The Digger

Reading Problems Looking through Counterpunch this past weekend to see if there was anything there worth putting up for disqussion here, I noticed “Unleashed Graphic Designers – Art Over Function,” which is a complaint by Ralph Nader that graphics are rendering unreadable the text they are supposed to be complementing. Here’s an excerpt: Admittedly, this is the golden age for graphic artists to show their creativity. Editors have convinced themselves that with readers’ shorter attention spans and the younger generation’s aversion to spending time with print publications, the graphic artists must be unleashed. Never mind what the ophthalmologists or the optometrists may think. Space, color, and type size are the domain of liberated gung-ho artists. There is one additional problem with low expectations for print newsreaders: Even though print readership is shrinking, there will be even fewer readers of print if they physically cannot read the printed word. I have tried...

"There was a saying in the Green Party–perhaps I made it up: “Two Greens, three opinions.” Ecosocialists, perhaps, tend to be slightly more in agreement with a few basic principles, or “ Points of Unity .”  Yet there are a number of ecosocialist responses to the Green New Deal, converging for the most part around the recognition that though it is not the Green New Deal most of us would prefer, it is the opportunity to move the paralysis of the climate change movement very far in the right–left–direction that our times so desperately need. This is an essay in six voices, from long-time activists who participate in the North American ecosocialist network  System Change Not Climate Change . Each challenged to make their point in 500 words or less, we intend this as a constructive contribution to the wonderful storm of discussion that the Green New Deal has opened up, and we welcome your comments on the essay below, as well as in the discussion space of SCNCC! ***** A Call ...

"On February 24, 2019, the Cuban people overwhelmingly adopted a new constitution, as 84.4% of resident citizens voted in the constitutional referendum, with 86.8 % voting “Yes,” 9% “No,” 2.5% blank ballots, and 1.6% annulled. Since the triumph of the Cuban Revolution in 1959, Cuba has been striving to develop a socialist constitutional foundation.  The evolving Cuban constitutionality includes: reformulations of liberal bourgeois concepts of political and civil rights, including the development of popular democracy; universal protection of social and economic rights; proclamation of the rights of nations to sovereignty and to control of their natural resources, in opposition to imperialism; and definition of the necessary role of the state in the protection of the rights of the people and the nation.  Cuban socialist constitutionality has been developed on a foundation of extensive popular participation.  And it has been developed with consciousness of its historic an...

Maduro wins the first round The standoff between Venezuela and the AngloZionist Empire last week-end has clearly ended in what can only be called a total defeat for Elliott Abrams.  While we will never know what was initially planned by the demented minds of the Neocons, what we do know is that nothing critical happened: no invasion, not even any major false flag operation.  The most remarkable facet of the standoff is how little effect all the AngloZionist propaganda has had inside Venezuela. There were clashes, including some rather violent ones, across the border, but nothing much happened in the rest of the country.  Furthermore, while a few senior officers and a few soldiers did commit treason and joined forces with the enemy, the overwhelming majority of the Venezuelan military remained faithful to the Constitution.  Finally, it appears that Maduro and his ministers were successful in devising a strategy combining roadblocks, a concert on the Venezuelan side...

2 March 2019 This year’s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), an annual gathering of far-right warmongers, political cretins and Republican sycophants sponsored by the American Conservative Union, has assumed an openly fascistic character. The three-day event, being held in National Harbor, Maryland, has adopted as its dominant theme the call for a crusade against socialism first proclaimed by President Donald Trump last month in his  State of the Union Address  and expanded upon before an audience of far-right supporters in  Miami . Among the speakers who have thus far given the White House stamp of approval at this year’s gathering are Vice President Mike Pence, aide Kellyanne Conway, Trump’s chief trade adviser Peter Navarro, chief White House economic adviser Lawrence Kudlow and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross. Trump is scheduled to address the conference today for the third consecutive year as president. The event opened Thursday with a five-and-a-h...

March 1, 2019 A choice must now be made. It is  officially unconstitutional  to discriminate against 18-year-old women by  not  forcing them to sign up to be forced against their will to kill and die for Venezuela’s oil or some other noble cause. Yes, the fine U.S. judiciary has declared for-men-only Selective Service registration to be  verboten . That’s not to say there isn’t debate on the matter. One side holds that women should be treasured as the delicate witless pieces of property they are because the Bible says so, and therefore they must be kept out of war entirely. The other side says that good modern liberal progressive feminists should demand the right of every woman to be forced, on pain of prison or even death, to help murder a million Iraqis for the cause of creating ISIS or some similar high purpose. Enlightened women demand not only equal pay, but equal moral injury, PTSD, brain injury, suicide risk, lost limbs, violent tendencies, and the...

From Global Research, a useful history lesson. Thanks for the recommendation, James. The link is https://www.globalresearch.ca/alexander-von-humboldt-venezuela-and-the-bolivarian-revolution/5669713 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ By  Franklin Frederick Global Research, February 26, 2019 Region:  Latin America & Caribbean ,  USA Theme:  History   66       11     11         116 “One cannot praise enough the intelligent legislation of Spanish America’s new republics, which, since their inception, have been seriously concerned with slavery’s total cessation. In that respect, this vast part of the earth has an immense advantage over the South of United States.” “In North America white men have created for themselves a white republic with the most shameful laws of slavery.” — Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859) In 2019 we celebrate the 250th birthday of the scientist and geogr...