Climate catastrophe and `freedom of consumption' (tags)
It is not five to twelve, but five past twelve, as philosopher Slavoj Žižek writes. The fact that climate change is a fact (the details may well be debated) and poses a serious threat to humanity is something that the last fool should have realized by now.1 It is also clear that the emission of CO2 and other greenhouse gases must be radically and rapidly reduced.
Why Karl Polanyi Still Matters (tags)
In The Great Transformation (1944), Karl Polanyi explains why the economy must be embedded in society and society must not be embedded in the economy. He describes land, labor and money as "fictitious commodities" since they cannot be multiplied and created on the market.
Large corona aid for "small" companies (tags)
Dozens of tenants in buildings owned or managed by Trump received funds. More than 20 companies registered at 40 Wall Street, an office building Trump has owned since the mid-1990s, have also reportedly received government loans of at least $20 million.
From Ayn Rand to Paul Ryan: Capitalism as Morality (tags)
Society doesn't play any role in Ayn Rand's perspective. Rand reduced persons to the bourgeois who only thinks in economic categories and only needs to respect himself and no one else - unlike the citizen engaged in society and actively championing enlightenment.
Audio: Ayn Rand and the Culture of Greed, 3 hr 19 min (tags)
She was an anti-communist and anti-Soviet after being born as a Jew in St. Petersberg before the 1917 revolution.
Pavlov's Dogs, Skinner's Rats, fbi's victim/Targets (tags)
See the reports of fbi crimes that no one wants to believe.
Public Relations - Propaganda as an Economic Branch (tags)
"The borders between skillful PR, dull propaganda and lobbyism and corruption are flowing. The only possibility for protecting oneself is to be informed as extensively and independently as possible. This is easier said than done; information costs energy and time and assumes a basic education."
A War on the Poor by Paul Krugman (tags)
The state has a social nature and cannot only be a power and security state. Since the 1980s, the banks carried out a "quiet coup" (Simon Johnson) by spending over $4 billion on campaign contributions and lobbying over ten years.
The ideology of the invisible hand of the market transforms all barbarism that is committed into human service.. The modern age is a doubled humanism..State terrorism presents itself as humanist realism, as the only true way of protecting life.
My Encounter with the 'Precarious and Service Workers Assembly' of Occupy Oakland (tags)
It's their party, and they'll cry if they want to...
A Pretty Good Election, but the Right Still Rules (tags)
The November 6, 2012 election turned out fairly well for progressives — from Barack Obama retaining the presidency to a true Left-wing Democrat like Bob Filner winning for Mayor of San Diego — but the Right is still strong. The issue agendas and terms of discussion continue to be dictated by an increasingly militant Right wing and America's pathetic, ill-organized remnant of a Left no longer has the power to put pressure on the political system for progressive reforms the way it did in the 1890's, 1930's and 1960's.
America's Right-Wing Reinterprets the Crisis (tags)
A state is not a hardware store. It must contract debts in crisis times. Four years after the collapse of the US economy, the republicans send a former investment banker into the race who stands for a policy that got us into the real messThe right-wing was very successful in changing the discourse.
Karl Rove, Netanyahu and Islamic Uprisings (tags)
The hate machine, lie machine, and the money machine are all on full blast with intent to kill any chance progressives and liberals have standing—especially President Obama and some Senators. The Republican strategy has been to deny, ignore, deceive, and attack. What is also becoming known, since there is now no other viable alternative candidate in Ron Paul, is that the Romney/ Ryan team will likely be a huge disaster in the making for a majority of Americans. So despite what well seems like another stolen election in the making, such as with disenfranchising voters with new State laws, alienated, apathetic, disappointed, disheartened, angry, resentful, confused, Americans, and all independent minds must get out and vote in huge numbers this election—because this election still deeply matters.
Enter Karl Rove—Need One Say More? (tags)
The hate machine, and lie machine, and the money machine is on full blast with intent to kill any chance liberals have standing—especially Obama. The President had better find a fighter within himself because he is being challenged in a awfully big way. Americans are angry across the divide. “Many” republicans are angry as well. They know that Mitt Romney did not truly win the nomination. Rather they well realize he was foisted on the party by the sophisticated propaganda machine, the mainstream media and people like Karl Rove and billionaire donors like Sheldon Adelson. We Americans need to be reminded, again and again, in loud and bold terms, of Karl Rove’s last protégé. Another disaster in the making, with Rove’s knack for choosing people who don’t understand moral ethics, despite rhetoric to the contrary. “Karl Rove Is Back With HIS New Choice*!*!*” ought be the clarion call for today’s Paul Revere. Which brings us to an important question, if lying to the public like a psychopath, were the criteria to judge those who work in the capital who would be left standing? Certainly not Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan?
Ryan, Akin: Two More Reasons to Vote for Obama (tags)
On the eve of the Republican National Convention, two stories — Mitt Romney's choice of arch-conservative Ayn Rand devotee Paul Ryan as his running mate and Missouri Congressmember and Senate candidate Todd Akin's comment that women almost never get pregnant from "legitimate rape" — highlighted the vast differences between the two major parties. No progressive can possibly still believe that it makes no difference whether the Republicans or the Democrats win this year's election in the face of the overwhelming evidence that the Republicans plan (and, if they win, will enact) a sweeping change in U.S. government that will eliminate ALL business regulation, environmental protection and civil rights for women, people of color and Queers.
Predatory Capitalism Failed (tags)
class war
“Severely Conservative” (tags)
Mitt Romney's remark last February that he was a "severely conservative" governor of Massachusetts highlighted the love of discipline that holds the radical Right in general and the Republican Party in particular and reconciles their rejection of a role for government in the economy with their insistence that government aggressively enforce "traditional moral values."
A letter to Katha Pollitt of The Nation Magazine (tags)
A letter to Katha Pollitt of The Nation Magazine
Why the Establishment is Terrified of Ron Paul (tags)
It’s fascinating to watch the long knives coming out for Texas Republican Rep. Ron Paul, now that according to some mainstream polls he has become the front-running candidate in the Jan. 3 GOP caucus race in Iowa, and perhaps also in the first primary campaign in New Hampshire.
Two Hard Cases, Two Bad Laws (tags)
The November 14 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court to consider the constitutionality of so-called "Obamacare" and the November 17 decision of the California Supreme Court that the proponents of Proposition 8 have legal standing to appeal it all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court are both disasters for the progressive community. But they also highlight the conflict between general principles of justice progressives should support and tactical positions in specific cases that may work to our short-term advantage but cause us problems later on.
America's Unequal Heritage (tags)
Though a lot of the Tea Party's pretensions to be representing the original intent of the authors of the U.S. Constitution are wrong and even silly, there's one issue on which the Tea Party is right. The authors of the U.S. Constitution really did intend this country to be a limited republic, governed by an elite representing the large landowners who were the 1 percent of their day. The Constitution's principal author, James Madison, called "an equal division of property" one of the "improper or wicked projects" the Constitution was designed to prevent.
Sociopathy on the Right: Ayn Rand and the Triumph of Conservative Cultism (tags)
"Service, according to the gospel of Limbaugh, is for suckers, for society's "losers," for people who have committed crimes. In other words, it should be viewed as punishment rather than as something to be applauded and encouraged. To do for community is a fool's errand."
OpineRegress: Matthew Yglesias' reactionary education policy pandering (tags)
I've been following the exchange regarding education policy between Rachel Levy and Matthew Ygelsias online. Ygelsias is a well known supporter of reactionary corporate education reform, despite his reputation of progressive politics. In this essay we examine those contradictions and offer some possible reasons for Ygelsias' intransigence.
FIS recommends removing the last semblance of democracy from an already undemocratic proce (tags)
LAUSD's Public School Choice is already an anti-democratic measure to give public schools away to private charter corporations. Removing the advisory vote makes PSC all the more totalitarian and entirely removes community and parental voice. Either keep the advisory votes or repeal PSC altogether. This article discusses the document LAUSD is using to justify this move.
Republicans Win Without a Shutdown (tags)
The first fight over the federal budget in 2011 is over, and the Republicans have won. For at least the past 30 years Republican ideas — that government is bad, that the private sector is always more efficient than the public sector, that wages and benefits need to be cut to make America's workers "competitive" with the rest of the world, and government spending needs to be cut even if it risks turning the current recession into a full-fledged depression — have ruled. Progressives need to understand the depth of the Republicans’ triumph in order to begin the task of reversing it.
Democrats for Neoliberal Education Reform (tags)
The plutocrat and corporately funded DFER has turned "Manufacturing Consent" into an art form. Here we look at how they subverted an entire state legislature to pass one of the most reactionary and backwards education laws in the country, assuring Colorado's quick march towards school privatization and the commoditization of teachers.
A Meanness in This World (tags)
The January 8 shooting of Representative Gabrielle Giffords and murder of federal judge John Roll and five other people in Tucson, Arizona has been blamed on a lone nut, and both wings of the corporate media — center-Right and far-Right — have fallen over each other to absolve the ultra-Rightists of talk radio, Fox News and the Tea Party of blame for the alleged shooter’s actions. Nonsense. Not only did Sarah Palin’s Web page specifically “target” Congressmember Giffords for defeat last April — a piece of hysterical rhetoric Giffords called Palin out on at the time — but the radical Right’s incessant propaganda on talk radio and Fox News, with its ceaseless calls not only to defeat but “eliminate” its “enemies,” created a national climate that ensured that the killer’s madness took the form it did and his delusions led him to attack two individuals that had already been the targets of radical-Right bullying and harassment.
Ben Austin channels Sarah Palin substituting his Triggers for her Targets (tags)
Highly paid school privatization advocate Ben Austin has been lashing out publicly with ever more vitriol since he ignominiously lost his seat on the California State Board of Education and his supposed moment of triumph in Compton, chronicled in Jill Stewart's trashy masseuse and porn ad pennysaver was been mired in controversy and very real accusations of malfeasance.
Animal studies indicate that cooperation is better than individualism.
PLAN SANTA BARBARA: Is It Really Adapting In Today’s Fast Changing Environment? (tags)
Some Thoughts Regarding Item 8. For Agenda of August 10, 2010
Leftist Sci-Fi Writer China Miéville Comes to San Diego (tags)
China Miéville isn’t exactly your typical multiple award-winning science-fiction writer. He’s also a Left-wing political activist, a member of the British Socialist Workers Party and former candidate for Parliament. Miéville came to San Diego for the July 22-25 Comic-Con, and took a detour for an afternoon question-and-answer session at the San Diego Public Library Sunday afternoon, July 25, during which he discussed his novels — notably his latest, “Kraken,” and his “New Crobuzon” series (“Perdido Street Station,” 2000; “The Scar,” 2001; “Iron Council,” 2002) — his politics and how the Internet has made the already difficult business of making a living from writing even harder.
Eclectic Los Angeles Tea Party Stages Tax Day Protest at Feinstein's L.A. Offices./ Set 2 (tags)
On Deadline Day, A potpourri Of West L.A. Tax Revolters Railed Against Massive Deficits and the Cost of Social Welfare Programs as Possible Candidates Rally For November Elections Photo Set 2 of 2
Eclectic Los Angeles Tea Party Stages Tax Day Protest at Feinstein's L.A. Offices (tags)
On Deadline Day, A potpourri Of West L.A. Tax Revolters Railed Against Massive Deficits and the Cost of Social Welfare Programs as Possible Candidates Rally For November Elections / Photo Set 1 of 2
Cash for Geezers: Retirement for Boomers at 55 (tags)
Beloved Air America host in the mornings, Thom Hartmann and Eduardo Galeano could turn our days to light.
Let's Really Attack our Economic Problems (tags)
Let’s show the trickle down theory the door. If a goodly majority ever faces economic reality, we could fashion a better world. It is however the wealthy that will have to sacrifice.
Ronald Reagan: Betrayer of Main Street America! (tags)
William Kleinknecht takes the gloves off in his new book,”The Man Who Sold the World: Ronald Reagan and the Betrayal of Main Street America.” He shows that the so-called “great communicator,” was, in fact, the “great enabler of corporate greed.” The Vulture Capitalists were set loose on the people by “Reaganism.” I say: Take Reagan’s name off that airport in D.C. Let his Fat Cat cronies pay for his memorials, not the taxpayers.
"Not torturing is changed into an act of barbarism.. Torture, the atom bomb and the globalization strategy all save life. State terrorism presents itself as humanist realism, the only way of securing life. As a Chilean general said, national security is like love; there is never enough."
An analysis of how the recent fires in Los Angeles and San Diego counties demonstrates how much America has given up even lip service to the notion that "all men are created equal" and how this nation has evolved into an aristocratic society that judges people's intrinsic worth based on their wealth.
Greenspan's Dark Legacy Unmasked (tags)
Alan Greenspan's true record of public disservice.
THOM HARTMANN'S NEW BOOK - SCREWED: THE UNDECLARED WAR AGAINST THE MIDDLE CLASS (tags)
HOW DEMOCRACY AND THE MIDDLE CLASS ARE BEING DESTROYED
The Meaninglessness of Actiivism/Slacktivism (tags)
Do you (or anyone else out in the mental wasteland known as the world leader, the beacon of democracy, the land of opportunity – Nazi America) have a view, a perspective, a politics, an interest, a truth, a belief, - or anything you will stand for, die for?
Libertarianism: Bogus Anarchy (tags)
A rebuttal to this essay is Contra Sabatini: Bogus Critique by Tim Virkkala, wherein Sabatini's interpretation of the individualist anarchists is disputed. In my opinion the analytic meaning of "anarchism" takes precedence over historical factors. Thus any ideology which wants to disband the State can rightfully be called anarchist.
Anarchism is a political theory which aims to create anarchy, "the absence of a master, of a sovereign." [P-J Proudhon, What is Property , p. 264] In other words, anarchism is a political theory which aims to create a society within which individuals freely co-operate together as equals. As such anarchism opposes all forms of hierarchical control - be that control by the state or a capitalist - as harmful to the individual and their individuality as well as unnecessary.
The tragedy of how intellectual property claims on murder evidence papers were used to recruit The Beatles and The King Family into accomplice in the AIDS onslaught. If you don't read it here, you won't read it.
hollywood.com: drudgery and/or artisanhood (tags)
the question was raised re: writer's block.
nazi wr criminal tells confesses his complicity -- Guardian (tags)
(with prefacing editorial) In the UK oskar groening, former SS Soldier, tells the truth about the Holocaust because deniaers attempt to say it didn't happen. he was there (UK's Guardian) oh yeah -- they were SOCIALISTS. peopel need to wake up.
Another great article by Raimondo, telling it like it is. The sun has set on the neo-con agenda. Time for justice.
NESARA: peace information February 20th – April 9th, 2004 (tags)
“This morning from 7:30 am to 8 am, I shared the good news of NESARA on the ?Healthy Choices? show on KEST Radio 1450 AM in San Francisco”
I am NOT the Libertarian Party chairman! (tags)
The other day, an Libertarian Party candidate wanted a contribution so he could buy a van and make speeches at Ramada Inns ... Did I mention that he also renounced paper money and only carries gold and silver
Is a crypto-Libertarian extremist with a prison record who advocates selfishness as a personal philosophy and promotes atheism to teenage criminals the best candidate to represent the Republican Party?
Libertarians and Conservatives -- Neither Side Really Gets It (tags)
The rift between libertarian and conservative movements in America today can be repaired. Mutual success can be achieved by cooperating on more critical subjects like dismantling public education in favor of home schooling and privatization.
American Satyricon - The Perverting Of Reality (tags)
True, there has been some tongue-wagging about how America dropped its radioactive torture on Afghanistan and Iraq after telling whoppers of lies that never would have gone unchallenged in an eighth-grade debate class, but nevertheless managed to hold spellbound the entire American populace while these evil massacres took place.
My First Day at UCLA, USSR (tags)
MIT professor Noam Chomsky (a rabidly anti-American leftist) had more books at the UCLA Store than did Aristotle, John Locke, Adam Smith, Frederic Bastiat, Thomas Malthus, John Stuart Mill, F.A. Hayek, Milton Friedman, Thomas Sowell, Ayn Rand, Nathaniel Branden ... if not for the fading scent of liberty, I might as well have been at the University of Havana.
How to defeat the fascists (tags)
Marching in the streets is important work, but wouldn't we have greater success if we also took control of the United States government?
The Police Are Here To Preserve Disorder (tags)
During the Civil War there was no property tax. They were more freee than we are.
A REVIEW OF PAST FOLLIES...
Family fued at libertarian Media Giant (tags)
Freedom has long advocated a libertarian point of view on the editorial pages of its 28 daily papers and 8 tv stations. Today the company is one of the nation's largest newspaper publishers estimated to be worth about $2 billion.
Imagine A Noncoercive Society (tags)
John Lennon forgot to imagine no government. Why? because he was brainwashed in government state training camps and couldn't think independently.
Psychology - Infant Science Only (tags)
Ayn Rand says psychology is in infancy as a science. But the State-run media says it is real. It is all a lie. Don't believe the creeps. They are evil, because they force their crap on you. So they can drug you and put nonsense into your head. See "Disease Mongers" by Lynn Payer.
Microsoft's new interest in Washington (tags)
Bill Gates is no stranger to the Cato Institute, the prominent libertarian/free-market think tank -- Microsoft's annual donations are acknowledged but undisclosed and its lobbyists are frequent guests at the Institute's conferences and panels. But things are beginning to change...
Men Must Deal With One Another As Traders. (tags)
Check out Alex Jones (www.infowars.net) for government abuses.
Are Republicans different from Libertarians? (tags)
Libertarians advocate maximum liberty with minimum restrictions in any and all arenas of human activity. This sounds good, but carried to its logical extreme, it involves decriminalizing virtually every "vice" known to man.
Economic Fascism and Tax Slavery (tags)
"Words mean what I say they mean, Alice," said the Mad Hatter
U.S. Government of the rich, by the rich, and for the rich (tags)
How has the secretive U.S.-based IMF/World Bank economically enslaved poor countries?
The nature of the Iraqi conquest was not lost on one cable TV news reporter who, in questioning a man who wanted the rebuilding process to be opened up to other nations than just the United States shrieked that the "French who wanted no part in the war now want to share in the spoils."
Consider a third alternative (tags)
Libertarians are just like those racist liberals who think that blacks deserve to go to school more than whites, simply by virtue of their blackness. Don’t give me that lifetime of oppression rubbish.
Immigrants Are A Godsend. (tags)
from the book "Why Businessmen Need Philosoph" by Ayn Rand.
To get your ideas across, use reason, not force. That's what Ayn Rand taught. She also was against religion and government. She was our genius. For more genius, check out Alex jones (www.infowars.net).
Government is Bad, Business is Good (tags)
Government is organized force. Business gives humanity what they want. They do not use force. Government uses force to steal our money.
Free Government Rests on Free Men Armed! (tags)
Aristotle quote (the philosopher Ayn Rand says we need).