Archive for International
Michio Kaku Droppin’ Knowledge
Posted by: | CommentsEverything Michio Kaku sees in the newspapers points to our perilous transition from a tribal/nationalist civilization to a planetary civilization. Will we make it?
So, Who Are The Welfare Junkies?
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So much misdirected anger.
Over at Daily Kos, Zwoof has seen a rash of chain emails about “welfare junkies” who are “drug-fueled slackers.” Obligingly, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) has introduced the Welfare Reform Act of 2011 to discipline deadbeats on food stamps.
This is old news. It is Ronald Reagan’s “welfare queens” (1976) revisited. It is the Lee Atwater/Roger Ailes revolving door, “Willie Horton” campaign ads from 1988. It is the right blaming hurricane victims in New Orleans’ poor, Lower Ninth Ward in 2005 for not leaving town in their SUVs and checking into Shreveport or Dallas hotels until Hurricane Katrina blew herself out. It is conservatives blaming the 2008 financial meltdown on the 1977 Community Reinvestment Act. The government, you see, forced private mortgage lenders and Wall Street to fatten themselves on CDOs built from the “liar loans” they invented and sold to shiftless poor people. In the United Kingdom, it is BBC’s 2010 “The Scheme,” a series critics described as “poverty porn,” depicting welfare recipients that London’s tabloid Daily Mail calls “welfare junkies” (Well, what do you know?) and “foul-mouthed, lazy scroungers, cheats, layabouts, drunks, drug addicts” leeching off “the goodwill of taxpayers.”
Walking and Chewing Gum Redux
Posted by: | CommentsEvolve or perish. We’ve spoken about walking and chewing gum before and it’s back again. On the heels of this weekend’s Netroots New York conference that spent a lot of time on Occupy Wall Street, Robert Cruickshank (formerly with the Courage Campaign) offers reflections on the Progressive and Occupy movements and thinks it is time for a course correction:
It was time for a correction anyway. What we have learned is that winning elections isn’t on its own enough to produce change. What’s needed is a clear policy agenda and a strong external movement that can help progressives in power implement that agenda – and stop others in power from implementing a bad one. That requires a movement in which electoral organizing is just one piece. In other words, the progressive movement needs to grow not only in numbers but in the diversity of what it does.
That isn’t what drives most Occupiers, however. Occupy is also a rebuke of organized politics. They’re in the streets because they believe it’s the only way change can be produced. What it has revealed is that distrust of government is now rampant on the left as well as the right … Occupy’s choice of tactics reflected their belief that anyone in government was either incapable of helping or was determined to break the protest. And Occupy has brought a new group of people into political activism. New voices are popping up online, new leaders are emerging, and they are much less interested in the more incremental changes that the progressive movement had unfortunately become accustomed to accepting.
They’re mad. They’re Worldwide.
Posted by: | CommentsRaw Story, Activists launch worldwide protests:
Protesters launched worldwide street demonstrations Saturday against corporate greed and biting cutbacks in a rolling action targetting 951 cities in 82 countries.
CBS News, “Occupy Wall Street” protests go global:
(CBS/AP) NEW YORK — Americans protesting corporate greed and inequality faced down authorities in parks and plazas across the country ahead of what organizers describe as 24 hours of public action planned for Saturday in cities around the world.Groups spanning the globe from Asia to Europe — and in every U.S. state — announced demonstrations and other actions.
Reuters, Wall Street protests go global:
Demonstrators worldwide shouted their rage on Saturday against bankers and politicians they accuse of ruining economies and condemning millions to hardship through greed and bad government.
Galvanized by the Occupy Wall Street movement, the protests began in New Zealand, rippled round the world to Europe and were expected to return to their starting point in New York.
#OccupyWallStreet Hears From You Saturday
Posted by: | CommentsCNN: “Facebook calls for a global “Occupy” protest on October 15 similar to the Wall Street protests Demonstrations in more than 25 countries from Ireland to Italy, Hong Kong to Chile.”
More Saturday.
Declaration from Occupy NYC
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I’ve been watching the Occupy Events grow across the country and waiting to find out what it’s all about. As with so many left-leaning political efforts, there’s an air of everything-but-the-kitchen-sink to the issues raised. When I attended the protests against invading Iraq, I saw “Free Mumia”, “Keep Abortion Legal”, “End the Death Penalty”, and other activists out there piggy-backing on the message of the march.
When Occupy Wall Street began, I wondered if the same approach would occur. As of now, it’s uncertain. The movement is new, and as more people come to it, the purpose and message will adapt to meet their agendas. At some point, it’ll either boil down to something actionable (a la “Taxed Enough Already”) or it’ll peter out. Regardless of the outcome, the fact that lots of people are spontaneously coming together under interesting methods of self-governance to address local, national, and international issues is newsworthy.
In the interest of furthering the conversation about Occupy, I’m posting the “Declaration of the Occupation of New York City“. Click below the fold to read.
Refuse To Be Helpless
Posted by: | CommentsThe following is a guest post from frequent commenter, TJ.
2,976. One number with many names.
46. One number – the years of a man’s life.
9/11. A number we will never forget. The day all the numbers came together to end.
Jonathan. One name among many. All unfinished lives.
Why Do We Have to Pay for Anything?
Posted by: | CommentsFrank Rich asks, The 9/11 decade is now over. The terrorists lost. But who won?
Rich was on MSNBC to talk about his piece in New York Magazine that includes this:
By portraying Afghanistan and Iraq as utterly cost-free to a credulous public, the Bush administration injected the cancer into the American body politic that threatens it today: If we don’t need new taxes to fight two wars, why do we need them for anything? But that’s only half the story in this alternative chronicle of the decade’s history. Even as the middle class was promised a free ride, those at the top were awarded a free pass—not just with historically low tax rates that compounded America’s rampant economic inequality but with lax supervision of their own fiscal misbehavior.
To that point, the government just announced plans to sue several big banks for their fiscal misbehavior:
The federal agency that oversees the mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is set to file suits against more than a dozen big banks, accusing them of misrepresenting the quality of mortgage securities they assembled and sold at the height of the housing bubble, and seeking billions of dollars in compensation.The Federal Housing Finance Agency suits, which are expected to be filed in the coming days in federal court, are aimed at Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank, among others, according to three individuals briefed on the matter.
Hagan Holding The Football
Posted by: | CommentsAs the tumult over the S&P downgrade of U.S. debt continues, so does the fleecing of America. We are discussing slashing safety net programs that protect average citizens without jobs in this economy. Meanwhile, Washington considers the Freedom to Invest Act of 2011 (H.R.1834), corporate welfare for “super citizen” companies that moved those jobs offshore and hid profits there, too. The bill’s sponsor, Rep. Kevin Brady (R-Texas) received moral support last week from NC Democrat Sen. Kay Hagan:
“Until we see meaningful and sustained job growth, Senator Hagan is looking closely at any creative, short-term measures that can get bipartisan support and put people back to work,” said Hagan spokeswoman Sadie Weiner. “One such potential initiative is a well-crafted and temporary change to the tax code that encourages American companies to bring money home and put it towards capital, investment, and–most importantly–American jobs.”
Uh-huh.
