In much of SF, you can’t walk 20 feet without seeing a sign declaring that Black lives matter and no human being is illegal. Those signs sit in yards zoned for single families, in communities that organize against the new housing that would bring those values closer to reality.

Poorer families — disproportionately nonwhite and immigrant — are pushed into long commutes, overcrowded housing and homelessness. Those inequalities have turned deadly during the pandemic.

And it's not just SF:
"What we see at times is people with a Bernie Sanders sign and a ‘Black Lives Matter’ sign in their window, but they’re opposing an affordable housing project or an apartment complex down the street," @Scott_Wiener told me.
There is a danger — not just in California, but everywhere — that politics becomes an aesthetic rather than a program.

It’s a danger on the right, where Donald Trump modeled a presidency that cared more about retweets and owning the libs than passing bills.
It’s also a danger on the left, where the symbols of progressivism are often preferred to the sacrifices and risks those ideals demand.
California, as the biggest state in the nation, and one where Democrats hold total control of the government, carries a special burden. If progressivism cannot work here, why should the country believe it can work anywhere else?

More here: https://t.co/5ipDXQhgKQ
One thing I do want to draw out, though. This isn't all just a question of public opinion. As I argue in the piece, old governance structures and misused laws end up empowering organized incumbents over everyone else.
I remember sitting in an SF city meeting, watching a long line of people testify against a 5G tower. Most people in the community didn't care about the 5G tower, so they didn't show up. That happens on everything. When those meetings have a lot of power, paralysis results.
I'm writing about CA, because it's where I live. But this is a much broader problem. This piece on why New York keeps failing to fix Penn Station is one of the best pieces of the last few years, and a window into the split soul of progressive governance. https://t.co/JSARYsoSv9

More from Ezra Klein

This is a piece I've been thinking about for a long time. One of the most dominant policy ideas in Washington is that policy should, always and everywhere, move parents into paid labor. But what if that's wrong?

My reporting here convinced me that there's no large effect in either direction on labor force participation from child allowances. Canada has a bigger one than either Romney or Biden are considering, and more labor force participation among women.

But what if that wasn't true?

Forcing parents into low-wage, often exploitative, jobs by threatening them and their children with poverty may be counted as a success by some policymakers, but it’s a sign of a society that doesn’t value the most essential forms of labor.

The problem is in the very language we use. If I left my job as a New York Times columnist to care for my 2-year-old son, I’d be described as leaving the labor force. But as much as I adore him, there is no doubt I’d be working harder. I wouldn't have stopped working!

I tried to render conservative objections here fairly. I appreciate that @swinshi talked with me, and I'm sorry I couldn't include everything he said. I'll say I believe I used his strongest arguments, not more speculative ones, in the piece.
What we're seeing from Trump and his allies today is an autocratic attempt. It's not a competent one, and it probably won't be an effective one. But that's what it is. And far worse would follow if it succeeded.


As @mashagessen explained in this interview, using Balint Magyar's framework, an autocratic attempt is "the first stage when autocracy is still reversible by electoral means."

The point is to make the regime's rule irreversible by electoral means, which is explicitly what Trump, et al, are trying right now.

"Then, at some point, there comes the autocratic breakthrough when you can no longer use electoral means to reverse that autocracy."

"Then autocratic consolidation, where it’s just consolidating ever more power and money, making it ever less possible to change."

There is an element of farce to Trump's tweets, his actions, his cronies. It makes it easy for many to discount what he's actually saying, and trying. https://t.co/GwC3KGbpkC

It's fitting for the internet era, when the worst ideas and figures come layered in irony.
This is a good @mattyglesias post about techno-politics but I want to quibble with the part of it that’s about my essay on the policy feedback loops you can build by Just Helping People Fast. Matt writes: https://t.co/MuBlgQV6LW


Over at Mischiefs of Faction, @Smotus makes a similar point:
https://t.co/al6fS5tZXP


I want to be clear here: I’m saying that the Affordable Care act was, from a political perspective, badly designed, and that *a different health care plan* might’ve led to a better Dem performance in 2010. But these arguments don't grapple with that.

To @Smotus’s point, Pelosi released those House Democrats at the end, not the beginning. Having covered the beginning of this, I can tell you a lot of those Democrats thought a bipartisan health care bill would be great politics for them!

But they didn’t get that.

This is key. The ACA was built on the political theory that:

1. Bipartisan policy is easier to pass — and more popular once passed.

2. Working off of the Heritage Foundation/Romney template could get you a bipartisan health bill.

1 was probably right. 2 was utterly wrong.
So I'd recommend reading this thread from Dave, but I thought about some of these policies, and how they fit into the whole, a lot, and want to offer a different interpretation.


I think California is world leading on progressivism that doesn't ask anyone to give anything up, or accept any major change, right now.

That's what I mean by symbolically progressive, operationally conservative.

Take the 100% renewable energy standard. As @leahstokes has written, these policies often fail in practice. I note our leadership on renewable energy in the piece, but the kind of politics we see on housing and transportation are going foil that if they don't change.

Creating a statewide consumer financial protection agency is great! But again, you're not asking most voters to give anything up or accept any actual changes.

I don't see that as balancing the scales on, say, high-speed rail.

CA is willing to vote for higher taxes, new agencies, etc. It was impressive when LA passed Measure H, a new sales tax to fund homeless shelters. And depressing to watch those same communities pour into the streets to protest shelters being placed near them. That's the rub.

More from Society

A long thread on how an obsessive & violent antisemite & Holocaust denier has been embraced by the international “community of the good.”

Sarah Wilkinson has a history of Holocaust denial & anti-Jewish hatred dating back (in documented examples) to around 2015.


She is a self-proclaimed British activist for “Palestinian rights” but is more accurately a far Left neo-Nazi. Her son shares the same characteristics of violence, racism & Holocaust denial.

I first documented Sarah Wilkinson’s Holocaust denial back in July 2016. I believe I was the 1st person to do so.

Since then she has produced a long trail of written hate and abuse. See here for a good summary.


Wilkinson has recently been publicly celebrated by @XRebellionUK over her latest violent action against a Jewish owned business. Despite many people calling XR’s attention to her history, XR have chosen to remain in alliance with this neo-Nazi.

Former Labour Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell MP is among those who also chose to stand with Wilkinson via a tweet.

But McDonnell is not alone.

Neo-Nazi Sarah Wilkinson is supported and encouraged by thousands of those on the Left who consider themselves “anti-racists”.
global health policy in 2020 has centered around NPI's (non-pharmaceutical interventions) like distancing, masks, school closures

these have been sold as a way to stop infection as though this were science.

this was never true and that fact was known and knowable.

let's look.


above is the plot of social restriction and NPI vs total death per million. there is 0 R2. this means that the variables play no role in explaining one another.

we can see this same relationship between NPI and all cause deaths.

this is devastating to the case for NPI.


clearly, correlation is not proof of causality, but a total lack of correlation IS proof that there was no material causality.

barring massive and implausible coincidence, it's essentially impossible to cause something and not correlate to it, especially 51 times.

this would seem to pose some very serious questions for those claiming that lockdowns work, those basing policy upon them, and those claiming this is the side of science.

there is no science here nor any data. this is the febrile imaginings of discredited modelers.

this has been clear and obvious from all over the world since the beginning and had been proven so clearly by may that it's hard to imagine anyone who is actually conversant with the data still believing in these responses.

everyone got the same R
Patriotism is an interesting concept in that it’s excepted to mean something positive to all of us and certainly seen as a morally marketable trait that can fit into any definition you want for it.+


Tolstoy, found it both stupid and immoral. It is stupid because every patriot holds his own country to be the best, which obviously negates all other countries.+

It is immoral because it enjoins us to promote our country’s interests at the expense of all other countries, employing any means, including war. It is thus at odds with the most basic rule of morality, which tells us not to do to others what we would not want them to do to us+

My sincere belief is that patriotism of a personal nature, which does not impede on personal and physical liberties of any other, is not only welcome but perhaps somewhat needed.

But isn’t adherence to a more humane code of life much better than nationalistic patriotism?+

Göring said, “people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.”+

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THE MEANING, SIGNIFICANCE AND HISTORY OF SWASTIK

The Swastik is a geometrical figure and an ancient religious icon. Swastik has been Sanatan Dharma’s symbol of auspiciousness – mangalya since time immemorial.


The name swastika comes from Sanskrit (Devanagari: स्वस्तिक, pronounced: swastik) &denotes “conducive to wellbeing or auspicious”.
The word Swastik has a definite etymological origin in Sanskrit. It is derived from the roots su – meaning “well or auspicious” & as meaning “being”.


"सु अस्ति येन तत स्वस्तिकं"
Swastik is de symbol through which everything auspicios occurs

Scholars believe word’s origin in Vedas,known as Swasti mantra;

"🕉स्वस्ति ना इन्द्रो वृधश्रवाहा
स्वस्ति ना पूषा विश्ववेदाहा
स्वस्तिनास्तरक्ष्यो अरिश्तनेमिही
स्वस्तिनो बृहस्पतिर्दधातु"


It translates to," O famed Indra, redeem us. O Pusha, the beholder of all knowledge, redeem us. Redeem us O Garudji, of limitless speed and O Bruhaspati, redeem us".

SWASTIK’s COSMIC ORIGIN

The Swastika represents the living creation in the whole Cosmos.


Hindu astronomers divide the ecliptic circle of cosmos in 27 divisions called
https://t.co/sLeuV1R2eQ this manner a cross forms in 4 directions in the celestial sky. At centre of this cross is Dhruva(Polestar). In a line from Dhruva, the stars known as Saptarishi can be observed.