Tag: corporations

We may have democracy; or we may have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both.

If pleading the “Fifth” smells, the Solyndra drama will prove the stereotype applies in this instance. A good old-fashioned scandal in an election year pumps up the media juices.

History is clear. There is no example in the history of mankind where justice has simply been bestowed upon a people.

Many of my fellow Obama supporters contend that the president can only do so much, which is absolutely true. But what he can do is use the bully pulpit of the presidency to educate the people, which he’s failing miserably at. The entire GOP agenda is based on flat-out lies, the blatant corruption of facts, and a deviation from reality that’s so severe that even a child could see it if someone would just take the time to explain it. So why isn’t Obama doing that?

Since Black people are the product of the very same racist environment as White people, we tend to be just as racist toward other Blacks as any Hillbilly. That explains why we never see a drive-by committed by a person wearing a sheet. The Klan has learned, just like the powers that be, that we’re much more efficient at destroying one another than they could ever be.

Now, I realize that I sound like a wild-eyed radical, but if I do, it's only because I have a very low threshold for bullshit. I love this country, but I love truth more. I'm eclectic in my views. I believe in clear, unadulterated thought, and addressing every issue on its own merit. As a result, sometimes I agree with liberals, and at other times I agree with conservatives. That doesn't always make me very popular, but I'm more than happy to forsake popularity in return for moral and intellectual clarity. I was taught that's what it means to be an American. Maybe I'm naive, but I took that lesson seriously.

What we once thought of as American corporations have now become international in scope. They have no loyalty to any one nation, nor do they have any respect for any geographical boundary. They're now competing with countries that pay their workers less per week than many American workers spend on lunch per day. As a result, the American middle-class standard of living has become a liability and is under an aggressive assault by both the corporate and governmental establishment.

Then in 1929 Herbert Hoover came to power. During his administration the stock market crashed, starting the great depression. In spite of the fact that by 1933 the unemployment rate was at 33.3% with 16 million people out of work, the Republican, Hoover, just sat, thinking that the economy would eventually rejuvenate itself. During Hoover's administration 15,000 WWI veterans marched on Washington demanding that they be paid what they were owed by the government. Hoover responded by calling in federal troops to throw these ex-servicemen off government property.

Two articles today, an OpEd in the New York Times and a column at Truthdig by E.J. Dionne highlight the ongoing struggle over how...

Douglas Valentine at Consortium News draws some parallels between our current wars and William the Conqueror, they're not pretty. The bumpkin senator from Oklahoma has started an inquisition of climate scientists; their crimes? Being climate scientists, of course. The Taliban strike in downtown Kabul in a story from Juan Cole at Informed Comment and according to McClatchy News their goal is driving America out. Those stories and more in today's picks.

The Washington Post's Dan Eggen reports this morning on the results of a WaPo/ABC News poll which shows Americans to be "overwhelmingly" opposed to the recent SCOTUS decision to allow corporations to spend unlimited amounts of cash in election campaigns. "Eight in 10 poll respondents say they oppose the high court's Jan. 21 decision to allow unfettered corporate political spending, with 65 percent "strongly" opposed. Nearly as many backed congressional action to curb the ruling, with 72 percent in favor of reinstating limits. The poll reveals relatively little difference of opinion on the issue among Democrats (85 percent opposed to the ruling), Republicans (76 percent) and independents (81 percent)."

Time to tax financial speculation? Way past time according to Institute for Policy Study's Sarah Anderson writing in Yes Magazine. Privatized health care? Ask rural Chinese how the switch from public to private is working for them, from the LA Times. Sarah Palin is smacking her jaws together over climate change using disinformation that she gets directly from big oil, from Think Progress and more in today's picks.

The gang that paid the Dems to turn their collective backs on the harebrained gambling and outright criminal behavior of Wall Street is threatening to stop the money flow from Glen Greenwald at Salon. More on the fat cat lenders getting rich off the backs of college students in a NYT oped. The results of the recent SCOTUS decision to hand over our electoral process to corporations are already unfolding in plutocratic pow wows in a story from Raw Story via AlterNet and more in today's picks.

Robert Reich points out that it's Congress that does the legislating around here not Wall Street. SC's Lt Guv finds lots of laughs in the unemployed using food stamps, Jim Hightower can't find the humor. At Tomgram we learn that as we suspected, "The Commercials Are the Super Bowl," and the GOP after preaching the horrors of public insurance wants to ration my Medicare and get its greedy fingers ion my Social Security. All that and more in today's picks

Jim Hightower takes on the Supremes' prostitution to corporate plutocracy, Glen Greenwald wants to know whats so sacred about the defense budget, Blackwater (Xe) mercenaries still in the news, Terrible numbers from Haiti, and questions about Afghanistan and Pakistan in todays picks.

Five members of the Supreme Court declared that a "corporation" is a person, not a "regular person" but one above all natural laws, subject to no God, no moral code but one with unlimited power over our lives, a power awarded by judges who see themselves as grand inquisitors empowered meant to hunt down all heretics who fail to serve their god, the god of money.

As the mainstream media continues to engage in its endless distraction over Senator Harry Reid stating the ridiculously obvious, New York's Black Star News is running an otherwise completely overlooked little story about the firing of Eric Amankwah, a 28-year-old Ghanian, by Delta Airlines for reporting a serious breach of security.