Society's ChildS


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The very high price of the hyperconvenient economy

Ralph Nader
Counterpunch
Fri, 03 Nov 2017 00:00 UTC
amazon and you're done
Apart from sensual appeals, the chief marketing wave in our country is selling convenience. It has reached a level of frenzy with companies like Amazon and Walmart racing your order to your doorstep (with Amazon now wanting the electronic key to your house).

Ever since the industrial revolution, when the division of labor between consumers and producers widened and deepened, the convenience of not having to grow your own food, weave your own clothes and build your own shelter have become a given of economic progress. Expert specialization has tended to make products better and more standardized as well.

But, in recent decades, adding tiers of conveniences touted by the vendors' television/radio/print advertisements has rarely mentioned the downsides.

Comment: What will people do should the grid should go down, or the economy fails, or there's a massive earthquake preventing the transport of all the items we are so used to getting, seemingly, at the click of a button? Western society has never been so dependent on the hyperconnected/hyperconvenient economy - or so vulnerable to its collapse - as it is right now.

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Attention

University professor decries 'toxic masculinity' in Beauty and the Beast film

Toni Airaksinen
Campus Reform
Sat, 04 Nov 2017 15:53 UTC
beauty and the beast
A professor at Florida International University recently argued that the Disney film Beauty and the Beast is rife with "toxic masculinity."

Bryant Sculos, who teaches politics at Florida International University, argues in an academic journal article that Gaston and the Beast, the two male protagonists of the story, are emblematic of "toxic masculinity" in both the 1991 animated version of the film and the 2017 live-action remake, albeit in different ways.

"The beauty of the 1991 Beauty and the Beast is that it taught young boys that sometimes the sensitive, intellectual guy could 'win' the heart of the beautiful woman," Sculos notes, later adding that "the portrayals of toxic masculinity in the original animated feature and the more recent live-action remake are quite similar-with one categorical exception: the role of others in the (re)production of that toxic masculinity."

Comment: A serious mental virus is spreading around US universities and frying professors' brains. See:

Sociology professor blows a gasket, claims 'white nuclear family is powerful force that supports white supremacy'
Deranged university professor wants to 'do away with masculinity completely'
Rabid feminist professors claim that citations in scholarly articles contribute to 'white heteromasculinity'
Do algebra and geometry promote "white privelege"? This prof thinks so

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Stock Down

GOP's hidden 46% bracket and the 'bubble tax'

Danny Vinik
The Agenda
Thu, 02 Nov 2017 06:07 UTC
Paul Ryan
© static.politico
House Republicans claim the tax plan they introduced Thursday keeps the top individual rate unchanged at 39.6 percent-the level at which it's been capped for much of the past quarter-century. But a little-noticed provision effectively creates a new band in which income is taxed at over 45 percent.

Thanks to a quirky proposed surcharge, Americans who earn more than $1 million in taxable income would trigger an extra 6 percent tax on the next $200,000 they earn-a complicated change that effectively creates a new, unannounced tax bracket of 45.6 percent.
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Bizarro Earth

UK anti slavery NGO promotes child refugee acceptance scheme


Sputnik
Sat, 04 Nov 2017 21:50 UTC
Britain was supposed to accept at least 3,000 unaccompanied migrant children to the country under the law that came into force for a brief period of time in 2016.

Father and daughter refugees
© AFP 2017/Daniel Mihalescu
On Thursday, former Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron called for the reintroduction of the amendment to the Immigration Act 2016, which came into force in May 2016 and was suspended in February 2017.

The amendment proposed by Lord Alfred Dubs was designed to bring at least 3,000 unaccompanied migrant children to the United Kingdom, but since then only 480 children have been allowed to move to the country under the scheme.
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Pistol

Las Vegas Police: Paddock was 'in debt and depressed' (like THAT explains a motive)


RT
Sat, 04 Nov 2017 21:36 UTC
Las Vegas memorial
© Steve Marcus / Reuters
The gunman who killed 58 people and injured over 500 at a Las Vegas concert last month had lost a significant amount of money in the past two years. Police think that might be a "determining factor" in the worst mass shooting in modern US history.


Comment: Not convincing. Sorry guys, try again.


Stephen Paddock was a high-stakes gambler and real estate investor who had lost a "significant amount of wealth" since September 2015, which led to "bouts of depression," Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo said in an interview with news station KLAS-TV.

"This individual was status-driven, based on how he liked to be recognized in the casino environment and how he liked to be recognized by his friends and family," Lombardo said. "So, obviously, that was starting to decline in the short period of time, and that may have had a determining effect on why he did what he did."


Comment: Ok, but what about the other two dozen or so individuals involved?


Comment: What a load of BS.

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Cow Skull

Syrian filmmaker fakes own 'assassination' to help publicize his anti-Assad movie


Sputnik
Fri, 03 Nov 2017 21:19 UTC
Muhammad Bayazid
© Photo: Youtube/TRT WorldMuhammad Bayazid
A Syrian opposition filmmaker has apparently been exposed as the architect of a fake attempt on his life - staged in order to promote his anti-Assad movie.

Earlier in October Muhammad Bayazid, a Syrian opposition filmmaker and creator of an upcoming movie about alleged torture and abuse perpetrated in Tadmore prison in Syria, was stabbed in Istanbul in what the Guardian described as a suspected assassination attempt.

However, the New Arab reveals that the attack was apparently orchestrated by Bayazid himself in attempt gain publicity and to promote his movie.

The media outlet managed to obtain a video record of several conversations between Bayazid and his producer, Mohammed al-Hindi, that took place in May and June this year. During these chats the filmmaker apparently outlined a plan to stage a fake attempt on his own life in order to promote his work and to attract potential sponsors.

Comment: Bayazid must have figured that if the White Helmets could get an Oscar staging and faking heroics with their anti-Assad propaganda - why can't he?!

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Fire

Hot ride: 'Unimpressed' Russian man drives burning bus through the streets (VIDEO)


RT
Sat, 04 Nov 2017 16:42 UTC
Bus on fire
© Ruptly
A bus on fire casually driving through the streets was caught on film in a Russian town, proving that even public transportation can be quite a hot ride.

Footage of a burning PAZ-brand bus, which rolled through the streets of the central Russian community of Orel, emerged on social media on Friday.

The rather old vehicle, bearing a number of a local bus route seven, can be seen casually driving while engulfed in a large cloud of white smoke. An open fire was raging in the engine compartment of the bus, right next to the motorist, who kept on driving like nothing was happening.
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Target

It's time for social media censorship to be reined in

Tiana Dalichov
Halsey News
Thu, 02 Nov 2017 17:30 UTC
Twitter censorship
Let's talk about the one thing everyone knows is happening, but no one really knows how to fix. Censorship.

It's no secret that voices have been deliberately targeted on social media like nobody's business over the last year and a half. Content creators have had their videos demonetized and their accounts heckled on YouTube. Accounts are being shut down on Twitter and Facebook, suspended for "hate speech" and alleged violations of incredibly vague "community standards." And (*spoiler alert*) about 90% of the accounts being targeted belong to Conservative and Right Wing voices. Milo Yiannopoulos. Michael Savage. Richard Spencer. The National Policy Institute. The Radix Journal. Martin Shkreli. Kaya Jones and Joy Villa. Most recently, Rose McGowan, Infowars, and Roger Stone.

Don't get me wrong. I'm sure the list is far longer than that.

My point? The duplicitous censorship being perpetrated by Twitter, Google, and Facebook is getting dangerous. Conservatives often get locked out of their accounts, suspended, or banned altogether for doing nothing more than attempting to expose the truth about Islam, Hollywood, Third Wave Feminism, the Clintons...you name it. They speak out, they're silenced.

This is like, "How to Create Dystopian Societies for Dummies," ladies and gents. It doesn't get any simpler than that.

Comment: See also:

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Attention

Poverty and misfortune come for all: The absurdity of saying 'white privilege'

Teodrose Fikre
The Ghion Journal
Wed, 17 May 2017 00:00 UTC
hungry children, poverty,homelessness

Let this article stand as a testament. Though I stand by the words I wrote below about the way our society is being broken by divisiveness, I've learned a valuable lesson cause by the reactions my words created and my reaction to people's impulses. Read the article below first and circle back to read the latest post about the reasons why people turn to rancor and why co-victims bash each other. Read the latest article titled "Of These Four: Privilege, Politics and Vindictiveness-Choose Forbearance".
I will admit, I was a part of the same crowd I'm now picking up a pen to speak against. I too once went around foolishly talking about "white privilege" this or "white people are evil" that. This was not too long ago; a time when I used to see justice through colored binoculars. I was part and parcel of the very divisive culture I thought I was speaking against. It took two years of hardship for me to finally shed my blinders and see injustice as it is without putting an adjective in front of it.

This is the wisdom I earned through hardship. Using rhetoric like "white supremacy" and "white privilege" is a way of stereotyping the whole of "white" people and lumping everyone into one group. This is the surest way to turn potential allies in the struggle for justice into adversaries; by doing so we end up perpetuating the very divides that the "system" depends on to split people apart. Moreover, it is a blatant lie that being "white" automatically confers some type of privilege. Just because some or even most might have it easier being a certain complexion does not mean all enjoy that privilege. True enough we have it hard being "black" and institutional racism is no joke; but there are tens of millions of "white" people who suffer generational poverty in the Appalachians and beyond that matches the poverty faced by "African-Americans" and "minorities" in the inner cities. Do we have to negate the suffering of others in order to show that we suffer?
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Arrow Down

Normalizing pedophilia: Actress dresses two-year-old daughter in Victoria's Secret style lingerie, posts pictures on social media

Henry Austin
The Independent
Thu, 02 Nov 2017 22:52 UTC
Terri Kwan
Terri Kwan
An actress who dressed her two-year-old daughter in white lingerie for Halloween, has been criticised on social media where she posted images and videos of the toddler in costume.

Terri Kwan dressed her little girl in white suspenders and underwear, including a bra, and fitted her with a pair of angel wings. One image shows the toddler holding a star shaped wand, with a lollipop in her mouth.

The Taiwanese actress added hashtags alongside the image including "Victoria's Secret Model", a reference to the lingerie maker which often uses scantily clad models to advertise its products.

Comment: When a young mother is absolutely clueless that parading a young child in adult lingerie is inappropriate (to say the least), it's obvious that the programming efforts of pedophiles in power have been unfortunately all too successful.

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