October 12, 2020 / John Pavlovitz shared with thanks

I grew up attending Catholic School in perpetually snow-covered Central New York. One Fall morning in 9th grade, we were talking in a Religious Studies class about morality, and the priest said:

“You know that the Bible says all creation is good—but what makes a person good after being created?”

He paused and then continued. “We’ve all heard people say, ‘Well, he’s basically a good guy. Yes, he beats his wife and terrorizes his children and uses racial epithets and he lies all the time and he gets violently drunk—but he’s a basically good guy.’ “

He scanned the room and then asked the class,

“Can a ‘good guy’ do all those things and still be good?
So what does being good actually mean?
What does it look like?
How do we measure it?
Is goodness our perpetual inherent state, our do we choose goodness every day?
Can we abandon that goodness?”

I’ve never forgotten that day.

Everyone believes they’re essentially a good human being. We all tell ourselves a story, and in that story our cause is always just, our motives are always pure, our side is eternally the right one. We’ve all spent a lifetime learning how to defend ourselves against criticism, even when that criticism is justified; even in those rare moments when even we begin to wonder if we’re not who we say we are. We can gaslight the world and even ourselves, when necessary. The assumption of our own goodness protects us from accountability for thoughts and words and actions that are neither noble nor decent nor redemptive.

I often hear people say, “I’m a good person and I’m proudly voting for Donald Trump again.”

I now consider that an oxymoron.

I don’t believe any good people are voting for this president a second time—or they are in complete rebellion against goodness as they do.

I believe that act is fundamentally antithetical to anything good.

There are things good people simply don’t do:

Good people don’t ignore the assassinations of unarmed black men.
Good people don’t vilify and attack the peaceful protestors of those murders.
Good people don’t create phony ANTIFA conspiracies, just to avoid saying that Black Lives Matter.

Continue reading “Good People Aren’t Voting For Him A Second Time.. Good people don’t ……”

As Venezuelans starve under the illegal US blockade and petrol becomes unavailable 1.3 MILLION barrels of their oil is abandoned in a sinking tanker in a shallow coastal bay. The US blames Venezuela of course.

Locals warn derelict barge ‘Nabarima’ about to spill 55 million gallons of oil and no one is helping

October 17, 2020 by Daniel Figueroa IV A Green Road Daily News

The vessel was abandoned near capacity when U.S. sanctions prevented Citgo from purchasing the oil in early 2019, according to Reuters.

photo from 16th October 2020

The FSO Nabarima sails under the Venezuelan flag and has a capacity of 1.4 million barrels of oil. Records show its capacity was last listed at 1.3 million barrels or about 54.6 million gallons.

It’s owned in part by the state-owned energy company PDVSA and Italian oil company ENI.

By comparison, the Nabarima holds about five times as much oil as the Exxon Valdez spilled into the Prince William Sound.

Gas stations see MILE-LONG queues in Venezuela with motorists having to wait 24 hours to fill up their cars as yet more US sanctions take effect

Continue reading “Abandoned Oil Tanker with 1.3m barrels Sinking due to Criminal US Sanctions”

from Freedom … shared with thanks

News, Oct 18th

Archway squatters successfully resist an illegal eviction attempt by infamous Stamford Hill slumlords, corrupt security and incompetent cops.

DATELINE 14TH OCTOBER 2020, NORTH LONDON, UK.

Activists, squatters and community members successfully resisted an illegal eviction attempt at a 2-year old squat in North London this Wednesday night. A call-out was made on the No Evictions London Squatter’s Network after

residents of the building took to the roof to protest the 1-hour notice they were given to leave – a completely illegal and unfounded method considering that the residents had been in contact with the owner over the 2 years and had been granted license to stay.

Members of the Advisory Service for Squatters, Eviction Resistance Network and the NFA Queer Punx attended from around 9pm on Wednesday and were presented with a number of self-professed security guards who refused to display their SIA badges, despite this being a legal requirement for anyone claiming to be engaged in security work such as preventing people from entering or leaving a building. A number of constables were in presence, but were singularly uninterested in investigating the criminal offences being committed by unnamed and unidentified ‘security officers’ in attendence.

Continue reading “Archway squatters successfully resist an illegal eviction, it’s a legal resistance”