Some of our tech billionaires have lost it

 

A rowdy little demonstration greeted the tech-bro billionaire's appearance at The Commonwealth Club in San Francisco this evening. His lecture series is on the topic of the Anti Christ. ... he suggests (seriously!) that activist Greta Thunberg might actually be the anti-christ we should fear. 

Being rich is no guarantee against stupid. Dude seems to think he's hooked into demonic forces. Perhaps he is a demon? This sort of fantasy doesn't usually end well.

Meanwhile, he doesn't care who he hurts. PLTR is the stock symbol for his corporation Palantir which is providing the data for mass public surveillance of our communities, the violent lCE kidnapping of immigrants, the genocide in Gaza, union-busting efforts and more.  

Thiel has stated his opposition to democracy, he actively supports defunding universities and public education, and aligns with Christian Nationalist movements that support white supremacy and the subjugation of women. He might wear a suit-and-tie and use his immense wealth for influence - but he dreams of a techno-feudalist society.

Some folks have other ideas.

Target's broken promises to Black community spur boycott

When an economic actor is already on the skids, that's the moment to push harder, not to compromise. 

Under intense competition from the likes of Walmart and Amazon online, Target -- the huge mid-American retailer -- has plenty to worry about. Consumers are complaining of messy stores and poorly stocked shelves. 

The number of Americans who say they regularly shop at Target has gone down 19% since 2021, according to GWI, a behavioral attitudinal data provider. The number of Americans who say they do not shop at Target has risen 17%. 

Further, Target is backing out of promises made to the African American community.

... the company had heavily touted a commitment to DEI back in 2020 after protests erupted across the nation over the murder of George Floyd. That year, Target announced it would increase representation of Black staff by 20% over three years and invest $10 million in social justice organizations. In 2021, the company pledged to dedicate more than $2 billion toward Black-owned businesses before the end of 2025.

In January, however, Target said it would conclude the hiring and advancement goals it had set. 

Then the company contributed $1 million to Donald Trump's inauguration fund ...

African American leaders think the retailer owes respect to its customers' community, not to a billionaire President.

Pastor leading Target boycott on its impact and the retailer's response
Target is reeling as sales have stalled and its stock price has plunged. The company faced backlash after a rollback of its DEI initiatives prompted a boycott that slowed store traffic nationwide, one of the factors that pushed CEO Brian Cornell to step down. Now, Target is scrambling to reset its image. Geoff Bennett discussed more with Pastor Jamal Bryant, who spearheaded the Target boycott.

Interviewer Geoff Bennett: ... Why single out Target when this appears to be a broader corporate retreat? 

Pastor Jamal Bryant, senior pastor of New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Georgia: After the inauguration of Trump, 23 corporations backed away from inclusion and we thought it prudent to just go after one at the time. The African American community spends upwards of 12 million dollars a day at Target. We thought that the one that was the most trafficked should be the focus of our media attention. 

Bennett: ... it's striking that Target hasn't reinstated its DEI program even as it struggles with declining sales, sluggish foot traffic. ...

Pastor Bryant: I think that diversity is in as much danger as democracy is. The president of Target as well as of Amazon and Walmart met with the President [Trump] back in February. I think they have held on to his admonishment more than what the consumers are clamoring to say. 

Bennett: ... [Target] highlights a $2 billion investment in Black-owned businesses, more than doubling the number of Black-owned brands on its shelves, supporting more than 500 entrepreneurs, completing a more than $100 million investment in Black-led community organizations. Why do you see those efforts as insufficient?

Pastor Bryant: ... they produce no receipts. $2 billion but they have not been forthcoming as to what entities are the recipients of it. ... We'd love to put a ribbon on it, but if Black companies or Black banks were the recipients, they would be clamoring to announce it and yet we're in the silence of the lambs. ...

... [Target] is one of the lead employers of African Americans. They are the beneficiaries of African American consumption.

... When George Floyd died, they made the pledge of $2 billion and then it stalemated. It was supposed to be turned over to us on July 31. And we still are not seeing anything. We are reasonable and amenable... but none of those requests have been responded to.

Bennett: What's the end game if Target does not meet your requests?

Pastor Bryant: Then they will continue to hemorrhage. ... with 9.7 percent of foot traffic being slowed down, online sales being slowed down, the stock continuing to plummet ... I think it is time of for the share holders to make their voice clear ...

The Montgomery bus boycott went for a year and a day. This is just our fifth month. ...

Bennet: How do you see yourself leveraging this kind of power on other issues?

Pastor Bryant: ... this is the first real organizing power of Black economic strength in 70 years and a lot of  corporations are waiting to see what will be the outcome ... this generation needs a victory, that our collective works are not in vain ...

This boycott is the real thing -- not just performative hand waving. Like the Tesla Takedown, the boycott takes aim at a corporation which counts on the good reputation of its brand and which is fouling that brand through association with the Trump regime. And it hurts Target. Market researchers report: 

Since last year, the number of regular Target shoppers who identify as Democrat has declined 13%. Inversely, the number of Republican customers has risen 13%. It's not clear if that is due to Target’s $1 million donation to Trump's inauguration or some other factors. 

The boycott is spreading beyond its founding base in Black churches. Over Labor Day, the American Federation of Teachers joined the movement, hoping to cut into Target's Back to School business.  

AFT President Randi Weingarten explained: 

This movement comes at a crucial moment—when American workers find themselves at the whim of billionaires and board rooms that are more invested in money over people. We want this resolution—and the full weight of our nearly 2 million members—to be a reminder to Target that there are consequences to dismissing the will of the American worker and that, until they do right, our members will be spending their money in places they feel respected and recognized. 

Boycott Target! This is yet another way to assert there's more to this country than MAGA!  

The 'hood has a point of view

Bus shelter on 24th Street, San Francisco

 

 

 

Friday cat blogging

Such a picture of peace and contemplation. This doesn't capture the mad ruckus the two cats sometimes create in the middle of the night. But Mio and Janeway make lovely sentries for Erudite Partner in quiet moments.

Enough Killing

Twenty-four years after September 11, 2001 and just hours after an apparently political murder of right wing agitator Charlie Kirk, it seems right to resurrect this image.

The "Enough Killing" sign was my household's instinctive response to 9/11. Within a week, we'd made and distributed these to anyone who would display them. Here in San Franciscon, there were quite a few who did.

We knew the New York and DC terrorist attacks would unleash yet more responsive violence; the U.S. invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq were our country's mad answer to the atrocity by the terrorists. Hundreds of thousands in faraway places died in answer to the Twin Towers. (The photo is of my then-church marching in a peace procession in 2006; the blonde child is a full grown man now.)

Charlie Kirk will not be missed by those of us who were his targets. But Enough Killing remains what we all need to find as a path forward..

The time to act is NOW

 

Every day, web sites I read throw me videos, chats, short films. And every day I ignore them. I hate the turn to video -- it's slow and it seldom uses the medium particularly imaginatively. 

 

I'm a fossil; I like good writing and will put in the effort to read it.

 

Yet today I'm posting a powerful nine minute video from historian Heather Cox Richardson. She insists "We Cannot Wait for the Ballot Box in November 2026 | Explainer." 

... The administration is trying desperately to rig the 2026 elections so they don't have to face voters any more. ...

 

... it seems pretty clear that Trump is not in good shape ... these Epstein files that have come out are going to make Republicans look worse and worse ...

 

... As Trump increasingly weakens, you are going to see more and more frenzy to lock up the country because they think that we who believe in democracy don't really have a say in it ... they think we are polluting the country. ...

 

... We have the majority and we feel very strongly about it and we have on our side the great thinkers of the United States ... not the great thinkers of the Nazis [that] they are following ... we have James Madison, and we have Abraham Lincoln, and we have Fanny Lou Hamer ... [these Americans'] principles are very much more the principles of the majority than that a few rich guys ought to rule. ...

 

... It is not a question of waiting until November 2026 to cast a vote. By then the die will be cast. We will know what the future looks like ...

 

... The time to speak up is NOW. ... the time to make sure your neighbors understand what is going on is NOW. ...

 

... NOW is the time as Trump is weak and Republicans recognize that he is weakening to make sure they understand how profoundly unpopular this is ... 

 

... What this is going to look like on the other side, I don't know. Another generation is coming. But we won't have that generation unless we save it NOW. ...

 

... The thing to do is throw your weight in at the local level, the state level, the national lever, talking to people, making sure that individuals truly recognize what is going on ...

 

... The more noise people can make NOW, the better our chances of safeguarding the election in 2026  ... for all the anxiety that people are feeling, turn that anxiety into some kind of action, because sitting around worrying about what is going to come is not going to help you or anybody ... Find a friend ... find something to do ..

 

Trump is not popular ... he's crashing the economy ... think Herbert Hoover, not Mussolini.

 

... Trump only punches down ... the more we can stand up to him and his minions, the more likely they are to back down.

 

... if you can see what is happening, then you can see the pressure points to change what is happening ...

... If this is the world we got, we've got to find out ways to make it better and to preserve our democracy for the people who come after us. ...

The historian has become an organizer. I seldom offer a higher compliment. The moment demands that we all, in our own ways, become organizers for democracy.

Supreme Court legalizes racial profiling. What Constitution is this?

According to the NY Times:

The Supreme Court on Monday lifted a federal judge’s order prohibiting government agents from making indiscriminate immigration-related stops in the Los Angeles area ... The court’s brief order was unsigned and gave no reasons. ...

The court’s three liberal members dissented.

“We should not have to live in a country where the government can seize anyone who looks Latino, speaks Spanish and appears to work a low wage job,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote, joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson.

“Rather than stand idly by while our constitutional freedoms are lost,” Justice Sotomayor added, “I dissent.”

... Civil rights groups and several individuals filed suit, accusing the administration of unconstitutional sweeps in which thousands of people had been arrested. They described the encounters in the suit as “indiscriminate immigration operations” that had swept up thousands of day laborers, carwash workers, farmworkers, caregivers and others.

“Individuals with brown skin are approached or pulled aside by unidentified federal agents, suddenly and with a show of force,” the complaint said, “and made to answer questions about who they are and where they are from,” violating the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition of unreasonable searches and seizures.

There will be further litigation, but it seems abundantly clear that this Supreme Court recognizes no constitutional rights for Brown people and people who don't speak English.

This country has been here before. In 1857, a Supreme Court captured by slave-holding interests, declared that African-descended persons did not enjoy the protection of the law.

Chief Justice  Roger Taney:  such persons "had no rights which the white man was bound to respect..."

That time around, the breach of the national legal system led to violence within the states and, soon, the bloody Civil War been the free Union and the enslaving South. The modern court has adopted the same standard. We can only hope we can come out of this without so much violence. If this is really the meaning of the US Constitution, we, the people of these United States, probably cannot come out with that document intact.

Sherrilyn Ifill, one of the nation's leading civil rights lawyers and former head of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, responded to Justice Kavanaugh's airy defense of the Court:

Kavanaugh’s description [of ICE raids] reads as though it were downloaded from the Department of Homeland Security’s website. Almost every word of this is preposterous. “Brief investigative stops” at places where undocumented immigrants are likely to work? What we have seen repeatedly are not “stops.” They are grabs and kidnapping. Most often, no questions are asked. Even when colleagues have insisted that the person targeted by ICE agents are here legally, or that they are citizens, ICE agents proceed to tackle, beat, cuff, and spirit away individuals they have targeted. And we have seen migrants detained and forcibly taken into custody as often in courthouses after immigration hearings, or in neighborhoods cutting lawns as at Home Depot. 

That Kavanaugh could so haplessly could make this statement just days after South Korean nationals authorized to work as engineers at a Georgia EV battery plant were arrested, shackled and taken into custody by ICE after an immigration raid in what has become an international incident, demonstrates how utterly out of touch he is.

Kavanaugh assures us that it is no problem to be apprehended, taken to a facility – perhaps several states away – until you can prove that you are a legal resident or citizen. This is his idea of democracy – a country in which citizens and legal residents who are Black, Latino or Asian, and who happen to work in “locations where people are hired for day jobs” must carry proof of citizenship (their “freedom papers,” if you will) or risk apprehension by masked thugs who will hold them perhaps for months.

The fantasy world Kavanaugh describes is the kind of world in which clueless white men (or deliberately obtuse white men) in positions of power were permitted to languish before the Civil Rights Movement brought the reality of life for marginalized people into American living rooms in technicolor. ...

When a Court legalizes thuggish racist violence, normalizes this, the national rule of law is truly in the toilet. Will the rest of us just carry on silently?

International rules against torture breaking down

Russia wants out of the European Convention for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Punishment which it signed onto 1996. 

According to Radio Liberty (thanks to Google translate): 

Putin submitted to the state Duma a draft on the denunciation of the Convention against torture...

After withdrawing from the convention, Russia will no longer be obliged to admit international inspectors to its prisons. Complaints from Russian prisoners to the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture will no longer be considered. 

The United Nations Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine (HRMMU) has reported extensive Russian torture of captured Ukrainians.

“Almost every single one of the Ukrainian POWs we interviewed described how Russian servicepersons or officials tortured them during their captivity, using repeated beatings, electric shocks, threats of execution, prolonged stress positions and mock execution. Over half of them were subjected to sexual violence,” said Danielle Bell who heads HRMMU. “Most POWs also recounted the anguish of not being allowed to communicate with their families, and being deprived of adequate food and medical attention.” 

Although the United States has historically been allergic to international treaties which might subject acts by our citizens to international judgement, we signed the analogous United Nations Convention against torture in 1988 and ratified in 1994. 

I doubt somehow doubt that the Trump/Hegseth regime gives a damn about internationally recognized bars to torture. But one hopes most American citizens might.

Trump comes after Black women when he attacks economic stability

Paul Krugman, who is a Nobel prize winner unlike one Orange-tinted pretender, knows the score. It's hard to manage an enormous economy well. Krugman explains this requires a smart balancing act. That's why we have (had?) an independent  Federal Reserve Board, to make economic decisions as impartially as any democratic political system allows.

When the inflation rate is low but the unemployment rate is high, as it was during the Great Recession in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, the Fed should cut the federal funds rate. By lowering the fed funds rate, the Fed makes it cheaper for banks to lend. This boosts the spending and investing activity in the economy and brings unemployment down.

When inflation is high but unemployment is low – that is, when the economy is at risk of overheating -- as it was in 2022, the Fed should raise the fed funds rate. This slows down spending and investing and brings inflation down.

But when the unemployment rate and the inflation rate are both too high — what economists call “stagflation” — the Fed faces a dilemma. Cut the fed funds rate rates to support employment and you risk worsening inflation. Raise the fed funds rate to fight inflation and you risk raising unemployment. With stagflation, there are no easy answers, just a tradeoff of risks.

And this dilemma looks very relevant right now: many economic indicators suggest that the United States will soon undergo at least mild stagflation. ...

Not a moment when you want more buffoons in charge. But here we are with the Orange Madman in the White House.

Most likely, if Trump gets his way with the Fed, the country will drift into an economic doom loop which will be bad for ordinary folks as prices rise and jobs disappear -- and  Donald Trump isn't interested in any of this. He's got a bunch of crackpot ideas which defy the experience of over 100 years of advanced capitalist economies. And he wants unlimited power over the Fed to force it to implement his notions.

Lisa Cook

It should be no surprise that Trump has fixated on a Black woman as the impediment to his economic fantasies. Lisa Cook is an experienced, accomplished economist. And she's the first Black woman ever appointed to the Federal Reserve Board. So Trump's corrupt Department of Justice is accusing her of unproven mortgage malfeasance. Cook properly refuses to resign just because Trump has trumped up a complaint. She's forcing Trump to go to court to try to fire her. Guess sometime down the line we'll get yet another chance to see just how far Trump's supine Supremes will go to please Daddy.

Meanwhile, the Trump economy and especially federal workforce cuts are already disproportionately kicking Black women to the curb.

Erica Green describes the carnage:

... The most recent labor statistics show that nationwide, Black women lost 319,000 jobs in the public and private sectors between February and July of this year, the only major female demographic to experience significant job losses during this five-month period,...

Experts attribute those job losses, in large part, to Mr. Trump’s cuts to federal agencies where Black women are highly concentrated. 

White women saw a job increase of 142,000, and Hispanic women of 176,000, over the same time period. White men saw the largest increase among groups, 365,000, over the same time period. 

Ms. Roy said that with the exception of the pandemic, Black women have never seen such staggering losses in employment. And over the last decade, the experiences of that population have consistently signaled what is to come for others. 

“Black women are the canaries in the coal mine, the exclusion happens to them first,” Ms. Roy said. “And if any other cohort thinks it’s not coming for them, they’re wrong. This is a warning, and it’s a stark one.” 

... a report published by the National Women’s Law Center, which compiled and analyzed the now-deleted O.P.M. [the federal Office of Personnel Management] data, showed that government agencies that were targeted for the deepest cuts had employed the highest percentages of women and people of color. ...

He's coming for all of us who can't pay him off -- but he's coming first for Black women. That's how it works in this country.

Margaret Atwood speaks up for free expression

Wise old women are not always comfortable to have around. Canadian author Margaret Atwood would be the first to agree. Speaking (via Zoom) to the international writers conference of PEN held in Krakow, Poland, on September 2, the 85 year old writer applied her reflections on history to the decline of her country's big neighbor.

... We ourselves are living through what appears to be the collapse of an existing structure of power – that of the United States. Externally, the U.S. seems to be abdicating its position as the dominant world power. Internally, it appears to be turning its back on its one-time much celebrated status as an open, liberal democracy – the torch-carrier for freedom, a beacon of light to oppressed Soviet satellites during the Cold War – and flirting with the very kind of autocracy that it once stood so firmly against.

Outside its borders, other counties are no longer doing what it says – witness Russia, Israel, Ukraine, and India, just for example. Wars and power struggles are breaking out all over. And inside its borders, the present administration seems determined to destroy or co-opt American institutions that have been built up over centuries. A fair voting system, a judiciary independent of the executive power, just to name two. 

The secretary of Health Care, for instance, seems to be conducting some weird Social Darwinist experiment – survival of the fittest – let’s see who lives and who dies if we remove all protection against deadly diseases. What’s the goal? Who even knows? The elimination of poor people, because they aren’t healthy enough? It wouldn’t surprise me. 

The use of the military to intimidate civilians is another signpost; many countries in mid-century Europe were all too familiar with that.

One of the harbingers of autocratic takeovers is an attempt to control writers and artists, either by censoring them and dictating to them what sort of art they should produce – we saw a certain amount of that coming from the so-called academic left in North America and Britain over the past decade, twinned with online mobbing generally known as “cancel culture”– or by book banning and the intimidation of universities and media outlets, which we are now seeing on a rather large scale in the United States. The levers are money and lawsuits, but these have been quite effective. Most people with jobs are by nature fearful of challenging authority, or at least any authority with the power to fire them. 

I look back to the French Revolution – the prototype of all revolutions since – and remark merely that one of its first stated goals was freedom of expression, a value it espoused until its leaders gained power. Then, miraculous to behold, strict censorship set in, printing presses were smashed, and those who had published questionable views were beheaded. 

During the Terror, you could be executed for just being suspected of thinking counterrevolutionary thoughts – Thoughtcrime, as Orwell would have it. People entering the United States are currently having their phones and computers searched for evidence of Thoughtcrime against the Trump administration.

Self-supporting writers don’t fear being fired. Their employers are their readers. For this reason, they are often asked to speak about difficult subjects, and to say things publicly that many other people are thinking privately. And that is why I am here with you today – because I don’t have a job. ...

Beware of revolutions, perhaps. We need revolutionary imagination, courage and some visionary energy. But beware of revolutionaries, absolutely. In this, I'm with my old lady comrade.

Trump and MAGA are vicious and dangerous ...

They are also ridiculous. Let's not forget it.

Free DC and Free the USofA!