Once Upon A Time In The South

Many years ago slaves were the norm in the South…..then progress was made and these slaves were free but they had to be equal but separate……black waiting rooms, bathrooms, separate schools, etc etc.

The came the great awakening and civil rights prevailed and from the ashes of the old South rose the promise of the new South.

What a magical story….but do not kid yourself!

All that racism just went underground until the rise of the great pretender…..and slowly all that bigotry has once again arisen to show its ugly face.

Take for instance in my state of Mississippi….

Recently at a protest at the University of Mississippi things got ugly and disgusting…..

Republican Georgia Congressman Mike Collins came under fire Friday over a social media post applauding video of white University of Mississippi students racially abusing a Black woman participating in a campus protest for Palestine.

Collins posted the video—in which numerous people can be heard grunting like apes and one young man is seen jumping up and down like a monkey in front of the Black woman—with the caption, “Ole Miss taking care of business.”

Collins—or whoever’s in charge of his social media accounts—sparred with Black leaders who called out his racism. When former Democratic Ohio state senator Nina Turner said the video showed “anti-Blackness,” the congressman shot back, “*Anti-terroristness.”

When Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.) accused Collins of “fueling white supremacy,” the Republican retorted, “Don’t take down any more signs at our workplace, please” along with a photo of the Democrat triggering a fire alarm in a House of Representatives office building last year.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/ole-miss-racist-video

Only a POS would justify the actions of these people….nothing can justify using such tactics whether you agree or disagree with the protest.

This is not an isolated case especially here in Mississippi.

The New South my ass! It is just the Old South with cosmetic work around the edges.

Update:

There will be consequences for the University of Mississippi student accused of taunting a Black student who was participating in a pro-Palestinian protest by mimicking a monkey or ape last week. The Phi Delta Theta fraternity says the man seen making monkey-like noises on video of the incident was previously a member, but was kicked out on Friday, the Hill reports. Ole Miss also launched its own investigation into the incident; the university’s chancellor said the actions of counter-protesters, who outnumbered pro-Palestinian protesters, included “hostility and racist overtones.” Meanwhile, the far-right congressman from Georgia who originally seemed to endorse the racist jeers heard at the demonstration is backtracking a bit, the AP reports.

n a statement Monday, Rep. Mike Collins defended his posting of video that included the racist jeers (he said he “did not believe that to be the focal point of the video shared at the time”) but acknowledged that he has since realized “that there certainly seems to be some potentially inappropriate behavior that none of us should seek to glorify” in the video. He said that he believes any schools “that [do] not allow the occupiers to run roughshod over the 99% of students who are there to learn and enjoy college are taking care of business,” but that he denounces racism or discrimination

This news will change NOTHING!

The ugliness or racism is still a large part of the fabric of Mississippi and amount of clever words will change it.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Project 2025

College of Political Knowledge

2024 Election Series

November is just months away….now would be a good time to pay attention!

If Trump is successful in his bid for a second term these are things we can look forward to in the future.

It is a Heritage and GOP blueprint to destroy the planet…..and the MAGA movement and Donald the Orange are embracing the 920 page blueprint.

I would post the link here but that would drive me into a stroke laughing so hard to think anyone would actually care enough to read the document.

We all have an idea what will happen if a conserv is elected….those ideas are valid but here is what will probably be the game plan.

With that in mind I found an article that will inform you before your attention span wanes.

When former President Donald Trump exited the Oval Office in January 2021, he left behind a record of environmental rollbacks unrivaled in modern U.S. history. Over his 1,461 days as commander-in-chief, Trump replaced, eliminated, or otherwise dismantled more than 100 environmental rules — at least — from repealing the Clean Air Act to allowing coal plants to dump toxic wastewater into lakes and rivers to declaring open season on endangered gray wolves.

President Joe Biden then rolled back most of the rollbacks, largely before their full impacts could be felt, which is why some experts say the most significant climate consequence of Trump’s presidency was actually the loss of four years that could have moved the green transition forward.

Had all Trump’s policies gone into effect, the nonpartisan Rhodium Group estimated at the end of 2020, they would have added an additional 1.8 gigatons of CO2-equivalent to the atmosphere by 2035 — more than the annual energy emissions of Germany, Britain, and Canada combined. But even though we never felt the full brunt of them, the medical journal The Lancet estimated that the policies undertaken during his presidency were responsible for 22,000 deaths in 2019 alone due to sharp increases in things like asthma, heart disease, and lung cancer.

Now Trump is once again the presumed Republican nominee and currently leads Biden in general election polls. Were he to win, he has a ready roadmap for building on his dubious environmental legacy: Project 2025, a 920-page document developed by the right wing think tank The Heritage Foundation.

Project 2025 isn’t just a climate plan, or course — it’s a comprehensive proposal, covering everything from immigration to abortion, education, pornography, and child labor. Though billed as a “presidential transition project,” its wishlist includes numerous actions that would require Republican control of both chambers of Congress (admittedly possible, though currently looking like a longshot) to enact. Undaunted, the document sets its sights on the Inflation Reduction Act, Biden’s landmark climate legislation, which — since the U.S. is the world’s second-largest greenhouse gas emitter — is all but necessary to keep the planet off the path to 1.5 degrees Celcius.

Read On!

https://heatmap.news/politics/trump-climate-change-project-2025

Then there is the 4 prong attack on society…..

Called the 2025 Presidential Transition Project—or “Project 2025,” for short—the plan has “four pillars”:

an 887-page policy agenda,

a presidential personnel database of vetted conservatives,

a Presidential Administration Academy to train these people to achieve the Project 2025 policy agenda, and

a 180-day playbook, which is what they hope to achieve in the first 180 days if Trump takes office in January 2025.

Project 2025: The Right’s Dystopian Plan to Dismantle Civil Rights and What It Means for Women

You might want to read this careful for your vote could be helping to destroy the planet and your way of life.

Just a thought

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Repent! The End Is Near!

I thought I would move away from the depressing news of war on many fronts….and move to the depressing news at this end of another year to the total collapse that awaits this planet.

We already know that the way we have been living for the last century is not sustainable for our planet. Beyond climate ruin, however, is another threat to our society: Economic Collapse. Predicted back in 1970, experts have reviewed this information and our prospects are not looking good. This is what you need to know.

In 1972, a team of MIT scientists predicted that our industrial civilization would collapse in the future if corporations and governments kept pushing for continued economic growth no matter the consequences. They predicted 12 possible future scenarios, all of which predicted that natural resources would eventually become scarce, halting economic growth entirely. This would result in complete economic collapse and the breakdown of personal welfare. (1)

The most famous scenario in the report, known as the Business As Usual scenario, or BAU, forecasted that economic growth would peak in 2040. After that point, everything will start crashing: Availability of food and natural resources, as well as the global population. No, humans won’t be wiped off of the planet, but our standard of living will be. They predicted that this collapse will take decades to recover from.

Harvard grad student Gaya Herrington decided to look into this when she began her post-graduate studies last year. She discovered that currently, nearly half a century later, we are well aligned with two of the projected scenarios.

Herrington measured the current state of our world using 10 different variables. These included fertility rates, pollution levels, population, food production, and industry output. She found that we are aligned with two possible outcomes: The BAU and another known as Comprehensive Technology (CT). CT is a scenario in which technological advancements help improve pollution levels and food supplies in spite of natural resources dwindling away. This still leads us to a point of sudden economic collapse – it will just be a bit more drawn out.

“[The BAU] and CT scenarios show a halt in growth within a decade or so from now,” Herrington wrote in her study. “Both scenarios thus indicate that continuing business as usual, that is, pursuing continuous growth, is not possible.”

How Close Is Total Social and Economic Collapse? | Opinion

Sorry to be a bummer and pee on everybody’s parade but we are close to a total meltdown as we close out another year.

The end is nearer than most anticipate….when you have people the hate for a living the end cannot be far behind.

Will anyone be bothered to try a stop this decline?

My guess would be no for they are more worried about the new guy that Taylor Swift is thumping than to worry about the end of the good thing we have had for decades.

Not to worry we have another year to kick this can down that road…..

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Closing Thought–01Dec23

The Conservative Party in the UK has issued its latest proposal and it is a doozy….apparently like the US the UK conservs have a hard on for the handicapped.

Critics of the UK’s ruling Conservative Party say welfare reforms unveiled Wednesday show why it is nicknamed the “nasty party.” Under the new plan, disabled people, including people with mobility or mental health issues, will be instructed to look for work they can do from home or face having their benefits cut by almost $6,000 per year, the Guardian reports. Jeremy Hunt, the country’s Treasury chief, said it was “wrong economically and wrong morally” for more than 100,000 people a year with illness or disability to be placed on benefits with no requirement to look for a job, reports the Times of London.

Official say they plan to use digital tools to track attendance at interviews and careers fairs. Critics, including charities for people with disabilities, criticized the plan as ill thought-out, noting that the number of work-from-home jobs has dropped sharply since the end of the pandemic. “Everyone should be able to work if they want to and can, but this latest government move looks sets to punish disabled people, adding more anxiety on to disabled households that are already struggling,” said Sarah White, the head of policy at disability charity Sense, per the Guardian.

Rachel Reeves of the opposition Labour Party accused the government of ignoring the “wider problem” of high rates of long-term illness and long National Health Service waiting lists, reports Sky News. “Britain is the only country in the G7 where the employment rate still has not returned to pre-pandemic levels,” she said. Hunt said Wednesday that the British economy has “turned a corner” and the government is bringing in the biggest tax cuts since the 1980s, the AP reports. But despite the cuts, taxation is still on course to reach its highest level since World War II, with more people moving into tax brackets that have been frozen for years.

Damn! What dicks!

If anyone in the UK has more information on the issue please let us know.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Joints, Blunts And Spliffs (Oh My)

Almost every state has some sort of legalization of marijuana going on and since it is a Sunday and a good chance for IST to be an FYI blog for the day I would like to point out the differences on the several uses of the weed.

This is basically the terminology used….

Even though cannabis has a multi-millennia history as a plant used for religion, wellness, and recreation, humans eventually had to mask its existence as prohibition swept the globe—not just the United States. Slang, nicknames, and wordplay have been a part of extralegal activity as long as we’ve had laws.

We can thank slang terms for helping to keep the passion of the plant alive, but let’s also be honest: Sometimes coded language can be confusing—especially for newer consumers.

Smoking cannabis works just like tobacco—wrapped up in something else that’s smokeable, or consumed in one of the traditional styles of its indigenous stewards, in a pipe-type format. Some choose one over the other, but in many cultures and regions, people mix the two, which can be a surprise for someone not expecting either straight weed or the adrenaline hit of even just a few flecks of tobacco mixed in.

Wrapped-up and smokable cannabis has many names: joint, blunt, spliff, preroll, bone, stick, roach, cannagar, and others, to name a few. Some of these terms even have different meanings in different regions of the world, so what’s a smoker to do when they’re not sure?

Joints can be pleasurable and fun for the smoker, granting a social, shareable ticket to a delightful buzz, but what’s inside them? Straight-up weed, for the most part. Rolled or stuffed into pre-made cones, joints are among the top methods of consumption.

https://lifehacker.com/the-differences-between-joints-blunts-and-spliffs-1850811382

Just a little fun on this Sunday…..

Enjoy your day and as always….Be well and Be Safe….

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

America The Beautiful

The other day Sue and I went grocery shopping and parked next to us was a white Jeep (Junk Each and Every Part)….behind the wheel was an old fat white dude and on the bumper were an American flag and a Trump flag…..I thought how disgusting that was for in my mind that is like spitting on the symbol of our country.

That experience got me to thinking about our country and our government…..and yes our democracy.

Democracy is in trouble in the U.S. “Illiberal democracies” exist in Hungary, Poland and elsewhere. Why is democracy dying? How to save it? Harvard Professors Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt argue that democracies don’t die from outside forces such as coup d’états. “We must prevent it [democracy] from dying within,” they write at the conclusion of How Democracies Die, their comparative analysis of how democracies have died and how to save them. “Since the end of the Cold War, most democratic breakdowns have been caused not by generals and soldiers but by elected governments themselves,” they warn, with obvious reference to Donald J. Trump and his past and potential future presidency. But what they miss is that “elected governments” were chosen by citizens. Despite all the brouhaha about Trump’s legal difficulties and his attacks on democratic institutions, Trump remains extremely popular among Republicans; he is neck-and-neck with President Biden in a potential 2024 contest.

So while a Democracy can die as a formal political system, democracies die because of a failing civic culture. In that sense, Levitsky and Ziblatt are wrong. Democracies don’t die because of elected governments; it is citizens who choose the elected governments. It is citizens who cause democracies to live or die.

75 million American citizens voted for Trump in 2020, and his popularity continues. Despite indictments – Trump faces 91 criminal charges across four cases – Trump dominates all Republican challengers by widening margins in national polls. A Quinnipiac University poll — conducted after Trump’s Aug. 1 federal indictment but before his indictment in Georgia — had Trump with a 39-point lead over Florida. Governor Ron DeSantis for the Republican nomination. Trump got support from 57% of Republican registered voters, DeSantis 18%. No other Republican candidate got more than 3% in the Quinnipiac poll.

In terms of a 2024 rematch of the 2020 presidential election between Trump and Biden, Trump trailed Biden by one percentage point in the latest Quinnipiac poll, 47 to 46 percent. A one percentage point difference is a small number between a sitting president and someone historically twice impeached and currently facing four major indictments.

As the indictments continue, Trump’s fundraising improves as well. He raised about $12 million in the first three months of this year. Seven days after the first indictment, he raised $13 million. As he quipped after one of his indictments: “I need one more indictment to ensure my election!” he joked.

Democracy, “democracy,” and Trump’s Faithful Followers

I wish I could be optimistic but all I see and read tends to the pessimistic side.

The divisions are looking insurmountable at this time….I know things can change but I think the biases, hatred and no concern for the rule of law will be our undoing.

But that is just me….if you have a different perspective then please share.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”