Guardian:

“The Russian prison system isn’t interested in rehabilitation, it is based on retribution and punishment. It is a system underpinned by violence,” Pallot said.

I remember being puzzled by reading numerous accounts over the years of travelers to Russia, the USSR, then Russia again saying this was the European country which reminded them most of the US, until 2018 when I spent several months in Russia and experienced the same impression. The wide expanses, sizes of vehicles, style of interpersonal interaction all reminded me more of the US than of Germany or France. The above statement by an Oxford University professor who has studied Russian prisons had me wondering how many Americans would claim the US prison system is interested in rehabilitation, or that it isn’t underpinned by violence.

I find this tremendously exciting! I remember Apollo 11. It is wonderful to be going to the moon again.

The chatter between these two is pretty horrible. I’m unable to listen to it. Where is Walter Cronkite?

Karl-Heinz Dellwo, taz:

In den 1960er Jahren scheiterte der damalige Bundeskanzler Ludwig Erhard mit dem Versuch, die „formierte Gesellschaft“ auszurufen. Alle Einzelinteressen sollten einem „Gemeinwohl“ unterworfen werden, welches aus Sicht der Wirtschaft definiert wurde. Heute ist die „formierte Gesellschaft“ längst zur bitteren Realität geworden.

Der Name „Letzte Generation“ irritiert und ist doch zutreffend. Wenn die Menschheit ohne Dystopie überleben will, endet mit der heute lebenden Generation die alte Geschichte der Weltvernutzung. Man kann das als Epochenbruch sehen, ähnlich dem Übergang vom Mittelalter in die Neuzeit.

Ω Ω Ω

Im Angriff auf die letztlich kleinen Aktionen der „Letzten Generation“ tritt auch zutage: Die, die Macht haben, möchten auch die Moral des Widerstands besitzen.

Ω Ω Ω

Seit über 50 Jahren weiß jeder politisch Verantwortliche, dass das Konzept der Verwertung der Welt und die Strategie des ewigen Wachstum in eine globale Destruktion kippt. Wesentliches getan wurde nichts, es hat die meisten einfach nicht interessiert. Das ferne Desaster wird getoppt vom unmittelbaren Interesse nach Fortsetzung des Bestehenden. Alle Versprechen, gegen die in Gang gesetzte Zerstörung vorzugehen, blieben rhetorisch. Das System setzt auf integrative Verdauung des Protests und kennt hier seinen Erfolg.

All of us have a place in history. Mine is clouds.

—Richard Brautigan, The Tokyo-Montana Express, 150.

Joe Garofoli, San Francisco Chronicle:

Typically when a governor overwhelmingly wins re-election, they spend their election night victory speech teasing what they will do in their next term.

Not so with Gov. Gavin Newsom and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Tuesday. Both used their post-victory glow to throw shade on each other. But as they ponder their next political moves, they offered a preview of where their fight — and the larger political narrative — is heading: over what “freedom” really means in this moment.

It is a battle that — depending on whether President Biden decides to seek re-election — could be fought all the way to the White House.

To DeSantis, freedom has found a home in Florida, which he boasted Tuesday has become “the promised land” for people “fleeing states and cities governed by leftist politicians.”

“They’ve seen their taxpayers abused. They’ve seen medical authoritarianism imposed and they’ve seen American principles discarded,” DeSantis said. “The woke agenda has caused millions of Americans to leave these jurisdictions for greener pastures.”

If you turn up the sound you can almost hear DeSantis say, “(cough) California (cough).”

Unlike those living in leftist-governed locales, DeSantis said, in Florida, “we have embraced freedom.”

DeSantis uses “freedom” largely in economic and cultural terms. He means the absence of taxes and government mandates. It’s a familiar refrain in conservative circles. In 2005, President George W. Bush used the word “freedom” 27 times in his 21-minute inaugural address, per the transcript on NPR.org. That’s seven more times than Martin Luther King Jr. did in his seminal “I Have a Dream” speech in 1963.

“We have maintained law and order. We have protected the rights of parents. We have respected our taxpayers and we reject woke ideology,” DeSantis said. “We’d fight the woke in the legislature. We fight the woke in the schools. We fight the woke in the corporations. We will never ever surrender to the woke mob.

“Florida,” he said, “is where woke goes to die.”

…

For a quick reminder of what woke really means, let’s ask Oakland Rep. Barbara Lee, whose explanation is in the Merriam-Webster dictionary.

…

“Being woke means understanding all the issues each and every day and fighting against injustice each and every day knowing what we’re dealing with,” Lee said.

„understanding all the issues each and every day“?

These last few years it’s become so difficult to tell what is real and what is parody. I couldn’t make this up. I didn’t edit the music – it was uploaded like this to the Zelenskiy Instagram account.

Johanna Roth, Die Zeit:

Der Demokrat John Fetterman bei seinem Auftritt in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania © Kevin Lamarque/​Reuters

John Fetterman ist der vielleicht wichtigste Mann seiner Partei bei diesen Midterms, eine hoch­symbolische Figur: Wer kann heute für die Demokraten Wahlen gewinnen, was braucht es dafür – und was ist verzichtbar? Die Frage, wer oder was „echt“ ist und wie man das politisch nutzt, die ist kompliziert geworden in den Post-Trump-USA.

…

In keinem Bundesstaat ist der Kampf erbitterter als in diesem, in keinem zeigt sich so deutlich, dass in diesen Tagen nicht weniger auf dem Spiel steht als die Demokratie der USA.

I was born 45 minutes up the Monongahela from Braddock.  The country both Pennsylvania Democrats and Republicans dream of is long gone, and is not coming back. It was already gone in 1984, when Springsteen recorded this. „Die Frage, wer oder was ‚echt‘ ist“? Through the 1980s Ronald Reagan was president. Ronald Reagan. Think about that. Ronald Reagan was president, the US was selling weapons to Iran and using the profits to pay mercenaries to programmatically rape and kill Nicaraguans. US Democracy is at stake in these elections? That struggle was over decades ago. The good guys lost.