New Kind of Warfare

~ Clarissa ~ 29 Comments

Let’s hope nobody can hack our cellphones.

Q&A: Welfare and the Nation-state

~ Clarissa ~ 26 Comments

Social security is not my subject. I’m not even entitled to receive it in old age, so my knowledge is non-existent.

What I do know, however, is that there cannot possibly be any welfare (in its broadest sense) without a nation-state. And there can’t be a nation-state without clearly defined, non-porous borders and all of the other attributes of the nation-state. I started talking about it on this blog over a decade ago. Since then, all of my predictions have come true.

You can’t be simultaneously pro-open borders and pro-welfare. Open borders mean a dramatic impoverishment and lumpenization for the overwhelming majority. There cannot be a middle class without the nation-state. We are seeing the erosion of the middle-class everywhere where these policies have been adopted. Dramatic cuts to public education, public healthcare, policing, infrastructure. Austerity in everything. That’s the price for the dismantling of the nation-state. Welcome to the new neoliberal reality.

No Country for All Men

~ Clarissa ~ 16 Comments

Who are “us”, exactly? All of the inhabitants of the planet? What does the word “country” even mean, then?

Jail Sentences for Wrongthink

~ Clarissa ~ 8 Comments

Where is the evidence that Kamala Harris doesn’t believe in jailing people who say things she doesn’t like? Did she denounce this statement? Express support for people freely sharing the idea she doesn’t support?

How do the people who vote for Democrats know that nothing they said will be declared misinformation and cause them to be “deterred” through criminal charges? Where does the certainty that this won’t turn on them come from?

Cat Meme at Work

~ Clarissa ~ Leave a comment

I’m eagerly awaiting articles, news items, TV reports, workplace meetings, posts and comments about the dehumanization and demonization of white doctors who were accused of kiling black babies for racist reasons. But they won’t happen, as we all know.

The difference between this race libel and the cat meme (which, as I said before, I don’t support) is that nobody is forced to watch and praise the cat meme at work. The “white doctor killers” hoax, on the other hand, was used to badger white people in state-run workplaces. Imagine having to sit through years of cat memes at work and being forced to praise them loudly. Is it OK to inflict that on people against their will? To hold their livelihood hostage to be able to do this?

I personally don’t think it’s OK, whether it’s the cat meme or the white doctor hoax. Unfortunately, we have half the country thinking it’s not only OK but necessary to force their colleagues, neighbors and compatriots to affirm hoaxes.

Killer Doctors

~ Clarissa ~ 17 Comments

Yet another scientific hoax has been debunked. It turns out that white doctors don’t murder black babies in maternity wards. We can all breathe a collective sigh of relief. The study that was quoted from here to the Moon purporting that white doctors kill black babies en masse has been disproved:

There’s a whole thread at the link. Shocking, I know. Who could have thought that white doctors can actually control themselves and abstain from homiciding poor, innocent black babies?

Who Fights on Russia’s Side?

~ Clarissa ~ 17 Comments

Thank you, Biden-Harris administration.

Now I want to hear once again why a Harris administration would be bad for Russia.

Bomb Hoaxes

~ Clarissa ~ 8 Comments

All of the “bomb threats” in Ohio turned out to be hoaxes. With origins in one particular other country.

Eating Cats

~ Clarissa ~ 68 Comments

There are cultures where people eat cats, dogs, bats, pangolins, etc. Horse meat is sold at supermarkets in Canada. If you say that pointing this out is dehumanizing, this can only mean that you consider your own diet to be the only one fit for humans and everybody who eats something you don’t is not human.

This is the problem with repeating somebody else’s talking points. You don’t give yourself a chance to think about what you are actually saying. Talking points are cringe. All of them, left and right. If you’ve heard an expression repeated several times on TV or social media, that’s reason not to use it.

The News Cycle

~ Clarissa ~ 15 Comments

Wait, what? Another assassination attempt on Trump?

I’ve had an intensely relaxing family weekend and avoided all US news. What exactly did I miss?

Seriously, one can’t turn away for three minutes around here. The news cycle goes faster than the washer drum.