Read my 10-5-2024 College of Complexes (CoC) presentation here. (I do not quite have the order of the CoC rebuttals right here but that doesn’t really matter.)
Thank you to the CoC for the respectful free-speech spirit you exhibited at last Saturday’s event with me. There was clearly a lot of disagreement with my talk but all the criticisms were voiced in a friendly and open-minded way.
Sources relevant to my comments/assertions in this talk…
Background on Caleb Maupin here.
If California had the same population-to-US Senator ratio as Wyoming it would have more than 130 (not “143,” the # I used in this talk) US Senators - see this. (Brooklyn as a state woud have 9 US Senators.)
The US governance and electoral order as a whole as a right-tilted Minority Rule system rooted in slavery and dating from the 18th Century - see this.
On the need to look beyond the 2024 election horse race and plan for post-election scenarios - see this.
Number of bases abroad: I here say 900 in 90 nations but AlJazeera says 750 in 80 countries here. I don’t recall where I got 900 in 90. Either way, the numbers are gigantic. Aljazeera: “The actual number may be even higher as not all data is published by the Pentagon.”
Mass incarceration data here.
Dangerously spiking ocean heat and fossil fuels - see this.
Capitalism and fossil fuels and climate catastrophe - see this.
More on capitalism driving climate change here.
Capitalism and hurricanes here.
US wealth distribution here.
On going to the root of things, down to the mode of production ala Marx, see part 1 (“Method and Approach, Communism as a Science”) of this book by Bob Avakian.
The dismal, dollar-drenched, demobilizing and fascism-enabling/-conciliating Democrats as a capitalist-imperialist party here, here, here, here, here, and here.
Anthony DiMaggio exposing the myth of the Republifascist Party as blue collar/working class here and here.
US-Americans living paycheck to paycheck here (this source says 78% not my “two-thirds” - so worse than I said).
Mass shooting data here.
Avakian’s Away with All Gods here.
“God the Original Fascist” here.
Trump as the biggest asshole in the world* (music) here.
*On a more serious note, Noam Chomsky on Trump as “the most dangerous criminal in human history” here. Asked about Trump’s first impeachment (for UkraineGate) in January of 2020, NC said this:
“It seemed clear from the outset that the impeachment effort could not be serious, and would end up being another gift by the Democrats to Trump, much as the Mueller affair was. Any doubts about its farcical nature were put to rest by its opening spectacle: Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts struggling to keep a straight face while swearing in senators who solemnly pledged that they would be unmoved by partisan concerns, and at once proceeded — as everyone know they would — to behave and vote along strictly party lines. Could there be a clearer exhibition of pure farce?…Are the crimes discussed a basis for impeachment? Seems so to me. Has Trump committed vastly more serious crimes? That is hardly debatable. What might be debatable is whether he is indeed the most dangerous criminal in human history (which happens to be my personal view). Hitler had been perhaps the leading candidate for this honor. His goal was to rid the German-run world of Jews, Roma, homosexuals and other ‘deviants,’ along with tens of millions of Slav ‘Untermenschen.’ But Hitler was not dedicated with fervor to destroying the prospects of organized human life on Earth in the not-distant future (along with millions of other species).
Trump is. And those who think he doesn’t know what he’s doing haven’t been looking closely. Is that a wild and ludicrous exaggeration? Or the very simple and apparent truth? It’s not difficult to figure out the answer. We’ve discussed it often before. There is no need to review what is happening on Trump’s watch while he devotes every effort to accelerating the race to catastrophe, trailed by such lesser lights as Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro and Australia’s Scott Morrison.”
(And this was said right before the orange-brushed pandemofascist Donald “Shoot Some Clorox” Trump started accelerating the covid catastrophe.)
By the way…disagreements aside, I and countless others are deeply indebted to the remarkable work done by Noam Chomsky over six decades of exposing the crimes and nature of US imperialism and thought control. Thank you, Noam.
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