Cultivating deliberate obliviousness

The rise of Bernie Sanders just before the Iowa caucuses has given rise to real concern in the Democratic party establishment that they might lose control of ‘their’ party and they are steadily rolling out critics. NBC News reports on a conversation that was overheard involving 2004 Democratic nominee John Kerry who is now canvassing for Joe Biden.

Former Secretary of State John Kerry – one of Joe Biden’s highest-profile endorsers – was overheard Sunday on the phone at a Des Moines hotel explaining what he would have to do to enter the presidential race amid “the possibility of Bernie Sanders taking down the Democratic Party – down whole.”

Sitting in the lobby restaurant of the Renaissance Savery hotel, Kerry was overheard by an NBC News analyst saying “maybe I’m f—ing deluding myself here” and explaining that in order to run, he’d have to step down from the board of Bank of America and give up his ability to make paid speeches. Kerry said donors like venture capitalist Doug Hickey would have to “raise a couple of million,” adding that such donors “now have the reality of Bernie.”

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Democratic voters who have switched and why

While carefully designed surveys are useful as quantitative gauges of opinions, sometimes the views of individuals can shed light on more subtle undercurrents that surveys miss. Ryan Grim of The Intercept asked the readers of his newsletter who have switched allegiances to write and let him know why they did so. Grim has been writing positively about Sanders so one should factor that in in gauging his readership. He summarizes some of the responses he got.
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Making Britain white again

Now that the UK has left the EU, racists and xenophobes there feel encouraged to be more open about their hostile feelings towards immigrant communities and people of color and speakers of other languages, assuming that they do not belong there, similar to Donald Trump supporters here.

A poster telling residents of a block of flats “we do not tolerate” people speaking languages other than English in the building has been reported to police.

The typewritten poster, bearing the title “Happy Brexit Day”, was reportedly found stuck to fire doors in Winchester Tower in Norwich on Friday morning. The discovery came hours before the UK officially left the European Union at 11pm later that day.

A photo of the poster shared in news reports and on social media revealed that it declared: “We finally have our great country back.”

As is usually the case, the people who are such fans of the ‘Queen’s English’ made errors in writing their screed. They also do not realize that their dream of making the UK white again is simply not going to become reality.

The Hillary Clinton puzzle

I have been wondering about Hillary Clinton’s recent attack on Bernie Sanders and what purpose she thinks it will serve. At first she suggested that she may not even support him in the general election should he be the Democratic nominee but later, after being roundly criticized for the implication that she preferred Donald Trump over Sanders, she walked back her remarks and said that she would support the party nominee.
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How John Oliver’s show is put together

His weekly show Last Week Tonight blends a mixture of long-form investigative reporting and humor, a formula that fellow Daily Show alum Hasan Minhaj has adopted in his own successful show Patriot Act.

Last Week Tonight draws 5 million viewers each week, is consistently among the top series on HBO’s digital platforms and routinely penetrates the helter-skelter news cycle (the 2016 segment “#MakeDonaldDrumpfAgain” racked up 85 million video views in its first month, a record for any piece of HBO content).

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Views on sex work change in a positive direction

Sometimes, especially in reactionary times like the one we are living in in the US at this moment when social progress seems to be in retreat under a determined assault from Donald Trump and his Republican party and supporters, it is easy to become discouraged. At such times, I remind myself that major social changes on race and gender and sexuality have been achieved in my own lifetime and these are irreversible because they involve changes in social attitudes.

Natasha Lennard reports on another area in which a major change has been quietly occurring and that is with the move to decriminalize sex work.
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Update on the impeachment proceedings

I have not been writing much about the impeachment trial in the US senate because I view it as political theater with a predetermined outcome since Trump and the Republicans are working together to make sure that no new information comes out, no witnesses are called, and no new documentary evidence presented, so that they can vote on acquittal as quickly as possible. All the posturing by a few Republican senators that they might vote to call witnesses is just that, posturing, so that they can pretend to be thoughtful people rather than hacks and craven Trump toadies.
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How big oil exploits the legal system to intimidate critics

Sharon Lerner details the story of how the oil company Chevron is using the US legal system to hit back against a US lawyer Steven Donziger who won a big environmental case against them in Ecuador brought by the indigenous people there whose land had been massively contaminated by the oil giant.

LAST AUGUST, DURING the second-hottest year on record, while the fires in the Amazon rainforest were raging, the ice sheet in Greenland was melting, and Greta Thunberg was being greeted by adoring crowds across the U.S., something else happened that was of great relevance to the climate movement: An attorney who has been battling Chevron for more than a decade over environmental devastation in South America was put on house arrest.

Few news outlets covered the detention of Steven Donziger, who won a multibillion-dollar judgment in Ecuador against Chevron over the massive contamination in the Lago Agrio region and has been fighting on behalf of Indigenous people and farmers there for more than 25 years.
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