Its that time again, time for a Monday Good News Roundup. Brought to you by the three person team of myself, Killer300 and Bhu, we got five stories that will make you feel better about the world and really appreciate the Biden administration, and the fact we don’t have to deal with that orange piece of crap anymore.
So without further ado, lets get this show on the road.
The GOP’s comprehensive, nationwide effort to make it more difficult for people to vote has two key characteristics. First, it’s utterly abhorrent, an affront to the very foundations of the American electoral system. Second, it’s often misconceived and ill-designed, in ways that offer a silver lining to Democrats and anyone who values small-D democratic participation.
It’s hard to know how much of an impact that will have on the next election. Advocates say it will more seriously affect voters who are younger or poorer, and that’s certainly what Republicans hope. But it will also affect plenty of the GOP’s own voters.
Yeah the GOP keep shamelessly keep trying to cheat the system, because its all they have left to win with. But A) its hurting their voters as well, and B) Its really pissing people off, so its not gonna work.
a Democratic political data firm, has compiled the “individual vote history for 98.5% of the 2020 general election voters,” a massive data set. “Of the 154.5 million voters for whom we’ve compiled individual vote history, just over 4 million are Asian American. That equates to 2.6% of all ballots cast,” TargetSmart determined. “Relative to the last presidential election, in 2016, the total number of ballots cast by AAPI voters increased by over 47%. For context, the total turnout for all other voters increased by only 12%.”
Moreover, these voters made a big difference in key states such as Georgia, Arizona and Nevada: “AAPI turnout in Georgia increased by almost 62,000 votes over 2016. Considering that the Biden-Harris ticket carried the state by fewer than 12,000 votes, the AAPI surge was clearly decisive." Arizona and Nevada also enjoyed a surge in AAPI voting. “Across all of the presidential battleground states, AAPI turnout increased by 357,969 votes, a breathtaking 48% increase in turnout,” TargetSmart reported.
So, plenty of neat information from the 2020 election, which bodes well for us.
The world’s renewable energy industry grew at its fastest pace since 1999 last year, despite the disruption caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, and may have established a standard for growth in the future, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).
The global energy watchdog revealed that the delivery of renewable energy projects, including windfarms and solar power projects, grew by 45% last year in a step change for the global industry.
Green Energy is becoming more viable all the time, which is very important for the future of our planet.
Most of apocalyptic literature focuses on all the terrible ways that society goes wrong after a society-disrupting disaster, though. This is especially prevalent in television and film—think of The Walking Dead or 28 Days Later where, while the zombies might be the initial threat, most of the horrible violence is done by surviving humans to one another. This kind of focus on antisocial behavior—in fact, the belief that after a disaster humans will revert to some sort of ‘base state of nature’—reflects very common myths that exist throughout Western culture. We think that disaster situations cause panic, looting, assaults, the breakdown of social structures—and we make policy decisions based on that belief, assuming that crime rises during a crisis and that anti-crime enforcement is needed along with humanitarian aid.
But absolutely none of this is true.
The myth that panic, looting, and antisocial behavior increases during the apocalypse (or apocalyptic-like scenarios) is in fact a myth—and has been solidly disproved by multiple scientific studies. The National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program, a research group within the United States Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA), has produced research that shows over and over again that “disaster victims are assisted first by others in the immediate vicinity and surrounding area and only later by official public safety personnel […] The spontaneous provision of assistance is facilitated by the fact that when crises occur, they take place in the context of ongoing community life and daily routines—that is, they affect not isolated individuals but rather people who are embedded in networks of social relationships.” (Facing Hazards and Disasters: Understanding Human Dimensions, National Academy of Sciences, 2006). Humans do not, under the pressure of an emergency, socially collapse. Rather, they seem to display higher levels of social cohesion, despite what media or government agents might expect…or portray on TV. Humans, after the apocalypse, band together in collectives to help one another—and they do this spontaneously. Disaster response workers call it ‘spontaneous prosocial helping behavior’, and it saves lives.
Humans are a communal species, we’ve gotten where we are because when the chips are down we come together and help one another. Whatever crises come in the future, we’ll be able to get through it by relying on each other, and really that’s what the GNR is all about.
Lt. Col. Matthew Lohmeier joined The Steve Gruber show to discuss his new book, "Irresistible Revolution: Marxism's Goal of Conquest & the Unmaking of the American Military," which alleges that Marxist ideologies are becoming widespread within the armed forces. He expounded on those concerns in the podcast.
"Since taking command as a commander about 10 months ago, I saw what I consider fundamentally incompatible and competing narratives of what America was, is and should be," Lohmeier said. "That wasn't just prolific in social media, or throughout the country during this past year, but it was spreading throughout the United States military. And I had recognized those narratives as being Marxist in nature."
And now our entry from the “What the fuck did you think was going to happen?” department. Yeah, this guy is a dumbass and deserves to be sacked. But hey, now he has more time to push that book no one is gonna read but is gonna be an Amazon best seller because rich conservatives will buy copies and bulk to give away for free. Because all they care about is appearances because they are a bunch of shallow narcissists.
And that does it for this week, a bit of admin before we sign off though, my good friend Killer300 asked I bring attention to this Daily Kos article: The 2022 election is as vital as the 2020 one, ignore the polls: The Ground game will win it. Which basically encourages you to go out and put rubber to the road to help us keep and expand our control of congress.
So make sure to start doing the work to win in 2022 now. As for me, I had a long day at work, and I need my rest. This is the GNR Newsroom signing off.