapiens.org/column/conflicted/covid-19-magic/" target="_blank">COVID-19 and the Turn to Magical Thinking</a>, Hugh Gusterson, Sapiens.org</span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:georgia;">I don't think it will matter what hue of human is in the numerical majority. This pandemic screams at us that capitalism as we practice it is out of balance with the globe we live on. This pandemic roars at us that all the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/covid-19-has-invaded-the-white-house-trumps-response-is-more-magical-thinking/2020/05/11/6c26dc56-93ba-11ea-9f5e-56d8239bf9ad_story.html" target="_blank">magical-thinking-whistling-past-the-graveyard</a> in the world won't will it away, nor will opening up too soon and assume callously only "<a href="https://kottke.org/20/05/the-coronavirus-was-an-emergency-until-trump-found-out-who-was-dying" target="_blank">brown people</a>" will die. As much as I love <a href="https://www.startrek.com" target="_blank">Star Trek</a> as nerd mythology, I'm not expecting a leap in physics, discovering warp drive, and leaving the planet for exciting Alpha Centauri tours. In 2050, I pretty much expect to be either 88, or ashes. I just didn't expect the rest of the world to be ashed with me.</span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:georgia;">It is, in a dark sense, a brute force way to end inequality, forever.</span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:georgia;">"Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth," Matthew 5:5.</span></p><p style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:georgia;">I guess that <a href="https://www.motherjones.com/coronavirus-updates/2020/04/nature-is-bouncing-back-during-the-coronavirus-crisis-but-for-how-long/" target="_blank">doesn't necessarily have to mean</a> Homo Sapiens.</span></p></div>Going Forward...https://blacksciencefictionsociety.com/profiles/blogs/going-forward2020-05-08T10:00:00.000Z2020-05-08T10:00:00.000ZReginald L. Goodwinhttps://blacksciencefictionsociety.com/members/ReginaldLGoodwin<div><table class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;text-align:center;" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" align="center"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align:center;"><a style="margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;" href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mmGB7XjgwUU/XrQTjS672VI/AAAAAAAAOxM/qC3OTCojGeohdvvpfpnq_foewetsMfi6gCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/Cleanroom%2BSelfie.jpg"><img src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mmGB7XjgwUU/XrQTjS672VI/AAAAAAAAOxM/qC3OTCojGeohdvvpfpnq_foewetsMfi6gCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/Cleanroom%2BSelfie.jpg" alt="Cleanroom%2BSelfie.jpg" width="320" height="320" border="0" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align:center;">At the former IBM research facility, Fishkill, NY</td></tr></tbody></table><p> </p><p><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">Topics: Civics, Civil Rights, COVID-19, Existentialism, Human Rights, Politics, Women's Rights</span></p><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">Note: <a href="https://physics4thecool.blogspot.com/2011/05/mothers-day.html" target="_blank">Yesterday</a>, eleven years ago, we lost mom before Mother's Day weekend - on a Thursday. Happy Mother's Day - love, "stink."</span></div><p> </p><p>*****</p><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">This was my week of finals: Advanced Nano Systems Monday and Solid State Devices on Wednesday. The first was posted on Blackboard and had a set time to answer all questions, open-book and open notes. That took four hours. Wednesday, the exam was proctored on Zoom: 3 hours. I was completely and utterly wiped out. Now, I have to focus on my preliminary research proposal, meaning I'll be doing a lot of reading, summarizing and crafting the proposal in an NSF-style format suitable for publication. My committee will tear it to shreds. I'm expecting it. As such, I will take blogging breaks from time-to-time. Pursuing a Ph.D. in anything isn't trivial, and nanoengineering is by far not trivial, and is mentally and emotionally exhausting. It will be worth it, though.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">The above is how I went to work at Motorola, Advanced Micro Devices and IBM in some capacity. Wearing the garments wasn't an "option." We were - as I stated in <a href="https://physics4thecool.blogspot.com/2020/04/protocols.html" target="_blank">Protocols</a> - protecting the product from our contact with the outside world.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;"><a href="https://physics4thecool.blogspot.com/2020/05/going-forward.html" target="_blank">Our "cleanrooms" are now our living rooms</a> and we're protecting ourselves from the environment outside.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">I'm bemused by the now popular label, "<a href="https://fortune.com/2020/03/20/essential-workers-government-list-employees-coronavirus/" target="_blank">essential workers</a>," as if these workers weren't essential before a pandemic showed just how essential they really are. Missing from the list are janitorial services, which is why I've always treated the cleaning person with the same respect I would afford an executive: one makes decisions about the company for typically investors; the other decides daily to clean our messes in the loo.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">As of this posting, <a href="https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-05-06/coronavirus-states-reopen-deaths-warning?utm_source=sfmc_100035609&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=24047+Today%27s+Headlines+5%2F7%2F2020&utm_term=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.latimes.com%2Fworld-nation%2Fstory%2F2020-05-06%2Fcoronavirus-states-reopen-deaths-warning&utm_id=6301&sfmc_id=1974871" target="_blank">more than 40 states</a> are starting to <a href="https://medium.com/@ASlavitt/relaxing-all-social-distancing-behaviors-now-is-a-huge-mistake-c03674423888" target="_blank">relax stay-in-place</a> restrictions, not because of the Russian puppet concerned about re-election and avoiding prosecution from <a href="https://ag.ny.gov/about-attorney-general" target="_blank">NY Attorney General Letitia James</a> and <a href="https://www.law.com/newyorklawjournal/2020/04/09/trump-and-family-cant-force-arbitration-in-fraud-suit-sdny-judge-rules/?slreturn=20200407101217" target="_blank">SDNY</a>, but democratic and republican governors are having a cash flow problem: it cannot flow if we're too concerned with <a href="https://www.ushistory.org/declaration/document/" target="_blank">"Life," followed by "Liberty and Pursuit of Happiness"</a> to venture forth.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">At best, we're looking at a <a href="https://www.healthline.com/health-news/covid-19-vaccine-more-than-one-year-before-available" target="_blank">year and a half</a> to a vaccine. On the website <a href="https://www.historyofvaccines.org/content/articles/vaccine-development-testing-and-regulation" target="_blank">The History of Vaccines</a>: "Vaccine development is a long, complex process, often <u><strong>lasting 10-15 years</strong></u> and involving a combination of public and private involvement." It apparently has an exploratory stage, a pre-clinical stage, IND (investigative new drug) application; phases I - III vaccine trials, post-licensure monitoring of vaccines and VAERS: the vaccine adverse event reporting system, in case, ironically the "cure <em>is</em> worse than the disease."</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;"><br /> </span><br /> <span style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><a href="https://news.yale.edu/2020/04/24/saliva-samples-preferable-deep-nasal-swabs-testing-covid-19" target="_blank">Testing</a>, shelter-in-place, contact tracing: This is how we can slowly open the economy safely and reduce infections/deaths. Tracing has a noble, brute-force history with <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/smallpox/bioterrorism-response-planning/public-health/epidemiological-investigation.html" target="_blank">smallpox</a>. This is so we don't overwhelm the medical community while research pursues a vaccine or cure. <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/where-schools-reopen-distancing-and-disinfectant-are-the-new-coronavirus-routine-11586971911" target="_blank">Denmark, Germany, Finland</a> and other European countries are opening, and safely for the most part. Mississippi halted their opening after a spike in infections; Florida and Texas will likely soon follow. Per capita tests per million citizens, we're now <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-testing-per-capita-us-italy-south-korea-2020-4" target="_blank">second to Italy</a> and slightly ahead of South Korea, that have had <a href="https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/south-korea/" target="_blank">256 deaths</a> ...total. It's both embarrassing and sickening to the soul.</span><br /> <span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;"><br /> </span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">(Suggested) extended protocols:</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">1. Vote November 3, 2020. Especially millennials. My open letter to millennials (<a href="https://physics4thecool.blogspot.com/2018/10/belief-in-oneness.html" target="_blank">Belief in Oneness</a>) before the 2018 midterms preceded the takeover by the democrats, the prescient predictive power of Dr. Rachel Biticofer's <a href="https://t.co/bFaZO9Jpvb?amp=1" target="_blank">modelling</a> and the impeachment of the Russian ass(et). Democracy means "<a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/democracy" target="_blank">rule of the people</a>." In short: give a shit.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">2. Every building, particularly security guards will have to use <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Non-Contact-Temperature-Measurement-Thermometer-Supermarket/dp/B086RZPSPQ/ref=sr_1_6?crid=168IWMH2FGEYP&dchild=1&keywords=body+temperature+infrared+thermometer&qid=1588862633&s=hi&sprefix=body+temperature+infr%2Ctools%2C188&sr=1-6" target="_blank">body temperature infrared thermometers</a> before allowing access. They're commercially available on Amazon. I posted the most expensive one, but there are other products listed. 99.9 degrees Fahrenheit or greater should be deemed a health hazard, and turned away.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">3. Schools and manufacturing particularly are going to have to structure "A-B" days: MWF-A, TTh-B; MWF-B, TTh-A etc., where buildings are filled to 1/2 their capacity, controlling access with BTIR thermometers.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">4. Schools especially are going to have to record lectures on YouTube if students are turned away; they're going to have to get a doctor's note to return to class.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">5. Telecommuting has to be encouraged if possible at all. Zoom isn't going away.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">6. Hotels, restaurants, movie theaters and sporting events are going to have to get used to 25-50% occupancy; financial targets will have to be adjusted.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">7. The existence of <a href="https://www.azcentral.com/story/money/2020/05/07/coronavirus-americas-private-prisons-thrive-during-pandemic/3092419001/" target="_blank">for-profit prisons</a> will have to be revisited. They are not efficacious. They're structured for high occupancy and recidivism, and hotbed for this or any pandemic's spread; so are <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/why-meatpacking-plants-have-become-covid-19-hot-spots/" target="_blank">meat-packing plants</a> and <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/nursing-homes-responding.html" target="_blank">nursing homes</a>.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">8. Get used to leaving home like this (showering when you return):</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear:both;text-align:center;"><br /> <a style="margin-left:1em;margin-right:1em;" href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1bRI08KaRgw/XrQoE9JADGI/AAAAAAAAOxU/DrIqI1ElcvMLoVkyE_8RUy4GBYvfQNi4QCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/IML%2BProtocols.jpg"><img src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1bRI08KaRgw/XrQoE9JADGI/AAAAAAAAOxU/DrIqI1ElcvMLoVkyE_8RUy4GBYvfQNi4QCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/IML%2BProtocols.jpg" alt="IML%2BProtocols.jpg" width="240" height="320" border="0" /></a></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I'm assuming myself asymptomatic: masking protects Y-O-U from M-E. More of us doing this reduces the spread of the virus, while giving a break to emergency services and ventilators. It can be continued for the anti-vaxxer community that won't take a vaccine even if successfully going through trials. I know the history of this country with the <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/tuskegee/timeline.htm" target="_blank">Tuskegee experiment</a>. It's <a href="https://www.medpagetoday.com/blogs/zdoggmd/86351?xid=nl_popmed_2020-05-07&eun=g1527931d0r&utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=PopMedicineWinner_050720&utm_content=Final&utm_term=NL_Gen_Int_PopMedicine_Active" target="_blank">lazy scholarship</a> to continually resort to the worst human motivations in the midst of a crisis. Biologists have families, too.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">My unfortunate conclusion is, we're going to be at this for a while, post this and any successive administrations' tenures, if we still have a functional republic: the <a href="https://www.bls.gov" target="_blank">jobs report</a> will be at Depression-era levels; William Barr is <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/07/us/politics/michael-flynn-case.html" target="_blank">pulverizing</a> the rule of law as it's now apparently fine to lie to the F.B.I. after admitting to it twice <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/07/opinion/michael-flynn-charges-dropped.html" target="_blank">under oath</a>.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">We're in the fight of our lives, and we're literally on our own.</span></div></div>Ghoulish...https://blacksciencefictionsociety.com/profiles/blogs/ghoulish2020-04-24T10:00:00.000Z2020-04-24T10:00:00.000ZReginald L. Goodwinhttps://blacksciencefictionsociety.com/members/ReginaldLGoodwin<div><table class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;text-align:center;" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" align="center"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align:center;"><a style="margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;" href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Ic7XHVXY-7E/XqBhAIERwDI/AAAAAAAAOw4/ehdDH9U_zjEk3JlGiVjaFegIb7lG0pmAgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/d3cc41778d05dec0371a69e29659f792.jpg"><img src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Ic7XHVXY-7E/XqBhAIERwDI/AAAAAAAAOw4/ehdDH9U_zjEk3JlGiVjaFegIb7lG0pmAgCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/d3cc41778d05dec0371a69e29659f792.jpg" alt="d3cc41778d05dec0371a69e29659f792.jpg" width="244" height="320" border="0" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align:center;">Image Source: <a href="https://www.pinterest.com/pin/539235755360591579/" target="_blank">Pinterest</a></td></tr></tbody></table><p> </p><p><br /> <span style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Topics: Civics, Civil Rights, COVID-19, Existentialism, Fascism, Human Rights, Politics, Women's Rights</span></p><p><strong><span style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Ref: <a href="https://physics4thecool.blogspot.com/2018/10/leadership-of-ghouls.html" target="_blank">Leadership of Ghouls...</a>October 26, 2018</span></strong></p><p><em><span style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Can make a Heav'n of Hell, a Hell of Heav'n.</span></em><br /> <em><span style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">What matter where, if I be still the same,</span></em><br /> <em><span style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">And what I should be, all but less then he</span></em><br /> <em><span style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Whom Thunder hath made greater? Here at least</span></em><br /> <em><span style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">We shall be free; th' Almighty hath not built</span></em><br /> <em><span style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Here for his envy, will not drive us hence:</span></em><br /> <em><span style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Here we may reign secure, and in my choyce</span></em><br /> <em><span style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">To reign is worth ambition though in Hell:</span></em><br /> <strong><em><span style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Better to reign in Hell, then serve in Heav'n.</span></em></strong><br /> <em><span style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">But wherefore let we then our faithful friends,</span></em><br /> <em><span style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Th' associates and copartners of our loss</span></em><br /> <em><span style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Lye thus astonisht on th' oblivious Pool,</span></em><br /> <em><span style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">And call them not to share with us their part</span></em><br /> <em><span style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">In this unhappy Mansion, or once more</span></em><br /> <em><span style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">With rallied Arms to try what may be yet</span></em><br /> <em><span style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Regaind in Heav'n, or what more lost in Hell?</span></em></p><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">John Milton, "<a href="https://poets.org/poem/paradise-lost-book-i-lines-221-270" target="_blank">Paradise Lost</a>," Book I, Lines 221-270</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Blankets to First Nation peoples.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <em><span style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Colonial weaponizing of smallpox against Native Americans was first reported by 19th-century historian Francis Parkman, who came across correspondence in which Sir Jeffery Amherst, commander in chief of the British forces in North America in the early 1760s, had discussed its use with Col. Henry Bouquet, a subordinate on the western frontier during the French and Indian War.</span></em></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <em><span style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Early American historian Elizabeth Fenn of the University of Colorado Boulder lays out her theory on what happened in her 2000 article in the Journal of American History. In the late spring of 1763, Delaware, Shawnee and Mingo warriors, inspired by Ottawa war leader Pontiac, laid siege to Fort Pitt, an outpost at the confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers in present-day downtown Pittsburgh.</span></em></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <em><span style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The fort’s commander, Capt. Simeon Ecuyer, reported in a June 16 message to his superior, Philadelphia-based Col. Henry Bouquet, that the situation was dire, with local traders and colonists taking refuge inside the fort’s walls. Ecuyer wasn’t just afraid of his Native American adversaries. The fort’s hospital had patients with smallpox, and Ecuyer feared the disease might overwhelm the population inside the fort’s cramped confines.</span></em></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <em><span style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Bouquet, in turn, passed along the news about the smallpox inside Fort Pitt to his own superior, Amherst, in a June 23 letter. In Amherst’s July 7 response, he cold-bloodedly saw an opportunity in the disease outbreak. “Could it not be contrived to Send the Small Pox among those Disaffected Tribes of Indians? <strong>We must, on this occasion, Use Every Stratagem in our power to Reduce them</strong>.”</span></em></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <em><span style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Historian Philip Ranlet of Hunter College and author of a 2000 article on the smallpox blanket incident in Pennsylvania History: A Journal of Mid-Atlantic Studies, also casts doubt. “There is no evidence that the scheme worked,” Ranlet says. “The infection on the blankets was apparently old, so no one could catch smallpox from the blankets. Besides, the Indians just had smallpox—the smallpox that reached Fort Pitt had come from Indians—and anyone susceptible to smallpox had already had it.”</span></em></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <em><span style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The most important indication that the scheme was a bust, Ranlet says, “is that Trent would have bragged in his journal if the scheme had worked. He is silent as to what happened.”</span></em></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <em><span style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Even if it didn’t work, British officers’ willingness to contemplate using smallpox against the Indians was a sign of their callousness. “Even for that time period, it violated civilized notions of war,” says Kelton, who notes that disease “kills indiscriminately—it would kill women and children, not just warriors.”</span></em></div><p> </p><p><a href="https://www.history.com/news/colonists-native-americans-smallpox-blankets" target="_blank"><span style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Did Colonists Give Infected Blankets to Native Americans as Biological Warfare?</span></a><br /> <span style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">History.com</span></p><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">It is ghoulish:</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">- To attempt infection of peoples whose land you robbed from them.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">- To offer blue states <a href="https://www.msnbc.com/deadline-white-house/watch/gov-cuomo-calls-sen-mcconnell-s-latest-comment-one-of-the-dumbest-ideas-of-all-time-82465349563" target="_blank">accept bankruptcy</a> versus getting a bailout like the "too big to fail businesses and banks."</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">- To refuse <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/06/coronavirus-testing-failure-123166" target="_blank">W.H.O testing</a> that would help flatten the curve in an obtuse effort to win re-election.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">- For <a href="https://www.marketwatch.com/story/jobless-claims-jump-another-44-million-25-million-americans-have-lost-their-jobs-to-the-coronavirus-2020-04-23" target="_blank">26 million people</a> to file unemployment in the richest country in the world.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">- For the richest country in the world to be <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/06/underlying-conditions/610261/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=atlantic-daily-newsletter&utm_content=20200420&silverid-ref=NjQxODAzMzEwNjM1S0" target="_blank">so bereft</a> in the face of a pandemic.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">- For its executive to be such a braying buffoon at <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/stephen-colbert-burns-down-trumps-coronavirus-press-briefing-propaganda-video" target="_blank">propaganda</a> "press" briefings where nothing is learned or useful.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">- To try gaslighting a pandemic and suggest humans essentially </span><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">ingest</span><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;"> <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-52407177" target="_blank">Lysol into their systems</a>, guaranteeing this will kill them faster.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">More particularly: we barely flinched when we snatched children from their parents; we barely blinked when we put those children in cages. We in Orwellian fashion wouldn't bring ourselves to call them what they really are: concentration camps, now a hot oven for the novel Coronavirus. It's better than Auschwitz or Dachau ovens and kind of "green." That too, <a href="https://physics4thecool.blogspot.com/2020/04/ghoulish.html" target="_blank">is ghoulish</a>.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><em>Cannibalism is the act or practice of species eating the flesh or internal organs of their kind. In the story, scenes of ghouls eating ghouls and humans eating humans pass regularly as the narrative continues.</em>[1][2]</span></div><p><em><span style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Strictly speaking, one-eyed ghouls always have to cannibalize since they are forced to eat human or ghoul meat. In their case, however, only eating ghoul meat is typically treated as cannibalism.</span></em></p><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <em><span style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><u>Ghoul meat tastes disgusting to ghouls</u>, but in contrast to other non-human nutrition, they are able to digest it. Continued cannibalization may trigger a mutation in Rc cells, resulting in turning them into <a href="https://tokyoghoul.fandom.com/wiki/Kakuja" target="_blank">kakujas</a>.</span></em></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Ref: <a href="https://tokyoghoul.fandom.com/wiki/Cannibalism" target="_blank">Tokyo Ghoul: Cannibalism</a></span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Ultimately, the ghoul is like the pacman emoji in arcade video games: it gobbles until the energy balls are consumed. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ouroboros" target="_blank">Ouruboros</a> or cannibalistic ghoul, it consumes its own tail. The fictional monster then resorts to cannibalism - like <a href="https://interestingengineering.com/polar-bears-forced-into-cannibalism-due-to-climate-change-and-fossil-fuels" target="_blank">polar bears impacted by climate change</a> - when all resources and options are exhausted. Pacman and polar bear then wink out of existence.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Conservative columnist Max Boot famously coined the phrase "<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/12/04/republicans-have-become-party-russia-this-makes-me-sick/" target="_blank">gang of Putin</a>" in a Washington Post piece last year.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I prefer "ghoulish <a href="http://www.finedictionary.com/ossiferous.html" target="_blank">ossiferous</a> party." You now know ghoul, and ossiferous relates to "sucking the flesh off bones." Both however, are apropos and fitting.</span></div></div>Protocols...https://blacksciencefictionsociety.com/profiles/blogs/protocols2020-04-10T10:00:00.000Z2020-04-10T10:00:00.000ZReginald L. Goodwinhttps://blacksciencefictionsociety.com/members/ReginaldLGoodwin<div><table class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;text-align:center;" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" align="center"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align:center;"><a style="margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;" href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-YPhjvxWvhkk/Xo6tYI4p0eI/AAAAAAAAOvw/1EOCma26yUo8dkFqpenX-h3DZH1mMYCJQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/I_am_legend_teaser.jpg"><img src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-YPhjvxWvhkk/Xo6tYI4p0eI/AAAAAAAAOvw/1EOCma26yUo8dkFqpenX-h3DZH1mMYCJQCLcBGAsYHQ/s400/I_am_legend_teaser.jpg" alt="I_am_legend_teaser.jpg" width="270" height="400" border="0" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align:center;">Will Smith as U.S. Army virologist Lt. Col. Robert Neville in the movie, "<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Am_Legend_(film)" target="_blank">I Am Legend</a>."</td></tr></tbody></table><p> </p><p><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">Topics: Civics, Civil Rights, COVID-19, Elections, Existentialism, Fascism, Human Rights</span></p><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">Plot: <em>"In 2009, a genetically re-engineered measles virus, originally created as a cure for cancer, turns lethal. The virus kills 90% (5.4 billion out of 6 billion) of the world's population and turns 9.8% (588 million) into vampiric, cannibalistic mutants called Darkseekers, who are extremely vulnerable to sunlight. The remaining 0.2% (12 million) of the population are immune to the virus and are the prey of the mutant Darkseekers.</em></span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <em><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">Three years after the outbreak, U.S. Army virologist Lt. Col. Robert Neville lives an isolated life in the deserted ruins of Manhattan, unsure if any other uninfected humans are left.</span></em></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <em><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">Neville's daily routine includes experimenting on infected rats to find a cure for the virus, searching for food and supplies, and waiting each day for any immune humans who might respond to his continuous recorded radio broadcasts, which instruct them to meet him at midday at the South Street Seaport.</span></em></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;"><em>Flashbacks reveal that his wife and daughter died in a helicopter accident during the chaotic evacuation of Manhattan, as the military enforced a quarantine of the island in 2009. Neville stayed behind on the island with other military personnel."</em> (Wikipedia)</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"> </div><div style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I worked in cleanrooms in the semiconductor industry, the most stringent being Class 1. The old criteria meant 0.5 microns of particles per cubic feet of air. (The newest guidelines were <a href="https://www.mecart-cleanrooms.com/learning-center/cleanroom-classifications-iso-8-iso-7-iso-6-iso-5/" target="_blank">adopted in 2001</a>, metric and still pretty stringent.) Each employee passed through air showers to push off any particulates from their clothing. Smokers are encouraged not to indulge, and cologne is prohibited - smoke and scent are particles. We then put our street garb in a locker, putting on green hosptial gowns and fab shoes that never left the site. Then we donned clean room gowns - "<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleanroom_suit" target="_blank">bunny suits</a>" - before going into the alien, <a href="http://www.hepafilters.com" target="_blank">hepa-filtered</a> environment, protecting it from any hair, skin, sweat or dirt we could shed that would inhibit the functionality of integrated circuits. I tried to drink as little water as possible before going on the floor. Going to the bathroom, or lunch was a pain.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">I have developed a unique protocol for assaulting what used to be trivial things like: getting the mail, mowing the lawn - grass grows as rains falls during pandemics - or, going to the grocers for (what's left of) supplies.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">1. I fashion a mask from my father's handkerchiefs and rubber bands per the <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/downloads/DIY-cloth-face-covering-instructions.pdf" target="_blank">CDC guidelines</a>.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">2. I use cloth/rubber work gloves for mowing as the rubber is tactile enough for me to operate equipment and pay for items at the grocery store.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">3. After I enter the house, I immediately put all clothing - including my gloves - in the washer. I proceed to the shower.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">It is a ritual of the dish panned and dry skinned. I call it my <a href="https://physics4thecool.blogspot.com/2020/04/protocols.html" target="_blank">"I Am Legend" protocols</a>.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">I am approximately <a href="https://www.journalnow.com" target="_blank">45 minutes from</a> the hospital that I was born in. I am in the city I earned an undergraduate in Engineering Physics and a Masters in Nanoengineering. I feel like each day outside my door, I enter an alien landscape. Shopping is now foraging for food at several department stores. The shelves are emptying as the <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/03/29/823438906/what-happens-if-undocumented-immigrants-get-infected-with-coronavirus" target="_blank">undocumented workers</a> that pick our food are also impacted by this virus. We're going to start seeing shortages. Perhaps I need to look at hunting. Thankfully, there are no Darkseekers.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">Now, as many other STEM graduate researchers are doing, I'm continuing Ph.D. studies online. <u>No one knows what this is supposed to look like</u>, since before the entire planet became <a href="https://mars.nasa.gov/programmissions/science/goal4/" target="_blank">as hostile as Mars</a>, it was done in-person for the most part.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">Wisconsin showed the <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/08/opinions/wisconsin-voter-this-is-ridiculous-lake/index.html" target="_blank">depth of depravity</a> in the "<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/12/04/republicans-have-become-party-russia-this-makes-me-sick/" target="_blank">gang of Putin</a>" from the Supreme Courts at both federal and state levels and its extensively <a href="https://www.facebook.com/DJTNotMyPresident/videos/another-coronavirus-word-salad-update-from-the-moron-in-charge/179042080211361/" target="_blank">word-salad challenged</a> faux mob head: they'd rather kill us than allow people to vote. It's almost a public admittance that they know they have no ideas to convince a majority of the electorate to vote for. They're reduced to deplorables, fascists, homophobes, racists, rubes, <a href="https://blackamericaweb.com/2017/01/11/little-known-black-history-fact-sambo/" target="_blank">Sambos</a>, sexists, tax cheaters, wife beaters and zombies. NO ONE with a sane grasp of reality - whether voting during a pandemic or by mail - would consciously vote for <a href="https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a31283098/president-trump-coronavirus-response/" target="_blank">four more years of this shit</a>. "Planet of the Apes" had intelligent, evolved primates. This is more like "Conquest of the Stupid People." We apparently didn't have to wait 500 years to get to "<a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/movies/movie-news/darwin-dar-lose-the-genius-of-idiocracy-51831/" target="_blank">Idiocracy</a>." Speaking of which, someone wants to <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-discusses-opening-country-coronavirus-peaks-areas/story?id=69979743" target="_blank">open the economy</a> prematurely to save his own ass, since he's supposedly a "stable genius" and wolf-of-Wall-Street business wizard after <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2016/live-updates/general-election/real-time-fact-checking-and-analysis-of-the-first-presidential-debate/fact-check-has-trump-declared-bankruptcy-four-or-six-times/" target="_blank">six bankruptcies</a>. He just didn't tell you, the land <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/working-trump-was-making-court-jester-king-says-apprentice-producer-1274414" target="_blank">he's wizard of is Oz</a>.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"> </div><div style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">He hits <a href="https://www.health.com/condition/antisocial-personality-disorder/sociopath-traits" target="_blank">the nine signs of a sociopath</a> lotto, and the only thing that lowers my systolic and diastolic blood pressure is avoiding those Joseph Goebbels' styled Ministry of Untruth press briefings. They're absolute useless, <a href="https://dictionary.apa.org/word-salad" target="_blank">word-salad</a> garbage.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">He won Wisconsin in 2016. Their citizens showed the resolve we've GOT to have to repel Russian meddling and voter suppression: we've literally got to crawl over glass to save this republic, otherwise, I'm pretty sure we'll no longer have one. The inverse of federal republics is fascist dictatorships. That's only fun for fascists and <a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/04/trump-death-cult/" target="_blank">death cult members</a>.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">Will Smith is an actor. "I Am Legend" is a movie, for which he likely received a fat 20 million dollar check. Just <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/04/09/830216099/6-6-million-more-file-for-unemployment-as-coronavirus-keeps-economy-shut" target="_blank">about that many people</a> filed for unemployment. He's made a lot of movies since then, and barring we burrow underground, he'll probably make a few more before he retires to that <a href="https://virtualglobetrotting.com/map/will-smiths-house/view/google/" target="_blank">big mansion</a> in Calabasas, California.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"> </div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">The suddenly unemployed are still waiting for theirs.</span></div></div>Black Like Me...https://blacksciencefictionsociety.com/profiles/blogs/black-like-me2020-04-08T14:03:08.000Z2020-04-08T14:03:08.000ZReginald L. Goodwinhttps://blacksciencefictionsociety.com/members/ReginaldLGoodwin<div><table class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;text-align:center;" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" align="center"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align:center;"><a style="margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;" href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-xP5KgQr9JeM/Xo0roja1rnI/AAAAAAAAOvg/pcAAKqTnnWA9HZQbW3tinHGeLF8PXT3KwCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/18030E3E-73B1-4E81-83101BF333C3437E_source.jpg"><img src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-xP5KgQr9JeM/Xo0roja1rnI/AAAAAAAAOvg/pcAAKqTnnWA9HZQbW3tinHGeLF8PXT3KwCLcBGAsYHQ/s400/18030E3E-73B1-4E81-83101BF333C3437E_source.jpg" width="400" height="266" border="0" alt="18030E3E-73B1-4E81-83101BF333C3437E_source.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align:center;">Credit: Getty Images</td></tr></tbody></table><p> </p><p><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">Topics: African Americans, Civil Rights, COVID-19, Human Rights, Medical Science</span></p><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /><em><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">In recent weeks, my patients in an urgent care in central Brooklyn came in progressively sicker by the day. They were mostly Black and Brown. Many complained of fever, cough and worsening shortness of breath. I even sent a few of the sickest patients to the ER. COVID-19 had arrived in New York City in full-form, hitting <a href="https://physics4thecool.blogspot.com/2020/04/black-like-me.html" target="_blank">its largely Black and Brown</a> areas the hardest.</span></em></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /><em><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">Only mere weeks into the COVID-19 pandemic, epidemiologists have not yet had the opportunity to disaggregate nationwide morbidity and mortality data by race, but Black Americans will undoubtedly be one of the most harshly affected demographic groups.</span></em></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /><em><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">In recent weeks, my patients in an urgent care in central Brooklyn came in progressively sicker by the day. They were mostly Black and Brown. Many complained of fever, cough and worsening shortness of breath. I even sent a few of the sickest patients to the ER. COVID-19 had arrived in New York City in full-form, hitting its largely Black and Brown areas the hardest.</span></em></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /><em><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">Only mere weeks into the COVID-19 pandemic, epidemiologists have not yet had the opportunity to disaggregate nationwide morbidity and mortality data by race, but Black Americans will undoubtedly be one of the most harshly affected demographic groups.</span></em></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /><em><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">This pandemic will likely magnify and further reinforce <a href="https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/hsph-in-the-news/health-disparities-between-blacks-and-whites-run-deep/" target="_blank">racialized health inequities</a>, which have been both persistent and profound over the last five decades, and Black Americans have experienced the worst health outcomes of any racial group.</span></em></div><p> </p><p><a href="https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/voices/what-the-covid-19-pandemic-means-for-black-americans/" target="_blank"><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">What the COVID-19 Pandemic Means for Black Americans</span></a><br /><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">Uché Blackstock, Scientific American</span></p><p><em><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">To fling my arms wide</span></em><br /><em><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">In some place of the sun,</span></em><br /><em><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">To whirl and to dance</span></em><br /><em><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">Till the white day is done.</span></em><br /><em><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">Then rest at cool evening</span></em><br /><em><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">Beneath a tall tree</span></em><br /><em><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">While night comes on gently,</span></em><br /><em><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">Dark like me-</span></em><br /><em><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">That is my dream!</span></em></p><p><em><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">To fling my arms wide</span></em><br /><em><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">In the face of the sun,</span></em><br /><em><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">Dance! Whirl! Whirl!</span></em><br /><em><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">Till the quick day is done.</span></em><br /><em><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">Rest at pale evening...</span></em><br /><em><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">A tall, slim tree...</span></em><br /><em><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">Night coming tenderly</span></em><br /><em><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">Black like me.</span></em></p><p><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">Dream Variations, Langston Hughes, <a href="https://poets.org/poem/dream-variations" target="_blank">Poet.org</a> and <a href="https://www.enotes.com/topics/dream-variations/in-depth" target="_blank">enotes analysis</a></span></p></div>Caveats, Rainbows and Compassionate Capitalism...https://blacksciencefictionsociety.com/profiles/blogs/caveats-rainbows-and-compassionate-capitalism2020-04-03T10:00:00.000Z2020-04-03T10:00:00.000ZReginald L. Goodwinhttps://blacksciencefictionsociety.com/members/ReginaldLGoodwin<div><table class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;text-align:center;" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" align="center"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align:center;"><a style="margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;" href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-VUaOp1vMKck/XoakWy8PDlI/AAAAAAAAOvI/-WNTRPBdt9wspQsLlwNf1kX7xjW8SsVRgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/New%2BYork%2BTimes%2BCOVID-19.PNG"><img src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-VUaOp1vMKck/XoakWy8PDlI/AAAAAAAAOvI/-WNTRPBdt9wspQsLlwNf1kX7xjW8SsVRgCLcBGAsYHQ/s400/New%2BYork%2BTimes%2BCOVID-19.PNG" alt="New%2BYork%2BTimes%2BCOVID-19.PNG" width="400" height="256" border="0" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align:center;">New York Times - <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/02/us/coronavirus-social-distancing.html?auth=login-email&login=email" target="_blank">Where Americans Didn't Stay at Home Even as the Virus Spread</a><p>James Glanz, Benedict Carey, Josh Holder, Derek Watkins, Jennifer Valentino-DeVries, Rick Rojas and Lauren Leatherby</p></td></tr></tbody></table><p> </p><p><span style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Topics: Civics, Civil Rights, COVID-19, Existentialism, Fascism, Human Rights</span></p><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Only a fascist like William Barr would <a href="https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a31903481/william-barr-emergency-powers-coronavirus/" target="_blank">try to suspend habeas corpus</a> during a global pandemic, as are other <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/strongmen-thrive-as-coronavirus-kills-off-checks-and-balances-q0djk2mcx" target="_blank">strongmen across the globe</a> are using the crisis to seize more dictatorial power over their citizens. Only a sociopath puts in an emergency order through the secret service for ...<a href="https://theweek.com/speedreads/906388/secret-service-signed-emergency-order-week--30-golf-carts" target="_blank">golf carts</a>. Democracy - that fleeting experiment in rationality, and with it: life on Earth hangs in the balance.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <em><span style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">While political leaders have locked their borders, scientists have been shattering theirs, creating a global collaboration unlike any in history. Never before, researchers say, have so many experts in so many countries focused simultaneously on a single topic and with such urgency. Nearly all other research has ground to a halt.</span></em></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <em><span style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Normal imperatives like academic credit have been set aside. Online repositories make studies available months ahead of journals. Researchers have identified and shared hundreds of viral genome sequences. More than 200 clinical trials have been launched, bringing together hospitals and laboratories around the globe.</span></em></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <em><span style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">“I never hear scientists — true scientists, good quality scientists — speak in terms of nationality,” said Dr. Francesco Perrone, who is leading a coronavirus clinical trial in Italy. “My nation, your nation. My language, your language. My geographic location, your geographic location. This is something that is really distant from true top-level scientists.”</span></em></div><p> </p><p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/01/world/europe/coronavirus-science-research-cooperation.html?referringSource=articleShare" target="_blank"><span style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Covid-19 Changed How the World Does Science, Together</span></a><br /> <span style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Matt Apuzzo and David D. Kirkpatrick, New York Times</span></p><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Yes, China and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/03/10/wuhan-officials-tried-cover-up-covid-19-sent-it-careening-outward/" target="_blank">its stupid strongman leader</a> held precious data and allowed the Coronavirus to spread before this cooperation born of survival was established. Calling it "Wuhan" or "Chinese" is as problem-solving as ascribing radical terrorism to a religion. The Klan burns large crosses, and historically, hung and castrated African Americans. They and other white supremacist groups are yet still <a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/08/a-former-fbi-whistleblower-explains-why-the-federal-government-is-failing-on-domestic-terrorism-and-how-to-fix-it/" target="_blank">not classed as terrorists, domestic or otherwise</a>.</span></div><p> </p><p>*****</p><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><em><u>A true STEM education should increase students’ understanding of how things work and improve their use of technologies</u>. STEM education should also introduce more engineering during precollege education. Engineering is directly involved in problem solving and innovation, two themes with high priorities on every nation’s agenda…. the creation of high-quality, integrated instruction and materials, as well as the placement of problems associated with grand challenges of society at the center of study.</em> (p. 996).</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><em>Whereas there have been initiatives for integrated STEM education in a number of developed countries including South Korea, the mechanisms of integration for STEM disciplines and instructional approaches are largely under theorized (National Academy of Engineering and National Research Council, 2014). Given the limited research, instructional design for integrated STEM can be informed by the <u>literature on problem-based learning (PBL)</u>. In a number of reviews on integrated STEM programs, researchers found that integrated STEM programs commonly utilize real-world complex problems as instructional contexts in which students apply knowledge and practices from multiple disciplines (Banks & Barlex, 2014; Kelley & Knowles, 2016; Lynn, Moore, Johnson, & Roehrig, 2016; National Academy of Engineering and National Research Council, 2014). PBL is a well-researched and widely accepted student-centered instructional approach in which students are given an ill-structured real-world problem to investigate viable solutions for by applying knowledge and skills from various sources (Hmelo-Silver, 2004; Savery, 2006). PBL helps students develop knowledge involved in problem solving and cognitive skills such as critical and analytical thinking. Additional characteristics of PBL such as working in collaborative groups and engaging in self-directed learning lead to learning outcomes such as communication competency and motivation to learn. This approach was succinctly summarized in Hmelo-Silver (2004)</em>.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><em>In PBL, <u>student learning centers on a complex problem that does not have a single correct answer</u>. Students work in collaborative groups to identify what they need to learn in order to solve a problem. <u>They engage in self-directed learning (SDL)</u> and then apply their new knowledge to the problem and reflect on what they learned and the effectiveness of the strategies employed.… The goals of PBL include helping students develop 1) flexible knowledge, 2) effective problem-solving skills, 3) SDL skills, 4) effective collaboration skills, and 5) intrinsic motivation.</em> (p.235).</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s41029-019-0034-y" target="_blank"><span style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">A review of the effect of integrated STEM or STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics) education in South Korea</span></a></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Nam-Hwa Kang, Asia-Pacific Science Education</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">South Korea is the model the planet needs to pursue. It has a deep respect for STEM, STEAM and has pursued it relentlessly. Such preparation encourages quick reaction to problems and creative solutions. It's shown in <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/02/asia/coronavirus-drive-through-south-korea-hnk-intl/index.html" target="_blank">drive-through testing</a>. It has NEVER been demonstrated in creationism, "intelligent design" and other magical thinking.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The mapping of the virus spread globally correlates with our frequency in the states. The south and Midwestern states are astonishingly red, and a few of their correlating governors obtuse. This is somewhat simplistic and deceptive, as the northern states have more mass transit, and thus a subway can also carry a novel virus just as easily as an SUV or pickup truck. New York shows no movement, but has the highest infection rates, which globally correlates to where travel and world trade (and humans) meet frequently. A nationwide shutdown would "flatten the curve." Sadly, I'm finding more that "United States" is aspirational, a suggestion and oxymoron.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">President George W. Bush coined the term "<a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/147694/compassionate-conservatism-wont-back-anytime-soon" target="_blank">compassionate conservatism</a>," (Vyse - New Republic) which looks now to have the lift of a lead balloon. What we need instead is a compassionate capitalism. Slavery - the foundation of <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/14894629-the-half-has-never-been-told" target="_blank">American capitalism</a> - was far from anything compassionate. It is not compassionate to <a href="https://www.dcreport.org/2020/03/16/how-the-kushner-family-is-cashing-in-on-covid-19/" target="_blank">give sweetheart deals</a> to your son-in-law and his brother's company during a pandemic. It is not compassionate to have governors <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/03/coronavirus-medical-supplies-shortage-state-scramble-federal-response" target="_blank">bidding</a> on the same life-saving equipment like they're in an auction on eBay. It is not compassionate (or, competent) that the Governor of Georgia, literally miles from the Center for Disease Control <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/georgia-governor-says-he-just-learned-that-people-without-symptoms-can-spread-coronavirus/" target="_blank">didn't know</a> asymptomatic persons could transmit the virus. It is not compassionate to house children in cages at the border (after ripping them from their parents, as in slavery). Like the New Republic article above alludes, compassion has <a href="https://physics4thecool.blogspot.com/2020/04/caveats-rainbows-and-compassionate.html" target="_blank">given way to callousness</a>, an IDGAF with red caps replacing Klan robes and middle fingers replacing gold crosses. <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2017/08/03/opinions/affirmative-action-trump-race-bailey-opinion/index.html" target="_blank">Cruelty and so-called white grievance</a> is the obvious, particular point. It is a primitive instinct, racist, xenophobic and steeped in superstition; a sacrifice to Moloch on cremation pyres of (don't) care. It is a recipe for extinction, and for the gun rights advocates with thousands of rounds of ammo - your strategy is only as good as your last bullet when food supplies run out. Constitutional gun rights alone do not make civil societies: civil societies with functional governments make constitutional gun rights possible. That's not "making America great again": it is the recipe for a failed state.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Cooperation, or extinction. I will say this (sadly) to my last breath.</span></div><p> </p><p>*****</p><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <em><span style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">“China isn’t the problem. Lack of diversification is the problem,” says Belinda Archibong, an assistant professor of economics at Barnard College in New York. In Africa, “lack of regional, intra-Africa trade is the problem.” </span></em></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <em><span style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">That’s a long-standing discussion within the continent. “Maybe this crisis is going to force us to trade more amongst ourselves,” says Blandina Kilama, an economist and senior researcher at Research on Poverty Alleviation, a Tanzanian think tank.</span></em></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <em><span style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">In the U.S., John Melin is an eyewitness to the virtues of trade. Brown & Haley, the candy company where he is president and chief operating officer, has seen a rising share of its Almond Roca sales coming from overseas.</span></em></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <em><span style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">China is a big source of that demand, which helps keep the firm’s 175 employees near Tacoma, Washington, employed. Mr. Melin and his team are working hard to keep the sales flowing and to pin down some alternative suppliers for packaging.</span></em></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <em><span style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">“Part of the health of our country and our high standard of living comes from the fact that people fly on Boeing airplanes around the world, and people buy iPhones around the world, and people admire the values and institutions of the United States,” he says. That integration with the world “brings more good than bad.”</span></em></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <em><span style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">In Germany, Yorck Otto similarly sees globalization as here to stay, and probably for the better. </span></em></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <em><span style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">“No, this wheel cannot be turned back,” says Dr. Otto, president of a business association representing small and medium-sized companies.</span></em></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <em><span style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">“The global supply chain will continue to get better and better every day. This globalization will be refined, and hopefully it will be also covered under new humanitarian laws and regulations so that the world can be a little bit better through globalization,” he says. “I’m not a great fan of kids sitting in Bolivia digging into soil to get materials to make batteries, for example.”</span></em></div><p><span style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><a href="https://www.csmonitor.com/Business/2020/0309/Why-COVID-19-is-likely-to-change-globalization-not-reverse-it?cmpid=kwc2cbmrs-coronavirus&kwp_0=1605922&kwp_4=4793722&kwp_1=2032220" target="_blank">Why COVID-19 is likely to change globalization, not reverse it</a>, The Christian Science Monitor</span><br /> <span style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">WHY WE WROTE THIS</span><br /> <span style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Can the world’s fabric be undone? Some nationalists point to the coronavirus as a reason to seal borders and bring manufacturing home. But business experts say the benefits of trade are undiminished.</span></p><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">This piece was reported by Patrik Jonsson in Savannah, Georgia; Nick Squires in Rome; Ryan Lenora Brown in Johannesburg; and Lenora Chu in Berlin. It was written by Mr. Trumbull.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"> </div><center><iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/wupToqz1e2g" width="560" height="315" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe></center></div>Zombies Would be Better...https://blacksciencefictionsociety.com/profiles/blogs/zombies-would-be-better2020-03-30T10:00:00.000Z2020-03-30T10:00:00.000ZReginald L. Goodwinhttps://blacksciencefictionsociety.com/members/ReginaldLGoodwin<div><center><iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/1uWT_L58MGc" width="560" height="315" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe></center><p> </p><p><span style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Topics: Civics, Civil Rights, COVID-19, Fascism, Human Rights</span></p><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">In dystopian novels and movies, zombies are easy to spot. They're also slow and not very smart.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">They're typically not orange and <a href="https://youtu.be/kk-dLCZwg8c" target="_blank">self-admittedly</a>, whiners.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">The obligatory press briefing is a ritual I wish the media would give up, totally.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">Analysis of what he says is on the major cable networks: CNN, Fox, MSNBC. More people watch local networks because they "trust" them. Any president's message preempts local programming, and thus there's no time or functionality lending to analysis. He gets to spew BS to his cult unfiltered.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">He turns it into gaslighting.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /><em><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">Gaslighting is a tactic in which a person or entity, in order to gain more power, makes a victim question their reality. It works much better than you may think. Anyone is susceptible to gaslighting, and it is a common technique of abusers, dictators, <u>narcissists</u>, and cult leaders.</span></em></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /><em><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">In my book Gaslighting: Recognize Manipulative and Emotionally Abusive People - and Break Free I detail how gaslighters typically use the following techniques: </span></em></div><p> </p><p><em><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">1. They tell blatant lies.</span></em><br /><em><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">2. They deny they ever said something, even though you have proof.</span></em><br /><em><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">3. They use what is near and dear to you as ammunition.</span></em><br /><em><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">4. They wear you down over time.</span></em><br /><em><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">5. Their actions do not match their words.</span></em><br /><em><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">6. They throw in positive reinforcement to confuse you.</span></em><br /><em><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">7. They know confusion weakens people.</span></em><br /><em><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">8. They project.</span></em><br /><em><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">9. They try to align people against you.</span></em><br /><em><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">10. They tell you or others that you are crazy.</span></em><br /><em><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">11. They tell you everyone else is a liar.</span></em></p><p><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/here-there-and-everywhere/201701/11-warning-signs-gaslighting" target="_blank"><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">11 Warning Signs of Gaslighting</span></a><br /><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">Stephanie A. Sarkis Ph.D., Psychology Today</span></p><p><em><strong><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">Malignant Narcissism</span></strong></em></p><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /><em><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">I want to explore with you the darker side of narcissistic personality disorder, where aggression, antisocial behaviors, and suspiciousness are as prominent as their poor sense of self, fragility, and egocentricity. (Below is a video clip that explores the symptoms of malignant narcissism.)</span></em></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /><em><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">A person with malignant narcissism has the potential to destroy families, communities, <strong><u>nations</u></strong>, and work environments. This condition reflects a hybrid or blending of narcissistic and antisocial personality disorders. Psychologist Eric Fromm termed the disorder in 1964. Psychoanalyst Otto Kernberg later delineated the symptoms of the condition and presented it as an intermediary between narcissistic and antisocial personality disorders.</span></em></div><p> </p><p><em><strong><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">Why is the behavior of malignant narcissism often considered dangerous?</span></strong></em></p><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /><em><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">Individuals with this profile can form connections with others. However, they process information in ways that can hurt society in general, but also the people who love or depend on them. Family, co-workers, employees, and others in their lives often have to walk on eggshells to appease a fragile ego and minimize the occurrence of their unstable, impulsive, or aggressive behaviors.</span></em></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /><em><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;"><u>They lash out or humiliate others for infractions</u> of even the most frivolous nature (for example, you gave an opinion that differed from theirs; you demonstrated confidence, and it made them look bad; you told a joke that involved poking fun at them).</span></em></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /><em><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">For some, their grandiosity and protection of their fragile "true self" can be at such extreme levels that they will lie and give the impression that simply because they say it, that makes it reality. Many will become angered if their lies are challenged with truth or facts. Of course, this can create problems for the people close to them, as this pattern of behavior can easily veer into gaslighting.</span></em></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /><em><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">Malignant narcissism is a blend of two disorders that pose problems interpersonally for their victims — narcissistic and antisocial personality disorders. <u>It is not uncommon for others to feel anxious, intimidated by, and fearful of people with this condition</u>. The combination of poor empathy coupled with aggression, hypersensitivity, and suspiciousness <u>can bring pain to others</u>.</span></em></div><p> </p><p><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/neurosagacity/201702/how-tell-youre-dealing-malignant-narcissist" target="_blank"><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">How to Tell You're Dealing with a Malignant Narcissist</span></a><br /><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">Rhonda Freeman Ph.D., Psychology Today</span></p><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">All respect to the Walking Dead: <a href="https://physics4thecool.blogspot.com/2020/03/zombies-would-be-better.html" target="_blank">zombies</a> only exist in theatrical presentations. Like <a href="https://youtu.be/OrHdo-v9mRA" target="_blank">Gremlins</a>, there are <a href="https://www.stanforddaily.com/2011/10/21/top-5-ways-to-kill-a-zombie/" target="_blank">rules</a> to deal with them. In fictional realms, warp drive and transporters exist, Bifrost is an <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/follow-up-what-exactly-is/" target="_blank">Einstein-Rosen Bridge</a> and every crisis can be solved in less than an hour, minus commercial breaks without worrying the zombies have the nuclear codes.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">Good old undead, regular zombies: way easier, with rules.</span></div></div>Lethal Stupidity...https://blacksciencefictionsociety.com/profiles/blogs/lethal-stupidity2020-03-26T10:00:00.000Z2020-03-26T10:00:00.000ZReginald L. Goodwinhttps://blacksciencefictionsociety.com/members/ReginaldLGoodwin<div><table class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;text-align:center;" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" align="center"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align:center;"><a style="margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;" href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-_jYSOCHe_0w/Xnwh6dV4btI/AAAAAAAAOuk/FFfYvCbg6pQNUDQz6gTQxxViectgC-nygCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/Lethal%2BStupidity.jpg"><img src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-_jYSOCHe_0w/Xnwh6dV4btI/AAAAAAAAOuk/FFfYvCbg6pQNUDQz6gTQxxViectgC-nygCLcBGAsYHQ/s400/Lethal%2BStupidity.jpg" alt="Lethal%2BStupidity.jpg" width="400" height="303" border="0" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align:center;">Image source: <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/LeopardsAteMyFace/comments/fk6lu5/the_stupidity_of_some_americans/" target="_blank">Reddit</a></td></tr></tbody></table><p><br /> <span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">Topics: Civics, Civil Rights, COVID-19, Fascism, Human Rights</span></p><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;"><em>“Where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise.”</em> Thomas Gray's poem “Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College” (1742)</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;"><em>"War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength."</em> George Orwell, "1984" (1949)</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Fascists are obviously dumb as hell.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The city of Greensboro is under a shelter-in-place order until April 16. I'm heartened some <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/25/republican-governors-trump-social-distancing-148428" target="_blank">republican governors are bucking</a> Tweet Dweeb and following the science. It's ironic to think in 1863, Abraham Lincoln founded the National Academy of Science DURING the Civil War. Republicans used to be rather right-brained dominant before donning tinfoil hats.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <em><span style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">“Last night we talked about the governor of Mississippi, announcing that there would not be a statewide stay-at-home order in his state either because he said ‘Mississippi is not China,” said Maddow. “But today … the governor of Mississippi today did something brand new. He issued his own executive order that overrides and overturns any actions that have been taken by cities and towns in his state, even as he is <u>refusing to act statewide</u>.”</span></em></div><div style="text-align:justify;"> </div><p><span style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><a href="https://www.rawstory.com/2020/03/rachel-maddow-blasts-mississippi-governor-for-banning-cities-from-coronavirus-business-closures/" target="_blank">Rachel Maddow blasts Mississippi governor for banning cities from coronavirus business closures</a>, Matthew Chapman, Raw Story</span></p><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Lieutenant Governor <a href="https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2020/03/24/texas_lt_gov_dan_patrick_a_lot_of_grandparents_would_be_willing_to_die_to_stop_a_second_great_depression.html" target="_blank">Dan Patrick</a> of Texas and <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/media/489472-glenn-beck-id-rather-die-from-coronavirus-than-kill-the-country-from-economic" target="_blank">Glenn-ever-the-dry-drunk Beck</a> thinks grandparents shouldn't even wait for euthanasia from the lasers of "<a href="https://youtu.be/xSnLU9nyFSA" target="_blank">Logan's Run</a>": they should happily throw themselves into the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Moloch-ancient-god" target="_blank">arms of Moloch</a> for the sake of their real god: Mammon. Ron DeSantis is not wearing the governor's chair well since morphing into a "<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/aug/02/ron-desantis-trump-campaign-ad" target="_blank">mini-me</a>" version of his orange god. Headlines calling your decisions during a pandemic "<a href="https://www.politico.com/states/florida/story/2020/03/24/dumbest-s-desantis-takes-heat-as-he-goes-his-own-way-on-coronavirus-1268818" target="_blank">dumbest s---</a>" probably doesn't play well in re-election commercials.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Since both I believe are grandparents, I welcome and look forward to their sacrifice. As a new grandparent of eleven months now, I think I'll pass.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">This is the danger of repealing <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-fairness-doctrine-in-one-post/2011/08/23/gIQAN8CXZJ_blog.html" target="_blank">The Fairness Doctrine</a> and allowing one side to frame opinion as fact, or facts as unknowable. It allowed an entire political party - post Watergate - to in the words of Karl Rove, "create their own reality." It gave rise to right wing talk radio and its malcontents, and eventually an entire "news" channel whose license isn't journalistic: but entertainment, like their parent company. They know it is wrong on some level, but know the efficacy of shouting opponents down and wearing down by gaslighting. Without fail, like any other story they propped up and repeated, <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/3/20/21186727/hannity-coronavirus-coverage-fox-news" target="_blank">the pivot</a> from calling Coronavirus "fake news" to taking it seriously wasn't met with protests from supporters, because cults don't question authority. It creates "Ministries of Truth," Fox being the first, pumping out fiction that endangers their own median aged 65-year-old audience. A republic runs on debate of actual facts based on reality, not Ayn Rand notions of the "morality of democratic capitalism," which sounds innocent until you inspect the entire quote:</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><em>"Rand makes the best case for the morality of democratic capitalism." –Paul Ryan, praising the anti-democratic Ayn Rand, who once said, "Democracy is a totalitarian manifestation; it is not a form of freedom."</em> The inspiration for a large amount of "ideas" from the gang of Putin was dead broke at the end of her life REQUIRING <a href="https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/ayn-rand-social-security/" target="_blank">Social Security</a> before her passing. 1,168 pages of Gordon Gecko worship is a lot to plod through, which I doubt that those who cite her have read completely or understood fully. The basic gist of her works are tooled into talking points and a deification of the market that extends into the current day and this crisis of <a href="https://physics4thecool.blogspot.com/2020/03/lethal-stupidity.html" target="_blank">lethal stupidity</a> that may invariably get a lot of people killed. I know the need to "get back to normal," but think of our last normal day: 9/10/01. Before that, we walked from the ticket counter to boarding where families waved goodbye to their loved ones. A shoe and underwear bomber has us putting our shoes in tubs and being full body scanned. I'm sure my parents wished for "normal" after December 7, 1941.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I hope we start thinking of healthcare as a human right and not a privilege of the well-heeled. That we take a look at income inequality - created by policies that benefit the few on top and we STOP separating into primitive, warring tribes on the mythology of our biological warpaint: we are ONE human species and every one of us is from the continent of Africa. To survive this outbreak, we need to behave as one tribe, one race: the human race, or Moloch's altar will be full of babies and grandparents.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Every time we get a republican president, we go closer to the precipice. We look into the abyss and suddenly get our senses back and place the ship of state right after economic downturns from the cult-reflex of "trickle down economics" (disavowed, mind you by <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/david-stockman-hank-paulson-reaganomics-tarp-2011-1" target="_blank">David Stockman</a>).</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">We have an unhealthy co-dependency. We exist on a political seesaw going from boom to bust; order to chaos. We reflexively change political parties every eight years ...EVERY eight years with the few one-term exceptions that for the sake of that cliff I hope we can replicate November 3, 2020.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Else, inertia with a little momentum push will tilt our luck as a republic over into the darkness, and a virus waiting survivors at landfall.</span></div></div>Gigs and Pandemics...https://blacksciencefictionsociety.com/profiles/blogs/gigs-and-pandemics2020-03-13T10:52:20.000Z2020-03-13T10:52:20.000ZReginald L. Goodwinhttps://blacksciencefictionsociety.com/members/ReginaldLGoodwin<div><center><iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/QNo5ZDvKuHg" width="420" height="236" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe></center><p> </p><p><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">Topics: Civics, Civil Rights, Existentialism, Fascism, Human Rights, Politics</span></p><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">Center for Disease Control: <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-nCoV/index.html" target="_blank">Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19)</a></span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">I am admittedly drained by circumstances outside of my control and workload.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">Pursuing a Ph.D. in practically ANYTHING is exhausting enough. Papers are assigned. No time is allotted to complete any assigned task. There's the research proposal. There's lab work if you're in a STEM field and writing...LOTS of writing.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">It's been a week. <a href="https://www.investors.com/market-trend/stock-market-today/dow-jones-futures-apple-boeing-tesla-amd-amazon-fall-coronavirus-bear-market-1987-crash/" target="_blank">The Stock Market ate my retirement</a>. To quote a classmate, "the world is on fire, and I'm watching it burn." I feel like I've entered a near four-year dystopian nightmare that I cannot wake from. He's done this much damage...in a week.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">Next week: <a href="https://www.wspa.com/news/top-stories/nc-gov-roy-cooper-to-declare-state-of-emergency-over-covid-19-outbreak/" target="_blank">all seventeen North Carolina colleges and universities</a> will go to virtual classes. A lot of lecture is interpretive art: professors tend to "riff," not that they don't know their subjects, but at certain levels, they're not going to spoon feed you. You HAVE to attend classes, you must rewrite notes, read the text and memorize every detail preparing for quizzes or exams.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">It's going to be interesting trying to do this online. We're online for an indefinite time.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">March madness <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/march-madness-canceled-ncaa-tournament_n_5e69a1c5c5b6747ef116f368" target="_blank">has ended abruptly</a> due to Coronavirus.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">The <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nba/2020/03/12/coronavirus-impact-ncaa-nfl-nba-nhl-baseball-what-we-know/5030927002/" target="_blank">NBA, NFL and Major League Baseball</a> have suspended seasons. Might as well look for the possible cancellation the Olympics this summer. What about football in the fall? Coronavirus will lull in the hotter spring and summer months, but being here it will likely rage back-to-form as the seasons change.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">The market dropped 10% - about what it did in 1987 during that recession, but it was never driven by a narcissistic, <a href="https://fortune.com/2020/03/12/the-global-markets-bomb-following-trumps-oval-office-coronavirus-address/" target="_blank">incompetent boob</a> either high on Adderall, cocaine or an aggressive, <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/03/12/815022706/brazilian-official-who-met-trump-last-weekend-tests-positive-for-coronavirus" target="_blank">infectious virus</a>.</span></div><p><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">The origin of tips is an acronym: "<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/history-of-tipping-2015-10" target="_blank">to insure promptitude</a>" (old English). It was a term the aristocracy used for servants, particularly in restaurants.</span></p><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">Most of our restaurant servers are in the <a href="https://physics4thecool.blogspot.com/2020/03/gigs-and-pandemics.html" target="_blank">visible gig economy</a>, and make LESS than the minimum wage of $7.25/hour. They make about $2 per hour and the rest in tips, which to make it worth it, means 20% and busing a lot of tables, laborious, backbreaking work with no vacation, overtime or paid sick days.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear:both;text-align:center;"><br /> <a style="margin-left:1em;margin-right:1em;" href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7sx3N_fluYM/Xmth2w7MeSI/AAAAAAAAOtY/MN4-njI_PlAZNEJNNC--rTHz-7mPwQ0pQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/4txmwgc8l4m41.png"><img src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7sx3N_fluYM/Xmth2w7MeSI/AAAAAAAAOtY/MN4-njI_PlAZNEJNNC--rTHz-7mPwQ0pQCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/4txmwgc8l4m41.png" alt="4txmwgc8l4m41.png" width="320" height="299" border="0" /></a></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">It also means if you're sick, you can't work and therefore you can't pay your bills, or you know: eat. Maybe, you muscle through it with daytime cold medicine - a lot of it and cough drops. Maybe you blow your nose ferociously between waiting tables and hope no one notices while you infect them.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">Lamar Alexander objected to two weeks of paid sick leave, which isn't even as generous as other countries, nor that of <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-51812153" target="_blank">his colleagues</a>. Somehow we lost paid sick leave and it left with a whimper. I had six weeks in the nineties working at Motorola and AMD. You used it when you needed it; it rolled over to the next year. Now, American companies have employees take vacation, thus penalizing the employee for something out of their control. You CAN take unpaid sick leave if you run out of vacation. It sounds like the upper levels never get sick, or at their levels probably have the sick leave they've stolen from everyone else.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">Paid sick leave allows us to "<a href="https://www.statnews.com/2020/03/11/flattening-curve-coronavirus/" target="_blank">flatten the curve</a>": people can stay home, not infect others and pay their bills. Companies get healthy employees back that won't get others sick, or shutdown their businesses. It relieves the strain on the medical system, that is about to get slammed if nothing changes.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">Grad students are studying to be professionals, and they like their instructors can telecommute...gig professionals cannot.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;"><em>"My goal is to cut government in half in twenty-five years, to get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub."</em> Grover Norquist</span></div><p>Norquist had a <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/11/norquists-tax-pledge-what-it-is-and-how-it-started/" target="_blank">tax pledge</a>:</p><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <em><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">I, ______, pledge to the taxpayers of the ______ district of the state of ______ and to the American people that I will: One, oppose any and all efforts to increase the marginal income tax rates for individuals and/or businesses; and Two, to oppose any net reduction or elimination of deductions and credits, unless matched dollar for dollar by further reducing tax rates</span></em></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">The taxpayers Grover and the criminal-element-masquerading-as-a-political-party is honoring are at a little higher pay grade than the rest of us. Decades of not paying for shit resulted in crumbling infrastructure the "invisible hand" of the market never repaired, it resulted in drowning the baby in the bathwater by cutting essential services like disaster preparedness for pandemics out of <a href="https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-fire-pandemic-team/" target="_blank">spite for your predecessor</a>.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">It's really dogma and cult-like in their slavish devotion to this creed. "Cutting to grow" the economy has never and I repeat: NEVER trickled down to anyone! Instead of Reaganomics, it should correctly be called "<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jun/12/why-are-we-still-pretending-trickle-down-economics-work" target="_blank">Laffernomics</a>." It's a con job that's been siphoning funds up the ladder into the canopy of the 1% for four decades now. When the 99% ask questions, they push conspiracy theories and racist tropes so we can tear at each other. It's worked for them since the Civil War, and ensured their hegemony. Their oligarchy is more blatant now, and we're exhausted by their relentless propaganda.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">The gig economy is the result of globalization and moving manufacturing via trade agreements overseas. It looks good on paper and saves a lot of money for companies. Sadly, the factory off-shored moves support jobs out of a nation, state, and municipality: plumbers, painters, janitors and cooks; nurses and daycare workers for on-site offered care. People who tried college, or knew they weren't "college material" (whatever that means), but could make a decent living and raise a family in jobs of worth and dignity. China, Korea (the masters of drive-by testing) and Taiwan will recover from Coronavirus: after quarantine of their populations - they'll just turn on the factories that used to be here. Their plumbers, painters, janitors and cooks will report for duty.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">Having gig economies means Uber drivers trying to make a buck will unwittingly spread the virus to every customer they pick up, the waiter will breath on the restaurant client; the usher at church will pass it with the collection plate and Eucharist sacraments.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">Humans work by cooperation and collective activity. Everything from sporting events to Broadway shows, worship services, weddings and funerals will have to be rethought. People will start ordering groceries online. As schools close, children already dependent on at least one meal there will be driven into food insecurity and the nation into developing world status. We will be further atomized and stratified, further isolated from one another. How exactly under such circumstances can we vote this nightmare out? I often wonder if this chaos is ineptitude, or nefarious.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">"United States" is already oxymoron and an inside joke to authoritarian dictators.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">I'll take off Monday, but the blog should go up at its usual time. My commute to school has suddenly been reduced.</span></div></div>The Unthinkable...https://blacksciencefictionsociety.com/profiles/blogs/the-unthinkable2020-02-14T12:51:32.000Z2020-02-14T12:51:32.000ZReginald L. Goodwinhttps://blacksciencefictionsociety.com/members/ReginaldLGoodwin<div><table class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;text-align:center;" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" align="center"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align:center;"><a style="margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;" href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-MQg5Aza0IcE/XkYcezbrs8I/AAAAAAAAOrc/MDciU70xF3sd86HWFncaM_z8IkDxViq0gCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/Define%2BFascism.JPG"><img src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-MQg5Aza0IcE/XkYcezbrs8I/AAAAAAAAOrc/MDciU70xF3sd86HWFncaM_z8IkDxViq0gCLcBGAsYHQ/s400/Define%2BFascism.JPG" width="400" height="166" border="0" alt="Define%2BFascism.JPG" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align:center;"><a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/define-fascism/" target="_blank">Define Fascism</a> - Seth Tobocman, The Nation</td></tr></tbody></table><p><br /><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">Topics: Civics, Civil Rights, Existentialism, Fascism, Human Rights</span></p><p><em><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">1. Don’t obey in advance</span></em><br /><em><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">2. Defend institutions</span></em><br /><em><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">3. Beware the one-party state</span></em><br /><em><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">4. Take responsibility for the face of the world</span></em><br /><em><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">5. Remember professional ethics</span></em><br /><em><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">6. Be wary of paramilitaries</span></em><br /><em><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">7. Be reflective if you must be armed</span></em><br /><em><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">8. Stand out</span></em><br /><em><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">9. Be kind to our language</span></em><br /><em><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">10. Believe in truth</span></em><br /><em><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">11. Investigate</span></em><br /><em><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">12. Make eye contact and small talk</span></em><br /><em><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">13. Practice corporeal politics</span></em><br /><em><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">14. Establish a private life</span></em><br /><em><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">15. Contribute to good causes</span></em><br /><em><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">16. Learn from peers in other countries</span></em><br /><em><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">17. Listen for dangerous words</span></em><br /><em><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">18. <u>Be calm when the unthinkable arrives</u></span></em><br /><em><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">19. Be a patriot</span></em><br /><em><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">20. Be as courageous as you can</span></em></p><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">The above is from the book "<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Tyranny-Twenty-Lessons-Twentieth-Century-ebook/dp/B01N4M1BQY" target="_blank">On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons From the Twentieth Century</a>," by Yale Historian Timothy Snyder. Also by the author: "<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Road-Unfreedom-Russia-Europe-America-ebook/dp/B074YM8W91/ref=pd_sim_351_1/259-7037274-7363515?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B074YM8W91&pd_rd_r=8556d2ba-0c2d-42e7-b64c-14d7c21aa7b7&pd_rd_w=XjYSf&pd_rd_wg=384IX&pf_rd_p=65e3eab0-d81f-4a76-93ff-f0b7b1d6cd3d&pf_rd_r=9AYETP9WV33TCHCMZEA6&psc=1&refRID=9AYETP9WV33TCHCMZEA6" target="_blank">The Road to Unfreedom: Russia, Europe, America</a>."</span></div><p><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">From the post "<a href="https://physics4thecool.blogspot.com/2017/03/inevitability-sports-metaphors-and.html" target="_blank">Inevitability, Sports Metaphors and Republics...</a>" March 17, 2017:</span></p><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">Timothy Snyder, author of <a href="https://physics4thecool.blogspot.com/2020/02/the-unthinkable.html" target="_blank">On Tyranny</a> warns that republics are not "automatic" nor are they inevitable. It requires a buy-in from the governed, a fundamental knowledge of the mechanism of republics and the citizen's responsibilities in keeping them going. One simple aspect is voting; the other is holding our elected officials accountable for their actions towards their constituency, not their donors or the donor class. That alludes to other forms of government that have the labels: autocracy, authoritarianism, corporatism, kleptocracy, oligarchy, totalitarianism that are the basis of very haunting dystopian novels of hopeless futures, Orwell's "<a href="https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/g/georgeorwe159438.html" target="_blank">boot stamping on a human face forever</a>." Our lethargy in this country and overseas is due to the near instantaneous access to information, resulting in a citizenry in western nations that would "rather not think about it," or in the spirit of Sinclair Lewis, "<a href="http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/it-cant-happen-here-sinclair-lewis/1002456751?ean=9780451465641" target="_blank">It Can't Happen Here</a>." In his prescient essay in 2004, Chris Hedges <a href="http://churchandstate.org.uk/2017/02/the-christian-right-and-the-rise-of-american-fascism/" target="_blank">begs to differ</a> *:</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /><em><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">* The movement seeks the imprint of law and science. It must discredit the rational disciplines that are the pillars of the Enlightenment to abolish the liberal polity of the Enlightenment. This corruption of science and law is vital in promoting the doctrine. Creationism, or “intelligent design,” like Eugenics for the Nazis, must be introduced into the mainstream as a valid scientific discipline to destroy the discipline of science itself. This is why the Christian Right is working to bring test cases to ensure that school textbooks include “intelligent design” and condemn gay marriage.</span></em></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /><em><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">The drive by the Christian Right to include crackpot theories in scientific or legal debate is part of the campaign to destroy dispassionate and honest intellectual inquiry. Facts become interchangeable with opinions. An understanding of reality is not to be based on the elaborate gathering of facts and evidence. The ideology alone is true. Facts that get in the way of the ideology can be altered. <u>Lies, in this worldview, become true</u>. Hannah Arendt called this effort “nihilistic relativism” although a better phrase might be collective insanity.</span></em></div><p>*****</p><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /><em><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">Among the Founding Fathers’ chief goals was to do away with a government where the king was above the law and had absolute power over the lives of his subjects. In our system, the President, like every other citizen, is meant to be subject to the law. The Founding Fathers were explicit about that intention when they debated the shape the new government they were creating would take. And that quintessentially American view that no man is above the law has been the case up until the presidency of Donald Trump.</span></em></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /><em><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">The rule-of-law approach to government means not only that a President must himself be accountable, but also that he cannot be permitted to create special rules that he can use to benefit his friends or punish his enemies. Trump’s most recent efforts to manipulate the criminal justice system in this regard are like a four-star fire alarm that should summon the entire country, not just half of it, to put out the fire. This is not a partisan matter – whether a President is a Democrat, a Republican or affiliated with any other ideology, he or she cannot be permitted to turn the criminal justice system into a political weapon.</span></em></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /><em><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">The rule-of-law approach to government means not only that a President must himself be accountable, but also that he cannot be permitted to create special rules that he can use to benefit his friends or punish his enemies. Trump’s most recent efforts to manipulate the criminal justice system in this regard are like a four-star fire alarm that should summon the entire country, not just half of it, to put out the fire. This is not a partisan matter – whether a President is a Democrat, a Republican or affiliated with any other ideology, he or she cannot be permitted to turn the criminal justice system into a political weapon.</span></em></div><p> </p><p><a href="https://time.com/5783007/donald-trump-doj-resignations/" target="_blank"><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">If Trump Is Allowed to Turn the Justice Department Into a Political Weapon, No One Is Safe</span></a><br /><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">Joyce Vance, TIME</span></p><p>*****</p><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">We are here because of "The Gipper," Ronald Reagan, who stole money from Social Security to pay for tax cuts for the 1% that made it insolvent. The B movie president was followed by proto reality television "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous" leading to "The Apprentice" and the poor acting and business management skills of a grifter that squandered all the money his father every gave him and lost money on a casino - the first time in history.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">We are here because to Anglo Americans, the unthinkable was the election and re-election of Barack Obama. He represented to them the existential threat of being numerical minorities circa 2042, even though many will not live to see it (if, as I now have my doubts, humanity is still here).</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">We suffered eight years of madness about tan suits, Grey Poupon mustard, open outrage at the First Lady Michelle's bare arms - and speculation she was transgender - along with Obama being a secret Muslim, gay communist socialist Martian hellbent on gay marrying their grandchildren, fighting in-their-minds, "hoax" climate change and making them eat veggie burgers. Naked first ladies in filmed girl-on-girl sexual positions and prodigiously pathological lying Russian puppets is apparently, white evangelically fine now; "<a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/the-report/articles/2017-12-08/the-gop-is-no-longer-the-party-of-family-values-and-fiscal-discipline" target="_blank">family values</a>" is now for suckers.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">We are here because this country's original sin - slavery and the Apartheid Jim Crow - was an obvious target to exploit with the infrastructure of AM Talk Radio and the Internet that democratized obfuscation in the likes of Alex Jones, Steve Bannon and the alt-wrong; Storm Front and digitized Klansmen in robes or polo shirts with Tiki torches by a Russian power that used it as a Trojan Horse and Achilles Heel.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">We are here. What are YOU going to do about it?</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">This election on November 3, 2020 is consequential. Our federal republic can die as TS Eliot opined "<a href="https://allpoetry.com/the-hollow-men" target="_blank">with a whimper</a>."</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">His winning would be nightmarish, but more frightening is a loss that sparks random violence from armed paramilitaries on which Orange Satan pours gasoline on a pyre. Rising from the ashes like a limp phoenix, he would "declare victory" over the ash heap and no-go zones that would be our former republic.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">If there is a twenty-first addendum to Dr. Snyder's points, be prepared to fight post November 3, 2020 if he loses. Michael Cohen, knowing his old boss knew the "peaceful transition of power" would be anathema to the faux billionaire real estate confidence man. </span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /><em><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">“Better to reign in Hell, than to serve in Heaven.”</span></em></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">― John Milton, Paradise Lost</span></div></div>Rule of Law...https://blacksciencefictionsociety.com/profiles/blogs/rule-of-law2020-02-12T09:55:00.000Z2020-02-12T09:55:00.000ZReginald L. Goodwinhttps://blacksciencefictionsociety.com/members/ReginaldLGoodwin<div><center><iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/kllPUCjKHI4" width="560" height="315" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe></center><p> </p><p><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">Topics: Civics, Civil Rights, Existentialism, Fascism, Human Rights</span></p><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /><strong><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">What is the Rule of Law?</span></strong></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /><em><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">The rule of law is a <a href="https://physics4thecool.blogspot.com/2020/02/rule-of-law.html" target="_blank">set of principles</a>, or ideals, for ensuring an orderly and just society. Many countries throughout the world strive to uphold the rule of law where no one is above the law, everyone is treated equally under the law, everyone is held accountable to the same laws, there are clear and fair processes for enforcing laws, there is an independent judiciary, and human rights are guaranteed for all.</span></em></div><div style="text-align:justify;"> </div><p><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">Source: American Bar Association, Public Education: <a href="https://www.americanbar.org/groups/public_education/resources/rule-of-law/" target="_blank">Rule of Law</a></span></p><p>*****</p><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">WASHINGTON — <em>The U.S. attorney who had presided over an inconclusive criminal investigation into former acting FBI director Andrew McCabe was abruptly removed from the job last month in one of several recent moves by Attorney General William Barr to take control of legal matters of personal interest to President Donald Trump, according to multiple people familiar with the matter.</em></span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /><em><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">A person familiar with the matter confirmed to NBC News that Trump has rescinded the nomination of Jessie Liu, who had been the U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C., for a job as an undersecretary at the Treasury Department.</span></em></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /><em><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">Liu also supervised the case against Trump associate Roger Stone. On Tuesday, all four line prosecutors withdrew from the case — and one quit the Justice Department altogether — after Barr and his top aides intervened to reverse a stiff sentencing recommendation of up to nine years in prison that the line prosecutors had filed with the court Monday. (Liu left before the sentencing recommendation was made.)</span></em></div><div style="text-align:justify;"> </div><p><a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-department/barr-takes-control-legal-matters-interest-trump-including-stone-sentencing-n1135231" target="_blank"><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">Barr takes control of legal matters of interest to Trump, including Stone sentencing</span></a><br /><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">Carol E. Lee, Ken Dilanian and Peter Alexander, NBCNEWS</span></p><p>*****</p><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /><em><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) is demanding that Attorney General William Barr testify publicly over the Justice Department's decision to reduce the recommended sentence for Trump associate Roger Stone. </span></em></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /><em><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">Harris is asking Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) to call Barr before the panel, of which she is a member.</span></em></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /><em><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">"I request that you immediately schedule a hearing for Attorney General William Barr to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee so that the committee and the American people can understand the Justice Department’s decision to overrule its career prosecutors in this case," Harris wrote in a letter to Graham.</span></em></div><div style="text-align:justify;"> </div><p><a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/482687-harris-demands-barr-testify-over-roger-stone-sentence-recommendation" target="_blank"><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">Harris demands Barr testify over Roger Stone sentence recommendation</span></a><br /><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">Jordain Carney, The Hill</span></p><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">News flash (and all due respect to Senator Harris): he won't.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">He, along with Wilbur Ross <a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/nation-world/ct-nw-house-william-barr-wilbur-ross-contempt-20190717-2tvjhr4vxjactjcy2dj3o333hm-story.html" target="_blank">ignored subpoenas</a> sent by the House of Representatives due to the coming census regarding this administration's plans to dispute citizenship, translation: negate brown people.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">The policies of the United States regarding immigration has a history of blatant racism. The rule of law has always been dubiously applied differential to its black and brown citizens.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">What STOPS our government from extrajudicial killings? Where is the breaking mechanism for it? Surely not in the senate. Will we see a violation of Posse Comitatus?</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /><em><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">The Posse Comitatus Act is a United States federal law (18 U.S.C. § 1385, original at 20 Stat. 152) signed on June 18, 1878, by President Rutherford B. Hayes. The purpose of the act – in concert with the Insurrection Act of 1807 – is to limit the powers of the federal government in using federal military personnel to enforce domestic policies within the United States. It was passed as an amendment to an army appropriation bill following the end of Reconstruction and was updated in 1956 and 1981.</span></em></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /><em><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">The act specifically applies only to the United States Army and, as amended in 1956, the United States Air Force. Although the act does not explicitly mention the United States Navy and the United States Marine Corps, the Department of the Navy has prescribed regulations that are generally construed to give the act force with respect to those services as well. <u>The act does not prevent the Army National Guard or the Air National Guard under state authority from acting in a law enforcement capacity within its home state or in an adjacent state if invited by that state's governor. The United States Coast Guard, which operates under the Department of Homeland Security, is not covered by the Posse Comitatus Act either, primarily because although the Coast Guard is an armed service, it also has both a maritime law enforcement mission and a federal regulatory agency mission</u>.</span></em></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;"><em>The title of the act comes from the legal concept of posse comitatus, the authority under which a county sheriff, or other law officer, conscripts any able-bodied person to assist in keeping the peace.</em> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posse_Comitatus_Act" target="_blank">Wikipedia/Posse_Comitatus_Act</a></span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">There is just enough wiggle room for a demagogic despot and a subservient lackey as head of the DOJ; the courts stacked with lifetime federal judges the ABA <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/ABA_ratings_during_the_Trump_administration" target="_blank">deems unqualified</a>, it is the recipe for a slow coup, a descent from democracy to despotism; from federal republic to fascism.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">I'm sure the Nazis on the way to exterminating six million Jews, tested the waters with <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/immigration/24-immigrants-have-died-ice-custody-during-trump-administration-n1015291" target="_blank">the first 24</a>.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">What do you do when the threat to your own continued existence...is your own "government"? The "gang of Putin" actively purge voters in Georgia. They make it difficult for (currently) numerical minorities to vote. They ignore laws and statutes they know they're guilty of violating. They're shameless and like Orange Satan, unchecked.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">The U.S. Constitution is officially toilet paper.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">We're in the fight of our lives.</span></div></div>The Last Republican...https://blacksciencefictionsociety.com/profiles/blogs/the-last-republican2020-02-07T10:00:00.000Z2020-02-07T10:00:00.000ZReginald L. Goodwinhttps://blacksciencefictionsociety.com/members/ReginaldLGoodwin<div><table class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;text-align:center;" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" align="center"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align:center;"><a style="margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;" href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-EqHW92-9MoM/XjyeUFgEjsI/AAAAAAAAOqs/zPBs1gaa8p40dxyc8-Ij_5QWv_Sr_tyqwCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/f5fo2wml-720.jpg"><img src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-EqHW92-9MoM/XjyeUFgEjsI/AAAAAAAAOqs/zPBs1gaa8p40dxyc8-Ij_5QWv_Sr_tyqwCLcBGAsYHQ/s400/f5fo2wml-720.jpg" width="400" height="225" border="0" alt="f5fo2wml-720.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align:center;">Mitt Romney on the Senate floor, image source: <a href="https://www.axios.com/mitt-romney-trump-impeachment-3d5b96b0-6a14-4fc1-b4e8-40f5369e5915.html" target="_blank">Axios</a></td></tr></tbody></table><p> </p><p><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">Topics: Civics, Civil Rights, Existentialism, Fascism, Human Rights</span></p><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">A criminal was acquitted Wednesday. A trial was held for the first time in the history of the republic with no witnesses and no evidence examined. It was a shame, and a sham.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">Perhaps <a href="https://physics4thecool.blogspot.com/2020/02/the-last-republican.html" target="_blank">democracy died</a> Wednesday. It died in the Wiemar Republic for a time once Chancellor Hitler made himself Fuhrer, and overthrew their constitution. Post this kangaroo court, we are a banana republic that just crowned the mad court jester, king.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">There were profiles in courage on the democratic side.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">Doug Jones was a Civil Rights lawyer that won a hard fought and decades-long case <a href="https://www.history.com/news/how-doug-jones-brought-kkk-church-bombers-to-justice" target="_blank">against the terrorists</a> that bombed the 16 Street Baptist Church, and killed four little black girls. It happened on my mother's birthday when I was a year and a month old: September 15, 1963. He won against Roy Moore, accused of pedophilia and creepy behavior around malls. Roy is running again in the Republican primaries, as is Jeffrey Beauregard Sessions III who wants his old job back. He was the first senator to back Orange Satan and one of the first he turned on when he recused himself in the Mueller investigation. Doug could have acquitted a criminal, but then that wouldn't have made sense pursuing justice decades denied.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">Kyrsten Sinema just won her seat and now has to defend it in the traditionally red state of Arizona. <em>"Sinema began her political career as an activist for the Green Party before joining the Arizona Democratic Party in 2004. In the 2012 elections, she was elected to the United States House of Representatives, becoming the first openly bisexual person elected to Congress and the second openly LGBT woman elected to Congress. After her election to Congress, she shifted toward the political center, joining the conservative Democratic Blue Dog Coalition and the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus and amassing a "reliably moderate-Democratic" voting record.</em></span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;"><em>Sinema won the 2018 United States Senate election in Arizona to replace retiring Senator Jeff Flake, defeating Republican nominee Martha McSally. She became Arizona's senior senator immediately upon taking office. Sinema is the first woman to be elected to the U.S. Senate from Arizona."</em> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyrsten_Sinema" target="_blank">Wikipedia</a> She could have joined McSally in demeaning the fourth estate. The easy thing to do was vote to acquit, "convert" to the Republican Party and pick up the devil's blessings. She chose The Constitution over a criminal and her comfort.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">Jon Tester is known for his missing fingers, a childhood accident with a meat grinder. He's in a red state that both supported the orange shit stain, and could turn on him. His fidelity is to the rule of law, and that no one is above it.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">Joe Mansion is the epitome of a "blue dog democrat." He voted for Kavenaugh after the Christine Ford testimony, reminiscent of the Anita Hill and Clarence Thomas hearing except for the yelling, beer references and histrionics. He faces the possibility of defeat in a very red state. He chose not to fear.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /><em><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">History has indeed taught us that when it comes to the instincts that drive us, fear has no rival. As the lead House impeachment manager, Representative Adam Schiff, has noted, Robert Kennedy spoke of how “moral courage is a rarer commodity than bravery in battle.”</span></em></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /><em><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">Playing on that fear, the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, sought a quick impeachment trial for President Trump with as little attention to it as possible. Reporters, who usually roam the Capitol freely, have been cordoned off like cattle in select areas. Mr. McConnell ordered limited camera views in the Senate chamber so only presenters — not absent senators — could be spotted.</span></em></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /><em><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">And barely a peep from Republican lawmakers.</span></em></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /><em><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">One journalist remarked to me, “How in the world can these senators walk around here upright when they have no backbone?”</span></em></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /><em><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">Fear has a way of bending us.</span></em></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/05/opinion/trump-senate-acquittal-impeachment.html" target="_blank"><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">In Private, Republicans Admit They Acquitted Trump Out of Fear</span></a></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">Sherrod Brown, Democratic Senator from Ohio</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">Haltingly, emotionally one lone republican voted what his party no longer has or condones: his conscience.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">I am not a fan of Mitt Romney.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">His strong belief in his faith I don't share. There are verses in Mormon scripture disparaging to African Americans in their "war on heaven," giving incarnation to valiant angels in the cosmic conflict as "light-shinned babies"; those of lesser valor as dark-skinned. They have since disavowed those beliefs.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">As the candidate of the Republican Party in 2012, he was as dissembling as any other republican. He lied in the first debate with President Obama, a precursor to the rampant obfuscation and assault on truth we're subjected to daily. He was not triumphant in their second debate, the president regaining his footing, but Obama's dismissal of Russia as an existential threat will be researched by American historians...provided we still have a republic based on facts, reality and principle. Romney lost, and was as startled as his wife was because of the hardened-from-facts bubble that is conservative media, or as Karl Rove opined, a "created reality."</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">Perhaps his halting was the effervescence of bursting through that bubble; his emotion penance for a party and a world he had some part in creating.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /><em><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">The Latter Day Saints, according to Rushton's version, would "go to the Rocky Mountains and... be a great and mighty people," associated in the prophecy's figurative language, <u>with one of the biblical four Horsemen of the Apocalypse in the Book of Revelation</u>.</span></em></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;"><em>Smith's supposed original statement predicts that <u>the US Constitution will one day "hang like a thread</u>" but be saved by Latter-day Saints. The embellished version portrays it to be "by the efforts of the White Horse."</em></span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">Source: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Horse_Prophecy" target="_blank">Wikipedia/White_Horse_Prophecy</a></span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">Perhaps Senator Romney knows this prophecy. Perhaps he believes he embodies it. Perhaps he does not in either case.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">He did behave Wednesday in the well of the world's former most deliberative body, as a man feeling the weight of history and his moment in it.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">Despite all of my misgivings to him, we did witness the political passing, post the mortal transition of John McCain...of the last republican.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/05/us/politics/mitt-romney-impeachment-speech-transcript.html" target="_blank"><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">Full Transcript: Mitt Romney’s Speech Announcing Vote to Convict Trump</span></a></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">New York Times, February 5, 2020</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /><em><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">“Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the assessment <u>that something else is more important than fear</u>.”</span></em></div><p><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">― Franklin D. Roosevelt</span></p></div>Naked Oligarchy...https://blacksciencefictionsociety.com/profiles/blogs/naked-oligarchy2020-01-31T10:00:00.000Z2020-01-31T10:00:00.000ZReginald L. Goodwinhttps://blacksciencefictionsociety.com/members/ReginaldLGoodwin<div><table class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;text-align:center;" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" align="center"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align:center;"><a style="margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;" href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1sw6ZbwM86E/XjMaKCalNVI/AAAAAAAAOpw/dBJxeotOADcEyiiU_CohYYlNbUuLJ3j2gCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/1_Gp7vDaUmpkX_9-N2i-MUow.jpeg"><img src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1sw6ZbwM86E/XjMaKCalNVI/AAAAAAAAOpw/dBJxeotOADcEyiiU_CohYYlNbUuLJ3j2gCLcBGAsYHQ/s400/1_Gp7vDaUmpkX_9-N2i-MUow.jpeg" alt="1_Gp7vDaUmpkX_9-N2i-MUow.jpeg" width="400" height="302" border="0" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align:center;">Image Source: <a href="https://extranewsfeed.com/the-emperors-new-clothes-trump-the-media-and-the-problems-of-pluralistic-ignorance-afb276f0bc1e" target="_blank">Extra News Feed</a> link below</td></tr></tbody></table><p><br /> <span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">Topics: Civics, Civil Rights, Existentialism, Fascism, Human Rights</span></p><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;"><em>"The Emperor's New Clothes" (Danish: Kejserens nye klæder) is a short tale written by Danish author Hans Christian Andersen, about two weavers who promise an emperor a new suit of clothes that they say is invisible to those who are unfit for their positions, stupid, or incompetent – while in reality, they make no clothes at all, making everyone believe the clothes are invisible to them. When the emperor parades before his subjects in his new "clothes", no one dares to say that they do not see any suit of clothes on him for fear that they will be seen as stupid. Finally a child cries out, "<u>But he isn't wearing anything at all!</u>" The tale has been translated into over 100 languages.</em> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Emperor%27s_New_Clothes" target="_blank">Wikipedia</a></span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <strong><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">The Real Story Behind the Story</span></strong></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <em><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">For social psychologists, the story is a textbook example of <a href="https://physics4thecool.blogspot.com/2020/01/naked-oligarchy.html" target="_blank">pluralistic ignorance</a>, a social phenomenon in which “no one believes, but everyone believes that everyone else believes” (Krech and Crutchfield, 1948). Where pluralistic ignorance occurs, great mischief often follows. Jens Ulrik Hansen elaborates: “pluralistic ignorance is the phenomenon where a group of people shares a false belief about the beliefs, norms, actions or thoughts of the other group members.” This sort of thing happens all the time, and most people follow at least some rules and norms not because they believe in and approve of them, but because everyone else seems to.</span></em></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <em><strong><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">"Pluralistic ignorance is a social phenomenon in which “no one believes, but everyone believes that everyone else believes."</span></strong></em></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;"><a href="https://extranewsfeed.com/the-emperors-new-clothes-trump-the-media-and-the-problems-of-pluralistic-ignorance-afb276f0bc1e" target="_blank">The Emperor’s New Clothes: Trump, The Media and the Problems of Pluralistic Ignorance</a>, Christopher Burgess, Extra News Feed</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">Joni Ernst gave away the game on <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/28/us/politics/joe-biden-joni-ernst.html" target="_blank">Joe Biden and Iowa</a>. Ken Starr acts like <a href="https://www.msnbc.com/the-beat-with-ari/watch/ken-starr-then-and-now-his-impeachment-arguments-for-trump-and-against-clinton-77663301837" target="_blank">he's never impeached a president</a> for a blow job, credulously arguing that collaboration with a foreign power isn't as bad as extramarital fellatio. Alan-<a href="https://www.theroot.com/alan-dershowitz-sure-i-got-a-massage-at-jeffrey-epstei-1836314016" target="_blank">defender-of-pedophiles</a>-Dershowitz is essentially arguing the Nixon "<a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2020/01/30/alan-dershowitz-controversial-trump-impeachment-argument/4618461002/" target="_blank">if it's the president, it's not illegal</a>" defense while getting <a href="https://twitter.com/John_Scott_G/status/1222696612180324353?s=20" target="_blank">#Dershbag</a> to impressively trend on Twitter. The wring-our-hands constitutional stewards during <a href="http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/gop-criticisms-obamas-lawlessness-appear-increasingly-ironic" target="_blank">black emperor president</a> can't sit on their asses <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/23/us/politics/senators-impeachment-scene.html" target="_blank">longer than an a few hours</a> before making airplanes, crossword puzzles or playing with <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/479595-gop-senator-provides-fidget-spinners-to-senate-colleagues-at-lunch" target="_blank">fidget toys</a>.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <em><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">Be that as it may, <strong>Oligarchy is here.</strong> The political structures of the republic are still operative but increasingly ineffective at stopping Oligarchy from its purpose, which is to suck all resources toward the top.</span></em></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <em><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">The U.S. Oligarchy can't be described with classifications such as upper, middle, and lower class. Oligarchy divides society (with amazing success!) into rigid strata or tiers.</span></em></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <em><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">Top Tier is the "highest degree of authority ... free from control." A Paul Simon lyric defined them: "a loose affiliation of millionaires and billionaires." The operative word is "loose." Conspiracy theorists derail when they imagine tightly disciplined cabals. To think the Top Tier acts in concert is to underestimate how viciously and constantly its components compete among themselves. An oligarchy is more like a clan: They argue with each other but unite against the Other – that "other," in this case, being everyone else.</span></em></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;"><a href="https://www.austinchronicle.com/columns/2010-04-09/990614/" target="_blank">Letters at 3AM: 'O' Is for Oligarchy</a>, Michael Ventura, The Austin Chronicle, April 9, 2010</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">This was a prescient article I read in the print version of the Austin Chronicle when I was living in the city at the time. It printed over several weeks and had me coming back to the cafe to digest it along with coffee. The tiers it described below the Top Tier are well-compensated professionals (six figure and above incomes), skilled services (skills that cannot be outsourced); the unskilled tier and beneath the unskilled tier: "spare parts" - a natural place for the homeless and mentally ill.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">There is a lament for a golden era of the Founding Fathers. Justice Antonin Scalia was a described "strict constructionist," meaning <em>"a judge to apply the text only as it is written. Once the court has a clear meaning of the text, no further investigation is required. Judges—in this view—should avoid drawing inferences from a statute or constitution and focus only on the text itself."</em> (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strict_constructionism" target="_blank">Wikipedia</a>) He apparently did not use that as self-description, it was merely applied to him by those who saw advantage in ascribing it to him. The reason Moscow Mitch held his seat after his demise from Merrick Garland - and was prepared to continue it if Hillary Clinton had become president - was because of this archaic view. The Constitution as it was originally written ascribed the mathematics of "three-fifths a human" to the kidnapped African Diaspora, which directly relates to the equally archaic <a href="https://www.history.com/news/electoral-college-founding-fathers-constitutional-convention" target="_blank">electoral college</a>.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">In a sense, our republic was designed for oligarchs. In a "strict constructionist" view of the original documents, only propertied white men would be given the "audacity of [the] vote":</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <em><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">The right of suffrage is a fundamental Article in Republican Constitutions. The regulation of it is, at the same time, a task of peculiar delicacy. Allow the right [to vote] <u>exclusively to property [owners]</u>, and the rights of persons may be oppressed... . Extend it equally to all, and the rights of property [owners] ...may be overruled by a majority without property....</span></em></div><p><a href="https://www.loc.gov/teachers/classroommaterials/presentationsandactivities/presentations/elections/founders-and-the-vote.html" target="_blank"><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">Library of Congress: The Founders and the Vote</span></a></p><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">Excluded from the franchise: the African Diaspora ("property," along with the real estate of plantations), First Nation Peoples, Women; non-English speaking peoples.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">For all the poetic waxing on our "founding documents," this sounds an awful lot like oligarchy.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">So, the descendants of these crimped dick constructionists are hankering for "the good old days" when men were WHITE Anglo Saxon Protestant Cisgenger (WASP-C) men, they were the only ones that could vote and everyone else was an asterisk.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">What about Clarence Thomas? Yeah, about Clarence <a href="https://www.npr.org/2017/12/10/569716802/a-refresher-on-anita-hill-and-clarence-thomas" target="_blank">long-dong</a> Thomas...</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <em><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">In Stowe’s 1852 book, the character of Sambo was one of the slave overseers that work for the cruel slave owner, Simon Legree. Uncle Tom, a god-fearing slave with a compassionate heart, was tormented and beaten to death by Sambo, who regretted his act even as Tom forgave him as he was dying. Although Stowe had higher aims with her book, the depiction of Black characters as matronly and subservient further added to stereotypes that persist today.</span></em></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;"><a href="https://blackamericaweb.com/2017/01/11/little-known-black-history-fact-sambo/" target="_blank">Little Known Black History Fact: Sambo</a>, D. L. Chandler, Black America Web, 1/11/17</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">Long-dong. Sambo. Use the right epithets. He can continue <a href="https://abovethelaw.com/2016/04/caption-contest-justice-never-sleeps-except-during-oral-arguments/" target="_blank">taking naps</a>. He's useless, and knows he can't come back to the family BBQ.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">So, as this wholesale siphoning goes on, the "vast sucking sound" is as effective as it's always been since the late billionaire Ross Perot coined the phrase (and like Joni, kind of revealed the game).</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;"><em>94% of American voters supported universal background checks, according to a Quinnipiac University Polling Institute poll with a margin of error of +/- 3.4%.</em> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_background_check" target="_blank">Wikipedia</a></span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <em><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">In fact, according to a Public Policy Polling survey, 83 percent of gun owners support expanded background checks on sales of all firearms, including 72 percent of all NRA members.</span></em></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;"><a href="https://iop.harvard.edu/get-involved/harvard-political-review/vast-majority-americans-support-universal-background-checks" target="_blank">The Vast Majority of Americans Support Universal Background Checks. Why Doesn’t Congress?</a> Victor Agbafe, Harvard Political Review</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <em><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">The latest Quinnipiac University poll, released earlier today, shows that a large majority—75 percent—of voters think the Senate should allow witness testimony in the ongoing impeachment trial. Respondents appeared to have answered along party lines, with 49 percent of self-identified Republicans, 95 percent of Democrats and 75 percent of independents saying there should be witnesses.</span></em></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/75-americans-trends-after-poll-shows-majority-americans-want-hear-witnesses-trump-1484487" target="_blank"><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">'75% of Americans' Trends After Poll Shows Majority of Americans Want To Hear Witnesses At Trump Impeachment Trial</span></a></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">Christina Zhao, Newsweek</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">A democratic republic <a href="https://represent.us/" target="_blank">would respond</a> to such data; an oligarchy with a lower tier of a well-compensated professional class responding to wealthy donors would not, and adamantly so. </span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">If we actually want a functioning democratic republic, we better act like it.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">It may take some door knocking. It may take some cold calling for candidates, your representatives and senators. If they're part of the "<a href="https://www.amazon.com/GOP-Gang-of-Putin-Treason/dp/B07FKJ5687" target="_blank">gang of Putin</a>," it will take calling multiple times. It may take some posting signs in your yards that open you sadly to assault by Neanderthals prone to violence against sunshine - "woke" tweets and "<a href="https://www.dictionary.com/browse/fleek" target="_blank">on fleek</a>" Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat updates don't count. If voting wasn't that important, <a href="https://fairfight.com/" target="_blank">Staci Abrams</a> wouldn't have a fight in Georgia. Adam Schiff and the House managers didn't convince a single, made up mind in the 53-47 crowd, but hopefully it did in the jury that matters: <a href="https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/us-population/" target="_blank">331,002,651</a>, and counting. They won't all vote. Some of them have never voted. The cult members won't be talked off the island, but this republic needs voters that are alert and see through the lies. Democracy is messy and hard to maintain, which is why authoritarianism and fascism raises its ugly head from time to time. This is existential because this might be the LAST time, with no recovery, or global <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/marshall-plan-1" target="_blank">Marshall Plan</a> on the horizon. It's going to be up to "us."</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <em><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">Finally a child cries out, "<u>But he isn't wearing anything at all</u>!"</span></em></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">What if the naked emperor and his sycophant senator pachyderms DON'T CARE?</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;"><em>"We are the ones that we have been waiting for."</em> by then candidate <a href="https://youtu.be/molWTfv8TYw" target="_blank">Barack Obama</a>, but it has <a href="https://peterlevine.ws/?p=6105" target="_blank">other sources</a>.</span></div><center><br /> <span style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;font-size:x-large;">#FIGHT for the future.</span></center></div>Facts, Fascism and Fascists...https://blacksciencefictionsociety.com/profiles/blogs/facts-fascism-and-fascists2020-01-24T10:00:00.000Z2020-01-24T10:00:00.000ZReginald L. Goodwinhttps://blacksciencefictionsociety.com/members/ReginaldLGoodwin<div><table class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;text-align:center;" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" align="center"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align:center;"><a style="margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;" href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-sE4LM-Ak96I/XipmIwpR6JI/AAAAAAAAOo0/rsyvl_tdT1c1f_hRxmRU8YnhjAN4QBpcQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/jesus-getting-off-air-force-one-300.jpg"><img src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-sE4LM-Ak96I/XipmIwpR6JI/AAAAAAAAOo0/rsyvl_tdT1c1f_hRxmRU8YnhjAN4QBpcQCLcBGAsYHQ/s400/jesus-getting-off-air-force-one-300.jpg" alt="jesus-getting-off-air-force-one-300.jpg" width="400" height="281" border="0" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align:center;">Image Source: Truth Dig link below</td></tr></tbody></table><p><br /> <span style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Topics: Civics, Civil Rights, Existentialism, Fascism, Human Rights</span></p><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <em><span style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Tens of millions of Americans, lumped into a diffuse and fractious movement known as the Christian right, have begun to dismantle the intellectual and scientific rigor of the Enlightenment. They are creating a theocratic state based on “biblical law,” and shutting out all those they define as the enemy. This movement, veering closer and closer to traditional fascism, seeks to force a recalcitrant world to submit before an imperial America. It champions the eradication of social deviants, beginning with homosexuals, and moving on to immigrants, secular humanists, feminists, Jews, Muslims and those they dismiss as “nominal Christians” — meaning Christians who do not embrace their perverted and heretical interpretation of the Bible. Those who defy the mass movement are condemned as posing a threat to the health and hygiene of the country and the family. All will be purged.</span></em></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <em><span style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The followers of deviant faiths, from Judaism to Islam, must be converted or repressed. The deviant media, the deviant public schools, the deviant entertainment industry, the deviant secular humanist government and judiciary and the deviant churches will be reformed or closed. There will be a relentless promotion of Christian “values,” already under way on Christian radio and television and in Christian schools, as information and facts are replaced with overt forms of indoctrination. The march toward this terrifying dystopia has begun. It is taking place on the streets of Arizona, on cable news channels, at tea party rallies, in the Texas public schools, among militia members and within a Republican Party that is being hijacked by this lunatic fringe.</span></em></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-christian-fascists-are-growing-stronger/" target="_blank">The Christian Fascists Are Growing Stronger</a>, Chris Hedges, Truth Dig</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">There has been high praise for the House Impeachment Managers: Representatives Jerrold Nadler, Val Demings, Zoe Lofgren, Sylvia Garcia, Jason Crow, Hakeem Jeffries; especially its leader, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/01/22/adam-schiffs-brilliant-presentation-is-knocking-down-excuses-acquit/" target="_blank">Adam Schiff</a>. My fraternity brother, House Manager Hakeem Jeffries probably accomplished the first <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/daily-shows-trevor-noah-goes-wild-over-rep-hakeem-jeffries-trump-impeachment-shout-out-to-biggie-smalls" target="_blank">hip hop Biggie Smalls' mic drop rebuttal</a> in impeachment history. I'm sure it completely went over Jay Sekulow's head.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Sadly, <a href="https://physics4thecool.blogspot.com/2020/01/facts-fascism-and-fascists.html" target="_blank">facts don't matter to fascists</a>.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <em><span style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Belief in pseudoscience extended across the Nazi high command, from the Führer's search for 'death rays' to Goebbels reading Nostradamus in bed.</span></em></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <em><span style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">This is a dense and scholarly book about one of the pulpiest subjects of the past 70 years - the relationship between the Nazi party and the occult, which has been much debated across popular culture both in fiction (Captain America: Civil War, Hellboy, Wolfenstein, the Indiana Jones series, Iron Sky, The Keep and countless others) and in innumerable schlocky works of pseudoscience with runes and swastikas on the covers.</span></em></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <em><span style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">As it turns out, though, even this sober, academic treatment of the topic reveals stranger-than-fiction truths on every page.</span></em></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <em><span style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Here are a few of them. In the 1930s, Hitler made extensive notes on a book called Magic: Theory, History, Practice and underlined passages such as "<u>He who does not carry demonic seeds within him will never give birth to a new world</u>". In 1934, the year after he was appointed chancellor of Germany, he hired a dowser to go over the Reich Chancellery in search of "death rays" that might damage staff in the building. He and Himmler held frequent conversations about "the World Empire of Atlantis, which fell victim to the catastrophe of the moons falling to Earth" and about a discredited pseudoscience called Welteislehre, or World Ice Theory, which taught that the cosmos was made of ice and which they saw as a "Germanic" counterbalance to the "Jewish" theory of relativity.</span></em></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><a href="https://www.independent.ie/entertainment/books/book-reviews/hitlers-obsession-with-the-occult-35975075.html" target="_blank">Hitler's obsession with the occult</a>, Tim Martin, July 30, 2017, Independent.ie</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Hitlers-Monsters-Supernatural-History-Third/dp/0300189451" target="_blank">Hitler's Monsters: A Supernatural History of the Third Reich</a>, Eric Kurlander, Amazon.com</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">It seems <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0458339/" target="_blank">Captain America: the First Avenger</a> and Marvel got it right.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">When you're modern fascists, you <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/22/politics/impeachment-trial-senators-sitting-walking-around/index.html" target="_blank">stretch</a>, move; work on <a href="https://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/2020/01/23/impeachment-trial-sen-rand-paul-works-crossword-puzzle/4551375002/" target="_blank">crossword puzzles and paper airplanes</a> in the senate chamber even under threat of imprisonment. Must be nice, Mr. Paul. But this is a guy who's ophthalmology certification is from the National Ophthalmology Board, which sounds all well and good until you realize it's a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2013/11/08/rand-paul-has-another-problem/" target="_blank">board HE founded</a>. It also apparently dissolves like bicarbonate in vinegar when convenient.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Eugenics and mythology were the Nazis' obsessions; "intelligent design" and end-time eschatology appears the obsession of our current crop of sociopaths.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Even though the House Impeachment Managers have been witty, erudite, thorough; brilliant with video and PowerPoint presentations that would make Nancy Duarte, the author of <a href="https://www.duarte.com/books/slideology/" target="_blank">Slide:ology</a> proud, to quote Thomas Paine: <em>“To argue with a man who has renounced the use and authority of reason, and whose philosophy consists in holding humanity in contempt, is like administering medicine to the dead, or endeavoring to convert an atheist by scripture.”</em> Ms. Duarte's most famous student is Vice President Al Gore and his Nobel Prize climate presentation that became the Oscar-winning documentary: "<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0497116/" target="_blank">An Inconvenient Truth</a>."</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">But when you're fascists, any truth is the enemy. That's why your Putin sock puppet can get rid of environmental laws that affect <a href="https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Trump-administration-scraps-clean-water-rule-15000081.php" target="_blank">streams and wetlands</a>. That's why climate change is STILL a Chinese hoax after signing some <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/24/wef-trump-chose-the-wrong-time-to-pick-a-war-with-china-hong-kong-businessman-says.html" target="_blank">cockeyed trade agreement</a> that probably will make us all miss TPP. Your AG Bill Barr/Roy Cohn <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/attorney-general-william-barr-chasing-conspiracy-theories-to-dispel-russia-investigation-wapo" target="_blank">chases conspiracy theories</a> across the globe that makes our allies think we've lost our collective minds. <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/01/20/president-trump-made-16241-false-or-misleading-claims-his-first-three-years/" target="_blank">16,000+ and counting</a> lies from "dear leader" is literal Manna from Heaven to the sachet swastika set, fact checkers be damned. Down is up. Left is right. White is black; it's always a new moon and the sun shines darkness.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><strong>53 - 47: </strong>So far, 53 out of 100 senators of the same party with an obvious bias against reality are awaiting their moment to acquit a criminal, because their own party is a complicit criminal enterprise. <strong>53 - 47</strong> senators voted against election security; <strong>53 - 47</strong> senators agree with voter ID, voter suppression and Russia interfering with the fundamental right of a republic to pick its OWN leaders. For <strong>53 - 47</strong>, evidence doesn't matter. Witnesses don't matter. FACTS don't matter: because to them, democracy doesn't matter. Only POWER matters. <strong>53 - 47</strong> need to prove they're not fascists.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;"><strong>53-47</strong>: this number should be hung around 53 red necks. They should pay a political price and lose their positions and majority. November 3, 2020 is the date we end this fascist takeover. #Vote, or your republic is permanently lost.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Lies are to fascists like slop is for hogs: a mixture of mud, corn husks and rancid pig shit, filth only comfortable to hogs.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <em><span style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">“All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”</span></em></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <em><span style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">“Man serves the interests of no creature except himself.”</span></em></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <em><span style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">“The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.”</span></em></div><p><span style="font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">― George Orwell, Animal Farm</span></p></div>Drug Deals and Bullshit...https://blacksciencefictionsociety.com/profiles/blogs/drug-deals-and-bullshit2020-01-17T10:00:00.000Z2020-01-17T10:00:00.000ZReginald L. Goodwinhttps://blacksciencefictionsociety.com/members/ReginaldLGoodwin<div><table class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;text-align:center;" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" align="center"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align:center;"><a style="margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;" href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-I_1jRJS5tv4/XiEwqkIatsI/AAAAAAAAOog/QXTn2ccNHNE1Ny4iATnSUi4lvFE9rm5XgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/bullshit_0.jpg"><img src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-I_1jRJS5tv4/XiEwqkIatsI/AAAAAAAAOog/QXTn2ccNHNE1Ny4iATnSUi4lvFE9rm5XgCLcBGAsYHQ/s400/bullshit_0.jpg" alt="bullshit_0.jpg" width="400" height="177" border="0" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align:center;">Image Source: Philosophy Talk, "<a href="https://www.philosophytalk.org/blog/there-case-bullshit" target="_blank">Is There a Case for Bullshit</a>?" by Serena Wong</td></tr></tbody></table><p> </p><p><br /> <span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">Topics: Civics, Civil Rights, Existentialism, Fascism, Human Rights</span></p><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <em><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">One of the most salient features of our culture is that there is so much bullshit. Everyone knows this. Each of us contributes his share. But we tend to take the situation for granted. Most people are rather confident of their ability to recognize bullshit and to avoid being taken in by it. So the phenomenon has not aroused much deliberate concern. We have no clear understanding of what bullshit is, why there is so much of it, or what functions it serves. And we lack a conscientiously developed appreciation of what it means to us. In other words, as Harry Frankfurt writes, “we have no theory.”</span></em></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <em><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">Frankfurt, one of the world’s most influential moral philosophers, attempts to build such a theory here. With his characteristic combination of philosophical acuity, psychological insight, and wry humor, Frankfurt proceeds by exploring how bullshit and the related concept of humbug are distinct from lying. He argues that bullshitters misrepresent themselves to their audience not as liars do, that is, by deliberately making false claims about what is true. In fact, bullshit need not be untrue at all.</span></em></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <em><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">Rather, bullshitters seek to convey a certain impression of themselves without being concerned about whether anything at all is true. They quietly change the rules governing their end of the conversation so that claims about truth and falsity are irrelevant. Frankfurt concludes that although bullshit can take many innocent forms, excessive indulgence in it can eventually undermine the practitioner’s capacity to tell the truth in a way that lying does not. Liars at least acknowledge that it matters what is true. By virtue of this, Frankfurt writes, <a href="https://physics4thecool.blogspot.com/2020/01/drug-deals-and-bullshit.html" target="_blank">bullshit is a greater enemy of the truth than lies are</a>.</span></em></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;"><a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691122946/on-bullshit" target="_blank">On Bullshit</a>, Harry G. Frankfurt</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">Well, he used it <a href="https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2019/10/11/trump_democrats_pursuing_bullshit_impeachment_because_they_know_they_cant_win.html" target="_blank">in a rally</a>. They finally embodied it in a president* that's <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/trump-makes-unannounced-visit-walter-reed-medical-center/story?id=67082769" target="_blank">clearly fatter</a> than when he started "<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/feb/07/executive-time-donald-trump-white-house" target="_blank">executive time</a>" or something, because golfing on the government dime isn't burning any calories, nor are his prodigious tweeting bowel movements.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">*Putin-installed puppet</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <u><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">Level 1 Bullshit Artists</span></u></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">Pilgrims coming for "religious freedom." Winthrop's "<a href="http://www.worldfuturefund.org/wffmaster/Reading/Religion/John%20Winthrop.htm" target="_blank">shining city on a hill</a>" was a shit pile of lies. His utopia looked like proto "Handmaid's Tale." Dude didn't even like Quakers. WHO doesn't like Quakers? You damned near died your first winter, in some cases <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/5/130501-jamestown-cannibalism-archeology-science/" target="_blank">resorting to cannibalism</a>, systematically slaughtered the First Nation Peoples who GOT you through that winter and masked the genocide in the <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/thanksgiving-myth-and-what-we-should-be-teaching-kids-180973655/" target="_blank">false memory of Thanksgiving</a> propagated as propaganda to introduce Black Friday and the holiday binge buying season where everybody's broke in January. Happy capitalism. Socialism is evil. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Democrats_(Denmark)" target="_blank">Ask Denmark</a>.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <u><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">Level 2 Bullshit Artists</span></u></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">Slavery. When you saw the road was rough with thorns and thistles; the First Nation peoples had bows, arrows and occasionally guns showing you how pissed they were when you tried to genocide them, you and Great Britain went to the continent of Africa, payed off some douche chieftains that wanted to get rid of rivals and use uncompensated labor to make yourselves rich beyond Solomon's dreams. Your government documents state your reason to secede <a href="https://www.tsl.texas.gov/ref/abouttx/secession/2feb1861.html" target="_blank">was about slavery</a> and your revulsion of black people, so don't bullshit me, you or anyone else. You balk at reparations because it's like pulling the thread of your favorite suit, watching the entire structure unravel. I get why you're nostalgic over the "peculiar institution." Bullshit artists are lazy. See "<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/feb/07/executive-time-donald-trump-white-house" target="_blank">executive time</a>."</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <u><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">Level 3 Bullshit Artists</span></u></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">I call bullshit on the revered "Founding Fathers." Your papered-over Tea Party in Boston Harbor wasn't a noble act of rebellion: you were COLONISTS. You didn't hitchhike to America! Britain paid your cruise ship tickets on the Mayflower. You essentially saw a way NOT to pay your taxes. (Your descendants created lawyers, loopholes and offshore bank accounts for that now.) <em>"We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal"</em>...except black men, black women, their children and descendants; <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%27s_suffrage" target="_blank">white women</a> didn't vote until 1920. African Americans didn't get the Voting Rights Act until <a href="https://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=true&doc=100" target="_blank">1965</a>, and THAT has to be periodically reauthorized! It <a href="https://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/congress/article237284359.html" target="_blank">barely passed</a> this last time, like republicans might want to vote slavery <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/teacher-slavery-racist-comments-california-2019-12" target="_blank">back in</a>.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <u><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">Level 4 Bullshit Artists</span></u></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">The Fairness Doctrine: <em>"In the Radio Act of 1927, Congress dictated that the FCC (and its predecessor, the Federal Radio Commission) <u>should only issue broadcast licenses when doing so serves the public interest</u>. In 1949, the FCC interpreted this more strictly to mean that licensees should include discussions of matters of public importance in their broadcasts, and that they should do so in a fair manner. It issued “In the Matter of Editorializing by Broadcast Licensees,” which announced the Fairness Doctrine, and began enforcing it."</em></span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;"><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-fairness-doctrine-in-one-post/2011/08/23/gIQAN8CXZJ_blog.html" target="_blank">Everything you need to know about the Fairness Doctrine in one post</a>, Dylan Matthews, Washington Post</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">It's after the 1987 repeal of the Fairness Doctrine, right wing AM talk radio and Rush Limbaugh became the darling of the trucker set and the foundation of the echo chamber that would eventually become Roger Ailes Fox "News," 4Chann, 8Chann, Infowars and QAnon. Read the above underline statement, and ask yourself if they do.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <u><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">Level 5 Bullshit Artists</span></u></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;"><em>The Fox News Channel (FNC) is an American basic cable and satellite news television channel that was founded by media mogul Rupert Murdoch in 1996. Roger Ailes appointed himself as permanent CEO of the news operation in 2001 & was created as a Republican-centered alternative to CNN. In January 2002, the ratings of the channel surpassed top-rated CNN to become the #1 news cable channel. They fell in March 2002, but since then the network has maintained its #1 cable rating (as of 2019) with increasing viewership and international access.</em> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Fox_News" target="_blank">Wikipedia</a></span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">Ailes was a staffer in the Nixon administration, and of course thought any republican president should be allowed to get away with grand theft from the Watergate building. Too bad he had those <a href="http://nixontapes.org/" target="_blank">tapes</a> that did him in. He should have had Twitter, and misspelled, or spelled covfefe.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <u><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">Level 6 Bullshit Artists</span></u></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <em><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;"><u>The entire Russian government has resigned</u> just hours after President Vladimir Putin proposed sweeping changes to the country’s constitution, according to reports. The TASS news agency, which is owned by the Russian government, reported Wednesday morning that Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev and his ministers submitted their resignations to Putin. The agency said Putin thanked Medvedev for his work and said the outgoing prime minister would be installed as deputy of the presidential security council. Medvedev said he resigned to give Putin space to carry out the changes he wants to make to the constitution.</span></em></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;"><a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/russian-prime-minister-submits-resignation-to-putin-reports-say" target="_blank">The Entire Russian Government Has Resigned</a>, Jamie Ross, The Daily Beast</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">Wow! I guess <em>"he alone will fix it"</em> by decree+ like an emperor, or in the case of Russia: a Czar. Now I see where his comb-over toupee Neanderthal got it from. It sounds like he's making what's left of their constitution into toilet paper just like his Orange Satan puppet. He did this as his American pet's impeachment hearings got underway. You don't have to commit a crime to get impeached, but it's awkward as the Government Accounting Office <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/01/16/white-house-violated-the-law-by-freezing-ukraine-aid-gao-says-099682" target="_blank">announces you're guilty of a crime</a>.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">+"So let it be written, so let it be done" Yul Brynner as Pharaoh in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ten_Commandments_(1956_film)" target="_blank">The Ten Commandments</a>, in a slew of Hollywood cultural appropriation.</span></div><p> </p><p><u><span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">Level 7 Bullshit Artists</span></u></p><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">Seven deadly sins: pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath and sloth, source: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_deadly_sins" target="_blank">Wikipedia</a></span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">Evangelicals aren't a religious body anymore: they're a political party with zero values. Somehow, the once "family values" party fell in line behind a heathen that exemplifies <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2017/07/31/how-trump-embodies-seven-deadly-sins-brian-klaas-column/523664001/" target="_blank">ALL seven deadly sins</a> turned racism into a winning strategy for the moment. He's impeached forever - the third president* in U.S. history, the first in the 21st century and with the <a href="https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=yqtKeUsp9PU" target="_blank">Lev Parnas What App drop</a>, he apparently thinks Quid Pro Quo is a healthy bowel movement for septuagenarians.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">The <a href="https://youtu.be/X_8E3ENrKrQ" target="_blank">Southern Strategy</a> is subject to the thermodynamics of Entropy just like any other moldy philosophy. John Bolton called the <a href="https://www.democracynow.org/2020/1/15/headlines/wapo_threatening_text_messages_show_yovanovitch_was_under_surveillance" target="_blank">plot against Marie Yovanovitch</a> that may have threatened her life a drug deal, but he's teetering between breaking another bombshell in a shitload of bombshells or depressing the sales of his future book by waiting too long. Any information that could remove the orange tweeting thing from the nuclear button is useless if he gets a second term, or if we're all glowing in the dark.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">By the way Orange Satan: a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/12/16/president-trump-has-made-false-or-misleading-claims-over-days/" target="_blank">shit load of lies</a> doesn't make them true. It's just all bullshit.</span></div><div style="text-align:justify;"><br /> <span style="font-family:georgia, 'times new roman', serif;">*Putin-installed puppet</span></div></div>