Insurance

Jan. 11th, 2025 11:26 pm
jazzy_dave: (anarchistblog)
I would consider healthcare to be a public utility and, without exception, any commercial enterprise trying to make money out of a public utility always ends in tears. The Right loves to call that sort of thinking communism/socialism/whatever but that's actually untrue. It's simply common sense borne out of experience.

May be an image of 1 person and text that says 'Max Kennerh @MaxKennerly A notable aspect of private health insurance is the absence of any reason for it to exist. It does not contain costs, expand coverage, or expedite care care-it makes those all worse. Its ts sole function is to profit as a rent-seeking middleman between patients and providers.'
jazzy_dave: (Default)
Why is Ukraine the West's Fault?



UnCommon Core: The Causes and Consequences of the Ukraine Crisis

John J. Mearsheimer, the R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor in Political Science and Co-director of the Program on International Security Policy at the University of Chicago, assesses the causes of the present Ukraine crisis, the best way to end it, and its consequences for all of the main actors. A key assumption is that in order to come up with the optimum plan for ending the crisis, it is essential to know what caused the crisis. Regarding the all-important question of causes, the key issue is whether Russia or the West bears primary responsibility.

Expansion

Feb. 28th, 2022 07:04 pm
jazzy_dave: (Default)


I wonder if the USSR expanded their territories, surrounding the USA back in the day during the Cold War, how would America feel?

(Of course, some of us will remember the Cuban missile crisis)

So whilst the Bear is wrong to do what he is doing, I do feel that in his mind, his country is being threatened by the expansion of the defence organisation.

It is just an observation.

RB

Feb. 17th, 2022 03:39 am
jazzy_dave: (Default)
R.B is not right-wing but more left-wing in my opinion. It seems that any independent thinker is called right-wing just for disagreeing with the Narrative. Perhaps we need more independent thinkers who question authoritarian narratives. It is an old axiomatic Marxist dictum to question everything from either side to form an informed judgement free of such toxic dichotomies. Anyway here is another of his rants.

Partygate

Feb. 10th, 2022 04:09 pm
jazzy_dave: (Default)


Once again more parties have been exposed since that report.
jazzy_dave: (Default)


.. and then leaves Number 10 for good - ashamed at the lies, obfuscation, and shenanigans going on and that damn party which is now known as Partygate!



.. invited by Jeremy Corbyn to stay at their place... 
jazzy_dave: (Default)
Another fascinating episode shows how things have fallen apart in the culture wars of the USA. Jon Ronson, who has written some wonderful books including "The Men Who Stare At Goats" was himself embroiled in the fiasco, due to his book "So You've Been Publicly Shamed".

8. A Mock Slave Auction

An incident of racist bullying on Snapchat is currently tearing apart a small town on a lake in Michigan. As the ripples spread, practically every conflict we’ve encountered throughout our series rears its head.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0012s7g

Thankfully, I am glad I live in a more inclusive Britain.
jazzy_dave: (Default)
If anybody in the USA can get the BBC Sounds app, a radio app, THEN they should listen to this explosive analysis of QAnon.
It shows how a viperous thought from 4Chan can evolve into a lie that in the States was be believed to be true.

4. Q Drop

In Oct 2017 Donald Trump says something weird in a room full of military figures: “Maybe this is the calm before the storm.”

A few weeks later a poster on 4chan who calls himself Q starts to tell a crazy story about a coming storm, in which Trump is engaged in an epic battle against a cabal of satanic paedophiles who have hijacked the American Republic.

A group of bloggers mainstream the theory and it starts having a life of its own with real world consequences. Qanon is born. But who is directing it?


5. Blowback

A British spy is hired to dig dirt on Donald Trump’s Russia connections. His sources tell him Trump is a Russian agent, a puppet of the Kremlin.

America is gripped by this story. Half are convinced the Trump campaign colluded with the Russians in order to defeat Hillary Clinton. But the other half believes the investigations into Russian collusion are a hoax, a conspiracy by the establishment to unseat a democratically elected president.

The QAnon community takes up this second narrative, in which a renegade General becomes a martyr and a figurehead.


6. The Usual Suspects

Donald Trump’s fantasy about a vast conspiracy to steal the 2020 election merges with the fantasy of QAnon, about a looming showdown against the deep state cabal of satanic paedophiles.

After the storming of the Capitol in Washington DC, major figures from the QAnon movement gather in Dallas, Texas. Gabriel Gatehouse gets inside their conference to try to figure out who is now controlling this parallel reality. And he confronts General Flynn who is calling for his ‘digital soldiers’ to take over the country from the bottom up.

7. Welcome to The Future

The Q Shaman, the man with the furs and horns who stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021, is in jail. The movement he came to symbolise appears defeated. But in a small South Carolina seaside town, ‘establishment’ Republicans are fighting a losing battle for the soul of their party, after one of the bloggers who mainstreamed the QAnon conspiracy theory has been elected to a powerful local position.

Across America, people who believe Donald Trump’s parallel narrative about a stolen election are trying to take over the levers of democracy. Was this the plan all along?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds

My fellow friends in the USA you must try to see this radio analysis for yourself.
jazzy_dave: (Default)
Some facts are buried under all the guff of propaganda and alarm and that intelligent debate gets squashed.

Here is something that I discovered over a moment of insight.

The covid variants are aptly named -

DELTA and OMICRON

Shuffle the letters around. These are code words for

MEDIA CONTROL !!
jazzy_dave: (Default)
MASS PSYCHOSIS - How an Entire Population Becomes MENTALLY ILL



We are in such a mass psychosis now.

Also, the dangers of using masks will deprive you of neurological health.

https://www.sott.net/article/442455-German-Neurologist-Warns-Against-Wearing-Facemasks-Oxygen-Deprivation-Causes-Permanent-Neurological-Damage#

Also of interest -

https://www.sott.net/article/461823-UK-Data-Vaxxed-still-seeing-HIGHER-infection-rates-than-unvaxxed.

Food for thought and from the less publicized side.
jazzy_dave: (Default)
Downing Street staff shown joking in leaked recording about Christmas party they later denied during the lockdown.




Senior Downing Street staff joked about holding a Christmas party in Number 10 just four days after the event is alleged to have taken place last December, a recording leaked to ITV News has revealed.

Staff can be heard laughing and making references to “cheese and wine”, while Boris Johnson’s then spokesperson Allegra Stratton remarked there was “definitely no social distancing.”

The recording is of a rehearsal on December 22 for Downing Street's proposed daily TV media briefings, which Ms Stratton was set to front before they were later abandoned.

Staff in the 9 Downing Street press room pose mock questions to help with her preparation.
jazzy_dave: (Default)
It was through [livejournal.com profile] pigshitpoet that I heard of this clinical psychologist. He has become a kind of phenomenon. He speaks some deep truths and thankfully not from a religiously tinctured viewpoint but a more humanist viewpoint. Oh, and talking politically, the Telegraph is a right-wing newspaper. Should have been interviewed by a Guardian columnist but hey there is little politics here.

Jordan Peterson interview Off Script



When society forgets its moral values nihilism and terror reign. The values come from humanistic values and have nothing to do with religion. Here is where I differ from this analysis as for me all religions are mythologies as much as the mythology of the Norse gods like Thor.

The internationally best-selling author and clinical psychologist Dr. Jordan Peterson join Steven Edginton to discuss the moral crisis facing the West, how people become radicalized and what is filling the void religion once held- a good thing IMHO - within society.

Nothing he is saying is toxic or dangerous. Also, I love the fact that Jordan Peterson actually pauses to think about a question before he answers it. He has always struck me as someone who is genuinely thinking about the opinions he expresses; not a zealot, not a partisan, just a thinker analyzing a set of facts and positing a response based on the information available to him.


However, I am not a sheep, I am an individual and a part of the collective we call humanity with all its warts and so on. Religion just messes it all up in my opinion and should not be part of any political or scientific progress. So, without a bit of nihilism, we tend to rely too much on optimism. Balance is all. That is all I will say on it comrades.
jazzy_dave: (Default)
Just goes to prove how mad and crazy the US of A is, esp, with these evangelical nutters - no wonder being an atheist is the best way to keep out of this religious turmoil that sickens our world. The series on BBC Radio 4 specifically talks about the culture wars and is called Things Fell Apart.

2. Dirty Books
Things Fell Apart

Episode 2 of 8

1974. A church minister's wife in West Virginia learns of a brand new curriculum being introduced into her children's school. So she decides to read all 325 new textbooks herself. What she discovers horrifies her so much she instigates a Statewide insurrection. But were some of her concerns based on a misunderstanding?

Yes, I say because she did not understand nuance and interpretation, and that saying the Bible is the only book you need to read is total shit in my opinion.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0011ldn

Here is some background information -

The Kanawha County textbook controversy was a violent school control struggle in the 20th century United States. It led to the largest protests ever in the history of Kanawha County, West Virginia, the shooting of one bystander, and extended school closings. The controversy erupted in 1974 when new, multicultural textbooks were introduced that some parents considered blasphemous.

In 1970, West Virginia's Superintendent of Schools signed a proposal for funding to ensure the training of teachers to "induce change" so that children in the state's educational system could elevate and expand above their own cultural surroundings the state views as limited. On 12 March 1974, the English Language Arts Textbook Committee of Kanawha County, West Virginia recommended 325 books and textbooks to the school board for use in Kanawha schools ranging from kindergarten to 12th grade. The books were selected by the Committee based on state guidelines that had been set, including but not limited to some that books should be "multicultural in content and authorship". An English teacher on the committee stated that although she held strong conservative values, she felt that removing books that showed opposing opinions would be equivalent to "telling lies by omitting ideas I know exist". So, clamping down on debate and forcing a singular conservative view. I found it disgusting! But then is the good old USA!

These textbooks were part of a new state curriculum that included for the first time the concepts of multiculturalism and egalitarianism in textbook writing. Most school board members saw no reason to question the state's decision. That is until this insular closed-minded conservative Alice Moore stepped in.

Alice Moore had previously campaigned against sex education being taught in the county and was elected as the only member of the Kanawha County School Board that did not have a college degree. Moore also had four children attending county schools. Moore was concerned by the term dialectology, which implied the teaching of Appalachian English and African American Vernacular English as "equally correct" dialects. Historian Carol Mason writes that Moore did not want White children to learn the language used by African Americans with the belief that it would cause the White children "to speak in ghetto dialect!
She requested and received all 300 textbooks, and claimed that she found unsettling quotations from Allen Ginsberg, Sigmund Freud's writings on the Oedipus complex, and convicted Black Panthers such as Eldridge Cleaver's "Soul on Ice" and by George Jackson. She even took offense to a poem by Liverpudlian poet Roger McGough's "End Of The World".

She even wanted to ban the acclaimed poet Langston Hughes! In an interview with Jon Ronson on this program, she says in reply to Jon's question "Do you remember an author called Langston Hughes?", "I remember these names. I don't remember exactly what Langston Hughes wrote". That already damns her as being an ignorant insular person!

That is why I find extreme right-wing people so dangerous.


This is another fascinating series from the radio.

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