Thanks for the links. Very helpful.

Does anyone have any information on how much Hamas's unguided missiles cost to make, load, and fuel? (they are unguided, right?) How much do they weigh? How much explosive payload do they carry? About what percent of the rocket launches actually hit buildings and cause extensive damage? Granted, their rockets don't have to hit anything critical -- a rocket blowing up nearby dirt would be -- just guessing -- nerve racking enough.

The distance between a point in Gaza to a point in Jerusalem is 50 miles / 80 km. It's 44 / 70 km between Gaza and Tel Aviv. So, a pretty good range for a sort of home-made rockets. Gaza factories probably have to operate for a couple of years, or so, to produce enough rockets to make an "adequate showing".

But then they have more than one model -- some are better than others.

Presumably Iran is the source of the cash / material that goes into the rockets, and I assume the stuff is smuggled in through Egypt above or below ground -- no big ships in Gaza's ports with missiles stacked up on the decks.

I haven't heard (as of 1:00 p.m. Central time) how well the Iron Dome defense system performed. The rockets in that system are said to cost between $20,000 and $100,000.

I do not have an answer. — EricH

I don't either. But...

I don't look at European arrival in the western hemisphere as "an occupation", which sounds too much like a military program to me, as when Germany Occupied France and several other countries.

It just isn't a human trait (or custom) to discover a new continent richly supplied with all sorts of good things and just leave it alone because somebody else got there first, especially a somebody else that didn't seem to be exploiting it sufficiently. King Leopold was very happy to get his hands on the Congo because the natives had little interest in latex, and he knew there was a growing market for it among other good things. Japan was perfectly aware that China had been next door for thousands of years, but at the time they needed a lot of what China had, and they took it.

All that displays extraordinarily bad manners, but that's the way people are -- sometimes. We behave fairly well when we're reasonably happy and not too resentful about other people. That can change fairly quickly.

The rest of the world didn't let Germany and Japan get away with it. They were bombed into submission. The armies of the just (AKA the Allies) had long since claimed a lot of other people's territories and there wasn't anybody around strong enough to take it away from them or make them give it back, Lucky us! However, the Axis powers came fairly close.

Is there any legal / moral framework that can be used to resolve these issues in an impartial manner? Or put differently - what are the rules for determining the rightful owner of said property?

Having an enforcement mechanism is a related but separate issue. — EricH

There are LEGAL frameworks that establish a basis of ownership. Wherever colonists landed in North America (and everywhere else), they transferred the European system of land ownership. When Israel seizes Palestinian land, they lay LEGAL claim to the property, usurping the Palestinian LEGAL claim.

If colonialized natives had a system of property ownership, it was set aside (ignored). If they didn't have a system of property ownership (the case in North America) then the land was freely available in the European legal system.

A legal system means little if there are no courts and proceedings whose jurisdiction all parties accept. Under normal circumstances, the colonializer will provide the courts which will be heavily biased in their favor.

A MORAL framework might stay the hands of colonizers, but that's unlikely if the land in question is very valuable to the colonial power, and if the colonialized people are unable to enforce their moral framework.

The upshot is that forced acquisition of land ownership have been the routine and customary method of expansion for millennia. You know, your explorers find some nice land and they claim it on behalf of the sponsoring king. Later colonists will be sent in to exploit the value of the property, If the natives become restless under the new management, then heavies will be sent in to show the locals how the new system works: We are here and it all belongs to us now. If you object too much we will shoot you. Get used to it. Who you gonna call?

In our current enlightened era (the last few years) a few beneficiaries of the European colonization of the Americas have felt guilty enough to rename a few lakes using the native words. Extremely guilt-plagued individuals have donated a little land to a tribe, or given them some cash. These are nice but feckless gestures. Feckless, because the natives are not going to get back more than a symbolic portion of the land back that they once lived on (without title).

A morally sound solution would involve a substantial redistribution of land and wealth, but even if that happened, what natives lost is too profound to be 'fixed'.

Force is the essential ingredient when it comes to shifting ownership of national lands. Hitler took a lot of various national lands, and by force the national lands were taken back -- at great human cost, both ways. Britain claimed a huge amount of land occupied by others, as did several other nations. They didn't abandon those holdings for moral reasons. Force was applied, to the British and other colonizing nations.

President Ronald Reagan 1980-1988 had a hand in the USSR's failure some commentators say. He didn't introduce military competition between the US and the USSR, but he did spend very heavily on stuff like the Star Wars Initiative (The plan to send Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader in to destroy the Kremlin) and other military projects, which compelled the USSR to spend more than they could afford to spend. The 'guns' in the budget reduced the amount of 'butter' for the Soviet people. Of course we were spending far too much (in my opinion) and couldn't afford it either, but they didn't ask me.

There was a program on PBS in the early 90s on how Russians felt about the demise of the soviet state. The post-soviet quality of life took a dive for many Russians, which probably colored their reactions, but many cited good things that the soviet system delivered. One of the things that was discussed was that there was an accessible bureaucracy to handle the complaints the people had about housing, streets, transit, markets, and so forth. It was accessible and reasonably responsive,

Joseph Stalin, may his soul rot in hell, was malevolent despot a good share of the time. He imposed famine on Ukraine in order to crush resistance to collectivization. He ignored all sorts of intelligence about Germany's planned invasion, and almost lost the country to Hitler. He had wiped out the military leadership, which had to be rebuilt to mount an effective defense. We can thank the soviet system rather than Stalin for the victory.

Another socialist enterprise worth discussion is Yugoslavia under Tito. One of Tito's achievements was to keep a lid on the various bubbling ethnic resentments which boiled over after Tito's demise. Tito's regime may have been the most effective of Eurasian communist states. North Vietnam might also be mentioned -- they beat us at our game, after all, no small achievement. North Vietnam may not have been a paradise, but it beat North Korea all hollow.

'State capitalism', where the state is the largest (or only) company of which everyone is an employee describes both the USSR and China (plus NK and Cuba). There is nothing about that arrangement which is particularly socialist or communist (per Marx). As such, were (are) they successful? The USSR is kaput, but China is successful. The USSR was able to marshal its resources to turn back and defeat the Nazi invaders, no small accomplishment.

In addition to despotism (thinking of Stalin) the major problem in the USSR and China were episodes of very bad management. Bad management happens under every kind of economic / social / political system, and it is a major contributor to bad outcomes. The great weakness of state capitalism is the potential for bad policy without effective resistance.

Capitalism is no less plagued by bad management, but has a better chance of effectively dealing with failing companies. That said, comparing allegedly communist countries with capitalist examples like the USA reveals plenty of failures here, too. Lots of wealth by abysmal distribution. On the other hand, there's nothing utopian about capitalism. It's designed around accumulation of wealth.

Lots of good points here.

There is no such thing as pure capitalism, pure socialism, pure communism, or pure democracy. Social and political organization is generally a mix of various systems. The Scandinavian countries have elements of capitalism and socialism in a democratic political system. That might be as close as we get to socialism. Even the uber-captialist country, the U.S., has a large social welfare system, so we're not pure evil. (Jamison and Zizek said it is easier to imagine the end of the world than to imagine the end of capitalism.)

I don't count the USSR or PRC as communist or socialist, despite their names. Cuba gave it a go but did so in a particularly disadvantageous environment (enforced by the US). Venezuela?

Is it worth succeeding at "socialism" or "communism" if the people are impoverished? Is capitalism a success if the people are impoverished? (Sure, because capitalists don't care if you are starving,)

For me, all fiction is about prizing the logic of metaphors-which is the logic of narratives in general–over reality, which is irreducibly random and senseless — Ken Liu

I haven't read anything by Ken Liu, but were I to find what you quoted as a blurb on a back cover, I'd give it a pass. Too high concept.

I'm not a creative writer either, but as a reader it seems to me that complex characters are much more interesting than simplistic ones. Indeed, characterization is close to the heart of a writer's job along with plot and dialogue.

Life sometimes is just there to be appreciated and be glad that you are here on this journey. — simplyG

Good. I agree. We can live life this way to the extent that we can obtain innocence. I imagine this is the way life is experienced by animals for brief moments of time when they are not hungry, are not being actively preyed upon, the weather is nice, no threats are in view. We can, perhaps, experience life in innocence for much longer periods of time than a squirrel or goose.

Unlike 'the lilies of the fields, we have to strive to regain innocence. Our normal social selves are, biblically and secularly speaking, as innocent as the driven entrepreneur. We are busy getting and spending, laying waste our powers, and all the time hashing over the meaning of it all.

Why do we try to look for some sort of extravagant meaning ? — simplyG

Why indeed?

The purpose of man is to exist — simplyG

Apparently that isn't a sufficient reason. Were existence more difficult for us all (not just one), and survival less certain then perhaps "existence for its own sake" would be enough. For quite some time life has been relatively easy to maintain, which gives us time to think about many more meanings,

The Universe isn't meaningless because it has inherent meaning (as far as I know) but because somebody (like me, like you) said it has meaning. We gave it meaning, like "The universe reveals the majesty of God." "The Universe reveals the glory of matter and energy." Or, "The universe is a tiresome infinity of tediously repetitious forms."

We can not claim that the universe is meaningless for the reason that we, meaning mongers that we are, are in the universe. Even whining teen-age nihilists can not escape meaning by claiming that life is pointless and the universe is meaningless. In one narrow way, meaninglessness, vacuums, emptiness, absences, vacancies, etc. are loaded with meaning--maybe gray, dry, dusty, stuffy meaning, but meaning none the less.

It could well be that the colour red in another country means go rather than stop — simplyG

At some point, probably during the Cultural Revolution, somebody in the People's Republic (Mao? Foo Yung?) decided that RED = STOP was contrary to socialism, so ordered the change to GREEN = STOP, RED = GO. It didn't go well. NOT because "red" inherently means stop, or "green" go, but because the meaning of red and green (for purposes of traffic) were too deeply integrated into behavior.

human life doesn't have meaning. It isn't a referent for something else — GRWelsh

human life has value, but only because we value it. — GRWelsh

If human life has value because we value it, why wouldn't human life have meaning because we give it meaning?

Your life has 'you' as a referent, doesn't it? When you say, "I am" you are referencing yourself. You are not a zero, null, nothing.

We generate / shed / excrete / ooze / produce... meaning. Meaning is not some sort of irreducible 'element'. Meaning is always debatable. Even road signs are debatable. Just what does "YIELD" supposed to mean at this weird junction? Who goes first when it says "4 WAY STOP". "STOP" on the other hand, leaves little room for debate. There are various ways of disobeying a STOP sign, but the meaning is extremely narrow and specific--as long as STOP isn't modified: "We will stop soon"; "stop before you get to the end".

I have a much bigger problem with "meaninglessness" than with meaning. "Meaningless" is a major put-down, insult, dismissal. "His book is meaningless." "Her life is meaningless." "It was meaningless sex." No! There's no such thing as meaningless sex, meaningless lives, or meaningless creations. I hesitate to say there is no such thing as meaningless work, because it seems like I have done "meaningless work" on several occasions, but I suppose it meant something to somebody somewhere.

A "hash number" may seam to be meaningless -- just a string of digits and letters -- but it might represent or be connected to something very concrete and meaningful, like a railroad car loaded with organic whole wheat flour, or maybe just the railroad car itself.

One of the forms of 'bad child rearing" concerns language. Children are exposed to many millions of words by the time they reach the school house door. The more words they hear their parents speak (television does not count) and the more positive words their parents say to them, the better. White and middle class children are the beneficiaries of higher and positive word usage. Black and poor children hear their parents speak fewer words, fewer positive words, and more command words. Clearly cultural and education background matters.

Children who receive the least (and least positive) language from their parents generally do considerably less well in primary school, and often fall further behind language-rich children as time goes on. Once the language deficit has been created during the first 5 or 6 years of life, it is very difficult to remediate.

Fortunately there is something that can be done. Researchers have shown that when poor mothers are taught to speak more words to their children, use more positive words, and use fewer command words (like, "shut up", "sit down", "stop that", and so on) the children's language skills develop better.

This isn't a quick fix. Teachers need to periodically work with the parents and their children for an extended period of time, not just a few weeks or 3 months--more like 2 or 3 years. It's expensive, but there does seem to be a pay off. The children receiving the education enrichment did better when they reached kindergarten or first grade.

Every parent should be knowledgeable about factual child-development science, thus they’re more enabled to rear their children in a more psychologically functional and sound manner. — FrankGSterleJr

Lots of good ideas in your post. Who is against good parenting?

I think we have all seen parents carrying out horrible child rearing practices at one time or another. Maybe we were the unlucky child or the horrible parent. We usually don't know whether the bad practice is a reflection of the parent's upbringing, stresses acting on the parent, regret that the child was born in the first place, or what. We have also seen parents carrying out very good child rearing practices, as well (even without instruction on child development).

A large percentage of parents manage to raise reasonably happy, healthy children without child development instruction.

I am not entirely sure what to classify as "good" and "bad" parenting. Beating children is bad; what about being overly permissive? Subjecting children to various risks by putting them to work as children is a bad idea, but what about parenting that is overly protective? Is so and so's parenting too rigid, too disorganized, too religious, too anti-religious, too what?

Children who I observed being abused (by overly harsh discipline, for example) grew up to be healthy, caring, gentle adults. How?

Parent - child relationships are a critical influence of course, but then people go on to experience other influences--good, bad, and indifferent. "On average" people tend to reach adulthood as reasonably effective, reasonably happy, reasonably healthy adults. A substantial number don't, of course, and a substantial number experience above-average lives. Lucky them.

I've heard of some high schools offering child development instruction. Good idea, along with drivers' training, money management, and the like.

What do you guys think of the Mexican aliens? — flannel jesus

Apparently many people are ready to believe in the existence of UFOs which presumably contain aliens, and more. Erich von Däniken wrote a popular book about alleged aliens in 1969 -- Chariots Of the Gods, which makes all sorts of claims about alien activity on earth over millennia. A significant number of people have taken it as FACT. On Halloween, 1939 Orson Welle's radio production of H, G, Well's FICTIONAL story, War of the Worlds freaked out millions of people--despite repeated statements before and during the broadcast that this was a FICTIONAL DRAMA not reality.

"Jaime Maussan, a ufologist and journalist, told Mexican politicians under oath last week that nearly one third of the mummified objects' DNA was unknown."

Allegedly there was some human DNA present -- which is highly suggestive of human authorship of the ancient artifacts (if that's what they are). Why should we assume that "DNA" would be present in an alien's body? Did somebody discover that aliens from another star system evolved DNA? Not that I know of. How does Maussan think that human and alien DNA would get mixed up together?

I didn't read anything about the hard structure of the objects, Bone? Stone? Clay?. Plaster? Previously unseen material?

IF this had been actual alien tissue, THEN I would expect that the facts of the examination would spark intense scientific inquiry and public discussion. This has not happened. Conspiracists will claim that the alien evidence suppression conspiracy has once again deprived the public of the TRUTH.

There was never any outright rejection, I just stopped. — T Clark

Blessed are they who just stopped.

I progressed through a long complicated withdrawal from religious belief. I'll spare everyone the tedious details. Better a quick chippy choppy on a big black block. Get it over with. Move on.

The human mind "wants" explanations for the unknown, and meaning for events — Agree-to-Disagree

True! For the most part, we don't just shrug our shoulders and move on after seeing something remarkable and previously unknown. Unfamiliar bird, an explosion, odd new weed in the lawn, objects falling from the sky, strange weather -- no matter what, we want some sort of explanation. And we want to know what it means. The explanation may be plausible but wrong, and we will be reasonably happy with it. The meaning may be spurious, but if it meshes with other meanings we will accept it -- at least until holes begin appearing.

and god provides these. — Agree-to-Disagree

"God" has explanatory power for a rather narrow set (or sect) of people. Some people distrust scientific knowledge (or know little of it). If, for theological reasons one requires divine action in all events, then "God willed it", "God wanted that to happen" whether it was a nice rain or a devastating flash flood. "God is in charge of the world."

The threshold for assigning divine responsibility can be pretty low. A flat tire might be divine intervention. That the tire was worn out would have nothing to do with it, of course. God willed it.

God still might work as an explanation for existence, if one doesn't find the Big Bang grand enough on its own merits. It isn't that we now understand EVERYTHING; but rather, we live in a model where physical events have physical causes of some sort (well, most of us, anyway).

I think illness and injury are critical tests: When the devout believers in divine rule get sick, do they resort to prayer as their only option (Christian Scientists, for example) or do they pray they will get well while they are sitting in the doctors exam room? For most people, even fundamentalists who think God is all in all, get their oil changed, check their tires, get an annual physical, insure their property, and so on. God may rule, but God isn't going to fill the gas tank.

I do not know -- we can not know -- beyond all doubt whether or not gods exist. A very large majority of people think gods do exist, and are active agents. Why?

As a former believer, it seems like the question "Do the gods exist?" is a function of the effectiveness of institutions.

"God" is a product and a service of religious institutions which purvey god-belief, rituals, theology, communal gatherings, and so on. Many individuals and families participate and support religious institutions everywhere. The viability and vitality of belief in the gods is a result of the viability and vitality of the institutions that purvey god-products and services.

Christian institutions in Europe and the Americas have lost a great deal of viability and vitality. Membership and participation losses have been extraordinarily large (over the last century -- not just since 2000).

Before the modern era (whatever date you like) there was good reason to believe in God/s because there were few other especially good explanations for a lot of fortunate and unfortunate natural phenomena. Crops failed? Wife died? A dicey investment paid off? God did it! As science and industry have progressed with ever deeper inquiries into nature there has been less need of God/s to explain bad -- and good -- fortune.

Religious institutions have run up against considerable resistance to the old idea that God (in the 'received religions') causes good and bad things to happen in response to our supplications. Even very conservative believers who consistently and earnestly pray to God go to the doctor when they feel ill. They may pray, but they also take their medicines and sign up for surgeries.

Conclusion: We do not believe because God obviously exists; we believe in God because we have been so taught. Were God-teaching to eventually end, God/god would fade and end as well.

The question remains. If Niki is real and is as conflicted as the threads produced so far suggest.
What do you think he/she/they gain, from remaining silent after posting an opening that purports to be seeking help from TPF members. — universeness

Googling Niki Wonoto reveals somebody somewhere doing philosophical business as Niki Wonoto; NW posts unremarkable pictures on Instagram and has posted on The Suicide Project--9/15/23--the same text that was posted here. There are other social media accounts under that name. What I saw in a quick drive-by was posts about music and ordinary pictures. I didn't sign in to the Twitter account.

Apparently NW finds some satisfaction in expressing nihilistic thoughts and seeing them displayed on screen. Why would a devout nihilist care to know what meaning others see in the texts?

Is NW "seeking help"? Apparently not. The suicide project site appears to be moderated, allowing no posts about methods, partners, pacts, and so on. It's a conduit for dark texts.

IF the NW person is the same in the accounts that I looked at (and they may not be), he appears to be at least somewhat engaged in life.

its just getting an afflicted often hopeless person to realise it. — universeness

Some people have counterproductive thoughts. A lot of afflicted often hopeless people are afflicted by their circumstances. Their social/physical environment may be of low quality; bad housing, violence, not enough food, rats / roaches / bedbugs, dirt, poverty, chronic physical illnesses, isolation -- and more, all leaving the afflicted angry, hungry, lonely, fearful, frustrated -- very unhappy for months and years on end. What these afflicted people need are immediate and significant physical changes in their circumstances. They may be diagnosed as "depression" cases and they may well be depressed, but what they really need, and what will be curative, is a better life.

Or, sometimes living with someone who has a combination of intractable problems -- let's say a terminal physical illness and is maybe bi-polar, may stress a partner very severely until they are themselves dysfunctional -- depressed. In that case, the situation will resolve (the terminal illness will result in the partner's death. But sometimes people are in relationships that are chronically stressful, but to which both are committed. That too can lead to depression and the cure may well be separation.

I don't want to diminish the importance of maintaining healthy thinking about one's choices, but sometimes circumstances have to change rather than coming up with new ideas. And yes, sometimes people are--for all practical purposes--STUCK in the situation they are in.

Maybe Wonoto is 'stuck'.

I can choose — universeness

The Free Will card is played.

I can also choose, at least as far as choosing to believing that I made a choice. I do not believe that people 'choose' to be depressed (and all the stuff that goes along with it). What we can and do choose (or what we can not and do not choose) is an intricate puzzle. We don't have to get into all that. My theory (chosen or not) is that we are born with a predisposition towards optimism or pessimism. You seem to be a solid optimist. I'm not a despairing pessimist, but I'm closer to that than being a cock-eyed optimist. Rogers and Hammerstein, 1949, South Pacific:

“I have heard people rant and rave and bellow
That we’re done and we might as well be dead
But I’m only a cock-eyed optimist
And I can’t get it into my head"

The "affective" aspects of human behavior don't seem to be a matter of choice. Aspects of our intellectual life, however, can (to a large extent) be chosen. Anyone might pick up a copy of the Communist Manifesto, read it, and chose to think of it as gospel or as heresy. Same with the Gospel, Ayn Rand, Mao's Red Book, Jefferson's Declaration of Independence, Thoreau, Hegel, or... whatever. Consequences usually follow when we make intellectual choices. Enthusiasm for Thoreau's Essay on Civil Disobedience influenced both Gandhi and M. L. King thinking (one out of a billion other examples). Thoreau influenced my thinking too. So did Uncle Karl. So did the Gospels. So did a lot of texts that I could have given a pass, but didn't.

The really tricky part of this is where the affective and intellectual influences mix. Some people clutch the Manifesto to their heart, other people drop it like a hot potato. What our intellects are attracted to and which we choose to read are influenced by what we like before first contact.

So getting back to Nikki Wonoto, he, she, or it may not have "chosen" nihilism as much as fallen into it and found its odd fragrance pleasant. You don't like its odor, I don't like the smell of it, but some people do. Taste is destiny?

Chronic depression can cause many bizarre behaviours. — universeness

True. I have seen this phenomenon in myself--not so much "bizarre" behavior as self-defeating and counter-productive behaviors which seemed like a good idea at the time. Perseverating is a feature of depression for many depressed people; it's the same idea repeating itself over and over again. Of course these perseverated ideas are never positive, up-beat, can-do phrases. Quite the opposite.

Depression may lift on its own, or lives may change, or one might get therapy. The former down-beat negative ideas can fade away and the world has meaning, possibilities, and goodness again.

I don't know if 'wonoto' is depressed. Maybe he, she, or it is trying nihilism on to check out the style--the philosophical equivalent of goth.

You have nailed it.

A pure provocateur — universeness

A pointless provocateur and a nihilist poseur--a role that is altogether too easy take up. It probably seems cool to a certain lazy type, because if everything is meaningless and nothing matters, there's never a reason to let others make any demands of us, or rouse one's self into action which might be slightly tiring as well as meaningless. One just goes around whining about the meaningless of life. Talk about tiresome!

I say hit the delete button.

There is meaning aplenty to be had; life just doesn't hand it to us on a silver platter.

Anesthesia really is different than sleep. Does one feel "rested" after anesthesia? I haven't felt "rested" afterwards. It was an "empty experience". I woke up with surgical wounds and discomfort but no recollection of the surgery. But then, I quite often wake up in the morning with no recollection either -- no dream memory, no sense of the night having sped by. (On other occasions it seems like a lot happened -- memory of complicated dreams, waking up several times, full bladder, etc.

One thing about waking up from anesthesia -- there has always been a nurse on hand when I've woken up. I don't know what it would be like to wake up in a room alone in the dark, say. One would have to put 2+2 together one's self. Might be scary.

Reality must keep track of all other organisms' state and location. — Cidat

It would be nice if reality did keep track of everything, but "reality" does no such thing. It can not because "reality" is a concept, a mental object--a rather big mental object.

We are not entirely out of touch with the world when we sleep. Our brains are busy doing something (???) 24/7. Your brain "puts you to sleep" and it "wakes you up". They can keep track of time well enough to wake you before your alarm goes off (unless it has decided to sleep through the alarm).

Some animals that can't afford to have both sides of their brain sleeping at the same time put the left half of their brain asleep and keep the right side awake -- then switch.

If you were the only organism on earth, your question would be profound, Fortunately, the earth is full of creatures that sleep, perchance to dream.

I have come across some of this information elsewhere, but it's a nice video presentation.

The thing that I dislike about name-change campaigns is that they are

a) campaigns conducted for some ulterior motive
b) usually in the interest of a small but strongly motivated group
c) often leveraged with shame and guilt whether deserved or not

Minneapolis has many lakes; one of the most popular is the 400 acre Lake Calhoun. 5 or 6 years ago, a group of social justice warriors decided that this name was no longer tolerable, and petitioned it to be labeled with its actual or alleged Dakota Indian (there's that "India" problem again) name -- Bde Maka Ska.

John C. Calhoun played an early role in establishing Fort Snelling in the early 1800s. Fort Snelling was intended to dissuade the British from any further incursions into the Northwest and to stamp out British influence in the booming fur trade. A map maker assigned the name, "Lake Calhoun" around 1839. Later in his career, Calhoun served on the side of the confederacy and owned slaves.

The name change was supposed to reduce the affront to black people of having a slave holder attached to a popular lake. Question: How many people, white or black, connected "Lake Calhoun" with the confederacy and slavery? One would have to be historically well informed to know that, so probably not very many,

The name change was supposed to honor the Dakota people -- thus the new name is the old Dakota name for the lake, Nothing wrong with the Dakota name. Everything here had a Dakota name before Europeans arrived and gave places new names. It's a nice enough gesture, but it's a damned slight comfort for a people who barely survive (because of numerous economic policies over the years).

"We" were to feel guilt about the name, Calhoun. Similarly, they say we ought to feel some guilt if our house had a racial covenant in the deed, despite those covenants having been made illegal and unenforceable in 1948. There were moves to change the names of streets in order to erase the memory of real estate agencies who developed the street and gave it their name along with racial covenants.

One can have the defunct covenant expunged if one wishes -- another very flimsy sop to people who have been screwed over rather thoroughly.

All of these moves are ways for some activists to perform political theater which, in the end, will have no effect.

Some people in the Pacific coast state of Oregon want to break off the eastern 2/3 of the state and join it to neighboring Idaho. This is just one more example of how a highly vocal minority can generate a big issue out of narrow personal interests.

Since "Great" Britain and the "United Kingdom" mean nothing to you, then we should obviously strike those two words from the map. It's like the linguistic mob that wants to edit out references to a male God, Lord, King, He, His, and so on.

So, I don't have a stake -- zero investment -- in what India or Bharat calls itself. But we will all have difficulty finding names for ourselves that are entirely founded on whichever native land we are from. "America" derives from the name of an Italian explorer, Amerigo Vespucci, who otherwise had very little to do with the matter.

"Asia" is a name derived from Greek, or maybe Assyrian, meaning "east of".

My point is that language and maps and usage are this huge accumulation of past events and persons that were mostly not rationally organized. They just happened.

Yes, we could spend the rest of our civilization's life straightening all this out. If we do, our civilization's life will be shorter because there are all these other -- far more urgent -- things that we should have attended to and didn't.

We haven't heard the late Victorian comic view on duty, so herewith

For duty, duty must be done;
The rule applies to every one,
And painful though that duty be,
To shirk the task were fiddle-de-dee!
To shirk the task were fiddle-de-dee!

Here's the way Gilbert & Sullivan put it to music -- unless you love G & S, after 1:47 or so, it's the usual nonsensical falderal.

blithering imbeciles — Mikie

“Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on, or by imbeciles who really mean it.” --Mark Twain

Nice slice of history. Thanks.

Events like the CNT strike in Spain, the Russian Revolution, and various other events, fueled the 1919-1920 "Red Scare" in the United States--the vicious campaign by conservative companies and organizations as well as government agencies to suppress labor organizing and black civil rights. That wasn't the first anti-labor or anti-black suppression, of course. In the Ludlow Massacre in 1914, Colorado National Guard and anti-labor militia fired on a camp of striking miners, killing 25, including 11 children. (Rockefeller owned the mine.) In 1921 a white mob burned down Tulsa, Oklahoma's black community, killing about 300 of the residents. Tulsa wasn't the only such event.

The forces of repression correctly intuited that letting underlings get too far ahead anywhere leads to more undesirable social agitation and change-- like the advancement of labor, civil rights, progressive movements, and the abomination of higher taxes on the wealthy.

I agree with your view that strong pro-labor and progressive politics requires "a strong relation between unions and a political party". Whatever they may say, the two political parties in the US are pro-capital, and at best lukewarm about labor, unless than can be outright hostile.

The official name of the Democratic Party in my state (Minnesota) is the Democratic Farmer Labor party. The Democrats merged with the larger leftist Farmer Labor party in 1944.

Hubert H. Humphrey was a key player in the fusion. Humphrey was mostly on the solidly liberal side of politics. When he was elected mayor of Minneapolis in '47, he led the attack on entrenched antisemitism in Minneapolis. Unfortunately, the progressivism faded. 40 years later, DFL governor Rudy Perpich sent the national guard into Austin, MN to help break the union strike against Hormel, pork and beef processor and maker of Spam.

In the US, hospitals are required to render care in emergency rooms, regardless of ability to pay. However, if you need hospital care once the emergency treatment is finished, then you are back on your own again. No insurance? Tough luck.

Publicly funded benefits have always been grudgingly provided, against the wishes of the ruling class--even against the wishes of the conservative American Medical Association. Those with money, even those in the professional class who are often not close to being rich, tend to think like self-made Republican bankers. They don't want to see the poor or working class people "getting something for nothing" -- forgetting that many of them got quite a lot of something for nothing during their first 25 years of life. They also don't see "something for nothing" in the many tax breaks the wealthy get.

All that is why the US has dragged behind other industrialized countries in providing public services, health services, and so on. In the three major actions to create Social Security, Unemployment Insurance, Medicare, Medicaid, and the ACA--from the 1930s onward, hard-core conservatives have been willing to contest the legitimacy of the benefits in court.

Back when (say... post WWII boom years) many workers had employment with the same company for a long time, it made more sense than it does now, where many workers change employers maybe every 5 years. Before employers started offering health care coverage (like before WWII) workers had to buy their own coverage, if they could afford it. f

[aside: American religious organizations operated many of the health care institutions 'back then' and were prepared to provide 'charity' care to people in straitened economic circumstances. That helped a lot, and they offered pretty good care, on average. That all began to unravel in in the 1960s into the '70s when religious organizations started losing congregants (and $$$), and Catholic orders shrank drastically. Catholics, Lutherans, Methodists, Baptists, Presbyterians... all withdrew from healthcare or their facilities became "non-profit" organizations which turned out to be... quite profitable.]

In the 1960s Medicaid was introduced which was paid for health care for indigent people -- people on welfare, the working poor, etc. A big leap forward. About the same time, Medicare was created to provide health care to the elderly--another big leap forward.

There were no new initiatives that made it into law until Obamacare (the Affordable Care Act - ACA) was passed with Republicans kicking and screaming. The ACA doesn't pay for health care; it established a market for affordable health insurance--a helpful, but not huge, leap forward. It also trimmed the sails of commercial insurance companies abilities to deny coverage for "preexisting conditions", for children who turned 21, and so forth.

Quite a few democrats (from liberal northern states) like the idea of single-payer insurance where the government acts as the single sole health insurer. It gives Americans to the right of Karl Marx cardiac arrest just thinking about "socialized medicine" so it's not likely to happen in the near or medium future. As Keynes said, "in the long run we're all dead."

BTW, it was unions that established the principle of the employer paying for health insurance.

My understanding is that American unions generally pay their members during a strike. The amount paid will likely be considerably less than the wage received, and only the largest unions (like United Auto Workers or Teamsters) will be able to pay strikers throughout a long strike. Individual strikers can not collect unemployment; they can pay the company's health insurance individual premium, if they can afford it, in order to maintain individual health care coverage.

The 'pros' and 'cons' list is not balanced. The 'pro' side is far stronger than the 'con' side.

#1 under 'cons' is that some workers may dislike paying dues, when dues are what makes #1, 2, and 3 in the 'pros' list possible. # 2 under 'cons' is mostly not true. #3 involves the inconvenience to the company of following contractual process, particularly in firing, #4 is true only from a company point of view -- the costs that unions raise are the wages that workers are paid.

Employees in non-union workplaces can approach a manager or business owner directly and negotiate an individual wage increase, benefits package or contract. — Alkis Piskas

True, but the individual worker has little leverage by himself. Unionism is designed to give leverage to all workers (in the union).

Wages and working conditions are better when workers are organized.

Is stealing a loaf of bread to feed your hungry children a good thing or a bad thing? — Agree-to-Disagree

Maybe they should be out stealing birth control pills and condoms so they don't have the problem of not being able to feed their children?

(I give money periodically to help feed the poor's children, but there are times when I look at some people and think "Oh, PLEASE don't reproduce -- you can't take care of yourself, let alone others!")