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Monday 29th of April 2024

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Amazon.com It may be tempting to see the Amazon surveillance as purely a warehouse problem, and surveillance-driven variable pay as a gig problem, but employers face no legal limit to incorporating new types of variable pay into formal employment — and abuses faced by independent contractors are merging with those faced by formal employees. … Corporations may soon jettison the fixed-wage model that has been a feature of blue-collar employment for decades. Zephyr Teachout, New York Review of Books, Augsut 18, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Authoritarianism But should a bank fail to meet even a single withdrawal demand, confidence in it is at once shattered, and depositors rush to reclaim their funds. The result is a bank run which forces the bank to suspend payments. An authoritarian state similarly succeeds in exacting universal obedience not because it has the forces required to meet all the possible challenges, but because it has enough of them to meet any anticipated ones. Failing to move decisively, producing a loss of prestige, invites multiple challenges and results in a kind of political bank run known as revolution. Richard Pipes, Russia Under the Old Regime © 2022 Kwiple.com
Authoritarianism While liberal countries tend to be liberal in much the same way, there are flavours of autocracy, and they pair badly. The ethnic chauvinist hates the universal Marxist. The cleric hates the colonel. Two theocracies of different denominations hate each other. “Axis” was a kind word for a group of second world war belligerents — Germany, Italy and Japan — that rarely viewed each other as racial or civilisational equals. Janan Ganesh, Financial Times, August 24, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Fascism Fascism acts from below, but is legitimized from above. Federico Finchelstein, A Brief History of Fascist Lies  © 2022 Kwiple.com
Fascism Fascism, in short, was not a mere reactionary position. Its primary aim was to destroy democracy from within in order to create a modern dictatorship from above. Federico Finchelstein, A Brief History of Fascist Lies  © 2022 Kwiple.com
Fascism Fascism proposed the notion of truth that transcended reason and was incarnated in the myth of the leader. The myth was literally embodied in the person of the leader. For fascists, incarnation was the opposite of representation. Federico Finchelstein, A Brief History of Fascist Lies  © 2022 Kwiple.com
History Nothing is easier than to demonstrate that whatever happened had to happen. It is also a very satisfying exercise because it seems to confirm that all is always for the best, which cheers  the common man and also suits his betters. However, the trouble with the concept of historical inevitability is that it works only retrospectively, i.e., for the writers of history, not for its makers. Richard Pipes, Russia Under the Old Regime © 2022 Kwiple.com
Kwiplers say Count votes in Congress by: 1. Calculating a Member's Proportional Vote (MPV) for each member, as follows: MPV = SPNP / NLRS where: SPNP = State's Percentage of the National Population NLRS = Number of Legislators Representing the State (in that legislature) 2. Totaling “yes” MPVs and “no” MPVs 3. Passing if total MPV is more than 50 OTHERWISE Abolish the Senate © 2019 Kwiple.com
Liberalism The woke left is a threat to liberalism. So is the post-truth right. But each is now well understood. The extent to which liberals themselves are a problem isn't. Because their creed puts such stress on reason, it attracts those who are hopeless at conflict: at the recognition of its frequent necessity, and at the actual waging of it. … Sometimes, at least, set a brute to catch a brute. Janan Ganesh, Financial Times, August 16, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Post-2020 Senate shituation 15 states (Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Utah, Wyoming) 2020 population: 40,085,414 Senators: 30 Republicans 1 Senator per 1,336,180 people — 1 state (California) 2020 population: 39,368,075 Senators: 2 Democrats 1 Senator per 19,684,037 people 19,684,037 / 1,336,180 = 14.7, therefore: average 15er's vote is worth nearly 15 times a Californian's, a Californian's vote is worth less than 7% of an average 15er's — 1 state (Wyoming) 2020 population = 582,328, therefore: 1 Senator per 291,164 Wyomians, a Wyomian's vote is worth 68 times a Californian's, a Californian's vote is worth 1.5% of a Wyomian's  © 2021 Kwiple.com
Progress What progres we are making. In the Middle Ages, they would have burnt me; nowadays they are content with burning my books. Sigmund Freud © 2022 Kwiple.com
Reich wingers say For 30 years, Mr. Nadler has represented Manhattan's West Side, which a friend of mine once likened to living in East Germany. Daniel Henninger, deputy editorial page director of The Wall Street Journal and Fox News contributer, on Jerry Nadler's latest primary election win, Wall Street Journal, August 25, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Reich wingers say Hail Trump, hail our people, hail victory! Richard Spencer, who received stiff-armed salutes from attendees celebrating Trump's 2016 win at the annual conference of the National Policy Institute, which describes itself as “an independent organization dedicated to the heritage, identity, and future of people of European descent in the United States, and around the world.” © 2022 Kwiple.com
Religion Between ourselves, I have ever observed supercelestial opinions and subterranean manners to be of singular accord. Michel de Montaigne, "Of Experience" © 2022 Kwiple.com
Separation of chruch and state All six of the current justices of the Supreme Court that ended Roe vs Wade  and permitted a high-school football coach to conduct public prayers after games had a Catholic education, and made decisions that were surely informed by the convictions of their faith. Simon Schama, Financial Times, August 19. 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Snapshot Her fixation on bringing about Donald Trump’s political demise — possibly in the form of a jail sentence — has turned Cheney into America's most celebrated electoral suicide. Unlike the real thing, the politicl version can become a platform for rebirth. Liz Cheney portrayed by Edward Luce in Financial Times, August 17, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Surveillance So the state watched it subjects, and the subjects watched one another. The effect of this mutual surveillance on the collective mind of Russian society can be readily imagined. No one could allow someone else in his group to improve his lot because it was as likely as not done at his expense. Self-interest required social levelling. The Russian was required to denounce and he was eager to do so; indeed, in the early eighteenth century, the only legitimate way a serf had of gaining freedom was to turn in a landlord for concealing peasants from census- takers. Under such conditions, society could neither develop any sense of common cause  nor undertake joint resistance against authority. Richard Pipes, Russia Under the Old Regime © 2022 Kwiple.com
Surveillance Tracking technology may be marketed as tools to protect people, but will end up being used to identify with precision how little each worker is willing to make. It will be used to depress wages and also kill the camaderie that precedes union- ization by making it harder to connect with other workers, poisoning the community that enables democratic debate.  It will be used to disrupt solidarity by paying  workers differently. And it will lead to anxiety and fear permeating more workplaces, as the fog of not knowing why you got a bonus or demotion shapes the day. Zephyr Teachout, New York Review of Books, Augsut 18, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Surveillance Uber has for years engaged in a worldwide program to deceive the authorities in markets where its low-cost ride-hailing service was resisted by law enforcement, or, in some instances, had been banned. The program, involving a tool called Greyball, uses data collected from the Uber app and other techniques to identify and circumvent officials who trying to clamp down on the ride-hailing service. Uber used these methods to evade the authorities in cities like Boston, Paris and Las Vegas, and in countries like Australia, China and South Korea. Greyball was part of a program called VTOS, short for “violation of terms of service,” which Uber created to root out people it thought were using or targeting its service improperly. New York Times, March 3, 2017 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Travel A man away from home has no neighbors. Japanese proverb  © 2022 Kwiple.com
Trumpists say America was until this past generation a white country designed for ourselves and our posterity. It is our creation, it is our inheritance, and it belongs to us.  Richard Spencer © 2022 Kwiple.com
Trumpists say Are they going to have a strike force that goes in with AK-15s already loaded,  ready to shoot some small business person in Iowa? Chuck Grassley, 88-year-old Republican enquiring mind, fearmongering about plans to hire more IRS auditors to investigate tax evasion and financial fraud © 2022 Kwiple.com
Trumpists say Before the IRS took it down yesterday, there was a posting — watch this. On their website  that listed the requirements for a special agent's position the major duties require the agents to quote, “carry a firearm and be willing to use deadly force, if necessary.” A little like James Bond, but instead of hunting down evil maniacs, these agents hunt down and kill middle class taxpayers that don't pay enough. It's Joe Biden's new army. Bran Kilmeade, August 11, 2022, as Tucker Carlson's fill-in host, commenting on plans to restore IRS funding to 2013 levels over 10 years as part of the Inflation Reduction Act [The ad was for criminal investigators who investigate financial fraud by criminals, not for auditors. The special skill needed is to be an accountant able to identify financial fraud.] © 2022 Kwiple.com
Trumists say The church is supposed to direct the government. The government is not supposed to direct the church. That is not how our Founding Fathers intended it. I'm tired of this separation of church and state junk that's not in the Constitution. It was in a stinking letter, and it means nothing like what they say it does. Lauren Boebert, June 26, 2022, referring to an 1802 Thomas Jefferson letter to the Danbury Baptist Association in which he declared his reverence for the First Amendment for “building a wall of separation between church and state” © 2022 Kwiple.com
Trumpists say For us, it's conquer or die. Richard Spencer, speaking to an audience of white supremacists © 2022 Kwiple.com
Trumpists say How long until Democrats send the IRS “SWAT team” after your kids’ lemonade stand? Ronna McDaniel, mulitmillionaire and @GOPChairwoman, 1:50 PM – Aug 11, 2022, fearmongering about plans for the IRS to hire more auditors to audit returns from the rich and corporations who pay zero in taxes year after year © 2022 Kwiple.com
 
Trumpists say Thank god for air conditioning. Let's talk about refrigerators. I personally like my refrigerator. I know you all like yours.  What about washing machines and dryers? Lord please God don't make me scrub clothes in a bucket and have to hang them out on a line when we switch over to wind turbines and solar panels. I'm gonna be really pissed off about that. I mean, how absurd is this? I like the lights on. I wanna stay up later at night. I don't want to have to go to bed when the sun sets. It's so silly! I mean, all of this is insane. Marjorie Taylor Greene © 2022 Kwiple.com