VP Debates, Good News and a Nobel Prize
Goodness me, there is a lot to talk about today. Before I get into last nights debate between Harris / Pence I will start today with some incredibly good news. The Golden Dawn Party, an extremely dangerous racist, neo-nazi party and organization in Greece has been on trial for the last few years, not only for their crimes, read murders, committed but specifically for being a criminal organization. Amazingly, their leadership has been convicted of just that, running a criminal gang. From the BBC:
Leader Nikos Michaloliakos and six colleagues were convicted of heading a criminal group. Supporter Giorgos Roupakias was found guilty of murdering an anti-racist musician and 15 others were convicted of conspiracy in the case.
Personally, I am extending my heartfelt thanks to everyone I do and don’t know in Athens in Greece who have worked tirelessly fighting these racist, fascist bastards.
Click on the photo below to read into it if this of interest to you, as it should be.
With that out of the way, a few words about last nights VP debate. What a shit show where two people are competing against each other about who is the biggest liar, the most radical conservative / fascist and who will fight hardest keeping the US in the 20th Century. Their constant yapping about being the freest, most capitalistic country in the world is a record overplayed since the Vietnam War. Christ on a crutch. Pence is a religious fanatic whom I wouldn’t trust even running a local parish church, Harris a cop turned career politician. I trust neither and don’t see how either of them could possibly be the best the U.S. could produce to tackle the immense issue facing the U.S., and by that I don’t mean Wall Street but you. Granted, this is the first time I spent 90 minutes with Pence, but all it did is confirm my gut feeling that he despises women as much as Trump, the constant misogyny was blatantly apparent and his disruption and ignoring of debate rules- which is a strategy well played - and when he states to “believe in science” I screamed out in Orwell. Harris is capable of being a lawyer, or prosecutor, no question about. Rhetorically she is more than capable, however, her political track record I don’t agree with and her ability to flip-flop on crucial issues for personal gain simply reinforces my opinion that greed, or capitalism at large, has perverted democracy to a point where leadership serves as a drug dealer issuing status quo to alleviate everyones lack of will for personal responsibility. Also, don’t get me started on Pence essentially also not committing to a peaceful transfer of power. Their plan couldn’t be much clearer I am just not seeing a plan as to what to do in that case.
In other news now that I have those 90 minutes of bullshit behind me, here is something else that deserves a few words and hopefully a discussion. The Nobel Price for Chemistry was awarded Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna for essentially inventing the tools to genetically alter anything and anyone. It is an incredibly feat, I am in absolute awe at the brilliance of these two scientist and hugely excited about the possibilities this work may hold for the future in fighting genetic diseases. However, and this is equally present in my thoughts, the idea of this capability ending up in the hands of another greedy corporation and using it to offer the option of designing humans frightens the hell out of me. Ethically this not on the table for me, and we should be spending an equal amount of time, energy and money working on inclusion for anyone with genetic “abnormalities”, such as Down Syndrome for example. I am 100% pro science and research, what happens afterwards with said discoveries needs to be seriously looked at. Ethics and Business development is taking such a major backseat in so many research fields that as amazing this work is, as an example, we need serious work on the later.
I have so much more coming over the next few days, I spoke to a dear friend in the US whose insight and intelligence has been a guiding light for a while about this election, U.S. culture in the context of a General Strike that I will be putting into words these next few days. There is a new shirt dropping tomorrow that I am looking forward to greatly, and hell, here is this weeks playlist for those of you who have missed this.
Thank you for sticking around, please, feel free to share these newsletters so we can get more people on this train.