Oct 21 2012
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National Politics

Rest in Peace George McGovern

Govern in middle of photo showing solidarity with anti-war marchers, 1972. (from Time Life photo essay).

 

A tireless and shameless advocate for those principles of the Democratic party that Republicans loved to deride in the 80’s, George McGovern passed away last night at the age of 90.  A man who never backed down from his pro-worker, anti-war and pro-people principles, George McGovern’s legacy will live on.  Although the Republicans and corporate media have loved to refer to him as if an aged and ailing icon of the defeat of liberalism, McGovern never swerved and never changed his positions or beliefs because they existed at the core of who he was as a man and a politician.

Time Life photo essay

In August of 2011, Daily Kos writes on the highlights of a Harper’s magazine essay written by McGovern.  See here for an inside look into a man that hid behind a calm and somewhat bland demeanor, a man who had a good grasp of policy and politics and spoke out tirelessly for justice.

Daily Kos: George McGovern’s Open Letter to President Obama

McGovern opens his letter by recognizing some facts of our current situation.  He says that only FDR and Obama have inherited serious economic crises within the past 100 years.  He notes that FDR got through Congress most of the New Deal programs with little opposition.  However, he notes:

Like Roosevelt, President Barack Obama has inherited a serious economic crisis, but in his first two years in office he has met with an even worse problem: the rigid opposition of the rival party leaders to national health care and nearly every other proposal he has made…Neither during my four years in the House of Representatives, when Dwight D. Eisenhower was in the White House, nor through eighteen years in the U.S. Senate, under John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon, have I witnessed any president thwarted by the kind of narrow partisanship that has beset Obama…What has happened, one is compelled to ask, to the love of nation?

I think that this is important for us to hear, for as much as we’ve seen the political system evolve to where the GOP is the most obstructionist opposition in the post-Reconstruction era, it did not used to be this way within living memory.  McGovern probably has the likes of Everett Dirksen, who helped usher through the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Fair Housing Act of 1968, despite the protests of the Southern Democrats.  Consider this:  13 Republicans voted FOR the enactment of Medicare and Medicaid in 1965.  That would be impossible today.

In explaining this, McGovern takes the high road and suggests its about resistance to change by voters, “strengthened by powerful interests.”

Read the rest at Daily Kos

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Oct 21 2012
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Labor and Worker Justice, Opinion

A Worker Looks In From the Outside of the ‘Labor Community’

With the latest focus on actions across the country by Wal-Mart workers, many middle class people who have the privilege of not having to work a low wage job announce their solidarity with the workers.  But their focus is narrow and their solidarity rings hollow.  Until a smaller more active union stepped up to support some of the workers who have had the courage to step up, Wal-Mart workers were and (still remain largely) the butt of classist jokes, derisive comments and dismissal by most Americans.

In fact most low-wage work has the stigma in this country of being work occupied by lower educated, slower witted persons who by their lack of the exceptional talent of their middle class betters, have failed to advance economically.  This classist attitude rings hollow in the face of the fact that as the American job pool shrinks, more and more people are forced into working low-wage jobs.  Jobs traditionally shut-off from the traditional unions.  Like a self-serving circle of hell, low-wage workers get stuck in a system where their poverty and desperation feeds an inability and fear to agitate for better wages and working conditions.  Short working hours and low hourly pay that leads to poverty existence squeezes the reserves of workers who lack the flexibility to move to other, better paying work.  Armchair libertarians and the like love to argue ad infitnitum that all workers have mobility to “take their labor else where”.  Such fantasies serve only to blame the worker, leaving better paid workers, the employer and government policies that enable working poverty off the hook.

Sorely missing from the popular perception and focus of the Wal-Mart workers’ action is the acknowledgement that similar workers struggle everyday, unnoticed and unrepresented.  The theme in American politics reflects the tacit willingness of Americans to be separated by class distinctions with signage and slogans that cry out the lame theme, “Protecting the Middle Class”, as if there exists a fear of associating with the ‘unwashed’ and the invisible class — including day laborers and those who languish on unemployment that washes them into the fast growing river of workers struggling to make ends meet with barely crumbs.

Does the American ruling class consist of middle class workers? Are not all workers struggling the same? It appears that instead of seeking to embrace all workers, the traditional labor unions have made the strategic decision to “grow” their dwindling movement only among those that fit their aged and concrete-clad vision.  All workers share the same basic struggles.  As traditional unions beg and work hard to gain support in their struggles to defend collective bargaining rights, where are these unions to defend the millions of workers who don’t work for the most hated retail chain in America?

And also, when will the American “middle class” realize that their never-ending thirst for cheap goods, cheap services and ‘lower prices’ comes at the price of people’s livelihood and standard of living?  Is it necessary to have a Wal-Mart in every town in America? Or a K-Mart? Or a Home Depot?  Has the spread of the corporate conglomerate retail market led to better wages and increased living conditions, or has it created a silent, suppressed, isolated and ever-growing sub-class? While there is much to applaud in the efforts of the Wal-Mart workers those smaller unions that have come out in support of them and other workers, the focus needs to widen to all workers.  The time has come for realization that, as the I.W.W. adage coined nearly a century ago, an injury to one is an injury to all— all workers must come together, ready to represent themselves at the table of labor in solidarity with all labor as One Big Union, united in the fight against the scourge of corporate global capitalism.

From artist Mike Flugennak: http://sinkers.org/stage/

Unfortunately the labor unions presently making up less 12% of the population naturally, have continued their isolation from many workers.  Workers in low wage jobs that larger unions have decided long ago not to organize have suffer from the  lack of union representation.  Exploitation of low wage workers has increased as the economic depression increases the labor pool and emboldens employers.  Some union organizers claim that the old ways of organizing do not work as jobs in lower wage fields tend to have a large turn-over, tend to offer little incentive for workers to remain and thus such a fluid membership base leads to instability and inability to organize long term.

This is disputable when one considers that the largest proportion of the workforce with the most direct exposure to the public is the low wage worker, whether in service jobs, healthcare or retail.  They provide the opportunity to larger trade unions to increase support for and understanding of the struggle to keep legal protected rights such as collective bargaining and (although diminishing and very limited today), the right to strike.  In exchange, formerly neglected workers should justly expect some support for their cause, where such has been historically lacking.

Diminished representation has weakened support for the union movement nationally.  As workers feel further and further distant from what many perceive as weak, disaffected or out of touch union representation, frustration within the ranks increases. Many members complain bitterly of lack of rank and file participation in meetings, apathy among members and even many members who enjoy the benefits of their union job while supporting exactly the opposite in political ideology and public policy, hypocritically assisting those who wish to undo the union and keep more workers out while benefiting from union members themselves. Ironically, union leadership and members do nothing to stop this inside sabotage while more and more workers linger on the outside looking in, unable to find a slot in increasingly unavailable union work.

Also membership reduces as well as the cost of carrying a card and paying dues while unemployed becomes prohibitive.  Unions have shrunk not only due to assaults on worker’s rights to organize and act for their betterment, but also due to attrition as a result of the dwindling union protection. Started by Ronald Reagan, the Republican and ‘New Democrats’ have unraveled protection for worker expression with only barely audible squeaks from union leadership. Sold down the river on the idea that some kind of gentleman’s agreement exists between labor and big business that they must continue to protect, big labor unions have chosen to bargain with the devil than to reach back and lend a hand to their brother and sister workers who could offer strength in their effort to finally resist big business’ assaults on labor.

The labor movement cannot survive in its current state. Dwindling membership rates and even more diminished actual power when one considers participation rates and support in current unions, has a ripple effect on all workers everywhere.  As John O’Reilly points out here, the larger unions smirk and snub workers they consider beneath them at their peril.  Only with all workers united together to fight the nihilistic and dehumanizing forces of corporate capitalism will workers succeed and together bring the living standards of all workers to enable peaceful, dignified existence.

John O’Reilly on how the labor movement talks about itself and how he interprets it as a member and organizer of the IWW.

I’ve been thinking recently about the way that the labor movement sees itself and talks about itself. Labor movement activists often talk about labor as a kind of community, a place where individuals can reach across differences and speak to each other based on a shared connection to their unions and unionism more generally. There are big, well-funded internal publications that the large unions produce which help move this discourse. But there are also independent voices which participate in this discourse. I can think of Labor Notes as an example that I’m most familiar with.

Labor Notes and magazines, blogs, or other publications like it have this particular way of speaking about the labor movement and the changes that it needs to implement that I’ve always had a lot of trouble connecting with. I like Labor Notes, I think its a useful piece that praises rank-and-file struggles and shows how the bosses and the business unions are strong and powerful but also have weaknesses. It’s the kind of publication that shows that working people can have independent publications that highlight our stories of success and explain why and when we fail with a good analysis (usually).

But I’ve always had trouble connecting with the language that LN and similar publications use to talk about the labor movement. There’s a positioning of “inside and against” that I’ve always been unable to connect with. The discourse often goes “we are the labor movement, we need to do better, we need to get better leadership and democratize our unions, we need to organize the unorganized.” I like all the reclaiming of the labor movement narrative, that’s a great step I think. Saying that “we,” being rank-and-file workers, are the labor movement and that unions are not just the union leaders, is really important. But to me as an IWW organizer, I’ve never felt part of some community of labor.

Read more: Outside the House of Labor, by Jack O’Reilly, IWW organizer, originally published in Labor Notes.

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Oct 20 2012
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Mediation for Activists, Organizers and Service Providers Working to Change the World

As we do this work, with a vision in our heads of what shall be, of what we hope for, we must always remember to stop and take some quiet time for ourselves, to nurture ourselves.  Because if we do not nurture ourselves and to regenerate our energy, we will burn out.  If we don’t remember that the primary focus of our work, deep within us is the belief in the potential of humanity to live as one with the earth, in harmony.  We must also work to seek harmony within ourselves.

Take some time, just five minutes, relax and remember the struggle of our forebears and how our struggle will build the legacy that others will forge on with and carry after we are gone from this earth.

From Fairyfarmgirl Digest:

Interconnectedness: Positive Humanity United and Connecting with each other

Interconnectedness:  Positive Humanity United Connecting

OCTOBER 21, 2012:  A Day of Living Meditation of LOVE and Envisioning the NEW EARTH

We are all on the Same Side of Polarity.  We are Positive:  Love.  This is the time for all of Positive Humanity to come together in Unity– in  a state of Interconnectedness.

As you seek to seperate yourself based on what you percieve as a better way to meditate, dietary dictates and other Belief Systems, take a breathe and consider this:  We are all on the same side– LOVE.  We all have chosen  to be on the side of Positive Humanity.  We actively choose to act kindly toward our brothers and sisters– toward all that is around us.

It is time for Positive Humanity to Unite and Connect with each other, physically and/or transpersonally, and/or via online communities, and/or in spirit through meditation, and/or other means of connection.

This is the time to make the choice to work with others that may be different in their expression of physicality and habits from you– AND, yet, they have CHOSEN LOVE.  Love More and Expect Miracles.

Have any of you decided not to work with the Dolphin Nation because they eat fish and crustaceans and sometimes smaller whales and other dolphins?

Most of you would say that is a ridiculous statement!  “Why would I do that?”    You ask us, and aloud to the universe.

“Why would you do that?”  Fairy Asks you.

Why would you do that?  Fairy asks you as you judge other lightworkers, and concerned Positive Human Beings of Earth for their different habits, choices, enculturated ideas and beliefs and morals.

This is what has kept the LIGHTWORKERS throughout Earth from uniting.  Arguing over another’s merit to be a Positive Human Being on the Side of LOVE because they do not make the same diet choices or have the same habits as you.  This is simply inneffective for the cause of Planetary Ascension.

WE MUST WORK TOGTHER

It is time to dig out the Compassionate Communication Skills and dust them off.  It is time to act diplomatically toward others.

It is TIME for Positive Humanity to Unite and work together for the Side of LOVE.  It is simply TIME.  This is the message that I, Fairy Farm Girl, bring to you from the Beautiful Many

The Beautiful Many are made up of  The Galactics, Angelics, Concerned Elder Healers of the Star Nations, the Star Beings, and the Sirian, Pleiadian and Arcturians, the Fairy Realm, and Mother Earth-Gaia– this is why Elizabeth calls them the Beautiful Many.

We are all siblings.  We are a Family of many different Beings.  As a family, we must work together and see that the whole is the Family United for the Care and Concern of our Planetary Body as well as the Body of Humanity.

We repeat again, We Must Work Together.

Begin today.  Forgive those who you see as wayward Lightworkers.  Accept that others can be different from you and still be a Lightworker, on the same side of Love as you are.

It is time to begin Living your meditation as a life-way.  Envision the New Earth and see yourself as in a state of interconnection with all your Sisters and Brothers of Positive Humanity.

This is part of the essential process of integrating our shadow.  The collective Lightworker Shadow is to oppose that which is not in harmony with your “belief system” about what you think it means to be on the Side of Love.  This is the Dogma of the Human Lightworkers.  The Dogma is the same as the Dogma practiced by human created religions.  The Dogma is:  My way is the Only Way.  This is simply a falsehood.  There are many ways to express Love.  Love seeks only that which is Love.  Love Expands Love.  Judgement expands Fear.  Judge not and Fear Not.  Love More and Expect Miracles.

Expanding Awareness is an ongoing process of Personal Work.  Ascension is a Process of Expanding Awareness.  We must Expand our Awareness to Ascend.

Opposition strengthens the Dark.  It empowers it powerfully to continue business as usual.  Admitedly, their time is coming to a close in a slow way that at this time could take years and years.  Consider this, as you argue with your Lightworking Neighbor, you are putting the Dark Cabal on life support and feeding it.  You keep it alive by your outrage at what “that lighworker” over there is doing.

Some things that are said amongst you is:

Yoga is the only way to Ascension

Raw Veganism is the Only way to Ascension

Eating meat will keep you from Ascension.

Zen Meditation is the Only Way to Ascension.

We could go on, on and on and on and on with this list.  We trust you have are coming into alignment with understanding a new truth to you– but it is really an Ancient true truth:

Differentness is part of the uniqueness of each of you.  Interconnection contains the unique distinctness of each of you and at the same time you are part of the whole.

Take for instance, the example of  a vast and infinite ceiling… it is made up of many ceiling tiles– all individual, distinct, with uniqueness, and yet it is still interconnected and part of the whole:  the Ceiling.  We are all in this together.  We must work together.  We must all connect. Thus, it is Time for Interconnectedness:  Positive Humanity United and Connecting with each other.

It is time to come together as a field of Living Love and envision the New Earth.  Lady Isis has shown the way– as many others have as well.  The message is clear– Envision it, speak it, and Love it into Being.  The Time is Now.  You are here Now to co-create the New Earth.

The New Earth looks different to each of you… the New Earth you may envision will have different environments from another who is envisioning the New Earth.  These are details that create bio-diversity.  Diversity is a strength.

The Unifying Field is LOVE.  Love is what is expressed as each of you envision the NEW EARTH.  The New Earth is full of Life, green, with clean air, water, and energy.  Everyone works diligently to be in harmony with each other.

Loving More is the guiding principle.  This is what the NEW EARTH is about.  It is the Envisioning of Love in Action as a Planetary Body which Humanity resides upon in a coherent state of actively c0-creating Peace.

Peace takes work.  It takes the work of Compassionate Communication.  It takes strength to cultivate peace, to allow another an expression that may be different from your own.

We bless you with Love.  Light Flows to Light.  Light expands Light.  All that is Light is filled with Love.  –Fairy Farm Girl and The Beautiful Many

________________________________________________________________________________

Angel Messages

Isis’ Message of the Day –

Picture if you will in your minds the most  perfect and unimaginably beautiful place to live that you possibly can, and  picture yourselves living in this new breathtaking wonderland and picture your  friends and your family and animals and birds and trees and lakes and rivers and  a sparkling clean ocean that you can swim in, that you can sail on, and picture  all these things coming to you now. This is what we wish for you to do today  dear ones, for we wish for more of you to begin to consciously create your new  surroundings, for soon you will see these walls being built around you, so to  speak.

Soon, construction of your new world  will be made known to you. You will see what it is you have been building  through your thoughts and your dreams and your hopes and your inspiration.  Whatever it is that drives you, whatever it is that motivates you will be yours.  This is how it is all unfolding for you, and we wish to see more of you taking  part in your new Earth’s construction. We see many of you posting beautiful  photographs and we say to you this is a very good way to start, but we wish for  more of you to do even more. We wish for more of you to take the reins, as you  say, and begin to airbrush your world around you. To do this, you simply imagine  in your mind just what it is you wish for yourselves and this includes what it  is you wish to do for a career, what it is you will do for hobbies and fun, and  what it is you will do for pleasures and excitement and also what it is that you  do for others.

Yes. This is a very important and  necessary component to your new world, what it is you do in service to others,  for this is the foundation. These are the roots of the tree of your new home.  You are going to all learn how to be of service to others on a full-time basis.  You are going to learn the importance of selfless service to individuals who are  not you and who are not your family and who are, in many cases, not your friends  or even your next-door neighbors. You are going to learn to grace other people’s  lives, people you may know as strangers, people you may see walking on the  street or shopping at the market. People who you do not know, but you do know  somehow, someway, for they are your planet mates, they are your brothers and  sisters even if you do not know them by name.

Oct 19 2012
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Healthcare, Public Health

Big Pharma Hones in On Children as the New Profit Center

Not that we at Progressive Action want to make Big Pharma and their nefarious deeds the focus of this blog, it seems that lately a plethora of disturbing trends with Big Pharma have surfaced and caught the eye of many critics.  We’ve looked at the poor quality research, lack of controlled clinical trials in new drugs, including the well documented trend of pharmacutical companies to place drugs on the market long before anyone knows the effects of the drugs — remember Phen-Fen, the supposed magical weight-loss drug that caused sudden death in millions?  Remember the anti-arthritis drug —- pulled from the market after it was shown to cause fatal cardiac arrest in users?

We’ve also posted reports on the collusion of Big Pharma with physicians who have basically become salesman.  No law exists to mandate the doctors disclose to their patients the financial relationship they have with the company manufacturing the drugs they proscribe.

We also posted an article that dealt with one psychologists’ experience in the field of psychology and his run-ins with the use of psychology and psychiatry to keep soldiers in combat zones longer.  Many claim that un-checked corporate power poses no problem to our society and that conversely regulation causes an un-needed burden that hampers profits, which hurts the economic health of the nation.  But Big Pharma provides the strongest argument in real time against this idea.  With widely unchecked access to the non-professional public and doctors through endless advertising, with their high revenue streams, the pharmecutical industry has managed to convince lay people, patients and even doctors that the resolution to a problem of mood, excitement, anxiety; all once thought of as warnings of a dysfunctional living pattern or a need to change one’s environment or behavior, is encapsulated in a pill.

The profits of Big Pharma are outstanding; they are one of the most profitable industries in America today.  Private health insurance companies once played along to provide high priced financing to middle Americans to purchase drugs at whatever cost pharma wanted to pay.  But they have begun to resist and deny payments for most high ticket drugs, leaving patients often scrambling to find the funds to pay for drugs whose lives hang on the affordability of such medications.  One of the largest stickers in Obama’s efforts to put together a single payer plan was the resistance of the well financed and powerful drug companies.  So we are told.

Most disturbing is the power over people’s sense of reality and well being that drug companies seem to have developed through the pushing of psychiatric medications.  Troubling evidence shows, as one article we posted, that the field of psychiatry and that health officials in the government and military are fully aware of the power of psychiatric drugs to make people compliant, passive zombies.

In the article linked below by Alternet, the newer trend in starting children early as drug users has many disturbing implications — the long term effects of such drug use is unknown and could be irreversible and also not mentioned in the thorough report (because how many angles can one writer take without writing a book?), is the increasing problem with prescription drug abuse among children.  Is it any wonder that children have come to believe that their problems not only are unacceptable and not something to deal with as the trials of everyday life, but that the solution lies in a pill?

One of the most important drivers to social rebellion and civil disobedience is a firm belief that something in the system is wrong.  This usually comes from suffering personally or witnessing a community suffer, the effects of a system, culture or society gone on the wrong track.  Whether its going against our internal social drive to commune and not kill, or the tendency to wish to act out against something wrong; we all have an internal conscience that when disturbed can cause all sorts of negative physical and psychological reactions.  Do we want to stunt this internal driver in us all to recognize right from wrong and want to do something about it?  Who or what exists in our present system that benefits from the status quo; benefits enough to make sure that nothing changes?

Below, Alternet has published an article showing the disturbing trend of using children as the next profit-center for Big Pharma.  This is especially disturbing since as we stated previously and was stated in articles posted here and all over the net, drug companies have nearly all but abandoned the practice of controlled clinical trials prior to release of a drug.   The use of manipulating parents to allow Big Pharma and greedy psychiatrists unfettered access to their children’s minds and bodies puts the illustration of corporate greed to a new Mengelesque level of low.

How Kids Are Getting Hooked on Pills for Life

Young children were once expected to outgrow their issues; now they’re diagnosed with lifelong psychiatric problems.
October 18, 2012  |  
 

Where do parents and teachers get the idea there’s something wrong with kids that only an expensive drug can fix? From Big Pharma’s seamless web of ads, subsidized doctors, journals, medical courses and conferences, paid “patient” groups, phony public services messages and reporters willing to serve as stenographers.

Free stenography for Pharma from sympathetic media includes articles like “One in 40 Infants Experience Baby Blues, Doctors Say,” on ABC News and “Preschool Depression: The Importance of Early Detection of Depression in Young Children,” on Science Daily .

For many, the face of the drugs-not-hugs message is Harold Koplewicz, author of the pop bestseller It’s Nobody’s Fault , and former head of NYU’s prestigious Child Study Center. In a 1999 Salon article, Koplewicz reiterated his “no-fault” statement, assuring parents that psychiatric illness is not caused by bad parenting. “It is not that your mother got divorced, or that your father didn’t wipe you the right way,” he said. “It really is DNA roulette: You got blue eyes, blond hair, sometimes a musical ear, but sometimes you get the predisposition for depression.”

Many regard the NYU Child Study Center, which Koplewicz founded and led before leaving in 2009 to start his own facility, as helping to usher in the world of brave new pediatric medicine in which children, toddlers and infants, once expected to outgrow their problems, are now diagnosed with lifelong psychiatric problems. The Child Study Center is “a threat to the health and welfare of children,” and its doctors are “hustlers working to increase their ‘client’ population and their commercial value to psychotropic drug manufacturers,” charged Vera Sharav , president of the watchdog group, Alliance for Human Research Protection.

Read the rest on Alternet

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Oct 19 2012
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Consume Less. Think More. Live Real. Take a Rest, Its Friday.

So its Friday here in the states.  The end of the week for working folks fortunate enough to still have a traditional work-week.  But still its the official end of the week. Rest a little and think a lot.

Posted this video for your entertainment.  Many of us in the activist world that are older look on these new young ones and their hipster trending as signs that popular culture has taken on our leftie values.  They have right?

Not so fast, as this video points out, hipster is just another brand of consumerism without a thought.

Sustainable living means re-using, re-purposing and re-thinking the paradigms.  I guess the hipsters tried that but the thinking part kind of eluded them and it became just another ‘next big thing’.  Us real dorks though that recycle, re-purpose, re-use and eschew of forms of consumerist driven nonsense will remain dorks and unlike ‘hipsters’ actually back up our ideas with action.

At Hipster Central HQ, applicants’ sense of irony is carefully scrutinized with the Open Door Test.

Oh and there’s the ‘elite hipster’ the one who has money, usually LOTS of money, but they humbly eschew the vulgar mainstream for a more meaningful and sustainable living environment and practice, usually constructed from large blocks of concrete and recycled steel.  Which would be fine, if it actually meant more than just showing the vile, crude proletarian how far from the center of the universe they’ve drifted.  There’s nothing more arrogant and self serving than, “Look see, you do it this way and no I don’t want it to go mainstream.”  When you’re working for the bourgeoisie revolution, you got to keep the rabble from your internal movement, lest they make it all icky and stuff and like…whatevs.

So everyone enjoy the video and here’s to having a good, meaningful Friday.

Oct 19 2012
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Opinion

Convolutions of the Press

In a New York Times story from October 17th, a long analysis of the current state of the economy exposed the trap that income inequality poses for national growth.  This would seem obvious as countries that have the highest income inequality are countries that suffer permanent, disabling lack of growth; at least for the majority of the population.  Entrenched in a culture of favoritism, an unresponsive government that is choked by commercial/corporate interference and corruption, poor economies seem to rarely find their way out of the cycle of poverty.

What the article states with attributes and quotes to IMF and economists is that now that the decline in wealth distribution has hit first world countries, they are taking serious notice.  What they find confirms what many can figure by pure observation; as countries sink further downward, the climb back into stability and growth becomes more difficult.  What the article did not spell out was how corporate infiltration into governments leads to much of this as governments, for lack of cash sufficient to serve even basic functions, becomes more and more dependent upon corporate/private market manipulation.  Of course, this manipulation benefits those with interests in such as investment assets with increasing concentration at the top where global investment is broader.

The article also mentions the concern about social stability within countries suffering economic collapse.  The United States could well be falling into its last throws of empire as it spends wildly on military infrastructure in an effort to maintain global domination.  At the same time, the United States has increased its investment in military control of its citizens through increased militarization of municipal police units and build-ups of domestic armies (National Guard).  The article elludes to the real fear on the part of the administration that economic unrest could lead to domestic unrest.  The elite, as is often in more oppressive and poorer countries, have no interest in improving the conditions of the people, but in preserving their interests exclusively.  Hence when the Times quotes the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, “The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development this year warned about the “negative consequences” of the country’s high levels of pay inequality,”

One could interpret such a warning as a dire whistle blow to for the plutocrats to stop their squeeze of the global economy for their own interests. But instead, it appears, if observations are correct, that the real concern is a social upheaval from angry citizens that must be checked, not answered.  Must be suppressed, gassed, arrested and possibly even detained without trial or charge for as long as desired — by the government.

The report goes on to say that the IMF has warned the United States that its policies of favoring the wealthy over the many will lead to further disaster as well.  But if one watches network news they probably won’t know that.  They won’t understand that just possibly those who watch the United States and the world see the US teetering on the brink of complete ruin.  The paper goes on to show that most of the common people have been sold down the river with the con that home ownership is the answer to stability.  But housing values have depressed, after falling from the longest and biggest fraud perpetuated on the people now stuck with devalued property and an employment cycle than no longer can produce a living wage.

The writer continues by explaining correctly that the asset holdings of wealthier individuals and of course corporations, are concentrated in investment portfolios that rise and fall with the trading and financial markets worldwide.  These investments, unlike a house, will produce revenue as long as the peripheral economy of stock market trading, derivatives, hedge funds and other instruments continues to grow.  They grow as they are pegged to the continued shrinking of the share of the economic pie worldwide.  As worker’s wages are crushed and de-regulation of industry and finance continue while productivity remains stable, if not growing (because people must produce more to earn enough to make ends meet), investment portfolios remain in an upward growth cycle.

Therefore, there’s plenty of room to conclude that as long as the plutocracy that holds a strong interest in depressing wages and disempowering workers by attacking labor law, increasing suppression of dissent they will prosper.  This theme drives the story and is well documented. What is troubling though is that it ends with a quote from the right-wing Heritage Foundation that got the last word blowing its scare-horn, that no matter what any intelligent observer thinks or researcher finds, continued investment expansion directed policies will contribute to growth.

That is what the reader will take away. Possibly the writer was hoping to make a contrast; to make a point by showing that despite all evidence to the contrary, the right -wing of the country pushes the same old lie.  Unfortunately, ending with a negation of what was in fact a very well written article will be the final taste in the mouth of the reader.  Not a good thing when the goal was to convince the reader of the truth of the entire piece.

Oct 18 2012
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Healthcare, National Politics, NH Politics, Public Health

Don’t Have Insurance? Don’t Get Care! Says NH Congressman Guinta

Yes, he said it, but he didn’t just say that he believes hospitals should have the right to turn away patients, but he also re-frames the question by saying, ‘if you are 25 years old and you are choosing…” Yeah. choosing, because you know purchasing a health insurance policy is as easy as buying a pair of sneakers, amirite?

So typical of the Tea Bagger, wing-nut claim, people choose to be poor and choose to have low-wage jobs and choose to not purchase health insurance.  Sort of like the collection agent who calls and demands that you pay off that bill even if that means your lights get shut off and your car gets re-po’ed because, hey didn’t you choose to get sick or injured, didn’t you kid choose that fever?

Sure and didn’t you choose to live in a country where gigantic mega-companies can rule your life and decide whether you paid your fee to stay alive and healthy today? Well, did you?  Because if you didn’t, Guinta’s got news for you; get out and don’t let the revolving door slam you in your crippled, sickened ass, moocher! (and that means grandma too).

From ThinkProgress:

Republican Congressman Says Hospitals Should Be Allowed To Turn Away Patients Who Don’t Have Insurance

By Scott Keyes on Oct 18, 2012 at 4:50 pm

Rep. Frank Guinta (R-NH)

CONWAY, New Hampshire — Finding bipartisan agreement on any policy is a rarity these days, but lawmakers from both sides of the aisle have supported treating people who show up in the hospital, regardless of their ability to pay. Now, one Tea Party congressman is taking issue with that requirement.

Giving literal meaning to his state’s “Live Free Or Die” motto, Rep. Frank Guinta (R-NH) was asked at a debate Thursday about a hypothetical 25-year-old who needs treatment in the emergency room but doesn’t have health insurance. Guinta’s said he opposed the requirement that hospitals should have to treat people who come in without insurance. “If you are 25 years old and you are choosing not to purchase insurance with the expectation of trying to get it free from the ER at Memorial,” Guinta said, “that shouldn’t be the case”:

Continue reading at Think Progress where there is video as well.

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Oct 18 2012
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Protecting our Environment

FBI Labels Civil Disobedience Groups as “Domestic Terrorists”

Yes, because monitoring groups that support more accountability in government and corporate interests constitutes a real threat to the government that supports the people, no wait, that supports corporate interests, no wait, that supports the people’s interests in business, no wait…

Seems to point up the oft-quoted idea that the government really isn’t in the business of protecting democracy, but more in the business of protecting business.

RE-posted from Deep Green Resistance Indiana:

NEW YORK — According to new documents released today by the American Civil Liberties Union, the FBI is using counterterrorism resources to monitor and infiltrate domestic political organizations that criticize business interests and government policies, despite a lack of evidence that the groups are engaging in or supporting violent action.

The ACLU said that the documents released today on Greenpeace, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) and the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) show the FBI expanding the definition of “domestic terrorism” to include citizens and groups that participate in lawful protests or civil disobedience.

“The FBI should use its resources to investigate credible threats to national security instead of spending time tracking Americans who criticize government policy, or monitoring groups that have not broken the law,” said Ann Beeson, Associate Legal Director of the ACLU. “Labeling law abiding groups and their members ‘domestic terrorists’ is not only irresponsible, it has a chilling effect on the vibrant tradition of political dissent in this country.”

The documents were obtained by the ACLU after the organization filed Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to discover whether the FBI’s partnerships with local law enforcement in Joint Terrorism Task Forces has resulted in increased surveillance of political and religious activity.

For more read Deep Green Resistance Indiana

Oct 18 2012
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Undoing Racism

This is Why You Should Pay Attention to Local Elections

In recent conversations online it has been clear that many feel that local politics just doesn’t matter. Who cares about these trifling matters such as city water department funds, whether John Doe can run his lawnmower at 5am, school board policies and other mundane matters of daily life in large, medium and small town America.

Except when a racist nutbag just might get into office because you and a thousand other people decided to not pay attention and suddenly the other racist nutball faction in town has got an ally. Now allufasudden you find a deaf ear at the school board on issues having to do with sanctioning a racist teacher, what’s taught class or other issues that racists just love to pretend don’t exist.  Even if your school board is full of the most enlightened people since Malcom X and Frederick Douglas, do you want a mouthpiece for the lunatic fringe even taking up a seat that would otherwise go to another enlightened member of the citizenry?

Well, folks in Jasper, Indiana are faced with this problem when they find that the town nutcase has decided to run for school board.  Now mind you, he’s the known nutcase and is getting national attention, so hopefully the fine citizens of Jasper will wake up.  And vote.

John King of American Third Position Runs for Jasper School Board President (Part I, II, III)

Jasper residents have quite a choice ahead of them when they head to the polls to choose their School Board President. The choice is between an angry, mentally ill, racist loon who can’t hold down a job and between someone who’s… well… not those things.

Here’s Johnny Boy doing his one man show which I’ve entitled, “I’m a Racist Nutjob”. Johnny gave his performance at the University of Southern Indiana in the wake of the Trayvon Martin murder. His sign reads:

NO UNIVERSITY
FUNDS FOR ANTI-WHITE HATE
TRAYVON = NO SAINT ROLE MODEL
Just a Ghetto Hoodlum
If Obama had a son he would be Trayvon

Gotta say it. I’m a bit disappointed with the level of effort put into this sign. Only one color of marker (black oddly enough). I put Johnny at about a fourth-grade reading level based on the grammar. There’s not even a picture to grab the eye. Your one-man protest earns a failing grade. Sorry Johnny, doesn’t look like you’re quite ready for college yet.

John King is politically active, but not very politically loyal. He’s an active member of the American Third Position, a racist hate group. He also describes himself as a “rabid” supporter of Ron Paul and the Libertarian Party (shocking). He also argued that he has a “lifelong affiliation” with the Republican Party when he tried to sue his way into the RNC delagation earlier this year. He’s also involved with the Sovereign Citizen Movement, which the FBI classifies among domestic terror threats as anti-government extremists. He’s claims he’s done campaign work for his “favorite” political party in the UK, we’re looking into it but I’m gonna take a gamble and say that it’s mos def the BNP or EDL.

More here at Anti-Racist Action

Oct 18 2012
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Undoing the military-industrial complex

The Epidemic of Military Suicide

Getting flak

Below see an article published in the Psychiatric Times on military suicide.  The alarming rate of military suicide is telling: our system is sick and the human reaction often is to either respond externally or internally.  For military personnel who have often been trained to accept the existing social paradigm of our country, the pain and frustration turns inward to self blame and self destruction.

The offerings of the writer of this article as solutions are telling as well; they even admit that they are common sense ‘low hanging fruit’.  Also, its not new news. Unlike decades or a century ago, the experiences of individual soldiers sent into combat or even as support troops (medical personnel, those on isolated bases) when the trauma inflicted on soldiers was often a private nightmare, today mass information resources such as the internet has allowed the truth to meet the people.   The picture seen does not comport well with the old-time propaganda films of the 40’s or even just a decade ago with heroic soldiers fighting a clear enemy that we never really see on the screen, where “collateral damage” doesn’t exist and mourning innocent victims and mourning soldier’s families were not shown.

Soldiers are the canary in the coal-mine.  Its worth repeating; our system is sick.  Communities and families are wounded on all sides and for what?  Most wars in this country have been waged for the benefit of a few and suffered by the many.  Recruiters target low income demographics and the government feeds billions into enticements to procure a volunteer military that makes blame easy when the shit hits the fan — you volunteered for it, you could have stayed home.

The majority (I’d say nearly all) of the wars that our citizens have either been drafted or volunteered for have been borne out of the imperialist ambitions of the plutocracy; the global corporate engines that drive the capitalist system and their often well paid public cheerleaders in government.  Contracts for munitions and military infrastructure are argued as an easy economic driver, yet no where is the recognition among the military growth drumbeats, the human toll that military infrastructure enacts worldwide and here at home.  Like the old adage, “build it and they will come”, military growth stimulates the itching desire to use it and so begins the constant thirst for another conflict to swell the pockets of the few.

Doping and long duty tours all stem from the theme of constant war that has developed, turning this country into a war-state that dominates the world with armed power and determines that its citizens are expendable, whether on the job floor or the killing floor.  The American people have been conned into believing that some mysterious balance comes out of the human blood that flows like rivers from our bullets, bombs and shells.  What a perverted world view.

All the rest that the Psychiatric Times recommends, such as decent healthcare, jobs programs involve a social safety net that we believe should be available for all citizens.  That someone should put themselves in service; put themselves in front of a bullet for the benefit of the plutocracy/corporatocracy in order to be treated as human is barbaric and needs to stop.

Finally, the justifications for continuing war and terrorizing the world have no basis in truth.  Terrorism has been shown repeatedly to be responses to imperialist pressure and killing by the United States or its allies.  Conflicts in the middle east, created both by the thirst for oil and also by the Zionist fantasies of religious fanatics to preserve the imposed state of Israel fans the flames.

Progressive movement in this country involves ending the occupation of the middle east while developing independent, renewable energy sources and manufacturing here in the states around that.  Progressive movement in this country relies on the fundamental fact that humans are not machines, there is nothing natural about killing or maiming another human being for no reason but some vague, senseless propaganda based on lies, tribalism and racism.

Send the troops home, yes.  End the conflicts by removing the United States from the conflicts, concentrate on development of domestically sustainable energy production and related manufacture, reduce dependency on Chinese imports, take leadership on reducing consumption, increasing public transportation and making the health, education and general welfare of the people not only the most important goal in this country but the only one that matters.

Soldiers struggle with periods of endless boredom punctuated with extreme, unexpected violence. Here soldiers bear a dust storm the best they can.

From the Psychiatric Times:

With understandable urgency, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta has made suicide one of his top priorities, instructing commanders at all levels to feel acutely accountable for it. The numbers are startling. On average 1 active duty soldier is killing himself each day–twice the number of combat deaths and twice the civilian rate.

Suicides have jumped dramatically since 2005 and increased by 18% in just the last year. The DOD and VA are groping for explanations and plans of action–clearly, just commanding the commanders to prevent suicide can’t possibly do very much. And, sadly, psychiatry has no ready or certain answers, no sure way to predict or prevent suicide. Research in this area has huge methodological problems and is unlikely to bear any low hanging fruit. So, we may have to rely on obvious, common sense suggestions:

Read more: Psychiatric Times

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