[Marxism] An icon of US bourgeois democracy falls

[John Reimann via Marxism]

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The judiciary has long been seen as an impartial arbiter, or at least that
is the image that all wings of capitalist politics in the US presented for
many decades. Now that image is being pierced by the increasingly partisan
Supreme Court, and it worries the liberals for two reasons: First is that
they are genuinely concerned for the maintenance of bourgeois democracy.
That, after all, is what they base themselves on. Second is that the
increasingly clear partisan and class position of the Supreme Court is
weakening this icon that means so much to them. As for what they propose,
it is useless. Why not "pack" the Supreme Court? Here's an article in
today's Washington Post:

The Supreme Court has become just another arm of the GOP

*Sheldon Whitehouse, a Democrat, represents Rhode Island in the U.S.
Senate.*

Politics is a team sport. We battle, and our courts are supposed to referee
our disputes.

But what if one team spent years and millions of dollars to capture the
referees, so the refs could declare that team the winner whenever they fell
short on the field? If you were on the other team, you’d cry foul. You’d
ask: “Hey, when did the law become a team sport, too?’’

A few weeks ago, several Senate colleagues and I did just that when we filed a
friend-of-the-court brief

in
a case before the Supreme Court in which the National Rifle Association had
urged the court to continue its “project” (the NRA’s term) to undermine gun
regulations.

We cried foul. That triggered a remarkable response.

Conservative media lit up in unison. Fox News and the Wall Street Journal
editorial page
,
for instance, attacked us for advocating “court packing,” something we did
not advocate. The Journal used language so similar to a separate National
Review op-ed

that
it issued an unusual editor’s note denying plagiarism. Then, all 53
Republicans in the Senate

cranked
out a letter to the court’s clerk decrying our brief. What hoopla.

So, what did we actually say?

We said this: From 2005 through the fall term of 2018, the Roberts court
issued 73  5-to-4 partisan decisions benefiting big Republican donor
interests: allowing  corporations
to spend unlimited money in elections; hobbling

pollution
regulations; enabling

attacks
on minority voting rights; curtailing

labor’s
right to organize; denying

workers
the ability to challenge employers in court; and, of course, expanding

the
NRA’s gun rights “project.” It’s a pattern.

Of course, in other decisions during that period, such as the 2015 same-sex
marriage ruling, a Republican appointed justice joined the liberals. But in
its run of 73 partisan 5-to-4 cases, the Republican majority routinely
broke traditionally conservative legal principles, such as respect for
precedent or “originalist” reading of the Constitution. They even went on
remarkable fact-finding expeditions, violating traditions of appellate
adjudication.

In their letter, our Republican colleagues invoked Alexander Hamilton’s
vision of the “complete independence of the courts.” We’re glad they did,
because our purpose in calling attention to this pattern is to help restore
the judicial independence Hamilton envisioned.

The big-donor takeover of the federal courts begins, as reported

by

[Marxism] Strike with the Band | Kate Wagner

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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THE UNION FOR THE MUSICIANS of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, late 
this June, refused to sign a contract that would cut its unionized 
musicians’ income by some 20 percent. The musicians were, in turn, 
locked out by management, which meant facing months without pay or 
health care. In a Baltimore Sun article, orchestra members told of their 
fears about losing homes and caring for sick loved ones. Perhaps the 
most striking interview in the report comes from a twenty-seven-year-old 
violinist who had done everything right: she was talented and worked 
intensively; after college she rose through the ranks from the second to 
the first violin section, finally landing her dream job with a union 
symphony. But before that, she went to the right schools, Oberlin 
Conservatory and the Manhattan School of Music, at a cost of over 
$100,000 in student loan debt. This was debt she was determined to pay 
off by the time she was forty, if she continued her frugal lifestyle, 
living with a roommate near the concert hall. And now, here she was 
walking the picket line with her railroaded colleagues, who had also 
done everything right.


full: https://thebaffler.com/salvos/strike-with-the-band-wagner
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[Marxism] Does capitalism need saving from itself? | Financial Times

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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https://www.ft.com/content/b35342fe-cda4-11e9-99a4-b5ded7a7fe3f
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Re: [Marxism] Moderator's note

[Joseph Green via Marxism]

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Louis, that's not my experience. Instead of being connected to a page that asks 
permission to go to the website it deems suspicious, I always get a Cisco 
Security 
page that simply says "404 Bad Request".   I have to use google to get to the 
actual page. 


On 6 Sep 2019 at 22:06, Louis Proyect via Marxism wrote:
> 
> A reminder.
> 
> When you see that scary "suspicious message" thing, it only means
> that 
> the malware-protection system at U. of Utah has issued a "warning".
> It 
> is not a real problem since the target links are ALWAYS legitimate.
> All 
> you need to is click the U. of Utah-generated link and then you will
> be 
> connected to a page that asks your permission to go to the website
> it 
> deemed suspicious. A bit of a hassle but only 15 seconds worth.
> _
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Re: [Marxism] [SUSPICIOUS MESSAGE] Re: Moderator's note

[Joseph Green via Marxism]

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Ah, I see now. What happened is that I have been clicking on the link, and that 
didn't work because, with the fabulously long multi-line URLs, this only picks 
up 
the underlined section of the URL  One has to manual copy the full URL to the 
clipboard and paste it into the browser. 

I didn't notice the problem with a section of the URL being cut-off because, 
before 
clicking on the underlined URL, I would remove line wrap so that the URL would 
appear on one line. I thought that this would ensure that clicking on the link 
would 
give the entire URL, because apparently -- after the removing line wrapping -- 
the 
underlining was restored for the entire URL. But that's not the case. The URL 
is 
so very long, and it is so far off the page when there isn't line wrapping, 
that I 
didn't notice that part of the URL was still cut off when it was on a single 
line.

I mention these details in case anyone else had the same problem.


> > 
> 
> You must be doing something wrong. After clicking the warning link,
> you 
> should end up on a page that says this:
> 
> Cisco Security
> The requested web page may be dangerous
> Loading and analyzing 
> http://secure-web.cisco.com/19SLqQknp9P1qcp5jEjRNqGWyzvwy8EW-mIozoad
> b48zCqJ7L4qQ2Q91LJ28Y1dd7IGAPUzvCA4dwr-Y5rBw_pNMVthCjYwSGNTjvOrQ_0WG
> oXltnaOLI-JpgkVTq0mMBlUxHNwY1U5EVT8K2kx8Rc2UjGYz65xxuqNzCO89dB4IKK1e
> xm6pHOMTr_lR8KTRfy0eUF3TNKQAPW3vfnXwJhKKtzuKvDyCcM71bCRYaRx3YtMb8SE7
> KABv-qPdvLT-6TPitn06DS-pZhLxXiErKSFJ-k-qDpJTbj_0jseiuN1-nCTdix5hwd_f
> 7fB3Qi4_6m2tNBafL6iDWCM2bQWGi3Vu_iS1z__cbxVGoJCKUL5nVAfZmxTWPlGGNf3M
> vZPURESFrAvj9XZIW7zy2IltphQ/http%3A%2F%2Fwww.historicalmaterialism.o
> rg%2Findex.php%2Fblog%2Fdutch-capitalism-and-slavery
> 
> Cisco Email and Web Security protects your organization's network
> from 
> malicious software. Malware is designed to look like a legitimate
> email 
> or website which accesses your computer, hides itself in your
> system, 
> and damages files. Your email administrator has configured this 
> prevention system to ensure against such damage.
> 
> ---
> 
> Once you are on that page, you will see this pop-up almost
> immediately 
> that gives you a choice:
> 
>   Do you trust the rendered site?
> 
>   Leave this site and report it as malicious (in red)
> 
>   Leave protected area and visit this site directly (in green)
> 
> 
> Click the one in green and you will end up at the intended page.
> 
> _
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[Marxism] [SUSPICIOUS MESSAGE] Climate change and mitigation | Michael Roberts Blog

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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https://secure-web.cisco.com/1egAtoIL7pLoqR8xsPTGriQ27H080vIlJXFYrJLbhPxRXgvxDNj9e-wxbz18-xcFtGFZo0PNYgmeWrlu6OntyXyYABy8kZGr_eFDtZ0CV6MRGscyrGa9hdW7davplMGn3ZDSIyb_N6ZTkjLm2MrBUsS2cuLcjUjJ1GUUpgNoagj5N8BplgPzNfj1-jeOSR6a0DvfcjUeTZTqSJmjnCM95kM7RXt_zt-0iJvFBhPeTOu3DiMq6RY5zPnYn3FZgSPaTiA2bD-Qv9PKmEf_vI5idcXyyqV6kkaoC71K9J4nDoNlrR_f4RyxYZU0KuPnFHfTQMQV4tGb-05nvK_9WtVf6gq7ggvbu-7cCuSConzxjP5Ad-mirtNeRfH8si1S2jACOOHV74c7cQSd005hdgih__w/https%3A%2F%2Fthenextrecession.wordpress.com%2F2019%2F09%2F06%2Fclimate-change-and-mitigation%2F

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[Marxism] Why 'Friends' Is The Wrong Show To Celebrate In The Trump Era - Gothamist

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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https://gothamist.com/arts-entertainment/friend-tv-show-criticism-trump
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[Marxism] Proletarian Roadkill - Los Angeles Review of Books

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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Review of Nelson Algren bio.

https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/proletarian-roadkill/
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[Marxism] The Battle for the Suburbs

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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NY Review of Books,  SEPTEMBER 26, 2019 ISSUE
The Battle for the Suburbs
by Paul Starr

Why Cities Lose: The Deep Roots of the Urban-Rural Political Divide
by Jonathan Rodden
Basic Books, 313 pp., $30.00

Cities dominate cultural life and the economy no less today than they 
have for centuries. They are still the principal centers of intellectual 
ferment, artistic creativity, and social innovation despite the 
decentralizing potential of the Internet. In fact, while rural areas and 
small towns have been stagnant and declining in recent decades, economic 
growth has become even more concentrated in large cities that can 
satisfy the demand for highly educated workers. If political power 
simply followed economic dynamism, the surging metropolises of the 
global economy—like cities at the heart of empires and nations in the 
past—would now be the dominant force in government.


But the reality in the United States is exactly the opposite. As 
Jonathan Rodden explains in Why Cities Lose, urban interests are 
systemically underrepresented in state legislatures and Congress. With 
Democrats clustered in cities, Republicans often win legislative 
majorities despite losing the overall popular vote. Conservative parties 
benefit from the same pattern in Great Britain, Canada, and Australia, 
where the left’s vote is also concentrated in cities. There, too, 
conservatives tend to win a larger share of legislative seats than of 
votes, sometimes enough to form a government even though the main 
opposition party has won more votes. The reasons why cities lose are 
therefore often the reasons why the left loses too.


Democrats are painfully aware that they face institutional disadvantages 
in American politics. Republicans have won the presidency in the 
Electoral College twice in the past two decades despite losing the 
popular vote. Since the Senate overrepresents rural, relatively 
conservative states, it too now favors Republicans: “Democrats have won 
more votes than Republicans in elections for eleven of the fifteen 
Senates since 1990,” Rodden notes, “but they have only held a majority 
of seats on six occasions.”


What is less widely understood is that Democrats also face a structural 
disadvantage in the House of Representatives and many state 
legislatures. In 2012, despite receiving 1.4 million more votes in House 
races than Republicans, Democrats won only 45 percent of House seats; 
that same year, Democratic candidates in Michigan received 54 percent of 
the vote but only 46 percent of the seats in the Michigan house and 42 
percent in the state senate. The conventional explanation for these and 
other disparities is partisan gerrymandering, which unquestionably has 
exacerbated the Democrats’ problems since 2010, when Republicans won 
control of many state legislatures and then redrew district lines in 
their own favor.


Rodden, a political scientist at Stanford, shows convincingly, however, 
that Democrats would be at a disadvantage even if partisan 
gerrymandering were abolished. Neutral computer simulations still tend 
to give Democrats a smaller share of seats than Republicans would 
receive with the same share of votes. The Democrats’ underlying problem, 
he argues, results from two factors: an increased urban-rural divide in 
voting and the use of single-member districts in US legislative 
elections—the same method used in Great Britain and others of its former 
colonies.


Although an urban-rural political divide exists today in many societies, 
its effects depend on the system of representation—that is, the rules 
for turning votes into seats. Under systems of proportional 
representation, each party gets a share of seats in large multimember 
districts in accordance with its share of votes, no matter where those 
votes come from. The geography of partisan support matters a great deal, 
however, in countries using single-member districts that are 
winner-take-all: “Underrepresentation of the urban left in national 
legislatures and governments,” Rodden writes, “has been a basic feature 
of all industrialized countries that use winner-take-all elections.”


Electoral disadvantage does not necessarily mean defeat. Democrats were 
able to win control of the House in 2018, when they received an overall 
margin of more than 8 percent of the popular vote. Where those votes 
came from was critical. Although Democrats increased their share of 
votes everywhere, they already held nearly all urban districts, and 
their improved showing in rural areas wasn’t enough to win many seats 
there. What made the difference was a blue wave in the suburbs strong 
enough to lift Democratic 

[Marxism] [SUSPICIOUS MESSAGE] Re: Moderator's note

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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On 9/7/19 10:38 AM, Joseph Green via Marxism wrote:


Louis, that's not my experience. Instead of being connected to a page that asks
permission to go to the website it deems suspicious, I always get a Cisco 
Security
page that simply says "404 Bad Request".   I have to use google to get to the
actual page.



You must be doing something wrong. After clicking the warning link, you 
should end up on a page that says this:


Cisco Security
The requested web page may be dangerous
Loading and analyzing 
http://secure-web.cisco.com/19SLqQknp9P1qcp5jEjRNqGWyzvwy8EW-mIozoadb48zCqJ7L4qQ2Q91LJ28Y1dd7IGAPUzvCA4dwr-Y5rBw_pNMVthCjYwSGNTjvOrQ_0WGoXltnaOLI-JpgkVTq0mMBlUxHNwY1U5EVT8K2kx8Rc2UjGYz65xxuqNzCO89dB4IKK1exm6pHOMTr_lR8KTRfy0eUF3TNKQAPW3vfnXwJhKKtzuKvDyCcM71bCRYaRx3YtMb8SE7KABv-qPdvLT-6TPitn06DS-pZhLxXiErKSFJ-k-qDpJTbj_0jseiuN1-nCTdix5hwd_f7fB3Qi4_6m2tNBafL6iDWCM2bQWGi3Vu_iS1z__cbxVGoJCKUL5nVAfZmxTWPlGGNf3MvZPURESFrAvj9XZIW7zy2IltphQ/http%3A%2F%2Fwww.historicalmaterialism.org%2Findex.php%2Fblog%2Fdutch-capitalism-and-slavery


Cisco Email and Web Security protects your organization's network from 
malicious software. Malware is designed to look like a legitimate email 
or website which accesses your computer, hides itself in your system, 
and damages files. Your email administrator has configured this 
prevention system to ensure against such damage.


---

Once you are on that page, you will see this pop-up almost immediately 
that gives you a choice:


Do you trust the rendered site?

Leave this site and report it as malicious (in red)

Leave protected area and visit this site directly (in green)


Click the one in green and you will end up at the intended page.

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Re: [Marxism] An icon of US bourgeois democracy falls

[Michael Meeropol via Marxism]

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I believe rather than packing the Court, should the Dems take the
Presidency and Senate they should IMMEDIATELY (and this will require public
pressure) impeach Kavanaugh for perjury at his confirmation hearing ---

Then, the new President can get the seat that should have been filled by
Obama before he left office.

That is something that the "base" should be demanding of all Presidential
candidates and most Democratic House candidates ---

The "liberals' might not like it but the people will 
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[Marxism] ZCommunications » What is the True Unemployment Rate in the US?

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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Jack Rasmus: A reader of this blog recently asked an important question: 
What do I think is the actual unemployment rate in the US today, not the 
media’s 3.8% that is almost always quoted? Here’s my reply as to why I 
calculate the real, actual unemployment at minimum to be 10%-12%.


https://zcomm.org/znetarticle/what-is-the-true-unemployment-rate-in-the-us/
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[Marxism] The Fall of the Meritocracy | The New Republic

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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https://newrepublic.com/article/154692/meritocracy-trap-overworked-elites-book-review
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[Marxism] [SUSPICIOUS MESSAGE] Dutch capitalism and slavery | Historical Materialism

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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http://secure-web.cisco.com/1R64oXZytN7VAehDFC8MnuIpH1hoEy671R08FZyuf_S-ZXsNxwANS7T6yJtFP9fkbHZAgRReDHQm65jXROoO206w_oZc_119Mm0xEwNo8a_EVCr9uro7ruOYC-9vZvzNgXF3vaO9dVRmEDpsqkFIpOJ7oud9NkLbKJ-YkVv4hKRWpJiodkY3ayQTnW49XYkJS0iS-YYKc747g7qsEYYa45enIlSZL9HKan58Vhn3JxP8BaxcBF4nwPI6ydZdI8yUj49EnWg972pMX7IxUou3IMn6fySHLZ57EvAP0GGGgFZltEwceIzxfD-7PHNOHl6w79gbjtVKNjBcMJpvhD1aDk-RgfjU-JcEMBPPeIFpXgZJEbnwZw45So3X6v4W1dUCv/http%3A%2F%2Fwww.historicalmaterialism.org%2Findex.php%2Fblog%2Fdutch-capitalism-and-slavery

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[Marxism] FARC's return to war

[Philip Ferguson via Marxism]

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https://rdln.wordpress.com/2019/09/08/the-return-to-guerrilla-war-in-colombia/
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Re: [Marxism] Does capitalism need saving from itself? | Financial Times,

[Ralph Johansen via Marxism]

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"Subscribe to the FT to read: Financial Times Does capitalism need 
saving from itself?" says FT

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[Marxism] Addicted to Trump rallies

[John Reimann via Marxism]

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Gives a great view of the Trump rally addicts. It's clear it's more than
the political ideas; it's a whole culture. It's theater. Who cares if it's
theater of the absurd, it satisfies deep emotional needs. And that's where
real politics really lives anyway.

(If you're able to read this WSJ article online, I suggest doing so since
there are some great photos in it.)
https://www.wsj.com/articles/its-kind-of-like-an-addiction-on-the-road-with-trumps-rally-diehards-11567762200?mod=trending_now_pos4

Libby DePiero once drove her Ford Focus so far to attend a Trump campaign
rally—about 1,000 miles from her home in Connecticut to Indiana—that when
she lay in bed that night she thought the twitching in her driving leg was
coming from an animal under the mattress.

The 64-year-old retiree, who prefers sparkly nail polish, leopard prints
and selfies with Trump campaign officials, is almost always one of the
first few people in line at the president’s campaign events, part of the
self-described group of “Front Row Joes” who routinely travel to see the
president perform. Several, like Ms. DePiero, have attended more than 50
Trump rallies.

She keeps going because she trusts only the president to deliver her the
news. “How else would I know what’s going on?” she said.

Mr. Trump has hosted more than 550 ticketed campaign events since 2015, at
least 70% of which include his trademark rallies, according to Republican
officials. These rallies form the core of one of the most steadfast
political movements

in
modern American political history, a dynamic that has reordered the
Republican Party.

Mr. Trump’s perpetual tour

attracts
a coterie of political pilgrims who travel across the country and encamp
outside arenas for days at a time for the chance to stand in the front row
and, for 90 minutes, cheer the man they say has changed the U.S. and, in
many cases, their own lives. Somewhere between 5% to 10% of attendees have
been to multiple events, the officials said.

“You go to the rallies, and he basically tells you that you don’t have to
put up with ‘the swamp’ and those kinds of people,” said Saundra Kiczenski,
a 40-year-old Walmart worker from Michigan who has been to 29 rallies.
“Because of him I decided not to pay for Obamacare, not pay the fine. And
what happened? Nothing. Before, the quiet me would have paid the fine. But
Donald Trump told me that we have a voice, and now I stand up for myself.”

The Trump rally die-hards—a few dozen men and women who have been to more
than 10 rallies—are almost exclusively white. Many are recently retired
with time on their hands and little to keep them tied to home. A handful
never had children. Others are estranged from their families.

Several of those with jobs live paycheck to paycheck, but constantly offer
strangers a cold beverage, sandwiches or their last cigarette.

Some rely on disability payments, like Cynthia Barten, or cut lawns in
Missouri, like her husband, Ken Barten. Others sell secondhand items in
Kentucky like Jon French, or find odd jobs such as clearing rocks from
farmland in Minnesota, like Randal Thom. Kevin Steele quit his job and
plans to finance his travels to Trump rallies with the remaining $120,000
from an inheritance.

The group includes Trump aficionados, who have spent decades keeping tabs
on his history of political flirtations, tabloid melodrama and star turns
on reality television. A surprising number voted for Barack Obama at least
once, caught up in the Democrat’s charisma and fed up with Republicans over
foreign adventurism and growing national debt.

Rally regulars stay connected through Facebook and text messages, pinging
one another to see who is attending the next rally, who can carpool and who
wants to split a hotel room.

Ms. DePiero broke up a 700-mile drive to the Cincinnati rally on Aug. 1 by
spending the night with Becky Gee, a northeast Ohio dairy farmer she met at
a previous Trump rally. She stayed with Barbara Bienkowski in Maryland
(they met at Trump Hotel in Washington earlier this year), on her way to
the Greenville, N.C., rally on July 17 and stayed in Myrtle Beach, S.C.,
with Dale Ranney, another Front Row Joe, on the way home.

Two regular rallygoers have already married, and divorced.

All of them describe, in different ways, a euphoric flow of emotions
between themselves and the president, a sort of adrenaline-fueled, psychic
cleansing that follows 90 minutes