Discussion of “income inequality” is considered an out of date topic by some, but it’s as real, as significant and if we’re looking with open eyes and not through Duopoly supplied blinkers, as in-our-faces at this moment as it was when, for the obvious example, the Occupy movement made it “news.” The graph is via [...]
Tag Archives | OWS
Chris Hedges on ‘Debt Peonage’: That 1% – 99% Chasm Didn’t Disappear With the Corporate State Suppression of Occupy
“Stop beating the dead horse,” I was chastised when I kept paying attention to the Occupy movement beyond that sliver of attention deemed newsworthy. The movement evolved, still continues in various projects. I’ve never stopped paying attention. And for good, or really bad, reasons: the inequalities it helped reveal remain. Chris Hedges has also continued [...]
500 Years of Resistance [VIDEO]
Yesterday on Facebook I noticed a couple of posts making fun of the actions of Idle No More, a “worldwide indigenous movement,” and other groups acting in solidarity with INM. That came as I was thinking about what I’d read at Idle No More; at Roar Magazine, “A continuation of 500 years of indigenous resistance”; [...]
The ‘Fix the Debt’ Coalition of the Very Wealthy: The Rest of Us Need to Pay Attention
The Fix the Debt coalition is gaining more attention, no doubt in large part because its members are being very vocal and public. They are not shy about making known their interpretation and solutions of what ails the economy. And of course, another neat crisis – replete with “fiscal cliff” and “doomsday” gamemanship – is [...]
Austerity, Imposed From the Top To Bottom: The ‘Fix the Debt’ Spin
Some information and analysis follows, as we continue considering the DC created “fiscal cliff” (for example, see Fiscal Cliff & Shared Sacrifice: If You Build It, They Will Come), the debt/deficit, austerity, shared sacrifice, and all the other spins, going on for decades, on why the tiny number of people at the very top deserve [...]
Estimated 8000 Protest Austerity in Dublin: ‘Come Back St. Patrick. It’s Still Full of Snakes’
The quote in the headline is from a sign held by one of the thousands who participated in an “anti-austerity” march in Dublin on Friday. Follow the link to The Journal article that provides details and some great photos. The demonstration, organised by the Dublin Council of Trade Unions, is protesting cutbacks ahead of the [...]
Fiscal Cliff & Shared Sacrifice: If You Build It, They Will Come
These were all built by and for those who will profit from them; our job is to come to accept what we’re told about them: deficit reduction; fiscal cliff; shared sacrifice; entitlements; Grand Bargain; austerity; disemployment (Lambert Strether’s excellent term); privatization; too big to fail. That’s just a partial list, of course. Feel free to [...]
The ‘Brilliance’ of Occupy’s Rolling Jubilee Consumer Debt Cancellation Project (VIDEO)
The “brilliant” description of the Rolling Jubilee project is from Charles Eisenstein at The Guardian. At The Nation, Pat Garofalo introduces the initiative this way: Members of Occupy Wall Street — various branches of which have recently been saving families from foreclosure and aiding victims of Hurricane Sandy — have launched a new initiative. Coined [...]
Who Holds the Electorate Accountable?
We the Electorate regularly complain, with excellent and multiple reasons, about Electeds who don’t fulfill even some sliver of campaign promises. We fairly often talk about “accountability,” about that “holding their feet to the fire” thing. It’s a kind of campaign promise in reverse, Electorate to wannabe Electeds: I’ll be watching you. If you don’t [...]
An Election Eve Story: Responding to Superstorm and Electoral Disasters
This really isn’t a non-election story, just one from a practical, grass-roots, real life perspective, focused on people elections should be about. One consistent response from Electeds and those they serve to a disaster is making use of it to further their own, oligarchic, privatizing agenda. Electeds and those for whom they work will, to [...]
Climate Change and U.S. Weather Related Fatalities Since 9-11: 6,408
Yesterday I considered the questioned raised by Mark Hertsgaard, Can Sandy Help Jolt America Out of Climate Change Denial?. As I was thinking about this, I began wondering about another kind of catastrophic event, and the “jolt” it delivered which stays with us today: 9/11. It was a very different kind of thing, of course, [...]
‘Can Sandy Help Jolt America Out of Climate Change Denial?’
The question in the headline is posed by Mark Hertsgaard. I think it’s an excellent query. My guess as to the answer: A fairly skeptical maybe. Why do ordinary people reject “climate change”? We know why so many Electeds reject, ignore or at least minimize it: money. Which comes from those for whom they work, [...]
Lesser Evil Halloween: Grand Bargain, Corporate Suit Costumed Candidates Bringing Reign of Austerity
It’s Halloween. It’s time for things that scare us, for things that make us go perfectly still, hold our breath and listen very, very carefully for a sound of evil approaching. In election year 2012, though, it’s really not at all hard to hear the evil, or as it’s usually costumed, the “lesser evil,” since [...]
Why I’m Voting Green Party, by Joyce Arnold
As of tomorrow, there is one week remaining, and this round of politics as usual – with the largest amount of money ever spent, and no reason to think it won’t grow again in 2016 – will be over. Unless there’s a split in electoral and popular votes, and then it will be a while [...]
What People Are Saying About How You Should Vote: ‘The Progressive Case Against Obama,’ Matt Stoller
The fifth in an occasional series before November 6: At Salon Matt Stoller’s “The progressive case against Obama” is creating, shall we say, energetic conversation. I can only provide snippets, but strongly encourage you to go read the whole thing. Whether you agree or disagree with Stoller, he provides some information for thought and conversations. [...]
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