From Alduous Huxley’s Brave New World to George Orwell’s 1984 to Lois Lowry’s The Giver, dystopian stories dominate school reading lists. When I was a kid, I assumed that this was because the adults in charge hated children and wanted to give us Major Depressive Disorder. But anthropologist Kristen Ghodsee, author of Why Women Have […]
Author Archive for: Rupture.Capital
Maritime Madness
A yacht captain whose vessels have twice been attacked by the same pod of orcas has some interesting ideas about how these putatively anti-capitalist killer whales keep getting away with it.
In a new interview with Newsweek, a delivery skipper named Captain Dan Kriz who works with the company Reliance Yacht Management, said that he first encountered these odd orcas — who have made headlines in recent weeks for continuously attacking yachts — back in 2020 in the Strait of Gibraltar, their now-infamous hunting grounds.
“I was sailing with my delivery crew through the Strait of Gibraltar delivering a yacht when I was surrounded with a pack of eight orcas, pushing the boat around for about an hour,” Kriz described of that first altercation. “We were one of the first boats experiencing this very unusual orcas’ behavior.”
Flash forward to April 2023, when the captain and his crew were once again at the mercy of the sea monsters.
“We felt like we got hit bad with a wave, but with the second hit, we realized that the same situation from 2020 was happening,” Kriz said. “My first reaction was, ‘Please! Not again.'”
This is next level. A captain whose boat was attacked by orcas off the coast of Spain got footage of them going direct for the ship’s rudders. pic.twitter.com/oBsDJ54mDv
— Stop Cop City (@JoshuaPHilll) June 10, 2023
Orc Attack
Having been menaced by the same orca pod twice now, the captain has a unique look into their trajectory as they continue their anti-yacht campaign in the Strait of Gibraltar — and he has ideas about what’s going on with them.
“First time, we could hear them communicating under the boat,” he described. “This time, they were quiet, and it didn’t take them that long to destroy both rudders.”
“After about 15 minutes, they left.” Kriz said. “Suddenly, one big adult orca started chasing us. In a couple of minutes, she was under the boat, and that was when we realized there was still a little piece of fiberglass left and she wanted to finish the job. After that, we didn’t see them anymore.”
Indeed, that adult female is at the heart of many theories about these orcas that have captivated headlines in recent months.
As Newsweek previously reported, some people believe that she is seeking revenge from being injured by boat rudders in the past — a belief that is leading some captains and crews to arm themselves against the unruly cetaceans.
In spite of being attacked by them twice and saying that he thinks the orcas know “exactly what they were doing” because they “didn’t touch anything else” aside from the rudders, however, Kriz is not among those who think the orcas need to be shot or harmed in any way.
“Bottom line,” the captain said, “is we are in their territory.”
More on advanced animals: Scientists Discover Bug That Uses Tool
The post Captain Attacked Twice by Orcas Says They’re Developing Better Anti-Boat Strategies appeared first on Futurism.
In the fiery theater of modern politics, few phenomena are as bewildering — and electrifying — as the ironclad loyalty of Donald Trump’s followers.
Despite numerous political, legal and personal controversies, Trump is almost as popular as ever. On Thursday, he was hit with a 37-count indictment, which follows a Manhattan indictment, a federal indictment and a court branding him liable for sexual abuse. Looming still are the results of yet another federal investigation and separate Fulton County, Ga., probe.
And yet, Trump’s faithful fan base does not waver.
So, the psychological puzzle is, why hasn’t any of this hurt him? Not only has his popularity not been diminished, it seems that these events may have even strengthened his support.
Remember this classic Trump quote from 2016? “I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters,” the then-presidential candidate said. Chillingly, this bold proclamation seems to be truer than not, and that should disturb all of us, because that kind of blind loyalty poses a real threat to our democratic values and signals a trend toward authoritarianism.
To get to the heart of this enigma, let’s put on our Sherlock Holmes hat and step into the world of psychology and neuroscience. A popular theory from social psychology known as terror management theory will shed some light on this puzzling human behavior.
Terror management theory is more relevant than ever because it provides an explanation for tribalism, which is really at the core of this mystery. The theory suggests that existential terror — which can be triggered by anything that is perceived to pose a threat to one’s existence — is the reason we adopt cultural worldviews, such as our religions, national identities or political ideologies. In an attempt to mitigate our fears, we latch onto philosophies that give our lives meaning and direction in a chaotic world.
But how does this explain tribalism, exactly?
When we’re fearful or threatened, we rally around those who share our worldviews. We become aggressive toward those who don’t. More alarmingly, perceived threats or existential fear — immigrants, transgender persons, gun grabbing, government conspiracies, humiliation at the hands of “liberal elites” — can stir up nationalism and sway voting habits toward presidential candidates with authoritarian personalities. For example, a study found that when primed to think about their death, American students who self-identified as conservatives showed increased support for drastic military interventions that could lead to mass civilian casualties overseas. Another study found that after the 9/11 terror attack, support for then-President George W. Bush spiked, ultimately resulting in his re-election.
In 2016, an experiment was carried out specifically to see whether existential fear was fueling support for Donald Trump, and that’s precisely what was found.
Then-President Donald Trump gestures to supporters following a campaign rally on October 28, 2020 in Bullhead City, Ariz. Isaac Brekken/Getty Images
One-hundred fifty-two students at the College of Staten Island were divided into two groups. The experimental group was given a series of exercises designed to trigger thoughts about mortality, such as, “Please briefly describe the emotions that the thought of your own death arouses in you” and “Jot down, as specifically as you can, what you think will happen to you as you physically die and once you are physically dead.” The control group was given similar exercises that related to pain and not death.
Later, all participants were given a series of questions designed to assess their support for Donald Trump and willingness to vote for him in the upcoming election. The results show that the people who wrote about death showed increased support for Trump compared to those in the control group, regardless of their political leanings. These findings support Terror Management Theory’s prediction that thoughts about mortality shift voters to the right politically, and cause people to favor patriotic leaders with nationalist, xenophobic messages.
Now we can start to make sense of Trump’s political invincibility. Viewing Trump as an invincible champion of their worldview, his fans are more than willing to overlook his missteps, especially when the world feels as chaotic as it does right now. In a time of increasing polarization and division, the desire to feel safe can eclipse any number of legal or moral blunders. Seeing him as an unbeatable guardian of their worldviews and identities allows many of his fans to turn a blind eye to his flaws. Not only that, the more he is attacked by those deemed the enemy, the more they will bolster their support for him, even if he stands credibly accused of lying, cheating and threatening national security.
This spells trouble for our democracy. When a leader is viewed as infallible, the very tenets of a fair society — accountability, transparency and checks and balances — risk being undermined. It’s essential, then, to try and understand what is happening from a psychological perspective. There may be nothing we can do to drive a wedge between Trump supporters and their political messiah, but we may be able to educate those who haven’t already been radicalized, so that future generations of voters are not susceptible to the same kind of manipulation by politicians looking to exploit our fears. It is only through learning that we ensure the mistakes of the past aren’t repeated. And electing Trump as the president of the United States of America is one mistake we can’t afford to repeat.
Bobby Azarian is a cognitive neuroscientist and the author of the book The Romance of Reality: How the Universe Organizes Itself to Create Life, Consciousness, and Cosmic Complexity. He is also a blogger for Psychology Today and the creator of the Substack Road to Omega. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram @BobbyAzarian.
A Ford Motor and SK Innovation electric vehicle and battery factory under construction in Tennessee last year.
Photo: Houston Cofield/Bloomberg News
June 12, 2023 10:47 am ET
You’ve probably heard about how U.S. households’ savings ballooned after the pandemic, and the worries that they will get whittled away to the point where consumer spending will become constrained. Maybe investors should fret about companies instead.
In fact, when the Federal Reserve released first-quarter U.S. financial accounts figures last week, they showed that households still have plenty of money socked away. Americans held $16.9 trillion in savings accounts and other cash equivalents, down from the first-quarter 2022 peak of $17.5 trillion but well above the $12.7 trillion held in the prepandemic fourth quarter of 2019.
Debt levels have risen too, but household cash levels are at 92% of total liabilities—the highest, outside of the pandemic period, since 1990. And while the rich always have better financial cushions than the poor, available evidence suggests that, up and down the income ladder, household balance sheets are in good shape.
Corporate balance sheets, too, were bolstered after the pandemic hit, as companies took advantage of ultralow interest rates, while rising prices, increased consumer spending on goods, and government relief programs boosted their coffers. In the fourth quarter of 2021, the U.S. financial accounts figures show that liquid assets at nonfinancial corporations came to 61% of debt, compared with 51% in the fourth quarter of 2019. In the first quarter this year, though, that was back to 51%.
That is still good. But with profits under pressure, and the economy only growing slowly, companies will likely want to more carefully shepherd their money in the quarters ahead.
Additionally, raising money in the bond market is a far more costly proposition now. In June last year, yields on 7-10 year investment-grade corporate debt averaged about 4.9%, according to Intercontinental Exchange. That was the highest in a dozen years, but consumer prices had risen 8.9% from a year earlier so the prices many companies were receiving were easily outpacing the interest rates on any debt they issued. Lately, those corporate yields have averaged about 5.5%, but consumer prices, as of April, were up 4.9% from a year earlier and probably moderating further.
Cutting costs is the obvious answer to the constraints companies are facing. In some cases, though, it might not be so easily accomplished. A tight job market continues to push wages higher, for example, and with overall demand for workers high, some companies might hoard the labor they have rather than letting employees go and struggling to replace them later.
Cutting back on capital spending might be more easily accomplished, although investing less in labor-saving equipment could be a tough trade-off. The desire to build more robust supply chains, to become less reliant on China, and to take advantage of incentives within last year’s Inflation Reduction Act might push them in the other direction. Commerce Department figures show that construction spending on manufacturing facilities was 83% higher in the first four months of this year than in the year earlier.
Or companies could hand less money over to investors. The financial accounts showed that, among nonfinancial corporations, net equity issuance over the year ending in the first quarter was negative $641 billion. That amounts to shares getting retired, as through stock buybacks. In the four quarters before the pandemic, that figure was negative $353 billion. Additionally, net dividends over the past four quarters came to $838 billion compared with $628 billion before the pandemic.
One way or another, companies will likely be tightening their purse strings. It might be shareholders who get the short end of the stick.
Write to Justin Lahart at Justin.Lahart@wsj.com
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries is warning of the long-term impact of former President Donald Trump’s criminal indictment.
The New York Times reported Sunday security experts are warning of potential violence in response to Trump’s indictment and arraignment Tuesday, noting, “Close allies of Trump, together with fervent fans from his MAGA base, unleashed a torrent of demands for civil war and acts of retribution.”
During an appearance on MSNBC’s Politics NationPolitics Nation Sunday, the New York lawmaker spoke with host Rev. Al Sharpton, who echoed The Times reporting, saying, “The New York Times is reporting that the right wing media has exploded with calls for violence and rebellion.”
READ MORE: Trump makes first public speech after criminal indictment in docs case
Sharpton continued, “With the rhetoric surrounding this indictment reported to be even more extreme than what we saw around Trump’s indictment in the Manhattan DA’s hush money probe just three months ago. Right now, public officials in Miami and the Secret Service are bracing for possible demonstrations from Trump supporters Tuesday in Miami. As a manager of Trump’s first impeachment, having lived through literally the events of January 6, are you concerned we will see violence from his supporters going into Tuesday, if not after?”
Jeffries replied, “It’s certainly appropriate and important for federal law enforcement officials in partnership with state and local officials to take every available precaution to prevent the type of violence that we saw on January 6 because of the extreme rhetoric that is coming from many right-wing ideologues in this country. It’s important to understand what is perhaps at the root of what we’re seeing in terms of this irresponsible rhetoric. The right wing in this country wants to end Social Security and Medicare as we know it, they want to strip away reproductive freedom. They want to undermine the right to vote and believe that voter suppression is their pathway into maintaining power. They want to cut taxes for the wealthy, the well-off, and the well-connected, while at the same time trying to undermine middle class folks, those who aspire to be part of the middle class the poor, the sick, and the afflicted.
The Democratic leader emphasized, “Their policies are out of step with the American people, and that’s why they’ve been losing elections and underperforming, as they did in the 2022 midterm elections. And so many of us have long been concerned, Rev, and you’ve been a leading voice in this regard, that if right wing folks in this country concluded that they can no longer win elections democratically, they wouldn’t abandon conservatism, they’d abandon democracy.”
He concluded, “And what we’re seeing from some of these calls to violence coming from some of the more extreme members of the right wing in this country is an abandonment of democracy. And that should frighten everyday Americans.”
READ MORE: Legal experts lay out 4 ‘significant hurdles’ federal prosecutors face in Trump indictment
Watch Mediaite’s video below or at this link.
READ MORE: ‘Public service announcement’: Calls for violence worry experts before Trump arraignment
Theodore Roosevelt is revered as a “progressive” president — but his views on race were anything but
Systems of racial oppression and colonization require active participation from members of the oppressed group. This is certainly the case for Black people who conspire with white supremacy to bring us down. From the days of Malcolm X’s “The House Negro and the Field Negro” speech to Black South Africans who helped the Afrikaner rulers under apartheid, we have known those in our midst who would sell out Black people for a plate of grits and salt pork. Or chicken wings. Enter the Black MAGAs.
As the American conservative movement has morphed from racist dog whistles and white-grievance politics to full-blown fascism and white nationalism, Black MAGAs have enlisted as soldiers in the war against civil rights, voting rights, liberal democracy and racial justice. Unable to achieve their unpopular and toxic policies through the ballot box, MAGA intends to bring about their goals through white nationalist minority rule. And Black MAGAs are eager to oblige.
Lacking principles, these Black white nationalists say and do anything to please Trump, Trumpism and the white supremacist base.
Lacking principles, these Black white nationalists say and do anything to please Trump, Trumpism and the white supremacist base. Never speaking ill of white folks, Black MAGAs will blame the Black community for anything and everything, never stand up for Black people, never help us and always throw us under the bus. They lack self-respect and scruples. However, they do collect a paycheck, which they will enjoy until such time as they are rendered useless and their services are no longer needed.
Perhaps the most useful of the Black MAGAs is Clarence Thomas — whose wife Ginni is an insurrectionist and whose benefactor Harlan Crow is a Hitler fan who bankrolls the MAGAtization of the Supreme Court and other causes that undermine Black people — is the most prominent example of Black MAGAs. Early on, Anita Hill tried to warn us about Clarence, who is lacking and character and whose judicial opinions against Black people are almost cartoonishly cruel. After all, Thomas wanted to have a man executed before allowing him a DNA test. In another case, the justice thought it was fine for a corrupt, racist Mississippi prosecutor to try a Black man for murder six times and strike all the Black prospective jurors in his crusade to have the man executed.
Thomas — the man who wants you to pull yourself up by your bootstraps, even while his bootstraps were purchased by a wealthy white man named Harlan Crow — is not alone.
In Kentucky, Black attorney general Daniel Cameron — who did a Black woman named Breonna Taylor wrong — wants to become his state’s next governor. Cameron, who did everything in his power to derail his own investigation into the police killing of Taylor, was so sneaky and dishonest about the grand jury proceedings that three of the grand jurors filed a petition to have him impeached.
Cameron, who thanked Trump for backing him and helping him win the GOP nomination for Kentucky governor, praised the former president by saying “Let me just say the Trump culture of winning is alive and well in Kentucky.”
Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, who claimed “America is not a racist country” and is just as bad as white supremacy, is running for president.
Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, who claimed “America is not a racist country” and is just as bad as white supremacy, is running for president. And while the Black Republican may appear to be “the exact opposite of Trump“, Scott has defended Trump and the Trump agenda. Scott would not blame Trump specifically for the Jan. 6 insurrection, and he killed the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act after walking away from talks with Sen. Cory Booker and Rep. Karen Bass by blaming it all on Democrats wanting to “defund the police.”
In Michigan, Kristina Karamo has become the first Black woman to chair the state Republican Party. The election denier and Trump loyalist who accused Democrats of having a “satanic agenda” lost her bid for Michigan secretary of state to the Democratic opponent. Karamo is a conspiracy theorist who believes “globalists” like the World Economic Forum, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and President Joe Biden are using the COVD-19 pandemic to establish one world government.
And in North Carolina, the Black MAGA Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, who is running for governor, is something to behold and is over the top even by Black MAGA standards. Robinson attacked the civil rights movement of the 1960s by saying “so many freedoms were lost during the civil rights movement” and claimed Black people owe “reverse reparations” for slavery.
The gubernatorial candidate also claimed the movement was designed to “subvert capitalism” and used “to subvert free choice and where you go to school and things like that.” Robinson also mocked school shooting victims, supported shooting protesters, called LGBTQ+ people “filth” and falsely claimed that “clinics” were performing gender-affirming surgery on 5-year-old children.
Candace Owens is much the same. The Black conservative activist and political commentator told Tucker Carlson that “Black Americans are the most murderous group in America by rate,” and downplayed the George Floyd and Kyle Rittenhouse cases as examples of injustice. Owens also said racism is over because “I’ve never been a slave in this country.” And she wore a with Kanye West at Paris Fashion Week last year, and defended Ye for saying he would “go death con 3 on Jewish people.”
Owens has defended Hitler and white nationalism, saying “If Hitler just wanted to make Germany great and have things run well — OK, fine. The problem is he had dreams outside of Germany. He wanted to globalize. He wanted everybody to be German.”
The racist whip-cracking Tennessee General Assembly passed a resolution honoring Owens for moving to their state. The resolution stated that “Ms. Owens will serve as another robust voice against socialism and criminality as a Tennessean” and “add to our already burgeoning pool of creative talent.”
And for honorable mention, we cannot forget Brown MAGAs such as former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who called the confederate flag a symbol of “service, sacrifice and heritage.” And finally, we have Vivek Ramaswamy, the Indian-American Trump 2.0 who whitesplained Black history to Don Lemon — claiming the Civil War was fought so that Black people could own guns — and gave $10,000 to the killer of Jordan Neely.
As the colorized and melanated enablers of fascism, today’s Black MAGAs are truly dangerous jokes. At any other time, we would ridicule and laugh at them for uttering what they could not possibly believe. Still, we should. Yet, at a time when white nationalism is weaponizing the Black MAGAs and their political rhetoric as part of an effort to undo us all — through disinformation, toxic policy and violence — this is serious business.
The former president’s allies have portrayed the indictment as an act of war and called for retribution, which political violence experts say increases the risk of action.
The charging document offers some possible hints but does not establish that the former president had a goal beyond simply possessing the material.
A broad swath of leftist leaders from around the world warned in a letter Wednesday that “a soft coup” is underway in Colombia, accusing the country’s opposition of illegally working to remove President Gustavo Petro and many of his key allies from power.
The letter is signed by the former Colombian President Ernesto Samper; Gleisi Hoffmann, head of the Workers’ Party, the current ruling party of Brazil under Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva; Rafael Correa, the former president of Ecuador; former Spanish President José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero; and the former heads of opposition parties around the world, including Jeremy Corbyn of the United Kingdom and Jean-Luc Mélenchon, a former French presidential candidate.
“Ever since the election of the country’s first progressive government,” the letter reads, “Colombia’s traditional powers have been organizing to restore an order marked by extreme inequality, environmental destruction, and state-sponsored violence.” The letter comes in defense of a Petro administration facing a cascading series of struggles.
Petro, a former guerilla, swept to power in June 2022 pledging peace deals with the country’s remaining rebels, along with a robust domestic policy agenda. But he lacked a majority in Congress and created a coalition with rival parties that included ceding control of some ministries. His health care reform effort was shot down by Congress, and the peace deals remain elusive. His top aides recently resigned after getting caught up in a bizarre scandal in which state resources were used to surveil a nanny they suspected of having stolen money. The scandal deepened with the release this weekend of audio of the top aides bickering and threatening to release damaging information related to Petro’s campaign.
Petro said that he has nothing to fear from the ongoing investigations, though the group of progressive leaders is less sanguine about the politics. “[T]hey are deploying the combined institutional power of the country’s regulatory agencies, media conglomerates, and judiciary branch to halt its reforms, intimidate its supporters, topple its leadership, and defame its image on the international stage,” the group of more than 400 international progressives warns.
In January, nine members of Congress, led by Rep. Hank Johnson, D-Ga., penned a letter to Francisco Palmieri, chargé d’affaires at the U.S. Embassy in Bogota, Colombia, expressing concern about the security of Vice President Francia Márquez. Explosives had recently been discovered near her home. The letter was also signed by Reps. Barbara Lee, D-Calif.; Raúl Grijalva, D-Ariz.; Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich.; Jim McGovern, D-Mass.; Ilhan Omar, D-Minn.; Mark Pocan, D-Wis.; Cori Bush, D-Mo.; and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y.
The Wednesday letter took particular aim at the opposition’s use of the offices of inspector general and attorney to target Petro and his allies. Those investigations could lead to the expulsion of party members from Parliament or even the removal of Petro, the letter warned, adding that “established legal precedent at the Inter-American Court of Human Rights” insists that administrative bodies lack such power. One senator, Wilson Arias, for instance, is being investigated for “slandering” the police as a result of critical comments he made about them in 2021.
Gimena Sánchez-Garzoli, a Colombia human rights advocate at the Washington Office on Latin America, said that many of the investigations appeared to be an abuse of power. “The Attorney General is abusing his power to undermine the Petro government’s policies,” she told The Intercept. “The motivations of the Inspector General to open up cases against members of the Historic Pact are questionable.”
The scandal involving Petro’s top aides, she said, has been overblown by the media but did raise questions about why he allowed Armando Benedetti, one of the top aides who recently resigned, to run his campaign.
“The reaction of the opposition and media outlets in relation to the scandal involving Benedetti and [Laura] Sanabria is overblown,” she said. “It appears they were waiting for a reason to push forward a campaign to discredit the Petro government. At the same time, Benedetti has a problematic history, and it is hard to understand why Petro would have him run his presidential campaign.”
The full letter:
Ever since the election of the country’s first progressive government — led by President Gustavo Petro, Vice President Francia Márquez and the Historic Pact in Congress — Colombia’s traditional powers have been organizing to restore an order marked by extreme inequality, environmental destruction, and state-sponsored violence.
Now, less than one year from the inauguration of the Petro government, they are deploying the combined institutional power of the country’s regulatory agencies, media conglomerates, and judiciary branch to halt its reforms, intimidate its supporters, topple its leadership, and defame its image on the international stage.
From the Offices of the Inspector General and the Attorney General respectively, Margarita Cabello and Francisco Barbosa are actively targeting members of the Historic Pact with investigations that may result in the suspension, dismissal and disqualification of members of Congress such as Senator Alex Flórez, Senator Alexander López, House President David Racero, Representative Susana Gómez, lead peace negotiator María José Pizarro — and even President Petro himself.
In the case of Senator Wilson Arias, for example, Cabello — a close ally of former President Álvaro Uribe who served as Justice Minister under the previous administration of Iván Duque — has filed charges for suspension from the Senate for the “crime” of speaking out against police violence during the 2021 national protests: a flagrant violation of the established legal precedent at the Inter-American Court of Human Rights that prevents administrative bodies like the Office of the Inspector General from removing elected officials from office.
Meanwhile, former generals, colonels, and members of the Colombian military have not only proclaimed their opposition to President Gustavo Petro — but even marched outside Congress to call for a coup d’etat against his government.
The goal of this coordinated campaign is clear: to protect the interests of Colombia’s traditional powers from popular reforms that would raise wages, improve healthcare, protect the environment, and deliver ‘total peace’ to the country.
We, the undersigned, call on friends of the Colombian people and allies of democracy everywhere to stand up against these insidious tactics and prevent the advance of a soft coup in Colombia.
The post Group of Global Leftist Leaders Warns “Soft Coup” Is Underway in Colombia appeared first on The Intercept.