Peeling the onion: Almost everyone involved in developing Tor was (or is) funded by the US government
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Category Archives: Social/Political Awareness Activism
20 homeless camps return 24 hours after sweep; some UH employees nervous
Protestors Block Feds From Unloading Buses Full Of Illegal Immigrants
Feds Booed In California City After Standoff On Illegals
” An overflow crowd in a Southern California community where protesters turned back Homeland Security busloads of immigrants gave a harsh reception to federal officials behind the decision to bring them to Murrieta in the first place.
Local politicians calling for secure borders proved far more popular with the crowd Wednesday night.
” Send them back! Send the back!” the special-meeting crowd chanted, shouting down Chief Border Patrol Agent Paul Beeson after he took responsibility for transferring the Central American children and families to Murrieta from Texas, where the numbers are too much for facilities to handle.
On Tuesday, the buses were rerouted an hour south to San Diego after they were met with flag-waving protesters in Murrieta.
The Wednesday night crowd, gathered at a high school auditorium that seats 750 in the desert city of 100,000 people…
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The gun rights movement and its lunatic fringe
I am not a gun person, but I don’t consider myself an enemy of gun owners or gun rights advocates.
I’m philosophically in accord with much of what the gun rights movement says, while not in sympathy with some of its manifestations, including people in public places who carry around deadly weapons as if they were fashion accessories.
I believe that:
- Self-protection is a fundamental human right.
- The Constitution gives Americans an individual right to keep and bear arms.
- Firearms have useful and legitimate purposes.
- Ownership of firearms by responsible, law-abiding people is not a social problem.
- Down through history and across many cultures, denial of the right to own weapons is a defining mark of a subjugated people. (The other is denial of the right to testify in court).
- Guns are an icon of American culture, just as swords are an icon of Japanese culture.
A lot…
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There is no Golden Age
“What the Founding Fathers actually meant was…”
“Well, if you really read into the Bible, you’ll see that Jesus meant…”
“We’re not meant to eat wheat. If you knew what our paleo ancestors used to eat…”
We hear remarks like these all the time, in casual conversation on politics, religion, history, to the point of cliché. They all share a common theme: to put it simply, things aren’t going as well today as they were yesterday, so if we simply figure out what people were doing yesterday, we can get better!
When I used to teach, I would occasionally drive home three “rules” of history.
1. There is no Virgin Land
2. There are no Indigenous Peoples
3. There is no Golden Age
I’m going to focus here on the final of the three rules (the other two I may get to later). The quotes I opened with were fixations…
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The FBI and JFK
Over a period of a little more than twenty years, the FBI, under the instruction of J Edgar Hoover, collected a wealth of information on John F Kennedy, commencing when he was a Navy lieutenant working for Naval Intelligence in 1942, resuming when he became the Democrat presidential candidate in 1960 and continuing until his death in November 1963. The information, acquired through surveillance, wire tapping, informants and bugging, consisted of a variety of subjects, some idle gossip, some salacious rumour, others a possible threat to national security and capable of harming the prestige of the office of the President and, more importantly to Hoover, that of the international standing of the United States. It was done for a number of reasons, but the cause of Hoover’s campaign against Kennedy were fourfold: the political and ideological differences between the Kennedy’s and Hoover; Hoover’s moral judgement of John Kennedy’s actions; the…
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An academic crash course on Ayahausca
Originally posted by: Benton Rooks on Reality Sandwich
20 Essential Books on The Mysterious Power of Ayahausca
“Despite the recent surge in mainstream popularity of the vine (due primarily to celebrity culture, Elle, Oprah, and National Geographic) the subtle occult, paranormal, and metaphysical aspects of ayahuasca—for those who have dedicated their entire life to understanding and working with it—are still very much in need of further exploration….”
“By any means necessary”
Discuss the phrase ‘by any means necessary’ in the philosophy of Malcolm X
Malcolm X is one of the most contentious figures of the twentieth century and has caused debate among scholars, journalists and followers with his views on Black Nationalism and Black Power. He is a divisive figure having many critics who accuse him of being inflammatory and an advocate of the use of violence, and many supporters who see him as a champion of black civil rights who stood up to the white power structure of America. His oratory skills were remarkable, and his use of purposefully ambiguous language allowed the mainly black audiences to take what they wanted from his speeches. His principles and beliefs can at times seem contradictory, but over the last three years of his life, his political views change from that of a militant, radical revolutionary to a more gradual but still controversial…
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What Russia gained by its Crimea takeover
Russia’s annexation of Crimea gives it a dominant position in claiming the oil and gas reserves of the Black Sea. Crimea’s oil and gas assets, shown in the map above. now belong largely to Russia.
The maps at the right show Ukraine’s and Russia’s claims in the Black Sea before and after annexation. The red area in the lower map at right shows what Russia gained by taking over Crimea. Click on the link below for details.
In Taking Crimea, Putin Gains a Sea of Fuel Reserves by William J. Broad for the New York Times.
Speaking of Ukraine and Russia, here are links to three articles on the background of the Ukraine crisis that I found to be highly illuminating, and perhaps you will, too.
The Errand-Boys of Europe by Padraig Murphy for The Dublin Review of Books. A look at the historical roots of Putin’s “Eurasianism,” a political…
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Proletarian Revolution versus The Real Movement of Society: A reply to Siddiq
A comment by Siddiq
on my blog argues that I am off-base by suggesting there is no need whatsoever for a conscious revolutionary subject. I want to take a moment to respond and explain my apparent difference with value critique writers like Robert Kurz.
In contradiction to value critique theorists like Kurz, I assume the collapse of capitalism and emergence of communism are one and the same event. Disputing this opinion, the commenter writes,
“First hand experience, and historical precedent, leads me to agree with Kurz that there is no guarantee that capitalist collapse will lead to some sort of emancipation.”
His argument is based on his direct experience in Zimbabwe in the aftermath of its recent crisis, where he observed economic crisis led not to a post-capitalist order, but to
“grassroots capitalism, in which the entire population hustled to survive by any means PERMITTED, most of which involved entrepreneurship…
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The Abstract Detail 