Wednesday, December 12, 2018

Inciting Violence V Peaceful Democratic Advocacy


"...the words of the prophets are written on the subway walls and towns and halls...."


I've always interpreted that phrase by Simon and Garfunkel to mean that the truths of the common people are inscribed in their graffiti, literature, art, etc. And these truths reveal the world as lived and experienced by the majority of the people.

I am one of those people who reads the words of the people, as expressed in student stories and online social media issues and value orientations.

The words of the people this last 6 months have expressed more crises and tensions. Chaos. Turbulence.

And anger. Last night I saw a comment to a story on alleged academic censorship on Blacklisted News that clearly incites violence against academics (here). I can tell you that the academic world described in that article has nothing to do with the reality I've experienced at 3 major public universities and one private one.

What worries me the most is the emotional economies of the comments.  I have seen a trend toward more comments inciting violence at "alternative" news sites, also including Zero Hedge and SOTT.

It seems to me that some agent or agents are deliberately inciting violence within the populace, directed at the intelligentsia (particularly female and African American academics) and other social groups, to DEFLECT ATTENTION from worsening environmental catastrophes, growing economic precarity and inequality, and structural adjustments designed to de-collectivize risk, returning to nineteenth century Darwinian logics of government.

There are multiple centers of power that seek to engineer public opinion using propaganda tactics, as I've discussed quite frequently at this blog. I'm sure that there are many agents of corporate, government, and private power circulating the web planting comments aimed at inciting outrage, which lessens inhibitions against violence (e.g., see http://majiasblog.blogspot.com/2018/07/social-engineering-koch-brothers.html).

This discussion of propaganda bent on division does not presuppose that the culture of the common people is free from conflict.

Cultural fragmentation is at some level inevitable, given we have different interests and politics always infuses our relations, but messages that incite violence are a foundational threat to democracy.

The French have it right when it comes to standing up and expressing their voice.

The process of expressing voice is key to democratic politics.

Breakdowns in understandings can be addressed through demonstrations, but the key is civil disobedience and no violence.

These are strategic imperatives, not merely ideological ones, because the state will always win when it comes to the power of its policing, especially today.


27 comments:

  1. Anyone who has lived through a major catastrophe, knows the power of people working together. We understand, that there is a strong nurturing aide to the human spirit. People come alive when put our differences aside, in the face of hard odds,
    And help instead of fight

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Violence is awful. A victim of violence, can tell you as much. Mostly it is irrational and brutish. The consequences ruin peoples lives.

      Only cowards and sociopaths call for violence against people to have others do their bidding. The brave are against violence

      Delete
    2. Many eople who have been through the carnage of war and, senselous violence are abhorred, when the the drums of war beat.

      Those people are abhorred when instigators call for racial violence and divisiveness.

      The victims. The relatives who are maimed and or with ptsd. The lost brother, sister, child, mother or father.

      There have been multiple front wars, for at least 18 years.

      To turn peoples attention from the ongoing wars of the last two and current president, it was decided to use extreme bigotry, chauvenism and hatred as a foil to further the division and continue to keep the wars going though, they are disadvantageous to the the populace .

      The bigotry and meanness is used to keep us distracted as the senseless wars , war aggression, and armament continue.

      Ask yourself, when you see racists deriding ethic groups and calling for violence, what their true motives are.

      Ask yourself why they belittle the thinkers, the peacemakers,our teachers, our journalists. An what their motives are?

      The warmongers and bigots will say there is no intelligentsia, except for them and their bigotry, to have no voice peace.
      They really do not want peace because the language of bigotry is inherently dehumanizing.

      It is part of subtle and more blatant calls for more war and the dehumanization of people, so wars and violence can be perpetrated further.

      Delete
    3. I feel like the bigots work on furthering a pecking order because, they are basically bullies.

      It is easier to manipulate people that way.
      Many women are nurturers, so the bigots, racists, misogynist go after women, especially educated women, who have the ability to capture peoples attention, and draw them to think critically.

      It is an insidious and ruthless strategy that is hurtful in many ways. I think it is used a lot as a distraction but, it does have direct consequences.

      Delete
    4. The one thing they all have in common, is they prey on fear. Whether they twist the truth around and attack the peacemakes or ramp up fears with new enemies, fear is their game.

      Delete
    5. There are militia groups, nationalists, racists, jingoists calling for violence or civil war now. They want to draw peacemakers into violence, so there can be more trouble.
      This is a precarious time. Places that do lapse into civil war fall apart.

      Delete
    6. Corporate network news and cable is heavily biased to the elites and the corporate ownners.

      The news editors will not report on stories, that will effect the value of their stock or holding. There is a narrow ownership of the top television networks and cable news networks.

      Most of the news one sees on tv, except local news, is propaganda oriented to neoconservative and neoliberal elites. A great deal of news is withheld.

      Cable news is the worse CNN, FOX, MSNBC. On those networks you see and hear what information their corporate sponsor want to give you get. There is very poor development of foreign news. We saw that with Fukushima. It continues.

      Delete
    7. They try to plant memes, from operative right-wing celebrities and authors. Authors that upon closer view, have clear agendas with political groups, and their motivations. Authors that have agendas of even advancing specific politicians, though this is usually more hidden.


      They do it to distract from real concerns. Like dangerous nuclear reactors, like nuclear weapons. They simply that escalation of war rhetoric is ok. Like

      They imply that people should not be concerned about nuclear contamination or nuclear bombs.. They imply it is fear mongering.


      Delete
    8. It usually doesn't do much good to argue with agents or nuclear shills.

      Delete
    9. The incidence of autism continues to rise

      Delete
    10. Think of all the protective clothing and gloves , as well as temporary containment devices that become contaminated in handling the lethal radionuclide soups, solids and gases. Mounds of tons of it! They have done a consistently thurough job of covering up the millions of tons of nuclear waste generated the true cost is astronomical and it is all suicidal.
      Exposure to only a few grams of cobalt 60, cesium 137, or strontium 90 can kill you relatively quickly. Internally, minute quantities are devastating. Total insanity

      Delete
    11. The explosion, in the amount of radionuclides in the environment, since openair bomb testing in the 50s, three mile island, multiple reactors and much waste, Chernobyl, fukushima is making the environment sterile to bacteria and life. Fact is, the nukepukes actively sterilize food by gamma irradiation with cobalt 60.
      Think of all the chemicals people use to "clean," I men sterilize their house.
      The pesticides. Th industrial pollution. Humans are antilife.
      Every thing is so sterile and dead 80 percent of the insects are gone. 70 percent of the birds. Several species extinct daily. It is no wonder, we have hyperactive immune systems.

      Delete
    12. How France multiplies radioactive waste

      https://nuclear-news.net/2018/12/13/how-france-multiplies-hazardous-nuclear-waste/

      Delete
    13. The Racist Asteroid Man.

      Close encounters of the racist kind | Southern Poverty Law Center

      In the early 1890s, the U.S. ethnologist Cyrus Vance discredited the theory in a series published by the Smithsonian Institution. But the idea of a pre-Colombian “white genocide” never disappeared. It survived in subcultures, influenced by the occult and Atlantis legends, which clung to theories of lost ancient super-civilizations that, curiously, always seemed to be racially “white.”

      In recent decades, as evidence of a richer paleoamerican record than previously realized has come to light, Jackson’s “once-powerful race” has found a new generation of boosters on the far right, where fantasies of “white genocide” distantly past and currently unfolding are an animating obsession.

      In the fractured and constantly cross-fertilizing galaxy of extremist conspiracy culture, the white Moundbuilders — now known on the far right as “the Solutreans” — share a stage with other characters from an ancient and racially glorious but “suppressed” past: ancient Nordic-looking astronauts, biblical Aryan giants, Nazi scientists under the South Pole, and the occasional inter-dimensional alien in league with the Jews.

      The basic tenets of alt-archeology and alt-history were foundational to the ideology and program of National Socialism, but the Nazis did not invent them. The Nazi belief in a pure Aryan race with a glorious ancient past and distinct genetic history was central to a transatlantic nineteenth-century occult scene (that featured a heavy German influence.) After Hitler assumed power, this belief was institutionalized in the form of the Ancestral Heritage and Teaching Society, or the Ahnenerbe, an alt-archeology research outfit founded by Heinrich Himmler and the Atlantis theorist Herman Wirth.

      In recent years, Graham Hancock has repackaged Ancient Astronaut Theory for a new generation in his bestselling Fingerprints of the Gods, and through steady work as a History Channel talking head.
      https://agrdailynews.com/2018/12/14/close-encounters-of-the-racist-kind-southern-poverty-law-center/

      Delete
    14. What would happen if a natural catastrophe occurs on the east coast. Carrington event. Many nuclear reactors will melt down and or blow-up Chernobyl and Fukushima style, if there is grid failure. They suck off the grid, to power pumps and cooling systems to keep them from exploding.
      There are 100 nuclear reactors in the United States. They all have old decrepit, surplus diesel generators as backup, in case of catastrophic grid failure. Most of them do not perform to par.

      If you want to see something really scary, go to the NRC site about weekly reactor events or view
      Staup at cafe radlab

      http://caferadlab.com/thread-3105-post-6831.html#pid6831

      The Daily Dose – Exposing the nuclear power industry while the nuclear power industry exposes you.

      There are 2 EN(s) today, 2 associated with power stations.

      [ GA_Voglte – FFD, AL_BrownsFerry – Retraction ]

      NRC Event Notices for December 14, 2018 |
      https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-colle…214en.html

      [ Current event for GA_Vogtle_3,4 ]

      20181212 | GA_Vogtle_3,4 | CONTRACTOR SUPERVISOR SUBVERTS A FOLLOW-UP FITNESS FOR DUTY TEST |
      https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-colle…ml#en53789

      “At 1700 EST on December 12, 2018,

      a contractor supervisor violated the licensee’s Fitness-for-Duty (FFD) program by subverting a follow-up Fitness for Duty Test.

      The contractor’s site access has been terminated.

      The NRC Resident Inspector was notified.”

      No work was performed on safety related equipment.

      The licensee has made a PADs entry.

      [ Notice that this was a follow-up. Also note from the list below the number of subverts documented. ]
      [ If the supervisors are constantly failing/subverting the FFD tests what about the rank and file workers? ]

      ———– [ 2018 event history GA_Vogtle ]

      20181019 | GA_Vogtle_1 | Update MANUAL REACTOR TRIP DURING LOW POWER PHYSICS TESTING |
      https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-colle…ml#en53643

      20181007 | GA_Vogtle_1 | Exit RFO ( 20 / 21 )

      20181004 | GA_Vogtle_1 | MANUAL REACTOR TRIP DURING LOW POWER PHYSICS TESTING |
      https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-colle…ml#en53643
      RFOD_018; RX_Mode: Startup ; Hot Standby

      20180927 | GA_Vogtle_3,4 | FITNESS FOR DUTY – CONTRACTOR SUPERVISOR TESTS POSITIVE |
      https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-colle…ml#en53628

      20180917 | GA_Vogtle_3,4 | CONTRACT SUPERVISOR TEST POSITIVE ON RANDOM FITNESS FOR DUTY TEST |
      https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-colle…ml#en53610

      20180917 | GA_Vogtle_1 | Begin RFO ( / 21 )

      20180912 | GA_Vogtle_3,4 | CONTRACTOR SUPERVISOR TESTS POSITIVE ON FITNESS-FOR-DUTY TEST |
      https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-colle…ml#en53599

      20180911 | GA_Vogtle_3,4 | CONTRACTOR SUPERVISOR TESTS POSITIVE ON FITNESS-FOR-DUTY TEST |
      https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-colle…ml#en53595

      20180824 | GA_Vogtle_3,4 | CONTRACTOR SUPERVISOR SUBVERTS A FOLLOW-UP FITNESS FOR DUTY TEST |
      https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-colle…ml#en53563

      20180808 | GA_Vogtle_3,4 | CONTRACTOR SUPERVISOR TESTS POSITIVE FOR ALCOHOL |
      https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-colle…ml#en53538

      20180727 | GA_Vogtle_3,4 | CONTRACTOR SUPERVISOR TESTS POSITIVE FOR ALCOHOL |
      https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-colle…ml#en53528

      20180726 | GA_Vogtle_3,4 | CONTRACTOR SUPERVISOR SUBVERTS A FOR-CAUSE FITNESS FOR DUTY TEST |
      https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-colle…ml#en53526

      20180718 | GA_Vogtle_3,4 | NON-LICENSED CONTRACT SUPERVISOR SUBVERTS FITNESS FOR DUTY TEST |
      https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-colle…ml#en53517

      20180718 | GA_Vogtle_3,4 | CONTRACTOR SUPERVISOR TESTED POSITIVE FOR ALCOHOL |
      https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-colle…ml#en53515

      20180717 | GA_Vogtle_3,4 | NON-LICENSED CONTRACT SUPERVISOR TESTS POSITIVE ON FITNESS FOR DUTY TEST |
      https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-colle…ml#en53511

      20180709 | GA_Vogtle_3,4 | CONTRACTOR SUPERVISOR TESTS POSITIVE ON FITNESS FOR DUTY TEST |
      https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-colle…ml#en53499

      20180703 | GA_Vogtle_1 | MANUAL REACTOR TRIP DUE TO HIGH STEAM GENERATOR WATER LEVEL |
      https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-colle…ml#en53484

      Delete
    15. @Bojacobs Hundreds of thousands of years of sorrow. Countless billions of $$ on isolating it in deep geological storage for millennia around the planet. On this day, apologies to thousands of future generations.
      Quote Tweet
      NNSA
      @NNSANews
      #OnThisDay in 1940, #plutonium was first produced and isolated by Glenn Seaborg, Joseph Kennedy, Edwin McMillan, and Arthur Wahl @UCBerkeley.

      Https://mobile.twitter.com/bojacobs/status/1073592346145505280

      Delete
    16. "Smithsonian Magazine, May 14, 2014: Even Tiny Amounts of Radioactive Food Made Caterpillars Become Abnormal Butterflies...

      https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-new...66/?no-ist

      Nature — Scientific Reports (pdf), Published May 15, 2014:
      …Both the mortality and abnormality rates increased sharply, especially at low doses [...] the mortality and abnormality rates increased sharply, especially at low doses. Additionally, there seemed to be no threshold level below which no biological response could be detected. [...] the dose-response data suggests that the relatively small level of artificial cesium from the Fukushima Dai-ichi NPP may be significantly toxic to some individuals in butterfly populations…”

      From antirad

      Delete
    17. From Mining Awareness.
      https://miningawareness.wordpress.com/2018/12/15/grand-gulf-nuclear-station-apparently-falling-apart-another-scram-follows-five-unplanned-downpower-events-in-less-than-one-year/

      Grand Gulf Nucler Plant SCRAM!
      Five downpower events in one year. Highly aged 40 yo nuclear plant falling apart.
      near Fort Gibson, Mississippi. On Mississippi River. Leaks Tritium

      Delete
    18. How would ya like to work at this nuclear shithole! Guarenteed cancer for life
      REPORT THIS AD
      Explosion and fire at German Advanced Nuclear Fuels plant
      Posted by Christina MacPherson
      Sortir du Nucleaire 6th Dec 2018 , An explosion followed by a major fire took place on 6 December 2018 at the
      Advanced Nuclear Fuels plant in Lingen (Lower Saxony). This plant, located
      near the Emsland nuclear reactor in northwestern Germany, is owned by
      Framatome. Nuclear fuel elements are manufactured and sent to several
      countries, including France. As a spokesman for the plant later confirmed
      to the media Norddeutscher Rundfunk, the fire broke out in the laboratory
      of a manufacturing workshop , where the quality of the uranium is tested
      before shipment. This laboratory is located in the nuclear part of the
      facility. Although quickly controlled, the fire required the intervention
      of 150 firefighters from the area. The staff was evacuated. Since then, the
      plant has been idling.

      https://www.sortirdunucleaire.org/Allemagne-Lingen-Explosion-et-incendie-dans-l-usine-Framatome-de-fabrication-de-combustible-nucleaire1


      https://nuclear-news.net/2018/12/15/explosion-and-fire-at-german-advanced-nuclear-fuels-plant/

      Delete
  2. As you have probably noticed war has dwindled and barely enters the news now and then. War for a society is the great dumping place of anger which is why things tend to calm down on the home front during war. Suddenly we have the perfect enemy that wants to harm us. Otherwise, in times of peace we are deprived of an enemy unless we can locate one domestically & we usually can. I wonder who the enemy is now? Any good candidates?

    With its amateurish journalism the main stream media does a fine job of pointing the finger. So does social media. Vast amounts of energy are now deployed in insulting the bad guys and gals. Celebrates often lead the way. But are they sincere? Actors can certainly come across as such but that is what they are good at.

    As for the intelligentsia we don't seem to have much of one. Most of the violence seems directed at the political element and of course the "deplorables". But it depends on one's source of information. In my whole life I have never till now encountered persons of mature age who immediately go into a tirade or rant at any mention of politics. Like in a musical when suddenly one of the characters break into song. It is a strange experience. I wonder if they see apparitions of the bad guys then?

    Without pain there is no fear; without fear no anger. Angry people are fearful people. Where does the fear come from? Well, there are the fear mongers among us.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Cold Sun Warning! 350-Year Ice Age Starting in Months https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbVtDa3DqRQ

    I believe this is the case and not a hoax. Don't expect CNN to tell you.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Hey Majia. If you are not into violence, why even follow sites like Zero Hedge ? The mascot of their site is the violent THUG, from Fight Club, for crying-out-loud

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. They use to have interesting analyses of market trends, such as high frequency trading, that were informative but the quality of content and commentary has deteriorated significantly on the whole with this extra-bellicose turn

      Delete
  5. My Chat with Evolutionary Biologist Heather Heying

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0dcyAXXmCw

    ReplyDelete
  6. Nuclear and radionuclides contamination are DEVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY:
    On the Unique DNA Damage Done by Ionizing Radiation-Nuclear Materials (and on Metting, Hultgren, et.al. Misleading the US Congress in this Matter)

    https://miningawareness.wordpress.com/20...is-matter/

    " As explained to US Congress in September by Dr. Weatherwax, Ph.D. in biochemistry: “To date, there are no studies that have been able to establish with sufficient certainty a threshold level of radiation below which a risk of cancer is zero, despite decades of research in this area."
    The US DOE’s own Los Alamos National [Nuclear] Lab (LANL) wrote the following in 1995, several years before the Dept. of Energy’s “Low Dose” program begin. It clearly shows that nuclear discharges are lethal and hence criminal. Thus, the almost 20 year long “low dose” program never should have been funded by the Dept. of Energy in the first place. Any funding should have been NIH or CDC. From LANL, 1995: “Although single-strand breaks, abasic sites, and base alterations are induced by both ionizing radiation and normal metabolic processes, one particularly dangerous type of DNA lesion, the double-strand break, is induced preferentially by ionizing radiation. This is due to the manner in which radiation creates radical species within the cell, versus that of metabolic processes. "



    It has been estimated from cell-culture studies that approximately twenty to forty double-strand breaks occur per genome at 100 rad of exposure. At that rate, exposures equivalent to ordinary background radiation (typically about 0.3 rad per year) should produce only one double-strand break per ten cells per year… A double-strand break is usually a mess, and repairing it can be problematic. Even a fairly clean double-strand break, wherein the two backbones are broken directly opposite from each other, results in at least a one-base-pair deletion and a disruption of the linkage between the two DNA segments. The passage of densely ionizing particles, such as alpha particles or neutrons, may break several proximal DNA molecules and cause base damage within each strand that can span several nanometers, or fifteen to twenty base pairs. Not surprisingly, the damaged bases are often excised as the free DNA ends are made ready for repair. The excision permanently removes bases. Simple rejoining of the exposed DNA ends is probably the major mechanism for the repair of double-strand breaks, but this mecha-nism would result in a loss of genetic information…
    How Nuclear Power Causes Global Warming

    https://progressive.org/dispatches/nucle...l-warming/

    ReplyDelete
  7. THE ELIMINATION OF NET NEUTRALITY DONE! PAID INTERNET IS NOW ABOUT HALF-AS FAST AS IT WAS! IT MEANS THAT ABOUT HALF THE PEOPLE WHO PAY FOR INTERNET, WILL GIVE IT UP, IN THE NEXT FEW MONTHS!

    ReplyDelete
  8. "Clemson Prof in NYT: Human Extinction ‘Might Just Be a Good Thing,’ Because Global Warming" This article is at Breitbart if you wish to waste your time. This is not a very intelligent man. He is wrong about global warming and even more wrong about the extinction of the human species. According to what value system would the proposed extinction be a good thing? For a philosophy professor he is a real hack. I suppose he just wants his name in the public. Why would anyone take a class form this professor? who obviously has a terrific case of indigestion.

    ReplyDelete

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