DL Open Thread: Sunday, Feb. 27, 2022

That Black Opry Revue show at the Arden Gild Hall was one for the ages.  If you were there, you know.  Nights like last night are why I produce/promote shows.  Remember these names: Roberta Lea.  Aaron Vance. Tylar Bryant. Jett Holden. Lizzie No. They all deserve to be stars.

But I digress (waitaminnit, how can you digress in an open thread?).

‘No Snitches.’ While often attributed to ordinary citizens, it has long been the operating philosophy of the cops.  Which is why I think this initiative is doomed to failure:

The paramilitary structure of law enforcement agencies discourages questioning the chain of command, and departments have a long track record of retaliating against whistle-blowers. Officers who break the culture of silence risk being passed over for promotions or even being fired themselves, as Cariol Horne in Buffalo was after she stopped a white officer from choking a Black suspect.

To overcome these barriers, trainees are told that the program is not about ratting out their comrades but stopping them from committing misconduct in the first place. They are told to think of officers in need of intervention as humans who get tired and stressed and make mistakes, and of themselves as helpers who can respond to warning signs of mental illness, addiction or suicide.

Intervention, the premise goes, is just one more way that officers take care of one another.

“We get an opportunity to redefine this whole freaking thing about the ‘thin blue line,’ redefine what it means to have each other’s back,” said Jerry Clayton, the sheriff in Ann Arbor, Mich. “It’s so hypocritical to criticize the community around ‘no snitching’” — an unwritten rule on the street that officers say prevents them from solving crimes — “and then we turn around and say, ‘I can’t talk about that thing that happened.’”

A SWIFT Way To Sanction Russia?  It could work–if China doesn’t come to Putin’s rescue:

As the United States, Canada and European allies prepared to step up pressure on Russian financial institutions this weekend, they vowed to cut some banks off from the SWIFT messaging system, a network that connects banks around the world and is considered the backbone of international finance.

(SWIFT) is a messaging network that connects banks around the world and is considered the backbone of international finance. The Belgian-based consortium links more than 11,000 financial institutions operating in more than 200 countries and territories, acting as a critical hub to enable international payments. Last year, the system averaged 42 million messages a day, including orders and confirmations for payments, trades and currency exchanges. More than 1 percent of those messages are thought to involve Russian payments.

Eastern European countries and France were among the early advocates of economic sanctions that would cut Russia off from SWIFT. Depending on how many banks the European Union and the United States plan to target through SWIFT, they could make it more difficult for Russian entities to process transactions and could hobble the Russian economy’s ability to do business beyond its borders.

More On Economic Sanctions And How They Could Impact Russia:

Remember the saying “If you owe the bank $10,000, you have a problem—but if you owe the bank $10 billion, the bank has a problem?” We, the people of the Western world collectively owe the Russian state hundreds of billions of dollars. That’s not our problem. That’s Russia’s problem, an enormous one. Because one thing any debtor can do is … not pay when asked.

To finance its war on Ukraine, Russia might have hoped to draw down its foreign-currency reserves with Western central banks. The Russian central bank would tell the Fed or the ECB to credit X billion dollars or euros from the Russian central bank to this or that private Russian bank. That bank would then credit the accounts of Russian businesses or individuals. Those businesses or individuals would then pay Western companies to whom they owe money.

All of this requires the cooperation of the Fed or ECB in the first place. The Fed or ECB could say: “Nope. Sorry. The Russian central bank’s money is frozen. No transfers of dollars or euros from the Russian central bank to commercial banks. No transfers from commercial banks to businesses or individuals. For all practical purposes, you’re broke.” It would be a startling action, but not unprecedented. The United States did it to Iran after the revolutionary regime seized U.S. diplomats as hostages in 1979.

I simply have to close with one of the many highlights from last night’s show. (This was from a previous show, but he also killed it in our barn.)  Jett Holden wrote this song after he came out to his Jehovah’s Witnesses parents, which ‘went about as well as you might expect’. Jett’s voice is just so expressive, and it’s earned.  He’s not just a major talent, but an incredibly nice person:

 

What do you want to talk about?