1949 - 'an inflection point in China's national history' - @SOAS_CI - Some historical significance in action here.

The key protagonists in this story.

Chiang Kai Shek playing for time in 1949 - to save his regime, to build a coalition if the Communists would play ball, to protect his assets, etc.

Mao - ‘a revolutionary man, somewhat impetuous.’ Yeah I would say so.

Arbitration was created to allow giant companies with equal bargaining power to settle disputes without incurring expensive court battles. So, when IBM and AT&T struck a deal, they'd agree that instead of going to court, they'd hire a neutral person to decide who was right.

1/

But in the 21st Century, a string of Supreme Court rulings have paved the way for "forced arbitration" - when a company tells its customers or workers that as a condition of doing business, they must give up all the legal protections that come with the right to sue.

2/

Once you've been bound over to arbitration, a company can maim, cheat or murder you and your only recourse is to ask a corporate judge, on the company's payroll, to decide whether you are entitled to compensation.

3/

You will not be surprised to learn that arbitrators overwhelmingly find in favor of the companies that pay their invoices.

4/

We've experienced a quiet epidemic of binding arbitration. Your dentist or physiotherapist probably expects you to sign one. So does your kid's piano teacher. Your ISP. And, of course, your boss.

5/

1/ Thread:

Senate Action Against Disloyal Members, 1861-1862

2/ Alabama
Clement Clay, Jr: Did not appear on March 14, 1861; salary paid to January 21, 1861; seat declared vacant on March 14, 1861; member of the Confederate Senate 1861-1863; was a diplomatic agent of the Confederate States; arrested and imprisoned in Fortress Monroe in 1865

3/ Alabama
Benjamin Fitzpatrick: Salary paid to February 4, 1861; term expired on March 3, 1861, and Senate took no formal action against him; president of the constitutional convention of Alabama in 1865.

4/ Arkansas
William K. Sebastian: Expelled on July 11, 1861; returned to Helena, Ark., where he resided during the Civil War and practiced law; after federal troops occupied Helena, Ark., moved to Memphis, TN., in 1864 and resumed the practice of law.

5/ Arkansas
Charles B. Mitchel : Expelled on July 11, 1861; elected to the Confederate senate at the first session of the State legislature and served until his death in Little Rock, AR, September 20, 1864.

The Greek civilization was the most influential civilization in the history of the world. All of today’s thoughts and ideas can be traced back to the Greeks. They gave us democracy, mathematics, drama, philosophy, Olympics and a whole bunch of Gods.

A THREAD

Here are some interesting facts revolving around Greek mythology.

Hercules gave us the saying “Taking the bull by its horns”:

The saying, “Taking the bull by its horns”, comes from Greek mythology. It was one of the 12 labors of Hercules that he had to perform to repent for..

..killing his own wife and children in a fit of madness caused by Hera. He saved the city of Crete from a raging bull by seizing its horns.

Athena defeated Poseidon to become the guardian of Athens:
Athena and Poseidon both wanted to become the guardian of a certain city so they decided to give a gift each to please the residents of the city. Poseidon gave them water in the form of a spring but the water was salty..

... and of no use. Athena gave them an olive tree which was much more useful as it gave food, oil and wood and so she won and since then that city has been known as Athens.

A thread of Republican dirtbag history to enlighten those who don't know-
Richard Nixon's administration included:
H.W. Bush- who became director of the CIA for one year in 1976
He later became VP and POTUS
Invaded Panama and started the Gulf War

Dick Cheney
Donald Rumsfeld

Dick Cheney was Nixon's chief of staff, WY Rep. in House of Representatives 1978-1989 when he became HW Bush's Sec. of Def. during the invasion of Panama and Gulf War. He was on the board of Halliburton from 1995-2000 and went on to be VP for GW Bush leading the war on Iraq.

Donald Rumsfeld was a special advisor to President Nixon and became Pres. Ford's chief of staff when Dick Cheney became Sec. of Defense.
When Ford lost he became CEO of Searle pharma and later 1997-2001 Gilead pharma. He was then Sec. of Defense of GW Bush.

It was Rumsfeld's claims of a chemical weapons cache that led to another war, which was headed by his friend and the VP Dick Cheney. He was also a fan of torture and partially responsible for the hiring of mercenaries from Blackwater.

Privatizing prisons started in 1980 and was largely Republican policy. Blackwater didn't just train mercenaries, they also train prison guards and other law enforcement personnel. They do not train deescalation.
John Ashcroft, the former AG for GW Bush is now on the board...

1. Well this seems like the perfect day for a thread about old baseball stadiums in Toronto.

It's a history that stretches all the way back to the 1800s and a place called the Toronto Baseball Grounds…

2. It might not look like it, but this is the very oldest image we have of a baseball stadium in Toronto — the only surviving visual representation of the city's first ballpark.

You have to zoom way, way in to see it…

3. …but here it is, standing on Queen Street on a spot overlooking the Don Valley.

It was originally known as the Toronto Baseball Grounds, but would soon be nicknamed Sunlight Park — in honour of the nearby Sunlight Soap Works factory.

4. Spectators could walk in off Queen St or ride up & park their carriage on the grounds. Admission was a quarter — plus an extra dime for the best seats in the house.

The sheltered grandstand could seat 2,000 people & there was standing room for another 10,000 beyond that.

5. A sellout at Sunlight Park meant that 10% of the city's entire population was at the ballgame that day.

When the stadium opened in 1886, even the Lieutenant Governor came out for the event. Someone in his entourage had their hat knocked off by a foul ball.

I was reading the report which Lord Lugard submitted to the British Parliament in 1917.

I graciously received the report from my egbon @araisokun during the week,

And a couple of salient issues struck me, which I will mention in this short thread,

1. The British analysis of

the basic character of Nigerians from various parts of the country (SW, SE/SS, NC, NE & NW) still holds true over a century later.

In other words, after a century of British assessment of our character, we haven't changed

2. The myth of a "rich" South and a "poor" North arose

from the stated reasons why Lugard decided to amalgamate the "countries" of Northern and Southern Nigeria.

The bureaucratic system was buoyant in the South due to its ability to generate excise duty from alcohol importation

Unfortunately, (alcohol being prohibited)

such taxes were unavailable in the Northern protectorate

Therefore, at the time of amalgamation, the colonial govt in the North was supported by an annual grant from the Crown, while the South was buoyant due to its income from alcohol taxes

However by 1917 when the report was

written, the coffers of the amalgamated Nigeria had been swollen exceedingly by receipts from the sale of Tin from Jos!

The "tables" had turned!

In other words, the ability of the colonial govt to rapidly achieve buoyancy in the South, was due to proximity to British monitored

In 1615, historian Richard M. Eaton quoted, "one observer estimated the Mughal's annual revenue at 120 million silver coins, compared to 45 million for the Ottoman Empire and just 15 million for the neighbouring Iran (Safavid)."

- India in the Persianate Age: 1000-1765, p. 371

Remember here the historian is talking about year of 1615 but by the year of 1700 the Mughal wealth had been increased even more.

In year of 1700 during the era of Aurangzeb, Mughal economy was more than to the combined wealth of Western Asia, Central Asia, North Asia, Southeast Europe, Western Europe and North Africa.

(Legendary Peacock Throne)

Yeah it is right that Mughal wealth was mostly held by nobles but the point is Mughal Empire was prosperous state not the welfare state.

We have to study the conditions of Mughal citizens from the perspective of middle ages instead of modern era

and their comparsion with other empires of that era.

As far concerns of living conditions of common man, the living standrads of Mughal citizens were higher than Eureopens.

With all this talk about Khalistan, one thing again is being buried in the narrative.

This is how a peaceful, law abiding state was made into a hellhole and the genie of Khalistan unleashed purely by Indira Gandhi and her minion Sanjay Gandhi.

Thread on how she did this

1/n note, this piece only talks about how the Frankenstein named Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale (JSB) was created by Sanjay Gandhi and Giani Zail Singhi. It does not touch on the whole Khalistani movement which would require a seperate write up on it's own.

2/n The primary party in Punjab was the Congress, but over time opposition arose in the form of the Akali Dal. The Akali Dal was primarily a Sikh party which took a hardline stance when it came to Punjab.

3/n The people of Punjab, sick and tired of the corruption and inefficiency of the Congress found in the AD a solid electoral alternative.

Things came to a head in 1977 when the AD+JP alliance swept into power and ordered investigations into corruption by

4/n the previous (and soon to be President) Giani Zial Singh who is in a way, the true villain of the story.

Sanjay Gandhi and Giani (mostly Giani) decided they needed a hardline front to combat AD and split the anti Congress votes and hence Bhindranwale was born.

MY UPDATE TONIGHT: What just changed.

Executive orders and control of the agencies has done significant damage to America. That’s going to change.

Medicaid work requirements — done.

The public charge to deprive immigrants of their legal rights — done.

More judges that respect “life” but not “human lives”— that’s over.

@KEBrightbill Since 1980-90s WS successful ongoing intentional strategy to blend w/fundamentalist W Christian & infiltrate/integrate/take over these spaces; emerging in homeschooling tied to natural CB, attachment style parenting, Le Leche League, Natural child rearing & ecological mov'nts

Theres not a lot 1 can do abt this either. There are SOME divisions but not as many as one might like to think & there are an infinite number of fuzzy boundaries ie., as in vaccinations. This is a highly fluid & often volatile life stage to navigate married or single & 2/

things are muddy as hell (this is an area I've researched tracked, and personally experienced as part of that natural child birth community). Women are isolated by society and thats a problem on both the right and the left. Women are vilified & looked down on when they do 3/

have kids, and are pilloried if they stay home, go to work, if they breastfeed, for how long or not and are essentially cut off from an elder community that might help them navigate the enormous shift in their lives not to mention having to put up with petulant manbaby 4/

husbands who drag them via their own negative ideals, expections, insecurities fears angers hurts at the sudden usurping of their position as number 1 in a womans life when she has a baby, & especially the first baby. BOTH WHITE SUPREMACY AND FUNDAMENTALIST WHITE CHRISTIANITY 5/

Not a slippery slope or sudden subversion: German medicine and National Socialism in 1933.
https://t.co/S5FqTYKG78

"On 29 July Deutsches Arzteblatt reprints the entire Sterilisation Act and comments:"

#vaccinatieplicht

“Since sterilisation is the only safe method to prevent the inheritance of mental diseases and serious genetic disorders, the law must be looked upon as an expression of loving care for the coming generations, and as an act of altruism."

"The elimination of defective genes is not of itself sufficient to keep our nation healthy and energetic, for this purging of the common gene pool must be complemented by positive population measures."

"On 14 July the new administration proclaims the Sterilisation Act, entitled “Law for the Prevention of Genetically Diseased Descendants.”

"Paragraph 12 instructs that the mutilating operation “must be performed even against the will of the person to be sterilised. The attending surgeon must request any necessary assistance from the police authority."

Not sure if people want a historical comparison thread, but here’s one on insurrection and a violent attempt at a coup in 1874 New Orleans, often called the Battle of Liberty Place. Thread includes a white supremacist monument. 1/

During Reconstruction, there was a lot of white supremacist violence in the South, as former confederates and whites in general wanted to reclaim full political power. Image from Harper's after the New Orleans Massacre in the summer of 1866.

In the summer of 1874, the White League in New Orleans was galvanized by false stories spread by former confederate officer Frederick N. Ogden. Those false stories were that groups of Black men were going to incite violence. This was all false.

Political tension was high in New Orleans in 1874. Rather than concede the 1872 gubernatorial election, Democratic candidate John McEnery set up his own dueling government. (Remember that this was before the parties changed, as @KevinMKruse has detailed on here before.)

On Sept 12, 1874, a steamer came into the port of New Orleans with guns and ammunition for the White League. When the ship was seized, Ogden and others claimed their 2nd Amendment rights were being trampled.

1/ I’m not one for ‘told ya so’s but in 1989 when David Duke won the state House seat in Louisiana, some of us said this was an inflection point in American politics. This wasn’t just the logical result of Reaganesque racial dog whistling. It was something different (a thread)...

2/ It wasn’t even George Wallace, strictly speaking, though it was closer to that than Reagan. It was the blatant introduction of racist appeals under the guise of mainstream conservatism, and w/a polish and media-savvy Wallace lacked, as had most previous white supremacists...

3/ Duke knew how to use media. He cut 30 minute infomercials in his Senate run in 1990 — unheard of at the time — to slowly lay out his politics of racial resentment, knowing it would find a home w/white folks angered by previous GOP scapegoating of welfare, etc..

4/ ...but wanting to do more with it than just win an election. He wanted to turn mainstream racially-resentful conservatism into full blown white nationalism. And he knew it would take a while. He was grooming the electorate for what was to come....

5/ And yes, he lost in 90. But he got 60% of the white vote. I want to reiterate that. Six in ten whites in Louisiana voted for someone they all knew was a white supremacist. Indeed, a Nazi. And at the time, folks outside of Louisiana told us, “ah, that’s just LA...”