Culture

McConnell Makes a Hostage Video

The Guardian’s Lloyd Green calls Mitch McConnell’s belated criticisms of Trump for inciting the January 2021 DC riot a “hostage video,” spoken immediately after the KY Senator voted to acquit Trump of inciting the same riot.

Click here to read Green’s Guardian article

As usual, McConnell looks like a baffled caterpillar (see below). This is a man whose single political achievement has been to pack the Supreme Court with Trump-annointed mediocrities. I almost pity a GOP stuck with this toad in leadership for six more years.

Check out Green’s piece, which also refers to McC as “a rent-collector in a banker’s shirt.”

Confused Caterpillar photo: US Senate TV

Culture, Satires

Barter a Pardon if Trump Admits His Lies

I hate the idea of putting Trump on trial. What a nauseating vision of “democracy.” Not only does it look like a banana-republic show-trial – he’ll be found not-guilty by his Senate toadies.

Show trials have a long and hideous history, from Henry VIII to Robespierre to Stalin. Although our predecessors tended to find their targets guilty, it’s still rotten company.

I have an alternate proposal that will far more effectively end Trump’s political career while sparing us this ugly spectacle – barter a pardon for a public admission of his lies.

Here’s my idea.

We make a list of the Top Ten Trump Lies (decided by audience vote after a televised contest), and he agrees to read the document aloud, with no alteration or addenda, on Fox TV.

In return, Biden pardons Trump and his family for all high crimes, misdemeanors, felonies, and parking violations committed during his term in office.

My guess is that such an admission would destroy Trump as a political actor, far more than a show trial which won’t even find him guilty. And it would spare us the sure-to-be-abused precedent of putting the previous administration on trial.

Henry VIII – all of his show trials ended in convictions

Culture, Music, Satires

Radio Free Nixon – videos on youtube

Radio Free Nixon – Cultural Sound Collages

Radio Free Nixon sound collages were created for Berkeley Liberation Radio around 2000. Now we’ve gone all hi-tech and added video!

Watch shows on youtube! Show 03 | Show 04

Berkeley’s DJ Milhous pillaged American pop culture to create these sound-collages featuring the Funky Nixons’ music. Sound-bites from Groucho Marx, Richard Nixon, Monty Python, Shakespeare, the Wizard of Oz, Daffy Duck, vintage radio commercials, and dozens of others sources are spliced into a 20-minute radio show originally aired on Berkeley Liberation Radio. Now with video clips of the Stooges, Nixon, Keystone Cops…

Please pass these shows along! Play them really loud at parties. Play them on your own radio station. Call your friends and play them into their answering machines. Thanks!

Visit the Funky Nixons Page

Listen free on Youtube | Spotify

Culture, Satires

Adult Disposal Units?

I’ve been looking at pictures of buildings by the early-1900s architect Le Corbusier*, and was feeling strangely reminded of roach motels. You know – “Roaches check in – but they never check out!”

So what should come across my news feed but the latest iteration of Corbusian design – the ADU, which I think might mean “Autonomous Dwelling Unit.”

Only I couldn’t help thinking that it actually means “Adult Disposal Unit.”

You know, like “Old folks check in – but they never check out!”

Probably I’m wrong. But as a soon-to-be old person, I’m keeping a careful eye on this one.

*- here’s Le Corby’s original design for the roach motel – obviously the manufacturers cut a few corners, but they retained the spirit.

Culture, Photos

Tiny Houses Come to Berkeley

Direct Action co-conspirator Sally Hindman sends this account of a recent grassroots project – story from Oaklandside, Oakland’s community site

It’s been a long road for the Youth Spirit Artworks project, which could house 22 homeless youth starting in the fall.

By the time he was 17, Sean McCreary was tired of telling his life story to people with money and power. Over and over again, he’d speak publicly about his experience getting displaced with his family from their South Berkeley home, and the four years he spent couch-hopping afterward, hoping to convince city officials to do more about the housing crisis.

“It had been two years of going to City Council meetings and pouring my heart out,” said McCreary, who first became homeless in sixth grade. He said he felt it was important to tell real estate developers and politicians what he knew, acutely, about the need to build affordable housing and stem gentrification. But it began to feel like a relentless cycle of emotional advocacy and waiting.

“I was like, I need to start putting things to action,” said McCreary, who’s now 20 and housed in West Berkeley.

He and his friends and colleagues at Youth Spirit Artworks, a Berkeley-based arts and job-training program for homeless and low-income youth, thought: What if we build affordable housing ourselves instead of just asking cities and developers to do it?

Now, after three years of tireless work, funding pleas, celebrations, and setbacks, their “tiny house village” is nearing completion. Twenty-two young people who need a place to live will likely be able to move into the mural-covered homes on Hegenberger Road in East Oakland in the fall, said YSA Executive Director Sally Hindman. Along with the youth, something like 1,400 volunteers—many from religious congregations, as well as schools and businesses—helped construct the houses, with oversight from general ,contractor Rolf Bell.

Each tiny house is 8 by 10 feet, and has a lofted bed, a closet, desk and chair, and electricity and heating. The village is still short four of its planned 27 tiny homes because of COVID-19 construction delays, Hindman said. The others are ready, along with two yurts that will serve as a communal kitchen and a living-room-slash-maker-space, and shared bathrooms. This week, volunteer crews, including 150 kids from Temple Beth El’s Camp Kee Tov, are installing painted fences around the parking lot where the tiny homes stand, and beginning to lay the groundwork to run power and water to the structures.

The village will house youth ages 18-25, for two years each. Residents will go through YSA’s job training program and have access to case managers who will help them work toward personal goals and connect them to city resources. The initial residents will be selected from people already connected with Oakland and Berkeley’s homelessness services, and the hope is to help them find permanent housing before they leave. (Call 211 to get connected with local housing and shelter options.)

“We’re calling it the Empowerment Village because it’s an opportunity for young people to transform their lives, end the cycle of homelessness, and move on to being self-sufficient,” Hindman said.

Read more at Oaklandside – click here

Donate to the Empowerment Village – click here

 

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Black Lives Matter, Culture

Seattle and the Risk of Premature Revolution

seattleAutonozone01-JimUrquhart-NPR

Photo – Jim Urquhart/NPR

Seattle activists have seized control of a neighborhood and declared an autonomous zone.

This is a novel development, perhaps not attempted since the 1960s. It’s hard not to feel some excitement.

Still, Seattleans, I had to wonder:

Are you trying to spark revolution across the continent and around the world?

Or is this one of those “society of the spectacle” things where you never expect to succeed – you’re trying to dramatize resistance without too much concern for how it might play out in the end?

If it’s the latter, best wishes. Hope you have good lawyers or fast feet when the time comes.

But if you think this is “the revolutionary moment,” and that your seizure of power is going to spark an uprising, well, I think you’ve jumped several steps ahead of concrete possibilities.

From a materialist perspective, that’s never a good idea.

Emergencies In Utopia

My gripe isn’t with vision or tactics – it’s with timing.

Before I tear down capitalist institutions serving primary needs, I’d like to see viable alternatives functioning on a scale bigger than a farmers’ market or a free clinic.

As practical strategy, it makes little sense to seize an autonomous zone when you have no way to feed or give medical care to any sizable number of people for any length of time.

Suppose capitalism takes you seriously and folds up shop. You get to sack the store one time – then no more groceries.

You can seize the hospital – but the technicians don’t come with it. Good luck running an emergency room.

Even in utopia, people have medical emergencies.

Minimal Requirements for Revolution

Here’s three minimal requirements I would like to see before we attempt a revolutionary seizure of power:

  • creating open and democratic decision-making structures. If those exist among the radical left, someone forgot to mail me my ballot. Presently-existing processes are not open – we are presented with a fait accompli and expected to play along (or go home).
  • creating broad progressive coalitions capable of organizing vital services such as health care and education, not simply for a short-lived spectacle, but for the open-ended future. This means organizing labor, not relying on volunteers, however talented and compassionate.
  • creating food and supply networks capable of feeding and caring for thousands of people. This is currently a pipe dream on any scale larger than a farmers’ market.

All Love to Seattle

I love the spirit of Seattle activism, from the 1990s to this day. No compromise – justice now.

On the down side, last time I checked, Seattle is not exactly a demographic cross-section of America. And revolutionary communes don’t do so well when have to go it alone. They need allies.

Still, my bigger concern is for lack of viable alternative institutions.

I doubt that Seattle activists, for all their undeniable brilliance and dedication, have built post-capitalist alternatives on a scale to serve even a neighborhood, let alone a city or state. If they have, it’s a well-kept secret.

If not, is there an openly-agreed-upon plan for how and when to end this spectacle? Or do we leave that up to the police?

Don’t Mimic the Paris Commune

Back during Occupy Oakland days, a certain faction liked to refer to us as the “Oakland Commune,” a reference to the revolutionary seizure of Paris in 1871.

Like today’s communards, the Paris claque jumped far ahead of their material foundations, believing that good will and dedication would carry the day.

Never mind feeding thousands of people – the farmers will flock to our banner! Never mind that the military has cannon – we have heart!

It didn’t work. As the military recaptured the city, 20,000 people were slaughtered. Not a great inspirational model, in my book.

My Fear

My fear is that instigators and many participants know this experiment will fail. It is intended as spectacle, not revolution.

A certain number are confident that their families will hire lawyers, or that pro bono attorneys will come to their rescue.

For the rest, don’t sleep too soundly. Don’t get trapped in a debacle unless getting beaten and going to prison is your chosen way of resisting.

Because for all the dedication, for all the courage and heart, there is no way that the foundations have been laid for this quixotic effort to succeed.

Blessings to all.

Luke Hauser/DirectAction.org

June 23 update –  city govt has ordered people to leave the zone. So – you can stay and wage a hopeless fight – or you can do what the Zapatistas did in this situation. Ordered to disperse, they melted away overnight – to reappear when conditions were right.

July 21 update – and so the bullet was dodged, so to speak. Your allies breathe a bit easier. Congratulations to level heads who managed to defuse the situation without too much lasting damage to people’s lives.

After all, if people’s lives are negatively impacted, we know what color heads that comes down on first. And black lives matter. Even in Seattle.

Black Lives Matter, Culture

George Floyd’s Killing Opens Wounds of Centuries of Racism

Thoughtful piece on the deeper challenges of the George Floyd killing and response, by Emily Stewart of Vox.

By Emily Stewart

The death of George Floyd, an unarmed 46-year-old black man killed by police during an arrest in Minneapolis, Minnesota, has sparked protests across the country. It has reignited a centuries-long conversation around racism in America and the horrendous ways black people are often treated by police. And it came amid a pandemic that is disproportionately impacting people of color.

On May 25, Floyd, who had recently lost his job as a restaurant bouncer due to coronavirus-related closures, died after being pinned down under a police officer’s knee for several minutes. That officer, Derek Chauvin, ignored Floyd’s pleas of distress as three other officers looked on and bystanders begged Chauvin to remove his knee from Floyd’s neck.

A video taken by a bystander and posted online spread quickly on social media. It shows that by the time Chauvin stopped holding Floyd down, he was silent and motionless. According to a criminal complaint filed against Chauvin, an officer on the scene checked for Floyd’s pulse before Chauvin removed his knee and could not find it. Floyd was later pronounced dead at a local hospital.

Chauvin and the three other officers involved in the incident were fired on Tuesday, May 26, and on Friday, May 29, Chauvin was arrested and charged with third-degree murder and manslaughter. On June 3, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison elevated the charges to second-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter, and the three other officers involved were charged with aiding and abetting murder. Chauvin’s bail has been set at at least $1 million.

The incident has rightly prompted outrage across the country, and thousands of protesters have taken to the streets in Minneapolis — and in cities across the country and the world. While many of these protests have been peaceful, some have turned violent, with police clashes, burning buildings, and looting.

The protests have been focused on policing, but come during a 2020 that has been acutely painful for people of color. The coronavirus crisis has disproportionately affected black and Latino Americans, who have become sick and died of Covid-19 at higher rates than whites. The economic turmoil brought on by stay-at-home measures has also hit people of color especially hard — they’ve lost more jobs, and they were less likely to be financially stable in the first place.

Add to that a cascade of headlines of black Americans whose lives have been cut short by white violence and by police in recent weeks — Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and, most recently, Floyd. As Americans were grappling with these tragic headlines, a video went viral of a white woman feigning her life was being threatened by a black man bird-watching in New York’s Central Park after he asked her to leash her dog. It was a reminder that beyond concerns over state violence, systematic racism creates potentially dangerous situations for black Americans doing even the most mundane things.

The protests spawned by the deaths of Floyd and others are hardly a new development in the United States — the deaths of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Sandra Bland, and countless others have led to significant public outcry in recent years.

Four years before Floyd’s fatal arrest in Minneapolis, Philando Castile was shot to death during a traffic stop in a nearby Minnesota suburb. Floyd told the officer who kept his knee on his neck, “I can’t breathe,” echoing the words of Eric Garner who died after being held in a chokehold in a police encounter in New York in 2014.

If it feels like we’ve seen this crisis before, it’s because we have. And still so many things haven’t changed.

Floyd died on Monday – Chauvin was charged the following Friday

Floyd grew up in Houston and moved to Minneapolis in 2014 to look for work, according to CBS Minnesota. He got a position as a security guard at a Salvation Army store downtown, and then later began to work two jobs as a truck driver and a bouncer. He had a 6-year-old daughter who still lives in Houston with her mother. In the weeks before his death, he’d been laid off due to Minnesota’s stay-at-home order.

Vox’s Catherine Kim explained the circumstances of his May 25 encounter with police following a purchase at a convenience store and, ultimately, his death, as shown by video footage captured of the incident:

Although the video doesn’t capture the moments leading to the arrest, the Minneapolis Police Department said they were responding to a call that a man was trying to use a $20 counterfeit bill, according to the Star Tribune. In a statement, the police department said officers arrived at the scene to find Floyd — who matched the description of the suspect — sitting on a car and appearing to be intoxicated. They added that Floyd physically resisted the police and seemed to be “suffering medical distress,” which is why they had called for an ambulance.

The police’s excessive use of force seemingly has no excuse: The department does not permit the technique that was used to pin Floyd’s head to the ground, according to Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey.

The four officers involved were fired on Tuesday, May 26, and the next day, Mayor Frey called for Chauvin to face criminal charges. Local officials on Thursday said they were investigating Floyd’s death “as expeditiously, as thoroughly, and as completely as justice demands” and asked for patience from the public. At the end of the week, Chauvin was arrested and charged with third-degree murder and manslaughter, and the Justice Department said it would investigate Floyd’s death as well. Chauvin’s wife filed for divorce. The next week, the charges were elevated to second-degree murder.

The day the officers involved were fired, the Police Officers Federation of Minneapolis said in a statement that all video of the incident should be reviewed, and called for waiting on the medical examiner’s report. “Officers’ actions and training protocol will be carefully examined after the officers have provided their statements,” the federation said.

According to the criminal complaint against Chauvin, the officer had his knee on Floyd’s neck for eight minutes and 46 seconds, including two minutes and 53 seconds during which Floyd was “non-responsive.” Officer J.A. Keung — another of the four officers fired — tried to find Floyd’s pulse shortly after he became unresponsive, and could not.

Autopsies performed by the county medical examiner and an independent medical examiner commissioned by Floyd’s family ruled homicide as the cause of death, but some details of their determinations differ. The Hennepin County medical examiner said Floyd died of “cardiopulmonary arrest complicating law enforcement subdual, restraint and neck compression.” The independent autopsy determined that he died of asphyxia.

Chauvin and Floyd appear to have worked together as nightclub security guards. One of their former coworkers told CBS News that Chauvin knew Floyd “pretty well” and that they bumped heads because the officer was “extremely aggressive within the club with some of the patrons.” Floyd’s family has suggested that they believe Chauvin knew who Floyd was and think the killing was partly personal.

The delay in charges against the other officers involved in Floyd’s death was cause for consternation. On May 31, George Floyd’s brother, Philonise Floyd, in an interview with CNN’s Don Lemon said the other officers should also be in jail. “They’re at home right now sleeping in their bed, relaxing,” he said. “[Chauvin’s] in jail, he’s only one. The other three need to be in there. My brother — he’s in the morgue. That’s not right. I want justice now. He deserves that.”

The network then connected him with Minneapolis Police Chief Medaria Arradondo, who was speaking to CNN reporter Sara Sidner at a protest. She asked him whether the other officers would be arrested.

“Being silent or not intervening — to me, you’re complicit. So I don’t see a level of distinction any different,” Arradondo said. “So obviously the charging and those decisions will have to come through our county attorney’s office. Certainly, the FBI is investigating that. But to the Floyd family, I want you to know that my decision to fire all four officers was not based on some sort of hierarchy. Mr. Floyd died in our hands.”

The three other officers were later charged with aiding in the killing. The Minneapolis City Council has also begun debating the future of the city’s police department and is weighing ways to disband and rebuild its law enforcement and public safety apparatus.

Massive reaction to Floyd’s death

The public reaction to Floyd’s death has been swift and enormous.

Politicians, celebrities, athletes, and multiple other public figures have spoken out. A few days after Floyd’s death, former President Barack Obama released a lengthy statement calling for the country to work for a “new normal” for black Americans. “This shouldn’t be normal in 2020 America,” he wrote. He also made a lengthy post on Medium about the way forward and delivered public remarks about police brutality, violence, and protests at a town hall.

Former Vice President Joe Biden called the moment a “national crisis” and one that necessitates “leadership that will bring everyone to the table so we can take measures to root out systemic racism.” President Donald Trump expressed his condolences to Floyd’s family and said he spoke with them, though he has fanned the flames of division during the protests.

Even members of law enforcement spoke out condemning the circumstances in which Floyd was killed. “To be honest with you, it was very difficult to watch,” Birmingham Police Chief Patrick Smith told local news outlet WBRC. He continued, “It degrades the trust in all law enforcement, not just one area. When things like this happen, it spreads throughout the country. It makes all of us go back and check our relationships and make sure we are doing things the right way.”

Protests have been ignited in Minneapolis — and across the country — as people express their outrage not only about Floyd’s death, but about the underlying racism and inequality that renders being black in America dangerous, particularly at the hands of police.

Minneapolis has seen days of unrest. There have been a number of peaceful protests, but some businesses there have been looted and vandalized, and police stations and other buildings burned down. Demonstrations have become increasingly volatile as local officials have asked the public for peace. The governor called for the full mobilization of the Minnesota National Guard.

Uprisings have also spread across the country. Protests in Atlanta became tense and destructive — cars were set ablaze, and windows at the CNN building were smashed in. Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms pleaded with protesters for calm: “If you care about this city, then go home,” she said at a press conference on May 29.

Rapper Killer Mike, in a speech at the same press conference, struck a similar tone. “I am duty-bound to be here to simply say that it is your duty not to burn down your own house for anger with an enemy,” he said.

Protesters and police have also clashed in New York City. Cars were set on fire and windshields were smashed, and both protesters and police were harmed. According to ABC 7, there were more than 200 arrests reported in a single night. In San Jose, California, Miami, Chicago, Dallas, Washington, DC and multiple cities and small towns across the country, protests and arrests are taking place. Crowds of protesters have gathered outside of the White House as well, and at one point, law enforcement released tear gas on peaceful demonstrators so the president could have a photo op. Police and even some protesters have targeted journalists covering the demonstrations.

Disturbing videos of police violence emerged online, including one of an officer pushing a woman to the ground in Brooklyn and another of officers pushing a 75-year-old man to the ground and then walking past him as he bleeds from his head in Buffalo, New York.

Some of the details of the protests have been a little bit murky, including whether some protesters who destroyed property traveled from other areas. There has been some suggestion that white supremacists, cartels, or other bad actors may be involved, but that hasn’t been confirmed.

New York City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, who has taken part in protests in the city, in late May noted he saw “non-black allies in particular” escalating the situation. “That decision should not be yours to make,” he warned. He also spoke out about the “heavy police presence” at the outset of some protests, before anyone has even been outside. “We are dealing with people who are grieving and who are angry. The response to that cannot be a show of force,” he said.

Some states have mobilized the National Guard to respond, and mayors have enacted curfews to try to tamp down demonstrations. It is not clear how effective these will be at stemming the protests. New York City ended its curfew early.

President Trump isn’t helping the situation. At one point, Trump tweeted out an apparent threat to protesters declaring, “When the looting starts, the shooting starts,” mirroring language used by segregationist law enforcement officials during the civil rights era. In the same tweet, the president called demonstrators “THUGS.” Twitter put a warning on the tweet saying it glorifies violence, fueling the fire of the president’s battle with the social media platform.

Trump later walked back the tweet, saying he was trying to warn that looting could lead to shootings because it intensifies the situation.

The president has continued to weigh in on the protests, suggesting they’re driven by antifascists and the “Radical Left,” and lashing out at the media for its coverage of the demonstrations. He also commended the Secret Service for protecting him from White House protests — and suggested one Saturday night should be “MAGA NIGHT AT THE WHITE HOUSE.” He has blamed demonstrations on antifa and sought to cast protesters as terrorists, in a call with governors urging “retribution” and saying the country is perceived as “weak.” He floated a conspiracy theory that the 75-year-old Buffalo man knocked over by police was an antifa “provocateur.”

This isn’t about the protests – it’s about what the protests are about

Beyond the debates about the tactics demonstrators are using and who is and isn’t involved, there is a much deeper issue here that must remain in focus: the way black people are treated in the United States.

As Vox’s Dylan Scott put it, violent protests aren’t the story right now, police violence is:

Of course the protests are about George Floyd’s death. Political leaders fear violence at the protests — and any destruction of property or bodily harm is, of course, worrisome — but their concerns actually demonstrate the fundamental asymmetry that the protesters are pushing back against. The state has a monopoly on legitimate violence, and it is often directed at young black people like George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Tamir Rice — the list goes on. When they die, the police officers responsible too frequently face no repercussions because they are protected by the law. If the men who killed George Floyd go to prison for their actions, they will be exceptions that prove that longstanding rule.

As Scott lays out, there are countless data points on how black Americans are targeted and mistreated by law enforcement. Black men have 1 in 1,000 odds of being killed by the police. Black people are twice as likely as whites to be pulled over by police, and they’re likelier to be searched. When they’re murdered, their murders are less likely to be solved. They’re sent to prison more often, and they are given longer prison sentences.

And for black Americans, these aren’t data points — they are real and lived situations each and every day.

And racial disparities are not just limited to criminal justice. Inequities are present in so many aspects of American life. Just look at the coronavirus crisis: The disease is disproportionately sickening and killing people of color, and it’s hitting in areas where minorities live harder. That’s true in Minnesota, where Floyd lived. Women of color are disproportionately essential workers who are putting themselves at risk, often for low-paid jobs with no health insurance. Black and Hispanic people are likelier to be laid off or furloughed during the pandemic. That’s what happened to Floyd.

In the flurry of news around the protests of Floyd’s death, on top of everything else, it can be easy to lose sight of the real problem: The centuries of racism in the bedrock of American society continue to do enormous damage. And that damage is borne in large part by black Americans.

Culture

Solidarity Means Face Masks

Guest blog from Norman Solomon, longtime grassroots organizer and 2016 Bernie Sanders delegate. Visit RootsAction.org and NormanSolomon.com

Solidarity Includes Wearing a Mask at Protests

By Norman Solomon

The nationwide outpouring of protests during the last 10 days has provided a historic moral response to the murder of George Floyd. In one city after another, people braved tear gas, pepper spray, clubs and other weaponry — as well as mass arrests — to nonviolently challenge racist police violence. Those same people were also risking infection with the coronavirus.

Photos from around the country show that a large majority of protesters have been wearing masks, often under very difficult conditions. By doing so, they aren’t only protecting themselves to some extent — they’re also protecting people nearby. As the New York Times just noted, “most experts now agree that if everyone wears a mask, individuals protect one another.”

In other words, wearing a mask is about solidarity.

Unfortunately, some protesters have not worn masks, perhaps unaware that they were putting others at risk. Meanwhile, some police officers have disregarded orders to wear masks.

With latest research indicating that about 35 percent of infected people have no symptoms at all, unwillingness to wear a mask jeopardizes the health of others. That jeopardy is far from evenly distributed. Older people and those with underlying health problems are at higher risk of dying from the coronavirus. African Americans and other people of color are also dying at much higher rates, due to structural racism.

“UC San Francisco epidemiologist Dr. George Rutherford described the protests as a kind of uncontrolled experiment, one that will test what happens when people are wearing masks in an outdoor setting, but yelling and not maintaining their distance,” the Los Angeles Times reported this week. Said Rutherford: “If you have breakdowns in social distancing and don’t have masks on, then you’re deeply in trouble.”

Addressing the chances of exposure to the virus while protesting, California’s Department of Health is urging caution: “Even with adherence to physical distancing, bringing members of different households together to engage in in-person protest carries a higher risk of widespread transmission of COVID-19. . . . In particular, activities like chanting, shouting, singing, and group recitation negate the risk-reduction achieved through six feet of physical distancing. For this reason, people engaging in these activities should wear face coverings at all times.”

Also, if you’re headed to a protest, you might want to consider giving away some masks.

“The virus seems to spread the most when people yell (such as to chant a slogan), sneeze (to expel pepper spray), or cough (after inhaling tear gas),” The Atlantic reported as this week began. “It is transmitted most efficiently in crowds and large gatherings, and research has found that just a few contagious people can infect hundreds of susceptible people around them. The virus can spread especially easily in small, cramped places, such as police vans and jails.”

In Minnesota, the Star Tribune reported, “state health officials will be encouraging people protesting the death of George Floyd to seek COVID-19 testing — regardless of whether they feel sick — due to the increased risk of the disease spreading at mass gatherings.” The newspaper added that “a key recommendation will be when asymptomatic protesters should seek testing, because the incubation period of the virus following infection is around five days — with a range of two to 14 days.” Testing too early could miss the virus.

Protesting is crucial at a moment like this. But protesting must be done without ignoring the pandemic.

While some hazards probably can’t be avoided at demonstrations, wearing a mask remains vital. The reality that it’s difficult if not impossible to maintain six-foot social distancing at a protest makes wearing a mask all the more important. The life you save may not be your own.

At campaign rallies last fall and winter, Bernie Sanders struck a chord when he asked: “Are you willing to fight for that person who you don’t even know as much as you’re willing to fight for yourself?” It was a powerful statement that resonated deeply and became a viral rallying cry. The ethical core remains. And by speaking out and protesting in the wake of George Floyd’s death, large numbers of people have been answering that question with a resounding Yes.

At the same time, those who wear a mask at protests are making clear that they’re willing to undergo some discomfort to protect people they don’t even know.

There are many things we have no control over as we keep pushing to change the political direction of the United States. Whether we wear a mask isn’t one of them.

Norman Solomon is co-founder and national director of RootsAction.org. He was a Bernie Sanders delegate from California to the 2016 Democratic National Convention. Solomon is the author of a dozen books including “War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death.” He is the executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy.

Source: https://www.normansolomon.com/norman_solomon/2020/06/solidarity-includes-wearing-a-mask-at-protests.html

Culture, Satires

I’ve Been Ingesting Chlorine

Sodium chloride (rock salt, halite, table salt), crystal structu

I admit it – I’ve been ingesting chlorine. On a daily basis. So far, there are no ill effects except I’m often thirsty.

I’ve heard from many people, some of whom are actually on TV, that chlorine is good for you, so I decided to double my intake during shelter-in-place.

According to what I hear, it isn’t just good for curing pandemics. It may actually turn out to be an essential health supplement!

Cashews vs Popcorn: Crumbs in the Mask

My favorite ingestion system is potato chips and popcorn. But lately cashews have hit the spot – protein and chlorine at the same time. Plus fewer crumbs in my mask.

It’s gotten to where I’ve found myself adding chlorine to vegetables, boiled potatoes, even a dash in my oatmeal. Yum!

Really, once you get the taste for it, everything tastes better with chlorine! Luckily, it’s cheap and easily accessible.

You can buy crystalized chlorine here

Make Your Own Chlorine Crystals!

Or make your own edible chlorine crystals by adding 39.34 grams of sodium (Na) to 60.66 gram of chlorine (Cl). Shake, don’t stir. Let stand for a few minutes – and voila! Ingestible chlorine!

Illustration: Sodium Chloride – the miracle molecule.