Quando a polícia secreta soviética foi atrás dos espíritas

Soviet Seances: When The Chekists Came For The Spiritists, por Eduard Andryushchenko:

Aside from Lenin, the court heard from a number of early Soviet A-listers, some of whom might have cause to slander Stalin.

There was archrival Leon Trotsky, who was assassinated in Mexico City in 1940 on the Soviet leader's orders. And Nadezhda Alliluyeva, Stalin's second wife, who died under mysterious circumstances after a public argument with her husband in 1932.

Others speaking from the grave included the writers Maxim Gorky and Aleksandr Kuprin, as well as famed rocket scientist Konstantin Tsiolkovsky.

Their questioners were not members of the Bolshevik inner circle, but ordinary residents of the north-central Ukrainian town of Bila Tserkva who had never even belonged to the Communist Party.

For their role in conjuring up voices from the past, Ilya Gorban, his sister Vera Sorokina, and his lover Olga Rozova were arrested and accused of anti-Soviet acts and the "creation of an illegal religious-mystical group of spiritists."

É tempo de acabar com o franco CFA?

In Africa: Understanding the CFA Franc and its Foreign Exchange Rate Impact, por Frances Coppola (American Express)

It’s time to end the CFA franc, por Ndongo Samba Sylla (Africa is a Country).

The CFA Franc: French Monetary Imperialism in Africa, por Ndongo Samba Sylla (Review of African Political Economy, via o blogue da LSE).

Acho que isto acaba por ter semelhanças com a questão do euro.

Para quem não saiba, o franco CFA são duas moedas usadas nas antigas colónias francesas em África, que têm um câmbio fixo com o euro (e antes com o franco francês), o que significa que a politica cambial e monetária desses países é na prática determinada na Europa.

Nem toda a esquerda dos EUA é anti-armas

I’m a left-wing anarchist. Guns aren’t just for right-wingers., por Kim Kelly:

I’m of the firm opinion that it’s time to not only arm the left but challenge the narrative that all leftists are anti-gun. Many are, and that’s a position I can understand and respect. But there is also a long history of armed community self-defense among the radical left that is often glossed over or forgotten entirely in favor of the Fox News-friendly narrative that all liberals hate guns. That’s simply not the case — though as history has proven, the only thing that scares the reactionary right more than the idea of losing their guns is the thought of us having them.

O Vermont vermelho de Bernie Sanders

Bernie’s Red Vermont, por Matthew Zeitlin (The New Republic):

How Sanders’s brand of American socialism emerged from the crucible of the Green Mountain State’s squabbling counterculture (...)

The Citizens Party was just one of the left-wing groups partially populated by former members of Sanders’s old Liberty Union Party, which he had joined in 1971, after first moving to the state in 1968. Vermont, despite being one of the most Republican states in the country at the time, had seen its demographics and culture shift in the 1960s and ’70s, opening up the space for more radical political movements at the high tide of protests against the Vietnam War.

What was radical then, in some respects, might sound all too familiar to big-city lifestyle liberals or residents of the Hudson Valley. “A counterculture population has emerged in Vermont, consisting of ex-urbanites who have chosen the rustic life, busying themselves with gardening, chopping wood, baking bread, weaving, doing yoga and astrology, smoking pot, and eating organic foods,” Michael Parenti, a Liberty Union member who had been denied tenure at the University of Vermont because of his radical politics, wrote in a 1975 essay.

But Liberty Union was, at its core, a left-wing, antiwar, anti-establishment grouping. It was able, as Parenti wrote, to garner the support of “many low-income, working class people,” and its support was “as high as 25 percent” in poor parts of Burlington. In 1974, at the height of the party’s influence, it ran 43 candidates locally and statewide and was getting between 5 and 7 percent of vote. It was able to peel off a few union locals traditionally allied with the Democratic Party, and even got a union worker, at the urging of Sanders, to run for lieutenant governor. 

Snowflakes mandam prender as gêmeas marotas?

ASAE apreende livro “As Gémeas Marotas” na biblioteca dos Olivais (Observador), e tantarem também prendê-las na livraria Ler Devagar.

Aparentemente é uma queixa por violação de direitos de autor (ver aqui para uma história do livro), mas duvido muito que tenham sido os herdeiros de Dick Bruna a apresentar a queixa (até porque a empresa que distribui as obras dele - a ASA - desconhecia a história); palpita-me que terá a ver com as polémicas e pseudo-polémicas que o livro tem causado (além da questão de que até que ponto um autor tem direitos sobre sátiras das suas personagens).

Sobre estas questões, ver também esta entrevista, de 2003, com o Rato Mickey, onde são discutidas questões como a liberdade sexual das personagens de banda desenhada e o estatuto legal (ainda que nos contexto dos EUA) das sátiras; aliás, a entrevista terminou exatamente quando o entrevistador percebeu que mesmo sátiras legais são frequentemente alvo de processos (que custam dinheiro e chatices aos autores, mesmo que no fim sejam absolvidos).

[Post publicado no Vias de Facto; podem comentar lá]

Isto é parecido com aquelas pessoas que ficam ofendidas com se chamar "menino" aos gatos e cães

Julho 1907:

Drones, o equalizador?

The drone attacks in Saudi Arabia have changed the nature of global warfare, por Patrick Cockburn (The Independent):

[T]he military playing field will be a lot more level in future in a conflict between a country with a sophisticated air force and air defence system and one without. The trump card for the US, Nato powers and Israel has long been their overwhelming superiority in airpower over any likely enemy. Suddenly this calculus has been undermined because almost anybody can be a player on the cheap when it comes to airpower. (...)

Cost and simplicity are important because they mean that Iran, the Houthis, Hezbollah and almost any country can produce drones and missiles in numbers large enough to overwhelm any defences they are likely to meet.

Táxis

Depois fazer este comentário (sobre um assunto muito relacionado com táxis) no blogue Economia das Pessoas, não é que a caption que me apareceu para eu provar que era uma pessoa era para indicar quais as imagens em que apareciam táxis?

Dois autoritarismos em confronto no Reino Unido

Ambos os lados da divisão política no Reino Unido parecem-me ter um pendor autoritário - do lado dos brexiters, claro, há toda aquela posição de fechar o parlamento e admitir seriamente que o governo comece a agir à margem da lei (basicamente, uma espécie de "bonapartismo" - um governo com em última instância com legitimidade democrática, mas que governa de forma quase absolutista).

Mas, do outro lado, os remainers (nomeadamente os Liberais ditos Democratas) não me parecem melhores, pelo modo como cada vez mais abertamente se dispõem a deitar para o lixo os resultados de um referendo, atacam o Cameron por o ter convocado, e até parece que já nem um segundo referendo acham necessário - ou, no máximo, apenas um referendo em que as únicas escolhas sejam remain e soft brexit (em vez de um referendo com 3 opções, que me parece a hipótese mais lógica), nem levando a votos a opção "brexit sem acordo" (ou seja, a opção que tudo indica ter o apoio de cerca de metade de população, se somarmos os resultados nas sondagens dos Conservadores, do Brexit Party e do UKIP).

O fim da democracia parlamentar no Reino Unido?

Amanhã, às 10:30, o Supremo Tribunal britânico vai anunciar a decisão sobre a prorrogação do parlamento.

Se for decidido que o primeiro-ministro tem realmente o direito a suspender o parlamento (ou recomendar à rainha que o suspenda) nas condições em que o fez, isso representará uma redução significativa dos poderes do parlamento britânico (quase um regresso a 1687?). A respeito disso, Simon Wren-Lewis escreve "If the executive can suspend parliament whenever it likes, for purely political reasons (it doesn’t like what parliament is doing), then the executive have the power to end our parliamentary democracy. First it is for a few weeks, and then it is for a few years. It is simply nonsense to say that this is a political matter, because politics has been shut down. Parliament cannot even vote no confidence in the Executive because parliament has been suspended".

Alguns conservadores estão a começar a perceber que os liberais só são contra a concentração de poder quando os poderosos usam o título de "governantes"

E, inversamente, alguns liberais estão a começar a perceber que os conservadores só são contra o "estatismo" quando esse é usado para promover causas progressistas.

Josh Hawley Says Libertarians Who Defend Tech Are Enamored with Power. He Should Look in the Mirror, por Robby Soave (Reason):

It is discouraging that an ostensible conservative would make it his personal crusade to destroy the Big Tech boogeyman by ceaselessly threatening government intervention. But this is the path Hawley has chosen. Oddly, he thinks libertarians should be applauding him for it.

"I don't understand why those who call themselves libertarians are so enamored with this incredible concentration of power in the hands of a few," he told The Hill's Saagar Enjeti in a recent interview. "I thought the whole libertarian tradition was about standing up to power. It was about checking concentrated power on behalf of the people."

As quotas ocultas de Harvard

Legacy and Athlete Preferences at Harvard[pdf], por Peter Arcidiacono, Josh Kinsler e Tyler Ransom:

The lawsuit Students For Fair Admissions v. Harvard University provided an unprecedented look at how an elite school makes admissions decisions. Using publicly released reports, we examine the preferences Harvard gives for recruited athletes, legacies, those on the dean’s interest list, and children of faculty and staff (ALDCs). Among white admits, over 43% are ALDC. Among admits who are African American, Asian American, and Hispanic, the share is less than 16% each. Our model of admissions shows that roughly three quarters of white ALDC admits would have been rejected if they had been treated as white non-ALDCs. Removing preferences for athletes and legacies would significantly alter the racial distribution of admitted students, with the share of white admits falling and all other groups rising or remaining unchanged.

O consumo de carne e o aquecimento global - realidade ou mito?

Debunking the meat/climate change myth, por Eliot Coleman (Grist):

The UN report shows either great ignorance or possibly the influence of the fossil fuel lobby with the intent of confusing the public. It is obviously to someone’s benefit to make meat eating and livestock raising an easily attacked straw man (with the enthusiastic help of vegetarian groups) in order to cover up the singular contribution of the only new sources of carbon — burning the stored carbon in fossil fuels and to a small extent making cement (both of which release carbon from long term storage) — as the reason for increased greenhouse gasses in the modern era. (...)

If I butcher a steer for my food, and that steer has been raised on grass on my farm, I am not responsible for any increased CO2. The pasture-raised animal eating grass in my field is not producing CO2, merely recycling it (short term carbon cycle) as grazing animals (and human beings) have since they evolved. It is not meat eating that is responsible for increased greenhouse gasses; it is the corn/ soybean/ chemical fertilizer/ feedlot/ transportation system under which industrial animals are raised.

Duas observações:

Primeiro, perguntei a um amigo meu com formação em biologia e que percebe mais disto que eu, e ele é da opinião que o texto está correto mas acaba por não estar: a tese a produção e consumo de carne só por si não produz nenhum poluição (a pastagem absorve CO2 e as vacas expiram-no e fica tudo na mesma) e o mal é a sua produção em moldes industriais (com a alimentação a soja que leva as vacas a arrotarem metano e à destruição das florestas naturais, os combustiveis necessários para o transporte, os óxidos de azoto libertados pelos adubos sintéticos, etc.) está correta; mas acaba por estar incorreto na medida em que não será possível produzir as quantidades de carne atualmente consumidas sem ser através dos tais métodos industriais.

Outro amigo meu, que acho que é vegetariano ou coisa parecida, há uns anos começou por falar muito nos efeitos sobre o clima da produção de carne, e que seriam muito mais graves do que os da poluição por causa dos combustíveis; ao fim de alguns meses já andava a partilhar na internet textos a negar o aquecimento global - esta evolução parece-me representativa da tal confluência entre os vegetarianos e a indústria petrolífera: provavelmente a posição "os combustíveis fósseis são menos maus que a criação de gado" deve ter sido a porta de entrada para a escalada que acabou em "o aquecimento global é uma fraude" (a posição inicial com certeza levou-o a frequentar recantos da internet dominados pelos defensores da indústria petrolífera, que começam primeiro com a mensagem "temos antes que reduzir a pecuária" e depois começam com a mensagem negacionista).

Cancelando definitivamente a cultura do cancelamento?

Sheriff helped plot his own deputy’s killing over ‘racially offensive’ tape, prosecutors say (Washington Post):

Granville County Sheriff Brindell Wilkins learned one of his deputies had a tape of him making “racially offensive” comments, prosecutors say. So the North Carolina lawman encouraged another man to kill the officer, according to a felony indictment revealed late Monday night.

“The only way you gonna stop him is kill him,” Wilkins allegedly told the would-be shooter in a 2014 recorded phone call about a plan to kill former deputy Joshua Freeman. The plot was not carried out.

Um espectro assombra o mundo - o espectro das greves (III)

Trabalhadores avançam para a greve na General Motors (Esquerda.net):

As negociações entre sindicato e fabricante automóvel falharam. Pela primeira vez em doze anos, os 49 mil trabalhadores estão em greve esta segunda-feira por melhores salários e menos precariedade.

Kaiser healthcare workers plan for nation's largest strike since 1997 (Salon):

More than 80,000 Kaiser Permanente emergency medical technicians, nurses, respiratory therapists and other staffers are threatening to walk out of work next month, in what could be the nation's largest strike since 1997.

Ver o post de maio, Um espectro assombra o mundo, o espectro das greves.

Textos da esquerda de Hong Kong

Lausan - Sharing decolonial left perspectives on Hong Kong:

Lausan 流傘 is a collective of writers, researchers, activists and artists from Hong Kong and its diasporas, engaging with the city’s political struggle. Through translation, creation, and education, Lausan 流傘 aims to build solidarity on the international left with Hong Kongers’ unfinished fight to imagine emancipatory futures after colonialism, against both Chinese and Western imperialism.

Como escapar da Torre de Londres?

Uma espécie de "jogo" (tipo ficção interativa), via Twitter, inspirado num caso real:

It’s 1597. You’re a priest imprisoned at the Tower of London. Can you break free? ESCAPE THE TOWER THREAD 👇 #TowerEscape pic.twitter.com/sy9K5J69Nl

— The Tower of London (@TowerOfLondon) 15 de agosto de 2019

"Lugar de fala" - um conceito quase estritamente lusófono?

What's "lugar de fala" in english? Usually woke-concepts in brasil are just imports from north american but this one seems different because I don't know how to say it in anything but portuguese

— Vincent Bevins (@Vinncent) 15 de setembro de 2019

Suspensão do parlamento britânico está para durar? (II)

Government could suspend parliament for a second time if it loses court case (The New European):

The Sunday Times and Mail on Sunday reports that during a meeting of ministerial aides on Friday evening, Cummings warned of a "nuclear" option which means if the courts ruled against the government it "could just prorogue again".

He is alleged to have added: "The constitutional crisis is only just beginning."

Suspensão do parlamento britânico está para durar?

Boris Johnson could still force prorogation for a second time, por Joe Moor (The Telegraph):

[Via Christopher Hope]