Henry VI, Part 2, Act IV, Scene 2: "The first thing we do, let's kill all the cats".

They court the well off with a bad conscience crowd - and make them ashamed to be white, regardless of the consequences for the working class majority. — counterpunch

There are peculiar patterns in the press and in entertainment. The New York Times, the country's newspaper of record, frequently views events through a racial filter, pointing out, over and over again, that people who are not white are not getting an equal share of ... whatever it is. (If the world were coming to an end tomorrow, the NYT would say "World Coming to End: Women and minorities to be disproportionately affected") As if white men were never poor! Media elsewhere in the country are doing the same thing more often. There was a story about how minority children are not learning how to ice skate as often as white children. Gee, Maybe a lot of minority families come from places where ice skating just isn't a thing?

Another thing, many advertisements feature bi-racial and mixed race children in ads. Nothing wrong with either one, but bi-racial couples and their children just aren't that common. Grey's Anatomy, a medical drama that has has been on for the last 15 years, has placed an increasing number of black characters in the story, as well as many B/W mixed race couples. Seattle is 66% white and 7% black. There aren't enough blacks in Seattle, even if every black person was in a B/W couple. for that many mixed race couples. The producers have apparently decided to showcase multi-race relationships as a way to be hip, with it, progressive. I like the show and I like the leading black characters who are very all portrayed by very good actors (at least for television).

A lot of characters in American film and television are depicted as very well off, well educated, upper-middle class, even upper class. The popular entertaining media doesn't find working class characters all that interesting, and when working class characters appear in comedies they are usually presented as clowns or morons, especially if they are male.

I'm from the North of England... — counterpunch

The UK seems to have clearer class lines than the US, but what happened in the north of England has happened here too. The American labor movement didn't die from natural causes--it was murdered. Killed off by the same economic interests that shafted the coal workers where you grew up. It's a disgusting story of corporate and political powers combining to suppress the working class. In this country the Democrats and Republicans found common ground in class warfare (like a Democratic governor in my liberal state who sent in the National Guard to help break the Hormel meat packing strike 40 years ago).

The technology exists. — counterpunch

Yes, of course. It's all more or less on the shelf. What is NOT on the shelf is the industrial structure: the financial capital; the corporate commitment (of suppliers, drillers, pipe and boiler makers, etc.); the thousands of employees with the necessary skill-sets in geo-thermal; the large electrolysis plants and distribution systems; the adaptation of plants to turn generators with hydrogen, and so on.

High speed trains are on-the-shelf tech too, but the US has steadfastly refused to build the new roadbeds and buy the equipment. The big railroads can run their freight trains remotely (nobody on board), so it isn't as if they are technophobes. It's just bad national policy. Bad national policy could prevent geo-thermal too.

liquified fuel — counterpunch

Hydrogen becomes a liquid at −253°C (−423°F)--getting close to absolute zero. It takes 30% of the energy value in H to liquify it. Well, energy production and distribution always costs a share of the energy in coal, gas, electricity, wind, solar, or whatever. Maybe we have to do more research on that liquifying process.

But what about the people who print newspapers, build cars, manufacture appliances, grow cotton and knit cardigans or whatever. — counterpunch

Well, it isn't reluctant consumers that are costing most of the jobs, these days. It's automation in its various forms. One of the solutions to automation is to take the profits of automated factories and support displaced workers at a reasonably comfortable level of income. Automation and unlimited pollution free energy should make it possible for displaced workers to have good lives--not just living on welfare, but being supported while they find new ways to manage their lives.

Or, just as easily, we can de-automate factories to produce more jobs. God didn't order us to automate everything, after all.

do you ask two ... (equally biased) lawyers — Isaac

My assumption is that the police behaved wrongfully, but where would one find unbiased lawyers? Whether they are prosecuting or defense attorneys, there are going to be biases. Can one set up double-blind medical type experiments in criminal cases? It would seem not.

Under the highly politicised circumstances created by BLM — counterpunch

BLM further politicized the already-politically charged issue of police-black community conflict. BLM only intensified it. I'm not a supporter or follower of BLM, but in all fairness, bad police-community interactions go back a long time. What is new is live coverage of police operations by way of cell-phone video. I have to assume the 4 cops in Floyd's arrest/death knew that there were critical witnesses on hand and that their actions either were, or could be, video recorded. Yet they persisted in using (what seems like excessive force) to complete the arrest and transport of GF.

Bad gay community-police conflict developed in Minneapolis in the early 1980s. The conflict was ignited by a relatively small number of cops--members of the vice squad and downtown street patrols. There was little conflict between gays and police most of the time. A minority of cops cause the majority of conflict with the black community too.

Bad actors in any field can give the whole a bad reputation.

Recently, I showed that the subjectivist, post modernist, anti-truth position of the left is false, with numerous examples, in an argument peppered with literary and philosophical references, and ran into an ideologically indoctrinated brick wall of direct contradiction. This inability and/or unwillingness to learn plunged me into a sudden and deep depression, for - if humankind cannot learn, cannot correct this mistake, we are doomed. — counterpunch

As some sort of leftist, I agree with you that a lot of the subjectivist, post-modernist, anti-truth, political correctness..." of the left is wrong, or sometimes not even wrong. Some of it is just plain nonsensical. I don't socialize much with people, especially the younger (or youngish) adults among whom there seems to be a lot of "leftist affect" (meaning, they sound like leftists but most likely are not). The literary theory of post-modernism is the worst slop I have encountered in a life-time of reading.

As time passes, it seems like the terms "left" and "right" have become less meaningful. It isn't that the continuum of opinion doesn't exist, but that the labels have been emptied of meaning by overuse. Lots of words have been ruined by excessive use and abuse.

Magna Magma: The only problem your idea of capturing energy from magma has is that the industry required for economic viability hasn't appeared. In 1945 there was no industry in place for atomic energy. It got built, but it took decades. The same goes for steam-generated coal powered electricity. The industry had to be developed over decades. There are hot-spots here and there where geo-thermal heat is close, or relatively close to the surface. Iceland; Yellowstone; various places on the pacific rim, etc. Many other areas sit on thick cold rock, and we'd have to bore much deeper.

A couple of years ago a long-time TPF member proposed floating large arrays of solar cells off shore. Sounded like a non-starter at the time, but I have since read of arrays that have been built, are floating, and producing electricity.

All the approaches that can be done; should be done, including the magna magma option.

You are not the only one running into brick walls. As a sometimes-socialist-agitator I can appreciate your frustration with brick walls. The very word "socialist" is a thought stopper for many people, a no-go zone.

About sustainability and consumption: What environmentalists mean by "reduced consumption" isn't a fixed standardized thing. My own experience is that I can consume less 'stuff' without the slightest reduction in my standard of living. Example: reading books and newspaper in digital form rather than paper. Drinking tap water instead of bottled water (which is often the same water one gets out of a tap). Not replacing clothing that is in very good condition. Keeping appliances until they fail. I use mass transit because I do not drive, and for many purposes it works. For some purposes it fails or doesn't exist anymore. Granted, it doesn't work for many people because of past huge investments in auto transportation coupled with long-term DISinvestment in mass transit.

Given the huge quantity of CO2 that transportation contributes to the atmosphere, that is one of the areas where 'green' will mean changes that will feel like loss to maybe a billion drivers.

You answered your own question. BUT...

If you want to compare communism, fascism, and capitalism, you should do it in the same time-frame. Soviet communism failed and fell in 1991. Fascism failed and fell in 1945. Capitalism (which is part of the hybrid mix) is still going strong, as far as I can tell. In the period 1930 to 1940, capitalism was in the middle of a severe depression. Fascism was robust, and popular (more or less). The still new communism (just 13 years old in 1930) was functioning reasonably well. It is a bit difficult to tell how well the US economy would have recovered without WWII.

Al three ruling systems employed plenty of brutality and deception to keep their populations under control and maintain the flow of wealth into the ruling classes. The consumer culture (more limited than today) was still relatively new in the 1920s and 1930s. "cheap and tasty fast food, 150 TV channels with movies on demand, shopping, shopping, shopping for the ladies, and (mostly) free sports and internet porn for the gentlemen" hadn't happened yet. No television yet, just radio--and that was AM, not FM. Home appliances were expensive and only slowly making their way into the working class (which is most of the population). Phonographs were still 78 rpm. Pornography was flatly illegal and difficult to obtain. Alcohol was still illegal up to 1933. The first feature movie with sound appeared in 1927.

WWII was a watershed. The British Empire, and Britain as a major power, came to an end. France, Germany, Italy, and Japan were were shadows of their former selves after WWII. Fascism had been defeated at great cost, especially to the Axis and Axis-occupied nations. The US came out of the war as the top dog, economically and militarily. We ran the world for decades, which is one of the reasons for the hot consumer culture. Domestic consumption was, and is, a growing portion of GDP.

So, what might the lessons of the 20th century be?

The myth is that the government should supply safety nets, and not the community. Nanny-statists prefer government safety nets because it absolves them from having to create and sustain their own. — NOS4A2

That the government should supply safety nets, and people not have to depend on private charity, is not a myth--it's a collective choice. The states with the highest standards of living, best education and health outcomes, the best housing, and so forth are "nanny states'. They are at the top of the distribution because "the community" and "the state" overlap, and the common good is tended.

We could go back to 1930 when unemployment and destitution were handled at the local, city level. The amount of aid a city could offer was pitifully small. Imagine how bad Covid-19 would be without federal nanny state action.

Non-profits can and do provide a lot of social services--much of the safety net. The size of the budgets required for Lutheran Social Services or Catholic Charities et al to be effective could not possibly be met with contributions from churches and individuals. A lot of their money comes from government contracts (the nanny state one step removed). Given your loathing of the nanny state, I suppose you are out there haranguing the rich to cough up enough money to keep the private safety net operating.

As for this - I'd be more forceful. It's not just a lack - as though something just so happens to be missing. There is very much an active campaign, pursued at the level of policy and public consciousness, to maintain those lack of safety nets and economic opportunity. It's not a passive lack. There are forces that actively work against such things. The problem is political before it is economic. — StreetlightX

The active campaign has been so pervasive and long lasting that it is "invisible". There has been a recent spate of books on housing like EVICTED and THE COLOR OF LAW which reveal how the campaign has worked. The myths (a.k.a. lies) of the ruling class are so deeply embedded, it is practically impossible for many people to question them. So, of course it's your fault if you are broke and living in a ratty building, poorly employed or on welfare, or living under a bridge. You just didn't try hard enough, you lazy worthless son of a bitch.

I used to teach at university and, yes, we have our means. — Baden

On various occasions I have done searches for various phrases of at least several words, and it is surprising how often a particular phrase is--not totally but remarkably--unique. Take for example, "a particular phrase is--not totally but remarkably--unique" has not appeared in this or (probably) the previous PF. In all the world, it may not have appeared more than a few times.

So students who plagiarize experts in very well-plowed fields really don't stand a chance, sometimes even without bots.

Of course I could have avoided doing wrong. I wasn't under some sort of strange compulsion. I understand that many people commit acts that some (or many) other people consider wrong. Gay sex, for example. Smoking weed. Speeding (really fast on a freeway). Buying stolen goods. Etc. What I did I knew and felt to be wrong, but the opportunity was there so I took it. Were the same situation to arise, I'd probably do it again.

My bad acts have been very small potatoes, but people also commit major crimes like espionage--just for the money, art fraud, grand theft, assault, and so forth that they know others and themselves think are wrong. People even commit at least 'lukewarm to cool-blooded' murders, something different than a hot passionate murder or cold-blooded murder for hire.

I'll grant you, though, that many 'wrong acts' are what you call "quotational sense of 'wrong'". Sexual acts certainly fall into this category when people are swept off their feet by someone else and end up in bed with them, even though they are married or in a committed relationship. That's happened to me, and I didn't count that as deliberate wrong doing. My dick was making the decision, so to speak--a hard cock has no morals.

I agree, the likelihood is minimal.

A few hundred years for recovery is plausible. I think it would depend on how much literacy were retained, and whether enough print and analog material survived (digitally stored information will be lost forever, most likely). A substantial group of readers with access to basic scientific, technology, and general knowledge books would make recovery much more likely. Knowledge won't make oil gush out of shallow wells, but it could direct efforts to recover, even with substantial handicaps.

A number of environmentally oriented writers (like James Howard Kunstler and others) have pointed out how critical petroleum, in its many refined forms, is to the existence of the present (1850 - 2021) technological society. There is nothing as convenient and energy dense as gasoline; there is no easy method of replacing the many specialized plastics we depend on; there is no similar, inexpensive, and long-lasting lubricant as oil.

We have probably passed peak oil, which means that in the long run (next 150 years) oil will get steadily more expensive and more difficult to obtain until we can't.

The break of only a few generations of cultural reproduction which an environmental catastrophe could cause would affect everything, pretty much all negatively. The culture would regress back to "a world made by hand" as Kunstler illustrated in his several novels under that title. Gone would be most medicines, most medical equipment, medical training, and so on. The electrical production system would be very, very hard for people, without lots of trained engineers, to restart. Agriculture would continue on, but on an 19th century basis, IF we were lucky.

We probably would not be able to reknit an unraveled civilization.

nobody knowingly does bad things — Pfhorrest

Really? That seems like an extraordinarily optimistic view of human behavior.

I've knowingly done bad things as an adult. I knew, as I contemplated the act, that it was definitely bad, and I did it anyway--sometimes more than once.

Evil is reducible to ignorance? Well, sure -- sometimes. For instance, a person might have engaged in so little self-examination that they are unaware (ignorant) of their motivations. We can't always project far enough into the future to assess consequences. But sometimes we are clueless.

Energy company executives (like Exxon) buried early evidence of the consequences of unlimited petroleum production. I doubt that they were clueless about either the environmental or moral consequences of that act.

I think one motivation is also as a form of "philosophical self-help" — baker

That is certainly the case. Over the years quite a few participants have laid out personal problems, sometimes ethical dilemmas, and identifiable mental illnesses for "the group" to discuss. Serious cases (there were some) were strongly urged to seek psychiatric help. Depressed people, who number in the millions, are frequent philosoph-therapeutic 'patients'. Quite a few of our long-term regulars have experienced depression. My own experience with depression has been that IF one can change one's life circumstances to suit one's preferences, depression can get a whole lot better. Unfortunately, a lot of life circumstances just aren't easily changed. Bad jobs, difficult relationships, long commutes, loneliness, rage, boredom, anxiety, debt, and a dozen other conditions can't just be waved away. IF ONLY...

And sometimes events intervene and problems get resolved and life gets better--much to our surprise.

Hey, Gus and Jack: I'm pretty pessimistic about our collective future. Cultural collapse, dark age, environmental catastrophe -- similar consequences. End of humanity? Probably not, but far fewer of us, and if the collapse is pervasive and lasts long enough for critical expertise to be lost, then the way forward will be long and difficult.

Gus: I'd never underesteem the Roman Empire. The end of the Roman Empire significantly degraded (even if it did not totally end) trade in food, metals, fabric, people, and knowledge. Technology was lost (dome and aqueduct building, organizational practices, scientific and technological knowledge such as it was, and so on. There were extensive and long term consequences from that loss. What were integrated parts of the western empire became islands. The priorities, biases, and intentions of the Roman Church also had extensive long-lasting consequences for Western Culture.

The people alive in MMXXI perhaps experience some of the same disquiet, unease, confusion, and anxiety people did in CDL Rome. "Things are falling apart; the center is not holding." The best seem to lack passionate conviction, and the worst have Twitter accounts which they use with a vengeance.

Our dark age will be the result of an inability to materially sustain our culture, decayed or not. I predict a "dark age" ahead, but "extremism, polarity, division, cultural and/or moral decay" and so on will be the result of environmental collapse, not the cause.

You know that many historians have stopped using the term "dark age" because it just wasn't that dark. Certainly, the empire was over; the benefits of empire began to disappear, but resilient people were busy with their lives, and were (advertently and accidentally) developing new culture. True, the Roman establishment in Britain decamped, but that doesn't mean that the newly arrived Angles and Saxons were in a depressed funk about it.

"those with a philosophical bent" will be as affected by over-exposure to social media as anyone. Take a less well known social media app, "NextDoor", an app I recently started using. It's tailored to serve neighborhoods. In one way it's like Craig's List (selling used stuff) but in another way it's like a running crime report. Many mugging, gunshots, hovering helicopters, lost dogs, carjackings, catalytic converter thefts, break-ins, fire crackers, "suspicious persons, cars", stray cats, so forth are posted and discussed. Crime is up (according to the police), but regularly reading NextDoor would lead one to feel the city was turning into a living nightmare.

All of this stuff has been going on for decades, but NextDoor hasn't been around all that long to report it with excruciating frequency.

It's been suspected, if not known for certain, that people who watch a lot of commercial TV newscasts think the world is a far more dangerous place than it actually is. Add Twitter, FaceBook, YouTube, and all the rest--anyone (even those with a philosophical bent) who 'consumes' that content is going to be negatively affected.

Plus, there's a fair amount of disputatious talk here. Philosophically bent person A says one thing, and philosophically bent person B slams them. Philosophically twisted person C chimes in, and philosophically twisted person D is torqued out. Philosophical suicide follows. The philosophically walking wounded die in the streets.

Secondly, this is not a 'chat down the pub'. — Isaac

You are very serious about these conversations, me, not so much. I am here to relax and enjoy other people's views. — synthesis

What on earth is the matter with chatting over a beer that should be disparaged? Samuel Johnson's discussion group met at a bar/restaurant and included luminaries like Edmund Burke, Joshua Reynolds, Oliver Goldsmith, Adam Smith, James Boswell, Edward Gibbon, et al. They ate and drank and talked.

Granted, other than present company we don't quite measure up to the reputations of Johnson's group, but we do what we can. I'd be quite happy to move this whole thing to a nice place with good food and an assortment of good drink.

Might be traumatic brain injuries (a lot of that going around lately) that causes would-be philosophers to get thick as a brick and kill themselves by Mod. You know, too much social media trauma, too many Trump tweets, too much doom scrolling, too many things for sale on line, heat stress from global warming (even in the dead of winter), too many choices on Netflix, and so on.

I don't know. I read somewhere that people are stupid. Seems like as good an explanation as any.

Forums like this are open to the public; some of the walking wounded are attracted to forums because they are warm and dry, and there might be snacks offered (where are our snacks? I've been waiting for years.).

A truly woke person realizes their pawnship and navigates within that role to peace, joy, and a fern garden with lots of moss and a little buddha statue at the end of the path that leads from the rock garden — frank

"truly woke" sounds very squishy and disgusting.

Except for the violence at the marches, and the rioting, and the arson, etc. — Book273

I am not a member of BLM, and haven't supported them. BUT... Hey, Book:

The rioting of last summer (following G Floyd's death) began less than a mile from where I live. I observed how it started. There was a mix of people demonstrating at the Third Precinct station at 6:30 pm. The mix was black, white, hispanic; mostly young people; some BLM signs and T-shirts, but not the majority. A lot of the graffiti, speeches, and yelling was hate-the-police stuff. The unorganized crowd of locals was winding itself up. Within two hours a small group (maybe 15) started breaking into the Third Precinct building and starting fires inside. Meanwhile, some fires were being started in nearby buildings. Much of this action was photographed, much of it streamed by Unicorn Video. The arsonists at work turned out to be white guys from outstate or suburban Minnesota. They were not members or associates of BLM.

By 11:00 p.m. there were a number of large fires burning around Minneapolis and lots of looting by locals. At 1:00 a.m. I observed several white people looting a Walgreens 3 blocks from my house, then the building was torched.

In the days that followed, BLM mounted several very large demonstrations and marches that were orderly and without violent acts. Yes there were arrests for curfew violations, blocking freeways, and the like. There was, I suspect, some looting by demonstrators after the late-night march had come to an end and participants had scattered.

Big demonstrations are usually composed of people on a continuum of volatility. Most of the people are in the middle (not very volatile) but there is usually a small portion that once aroused become reckless. This is true for any kind of demonstration.

After sampling a Marxist reading group last fall I decided there just wasn't enough time between me and the grave to spend it on reading more Marx. One person in the group flew into a rage when I said I didn't think understanding Marx was the key to stopping the global warming catastrophe from continuing toward doom.

Tragically, I haven't heard any good jokes lately, about anything. Even The New Yorker Cartoon Department is losing its edge. Great humor has to have an edge, a little barbed wire, a little shock. Jokes approved for all audiences are like children's movies. They're baby food.

Once there are no good jokes, the world might as well come to an end.

Indeed.

Marxist jokes aren't funny....
Unless everyone gets them.

I looked up Marxist jokes with Google and the first couple dozen I looked at were terrible. The best ones almost made me smile, slightly.

this one is a little better. The state of Marxist human is a joke!

Student asks his principal, "Where is my teacher?".

"Citywide layoffs", replies the principal.

"My text books?" asks the student.

"State austerity plan", says the principal.

"Student loan?" continues the student.

"Federal budget cuts", says the principal.

Finally, exasperated, student asks, "But how am I going to get an education?".

To which the equally exasperated principal replies, "This is your education".

Marx takes the bulb out of the package, Trotsky unscrews the old bulb and then Stalin kills everyone so they won't need a lightbulb. — counterpunch

Thanks. Not enough Marx Jox around. I'll add that to my "Pretty Good Joke Book".

BLM seems to be a Marxist political group — synthesis

Question: How many Marxists do you think there are? (Marxist = have read at least his shorter writings and understand them; apply at least some Marxist principles like class conflict, surplus value... to contemporary problems.) Anyone can claim to be a Marxist, a leftist, anti-fascist, revolutionary, or anything else, without actually being such a thing. After selling Marxism for over 10 years (while working in a Marxist organization), we found interested buyers to be few and far between.

Substituting identity conflict for class conflict is not, in my humble opinion, proper Marxist practice. Any number of affinity groups have reason to work for their own advancement. but there's nothing inherently Marxist about that. As a group, black people have good reasons to engage in community based political activity. They don't need Uncle Karl to justify themselves 

After all, the number of white people out there who buy into this self-hatred thing must be waning fast. — synthesis

I never encourage collective guilt feelings or collective self-hatred. It's tedious; it's unproductive; sometimes it is pretentiously faked. Individuals ought to feel guilt for acts they have committed with malice and forethought. I don't feel guilty when white police kill blacks. It might have been just plain murder, and if so the officer should be punished. Or it might have been accidental; inadvertent; not intended. Investigations can sort it out. Consequences should follow.

We can, we should, we must understand how our history unfolded. Not just our personal history; but our national history. From at least a general understanding we should see some large trends that have been at work for a long time. No one should feel guilty about the epidemics which resulted from Columbus's search for a westward route to Asia. No one should feel guilty about British colonialism. No one should feel guilty about slavery. Or the industrial revolution. Or the millions of Native Americans' deaths caused by American westward expansion. We were not there.

I recommend reading about the urban history of the US, not so that people can find more reasons for self hatred or collective guilt, but for an understanding of how it unfolded, how we got to where we are. Once understanding is obtained, one will see how difficult it will be to undo the past.

If an individual is working to harm other people, they have reason to feel guilty, and they should stop doing it. There are plenty of crooks out there, some on street corners, some in elegant office suites.

Otherwise, they seem to be concerned about the 10-15 unarmed black men killed each year by white law enforcement officers and that's about it. — synthesis

BLM leaders made the strategic decision to focus on black deaths at the hands of the police, who are agents of civil power. That isn't the choice I would have made -- but I am not black or part of BLM. Simultaneously campaigning effectively against police abuse (which, to be fair, is larger than the issue of black deaths caused by police) and black-on-black killings is problematic. Problematic because the two issues run in opposite directions with different stakeholders. And, to be frank, young blacks killing other young blacks just isn't an issue around which one can build a very large coalition.

The Mad Dads (black men) have made black-on-black deaths their issue. They don't organize big marches and demonstrations; they focus on small interventions in neighborhoods involving dozens of people rather than thousands. It would be difficult for them to take on police abuse at the same time.

It takes very large, well funded organizations to attack multiple issues at the same time--say, the environment, distribution of wealth, over population, racism, sexism, and the role of social media in society. For that there are governments, political parties (for worse or for better), the UN, and big NGOs.

This is what the systemic racism narrative is, no? I cannot provide you with specific references — synthesis

Here's a reference: The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America by Richard Rothstein.

The 'color of law" doesn't refer to race. It means "under the cover of law", like the law under which the FHA operated for many years.

The Color of Law is a study of one large piece of racism which was systemic: the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) started in 1935 helped finance new suburban housing for white people and urban high-rise rental housing for blacks. Racially mixed neighborhoods were denied financial backing, which encouraged their slide into slums--mostly occupied by black people.

If you read much about urban history (Detroit, Baltimore, Chicago, St. Louis, Los Angeles, etc.) you will find other examples of systemic racism -- that is, racial discrimination that operated consistently and over time.

Urban history doesn't account for all racial disadvantage. Plenty of racial bias was and is unsystematic, individualized, inconsistent, and persistent.

If you look just how long horse drawn wagons and the early cars roamed the streets together, that did take a while. — ssu

"German soldier and his horse in the Russian SFSR, 1941. In two months, December 1941 and January 1942, the German Army on the Eastern Front lost 179,000 horses.[1]

relative to Lord Elgin, who spent his entire family fortune to save the marbles of the Acropolis, which at the time was being used as an ammo dump in a war between the Greeks and the Turks. — counterpunch

26 September 1687: After the Ottoman conquest, it [the Parthenon] was turned into a mosque in the early 1460s. On 26 September 1687, an Ottoman ammunition dump inside the building was ignited by Venetian bombardment during a siege of the Acropolis. The resulting explosion severely damaged the Parthenon and its sculptures.

From 1801 to 1812, agents of Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin removed about half of the surviving sculptures of the Parthenon, as well as sculptures from the Propylaea and Erechtheum.

Hey, Counterpunch: I've seen the Elgin Marbles at the BM, and I'm kind of glad he took them. Ditto for the Rosetta Stone. It would have been better had his predecessors acquired the sculptures before the idiot Turks decided to store explosives in one of the most beautiful buildings the world has seen, but... 20/20 rearview vision.

Huge infrastructure costs and loss of revenues at the same time, will cause economic havoc, political instability - war, famine and death. — counterpunch

In a discussion among some leftists about a year ago, that very point about global warming was made: the consequences of an abrupt halt to the auto/fossil fuel segment of the economy (a large hunk) would be a catastrophic blow to the global economy. Not abruptly halting the the auto/fossil fuel segment of the economy (along with other fossil fuel use) guarantees an environmental catastrophe.

in other words, we are screwed.

Totally screwed, because we don't have time to implement reliance on magma, wind, solar, nuclear, hydro, et al. As a rule of thumb, 40 to 50 years are required to implement major technological changes--from proof of concept to commonplace. 30 more years of roll-out for solar and wind puts us at 2051. 50 years for geo-thermal puts us at 2071. Too late in either case to forestall major disaster.

We can, we should, we must press forward on all fronts, from magma to heavy reliance on bicycles, bearing in mind that we can't avoid major environmental losses.

With respect to housing policy, there is ample evidence that racial discrimination was baked into the enabling legislation and implementation. The government policies didn't invent racial discrimination -- they hardened it into the national landscape.

One doesn't need to do very much reading on the HRA to realise that your explanation of the issues, conflates effect with cause. — counterpunch

Actually, one has to do quite a lot of reading to see that I am NOT conflating effect with cause.

Certainly, there were (and are) other major factors which contribute to the wealth/poverty distribution we see today in the US. One doesn't have to be a leftist to acknowledge that. When one compares the collective performance of Immigrant groups, like Somalis, to American blacks, it is clear that big cultural differences are at work. Same for some other immigrant groups who have succeeded under difficult circumstances.

As for boring into the earth to tap the energy derived from the hot interior, pause to consider the technical and maintenance issues involved in a) reaching geologically stable, very hot layers of the crust, and b) putting pipes into very hot, highly corrosive environments for many years. Geothermal is a good thing where feasible, but it's not a maintenance free source.

The entire point of worrying about energy extraction from fossil fuel and 1.4 billion cars (plus more commercial vehicles), and wasteful energy use is global warming -- a crisis which is unfolding before us. We'll need to use solar, wind, geo-thermal, hydro, and anything else we can devise on the production end to avoid economic, cultural, and environmental collapse. 1.4 billion cars--and their continued production and replacement--is simply not sustainable -- meaning, it's not compatible with reducing CO2 levels.

Forcing everybody into common poverty? NOBODY wants to do that. We just don't have another 100 years to make a graceful transition from fossil to hydrogen fuel. We probably don't have 50 years.

It isn't an ideological commitment that makes me doubt that humankind will ever achieve post-materiality -- a la Star Trek and other very optimistic science fiction themes. It would be splendid if we could do that -- but post-materiality rests on ideas that have no material reality at the present time. Mine asteroids for metal, gases, water, etc.? That would be great. Put heavy industry on the moon? Fine. We recently returned a tiny packet of dust from an asteroid, and it took years for the vessel to reach the rock and return--and this is a once-off success.

It seems like 'post materiality' requires that we figure out how to get something from nothing.

we'd need over 6000 windmills, at a cost of £1500bn. They have a working life of 25 years, and after that - same again. — counterpunch

I doubt if the entire windmill has to be replaced every 25 years; it's probably the generator at the top, driven by the blades, that has to be replaced. Well, nuclear plants don't last indefinitely; neither do coal fired generators, or hydro-electric.

Clearly we can not merely power the present wasteful energy-use regime with solar or wind power. We have to cease and desist. There are presently over 1 billion cars in the world, almost all of them powered by fossil fuel. The solution is not to build many millions of windmills to power billions of cars; the solution is to get rid of cars, and replace them with other methods of transportation.

That was adopted in 1870. Read in relation to the rest of the Constitution, that guarantees legal equality, it's quite difficult to understand how "economic racism" has been effected. Poverty is not proof of racism. But it is very difficult to escape. — counterpunch

It was easy because the constitution and laws were just ignored, not just by private parties, but by the US Government and the States. Prime Example: in the mid-1930s, a large program was created to improve the nation's deteriorating housing stock. The plan was to help finance new housing--hell, new city-suburbs. The Federal Housing Administration (FHA) helped millions of people obtain mortgages for good quality new housing in new communities. Thanks to pressure from southern senators, the program explicitly barred blacks, Jews, and other minorities from the mortgage program. (Unconstitutional? Of course it was.)

For urban blacks, the FHA built new rental housing--large high-rise complexes. The rules went so far as to say that a mortgage for housing in urban cores could not be granted to a white family if there was so few as one black family on the block, and blacks were altogether ineligible for urban-core loans.

The financial value of the millions of new properties located in thriving suburbs, coast to coast, appreciated handsomely. This allowed millions of white home owners to accumulate significant equity, which could be used to further the families upward mobility. It was an all-around good deal. for whites.

Eventually the courts and congress eliminated racial barriers in FHA programs. It was, however, too late to undo the long term damage. The millions of homes in white suburbs were now too expensive for any but well-off blacks to buy. Plus, the all-white suburbs mostly wanted to--and have--stayed white.

So, the FHA program doesn't account for black poverty entirely. Employment discrimination has to be factored in, as do poor education programs, poor community health care, and so on and so forth.

I'm in the UK, and I'm Blairite still. It was after the fall of Communism in Russia and China, Blair sought a Third Way - re-rooting socialist values in a compromise with capitalist economics. It was very popular. — counterpunch

The US (and I assume the UK and EU countries) have at times reined in the excesses of capitalism through tax law. Higher taxes on wealthy individuals and corporations reduces disparities, and funds the government at a high enough level to effectively serve the common good. Low taxes puts us where we are now -- a starved public service sector and a bloated wealthy class -- the 1%, or 1/10 of 1%ers.

The closer you look, the worse it gets.

One of my problems (being a lefty) is I don't like a lot of the Left's knee-jerk positions. Like... the so-called cancel culture where one rumor of disapproved behavior and you are out of the game. Like... the left's insistence on the rights of any person to immigrate from anywhere to anywhere else. Like... the hasty adoption of leftist buzz words (like white privilege) by people who were not interested in their privileged status (if they even were) until it became a sign of virtue to confess it. Ad nauseam.

Intelligence may be a factor in police encounters. It seems self-evident to me that aggression toward cops is always a bad idea. local culture with respect to machismo is another; even style figures into what happens when police and civilians have freighted encounters. If "in-your-face" confrontation is de rigueur in interpersonal behavior, that could result in a hostile response from the police. Having a string of criminal convictions is a prejudicial fact. Et cetera.

Clearly, black people have been the targets of highly discriminatory practices since the days of slavery. There are planned, managed, systematically executed reasons why black people in the United States are, on average, poor. Their poverty is neither self-inflicted nor accidental. Economic racism has been at work. But economic exploitation is an equal opportunity game. The white working class has, by and large, been fucked over since the earliest colonial period of US history. So have a lot of other people.

As for the history of slavery, everybody was fair game. Back in the day when Britain was considered barbarian, slaves from Britain were quite popular--red hair, pink complexions, exotic. Thank the Romans for that. In Classical Greece, anyone could become a slave through financial misfortune. And once enslaved, many stayed enslaved.

Given that half of government and all of the media are steeped in political correctness; given that Kier Starmer leapt to his knees for Black Lies Matter, and unequivocally endorsed gender self identification - and that the London Mayor just spent £1.3m of public money promoting Black Lies Matter on New Year's Eve, given that Parler has been banned by Google in an ongoing politically correct crusade against freedom of speech, I'd say, they're getting there. Which takes me back to where I came in - with StreetlightX, saying he would murder racists. So how is any of this funny? — counterpunch

Now, don't get me confused with StreetlightX.

was "...public money promoting Black Lies Matter..." deliberate or accidental? I'm not a big BLM fan; granted, the police resort to deadly force in many cases where disabling force would be much more appropriate. Still, black deaths at the hands of police are a small fraction of the deaths caused by civilian (usually black on black) gunfire. BLM should focus on black-on-black gun deaths as well as death by police.

My guess is that most people killed by the police are poor, whether they are black, hispanic, white or asian. A lot of police effort is directed at controlling "the rabble" at the bottom, -- the poor. That so many blacks are poor is a better cause-effect relationship with respect to racism than the activities of the police.

My guess is the Google and Apple did not ban Parler apps for reasons of political correctness. Neither corporation wants to appear as minor league tools of major league politics. Google and Apple are both very much part of The Establishment. Further, the rich people who own Google and Apple (stock holders) are generally always on the side of Law & Order, except when it comes to tax law. As a group, the rich have little (or none) sympathy with the relative poor and trouble makers.

The political right (conservatives, Republicans, etc.) have not been suffering from a lack of access to free speech. Neither has the opposite side of the aisle. If some socialists started calling for a violent take over of (Rhode Island or maybe North Dakota--never mind the U.S Congress) you can rest, assured that they will be promptly deplatformed.

We do not have absolute free speech. Some topics have been ruled out of bounds. I don't like it, but that's life.

This is a philosophy forum, and left wing politically correct dogma seeks to control Western civilisation.
— counterpunch

The shame of this is that you'll never understand why that's hilarious. — Kenosha Kid

Doctrinaire, "politically correct" ideologues would perhaps like to control Western Civilization, but really, how likely are they to succeed? A lot of people want to enforce their favorite etiquette manual, but barbarians keep ripping them up.

But that hardly matters as it's basically a religion and ideology than a scientific theory.

And anyway, I'm not so sure how much modern day leftism has to do with Marx anymore. — ssu

I recently blew up what I thought was a solid friendship by confessing that I no longer had an interest in reading or discussing Marx, especially in the context of what seems like the rapidly impending environmental disaster. By the time socialists achieve mass working class consciousness, Wall Street and the working class will have both drowned--literally or figuratively.

"Far left", "left" and "leftist" are still appealing labels, but when push comes to shove, what exactly do they mean? The "far right" and "right" seem like clearer labels. Editorial content in the Wall Street Journal (part of the Dow Jones company) seems consistently pro-capitalist, pro-corporate, pro-property, pro-reduced regulation, and so forth.

Solidly "left", even fairly "far left" publications and web sites are usually not in favor of abolishing private property and the corporation-protecting state. For that one has to turn to specifically revolutionary sites (most of which have been "preserved in aspic").

"Left" and "right" are maybe more terms of cultural and/or psychological difference, but even then they are 'leaky'. Leftists seem more tolerant of social deviation (until they are not). Right wingers seem resistant to social deviation, until they are not. (Example: the crowd that captured the capital last Wednesday looked a lot more like the anti-law-and-order hippies of old than I would have expected: blue jeans, beards, bare chested-tattooed, etc. Or maybe my cultural categories are out of date.).

Our old, handy, and familiar categories just don't work very well any more.

I am not sure denying evil Trump supporters from expressing their views is in line with allowing free speech. — FreeEmotion

Free speech is free speech, no restrictions apart from reckless endangerment (like yelling "FIRE!" in a crowded theater that isn't on fire). So yes, crazy Trump supporters can repeat the QAnon story about Satan-worshipping child molesters running the country. And you can call Trump supporters evil and/or insane.

Twitter doesn't have to allow QAnon posters, or vegans for that matter. They are under some obligation to play fairly, however. They can't ban blacks from Twitter, for instance.

To paraphrase an old saying: we have nothing to gain but more chains. I think it is time to bow down to people in power and accept our lot with meekness and thanksgiving. — FreeEmotion

As in "Eat shit and die"? Clearly you are not feeling well. Take two aspirins and call me in the morning.

“Other than Netflix, Andrew Cuomo and the virus itself, no one has benefited from the COVID-19 pandemic more than American billionaires. — FreeEmotion

It's not clear to me how billionaires have benefitted from Covid-19. When you have that much money, it is quite difficult to not come out ahead regardless of what is happening,

How would he know if ballots were scanned multiple times? How would you know? — FreeEmotion

Democratic and Republican poll watchers were observing voting and ballot counting, both with vested interests in the outcome. Fraud (such as multiple re-scanning) would have been visible to the observers.

There are also statistical checks: the number of potential voters in a precinct is a known quantity. The historical average of votes is known. Voting patterns in precincts, districts, and states can and do change, but extreme changes are not common. When there is an actual landslide (such as in 1972 when McGovern (D-South Dakota) lost to Nixon by a landslide) the landslide occurs everywhere, pretty much.

There was nothing strange about the 2020 election results. There was a small shift toward the Biden/Harris ticket. That's all that it took.

Trump kept repeating that the election would be fraudulent, way before November. He was laying the groundwork for the post-election fraud claim, in the event he lost. Too bad for Trump, multiple re-counts kept coming up short. This seems to have been intolerable to him.