Random political thought thread.

[The Cat]

 

[The Cat]

where is that missing committee?​

 

[The Cat]

 

[Coriolis]

Maybe this is a rant. I am really sick of people acting so confused about the word "woman". Oh my whatever shall we do? Some person made a whole documentary filled with mystery and confusion over this and people commenting are filled with amazement and think it should win an Oscar. I recently made this post in the next paragraph in response to his video. I can't be the only genius on youtube to figure out something this basic that is a concept continually in the face of every single person on planet earth who uses language.

The word "woman" serves the same function linguistically as the words "art", "god", "music", "love", "life", "wealth", "pain". The way language is structured, there is one umbrella term that is intended to include all subcategories of a concept. "Woman" is the umbrella term for all manifestations of the "feminine". These umbrella terms have an indefinable quality and humans spend a great many hours debating whether various subcategories of the term belong to the primary term. "What is music"? It is equally elusive, but we as humans have constructed our language in this manner and can handle the ambiguity of the umbrella term and can spend our countless hours debating its subcategories. Let's do that with the term "woman " as well. We are well rehearsed.

I'm not sure why this triggers me so much. I'm not transgender and haven't suffered that sort of societal pain. I did grow up in very conservative religious environment that spent a lot of time defining gender in ways I felt were unrelatable. Maybe it's just the beligerant stupidity people express that scares me. I do get strongly triggered by it with anxious physiological responses.

If these discussions were just academic debates about the meaning of terms, as with your music example, it would be one thing. Unfortunately people translate those debates into how they interact with flesh and blood humans, using the labels to pigeonhole and limit. Their descriptive value is already limited by the ambiguity you reference, which implies that an individual's self-labelling is at least as valid as someone else's attempt to label them, really moreso as only they know their own perspective and experience.

Why some people feel compelled to contest that self-labelling is beyond me. It may be related to the fact the labels have taken on prescriptive value as well: if you are labelled as X then you should behave this way, like these things, be good at these things, etc. Labelling then is just a not-so-covert attempt to control others and get them to behave the way you want, or at least the way you expect; to fit in the neat little boxes "you" the labeller is comfortable with. People are more complicated than that and always have been. The fact that a majority may be fine with the commonly applied labels and even many of the associated expectations does not excuse denying the reality of the many who are not. In a modern lecture hall, around 10% of the desks will be designed for left-handed people. They are there for a reason.

 

[The Cat]

 

[The Cat]

 

[Virtual ghost]

New year is kinda funny but awkward time of the year every time. Therefore people are always making some kind of promises to themselves, which sometimes happen and sometimes they don't. However at that time of the year pretty much everyone is looking for some kind of a new start. Therefore I guess that from time to time the political system has to do something that is on this level as well (and with same vision in mind). In other words this is basically what has happened to me today, because this is the day that will go in local history beyond any doubt. In other words this is day that Croatia joined EUs Eurozone and it's borderless Schengen area. Therefore it is first country ever to do both on the same day. What basically changes absolutely everything on the long run. First, that means that I am getting new currency and therefore all digital payments in the country have stopped for a day since the paying system is being upgraded to new currency that is Euro. What means that these days there are also large remakes of ATM machines across the country. As well as double prices on everything that reflect new and old currency, in order to make transition more smooth. However the real change is that the new currency is recognized globally. What really makes any kind of trade, investments or tourism much much more simple. Plus the interest rates on just about everything should drop since the new currency is much more recognized globally. While the other big change is Schengen area, a huge borderless area across Europe that involves hundreds of millions of people living in it. Therefore now I can travel around most of the continent as if it is one country (since this is indeed one big country at this point). Plus globally with this we finally managed to make some more visible distance from autocratic eastern regimes and return where we belonged before WW1 (the Western world). Therefore however you turn this no one can deny that this is a huge day for local history and it will be remembered as such for many generations. Because this is evidently the beginning of new era. However in a sense it is a funny experience, you fall asleep at home in one country and you wake up in another. What is probably the closest you can get to the genuine new start with a new year.

 

[Red Herring]

New year is kinda funny but awkward time of the year every time. Therefore people are always making some kind of promises to themselves, which sometimes happen and sometimes they don't. However at that time of the year pretty much everyone is looking for some kind of a new start. Therefore I guess that from time to time the political system has to do something that is on this level as well (and with same vision in mind). In other words this is basically what has happened to me today, because this is the day that will go in local history beyond any doubt. In other words this is day that Croatia joined EUs Eurozone and it's borderless Schengen area. Therefore it is first country ever to do both on the same day. What basically changes absolutely everything on the long run. First, that means that I am getting new currency and therefore all digital payments in the country have stopped for a day since the paying system is being upgraded to new currency that is Euro. What means that these days there are also large remakes of ATM machines across the country. As well as double prices on everything that reflect new and old currency, in order to make transition more smooth. However the real change is that the new currency is recognized globally. What really makes any kind of trade, investments or tourism much much more simple. Plus the interest rates on just about everything should drop since the new currency is much more recognized globally. While the other big change is Schengen area, a huge borderless area across Europe that involves hundreds of millions of people living in it. Therefore now I can travel around most of the continent as if it is one country (since this is indeed one big country at this point). Plus globally with this we finally managed to make some more visible distance from autocratic eastern regimes and return where we belonged before WW1 (the Western world). Therefore however you turn this no one can deny that this is a huge day for local history and it will be remembered as such for many generations. Because this is evidently the beginning of new era. However in a sense it is a funny experience, you fall asleep at home in one country and you wake up in another. What is probably the closest you can get to the genuine new start with a new year.

 

[Virtual ghost]

Yeah, it figures. There are congratulations all over.
Some are even coming in person to say it and just hang out. But objectively it was indeed decades long trip that had plenty of very high level drama in it. So now we just have to clear our heads and truly absorb the fact that we made it. Since after decades it is kinda confusing fact that it is over. Therefore tomorrow morning I am going to ATM machine to get me some of the new curerncy. This story is part of my life since before I even started going to school and now I can finally rest in a certain way. In other words now everyone will probably calm down a little bit and that is going to be great on itself. Today I can really say "Today is the first day of the rest of my life".

 

[The Cat]

 

[The Cat]

 

[The Cat]

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Props to Greta but I still hate Twitter. I'll acknowledge that it can be used for good, I just think the effect has been a net negative.

 

[The Cat]

 

[The Cat]

Even if he wins, the majority of the people will suffer.
​

 

[Kephalos]

Mexico’s Long War: Drugs, Crime, and the Cartels. Council on Foreign Relations.

Mexican authorities have been waging a deadly battle against drug cartels for more than a decade, but with limited success. Thousands of Mexicans—including politicians, students, and journalists—die in the conflict every year. The country has seen more than 360,000 homicides since 2006, when the government declared war on the cartels.

Mexican Drug Cartel Influence in Government, Society, and Culture. Jacob JiHyong Kim.

Powerful drug cartels have left an indelible mark in Mexican history, and they continue to operate with relative impunity today. Efforts by authorities to curtail their influence have failed, largely because of their inability to learn from lessons of the past. This thesis examines the history of Mexican cartel influence- highlighting the problems in government, society and culture- to understand why and how cartel influence has spread. Authorities would benefit to use this knowledge to forge a more holistic approach in their war against Mexican cartels, as their current tactics lack much efficacy. Diminishing the formidable influence of Mexican drug cartels will likely reduce violence, corruption, sexism, drug use, crime, chauvinism, environmental damage, and human rights abuses. There is no singular method to make this happen. It would be beneficial for government and society to work together, using a variety of means and introducing new ideas as necessary, to combat drug cartels.

Transnational Organized Crime and National Security. Eric Halliday.
No Shortcuts in Resolving Mexico’s Spiraling Violence. Arturo Sarukhán Casamitjana (Brookings Institution, Former Ambassador of Mexico to the United States).

Sons of Joaquin Guzman Loera, AKA "El Chapo" charged with drug trafficking. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Joaquin Guzman Lopez, 34, and Ovidio Guzman Lopez, 28, are charged in a one-count indictment alleging that from in or around April 2008, through April 2018, they conspired to distribute cocaine, methamphetamine, and marijuana from Mexico and elsewhere for importation into the United States. This case is assigned to U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras.

New York Times: El Chapo’s Son Is Captured by Mexican Authorities for 2nd Time.

The arrest of Ovidio Guzmán López was a victory for the Mexican government. He had been briefly detained in 2019, but was released after cartel gunmen overpowered law enforcement.

Why the arrest of El Chapo's son caused a rampage of violence in a Mexican city. Mark Gollom (CBC).

 

[The Cat]

So much for Lucky 13...
Can you name 6 republicans who would cross over and put the country over their party...?
1...
2...
3...
4...
5...
6...
Anyone?

​

 

[The Cat]

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Some unusually good news...

Amazon Labor Union Certified by U.S. Labor Officials

Amazon now has a legal obligation to bargain with the union, and can face serious penalties if it doesn't.

www.vice.com

I have no faith in politicians to do the right thing without groups like this exerting pressure on them.

 

[The Cat]