Nelson Lowhim's Blog, page 30

How's the 😜 World Going? Ukraine et al.

Well, here we are, a day and week where it's become obvious that there's still a bit too much crazy out there.
Interesting, though I do wonder when that spike happens. Is it 2020? Before that? Could be 2017 for all I know from that.  
So Ukraine. Looks like it's out there, plenty of manufacturing consent going on. I know I wrote about this a year ago. Adding to this I've listened to this podcast. it's worth listening to. Think it brings up lots of good things that aren't usually brought up in this discussion (or scream session, online). It does seem to underplay the strength of the Nazi-adjacent movements in Ukraine (and at the start of the protests in 2014, there was certainly far right, fascistic elements involved, though I agree to say it was all fascists, or that it was all American led, is going a little too far[1] and indeed the current Ukrainian president is Jewish, so that seems to point away from the fact that what remains of Ukraine is itself a wholly right wing state).
Manufacturing consent on the inter webs. 


But that podcast does seem pretty solid. The lecturer also has the annoying tic of calling anyone on the left as far left, dovish, and leftist tank, Putin apologist etc etc never once actually taking in what the points taken are. And he does list a lot of good possibilities (missing out on the raised tensions between nuclear states not being a good thing, and not taking into account other things like the usual American State Dept view that Russia just needs to learn its place, "eat its spinach" sorta of stuff that Russia really bristles at (and any leader would, so making this about Putin, no matter the cult of personality there, seems to miss the point). Also doesn't mention why we don't just say, yeah Ukraine doesn't get into NATO, while getting some non-invasion agreement from the likes of Putin. [2]
Kind of a subset of propaganda, but a fair point. I do think there were plenty of excess deaths there and that plays into Putin's acts. But what this doesn't deal with is the US and its million+ excess deaths and thus a similar need to distract the population.  [3]

A better discussion is here. Points to Putin posturing (there was an essay he wrote that was concerning, but from which he's backing off right now, and saying just that NATO wouldn't get into Ukraine) because of his lack of popularity (definitely true, especially with Covid). And the people here are smarter as they know that this game of chicken (again, with nukes) simply increases tensions and isn't good for anyone. Anyone who's sane. 
Indeed, the podcast looks into Putin's essay that kind of dismisses the possibility of Ukraine as a state. And how Russian behavior itself does drive its neighbors into NATO's arms (no one mentions how Putin actually asked to join NATO).
Solid podcast, so I highly recommend it. 


[1] All the literature points to this being a thing, even if it wasn't the only factor at play, yet it's rarely mentioned in the podcast or elsewhere. Haven't seen much evidence otherwise, though I think the west fanned the flames and overthrew a democratically elected government, corrupt as it may have been, and few people are mentioning how there was an economic crisis in Ukraine and they were trying to get a good deal from the West, before turning to Putin (better deal from what I've heard))
[2] Again, don't care for Putin, but the hysterics are getting too far about him. I do not agree with his idea to break Ukraine for no other reason than to prove a point (just like the US breaks many countries, usually far easier than others cause.... you know the dollar). 
[3] funny thread, this, apparently plenty of liberals think that we have anti-vaxxers because of Putin. Just no. Same with 2016. Show some proof, stop being xenophobic and blaming everyone but our own crazy right wing movement. 
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Great Video on Covid. Long but worth it.

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Felt small tremors last night.

Looks like it was most likely this earthquake here in the middle of the gulf of Alaska, 1000 miles away. So the waves probably took around 10 minutes to get to me,... I think. Odd feeling when the ground beneath your feet seems to shake and have no solid bearing. Someday the big one will hit this area. I hope it doesn't do as much damage as some think it will. 
Personally, the idea of a huge earthquake does not inspire me to want to ever experience that. 
Oh, and proof that my "new feudalism" idea is out there and long been part of the zeitgeist:
Again things like web fiction fan fiction have long followed the vein of this idea. So before many were even mentioning the word we had CEO romances that spoke to the new feudalism (with CEOs for the prince of yore). 
And check out this video that's actually a treasure to watch and says so much about us (still, in this 1931 cartoon)
NSFL:And here are two images from the internets. One is a hornet killing a fucking mouse (yes, a mouse) and the other is a pair of cheetahs sleeping with a game warden. Oh boy, the time I spend on such things. 





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Man, is it getting bad or what?

I don't just mean that deaths from COVID have crested over 2,000 deaths a day again (who knows how long they'll stay above this level, or if that even matters) nevermind what COVID does to one's mind and to one's body (the effects are gonna be long term and we don't even know what they'll be). NYC just had another issue with a person being pushed in front of a subway. One can never truly tell [1] from online comments but apparently they claim that area is being overrun with homeless crazies. 
If true, better mental health institutions would be something to set up if Neo-liberal dogma still didn't have such a chokehold on many people's thinking. Well those in power, at least. 
Which brings me to another issue, in terms of corporations, and how they currently have the highest profits they've had in years and yet cry foul because there aren't enough workers (at the prices they want... no free market for them, I guess). And then this: nurses left a place for higher pay. Even told their current place that they would stay if the salary was matched... then you have their current employer say no, then get surprised when so many left all at once. 
So what does a capitalist do in this situation? Surely they must have weighed the pros and cons of paying all that extra to the nurses and must have had other nurses lined up? Nope. went crying to a court and the judge did indeed tell the nurses they couldn't just leave. 
Absolutely insane. If you've been paying attention (to this blog, to the world, really), you'll have seen that the socialism for the rich, hard market capitalism for the poors/middle class, has been the MO of our world (most of it). But I believe that the pandemic makes it crystal clear exactly how hard this rule is. The elites will fight for it tooth and nail. And I sense that most people see this and that has a lot to do with the increase in anti-social behavior (nevermind that the rule will simply fray the fabric whenever it's carried out). [2]
So I think in those terms nothing is going to get better, though somethings might (given that in the US at least us plebs didn't get hardcore austerity like elsewhere in the world). 
[1] Indeed, in that specific sub, half the comments are trying to blame the new DA though nothing that the DA has done has been shown to lead to things like this (and the people can't show proof... same goes for the Seattle sub and the "blame everything on the left" that goes on there with regard to the issues and problems here). 
[2] And hs, the internets really is filled with the dumbest shit, like these two screenshots. A person gives the ostensible point that lower immigration is the reason for the labor supply shortage. Okay, that's somewhat fair (and for some jobs there is just a straight up shortage that could be met with more immigration)
Followed by many saying, well this is the only way we get power for labor: no immigrants (or something to that effect). The wages go up when we have less immigrants, and they, I shit you not, show this chart as their proof:

Do you see it? yeah the median wage starts increasing in 2014, when immigration was also increasing. Again, wtf is wrong with these people? I mean, you can make a theory that there's some other relationship and give more proof of that, but when both the charts don't show a damn thing, what are you doing? And the pro-immigration people arguing with said person aren't even pointing this out. They just want to scream about other things. 
And in my mind all sorts of thoughts and emotions are bouncing around like the internet truly is a hell of my own making (Sarte like and all) and the xkcd comic of the guy who can't go to bed because someone was wrong on the internet is kinda true, except I don't engage with these people anymore, I simply get infuriated since it's like watching fellow voters not get logic, but also big time pundits not get it either. And yeah, I understand the latter are paid to simply rile people up, not provide actual solutions but still, it's a shitty testament to the world.


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Good piece here.

Good piece here. Check it out and share, as always. 
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377,000 Dead in Yemen.

Our quislings in the the Gulf and KSA just killed a heap more of innocent people in Yemen. Guess what the total there is (our war, we refuel the KSA jets, we make sure they have enough to keep killing there etc)? 
377,000
Yeah, I'm sure that's an underestimate as is, but fuck me, after hearing about the Syrian war [1] for years I'm shocked, I repeat, shocked, to see our MSM silent on this matter. 
Just kidding. 
Instead they're trying to push Biden into a war with Russia. A place with nukes. Just absolutely asinine (and I give the old POTUS shit, but him saying "what a stupid question" to the reporter is spot on. That's the only thing Trump did right: treat the media with the respect they deserved, which is none). 
That's my rant for the day. How's you? Anyways, here's some brilliance from the internets:





[1] (what, 400k, last I heard, maybe 500k, horrendous, of course, but it was always accompanied with the statement that it was the worst situation in the world since WWII etc etc. Remember in a short amount of time South Sudan had 400k die, and not a peep from our vaunted media.
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Really interesting answer here.

Been a crazy day on the internets. 


Two screenshots. One of a goat saving a chicken from a hawk (yeah, that happens, in fact another chicken chose to also join the fight before the goat. 🐐). Then a scree about Chinese pork in an instacart order. So it goes. The rants will continue so long as just typing them is easy. 
So the people down low are fighting over what have you and thinking (like I sometimes do) that a single individuals consumer choices will ever make a difference. How are our elites doing? After all 9T was printed out for them during the pandemic? Well they're making sure that they are holding on to that and also making sure that they are able to get us to fight one another for the scraps (inflation has risen faster in the US than other countries but so have corporate profits, an problem of the many monopoly or near monopoly corporations we have). 
Note this also means breaking the back of any International progressive movement, and that means that the rhetoric over Russia and China is at a fever pitch, and no one in charge is pointing at the nukes and the doomsday clock and saying, yeah, we should slow down. [1] I swear, the idiots in charge of us amaze me with their stupidity and greed. 


On slavery and rape (or relationships across the color lines in the US):

So as you already mentioned, the sexual abuse and rape of enslaved black women by white males was, unfortunately, fairly widespread and tacitly accepted in the south, as I have touched on previously here. Sexual relations between white women and black men, however was considerably more rare, for a number of reasons, but they most certainly did happen, both in a plantation context, as well as more broadly.

The key thing to understand is that a white woman having sex with a black man was an all-around more threatening proposition to the social fabric of the antebellum South than was the situation of a white man and a black woman. While the latter could be excused, the former couldn't, as it was an extreme violation of perceived gender roles, and a threat to the very ideas of race.

First, let's back up a little bit though, and jump back to the late 1600s, when the system of slavery in America was still being defined, and racial boundaries were transgressed with slightly - but only slightly - more ease. In this period of time, we can see the early expressions of the issues mentioned above, with ideas that a white woman who 'coupled' with a black man was a "disgrace of our Nation". Of almost greater concern though was the creation of the freeborn mixed-race child, since, generally, slave or free status was inherited from the mother. This wasn't a situation of white mistresses of the plantation though, but low-class white indentured servants who were consorting with black male slaves. Laws started to be passed by the end of the 17th century to stamp out the practice, such as this one from Virginia which attached severe legal penalties for the bearing of a mixed-race child by a white woman, which would automatically indenture the child for thirty years, and her for five additional:

she [shall] pay the sume of fifteen pounds sterling . . . [or be] disposed of for five yeares ... such bastard [shall] be bound out as a servant ... untill he or she shall attaine the age of thirty yeares, and in case such English woman that shall have such bastard child be a servant, she shall be sold by the said church wardens, (after her time is expired that she ought by law to serve her master) for five yeares

Maryland was even harsher, with its 1664 law that, in the event of a marriage between white woman and black man, the woman would be legally considered a slave for her husband's lifetime in order to ensure her potential child was born with slave status (Virginia would simply exile you from the colony for it).

As we move through the Colonial era and into the antebellum period, the taboo only appears stronger than ever, but of course, it would be violated. As far as open relationships go, it remained mostly the realm of poor white women who would live with, or marry black men - not all states passed laws such as Maryland or Virginia - but there are records of plantation women defying convention, or of a planter's daughter's youthful rebellion being to run off with one of his slaves. They are few and far between, but their rarity likely stems at least as much from the social taboo of discussing them than from their near total absence, as they disproportionately come to use from foreign visitors writing of what they saw, such as Francisco de Miranda, who noted in his 1783-84 travelogue:

While [Howe, a planter on the Cape Fear river] amuses himself in dissipation elsewhere, his unfortunate family lives here; the wife has the manner of a divorcee, and one lovely daughter, eighteen years old, has just had two sons by one of the Negro slaves.

Other evidence comes to use from the recollections of slaves themselves told in the post-emancipation days, who either had observed the liaisons, or heard of them second hand. Record from the white, southern population itself does exist too, but these extra sources do help to indicate that there was likely more than the mere sliver indicated in files like divorce records.

Still though, to say it was an affront to the conception of gender by the white planter class would be an understatement though. The purity and chastity of the white, southern lady was very much put on a pedestal, and the idea of it being "sullied" by the sexuality of a black man was quite unconscionable. Control of female sexuality - both white and black - within their realm, ie the plantation, was an integral part of the white planter's identity and sense of honor; guarding of her chastity was how the white plantation lady maintained her own honor. If it was known that she had "sullied" it with a black man, she would be considered no better than the lowest of 'white trash' whores - that is to say, the above mentioned poor white women who would openly live with a black man. 

Catherine Clinton sums up the double-standard quite succinctly when she notes "Women bore total sexual accountability; white men enjoyed total sexual control." The white master's 'dalliance' simply didn't threaten the social order, he wasn't violating his sexual role, and any offspring would remain a slave, neither of which was true for the woman who wished to follow suit. In the rare cases where a man sought a divorce, accusation that his wife had committed infidelity with a black man was a fairly common cause cited. In a survey of 123 divorce records by initiated by men, Schweninger found that 68 of them alleged infidelity with a black man, although it should be noted that in at least many of these cases, it wouldn't have been the mistress of the plantation forcing herself on a slave, since 83 percent of the cases came from non-slave owning families. It was truly a double humiliation to the Southern white to not only be a cuckold, but to be cuckolded by a black man. The high proportion of numbers in these cases shouldn't necessarily lead us to assume that slave-owning women weren't doing so as well, can also imply that those men, where such a revelation would be much more injurious to their status, may have dealt with such matters quietly, or even tried to live in ignorance of what was clear under their noses - many of the above cases cite the birth of a clearly mixed-race child to be the first revelation of the earlier affair.

So in short... it happened. Not too often, but it most certainly happened. A white lady of 'good society' taking up with a black man - free or slave - was truly one of the greatest taboos of the antebellum South though, which means they weren't writing about it in their diaries or letters. The records of it are sparse, but do show it happening, and we can, of course, easily surmise that for the small number of cases which did result in a paper trail, there are likely a few more at least which were kept quite in the interest of the veneer of family honor, or which went entirely undiscovered.

Clinton, C.. The Plantation Mistress: Woman’s World in the Old South, Pantheon Books. 1982Fox-Genovese, E. *Within the Plantation Housefold: Black and White Women of the Old South", The University of North Carolina Press, 1988Genovese, E. Roll, Jordan, Roll: The World the Slaves Made, Vintage Books, 1974Millward, J. "'The Relics of Slavery': Interracial Sex and Manumission in the American South", Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies 31 (3), 2010 pp: 22-30Schweninger, L. Families in Crisis in the Old South: Divorce, Slavery, and the Law, The University of North Carolina Press, 2012

An interesting view and makes me want to add more books to my large unread pile. Sigh. 
[1]Note, I mentioned how bad trump was in this regard and now it would appear that Biden is much worse. 

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Pandemics.

Just got scolded by some WA about posting reddit links. Not sure why. People are simply crazy these days and though I agree algorithms etc need to be mistrusted, treating them like talismans of evil is something else entirely. But I suppose that's the direction we're heading to (also me being blocked from every liberal blog is also a thing. IATA? [1]). 
Anyhow, this answer about the Black Death plague is pretty good (bold added by me):

This is an extremely broad question. I can address to some degree a specific example, which is the Black Death/the Bubonic Plague in Europe.

For a quick overview of the biology, plague is caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis, which infects rats and is spread between them by fleas. It generally doesn't kill rats at the rate that it kills humans; when it infects humans, it's either because humans are living very close to rats (slum/tenement conditions, for example, or on board ships) or because the rat population is dying off and the fleas are jumping to humans for lack of food. 

Plague first entered Europe in the Justinian plagues of 541CE onward, and stayed around in various intensities until 767CE. There were fifteen 'waves' of that epidemic, in different regions and at different times. These plagues are extremely interesting, but I only have a limited amount of time to write this, and we don't know as much about the control and mitigation policies used in these plagues as we do about the Black Death. It's impossible at this time to know exactly why the epidemic ended, but the slow collapse of the Roman empire and the reduction of trade during this time almost certainly have something to do with it, as well as the huge upheaval in the Middle East and North Africa and the imposition of strict control measures in the region. That didn't kill the bacteria at all, but it stopped it moving from region to region, and so it sort of tires itself out in an isolated region as the rat populations recover (or die-offs de-populate overcrowded urban areas.)

Europe was mostly free of the plague from then on until the start of the second epidemic. In the early 1300s, Mongolia and the Gobi Desert had experienced a resurgence of the plague which was endemic there; it moved in all directions, including an extremely deadly outbreak in China starting in 1331. The kicking-off of the Black Death isn't precisely certain, but most sources agree that it was in 1347, when it arrived at the port of Messina in Sicily, carried on ships from the Crimea. The Genoese had been under seige in the city of Kaffa (now Theodosia in the Crimea,) and made a break for home as soon as pestilence broke out in the region, carried by the Mongolian forces; it made it aboard their ships. There's an enduring but slightly dubious story that the infection of the Genoese was due to biological warfare on the part of the Mongolian armies, who catapulted their dead over the city walls.

It burst pretty much immediately across most of the Mediterranean and the Levant. By 1350 it was in Norway, Scotland, the Faroe Islands and even Greenland; the trade networks at the time were extensive and very fast, and carried it at high speed.

After 1350 the plague did not disappear. It circulated in waves; the population would recover, grain stores would be re-built, urban centres would become crowded again, and then there would be another outbreak, killing significant numbers. 'Didn't that virus only last in England for only two or three years?' No; it recurred in regular waves from 1349 to 1666. It initially depopulated England by at least 30%, and long-term depopulation was significantly greater.

In addition to the sheer personal tragedy of the death toll of the Black Death, this was a society which was struggling with the loss of expertise and education. Clergy, administering last rites often in houses with active rat infections, died at higher rates than the regular population, which meant there were fewer clergy to train their replacements, and education and experience levels and staffing in parishes in England remained lower than pre-plague for at least fifty years following the first infection of London. The church in England decreed for the first time that women as well as laymen could conduct essential rites. 

Methods for 'dealing with' the Black Death were long-term and drastic. The whole structure of life changed. Urban centres shrunk; patterns of work changed. Religion changed. With the reduction in the numbers of the clergy and the desperation of the population, there was a boom in alternate religious practiced, including some we now see as standard Christianity; this was the period in which saint-worship really rose to prominence, as people lacked the intercessor (someone to interact with God on your behalf) of a priest and chose instead a saint as intercessor.

There was a combination of flight (people fleeing from cities to the country) and mass migration into depopulated urban centres; people who were previously labourers tied to land moved into cities to replace the dead. There were fewer people to feed, so agriculture diversified into more products than staple crops. The huge reduction in the labour market led to more leverage for workers, so wages jumped and work hours dropped; in response, the ruling classes imposed laws like sumptuary laws, which prevented non-nobles from dressing or eating expensively, in order to correct what they saw as an inverson of the natural order. Apprenticeship periods were shortened, and women entered the workforce in different forms than they had previously.

As an example, let's look at the initial infection of Venice. The city immediately imposed a ban on incoming ships when news reached it of the plague, and imposed a quarantine: ships and their cargo and crew must not enter the city for forty days, hence the origin of the word. But Venice is small, crowded, and damp, and the ports are extremely close to the city. Even a ship prevented from entering the city is close the population, and rats can climb ropes. The death toll in Venice was immense. 

Quarantine measures were very common. Most cities in Europe imposed travel restrictions and policies that people entering the area must be examined by a doctor or a priest; unfortunately, they couldn't ask rats to submit to examination, and also doctors were unable to identify the bubonic plague prior to serious illness. These travel restrictions were not short-term; in many areas they lasted for decades. Madrid and London, among other cities, imposed rules that houses with infection must be barred up and the inhabitants confined to house arrest. Again, these orders lasted on and off for decades.

Quarantine was one of the only methods of control that worked. Understanding of the actual transmission of the disease was extremely limited; most ideas at the time focused on hygeine and morality. Here is an oversimplified summary of other attempts at control. When a new wave hit, a city would remove bad-smelling things: it would close tanneries, prevent livestock being driven into the cities for markets, burn waste. Then, if infections continued and panic rose, morality would be focused on; sin caused illness. Brothels were closed and beggars, travellers or criminals would be driven from the city en masse. Pogroms and antisemitic expulsions and massacres were extremely common as responses to the plague, as the Jewish population was scapegoated. At some point, organisation begins to fail and social unrest sets in. This takes a million different forms, from peasants' uprisings to mass religious movements. 

Not all of that happened every time that a wave of plague occured in a city. These waves generally occurred on 13-14 year cycles, gradually shortening to 8 years over the lifetime of the epidemic. But all of them happened sometimes.

The 'end' of the Black Death was slow and gradual. It came to an end in different regions as a result of many factors, including rat management, climatic changes and better understanding of contagion. And in some areas it just... slowly disappeared. We don't know why and we don't even really know when.

In short: everything changed. The food people ate, their religion, political life, where they lived, who was allowed to do what. It is now almost impossible to understand life before or during the Black Death, because of our complete cultural and social differences. 'Dealing with' the plague was a centuries-long battle. 

Sources:

Michael McCormack: Rats, Communications, and Plague

Ole Jorgen Benedictow: The Black Death, 1346-1353

This Podcast Will Kill You: two excellent episodes on Yersinia pestis

William Naphy and Andrew Spicer: Plague: Black Death and Pestilence in Europe (highly recommended; I love this book.)

John Kelly: The Great Mortality

Of course, as always, it's interesting to compare to nowadays with a series of waves having more or les eliminated all want to fight the virus, even though we understand so much more and have a vax for it. Religious awakenings and mass uprisings? Well, I guess we'll see. 
[1] No, it's the children who are wrong. Or more like those spaces have their issues, to include that they are filled with like minded people of the same SES and tribes. They tend to form doctrines and treat anything a little off topic as "trollish" or heretical (even if some things can be trollish for the sake of it). 
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What happened in 2015?

It seems pretty clear that family needs are still a main reason why people are staying home. But what the hell happened from 08-15 that made it as bad as a pandemic? I'm serious. I get that the Great Recession itself was pretty bad and that it lasted a while but that people would continually stay home until 2015 then, at that point, decide to go to work? What causes the complete turnaround? Any Ideas?
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THe internet

Is what you make of it. This here is the peak. 



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