Welcome to Sott.net
Fri, 05 Nov 2021
The World for People who Think

Society's Child
Map

Arrow Down

Australia - Racial abuse knows no boundaries, and sadly, it is learned

Rachel
© Screengrab via YouTube
Rachel Muir talks about the racist incident in Melbourne.
Melbourne - Getting to go to a Disney-themed event is every little girl's dream, especially when you get to dress up as your favorite Disney character. Samara Muir, 3, had dressed up as Queen Elsa, from the movie Frozen. But Samara's happy day ended in tears.

Rachel Muir took her three-year-old daughter Samara to a Disney-themed event being held at Watergardens Shopping Center in Taylors Lakes, Australia, last month. The mother and daughter waited in line with many other children and their parents to try out the snow pit.

Maybe it was because the lines were so long, and everyone had been standing there for over two hours, or maybe it was just for no reason at all, but the woman in front of the pair turned around and looked at the Samara and said, "I don't know why you're dressed up for because Queen Elsa isn't black," Rachel Muir told the Courier.

"I asked the woman what she meant by the comment and then one of the woman's young daughters screwed up her face, she pointed at Samara and said "you're black and black is ugly." Rachel said Samara burst into tears and covered her face.

Hiliter

Fox News wants "restraint" after Charleston shooting; Jon Stewart is having none of it for a good reason


The Daily Show's Jon Stewart on Monday called out Fox News on its hypocritical response to the mass shooting of a historic black church in Charleston, South Carolina.

The news network criticized President Barack Obama and others for "taking advantage" of the tragic shooting to advance a narrative regarding gun violence and gun control in the US. "It's almost like a sickness — like, 'Oh, tragedy happens. Let's see how we can advance this narrative,'" Fox News anchor Sean Hannity said.

But Stewart pointed out that Fox News has done the exact same thing when it can take advantage of a tragedy to advance its own political purposes.

"Remind me this past December when two New York City cops were tragically killed during a time when people were protesting police shootings of unarmed black men. Talk to me about the restraint Fox used in not advancing the narrative."

Stormtrooper

Tel Aviv police clash with Ethiopian-Israeli anti-racism protesters - 19 arrested

Image
© Reuters/Baz Ratner
A protester, who is an Israeli Jew of Ethiopian origin, is detained by policemen during a demonstration against what they say is police racism and brutality in Tel Aviv June 22, 2015.
At least 19 people were arrested after clashes erupted between police and hundreds of Ethiopian Israelis who took to the streets of Tel Aviv to protest against racism and police brutality.

Angered by the recent decision by Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein to close a criminal investigation into a police officer who beat up an Ethiopian Israeli soldier back in April, hundreds of Ethiopian took to the streets to speak up against the police's racist attitudes.

The demonstration that began in the Sarona area of Tel Aviv at 3:00pm, proceeded peacefully to Tel Aviv's centrally-located Rabin Square.

"Violent police should be locked up," they wrote on large placards as they chanted, "We've had enough, we're a new generation."

As about 500 Ethiopian-Israeli protesters made it to the government complex at the main square, they tried to block off the intersection of Ammunition Hill and Menachem Begin, when they were confronted by hundreds of Border Police and riot police that were deployed to the area earlier.

After the crowd ignored orders to clear the area, clashes erupted between protesters and police forces.

Newspaper

My hatred of authority, loathing for pretension, heartlessness and the sense of entitlement of the rich

Image
© Occupy.com
The following is an excerpt from WAGES OF REBELLION: The Moral Imperative of Revolt.

The public's inability to grasp the pathology of our oligarchic corporate elite makes it difficult to organize effective resistance. Compliant politicians, entertainers, and our vapid, corporate-funded popular culture and news media hold up the elites as leaders to emulate. We are repeatedly assured that through diligence and hard work we can join them. We are taught to equate wealth with success. This narrative keeps us from seeing the truth.

"The rich are different from us," F. Scott Fitzgerald is said to have remarked to Ernest Hemingway, to which Hemingway allegedly replied, "Yes, they have more money."

The exchange, although it never took place, does sum up a wisdom Fitzgerald had that eluded Hemingway. The rich are different. The cocoon of wealth and privilege permits the rich to turn those around them into compliant and expendable workers, hangers-on, servants, and sycophants. Wealth, as Fitzgerald illustrated in his 1925 novel The Great Gatsby - a tome on the depravity of the rich in the giddy world of speculation that would lead to the Depression - as well as his short story "The Rich Boy," which appeared a year later, breeds a class of people for whom human beings are disposable commodities. Colleagues, business partners, clients, associates, shareholders, investors, employees, kitchen staff, servants, gardeners, tutors, personal trainers, even friends and family, bend to the whims of the wealthy or disappear. Once oligarchs achieve unchecked economic and political power, as they have in the United States, the citizens too become disposable. And that, in the eyes of the elite, is what we are.

"Let me tell you about the very rich," Fitzgerald writes in "The Rich Boy." "They are different from you and me. They possess and enjoy early, and it does something to them, makes them soft where we are hard, and cynical where we are trustful, in a way that, unless you were born rich, it is very difficult to understand. They think, deep in their hearts, that they are better than we are because we had to discover the compensations and refuges of life for ourselves. Even when they enter deep into our world or sink below us, they still think that they are better than we are. They are different."

Comment: The pathological elite are not capable of acting any other way. Until people truly understand that, not much will change. Pick up a copy of Political Ponerology(A Science on the Nature of Evil Adjusted for Political Purposes) by Andrew M. Lobaczewski. The book is essential reading to understanding why we live in a world headed for destruction.

See also:


Sheriff

Baltimore officers charged in Freddie Gray murder plead not guilty

Image
© Reuters / Baltimore Police Department
Officer Caesar R. Goodson Jr., Officer Edward M. Nero, Officer Garrett E Miller (top L-R), Officer William G. Porter, Lt. Brian W. Rice, Sgt. Alicia D. White (bottom L-R)
The six Baltimore, Maryland police officers charged in the in-custody death of Freddie Gray pleaded not guilty and received their trial date. They will be tried separately, but are all assigned the same judge and trial date.

Two months after the officers involved in arresting the 25-year-old Gray were charged with counts ranging from misconduct in office to second-degree depraved heart murder, all six officers promised to enter written not-guilty pleas by Friday.

Administrative Judge W. Michel Pierson issued what the Baltimore Sun called "an unusual order"canceling the defendants' scheduled arraignments "upon the entry by each defendant of a plea of not guilty." The six officers had been set to be arraigned on July 2.

Judge Barry Williams was assigned the cases "for all further proceedings."


Red Flag

Researchers warn society could collapse by 2040 due to "unprecedented epidemic of food riots"

Image
© Reuters / Toby Melville
With the global demand for food on the rise, our society could collapse as soon as in 2040 due to fatal food shortages and "unprecedented epidemic of food riots," if counter measures are not taken, researchers have warned.

Food security experts and analysts in the field of the economics of sustainable development were asked to develop the worse-case scenario illustrating a "plausible, relatively-severe production shock affecting multiple agricultural commodities and regions."

According to a report from Lloyds of London prepared with the help of Anglia Ruskin University's Global Sustainability Institute, "the global food system is under chronic pressure to meet an ever-rising demand, and its vulnerability to acute disruptions is compounded by factors such as climate change, water stress, ongoing globalization and heightening political instability."

Researchers say that the food system is becoming "increasingly vulnerable to acute shocks," driven by the world's population growth and shifts in consumption patterns as countries develop. The UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) projects that global agricultural production will need to more than double by 2050 to close the gap between food supply and demand, the report, supported by UK's Foreign Office says.

Comment: A social and economic collapse could certainly happen sooner than 2040 if the dollar collapses and the U.S. experiences an economic meltdown, like many commentators have been predicting could happen soon:


Stock Down

Collapse: The nine dynamics of decay, the lifestyle of bureaucracy

bureaucracy guys
© translatingmarek.com
More of the same doing more of the same.
When systems are broke and broken, collapse is the only way forward.

It's a big, complex topic because there are as many types of collapse as there are systems. Some systems appear stable on the surface but collapse suddenly; others visibly decay for decades before finally slipping beneath the waves of history, and some go through stages of collapse.

The taxonomy of collapse is broad, and each unsustainable system (i.e. a system that will fail despite claims to the contrary) has its unique characteristics.

Rome didn't fall so much as erode away. That's the template for collapse.

While collapse may be sudden, the decay that generated the collapse had been rotting away the foundation for years or decades. In distilling the vast literature on collapse into nine dynamics, I am drawing upon many other authors' work.*
Here are the nine dynamics of decay that lead to collapse:

1. complacency and intellectual laziness
2. profound political disunity
3. rise of unproductive complexity
4. those bearing the sacrifices opt out/quit
5. decay of effective leadership
6. rise of bread and circuses social welfare and entertainment to distract/placate restive citizenry
7. decline of wealth-producing capacity--status quo living off financial trickery
8. sclerosis--status quo controlled by vested interests
9. resource depletion/environmental damage
All of these dynamics are currently in play around the globe.

Comment: Unfortunately, we can all too well relate to the concepts presented in this combo article. It exemplifies the definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. And, we come closer and closer to implosion every single day.

See also: Collapse, Part 1: Greece


Red Flag

Benefits of standard American diet: Obese Americans now outnumber those who are overweight

Image
© Reuters / Rick Wilking
Americans who qualify as obese now outnumber those who are considered merely overweight, according to a new study. The figures also show that 67 percent of women and 75 percent of men in US are suffering from weight problems.

The report, published by researchers from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, studied data from more than 15,000 men and women aged 25 or older of a nationally representative group collected between 2007 and 2012 as part of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES).

It estimated that 67.6 million Americans over the age of 25 were obese in 2012, and a further 65.2 million were overweight.

The NHANES included body mass index (BMI) information. A person with a BMI between 18.5 and 24.9 is considered normal, a BMI between 25 and 29.9 is considered overweight and a BMI over 30 is considered obese.

Comment: The majority of Americans who are obese/overweight would be smart to change their diet to a low carb, high fat ketogenic diet. Not only is it a great diet for weight loss, it also is much healthier than the high carb diet that the government recommends:


Arrow Down

Children fleeing Middle East war-zones imprisoned in adult detention centers with prison-like conditions

children detention centers
© Reuters / Stoyan Nenov
Vulnerable children fleeing warzones in the Middle East are being wrongly classified as over-18s and imprisoned in adult detention centers, despite the government having outlawed child detention, a report has said.

The Bureau of Investigative Journalism discovered UK border and asylum officers are sending teenagers as young as 14 straight to adult detention centers, where they are subject to conditions described as "distressing" and "scary."

This takes place without referring them to social services, as they are supposed to under government guidelines.

Campaigners have called on the Home Office to change their conduct, ensuring each person who claims to be a child is entitled to a proper assessment.

A three month investigation by Maeve McClenaghan of the bureau revealed that five children have been found to be detained in the notorious Yarl's Wood detention center since the start of this year.

Comment: It appears that border officials are falling prey to their prejudices against those arriving from Middle East countries. Most of these children are coming to the UK as a result of horrific conditions which the West is primarily responsible for creating. When these vulnerable children are mistreated, it furthers the formation of societal wedges between the immigrant communities and the local populace. One has to wonder if some of this is planned in order to keep communities fighting amongst themselves, so they are too distracted to notice who is really creating the misery.


Arrow Down

Bond manager: "Its time to hide money under the mattress"

Image
No one knows how well prepared the system is to handle potential bank runs and massive demands for cash withdrawals if the system tanks.

And no one knows how much longer the system can hold.

The erratic and unnatural market forces from the Federal Reserves' zero interest rate is driving things towards an unstable tipping point, and no one knows what will happen if it does.

Millions may be left without a way to access their funds - perhaps for days or weeks - and banks may lose funds that governments are unwilling or unable to repay.

So a top bond fund manager is warning to diversify holdings into things like gold, silver and savings accounts, and to keep some cash on hand in cash everything else comes to grinding halt. The London Telegraph warned:

Comment: There have been so many financial warnings, from so many places, looking at so many indicators, that it will likely be this year that we see a major downturn.