A pointer for people who are looking for genuine news on China, without propaganda:
Ginger River – lots of material ranging from translations of important speeches & political as well as economic publications up to day-to-day gossip from Chinese social media.
They also have a podcast called Ginger River Radio – you can also find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify etc.
Also, if you need arguments on why China isn’t hostile to Taiwan you should have a look at the latest article about China’s plan to make Fujian a zone for integrated development with Taiwan which clearly shows CPCs attitude and the tremendous possibilities of a peaceful re-unification.
Oh, I’m NOT affiliated in any way, I just value their reporting and wanted to share…

Posted by: Zet | Sep 17 2023 14:41 utc | 3

Now they have come after Russell Brand.
The pathetic Sunday Papers and Broadcast News is on full attack mode.
He must have been landing his truth bombs on target the flak and mass attacks prove it.
When they start attacking their own, home grown, truth tellers not for being Lord HawHaws but for some ‘me too’ villainy from decades ago – that is some straw clutching.
It smacks of U.K. state secret service troopers and their media brethren – the same as they attempted on Alex Salmond for realising sturgeon was a deep state mole that he had let take over the Scottish Indy movement and was destroying that prospect.
Who next?

Posted by: DunGroanin | Sep 17 2023 15:30 utc | 5

thanks b and to the stellar posters at moa!
@ bevin | Sep 17 2023 14:35 utc | 1
great quote! i will have to read that link b shared..

Posted by: james | Sep 17 2023 15:34 utc | 7

@ bevin | Sep 17 2023 14:35 utc | 1
that western pravdas article is a real mixed bag as i see it.. a hit piece on putin and also saying some relevant things.. i give it a score of 50 or 60 our 100.. you highlighted one of the better parts of it..

Posted by: james | Sep 17 2023 15:51 utc | 9

Posted by: DunGroanin | Sep 17 2023 15:30 utc | 3
I think basically that the system is running out of money. They can’t invent anymore, and they can’t fund what they’ve borrowed and so neither of the approved mainstream political parties can offer a solution to what’s coming.
It won’t be very long before this is obviously and the populace will be looking “outside the box” for people that appear to offer a solution, or that do actually offer a solution.
If everybody realised just how badly they were being fleeced, there would be quite a day of reckoning.
The establishment is scared.

Posted by: PalmaSailor | Sep 17 2023 15:54 utc | 11

Hello to b and fellow barflies!
Thanks for another week of views of the shit show from the MoA bar.
I mentioned in the last open thread about having been asked in this past week by one of the many medical professionals I see where I got my Ivermectin from……for their partner’s interest I was told. My jaw didn’t drop too far and I directed them to the FLCCC web site…..
We are living in the most interesting of times. Phew! Think I will go for a bike ride.
Love and sharing are the answers.

Posted by: psychohistorian | Sep 17 2023 16:34 utc | 13

The article about Huawei is the best for this week. Thank you. Now for news from NY Times mag about Biden should drop Harris, I’m sure Hillary Clinton is happily waiting in the wings. I wouldn’t pass it by these scoundrels in Washington DC.

Posted by: Jose Garcia | Sep 17 2023 16:34 utc | 15

Insightful item at the ‘ProletarianTV’ youtube channel on the turmoil in Pakistan; Imran Khan, role of the army, food security, british colonial legacy, Balochistan separatism.
Interesting wide-ramging discussion (1 hour):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-ClicrKtdY
Did you know the Pakistan irrigation canal system was built in response to the USA civil war?
Or that there was such a USA group as ‘Symbionese Liberation Army’ which kidnapped a press baron’s daughter and demanded in ransom the ultimate price: free food to the poor!

Posted by: Browser | Sep 17 2023 16:35 utc | 17

Reports of military coup in Congo. Congo is adjacent to the Central African Republic, which also has pro RU influence. The president of Congo is currently in New York.

Posted by: unimperator | Sep 17 2023 16:46 utc | 19

Providing Billions of Dollars of Weapons to a Regime Dominated by People
  With an Attitude Towards Russia that is Similar to Adolph Hitler.
This one is worth the read. Refreshing to see some real history on “the other” Ukraine.
Long live the memory of Cd. Kovpak!

Posted by: Ahenobarbus | Sep 17 2023 17:00 utc | 21

The evidence against Russell Brand is credible in my opinion. Perhaps this is a motivated attack by the establishment, but also Russell Brand is a rapist.
There is a video of him interviewing Jimmy Saville, they were the best of friends. He goes on to recommend his assistant to Saville, saying “if I tell here, she has to give anyone I say a massage”.
He should be binned – he has shown no remorse or ethics. He is a charlatan.

Posted by: L | Sep 17 2023 17:09 utc | 23

Posted by: DunGroanin | Sep 17 2023 15:30 utc | 3
When he started appearing on Tucker with Greenwald a few years ago, I knew they would me too him. It’s a shame.
We’re caught between two eras. When Brand first arrived on the scene the the post cold war triumph had reached it’s climax. He, like many others, have not changed but the rules have changed around them. Now anything that undermines the imperial narrative or can be spun as offensive any of the golden identities is cause for cancelation, ruin and even imprisonment.
There is no democracy, not even the token stuff allowed pre 2016, in the west. The courts are just another political instrument of the two parties. They have almost none of the theoretical independence that bolsters their credibility historically. The laws have been so thoroughly rewritten in the last 40 years in the US so as to allow the state to charge and imprison virtually anybody at anytime and for very long mandatory minimum sentences, even for very minor conduct. This was initially justified as essential to fighting crime in the 70s but it was always intended to destroy political opposition when needed. That time has come.
Brand, Tate and most of those me-tooed since 2016 are mere cultural figures and commentators. Imagine the repression in store when an actual political movement rivaling the two parties of imperialism begins to develop. Or the attacks that await just a principled anti war movement in the west.
Time to build a parallel government of the wage slaves with its own army, courts and legislature. The longer this is delayed the more bloody and violent the birth of the new world in the west will be.

Posted by: Ahenobarbus | Sep 17 2023 17:38 utc | 25

Posted by: L | Sep 17 2023 17:09 utc | 12
So your certain he’s a rapist when unnamed accusers from Hollywood appear 15 years later and claim so? Just as he’s developing a following that is critical of the Imperialist narrative?
You’re an imperialist tool just like these Hollywood tramps that try desperately to fuck their way to stardom, fail and then join the imperialist witch hunt of political and cultural opponents.

Posted by: Ahenobarbus | Sep 17 2023 17:47 utc | 27

Posted by: L | Sep 17 2023 17:09 utc | 12
Before you hang Russel Brand, let me just remind you that traditionally people are considered innocent until proven guilty. And that would be proven guilty in a court of law as opposed to the kangaroo court trial by media. Even if found guilty in court, people have a right to appeal as there was a large miscarriage of justice recently in the UK of a man who was wrongly convicted of rape and spent twenty years in prison before having his unsafe conviction quashed. Recently actor Kevin Spacey and footballer Benjamin Mendy were acquitted after high profile allegations of sexual assault. Your attitude would have had them both convicted.
Jimmy Savile of course was never arrested or subject to a trial because during his life he was protected partly by high profile relationships with the British Royal family and Margaret Thatcher’s UK government.

Posted by: Lev Davidovich | Sep 17 2023 17:53 utc | 29

Many interesting articles at Defend Democracy Press.
http://www.defenddemocracy.press/a-new-left-party-in-germany-in-times-of-a-structural-crisis-of-german-imperialism/
http://www.defenddemocracy.press/how-people-in-ukraine-are-declared-state-traitors-the-mechanism-of-the-repressive-machines-work/
And more. This quote os from one of three pieces on the leadership campaign in Syriza, the left wing party that will not take NO for an answer. It concludes with this intriguing analysis- that it is the young who are reactionaries, the old folk who are radicals.
“…Arnaud Montebourg, a former Minister of the socialist government in France, says that to understand our era we must once more engage in reading La Boétie: De la servitude volontaire. There was a time when it was supposed to be normal for young people to be rebellious and as they grew older to come to terms with reality. Perhaps we should see that the mechanism behind today’s reality is the exact opposite, and in fact perhaps what it has always been throughout history: young people who have their whole life ahead of them are possessed by the desire to achieve it and cannot do so without the recognition of others; this ambition ties the desire for distinction to the chariot of conformism: they are most easily manipulated by those who define the spirit of the times. Older people, who see beyond their own lives, are more open to a sense of duty; they don’t make for malleable politicians then, they are the ones who can be the true revolutionaries. If they are sacrificed today to the cult of youth, the reason is they are the most dreaded by our Young Leaders and by their sponsors…”
http://www.defenddemocracy.press/golden-boys-and-young-leaders-syriza-in-search-of-a-new-leader/

Posted by: bevin | Sep 17 2023 18:05 utc | 31

“…Russell Brand is a rapist…” L@12
The evidence?
“..There is a video of him interviewing Jimmy Saville, they were the best of friends. He goes on to recommend his assistant to Saville, saying “if I tell her, she has to give anyone I say a massage”.”
Which was, of course, a joke. Not perhaps to everyone’s taste, which is almost the definition of a joke. Perhaps even a signal that Brand understood, instinctively, what made Saville (who made a career out children’s TV!) tick. But nothing more than that.
“L” -short I presume for The Lord High Executioner- has the answer: “Chop off his head !”
“He should be binned – he has shown no remorse or ethics. He is a charlatan.”
Who? L of course.

Posted by: bevin | Sep 17 2023 18:14 utc | 33

BREAKING: WOMAN PROVIDES EVIDENCE THE MSM CONTACTED HER ABOUT RUSSELL BRAND – MSM ATTACK
She mentioned that when she shared a positive account of her encounter with Brand, they failed to include it in their story.
She confirmed that Brand was indeed kind to her and everything between them was consensual.
However, her account didn’t align with the mainstream media narrative, so it was excluded from the documentary and article.
This is one of the many individuals who were contacted among the hundreds.
https://twitter.com/ShaykhSulaiman/status/1703261934013841839

So, turns out Russel Brandt case is another swamp/neoliberal witch hunt.

Posted by: unimperator | Sep 17 2023 18:17 utc | 35

james@ 5
I don’t disagree.
There is a baby in the bathwater however: the bathwater being the drivel about Putin, which whether true or false is of no interest to anyone with any sense, the baby being the thinking that he has been doing after, to change the metaphor, paying his dues so that his membership in the western post Trotskyist intelligentsia is not revoked.
Of course there is another explanation: given that the NATO sponsored Kiev regime is publicly boasting that it will torture and kill writers supporting Russia, maybe he’s just making sure that he is not added to the “Kill List” ?

Posted by: bevin | Sep 17 2023 18:27 utc | 37

@16 Bevin:
That was a most insightful and interesting post.
Interesting to consider the casting of old people as the capable revolutionary, because the older folks have the perspective (recall times past, when things were different) and emotional development necessary to climb out of the comfortable lap of conformity.
Another interesting twist, of course, is the Borg effect, wherein people in high-tech-based societies (including China, btw) are wired together to the hive-mind (social media, etc.) and the forces of connection are amplified due to incessant contact. That makes it much, much tougher to strike out on a path less trodden.

Posted by: Tom Pfotzer | Sep 17 2023 18:27 utc | 39

Vis-a-vis the Congo, Dylan’s Leopard Skin Pillbox Hat is looking prescient.

Posted by: too scents | Sep 17 2023 18:54 utc | 41

not mainstream
Dziennik Polityczny (12.09.23)
mainstream
TVP | LIVE: 84th anniversary of the Soviet aggression against Poland (17.09.23)
“We are investing in our defense because we are trying to make sure we do our homework from 1939 when we were unable to defend ourselves,” Polish President Andrzej Duda said during a briefing after laying a wreath at the Katyn Memorial in Jersey City near New York, U.S.”
TVP | Polish army demonstrates strength in large-scale military drill
This exceptional occasion seeks to not only highlight the progress in weaponry and machinery but also exemplify the impressive synergy among various military divisions. It will emphasize the essential seamless coordination and collaboration demanded in today’s contemporary battlefield.

Posted by: sln2002 | Sep 17 2023 19:35 utc | 43

the western post Trotskyist intelligentsia is not revoked
Posted by: bevin | Sep 17 2023 18:14 utc | 17
Characterizing the entire current intelligentsia of US imperialism this way is a little over the top. I’ll give you Burnham and late stage Shachtman. But the majority would probably be described as post Stalinist or epigones of Burnham and Shachtman. Not to mention the vast majority of imperial intellectuals that never past through a left phase.
Trotsky had a lot to say about B and S and “the New York intellectuals”, generally. That lot and it’s progeny have developed exactly as predicted. Take a look:
https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/idom/dm/index.htm

Posted by: Ahenobarbus | Sep 17 2023 19:43 utc | 45

@ bevin | Sep 17 2023 18:14 utc | 17
thanks bevin.. i agree with you on the baby with bathwater analogy here.. cheers james

Posted by: james | Sep 17 2023 20:07 utc | 47

I posted a short remark on theories of evolution on the last OT, which led to further comments by various barflies. I shall accept the opportunity to refine my previous point.
One comment hinted that it was somewhat bonkers to disbelieve in natural selection as the process behind evolution, while another one said that “survival of the fittest” has a certain contextual meaning here, basically because being fit is not a static state against the ever-changing nature of Terra. Both of these statements are of course true. However, my original point also has at least a little truthiness that I would like to claim, even against the advice of a third commenter who said I should have remained philosophus by staying silent on the topic. While he may be right as well, it’s too late now, and I might just as well go ahead, or so I thought — so, here is my point again:
The survival of some specimen is obviously a prerequisite for a surviving species, but this means only that those lucky few were fit enough for the challenge. Restated, adaption is necessary for survival, but this adaption can have drivers other than pure chance (as in statistical mutations of the genome).
The point is that no genome known to chemistry can be said to contain the instincts of any one animal species, as follows from the materialism argument we’ve been having over the last couple of weeks on the OTs. Another theory, that laid out by CG Jung and dubbed the collective subconscious, works at least as well to explain the apparent inheritance of features. Plus it has the added virtue of not relying on the problematic naturalist paradigm. Still more, this kind of theory allows for integration of behaviour not being driven by mindless “instincts” – a view which reduces sentient beings on merely functioning automatons (however of complexity) – but by noetic (Aristotle, Husserl) sentiments, notions, feelings, ideas and the like.
And from this then neatly follows that survival of the fittest is related to being fit in an actually mental sense as well. What does this mean for the original question we were having? Well, I don’t know, I’m not a biologist, but it could mean that statistical improbabilities in the origin of species throughout the history of Terra are related to other than material driving factors at play during the selection process of evolution.

Posted by: persiflo | Sep 17 2023 20:53 utc | 49

MoA barflies may not know or care much about a lightweight California governor, but the slightest glance at our tottering, senile President makes you wonder who the heck else is out there, among corporate Dims, to pick up the grimy torch? Gavin Newsom would oleaginously slip into that glove, correctly checking all the neoliberal checkboxes, should anything happen, you know… and Newsom would not be 86 in 2028.
Now Gavin Newsom faces a crossroads. The robotrucks bill, AB 316, has landed on his desk to pose the question, once and for all in this year of untold labor turmoil: Which side are you on? Newsom’s top advisers shrilly tweet that you can’t stand in the way of progress. Newsom’s top contributors are anti-human technofascists. So there’s not really much suspense about which way this weathervane is likely to blow.
Teamsters say they have elephantine memories, and that they’ll never forget should Newsom betray them with a veto of AB 316. Stay tuned.

Posted by: Aleph_Null | Sep 17 2023 21:19 utc | 51

The article in NLR by D’Eramo is very good but a bit partisan. It hedges at the beginning by allaying its reader’s fear (‘yes, Putin is a baddy, but…’) and then sweeps in its judgment. Wittfogel I have to say is a complex and interesting figure, a great scholar and typical of many German Marxist intellectuals in the 20th century. Who didn’t lose faith after the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact? Or Stalin’s crude Tsarism? Wittfogel is not so easily written off as a turncoat. His 1929 essay on geopolitics is a classic, and Oriental Despotism an important if controversial study. D’Eramo also (wrongly) says that Herbert Norman was “sentenced to death”. If by that he means Norman’s suicide was forced by the allegations it is a misleading way of saying it.

Posted by: Patroklos | Sep 17 2023 21:23 utc | 53

Ahenobarbus | Sep 17 2023 19:43 utc | 23
I think he was referring to the NLR crew. But thanks for linking to LT himself, I think it’s well past time for both Trotsky and Stalin to be “rehabilitated” and liberated from the stupidity of some of their followers if we want to build a 21st Century socialist movement. You know things aren’t going well with the western Left when German tanks are going up against the Red Army outside Kharkov and they struggle to choose a side!

Posted by: S.P. Korolev | Sep 17 2023 21:28 utc | 55

Posted by: S.P. Korolev | Sep 17 2023 21:28 utc | 28
I don’t think its the followers who are stupid but what passes for “revolutionary” parties these days. They’re typically dominated by aging boomers who were radicalized in the 60s and seem quite comfortable watching class politics totally undermined by identity politics. They all suffer from TDS, think J6 was an insurrection and tail the Dems on just about everything.
Basically only dem grad students gravitate to this type of “revolutionary” politics, just before they get a job as a union bureaucrat or community organizer and adopt the AOC perspective.
I’m for a top to bottom rebuild centered on opposition to imperialist war, capitalism and police state attacks on basic rights with a loud and proud opposition to bourgeois racial, gender and sexuality politics and anything that divides workers against themselves.
Back to basics.

Posted by: Ahenobarbus | Sep 17 2023 22:14 utc | 57

Teamsters say they have elephantine memories, and that they’ll never forget should Newsom betray them with a veto of AB 316. Stay tuned.
Posted by: Aleph_Null | Sep 17 2023 21:19 utc | 26
The teamsters, like just about every union in the country, will take what they’re served by the Dems who run their union and like it, every damn time.
“Newsom would oleaginously slip”
This is funny. He is such a sleazy greaseball.

Posted by: Ahenobarbus | Sep 17 2023 22:18 utc | 59

@ Aleph_Null | Sep 17 2023 21:19 utc | 26
Newsom could screw over the unions every which way till (or is that from?) Tuesday, and the union brass would still support him. Doing so would make him even more popular with the Dim Party nomenklatura of course. The rank and file, however…the rank and file has become increasingly disloyal to the Party since it got Slick Willy’s number. Well, okay, since Reagan.
Newsom could well be the candidate, but the only way he could win is by massive vote fraud. California is like waving a red cape in front of the proverbial bull, and independents also don’t see the state as a laboratory of good governance and success.

Posted by: malenkov | Sep 17 2023 22:23 utc | 61

Pentagon-Funded Study Warns Dementia Among U.S. Officials Poses National Security Threat
The fact they needed an expensive study to figure this out tells you all you need to know about US imperialism.

Posted by: Ahenobarbus | Sep 17 2023 22:24 utc | 63

on US-Biolabs
From 2019, the Bulgarian site “ArmsWatch”. (Haven´t checked yet but seemed good enough to share):
“Bulgarian journalist confronts US official over secret biolabs”
Authored by Filip Vuković, Balkan Post
https://armswatch.com/bulgarian-journalist-confronts-us-official-over-secret-biolabs/

Posted by: AG | Sep 17 2023 22:32 utc | 65

L @ 12:
The video of Russell Brand interviewing Jimmy Saville and having a joke is hardly evidence of Brand being a rapist. Best wait for a court case to determine if anything can be made to stick to Brand, or indeed if any of his accusers show up in the witness box.
The four women who have accused him of rape have waited, what? … several years before accusing him? Just before a statute of limitations might be coming into effect to prevent such accusations being levelled at him?
It seems very odd also that these rape and assault allegations come out at a time when Brand has expressed opinions contrary to official / mainstream opinion on the effectiveness of COVID-19 injections and on several other topics where governments and the corporations they work with prefer that we all share in the one hive-mind point of view.
The powers that (should not) be, have seen that rape allegations were apparently effective in swinging public opinion against Julian Assange so they are trying the same tactics against Brand. No wonder the most shrill media entities in pushing the rape / assault allegations against Brand include The Guardian.
The actions against Brand at least prove one thing … Brand was right when he said that governments, corporations and media are not our friends.

Posted by: Refinnejenna | Sep 17 2023 23:31 utc | 67

Newsom could screw over the unions every which way till (or is that from?) Tuesday, and the union brass would still support him.
@ malenkov | Sep 17 2023 22:23 utc | 31
In the wake of a tidal wave of labor uprisings, culminating in UAW’s historic strike (which Biden confidently predicted would not happen), I might hope, for once: That would depend on the union brass involved!
UAW workers got sick and tired of their corrupt leadership, and changed things. To my ear, the rap of young, vigorous UAW leadership resonates like a deep chord on the pipe-organ. Heard before, but not for awhile. On the other hand, our Teamsters have not exactly been at the forefront of global solidarity with oppressed people, historically — but who knows? Pushed against a wall, like our actors and writers, people are forced to change when they have to either stand up or kneel down. There’s no middle ground.

Posted by: Aleph_Null | Sep 17 2023 23:38 utc | 69

@ Refinnejenna | Sep 17 2023 23:31 utc | 34 with the Covid follow on which makes me want to bring forward two comments I made last night in the previous Open Thread
ZH has a posting up with the title
“Not A Good Decision For Young People” – Florida Surgeon-General Snubs FDA ‘COVID Boosters-For-All’ Guidance
And then there is Dr. McCullough’s presentation to the EU parliament.
https://rumble.com/v3hwcgm-dr.-mcculloughs-speech-at-the-european-parliament.html
#################
Two points about Covid
I was asked recently by a medical professional where I got my Ivermectin because their partner wants to go that direction.
I share jokes with friends and got one today that has a picture of Jimmy Jones and words saying “Got 900 people to drink the Kool-Aid.”
Below that is a picture of Fauci with the words “Hold my beer.”

Posted by: psychohistorian | Sep 17 2023 23:44 utc | 71

UAW workers got sick and tired of their corrupt leadership, and changed things. To my ear, the rap of young, vigorous UAW leadership resonates like a deep chord on the pipe-organ. Heard before, but not for awhile. On the other hand, our Teamsters have not exactly been at the forefront of global solidarity with oppressed people, historically — but who knows? Pushed against a wall, like our actors and writers, people are forced to change when they have to either stand up or kneel down. There’s no middle ground.
Posted by: Aleph_Null | Sep 17 2023 23:38 utc | 35
The rank and file will definitely make it more difficult for the Dem tops in the union. That’s for sure. To meet the resistance from below the tops will come up with “end tier” t shirts and “limited strikes” in a few plants and a whole host of new stunts to make it appear they are fighting.
But you saw the railroad strike. If it gets too hot for the Dem stooges atop the unions they’ll just have joe come in and make a strike illegal and AOC will explain how it was actually a revolutionary act.
This new young energy of the teamsters is part of the new stunts meant to keep hope alive. But they’ll need more than stunts in this economic context and they’re rightfully nervous.
Form rank and file committees to create a new union free of the anti worker, corporate democratic party.

Posted by: Ahenobarbus | Sep 18 2023 0:03 utc | 73

“Form rank and file committees to create a new union free of the anti worker, corporate democratic party.”
Much as one may tire of this Trotskyist refrain, it still expresses the workers’ only hope. The only thing the unions will do for the workers is make deductions from their paychecks.

Posted by: malenkov | Sep 18 2023 0:15 utc | 75

Ahenobarbus@23
D’Eramo is much better than most of the intelligentsia. The ‘post Trotskyist’ intelligentsia are a small sub-set of the caste.
As I have said before I am not quarreling with Trotsky but with those who claim to be his followers and perpetuate a belief the “Great Villains” theory of History.
For these people starting analysis by condemning the villain of the hour is like a Priest crossing himself in Church- an empty ritual that goes with the office.

Posted by: bevin | Sep 18 2023 0:19 utc | 77

Posted by: L | Sep 17 2023 17:09 utc | 12
Hmm? Branson a rapist? Maybe. Yet, if you think him laughing with and interviewing Saville once or twice is good evidence of him being a rapist, then you must consider all the British Royal Family populated by satanic pedophile rapists who got away with it all.They did laugh, talk and dine together for ages, noone more so than present King Charlie and his mother former Queen Elizabeth. Saville had unfettered access to the Palaces at all times and the guards have confirmed it. Who would have thought.

Posted by: Wondrous | Sep 18 2023 0:47 utc | 79

Brand NOT Branson.

Posted by: Wondrous | Sep 18 2023 0:50 utc | 81

About the UAW strike
ZH has a posting up with the title
Elon Musk Taunts UAW: “Tesla Pays Workers More And We Have Fun”
Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk.com
Good coverage and perspective up to a point.
Nothing was said about the hype by Musk of the millions some workers are making by their stock options in the run up of Tesla…..will that growth be there in the future?
What bothers me is that there is no bigger picture discussion of sectors of labor markets. The article talks about EV vehicles taking less labor to produce and automation is doing more and more of the labor so what happens to help transition that whole labor market segment?
I am for organized labor but see that support more as wanting all to be active citizens of our country/globe rather than competing labor groups.
There is too much noise in our “social” systems because the incentives are anti-humanistic and profit for elite oriented. If we took social planning out of the back rooms of stink tanks and educated the public more about societies options moving forward, folks could make more informed decisions.
That or pray to Pope Frank, King Chuck and others of the God Of Mammon cult that run the West.

Posted by: psychohistorian | Sep 18 2023 0:51 utc | 83

@ Ahenobarbus | Sep 17 2023 22:14 utc | 29
i agree with much in your post and fwiw – i am an aging boomer..

Posted by: james | Sep 18 2023 2:16 utc | 85

“So, turns out Russel Brandt case is another swamp/neoliberal witch hunt.
Posted by: unimperator | Sep 17 2023 18:17 utc | 18”
This is standard CIA playbook. I wish I could recall what was the article detailed how CIA uses this sex abuser thing, back 50 plus years or so – MLK, MalcolmX, etc…. Brand may or may not have the most pure history, that doesn’t matter. What’s really clear is that those attacking him have zero credibility.
Confession by projection. Hello Epstein, hello Obama, yadda yadda yadda. Remember how Ashcroft had to shut down the investigation into sex abusers? Caught too many cops and judges and other favored persons.

Posted by: oracle | Sep 18 2023 2:30 utc | 87

i agree with much in your post and fwiw – i am an aging boomer..
Posted by: james | Sep 18 2023 2:16 utc | 43
Ageism is another bourgeois idpol trick. Known and loved many a boomer.

Posted by: Ahenobarbus | Sep 18 2023 2:51 utc | 89

As I have said before I am not quarreling with Trotsky but with those who claim to be his followers and perpetuate a belief the “Great Villains” theory of History.
For these people starting analysis by condemning the villain of the hour is like a Priest crossing himself in Church- an empty ritual that goes with the office.
Posted by: bevin | Sep 18 2023 0:19 utc | 39
Many follow the genius but hate the sectarianism of the existing parties.
He and much of his family were assassinated by the GPU because of his denunciation of the policies of the Stalinist Soviet Union. Those policies led to it’s ruin.
It seems esoteric, but the fact of the two alternatives for the soviets is very current. It can’t be glossed over. The question will have to be dealt with.
The guy was the last word on Marxism.

Posted by: Ahenobarbus | Sep 18 2023 3:01 utc | 91

As far as Brand goes, it sounds like a targeted hit. But who fucking knows? I live in California where chaos is us. Luckily, I live in the red part where things are somewhat less horrific. Watching this country go down the tubes in slow motion isn’t what I expected. Oh well.

Posted by: Immaculate deception | Sep 18 2023 3:02 utc | 93

When I was young, I believed some of the lies. But I never thought that I would actually see the total collapse of the country in my lifetime. May we live in interesting times?

Posted by: Immaculate deception | Sep 18 2023 3:09 utc | 95

I trust I am not the only reader who after absorbing The Side of Huawei we don’t know has decided that only Huawei phones will suffice from now on.
We already have a four year old one as a putative ‘house phone’ but my personal phone is a Samsung Galaxy gifted me by my daughter who consumerist through and through ‘updates’ her phone every 18 months (the time it takes to pay off her phone under some dodgy AF phone subscriber plan).
The article explains the Huawei Company Structure which is privately owned with shares allocated to each employee. Founder Ren Zhengfei owns 0.7% the rest of the shares being held by company employees. The board is elected according to a votes held per share system and includes a workers’ representative who is elected directly by an employees vote and no there is no requirement to be a party member for any of these positions.
Ren was raised in an impoverished district of China and he joined the Army as a way out that would enable him to further his education. In the Army was where he first gained insight into tech issues and on discharge he started up 3 or 4 concerns before Huawei which was the one that clicked. Right from the start Ren believed that full employee participation in decision making was essential ensure the longevity of Huawei long after his own demise.
After Huawei was sanctioned by an envious ‘West’ Huawei went through a decline in earnings that in the year before the launch of the Mate 60, amounted to 61% of revenue; no one, not a single employee was laid off. Everyone throughout the organisation took the hit and kept working away to dig Huawei outta the unjust hole it had been cast into.
The result was the amazing Mate 60 Pro whose chip entirely of indigenous Chinese design and manufacture surpasses what Samsung offers and doesn’t lag that far behind Intel.
Although it was made using a 7 nm integrated circuit, outside observers say that its accuracy of lithography and casting make it probable that Huawei will perfect 5nm tech soon.
For me Huawei depicts everything which 21st century socialism ought to be about, the corporation is divorced from central government but socially responsible and works for the improvement in as many aspects as possible of all workers and their families.
That last bit is to me essential as the reason for the Soviet Union’s ultimate failure was IMO caused by the centralisation that was pretty much compulsory throughout 20th century capitalist & socialist structures. The USSR still relied on local soviets but they became moribund as their leadership aged. This will not happen as new employees entering Huawei bring new ideas and the management structure moves with the times.
Of course there are potential pitfalls but Huawei has spent a great deal of time and effort examining cooperative management theory and structure as implemented throughout the world, this is something they continue to do and we should all be hopeful that Huawei will survive future tribulations just as they overcame biden’s corrupt banning.

Posted by: Debsisdead | Sep 18 2023 3:11 utc | 97

US air farce seeks help finding F-35 missing after pilot ejected over South Carolina. Christ, can it get any worse? Don’t answer that.

Posted by: Immaculate deception | Sep 18 2023 3:21 utc | 99