1) NEWS about a nation in crisis.
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Last week we posted a few stories on the soaring level of poverty in the US. According to "The Progress Report," "One stunning fact revealed by the new Census data was that the ranks of the American poor soared to their highest level in a half a century and that nearly 44 million Americans - one in seven - lived last year in homes in which the income was below the poverty level, which is about $22,000 for a family of four."
Stunning statistic indeed, but we aren't talking about statistics; we are talking about people, fellow Americans in dire economic circumstances. But where is the passion for assisting these people? Instead, it appears that the emotional force we see covered by the corporate media is the confused, perplexing anger of the Tea Party, mostly composed of white and older middle class Americans who are getting squeezed by the same forces that they support.
Meanwhile, we have, as a nation, people who are literally clinging to the basic necessities of life: food, clothing and shelter.
Yes, a minority of Americans need health care insurance, a minority need jobs, a minority need food stamps and other basic survival support. But at any given time, we all could be among that minority.
This brings us to the crux of the matter: Is America a nation where we are in it only for ourselves or a country where we are in this together?
That is the salient question that divides the nation, and one that tears at the fabric of our democracy.
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Last week we posted a few stories on the soaring level of poverty in the US. According to "The Progress Report," "One stunning fact revealed by the new Census data was that the ranks of the American poor soared to their highest level in a half a century and that nearly 44 million Americans - one in seven - lived last year in homes in which the income was below the poverty level, which is about $22,000 for a family of four."
Stunning statistic indeed, but we aren't talking about statistics; we are talking about people, fellow Americans in dire economic circumstances. But where is the passion for assisting these people? Instead, it appears that the emotional force we see covered by the corporate media is the confused, perplexing anger of the Tea Party, mostly composed of white and older middle class Americans who are getting squeezed by the same forces that they support.
Meanwhile, we have, as a nation, people who are literally clinging to the basic necessities of life: food, clothing and shelter.
Yes, a minority of Americans need health care insurance, a minority need jobs, a minority need food stamps and other basic survival support. But at any given time, we all could be among that minority.
This brings us to the crux of the matter: Is America a nation where we are in it only for ourselves or a country where we are in this together?
That is the salient question that divides the nation, and one that tears at the fabric of our democracy.
2) NEWS about a Wall Street fellow.
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The New York Times not so long ago dubbed him the King of Wall Street, and he reportedly has a net worth well over 5 billion dollars, but that didn't stop Stephen Schwarzman, founder of the Blackstone Group, from whining about financial "threats" faced by billionaires.
As the UK Telegraph reports, Schwarzman "last month likened the president's plans to levy taxes on the private equity industry as being akin to Adolf Hitler's invasion of Poland." It sounds like Steve is ready to run on the Tea Party ticket for President with a statement as offensive as that.
Having gone to Yale a bit after Schwarzman, who became the token Jewish member at the time of Skull and Bones, I know some of his classmates. Upon calling one on Sunday morning and reading him the quotation, the former friend of Schwarzman responded, "Steve has gotten to the point in his life where the tragedy of the Holocaust was not the death of so many Jewish men, women and children, but rather the theft of their art collections, personal possessions and gold fillings."
It's only fair to the King of Wall Street to point out that many found his comment a bit like Pat Buchanan's diminishing of WW II Nazism, so some PR firm for billionaires likely advised him to later admit that perhaps he had made an "inappropriate analogy."
I was in synagogue on Kol Nidre, the holiest night in the Jewish calendar, atoning for - among other things - according to the prayer book, not being open to the plight of the poor and hungry among us. I don't know if Mr. Schwarzman was at services on Yom Kippur, but if he was, he must have been selfishly oblivious.
There is a Jewish tradition of "tikkun olam," the healing of the world. It's clear that avarice, greed and Mr. Schwarzman are not part of that tradition.
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The New York Times not so long ago dubbed him the King of Wall Street, and he reportedly has a net worth well over 5 billion dollars, but that didn't stop Stephen Schwarzman, founder of the Blackstone Group, from whining about financial "threats" faced by billionaires.
As the UK Telegraph reports, Schwarzman "last month likened the president's plans to levy taxes on the private equity industry as being akin to Adolf Hitler's invasion of Poland." It sounds like Steve is ready to run on the Tea Party ticket for President with a statement as offensive as that.
Having gone to Yale a bit after Schwarzman, who became the token Jewish member at the time of Skull and Bones, I know some of his classmates. Upon calling one on Sunday morning and reading him the quotation, the former friend of Schwarzman responded, "Steve has gotten to the point in his life where the tragedy of the Holocaust was not the death of so many Jewish men, women and children, but rather the theft of their art collections, personal possessions and gold fillings."
It's only fair to the King of Wall Street to point out that many found his comment a bit like Pat Buchanan's diminishing of WW II Nazism, so some PR firm for billionaires likely advised him to later admit that perhaps he had made an "inappropriate analogy."
I was in synagogue on Kol Nidre, the holiest night in the Jewish calendar, atoning for - among other things - according to the prayer book, not being open to the plight of the poor and hungry among us. I don't know if Mr. Schwarzman was at services on Yom Kippur, but if he was, he must have been selfishly oblivious.
There is a Jewish tradition of "tikkun olam," the healing of the world. It's clear that avarice, greed and Mr. Schwarzman are not part of that tradition.
3) NEWS about a once social worker.
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Two of Obama's key economic advisers have already departed and Larry Summers apparently has one foot out the White House door.
But will it matter who replaces them if the president still doesn't "feel the pain" of the working class? One of the great ironies of the Tea Party claims that Obama is a Marxist and born in Kenya, is that he really is a product of the US educational elite. He went to the top private school in Hawaii, graduated from Columbia University and went on to head the Harvard Law Review. Then he ended up teaching at the University of Chicago Law School while pursuing a career in politics.
Obama and his wife may have been raised middle class, but their advanced schooling is Ivy League (although the president spent his first two undergraduate years at the prestigious Occidental College). Somewhere along the way, did the president toss his lot in with his classmates, the ruling elite from America's top schools? One can certainly make a case that the answer is "yes."
Bill Clinton went to Georgetown and Yale Law, but he managed to mix neoliberal economic policies with a personal empathy and feeling for the working class. Even at the height of his impeachment, his polling numbers remained very high. He was more "Bubba" - personal flaws and all - to many Americans than Yale Law School.
President Obama can literally afford to be patient. Those who are unemployed, those who are underemployed and those who have seen their standard of living fall are looking for someone who surrounds himself with advocates of Main Street not Wall Street. Their patience is wearing thin.
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Two of Obama's key economic advisers have already departed and Larry Summers apparently has one foot out the White House door.
But will it matter who replaces them if the president still doesn't "feel the pain" of the working class? One of the great ironies of the Tea Party claims that Obama is a Marxist and born in Kenya, is that he really is a product of the US educational elite. He went to the top private school in Hawaii, graduated from Columbia University and went on to head the Harvard Law Review. Then he ended up teaching at the University of Chicago Law School while pursuing a career in politics.
Obama and his wife may have been raised middle class, but their advanced schooling is Ivy League (although the president spent his first two undergraduate years at the prestigious Occidental College). Somewhere along the way, did the president toss his lot in with his classmates, the ruling elite from America's top schools? One can certainly make a case that the answer is "yes."
Bill Clinton went to Georgetown and Yale Law, but he managed to mix neoliberal economic policies with a personal empathy and feeling for the working class. Even at the height of his impeachment, his polling numbers remained very high. He was more "Bubba" - personal flaws and all - to many Americans than Yale Law School.
President Obama can literally afford to be patient. Those who are unemployed, those who are underemployed and those who have seen their standard of living fall are looking for someone who surrounds himself with advocates of Main Street not Wall Street. Their patience is wearing thin.
4) NEWS about blood technology.
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You've heard of blood diamonds from Africa? Well how about blood iPhones? How about blood cell phones? How about blood laptops?
Most of us are enthusiasts for the advanced technological age, and Americans - being champion consumers - are in love with the latest electronic gadgets.
But film star Ashley Judd, of all people, is drawing attention to how the natural resources that are essential to modern electronic innovations fuel bloody wars in some third world nations, particularly in Africa - and specifically in the Congo. Illegal militias compete to obtain and sell the "conflict minerals," and in their wake, women are raped and children murdered due to the lawlessness.
And on the other side of the world, the quickly outdated electronic equipment we discard is sent often to Southeast Asia where children are exposed to toxic chemicals as they try to salvage parts from scrap heaps.
In an article in CNN, Judd asked: "Will we abandon tens of thousands of girls and women already incapacitated by the extraordinary violence done to their bodies and spirits, crippling a whole society? Will we abandon those who will be raped, either again, or for the first time, by armed militia extracting the minerals used in the electronics we love and rely on? Or, will we as consumers, as Americans, as members of the human race, take these simple actions, sustained over time, to make gender violence atrocities stop?"
We must each know that we cannot feel guilt free about our love affair with technology, while so many suffer as a result for our "bargains."
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You've heard of blood diamonds from Africa? Well how about blood iPhones? How about blood cell phones? How about blood laptops?
Most of us are enthusiasts for the advanced technological age, and Americans - being champion consumers - are in love with the latest electronic gadgets.
But film star Ashley Judd, of all people, is drawing attention to how the natural resources that are essential to modern electronic innovations fuel bloody wars in some third world nations, particularly in Africa - and specifically in the Congo. Illegal militias compete to obtain and sell the "conflict minerals," and in their wake, women are raped and children murdered due to the lawlessness.
And on the other side of the world, the quickly outdated electronic equipment we discard is sent often to Southeast Asia where children are exposed to toxic chemicals as they try to salvage parts from scrap heaps.
In an article in CNN, Judd asked: "Will we abandon tens of thousands of girls and women already incapacitated by the extraordinary violence done to their bodies and spirits, crippling a whole society? Will we abandon those who will be raped, either again, or for the first time, by armed militia extracting the minerals used in the electronics we love and rely on? Or, will we as consumers, as Americans, as members of the human race, take these simple actions, sustained over time, to make gender violence atrocities stop?"
We must each know that we cannot feel guilt free about our love affair with technology, while so many suffer as a result for our "bargains."
5) NEWS about, ........what.
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I got an email today from Sarah Palin. She asked me to join her "in the fight to restore American greatness." For $950.00, I could even get a photo taken with her in Orlando, Florida, with proceeds going to the Republican National Committee.
Thinking about how we have now entered our tenth year of military conflict in Afghanistan (it was our ninth anniversary of war there yesterday), I couldn't help but wonder what "American greatness" in bringing "conservative leadership back to America" would accomplish. Didn't such leadership get us into this war without end in the first place? Didn't such leadership get us into this economic mess by turning Wall Street into a casino and Main Street into a ghost town? Didn't such leadership run up the deficit on tax cuts for the rich and military spending?
When the best equipped, high-tech military in the world can't defeat a ragtag group of fundamentalists right out of the Middle Ages, I'd call it a defeat by now. There is no victory option, unless Palin wants to blanket bomb Afghanistan and pave it over, making it one big truck stop where they can play country music.
Mark Twain wrote, "you can't pray a lie." And as much as fundamentalist "conservatives" might try, reality has a way of peeling off the truth.
By any standard, we've "lost" the war in Afghanistan, and the US can't afford it anymore anyway. The ATM machine for America has closed.
So, Sarah Palin, I must decline your email request. You might be able to restore a "fantasy of American greatness," but it'll have as much impact on the deterioration of our empire as a trip to Disneyland.
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I got an email today from Sarah Palin. She asked me to join her "in the fight to restore American greatness." For $950.00, I could even get a photo taken with her in Orlando, Florida, with proceeds going to the Republican National Committee.
Thinking about how we have now entered our tenth year of military conflict in Afghanistan (it was our ninth anniversary of war there yesterday), I couldn't help but wonder what "American greatness" in bringing "conservative leadership back to America" would accomplish. Didn't such leadership get us into this war without end in the first place? Didn't such leadership get us into this economic mess by turning Wall Street into a casino and Main Street into a ghost town? Didn't such leadership run up the deficit on tax cuts for the rich and military spending?
When the best equipped, high-tech military in the world can't defeat a ragtag group of fundamentalists right out of the Middle Ages, I'd call it a defeat by now. There is no victory option, unless Palin wants to blanket bomb Afghanistan and pave it over, making it one big truck stop where they can play country music.
Mark Twain wrote, "you can't pray a lie." And as much as fundamentalist "conservatives" might try, reality has a way of peeling off the truth.
By any standard, we've "lost" the war in Afghanistan, and the US can't afford it anymore anyway. The ATM machine for America has closed.
So, Sarah Palin, I must decline your email request. You might be able to restore a "fantasy of American greatness," but it'll have as much impact on the deterioration of our empire as a trip to Disneyland.
6) NEWS about water.
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Water is becoming the new oil, except that we can live without petroleum, but not without H20.
Of course, now that fresh water is becoming scarce in some parts of the world and oil is being depleted, corporations have figured out that ownership of water reserves is the new gravy train for exorbitant profits.
That's why this year, Blog Action Day on October 15 is devoted to water.
Of course, they'll be no water for anybody if we keep polluting our increasingly limited supply - and if global warming proceeds unchecked.
It is increasingly frightening to contemplate that we might have to pay corporations for access to drinkable water. In some places, this is already a reality, as mega-international water corporations have emerged triumphant.
If you think free, clean water is a basic human right, there are some multibillion dollar companies betting against you, and they increasingly hold the winning hand.
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Water is becoming the new oil, except that we can live without petroleum, but not without H20.
Of course, now that fresh water is becoming scarce in some parts of the world and oil is being depleted, corporations have figured out that ownership of water reserves is the new gravy train for exorbitant profits.
That's why this year, Blog Action Day on October 15 is devoted to water.
Of course, they'll be no water for anybody if we keep polluting our increasingly limited supply - and if global warming proceeds unchecked.
It is increasingly frightening to contemplate that we might have to pay corporations for access to drinkable water. In some places, this is already a reality, as mega-international water corporations have emerged triumphant.
If you think free, clean water is a basic human right, there are some multibillion dollar companies betting against you, and they increasingly hold the winning hand.
7) NEWS about a tale of two Americas.
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It was Howard Zinn who made that abundantly clear when he wrote an American history textbook from a progressive perspective. It is a viewpoint that does not go down well with the Sarah Palins of the world who believe in "American exceptionalism," or those who over the years have shouted, "America, love it or leave it."
The notion of America being divinely inspired by a Christian God implies that it can do no wrong, and that an unregulated "free market" is a "gift" to be shared around the world, even if it is at gun point.
America, as Zinn wrote, wasn't "discovered"; it was conquered, and in an extremely cruel fashion as it expanded west.
Yet, the Constitution of the US is a remarkable document that allows for democracy to grow and evolve, and enables dynamic change. We were founded on revolutionary principles of equality, of freedom of worship and of individual - not corporate - rights.
The America that the Tea Party, Glenn Beck and the Republican Party want to return to is a nation lost in the past. It is to move backward, not forward.
To return to their America is like viewing a historical exhibit frozen in time.
The second America is one in which "the dream" is to move forward, to adapt to a changing demographic in our democracy, to allow individual ingenuity to thrive (against institutional corporate suppression) and to take a leadership role in uniting the world rather than bombing it.
It's a tale of two Americas: one moves us backward, the other moves us into a promising future.
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It was Howard Zinn who made that abundantly clear when he wrote an American history textbook from a progressive perspective. It is a viewpoint that does not go down well with the Sarah Palins of the world who believe in "American exceptionalism," or those who over the years have shouted, "America, love it or leave it."
The notion of America being divinely inspired by a Christian God implies that it can do no wrong, and that an unregulated "free market" is a "gift" to be shared around the world, even if it is at gun point.
America, as Zinn wrote, wasn't "discovered"; it was conquered, and in an extremely cruel fashion as it expanded west.
Yet, the Constitution of the US is a remarkable document that allows for democracy to grow and evolve, and enables dynamic change. We were founded on revolutionary principles of equality, of freedom of worship and of individual - not corporate - rights.
The America that the Tea Party, Glenn Beck and the Republican Party want to return to is a nation lost in the past. It is to move backward, not forward.
To return to their America is like viewing a historical exhibit frozen in time.
The second America is one in which "the dream" is to move forward, to adapt to a changing demographic in our democracy, to allow individual ingenuity to thrive (against institutional corporate suppression) and to take a leadership role in uniting the world rather than bombing it.
It's a tale of two Americas: one moves us backward, the other moves us into a promising future.
8) NEWS about Big Banks on the Brink.
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"Scandal is spreading across Wall St. like a very bad case of poison ivy. A rash of fraudulent home foreclosures has exposed some of the nation's biggest banks to an even worse condition ... bankruptcy.
Until late 2007, the money boys on Wall St. made a bundle in the housing market. After the bubble burst, they were just itching to cash in on the down side, calling in all those bad loans they made and selling off millions of repossessed homes.
According to RealtyTrac, Inc., which compiles such data, lenders foreclosed on 3.2 million properties in the last three years, 288,000 in the last quarter, the highest number on record."
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"Scandal is spreading across Wall St. like a very bad case of poison ivy. A rash of fraudulent home foreclosures has exposed some of the nation's biggest banks to an even worse condition ... bankruptcy.
Until late 2007, the money boys on Wall St. made a bundle in the housing market. After the bubble burst, they were just itching to cash in on the down side, calling in all those bad loans they made and selling off millions of repossessed homes.
According to RealtyTrac, Inc., which compiles such data, lenders foreclosed on 3.2 million properties in the last three years, 288,000 in the last quarter, the highest number on record."
9) NEWS about a different Halloween.
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Sinclair Lewis once wrote, "When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross."
Jeff Fecke, in a Google group entry received by BuzzFlash, comments on how that disturbing specter is emerging today:
"The path that the Palins and Angles and Millers and their ilk would have us take is the same that Mussolini charted for Italy. They've prettied it up, of course. They've sanded off the edges. And they've added the extra dimension of religion to it - the idea that we are fighting a war against Islam, which is in league with socialism, and that Christianity must be bolstered."
Fecke reflects on how hesitant we are to use the word "fascism" to describe Americans who seek simple answers to complex problems through authoritarian leadership and religious and racial purity.
The US is in the midst of a tumultuous economic and identity crisis. As a nation, we are impatient with long-term solutions and want the quick fix. The raw, emotional appeal of "restoring" dreams of grandeur by blaming America's difficulties on scapegoats leads to support for peddlers of mythic glory and the affirmation of one's racial and religious identity, as long as it is white and Christian.
The belief in a Christian "American exceptionalism" inevitably leads to submission to the state under the power of individuals who anoint themselves upholders of the Bible and a self-serving vision of the Constitution.
"Because they believe that they are the saviors of their nation, they are willing to do almost anything to gain power - lie, pull dirty tricks and resort to violence against political opponents," Fecke writes. "Indeed, in every country where this philosophy has taken hold, it has used extrajudicial action by its members to intimidate its opponents."
This is no passing Halloween nightmare.
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Sinclair Lewis once wrote, "When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross."
Jeff Fecke, in a Google group entry received by BuzzFlash, comments on how that disturbing specter is emerging today:
"The path that the Palins and Angles and Millers and their ilk would have us take is the same that Mussolini charted for Italy. They've prettied it up, of course. They've sanded off the edges. And they've added the extra dimension of religion to it - the idea that we are fighting a war against Islam, which is in league with socialism, and that Christianity must be bolstered."
Fecke reflects on how hesitant we are to use the word "fascism" to describe Americans who seek simple answers to complex problems through authoritarian leadership and religious and racial purity.
The US is in the midst of a tumultuous economic and identity crisis. As a nation, we are impatient with long-term solutions and want the quick fix. The raw, emotional appeal of "restoring" dreams of grandeur by blaming America's difficulties on scapegoats leads to support for peddlers of mythic glory and the affirmation of one's racial and religious identity, as long as it is white and Christian.
The belief in a Christian "American exceptionalism" inevitably leads to submission to the state under the power of individuals who anoint themselves upholders of the Bible and a self-serving vision of the Constitution.
"Because they believe that they are the saviors of their nation, they are willing to do almost anything to gain power - lie, pull dirty tricks and resort to violence against political opponents," Fecke writes. "Indeed, in every country where this philosophy has taken hold, it has used extrajudicial action by its members to intimidate its opponents."
This is no passing Halloween nightmare.
10) NEWS about how a lie becomes the truth.
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Repeat a lie five times and it becomes the truth; that's the Republican/Tea Party/Fox mantra.
NPR reported on a poll that a large segment of American voters are flat-out wrong when it comes to major issues, and other recent polls have confirmed this. The logical result of this is that many, many US citizens will go to the polls and vote based on misinformation - in fact, lies.
Part of this is, as I have mentioned, due to a dreadful White House messaging machine. But the most pernicious vehicle for creating a public disengaged from reality has been the emergence of television over a half century as an unaccountable purveyor of political bias, sensationalism and profiteering, including from negative political ads. After the Citizens United decision, now more than ever, corporations simply put the money in the machine that finances this dangerous political charade.
For most of the nation, we have gone backward into a post-literate society where the mere statement of something on television, reinforced by the right-wing radio stations, becomes impenetrable facts to emotionally charged people who no longer rely on the written word or research for deciding what is factual.
The majority of middle Americans earning under $250,000 a year apparently are unaware that they received a tax cut under the stimulus package and are voting, therefore, about what they believe to be tax increases on them.
The television and omnipresence of plasma screens have turned so many of us into year-long Halloween zombies. Maybe we should change our national motto to, "I know it's true; I heard it on TV."
11) NEWS about investing offshore.
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When the wealthiest Americans use their excessive tax breaks to invest offshore, they do nothing to create jobs for Americans.
And that appears to be just what many of them are doing.
According to a November 20 article in The New York Times,"Well-heeled American investors have been doing something lately that they resisted for decades - becoming more like their European, Asian and Latin American counterparts and substantially diversifying their portfolios outside their home country."
The Times adds, "The people putting as much as 40 percent of their portfolios into nondollar investments are quite wealthy."
Even if they invest much of their Bush tax cut windfalls in American stocks, bonds, and hedge funds, they are doing little to create jobs, although they are receiving a lot of profit. Much of today's large corporate profitability comes from off shoring jobs to the cheapest labor markets and downsizing American jobs to the maximum amount.
Increasingly, American corporations that do sell goods have them manufactured overseas (the vast majority of consumer electronic technology is made and assembled abroad), making profits from domestic consumer purchase of items produced outside of the United States. In short, increased consumer demand in many economic sectors means more jobs abroad, fewer at home, and increased working- and middle-class debt in America.
The sorry state of the US economy that politicians of neither party will address is stunning. According to an expert quoted by the Times, "the United States contributed 40 percent of global gross domestic product 15 years ago and now contributed 21 percent. He predicted that that figure would fall to 12 percent in another 15 years. Going along with this is the shrinking market capitalization of American stocks compared with global stocks."
By financing tax cuts for the wealthy through a growing deficit, we are just helping to accelerate the decline in American economic power and the net outflow of jobs from the US.
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When the wealthiest Americans use their excessive tax breaks to invest offshore, they do nothing to create jobs for Americans.
And that appears to be just what many of them are doing.
According to a November 20 article in The New York Times,"Well-heeled American investors have been doing something lately that they resisted for decades - becoming more like their European, Asian and Latin American counterparts and substantially diversifying their portfolios outside their home country."
The Times adds, "The people putting as much as 40 percent of their portfolios into nondollar investments are quite wealthy."
Even if they invest much of their Bush tax cut windfalls in American stocks, bonds, and hedge funds, they are doing little to create jobs, although they are receiving a lot of profit. Much of today's large corporate profitability comes from off shoring jobs to the cheapest labor markets and downsizing American jobs to the maximum amount.
Increasingly, American corporations that do sell goods have them manufactured overseas (the vast majority of consumer electronic technology is made and assembled abroad), making profits from domestic consumer purchase of items produced outside of the United States. In short, increased consumer demand in many economic sectors means more jobs abroad, fewer at home, and increased working- and middle-class debt in America.
The sorry state of the US economy that politicians of neither party will address is stunning. According to an expert quoted by the Times, "the United States contributed 40 percent of global gross domestic product 15 years ago and now contributed 21 percent. He predicted that that figure would fall to 12 percent in another 15 years. Going along with this is the shrinking market capitalization of American stocks compared with global stocks."
By financing tax cuts for the wealthy through a growing deficit, we are just helping to accelerate the decline in American economic power and the net outflow of jobs from the US.
12) NEWS about 21st century surrealism.
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Salvador Dali was the master of surrealism, but the Obama administration gave him some competition this week.
The Obama/Clinton State Department warned staff members not to read the WikiLeaks cables that many of the same staff members wrote and had access to, prior to the leak, on a classified government site.
According to The Christian Science Monitor, "The US State Department has directed its staff around the world not to surf the WikiLeaks website, according to employees. The ban is in response to WikiLeaks' decision to publish classified material."
Even more bizarre and chilling: students at Columbia University were allegedly warned that if they surfed WikiLeaks and discussed the contents online, they risked future careers in government. The Tech Herald and other publications reported:
If you are thinking about working for the government, but have recently used social media platforms to link to or discuss WikiLeaks’ cablegate materials, you can likely kiss that potential career path goodbye.
An e-mail forwarded by a student enrolled at the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia is making the rounds on the Internet this weekend. The e-mail, which is said to have originated from the Columbia University’s Office of Career Services, warns anyone aspiring for a government job that WikiLeaks is off limits.
Further news reports indicated that all federal workers have been essentially banned from viewing the WikiLeaks site, while the US government plays whack-a-mole by continuing to try to close the site down - as well as getting PayPal to stop processing funds for financing WikiLeaks and Amazon to stop hosting it.
But WikiLeaks has become the Internet version of the old Soviet samizdat movement, and keeps popping up in "mirrored" sites hosted by supporters of transparency around the world.
While certainly some government activity needs to be conducted in secret, these cables are more embarrassing to those in power than damaging to national security. They enlighten the public and foster transparency.
A BuzzFlash reader emailed me this quotation from John F. Kennedy: "We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies and competitive values. For a nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people."
That's what Barack Obama promised the American people during his 2008 campaign, but apparently he changed his mind and decided to hang up an iron curtain between US citizens and the truth.
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Salvador Dali was the master of surrealism, but the Obama administration gave him some competition this week.
The Obama/Clinton State Department warned staff members not to read the WikiLeaks cables that many of the same staff members wrote and had access to, prior to the leak, on a classified government site.
According to The Christian Science Monitor, "The US State Department has directed its staff around the world not to surf the WikiLeaks website, according to employees. The ban is in response to WikiLeaks' decision to publish classified material."
Even more bizarre and chilling: students at Columbia University were allegedly warned that if they surfed WikiLeaks and discussed the contents online, they risked future careers in government. The Tech Herald and other publications reported:
If you are thinking about working for the government, but have recently used social media platforms to link to or discuss WikiLeaks’ cablegate materials, you can likely kiss that potential career path goodbye.
An e-mail forwarded by a student enrolled at the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia is making the rounds on the Internet this weekend. The e-mail, which is said to have originated from the Columbia University’s Office of Career Services, warns anyone aspiring for a government job that WikiLeaks is off limits.
Further news reports indicated that all federal workers have been essentially banned from viewing the WikiLeaks site, while the US government plays whack-a-mole by continuing to try to close the site down - as well as getting PayPal to stop processing funds for financing WikiLeaks and Amazon to stop hosting it.
But WikiLeaks has become the Internet version of the old Soviet samizdat movement, and keeps popping up in "mirrored" sites hosted by supporters of transparency around the world.
While certainly some government activity needs to be conducted in secret, these cables are more embarrassing to those in power than damaging to national security. They enlighten the public and foster transparency.
A BuzzFlash reader emailed me this quotation from John F. Kennedy: "We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies and competitive values. For a nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people."
That's what Barack Obama promised the American people during his 2008 campaign, but apparently he changed his mind and decided to hang up an iron curtain between US citizens and the truth.
13) NEWS about a former vice president.
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Nigeria Files Charges Against Cheney in Halliburton Bribery Scheme
Jason Leopold, Truthout: "The former vice president was charged by Nigerian officials Tuesday along with eight other individuals in a bribery scheme involving the construction of a liquefied natural gas facility that took place while Cheney was chief executive of Halliburton. Halliburton and its one-time subsidiary, Kellogg, Brown & Root (KBR), were also charged, according to Nigerian prosecutor Godwin Obla. 'It includes Dick Cheney,' Obla said about the 16-count charge filed in Abuja, Nigeria's capital. 'There are conspiracy charges and giving gratification to public officers. There is also a charge for obstruction of justice.'"
Read the Article
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Nigeria Files Charges Against Cheney in Halliburton Bribery Scheme
Jason Leopold, Truthout: "The former vice president was charged by Nigerian officials Tuesday along with eight other individuals in a bribery scheme involving the construction of a liquefied natural gas facility that took place while Cheney was chief executive of Halliburton. Halliburton and its one-time subsidiary, Kellogg, Brown & Root (KBR), were also charged, according to Nigerian prosecutor Godwin Obla. 'It includes Dick Cheney,' Obla said about the 16-count charge filed in Abuja, Nigeria's capital. 'There are conspiracy charges and giving gratification to public officers. There is also a charge for obstruction of justice.'"
Read the Article
14) NEWS about core journalism.
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Support WikiLeaks and Defend Julian Assange!
Dave Lindorff, This Can't Be Happening: "The Obama administration has sunk to a new low in pursuing Assange, and is now having its so-called Justice Department try to manufacture a crime with which to prosecute Assange for doing precisely what real journalists should have been doing - namely exposing the criminal activities of the US government in engaging in acts of war and killing civilians in countries like Yemen and Pakistan where the US is not legally at war, in pressuring foreign allies like Spain on behalf of US companies, in trying to trump up bogus arguments to attack Iran with disinformation about alleged importation of long-range missiles from North Korea, etc."
Read the Article
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Support WikiLeaks and Defend Julian Assange!
Dave Lindorff, This Can't Be Happening: "The Obama administration has sunk to a new low in pursuing Assange, and is now having its so-called Justice Department try to manufacture a crime with which to prosecute Assange for doing precisely what real journalists should have been doing - namely exposing the criminal activities of the US government in engaging in acts of war and killing civilians in countries like Yemen and Pakistan where the US is not legally at war, in pressuring foreign allies like Spain on behalf of US companies, in trying to trump up bogus arguments to attack Iran with disinformation about alleged importation of long-range missiles from North Korea, etc."
Read the Article
15) NEWS and love from the White House.
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If you want some love from the White House, you may just have to become a Republican - or a Wall Street financial firm or a big oil corporation.
According to Politico, the White House "launches charm offensive with new GOP chairs." Meanwhile, progressive voices for social and economic justice get taken to the woodshed by the Obama administration.
But what if the White House were to launch sustained campaigns for bold, common-sense programs that would build America up instead of trying to kiss up to the obstructionist Republicans? What if it were to hammer home again and again on renewable energy, for instance?
Why don't we hear a consistent plan for reducing our dependency on oil, natural gas and coal? Because the White House appears to be like the Robert Redford character in the film, "The Candidate," who ran a masterful campaign, but when elected, could only utter, "What do we do now?”
Meanwhile, in Kristianstad, Sweden, according to The New York Times, "Using Waste, Swedish City Cuts Its Fossil Fuel Use":
When this city vowed a decade ago to wean itself from fossil fuels, it was a lofty aspiration, like zero deaths from traffic accidents or the elimination of childhood obesity.
But Kristianstad has already crossed a crucial threshold: the city and surrounding county, with a population of 80,000, essentially use no oil, natural gas or coal to heat homes and businesses, even during the long frigid winters. It is a complete reversal from 20 years ago, when all of their heat came from fossil fuels.
But this area in southern Sweden, best known as the home of Absolut vodka, has not generally substituted solar panels or wind turbines for the traditional fuels it has forsaken. Instead, as befits a region that is an epicenter of farming and food processing, it generates energy from a motley assortment of ingredients like potato peels, manure, used cooking oil, stale cookies and pig intestines.
Powering a city of 80,000 with waste products? That's not even including the likes of solar energy and wind power.
JFK declared the goal of putting a "man on the moon" - and we did. Why can't we end our dependency on fossil fuels?
Is it because there are too many companies with too much money that would lose out if we kicked the habit?
Is the White House not doing much about energy independence because they are so deferential to companies like BP and ExxonMobil? After all, they seem to be among those privileged insiders who get to feel the warmth of the White House love.
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If you want some love from the White House, you may just have to become a Republican - or a Wall Street financial firm or a big oil corporation.
According to Politico, the White House "launches charm offensive with new GOP chairs." Meanwhile, progressive voices for social and economic justice get taken to the woodshed by the Obama administration.
But what if the White House were to launch sustained campaigns for bold, common-sense programs that would build America up instead of trying to kiss up to the obstructionist Republicans? What if it were to hammer home again and again on renewable energy, for instance?
Why don't we hear a consistent plan for reducing our dependency on oil, natural gas and coal? Because the White House appears to be like the Robert Redford character in the film, "The Candidate," who ran a masterful campaign, but when elected, could only utter, "What do we do now?”
Meanwhile, in Kristianstad, Sweden, according to The New York Times, "Using Waste, Swedish City Cuts Its Fossil Fuel Use":
When this city vowed a decade ago to wean itself from fossil fuels, it was a lofty aspiration, like zero deaths from traffic accidents or the elimination of childhood obesity.
But Kristianstad has already crossed a crucial threshold: the city and surrounding county, with a population of 80,000, essentially use no oil, natural gas or coal to heat homes and businesses, even during the long frigid winters. It is a complete reversal from 20 years ago, when all of their heat came from fossil fuels.
But this area in southern Sweden, best known as the home of Absolut vodka, has not generally substituted solar panels or wind turbines for the traditional fuels it has forsaken. Instead, as befits a region that is an epicenter of farming and food processing, it generates energy from a motley assortment of ingredients like potato peels, manure, used cooking oil, stale cookies and pig intestines.
Powering a city of 80,000 with waste products? That's not even including the likes of solar energy and wind power.
JFK declared the goal of putting a "man on the moon" - and we did. Why can't we end our dependency on fossil fuels?
Is it because there are too many companies with too much money that would lose out if we kicked the habit?
Is the White House not doing much about energy independence because they are so deferential to companies like BP and ExxonMobil? After all, they seem to be among those privileged insiders who get to feel the warmth of the White House love.
16) NEWS about Corporate America.
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Serfing USA: Corporate America Is Robbing American Workers
Dave Lindorff, This Can't Be Happening: "Along with the staggering theft in broad daylight of Americans' assets that has occurred in the course of the ongoing financial crisis, as taxpayers funded multi-trillion bank bailouts and banks stole homes through foreclosures with the help of fraudulent paperwork, American companies have also been picking the pockets of workers more directly."
Read the Article
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Serfing USA: Corporate America Is Robbing American Workers
Dave Lindorff, This Can't Be Happening: "Along with the staggering theft in broad daylight of Americans' assets that has occurred in the course of the ongoing financial crisis, as taxpayers funded multi-trillion bank bailouts and banks stole homes through foreclosures with the help of fraudulent paperwork, American companies have also been picking the pockets of workers more directly."
Read the Article
17) NEWS about The Fed
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The Fed Has Spoken: No Bailout for Main Street
Ellen Brown, Truthout: "The Federal Reserve was set up by bankers, for bankers, and it has served them well. Out of the blue, the Fed came up with $12.3 trillion in nearly interest-free credit to bail the banks out of a credit crunch they created. That same credit crisis has plunged state and local governments into insolvency, but the Fed has now delivered its ultimatum: there will be no 'quantitative easing' for municipal governments."
Read the Article
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The Fed Has Spoken: No Bailout for Main Street
Ellen Brown, Truthout: "The Federal Reserve was set up by bankers, for bankers, and it has served them well. Out of the blue, the Fed came up with $12.3 trillion in nearly interest-free credit to bail the banks out of a credit crunch they created. That same credit crisis has plunged state and local governments into insolvency, but the Fed has now delivered its ultimatum: there will be no 'quantitative easing' for municipal governments."
Read the Article
18) NEWS about Obama Inc.
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Jim Hightower: "Exciting news, folks. Obama and team say they're recalibrating, recasting, retooling and rebranding his presidency! And they've come up with a dandy new slogan to sum it all up and get America moving again. Ready? 'Win the future.' Takes your breath away, doesn't it? If you're old enough to remember Gerald Ford's hapless presidency, Obama's fabulous new slogan might have a familiar ring to it."
Read the Article
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Jim Hightower: "Exciting news, folks. Obama and team say they're recalibrating, recasting, retooling and rebranding his presidency! And they've come up with a dandy new slogan to sum it all up and get America moving again. Ready? 'Win the future.' Takes your breath away, doesn't it? If you're old enough to remember Gerald Ford's hapless presidency, Obama's fabulous new slogan might have a familiar ring to it."
Read the Article
19) NEWS about, .... facts.
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Why do you go to jail for bouncing a couple of grocery checks, but get bonuses for cratering the American economy?
That's a good question, particularly now that an "official" inquiry has found that the Wall Street casino gambling that nearly collapsed our economy was preventable.
Richard J. Eskow writes in OurFuture.org:
The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission's report couldn't come at a better time. At a moment when it seems that Washington would rather forget what happened two years ago, it documents the opportunism, bad judgment, and criminality that crashed the world's economy once - and could again at any time.
An interconnected web of Wall Street criminality, discredited ideology, and politicians chasing big money - along with a surprising amount of executive incompetence - has caused continued suffering for millions. At a time when the nation's capital is convinced that CEOs need appeasing rather than policing, the FCIC report is a badly needed return to reality.
The establishment New York Times headlined its January 26 story on the commission quite simply, "Financial Crisis Was Avoidable, Inquiry Finds."
As Eskow further notes, "Wall Street executives weren't mentioned in the State of the Union or the Republican response."
Writing in BuzzFlash just a few days ago, Danny Schechter - who has repeatedly written and even made a documentary about Wall Street as a crime scene - predicted just that: Obama would not mention the looting and loss of hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars from the American economy. Nor has the Obama administration pursued any prosecution of the culprits. Instead, Obama golfs with them and appoints them to staff and advisory positions in the White House.
Shoplift a little and you get a court date and maybe jail time. Wreck the American economy with complete disregard for those impacted by your recklessness and lawlessness and you get hundreds of millions of dollars in bonuses.
The White House cannot move America into the "future," until it calls to account and rectifies the financial crimes of the past.
_______________________________________________
Why do you go to jail for bouncing a couple of grocery checks, but get bonuses for cratering the American economy?
That's a good question, particularly now that an "official" inquiry has found that the Wall Street casino gambling that nearly collapsed our economy was preventable.
Richard J. Eskow writes in OurFuture.org:
The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission's report couldn't come at a better time. At a moment when it seems that Washington would rather forget what happened two years ago, it documents the opportunism, bad judgment, and criminality that crashed the world's economy once - and could again at any time.
An interconnected web of Wall Street criminality, discredited ideology, and politicians chasing big money - along with a surprising amount of executive incompetence - has caused continued suffering for millions. At a time when the nation's capital is convinced that CEOs need appeasing rather than policing, the FCIC report is a badly needed return to reality.
The establishment New York Times headlined its January 26 story on the commission quite simply, "Financial Crisis Was Avoidable, Inquiry Finds."
As Eskow further notes, "Wall Street executives weren't mentioned in the State of the Union or the Republican response."
Writing in BuzzFlash just a few days ago, Danny Schechter - who has repeatedly written and even made a documentary about Wall Street as a crime scene - predicted just that: Obama would not mention the looting and loss of hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars from the American economy. Nor has the Obama administration pursued any prosecution of the culprits. Instead, Obama golfs with them and appoints them to staff and advisory positions in the White House.
Shoplift a little and you get a court date and maybe jail time. Wreck the American economy with complete disregard for those impacted by your recklessness and lawlessness and you get hundreds of millions of dollars in bonuses.
The White House cannot move America into the "future," until it calls to account and rectifies the financial crimes of the past.
20) NEWS about State of the Union ....... hokum.
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President Obama's "Sputnik moment" State of the Union Speech had something for everyone - and therein lies the problem.
He boasted about the stock market going up and record corporate profits, but companies are still shipping jobs overseas and sitting on their profits or sending them as dividends to shareholders. There is a disconnect between Wall Street's greed and the creation of jobs that Obama doesn't appear to fundamentally understand.
In fact, he called for national unity in the creation of jobs in the same speech in which he touted free-trade agreements, which has been a key catalyst for companies closing factories in the US and finding cheaper labor overseas.
Obama also called for a freeze on discretionary spending at the same time he was cheerleading for investment in rebuilding our nation's infrastructure.
He gave into the deficit hawks, but bragged about the longest war in our history in Afghanistan, which is eating up hundreds of billions of dollars in spending.
He did vaguely support Medicare and Social Security, but blamed rising health care costs for Medicare's "problems," including giving his support to the bogus GOP claim that capping malpractice suits will have a significant impact on medical charges.
He called for eliminating subsidies for oil companies, but was not specific about how the government would help advance a potential job and long-term cost savings windfall in the form of renewable energy and alternative mass transportation, which he appears to support mostly in the abstract. (Although, there was some funding for these ideas in the stimulus package.) And the president includes nuclear energy and "clean coal" in his concept of alternative energy sources.
Basically, ever the mediator, Obama promised something for everybody, when - in doing so - there are fundamental contradictions in implementing all those expectations.
Obama did what he does best: avoid conflict by trying to ignore it.
But, in the end, that's like throwing spaghetti on the wall.
_______________________________________________
President Obama's "Sputnik moment" State of the Union Speech had something for everyone - and therein lies the problem.
He boasted about the stock market going up and record corporate profits, but companies are still shipping jobs overseas and sitting on their profits or sending them as dividends to shareholders. There is a disconnect between Wall Street's greed and the creation of jobs that Obama doesn't appear to fundamentally understand.
In fact, he called for national unity in the creation of jobs in the same speech in which he touted free-trade agreements, which has been a key catalyst for companies closing factories in the US and finding cheaper labor overseas.
Obama also called for a freeze on discretionary spending at the same time he was cheerleading for investment in rebuilding our nation's infrastructure.
He gave into the deficit hawks, but bragged about the longest war in our history in Afghanistan, which is eating up hundreds of billions of dollars in spending.
He did vaguely support Medicare and Social Security, but blamed rising health care costs for Medicare's "problems," including giving his support to the bogus GOP claim that capping malpractice suits will have a significant impact on medical charges.
He called for eliminating subsidies for oil companies, but was not specific about how the government would help advance a potential job and long-term cost savings windfall in the form of renewable energy and alternative mass transportation, which he appears to support mostly in the abstract. (Although, there was some funding for these ideas in the stimulus package.) And the president includes nuclear energy and "clean coal" in his concept of alternative energy sources.
Basically, ever the mediator, Obama promised something for everybody, when - in doing so - there are fundamental contradictions in implementing all those expectations.
Obama did what he does best: avoid conflict by trying to ignore it.
But, in the end, that's like throwing spaghetti on the wall.
21) NEWS about GE, Ronald R. and the White House
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As the 100th anniversary of Ronald Reagan approaches
on February 6th, it is hard to escape the Republican voices clamoring for sainthood to be bestowed on the Gipper.
What did Ronald Reagan ever do for non-wealthy Americans beyond becoming the symbol of a belief that being born white and in the U.S. makes one exceptional? Indeed, his game-changing accomplishment - using carefully crafted scripts and symbols developed by aides - was bestowing an acceptance of the inevitability of corporate governance.
As most people know, Reagan was a "B" movie star until General Electric hired him to both host a GE television series and become a corporate spokesperson around the nation. Reagan was so successful as a corporate pitchman that a group of extremely conservative and wealthy backers put up the money to position him as a political candidate who would espouse the corporate ethos.
General Electric is so proud of their role in launching Reagan that they are now advertising an Internet tribute to him, "Rendezvous With Destiny: Reagan's journey from GE to the White House." In fact GE describes the film as depicting "how he rose from GE brand ambassador to 40th president of the United States."
As the recent appointment of Jeffrey Immelt, current CEO of GE, to head President Obama's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness -- at a time that GE is a leader in outsourcing jobs and off shoring revenue - shows, GE's investment in Reagan is still paying big dividends. In fact, Immelt, noting that the benefits corporations will have by being dealers inside the government went so far as to say, in 2009, "We're all Democrats now." As progressive journalist David Sirota recently noted, Obama gets the trade-off of a corporate honcho who can help raise money for his re-election.
It's all very cozy, except that Immelt is an expert at shipping jobs overseas, not creating them in the U.S.
The trajectory that GE began when Reagan became its corporate carnival barker is now accepted by both parties: the American government has become a virtual subsidiary of international corporations who just happen to be headquartered in the U.S.
______________________________________________
As the 100th anniversary of Ronald Reagan approaches
on February 6th, it is hard to escape the Republican voices clamoring for sainthood to be bestowed on the Gipper.
What did Ronald Reagan ever do for non-wealthy Americans beyond becoming the symbol of a belief that being born white and in the U.S. makes one exceptional? Indeed, his game-changing accomplishment - using carefully crafted scripts and symbols developed by aides - was bestowing an acceptance of the inevitability of corporate governance.
As most people know, Reagan was a "B" movie star until General Electric hired him to both host a GE television series and become a corporate spokesperson around the nation. Reagan was so successful as a corporate pitchman that a group of extremely conservative and wealthy backers put up the money to position him as a political candidate who would espouse the corporate ethos.
General Electric is so proud of their role in launching Reagan that they are now advertising an Internet tribute to him, "Rendezvous With Destiny: Reagan's journey from GE to the White House." In fact GE describes the film as depicting "how he rose from GE brand ambassador to 40th president of the United States."
As the recent appointment of Jeffrey Immelt, current CEO of GE, to head President Obama's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness -- at a time that GE is a leader in outsourcing jobs and off shoring revenue - shows, GE's investment in Reagan is still paying big dividends. In fact, Immelt, noting that the benefits corporations will have by being dealers inside the government went so far as to say, in 2009, "We're all Democrats now." As progressive journalist David Sirota recently noted, Obama gets the trade-off of a corporate honcho who can help raise money for his re-election.
It's all very cozy, except that Immelt is an expert at shipping jobs overseas, not creating them in the U.S.
The trajectory that GE began when Reagan became its corporate carnival barker is now accepted by both parties: the American government has become a virtual subsidiary of international corporations who just happen to be headquartered in the U.S.
22) NEWS about Education
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BuzzFlash and Truthout have written and posted several columns on how the conversation about education has been shifted from social, economic and creative context to blaming the public schoolteachers and principals. Add to this that standardized testing has become the benchmark of both the Bush and Obama administration's measure of schooling success - and you've shifted the conversation 180 degrees from the reality of failing schools in failing communities in a failing economy.
It's easy for Bush and Obama to blame public educators rather than deal with social and economic injustice (and the increasing corporate abandonment of the American workforce), as BuzzFlash pointed out in "Now George W. Bush Wants to 'Miseducate' Public School Principals."
But the emphasis on standardized testing in the so-called "race to the top" is actually a "race to the bottom" because it leads to a lack of critical thinking, innovation and individual ideas that helped make America a past leader in so many fields.
Standardized testing ensures good corporate consumers and uncritical vessels for the "conventional wisdom" of the mainstream media and government, but it doesn't create the Thomas Edisons of the future.
The Obama and Bush administration policies on public education are just aimed at avoiding the elephant in the room: a society with few jobs for those who graduate, and communities that function at a third-world level economically.
Go ahead, change the subject; blame the teachers and principals, but it's not going to change our social, employment and income distribution failures.
It's just a diversion of our attention from the real tasks that lie before us.
_______________________________________________
BuzzFlash and Truthout have written and posted several columns on how the conversation about education has been shifted from social, economic and creative context to blaming the public schoolteachers and principals. Add to this that standardized testing has become the benchmark of both the Bush and Obama administration's measure of schooling success - and you've shifted the conversation 180 degrees from the reality of failing schools in failing communities in a failing economy.
It's easy for Bush and Obama to blame public educators rather than deal with social and economic injustice (and the increasing corporate abandonment of the American workforce), as BuzzFlash pointed out in "Now George W. Bush Wants to 'Miseducate' Public School Principals."
But the emphasis on standardized testing in the so-called "race to the top" is actually a "race to the bottom" because it leads to a lack of critical thinking, innovation and individual ideas that helped make America a past leader in so many fields.
Standardized testing ensures good corporate consumers and uncritical vessels for the "conventional wisdom" of the mainstream media and government, but it doesn't create the Thomas Edisons of the future.
The Obama and Bush administration policies on public education are just aimed at avoiding the elephant in the room: a society with few jobs for those who graduate, and communities that function at a third-world level economically.
Go ahead, change the subject; blame the teachers and principals, but it's not going to change our social, employment and income distribution failures.
It's just a diversion of our attention from the real tasks that lie before us.
23) NEWS about our Common Heritage.
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http://www.truth-out.org/the-environment-our-common-heritage67665
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http://www.truth-out.org/the-environment-our-common-heritage67665
24) NEWS about the Chamber of Commerce
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When America's top business organization does its commerce out of a cesspool of dirty tricks and character assassination, it's another sign of the nation's moral corruption at the top of the "trickle down" ladder.
But that is what the Chamber of Commerce was apparently planning to do, in addition to its past dirty tricks. Indeed, ThinkProgress has run a series of investigative pieces exposing the character assassination plans of the Commerce's "subcontractors." In short, the chamber appeared to be planning to use the details of the personal lives of those involved in organizations that challenged it - and to blemish the characters of opponents and their friends and family members.
Brad Friedman of the Brad Blog was one of those whose life and that of his significant other were "investigated," including home address, phone and personal details. There is little question that the chamber was about to embark upon a campaign of personal attack, intimidation and discrediting.
But in a telephone conversation with Friedman this morning, he, for one, was not going to be bullied. He told BuzzFlash:
No matter how powerful the thugs and foes are, it is worth standing up to power and speaking the truth - if not you and me, then who? As I have always said, these are not matters of right and left, but matters of right and wrong.
What we are seeing now cuts across all party lines in being deplorable, and is just plain wrong.
Perhaps if more groups and individuals like those under attack by the chamber would have the fortitude and courage of those who put their lives on the line in Egypt for democracy, we would drive the Chamber of Commerce into retreat.
One positive sign is how fearful the Chamber of Commerce is at being exposed for what it is.
People like Brad Friedman need all of us to stand up to the chamber.
Remember, the chamber can be defeated, but it will take an army of advocates for democracy to hold firm against Nixonian dirty tricks.
_______________________________________________
When America's top business organization does its commerce out of a cesspool of dirty tricks and character assassination, it's another sign of the nation's moral corruption at the top of the "trickle down" ladder.
But that is what the Chamber of Commerce was apparently planning to do, in addition to its past dirty tricks. Indeed, ThinkProgress has run a series of investigative pieces exposing the character assassination plans of the Commerce's "subcontractors." In short, the chamber appeared to be planning to use the details of the personal lives of those involved in organizations that challenged it - and to blemish the characters of opponents and their friends and family members.
Brad Friedman of the Brad Blog was one of those whose life and that of his significant other were "investigated," including home address, phone and personal details. There is little question that the chamber was about to embark upon a campaign of personal attack, intimidation and discrediting.
But in a telephone conversation with Friedman this morning, he, for one, was not going to be bullied. He told BuzzFlash:
No matter how powerful the thugs and foes are, it is worth standing up to power and speaking the truth - if not you and me, then who? As I have always said, these are not matters of right and left, but matters of right and wrong.
What we are seeing now cuts across all party lines in being deplorable, and is just plain wrong.
Perhaps if more groups and individuals like those under attack by the chamber would have the fortitude and courage of those who put their lives on the line in Egypt for democracy, we would drive the Chamber of Commerce into retreat.
One positive sign is how fearful the Chamber of Commerce is at being exposed for what it is.
People like Brad Friedman need all of us to stand up to the chamber.
Remember, the chamber can be defeated, but it will take an army of advocates for democracy to hold firm against Nixonian dirty tricks.
25) NEWS about Bank of America.
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You Have More Money in Your Wallet Than Bank of America Pays in Federal Taxes
Zaid Jilani, ThinkProgress: "It wasn't teachers, fire fighters, policemen, and college students that caused the economic recession that has devastated government budgets - it was Wall Street. And as middle class workers are being asked to sacrifice, the rich continue to rig the system, dodging taxes and avoiding paying their fair share. In an interview with In These Times, Carl Gibson, the founder of US Uncut, which is organizing some of today's UK-inspired massive demonstrations against tax dodgers, explains .... you're paying more than the "combined income tax liability of GE, ExxonMobil, Citibank, and the Bank of America.'"
Read the Article
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You Have More Money in Your Wallet Than Bank of America Pays in Federal Taxes
Zaid Jilani, ThinkProgress: "It wasn't teachers, fire fighters, policemen, and college students that caused the economic recession that has devastated government budgets - it was Wall Street. And as middle class workers are being asked to sacrifice, the rich continue to rig the system, dodging taxes and avoiding paying their fair share. In an interview with In These Times, Carl Gibson, the founder of US Uncut, which is organizing some of today's UK-inspired massive demonstrations against tax dodgers, explains .... you're paying more than the "combined income tax liability of GE, ExxonMobil, Citibank, and the Bank of America.'"
Read the Article
26) NEWS about Nuclear Power.
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Norman Solomon | Nuclear Power Madness
Norman Solomon, Truthout: "Like every other president since the 1940s, Barack Obama has promoted nuclear power. Now, with reactors melting down in Japan, the official stance is more disconnected from reality than ever."
Read the Article
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Norman Solomon | Nuclear Power Madness
Norman Solomon, Truthout: "Like every other president since the 1940s, Barack Obama has promoted nuclear power. Now, with reactors melting down in Japan, the official stance is more disconnected from reality than ever."
Read the Article
27) NEWS about Radiation.
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Radiation: Nothing to See Here?
Brian Moench MD, Truthout: "Administration spokespeople continuously claim 'no threat' from the radiation reaching the US from Japan, just as they did with oil hemorrhaging into the Gulf. Perhaps we should all whistle 'Don't worry, be happy' in unison. A thorough review of the science, however, begs a second opinion. That the radiation is being released 5,000 miles away isn't as comforting as it seems. The Japanese reactors hold about 1,000 times more radiation than the bombs dropped over Hiroshima."
Read the Article
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Radiation: Nothing to See Here?
Brian Moench MD, Truthout: "Administration spokespeople continuously claim 'no threat' from the radiation reaching the US from Japan, just as they did with oil hemorrhaging into the Gulf. Perhaps we should all whistle 'Don't worry, be happy' in unison. A thorough review of the science, however, begs a second opinion. That the radiation is being released 5,000 miles away isn't as comforting as it seems. The Japanese reactors hold about 1,000 times more radiation than the bombs dropped over Hiroshima."
Read the Article
28) NEWS about Double Standards.
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Medea Benjamin and Charles Davis | Instead of Bombing Dictators, Stop Selling Them Bombs
Medea Benjamin and Charles Davis, Truthout: "When all you have is bombs, everything starts to look like a target. And so, after years of providing Libya's dictator with the weapons he's been using against his people, all the international community - France, Britain and the United States - has to offer the people of Libya is more bombs, this time dropped from the sky rather than delivered in a box to Muammar Qaddafi's palace."
Read the Article
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Medea Benjamin and Charles Davis | Instead of Bombing Dictators, Stop Selling Them Bombs
Medea Benjamin and Charles Davis, Truthout: "When all you have is bombs, everything starts to look like a target. And so, after years of providing Libya's dictator with the weapons he's been using against his people, all the international community - France, Britain and the United States - has to offer the people of Libya is more bombs, this time dropped from the sky rather than delivered in a box to Muammar Qaddafi's palace."
Read the Article
29) NEWS about Washington DC.
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Dean Baker | The Imaginary World in Which Washington Lives
Dean Baker, Truthout: "It is a beautiful spring day in Washington. This is a nice respite from the horrors taking place in Japan and the ever-growing nuttiness of DC politics. Enjoying the weather provides a nice alternative to listening to the news or reading the newspaper. The flood of nonsense in the traditional news outlets just continues to grow. At the top of the list is the steady stream of senators or members of Congress whose response to higher gas prices is to insist on drilling in every square inch of environmentally sensitive territory in the country. This is supposed to reduce our dependence on imported oil and lower the price of gas. Both sides of this assertion are absurd."
Read the Article
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Dean Baker | The Imaginary World in Which Washington Lives
Dean Baker, Truthout: "It is a beautiful spring day in Washington. This is a nice respite from the horrors taking place in Japan and the ever-growing nuttiness of DC politics. Enjoying the weather provides a nice alternative to listening to the news or reading the newspaper. The flood of nonsense in the traditional news outlets just continues to grow. At the top of the list is the steady stream of senators or members of Congress whose response to higher gas prices is to insist on drilling in every square inch of environmentally sensitive territory in the country. This is supposed to reduce our dependence on imported oil and lower the price of gas. Both sides of this assertion are absurd."
Read the Article
30) NEWS about Wall Street.
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One Lawman With the Guts to Go After Wall Street
Robert Scheer, Truthdig: "The fix was in to let the Wall Street scoundrels off the hook for the enormous damage they caused in creating the Great Recession. All of the leading politicians and officials, federal and state, Republican and Democrat, were on board to complete the job of saving the banks while ignoring their victims ... until last week when the attorney general of New York refused to go along. Eric Schneiderman will probably fail, as did his predecessors in that job; the honest sheriff doesn't last long in a town that houses the Wall Street casino. But decent folks should be cheering him on."
Read the Article
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One Lawman With the Guts to Go After Wall Street
Robert Scheer, Truthdig: "The fix was in to let the Wall Street scoundrels off the hook for the enormous damage they caused in creating the Great Recession. All of the leading politicians and officials, federal and state, Republican and Democrat, were on board to complete the job of saving the banks while ignoring their victims ... until last week when the attorney general of New York refused to go along. Eric Schneiderman will probably fail, as did his predecessors in that job; the honest sheriff doesn't last long in a town that houses the Wall Street casino. But decent folks should be cheering him on."
Read the Article
31) NEWS about psychopaths.
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Do Psychopaths Misrule Our World?
Greg Guma, Maverick Media: "The question is: Do psychopaths run the country and maybe the world? It only takes a few to destabilize a financial system, poison a community or destroy a business. Yet some studies suggest that, percentage-wise, there are more potential psychopaths among CEOs, directors and supervisors than in the general population, or even in prisons."
Read the Article
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Do Psychopaths Misrule Our World?
Greg Guma, Maverick Media: "The question is: Do psychopaths run the country and maybe the world? It only takes a few to destabilize a financial system, poison a community or destroy a business. Yet some studies suggest that, percentage-wise, there are more potential psychopaths among CEOs, directors and supervisors than in the general population, or even in prisons."
Read the Article
32) NEWS about Warren Buffet.
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“There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.”
Warren Buffet
Move the money part away from this guy, what's left, nothing.
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“There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.”
Warren Buffet
Move the money part away from this guy, what's left, nothing.
33) NEWS about the Free Market.
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There Is No Such Thing as a Free Market
Read an excerpt from Truthout's Progressive Pick of the Week, Ha-Joon Chang's "23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism": "What They Don’t Tell You: The free market doesn’t exist. Every market has some rules and boundaries that restrict freedom of choice. A market looks free only because we so unconditionally accept its underlying restrictions that we fail to see them. How 'free' a market is cannot be objectively defined. It is a political definition. The usual claim by free-market economists that they are trying to defend the market from politically motivated interference by the government is false. Government is always involved and those free-marketeers are as politically motivated as anyone. Overcoming the myth that there is such a thing as an objectively defined ‘free market’ is the first step towards understanding capitalism."
Read the Book Excerpt
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There Is No Such Thing as a Free Market
Read an excerpt from Truthout's Progressive Pick of the Week, Ha-Joon Chang's "23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism": "What They Don’t Tell You: The free market doesn’t exist. Every market has some rules and boundaries that restrict freedom of choice. A market looks free only because we so unconditionally accept its underlying restrictions that we fail to see them. How 'free' a market is cannot be objectively defined. It is a political definition. The usual claim by free-market economists that they are trying to defend the market from politically motivated interference by the government is false. Government is always involved and those free-marketeers are as politically motivated as anyone. Overcoming the myth that there is such a thing as an objectively defined ‘free market’ is the first step towards understanding capitalism."
Read the Book Excerpt
34) NEWS about our Planet
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You Can't Kill a Planet and Live on It, Too
Frank Joseph Smecker and Derrick Jensen, Truthout: "With an entire planet being slaughtered before our eyes, it's terrifying to watch the very culture responsible for this - the culture of industrial civilization, fueled by a finite source of fossil fuels, primarily a dwindling supply of oil - thrust forward wantonly to fuel its insatiable appetite for 'growth.' Deluded by myths of progress and suffering from the psychosis of technomania complicated by addiction to depleting oil reserves, industrial society leaves a crescendo of atrocities in its wake."
Read the Article
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You Can't Kill a Planet and Live on It, Too
Frank Joseph Smecker and Derrick Jensen, Truthout: "With an entire planet being slaughtered before our eyes, it's terrifying to watch the very culture responsible for this - the culture of industrial civilization, fueled by a finite source of fossil fuels, primarily a dwindling supply of oil - thrust forward wantonly to fuel its insatiable appetite for 'growth.' Deluded by myths of progress and suffering from the psychosis of technomania complicated by addiction to depleting oil reserves, industrial society leaves a crescendo of atrocities in its wake."
Read the Article
35) NEWS about Liberation and Wall Street
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Six Ways to Liberate America From Wall Street Rule
David Korten, Yes! Magazine: "The dominant story of the current political debate is that the government is broke. We can't afford to pay for public services, put people to work, or service the public debt. Yet as a nation, we are awash in money. A defective system of money, banking, and finance just puts it in the wrong places. A newly released report of the New Economy Working Group, coordinated by the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, DC, goes beyond the current debate to call for a deep restructuring of the institutions to which we as a society give the power to create and allocate money."
Read the Article
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Six Ways to Liberate America From Wall Street Rule
David Korten, Yes! Magazine: "The dominant story of the current political debate is that the government is broke. We can't afford to pay for public services, put people to work, or service the public debt. Yet as a nation, we are awash in money. A defective system of money, banking, and finance just puts it in the wrong places. A newly released report of the New Economy Working Group, coordinated by the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, DC, goes beyond the current debate to call for a deep restructuring of the institutions to which we as a society give the power to create and allocate money."
Read the Article
35) NEWS about Wal-Mart
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The world power companies are winning.
Let's imagine a company, say a global corporation like Wal-Mart.
Let's suppose that this behemoth retailer sells - among other consumer goods manufactured outside of the US - shirts made in China to unemployed textile workers in North Carolina whose factories were closed and whose jobs were moved overseas. After all, they can only afford to shop at this retailer because the prices are cheap, even though they are committing self-cannibalization by buying goods that they used to get paid to make, but now are made in foreign lands at great profit to the retailer.
Let's suppose that this retailer - again like Wal-Mart - has been showing flat sales at its stores open more than one year in America (the financial measurement of success for retailers) because consumer demand has stagnated due to unemployment and low wages. As a result, this global colossus of wealth accelerates its opening of stores around the world, where there is more opportunity for increasing sales and profits. It sees its future not in the United States, but abroad.
Let's suppose that this retailer pays minimum wage and relies on government subsidies for Medicaid for its workers in some states and even food stamps and other federal and state programs. Let's say this company also gets tax breaks and other incentives from local governments to open stores, at the taxpayer's expense.
Let's suppose that this corporation is among the wealthiest in the world, but employs a team of union busters to ensure that many of its employees are paid the lowest possible legal wages in the United States.
Let's suppose that the family that owns this retailer - again like Wal-Mart - benefits from tax cuts for the rich that could significantly help balance the budget - and the members of this family are among the wealthiest in the world.
Let's suppose that, due to campaign contributions to politicians and to its own virtual state department to nations such as China and India, this corporation's loyalties are to its own enrichment and not to the best interests of the United States or its workers.
Let's suppose that this company is not like Wal-Mart, but is Wal-Mart.
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The world power companies are winning.
Let's imagine a company, say a global corporation like Wal-Mart.
Let's suppose that this behemoth retailer sells - among other consumer goods manufactured outside of the US - shirts made in China to unemployed textile workers in North Carolina whose factories were closed and whose jobs were moved overseas. After all, they can only afford to shop at this retailer because the prices are cheap, even though they are committing self-cannibalization by buying goods that they used to get paid to make, but now are made in foreign lands at great profit to the retailer.
Let's suppose that this retailer - again like Wal-Mart - has been showing flat sales at its stores open more than one year in America (the financial measurement of success for retailers) because consumer demand has stagnated due to unemployment and low wages. As a result, this global colossus of wealth accelerates its opening of stores around the world, where there is more opportunity for increasing sales and profits. It sees its future not in the United States, but abroad.
Let's suppose that this retailer pays minimum wage and relies on government subsidies for Medicaid for its workers in some states and even food stamps and other federal and state programs. Let's say this company also gets tax breaks and other incentives from local governments to open stores, at the taxpayer's expense.
Let's suppose that this corporation is among the wealthiest in the world, but employs a team of union busters to ensure that many of its employees are paid the lowest possible legal wages in the United States.
Let's suppose that the family that owns this retailer - again like Wal-Mart - benefits from tax cuts for the rich that could significantly help balance the budget - and the members of this family are among the wealthiest in the world.
Let's suppose that, due to campaign contributions to politicians and to its own virtual state department to nations such as China and India, this corporation's loyalties are to its own enrichment and not to the best interests of the United States or its workers.
Let's suppose that this company is not like Wal-Mart, but is Wal-Mart.
36) NEWS about the pursuit of profit and its consequences.
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We’re deep in the battle over the fate of the United States. Will we solidify our government as a plutocracy - a late-stage empire that can serve only the interests of the super-rich? Will we continue to pursue policies around the globe that destroy the environment in pursuit of profits? Or will we retrench, and work to heal our bleeding political system before it’s too late?
The rest of the world is rising up against the cult of unrestrained free-market capitalism and money-power. From Tunisia to Egypt to Spain to Portugal to France to Germany to Greece to Israel to Chile to the UK, anti-austerity movements are on the rise, and the fight is playing out in chaotic, unpredictable and often tragic ways.
Everyone is asking why such a revolt isn’t happening here in the US.
One answer is simple - the US has invested billions of dollars in institutions that promote and protect consumerism-as-culture, both here and abroad. But activists around the country - whose hopes for change were dismantled over the past three years - are reuniting. The fight is coming here; it’s just a matter of time.
Our country is the epicenter of backwards, self-destructive, consumption-driven thinking. But it’s also the birthplace of amazing transformative struggles that have changed the world. Which side are you on?
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We’re deep in the battle over the fate of the United States. Will we solidify our government as a plutocracy - a late-stage empire that can serve only the interests of the super-rich? Will we continue to pursue policies around the globe that destroy the environment in pursuit of profits? Or will we retrench, and work to heal our bleeding political system before it’s too late?
The rest of the world is rising up against the cult of unrestrained free-market capitalism and money-power. From Tunisia to Egypt to Spain to Portugal to France to Germany to Greece to Israel to Chile to the UK, anti-austerity movements are on the rise, and the fight is playing out in chaotic, unpredictable and often tragic ways.
Everyone is asking why such a revolt isn’t happening here in the US.
One answer is simple - the US has invested billions of dollars in institutions that promote and protect consumerism-as-culture, both here and abroad. But activists around the country - whose hopes for change were dismantled over the past three years - are reuniting. The fight is coming here; it’s just a matter of time.
Our country is the epicenter of backwards, self-destructive, consumption-driven thinking. But it’s also the birthplace of amazing transformative struggles that have changed the world. Which side are you on?
37) NEWS about the Ultimate American Terrorist.
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William Rivers Pitt, Truthout: "It is axiomatic by now: when someone leaves government service, especially a high-profile position, they write a book.... Speaking of damaging the republic, Dick Cheney has a book out. I'm sure you've heard about it by now; he laid the groundwork for its release by claiming the contents would cause heads to explode in Washington, causing everyone to say 'Ooooh, this should be good.' It isn't, at all, but I must confess that my head did come very close to launching itself off my shoulders ... not because of what's in the book, but because I have to deal with the rancid reality of a free and unconvicted Dick Cheney appearing in the public eye once again. If there were any justice to be found in this deranged country, Dick Cheney would have penned his pestiferous, self-serving little memoir by the light of a bare bulb inside the cell of a federal prison."
Read the Article
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William Rivers Pitt, Truthout: "It is axiomatic by now: when someone leaves government service, especially a high-profile position, they write a book.... Speaking of damaging the republic, Dick Cheney has a book out. I'm sure you've heard about it by now; he laid the groundwork for its release by claiming the contents would cause heads to explode in Washington, causing everyone to say 'Ooooh, this should be good.' It isn't, at all, but I must confess that my head did come very close to launching itself off my shoulders ... not because of what's in the book, but because I have to deal with the rancid reality of a free and unconvicted Dick Cheney appearing in the public eye once again. If there were any justice to be found in this deranged country, Dick Cheney would have penned his pestiferous, self-serving little memoir by the light of a bare bulb inside the cell of a federal prison."
Read the Article
38) NEWS about to protect environmental protection.
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Business as Usual Is Destroying America
Evaggelos Vallianatos, Truthout: "Clearly, environmental protection was never a luxury to be weakened or taken away so that industry can go on making profits at the expense of human health and the undermining of life on earth. Yet, the political unanimity in business as usual is remarkable: money from the industries in question pollutes scientists at our universities and our politicians and presidents, both Republican and Democratic. The transition from the Republican George W. Bush to the Democrat Barack Obama brought some cosmetic changes to environmental protection, but the essentials of protecting business rather than human health and the natural world remain in place."
Read the Article
39) NEWS about poverty in the US.
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US Poverty Rate, One in Six at Highest Level in Years
Sabrina Tavernise, The New York Times News Service: "The portion of Americans living in poverty last year rose to the highest level since 1993, the Census Bureau reported Tuesday, fresh evidence that the sluggish economic recovery has done nothing for the country's poorest citizens."
Read the Article
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US Poverty Rate, One in Six at Highest Level in Years
Sabrina Tavernise, The New York Times News Service: "The portion of Americans living in poverty last year rose to the highest level since 1993, the Census Bureau reported Tuesday, fresh evidence that the sluggish economic recovery has done nothing for the country's poorest citizens."
Read the Article
40) NEWS about how does the 1 Percent Exploit America?
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Even in an Occupy world, most Americans don’t know exactly how the 1% does what it does. The mainstream media hasn’t explained it, and the 1% likes things that way.
That’s why we’ve created a new video series unmasking those in the 1% who are exploiting the 99%—name by name, fact by fact. Each short video—one minute apiece—lays out the truth about a different tycoon. These aren’t opinions; these are facts, condensed into bite-sized chunks. Occupy has already revealed the country’s widespread outrage at the 1%; now it’s time for the plutocracy’s dirty deeds to be common knowledge.
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Even in an Occupy world, most Americans don’t know exactly how the 1% does what it does. The mainstream media hasn’t explained it, and the 1% likes things that way.
That’s why we’ve created a new video series unmasking those in the 1% who are exploiting the 99%—name by name, fact by fact. Each short video—one minute apiece—lays out the truth about a different tycoon. These aren’t opinions; these are facts, condensed into bite-sized chunks. Occupy has already revealed the country’s widespread outrage at the 1%; now it’s time for the plutocracy’s dirty deeds to be common knowledge.
41) NEWS about the Environmental Movement.
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Why the Environmental Movement Is Not Winning
Peter Montague, AlterNet: "A searing new report says the environmental movement is not winning and lays the blame squarely on the failed policies of environmental funders. The movement hasn't won any 'significant policy changes at the federal level in the United States since the 1980s' because funders have favored top-down elite strategies and have neglected to support a robust grassroots infrastructure. Environmental funders spent a whopping $10 billion between 2000 and 2009 but achieved relatively little because they failed to underwrite grassroots groups that are essential for any large-scale change, the report says."
Read the Article
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Why the Environmental Movement Is Not Winning
Peter Montague, AlterNet: "A searing new report says the environmental movement is not winning and lays the blame squarely on the failed policies of environmental funders. The movement hasn't won any 'significant policy changes at the federal level in the United States since the 1980s' because funders have favored top-down elite strategies and have neglected to support a robust grassroots infrastructure. Environmental funders spent a whopping $10 billion between 2000 and 2009 but achieved relatively little because they failed to underwrite grassroots groups that are essential for any large-scale change, the report says."
Read the Article
42) NEWS about fraud, Wall Street and corporations.
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Are you as enraged as I am that many of the top Wall Street millionaires and billionaires continue to commit fraud with America's money and are never charged as criminals? Instead of prosecution, they are rewarded with a place on Forbes Richest People list.
That's why I have written several recent commentaries on the injustice of hundreds of thousands of people going to jail for smoking marijuana, while others stay free while defrauding the public of billions of dollars on behalf of their firms. This coverage is an example of how Truthout and BuzzFlash, seven days a week, keep a disciplined focus on issues that transcend the latest political campaign soundbites.
You won't hear much in campaign coverage about how Wall Street kingpins and corporate CEOs are breaking the law and getting away with it, with only fines to be paid out of their profits. In fact, as I have pointed out, we don't know of any case (although they must exist, right?) of any large Wall Street firm or corporation where fines have exceeded the profit made by engaging in what is normally known as stealing or fraud.
In short, on Wall Street and in many of our corporate boardrooms, crime does pay - both in net revenue and in not going to jail.