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Are fruit and vegetables good for your mental health as well as your physical health? VoxEU. Notice the source.
Marine ‘treasure trove’ could bring revolution in medicine and industry Guardian
Nike+ FuelBand: One Big Security Hole For Your Life HotHardware
Noda seizes on TPP as way to steer forthcoming election Asahi Shimbun (Lambert). Key bit is that the belief in Japan is that Obama will accelerate the Trans Pacific Partnership negotiations. The Dems are coming for your second kidney faster than you expected….
China’s economy to overtake US in next four years, says OECD Guardian
China sets date for space launch BBC
Google sees China traffic drop, web monitor says search website blocked Bloomberg (furzy mouse)
Many Chinese Intellectuals Are Silent Amid a Wave of Tibetan Self-Immolations New York Times (furzy mouse). Lambert notes:”Sounds like our progressives on the suicides and decreased life expectancy form permanent DISemployment.”
George Entwistle resigns as BBC director general BBC. This has been brewing and is a huge deal in the UK. Richard Smith: “Paxman (who is not a stooge) thinks it goes back to Hutton/Iraq/dodgy dossier. http://twitpic.com/bc4rr5”
EU budget talks collapse following rows over funding increase Telegraph
Greece calls for calm over bailout Guardian
A world without the Global Minotaur: Why is the world economy failing to recover? Yanis Varoufakis
More election aftermath:
The GOP’s blame game Washington Post (furzy mouse)
The Problem With a Really Tiny Tent Big Picture (bob)
The Gerrymander Triumph Global Economic Intersection
Mitt Romney’s Campaign Cancels Staffers’ Credit Cards In The Middle Of The Night Helaine Olen, Forbes (Scott A)
I am late to notice that the stupidest woman I have ever seen on television lost her Congressional seat.
Catfood watch:
Boehner Tells House G.O.P. to Fall in Line New York Times
Paul Krugman Has A Simple Rebuttal To Anyone Who’s Worried About Interest Rates Spiking Clusterstock
If the Dems got a backbone Linda Beale. Probably up there with “if pigs could fly.”
The Political Trial Of A Caring Man And The End Of Justice In America John Pilger (Aquifer)
FBI probe of Petraeus triggered by e-mail threats from biographer, officials say Washington Post
Ideas on protecting New York from future storms float to surface NBC
Hurricane Sandy and the Disaster-Preparedness Economy New York Times
DTCC SAYS TRILLIONS IN STOCK CERTIFICATES DAMAGED IN SANDY FLOODWATERS SilverDoctors (Aquifer)
Desperate for shelters, New York considers turning jail cells into homes RT. Lambert: “”Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses?
Upbeat Consumers to Sustain U.S. as Companies Hesitate Bloomberg
David Koch Is the Worst Tipper at 740 Park Vanity Fair (David Fiderer). FYI, 740 Park is one of the two most exclusive buildings in Manhattan (720 Park is the other)
The Distribution of Economic Pain From the Financial Crisis in One Chart Jesse
The Wide Poverty Gap Between Women and Men Atlantic (Carol B)
A Charter for the 99 Percent Dissent (Paul Tioxon)
Occupy gets into the debt market Salon. I hate to say it, but I am not keen about this idea, hence my failure to post on it. 1. A great deal of the debt sold by banks isn’t even legally valid, meaning it isn’t enforceable. OWS might get a lot more leverage using the funds to disseminate information to people hounded by debt collectors on how to fight them (yes, that’s in their Debt Resistors’ Operations Manual, but how many people in American even know that exists?). That would also increase bad press about debt collectors and banks selling what often amounts to phony debt. Buying the debt actually perpetuates this corrupt system. 2. Who gets relief is random, and the number who get relief will be small relative to the scale of the problem (assuming, again as per 1, that many of these people had valid debts outstanding to begin with). 3. Worse, there is a potential that the debts of people close to OWS get bought either by accident or design. Charges of self dealing would not be good for the movement.
Elizabeth Warren a woman of few words Boston Globe. Not pretty.
As a final “campaign coverage” item, Lambert has provided what was missing from the hustings:
The 12 Word Platform
1. Medicare for All
2. End the Wars
3. Tax the Rich
4. A Jobs Guarantee
Please circulate!
Antidote du jour (furzy mouse):
149 comments
Comments are closed.
Re: George Entwistle Resigns.
It should come as no surprise to posters/readers that the present UK Conservative led government despises the BBC – which is funny given a former high ranking Conservative actually heads up the Board of Governors – namely, Patten.
Further, for the last month we have had a witch hunt going on in the UK with regards sexual offences against teenage girls – this has now widened to Children – carried out by supposedly well known radio & TV personalities in the 60’s and 70’s – to date, no criminal prosecutions have been brought forth – however, our rightwing press are having a field day, the same neoliberal/conservative press that calls for the abolition of the BBC and all it stands for – basically its supposed to be a hotbed of communism/liberalism and homosexuality.
Given that the BBC since the election of the UK’s coalition government has treated the government with kid gloves and failed to uphold its founding Charter/principles – our Government will do all in its power to defang the BBC, if not call for its privatisation – much like what has occurred with PBC in the USA.
Given the power of the established media moguls – all of whom are either highly Conservative or neoliberals, the idea of the BBC becoming like Murdock’s Fox TV fill me with dread.
Obviously, our masters do not want any independent form of media, be it print, broadcast or via the Internet – hence, we have blatant political attacks on the BBC for doing its job, i.e., bring facts to the attention of the public, facts our masters would rather have us ignore.
I cannot speak or give opinion on the sexual abuses scandal – this being a matter for the police – however, its disgusting that the UK government and the Conservative Party be allowed to transform the BBC into a rightwing propaganda tool for the government.
Hands off the BBC – the World will be a worse place without it.
“… basically its supposed to be a hotbed of communism/liberalism and homosexuality.”
you failed to mention pedophilia and necrophilia backed up by photos with young ladies and children with disabilities; keys to their dwelling places as well as keys to a mortuary and chummy with royals. I didn’t make that up. Those are the charges in the current flap. is there a reason you left that out or did you miss that?
and furthermore, i’d be fighting for the protection of children in the care of the state and in favor of hanging the heads of their institutions with their enablers. No stone unturned until they are all charged, shamed and imprisoned before I’d care one wit about the BBC.
The charges are credible. And no less credible because no one until now had been outed.
LeeAnne
” …before I’d care one wit about the BBC.”
Be very careful what you wish for. There are undoubtedly many who do not like the public having access to information and/or see a fat profit for themselves (Murdoch for instance) who will be seeking to make hay of this.
The BBC has a managment problem – that is obvious – but it is a separate problem from the fact that a few sociopaths work there as they do in other organisations.
‘not caring’ is nt a wish.
I covered it in my second paragraph in relation to ‘children’ and not too sure about allegations against dead bodies – however, the ‘Red tops’ and other media outlets as stated are having a field day.
Having actually spoken to those with first hand knowledge of members of the Royal Family up to heinous crimes – all wrapped up in the troubles in Ireland – nothing really surprises me when Masonic lodges are involved or royalty – as for all other allegations, until criminal proceedings are brought forward, they remain allegations and I certainly will not comment on these until the full facts are known.
and it will take a lot of encouragement when the suspicion is that people as with Sandusky in the US, in the highest ranks of power, prestige and wealth necessarily protect this activity. That of course includes all agencies of Justice in the UK and the US.
Anything that discourages people who could testify to come forward is a mark against those who discourage it for whatever excuse. That whole system is based on intimidation -intimidation of the child victims as well as child care staff, pimps (see charitable contributors) and their clients. It will take some determination for justice to be done and children to get a better deal -the care they need.
Your arguments are right/left -even the categories -conservative/democrats -are farsical. There’s nothing conservative about Republicans, and the left, if my lying eyes saw correctly, turned over the US Treasury for FREE with all it could leverage to Hank Paulson. The photos at the signing were Democrats grinning like monkeys -see Nancy Pelosi.
my frustration is with the right-left bread and circuses that reliably distracts people from the real issues.
Justice is a real issue. A free press is a real issue. Taking corporations out of NEWS is a real issue (that’s what I would like to see OWS backing -that’s a non partisan issue). Protecting children from freaks and legalalized kidnap from parents is a real issue.
The BBC should stay home and stay out of my hair. I’m tired of having to dial past all those cockney accents.
Given the BBC’s draconian blocking of even its news and public affairs programming to outside the UK via web streams I don’t think they are concerned with their global influence.
The BBC has screwed itself over through it’s attitude to the coalition govt’s policies, because it’s not getting any support from the left.
They’ve almost totally blanked privatisation of the NHS, for example, and swallowed the TINA argument wholesale. They’ve been only too happy to pump out rightwing disinfomation about welfare claimants and govt spending. The BBC has gone from criticisng the last Labour govt from the trendy-left, to coalition mouthpiece in the space of a quick couple of years. There was a fairly clear anti-labour bias at the BBC for a few years. That went back to the Hutton inquiry and the Gulf war.
The sort of people who would normally have leapt to their defence( people like me, for example, and the broader left), are now deeplly pissed off with it. The right, of course have always hated it and looked for any oppotunity to weaken them. Now they’re under sustained attack, but they’ve alienated the people who would previously have instinctivelly supported them.
I’m not an apologist for the BBC and the way its kowtowed to the ConDem Alliance since the election of May, 2010 – the fact remains that the BBC’s Charter is up for renewal again shortly and as a result the BeeB has been giving the Alliance an easy time in my opinion when compared to the former Labour Government.
If we wish to avoid this charade every time the BeeB’s Charter date renewal approaches, we should actually extend the Charter to a minimum of 20 years and not ten.
The fact remains, Murdock and the Tories despise the BBC, hence any excuse to club the institution to death – and the Savile nonsense is really a big club to yield.
Lets remember these offences, alleged offences occurred in the late 60’s/70’s and early 80’s – so the present top brass were not even around – by all means lets have an inquiry and prosecute wrong doers – but lets not give the Right and neoliberals the ammunition to privatise the BBC – which would be a disaster for our country and a free media globally.
“As deft as she was at slogans, she was never so good at answering questions, which was odd for a person of such experience and substance.” The Cherokee are a notoriously taciturn people.
Tamarins? OMG, they’re sold as pets. Talk about a vanity play!
Not a tamarin, a pygmy marmoset.
The Little Win, by George Kenney:
“The bothersome fact is that this year Mr. Obama received about 61,617,000 votes, about 7,840,000 fewer votes (for purposes of numerical rhetoric more than 10% fewer) than in 2008 — fewer, it should be noted, in the overall context of the U.S. population having grown during the past four years by about 10,300,000 people. In comparison, if Mr. Obama had received the same number of votes in 2008 he still would have narrowly beaten John McCain, by about 1,600,000 votes, but Mr. Obama’s 2012 tally is, surprisingly, smaller than George W. Bush’s 2004 win with 62,000,000 votes. To claim, then, that this election has been an “improvement” for Democrats is to entirely miss the point.”
As a Brit, and someone who has followed the US election cycle closely since Ford/Carter in 1976 – many may wonder why as an outsider, I should take an extreme interest in what happens in politics your side of the pond.
Posters/Readers may elucidate an idea by dropping over to The Guardian/Observer website and see a Mr. Andrew Rawnsley pontificating about the US election, and as usual for pretty badly informed UK commentators, getting his analysis arse backwards shall we say. See Rawnsley link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/nov/11/andrew-rawnsley-obama-reelection-lessons
As a ardent neolibeal cheerleader, Rawnsley is of the opinion that Obama won a resounding victory by parking his tanks firmly in the centre ground – if you then read the comments that have been made – it is obviously that most educated posters in the UK with knowledge of US politics and the UK’s Labour Party – that the very idea of Obama being a centrist politician is absurd – unless the centre is inhabited by neoliberals and neoconservatives.
How any one can give credence to the lie that Obama is left leaning, or indeed a centralist is respect of opinion within the US electorate beats me.
now the moral in the tale is this, Rawnsley says that Obama is a centralist and offered political solutions that appealed to the Centre – as such, the UK’s Labour Party needs to move to the Centre grouns, as do the Conservatives if they wish to win the 2015 election.
The funny thing is, all three legacy parties of the UK are to the right of the centre, that is, they endorse and follow a neoliberal economic agenda that, as with Obama, is diametrically opposed to the interests of the majority.
Further, and if anyone looks at the front page of today;s Guardian website, you’ll notice a story that illustrates where neoliberals stands, this is related to former public utilities, in this instance, water utilities that are now private businesses – they pay little or no tax – they do hand out loads of money to senior staff and shareholders.
This is the centre ground that Rawnsley and all the neoliberal cheerleaders support in the UK – obviously this is pure propaganda, spin and bullshite – hence you may now understand why I take a keen interest in things in the USA for regretfully it influences our political process, such as Clinton’s Third Way – another byword for neoliberalism, global free trade and the pauperisation of the majority.
Please accept an apology for grammar errors again from me – hopefully I’ll have glasses during December.
Not necessary. Many here are lousy typists and indifferent editors. Me, for one.
I’m an Impulsive Button Clicker.
Rawnsley is a cheap hack-his writing is mostly personality and gossip driven bollocks, with occasional vacous insights like “elections are won from the centre”.
He perfectly illustrates the dumbing down of the British media.
Finally some good news: fewer Americans approve of Obama’s horrible first term than I thought.
Now if only those millions have voted for Jill Stein.
Or Rocky Anderson.
Some years ago, I saw a piece about Haitians sheltering in what had been Duvalier senior’s jail cells. The cells were so small they looked like storage cells and it was noted that people had been confined in them for years. To low even to sit up in, to small to lay down at full stretch. Heart stopping.
Perhaps Colorado could extend an invitation to some of the New Yorkers rendered houseless by the two storms.
We have a new correctional facility standing empty (and it is costing us taxpayers beaucoup bucks, as we still owe the lenders). Everyone will get a “private” room, as it was built to provide isolation confinement; no expensive dining rooms, libraries, exercise facilities. http://www.kshb.com/dpp/news/national/colorado-spending-208-million-on-empty-prison
I would suggest that the temporarily houseless not stop in Denver; we have a new law that makes those “camping” on the streets liable to arrest. http://www.denverpost.com/breakingnews/ci_20622151/denver-city-council-expected-pass-homeless-camping-ban
In a Swiftian vein, shuttling the storm-houseless directly to jail cells, does save the taxpayer money by eliminating the whole criminal justice middlemen. Why bother with police, courts, constitutional protections, when we can simply place them directly in cells and slam shut the doors?
is it close to Aspen?
Prison guards can’t afford to live near Aspen.
The cells are like “the little ease” of the R.C. Inquisition, so artfully mentioned in the monologue of Jean-Baptiste Clement in “La Chute/the Fall” by Camus.
Regarding election aftermath:
I have yet to see anyone mention the Mormon factor combined with the religious right’s effective farming of xenophobes. Hasn’t the GOP’s success in recent years been due to its perpetual pandering to the dominionist evangelicals? And then they send a Mormon and expect to capture that vote? Brainwashing is not so easily undone; its purveyors ought know this. What’s puzzling is the liberal media appearing to not be smart enough to pick up on this. The GOP’S hatemongering doomed its own candidate…
the country was not in the mood for a cororate raider in the White House.
Mormonism would not have been an issue, had Romney owned a car dealership in DesMoines.
An entrepreneur, a small business, conservative, slightly libertarian would have swept the field.
But then, both parties vet for allegiance to Wall St, Banking, War, and Israel.
Obviously, this was the best the GOP could do. the Dems already had a lawn jockey for all of the above.
That all sounds very nice, but American voters aren’t that smart. If that were the case, Obama wouldn’t have been down 9 million votes from 2008. Romney was down 2.5 million from McCane’s 2012 numbers. Obama won the swing states by narrow margins. No, had Romney been a Christian, he would have won.
Quite frankly, these election results should scare the hell out of liberals. Romney/Ryan was a pure Randian objectivist ticket, and it came within a few million votes of winning. A few million votes that Hagee, Graham, Robertson and Co. could have delivered had they not spent the last 30 years labeling Mormonism a cult. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_2012#Close_states
That’s right. And the most successful third party were the Libertarians, former home to the Koch Brothers until they purchased a controlling interest in the GOP. It is getting darker.
Libertarian party, indeed. http://nsfwcorp.com/dispatch/gary-johnson-swindle
After reading today’s NYT article on the Paula Broadwell’s catfight that led to her&Davy’s exposure, I noticed Maureed Dowd’s article “Romney is President” http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/11/opinion/sunday/dowd-romney-is-president.html [i.e. of white male America]. Suprisingly, it’s not a bad summary, perhaps because she clearly does her research by watching The Daily Show.
“Christian Right Failed to Sway Voters on Issues” http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/10/us/politics/christian-conservatives-failed-to-sway-voters.html, NYTimes, 09 Nov 2012.
Marketing cat food.
How Obama Can Heal His Rift With Business, by Jonathan Alter in Bloomberg
If chief executive officers can put aside their regrets over the outcome of the election, they can be important brokers between the administration and Republicans in Congress.
After Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles issued the recommendations of their bipartisan deficit-reduction panel in 2010, almost 100 CEOs signed a letter of support for their plan. This meant chief executives favored a mix of budget cuts and tax increases that was in many respects to the left of what Obama offered House Speaker John Boehner in the scuttled grand-bargain talks of mid-2011. That Obama never fully embraced Simpson- Bowles for political reasons is now irrelevant. The executives who expressed their support for Bowles-Simpson two years ago need to come to Washington and stand behind the president, who has a mandate for his “balanced” approach.
The article also includes howlers like this: From the start, Obama failed to include enough business executives in his administration.
I’ve never been able to see Jonathan Alter without snickering since he wrote this drivel after the death of John F. Kennedy Jr.:
“He was more than our ‘Prince Charming,’ as the New York tabs called him. We etched the past and the future on his fine face.”
When I listen to these people I feel like I’m watching creatures from another planet. It isn’t much of a surprise, when you think of it, that half the county doesn’t believe in AGW. We, as a nation, have become unmoored from empiricism. We simply believe whatever we feel like believing. Global warming isn’t happening. Global warming isn’t caused by atmospheric carbon. Obama is anti-business. We have taken all the worst features of the 60s Liberalism (do your own thing) and melded them with the worst aspects of Conservatism (greed is good) to render a Neoliberal hell. One we call home.
Weren’t the Ptolomeics empiricists?
“Wheels within wheels.”
I disagree with your cynicism over the rolling jubilee. As the Salon piece notes, it does have the potential to shine some light on the illegitimacy of the secondary and tertiary collection markets. From a tactical standpoint, they will probably need to use intermediaries to buy up the debt so that the markets won’t be able to blockade the effort.
In fact, I might use one of my LLCs to buy 5k worth and contribute it to the effort.
From the WaPo Blame Game piece:
No, they didn’t undermine their message, they underlined it.
Someone make those taramins an i-tiny keyboard.
Speaking of the micro-digitally enabled, or is that enabling…DTCC
36 Trillion or 10% of that…maybe leaving the goodies in the basement waterside isn’t for the risk averse (will anyone do a ‘dna’ test to see if it is sea water, and not the mark of another…bhahaha.
Really, around here buiding codes for a backyard garage oblige low-pont sump pumps. Have the neolib/cons cut bulding maintanence for the back up generators–skip to the 5th paragraph for the half-pancake bite http://www.dtcc.com/superstorm_sandy.php (scroll down for the impressive contact list, and ealier dated dispatches)
Trade with Dave ddot com takes a big stack of panckes and syrup, for a single pancake synopsis scroll to the last 3 paragraphs.
The legitimacy of digitization is different from the viability. Relatedly, the BBC, like Lloyds of L have enormous paper archive, digital too. Somehow the imagined aroma of a UK paper archive rings more, ah, je ne sais quoi
Is the gorilla in the story how real certificates need be?
Some of the vaulted certificates were issued by Disney with holographic Disney logos. Disney is pretty picky about knockoffs. Will Disney let them borrow their special printers so the eyes still sparkle the Disney way? Apparently the vault has not yet been open. What? Suspense.
Other DTCC links http://www.dtcc.com/legal/imp_notices/hurricane_sandy.php
Last I heard watering down stock is illegal. Maybe the Obama crew can finally demonstrate how tough they are on financial malfeasance by charging DTCC? Or should they go after the weather forecasters;-)
Re: Are fruit and vegetables good for your mental health as well as your physical health?
In principle, it is uncontroversial in the UK that there may be dietary (and other public health) interventions that provide overall economic, as well as individual, benefit. Vitamins A and D supplementation of margarine, vitamin D in chapatti flour, fluoride in drinking water are examples of this.
However, such interventions can only provide economic benefit if they are effective.
I am therefore astonished that the author of the linked article considers fruit and vegetables to be sources of vitamin B12. People who eat nothing but fruit and vegetables must take artificial vitamin B12 supplements to avert the risk of serious B12 deficiency diseases, in particular, pernicious anaemia. This is a well-known and well-publicised public health issue for vegans. As Professor of Public Health for Warwick University medical school, Ms Stewart-Brown ought to be very well aware that frut and vegetables cannot possibly provide vitamin B12.
This is such an elementary blunder that it calls into question the rigour of the 2012 paper of which she is co-author (and which is the subject of the linked article).
I am also disappointed to see that the study which prompted
The principle that there may well be economic benefits to society
Furthermore, Ms Stewart-Brown reports that “water-soluble minerals such as potassium and vitamins such as folic acid and B-12 … are … not stored in the body.”
Ms Stewart-Brown must surely be aware that both folic acid (after conversion to biologically active forms of folate) and vitamin B-12 are stored in the body.
With all due respect to the many fine medical administrators I know, this is one of the unintended consequences of letting non-medical administrators determine healthcare policy without consulting with RN’s, MD’s, DO’s, or other’s who have studied health sciences.
These are basic and glaring errors which undermine a basically good idea, that fruits and vegetables are good for your brain (hence mental health) as well as the rest of you.
RE Fruits and vegetables.
About minerals and health and
mental health. Here is a very important aspect of that.
Genetically modified foods and the herbicides used with them produce food with fewer essential minerals.
A leading USDA scientist, Dr. Don Huber says:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/02/24/us-monsanto-roundup-idUSTRE71N4XN20110224
“Over three decades ago we started the shift to a monochemical glyphosate herbicide program that was soon accompanied by glyphosate- and insect-resistant genetically engineered crops.
These two changes in agricultural practices – the excessive application of a strong essential mineral chelating, [mineral grabbing and clumping] endocrine-disrupting chemical for weed control and the genetically engineered production of new toxins in our food crops – was accompanied by abandonment of years of scientific research based on the scientific precautionary principle. We substituted a philosophical “substantially equivalent,” a new term coined to avoid accountability for the lack of understanding of consequences of our new activities, for science.
Glyphosate is a strong organic phosphate chelator that immobilizes positively charged minerals such as
manganese,
cobalt,
iron,
zinc,
copper, etc.
that are essential for normal physiological functions in soils, plants and animals. It is this ability to shut down physiological functions and predispose plants to killer diseases that make it such an effective broad-spectrum weed killer. Glyphosate is also a very powerful selective antibiotic that kills beneficial, but not pathogenic, microorganisms in the soil and intestine at very low residual levels in food. Residue levels permitted in food are 40 to 800 times the antibiotic threshold and concentrations shown in clinical studies to damage mammalian tissues.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/02/24/us-monsanto-roundup-idUSTRE71N4XN20110224
More on this and his bio
http://www.wcta-online.com/health-and-safety/item/61-usda-scientist-reveals-all-glyphosate-hazards-to-crops-soils-animals-and-consumers
47% of California voters approved the labeling of GMOs, in spite of 10 to 1 outspending by big biochem, every major newspaper in the state, i.e. recipients of junk food advertisers’ money, being against the proposition and a barrage of outright lies and distortions about the ballot intitiative from the Monsanto mass mailers and media buys. We have two or four more years to educate enough voters to approve this in the next election.
“People who eat nothing but fruit and vegetables must take artificial vitamin B12 supplements to avert the risk of serious B12 deficiency diseases” -Manythings
Traditional vegan diets involve plenty of fermentation, which is considerably healthier than B12 shots. Only microbes can make B12. There are many yeast and bacteria that produce B12. Tempeh and natto are two old-school fermented soy foods that are particularly high in B12, but there are lots of fermented grains, fruits and beans that have it.
Pls ignore the above typos (“frut” and the incomplete final sentences).
“FBI probe of Petraeus triggered by e-mail threats from biographer, officials say” Washington Post
Why is stuff liuke this repeated on a blog like this that is rated high for intelligent analysis?
For comic relief. Someone at Economic Policy Journal has posted a savage parody bio of the milf Mata Hari:
http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2012/11/up-to-date-profile-on-paula-broadwell.html
“milf Mata Hari” haha!
Indeed, this is one of the more comedy-fruitful “scandals” in recent memory.
More snarky amusement available at: http://gawker.com/petraeus-affair/ ; http://wonkette.com/489512/biographer-lady-revealed-to-be-petraeus-mistress-linchpin-of-benghazi-cover-up-probably
And it does highlight the strange waste/foregoing of talented people when someone is fired because of mostly irrelevant events/associations in their private life.
Thanks for the great link ‘A Charter for the 99 Percent.’
While reading that article I clicked through on the link out to the ‘Fair Share’ platform, which seemed very practical and very clear.
We do need to keep up the pressure…
Re Dissent. A lot of domestic reformist thought, Occupy included, is kind of like B school, where they give the young scholars a case and let them beat their heads against the wall for a few days, and then they show them how it’s done. US political discourse is like that, except our budding intellectuals are made to ruminate without end. No one ever shows them how it’s done, worldwide, as the settled and articulated consensus of all the countries and the peoples of the world. It’s as if your B School never mentioned accounting and made you think it up yourself. E.g.,
(1) “Money out of politics” chaps my ass. That’s the Dem slogan. Notice, not a word about criminalizing trading in influence and abuse of function, which is what US party politics is. Not a whiff of world-standard integrity provisions like Convention Against Corruption Articles 18 and 19 (with which the US government claims on zero evidence to comply.)
(2) “Decent jobs” feints toward the world-standard labor norm of decent work. Not a hint, not a molecular trace of any ILO Conventions, not even 87 or 98.
(3) “Pare military spending” keeps your train of thought on the authorized track. No mention of binding restrictions that US supreme law places on use or threat of force. No mention of the authorities that mandate pacific settlement of disputes. Enforce the law, and military spending cuts itself.
Maine’s Fair Share Campaign is more interesting. They cite education, work, and health care [sic] as human rights. Good for you – but, What makes you think these are human rights? Are you sure you know what those rights mean? What about all your other human rights, Why are you passing on them? Don’t you want them?
For chrissake, help em out, http://www2.ohchr.org/english/law/index.htm
BBC helpfully tells us what to think. Here is what you MUST NOT think ( http://www.leninology.com/2012/11/a-small-minority-of-rich-white-men.html ) of England’s kiddy-raping upper crust.
very interesting:
“… If gay people are now witch hunted, he [Cameron] will bear primary responsibility for that. And it must be inferred that this is exactly what he intended, using gays to deflect attention from the ruling class and the Conservative Party.”
one of our commententers, up early this morning, is definitely plugged into that party line, mentioning on this blog to we ignorant Americans not tuned into BBC politics, homosexuals, but neglecting the current issue of BBC protection and support for a notorious pedophile and necropheliac with keys to the kingdom; access to Princess Diana -as a counselor hahahahah, etc.
Prince Andrew was photographed walking down an Upper East Side New York City street, the photo published by Murdoch, sauntering with his good party friend, a convicted PEDOPHILE -not a homosexual. I believe that photo is what got Murdoch into a whole lot of trouble.
The royals show no mercy when their power and prestige are threatened.
See how fast Prince Harry was exported to the most dangerous place on the face of the planet -to Afghanistan.
Wow! that’s true love.
LeeAnne,
Could you please have the grace to state some actual facts, as I stated to you already, and as appears in my original post, I mentioned ‘children’ in my second paragraph – that is a fact I believe.
As for your other inferences, first, I know a damn sight more than you on the subject matter of Royals and wrong doing, courtesy of a former British Secret Service office who blew the whistle in the mid 1980’s – said whistle blowing was against Lord Mountbatten – see IRA assassination.
As for the present ‘witch hunt’ and other crud be hurled at the BBC, may I remind you not too long ago in the UK the Sun Newspaper – the one with all the phone tapping – published a list of alleged pedophiles in the UK – in my neck of the woods, an angry mob then descended on one of the alleged pedophiles – the only problem being, the alleged pedophiles name had been gotten out of a phone book, and actually it was a paediatrician – that is a doctor who specialises in Children’s health – who was attacked: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1353904/Paediatrician-attack-People-dont-want-no-paedophiles-here.html
Further, having had first hand family experience of this particular nasty issue – that is to say a blood relative – and being the father of a 5 year old daughter – I’d hardly be favourable to pedophiles – quite the reverse, hence, ones recommendation to leave the matter to the Police and let them finish a new investigation and bring any perpetrators to justice – difficult in the case of Jimmy Savile as he’s dead!!!
I’ll update this, a man has been arrested approx. 30 mins. ago in relation to the Savile sex scandal – this is breaking news and available on Google News UK website.
yes, you did mention children: “Further, for the last month we have had a witch hunt going on in the UK with regards sexual offences against teenage girls – this has now widened to Children – carried out by supposedly well known radio & TV personalities in the 60′s and 70′s – to date, no criminal prosecutions have been brought forth – however, our rightwing press are having a field day.”
Thank you for the link. When it comes to a solution for the children, waiting for a Mafia style clean up by authorities against anything remotely labeled a sickness is a dead end.
I’m convinced by that article that the crime is child rape and should be called that rather than a clinical philia of one kind or another; a vernacular that subtly pardons the criminal -and the coverup:
A person who I actually attended school with was prosecuted and found guilty of being in possession of child pornography – he did not get a custodial sentence.
In my small town, we proceeded to make his life a misery – the pedophile in question, had already assaulted one of my colleagues for being homosexual whilst believing it okay to own disgusting photographs of children – making it worse, he actually had a young daughter himself – he’s been run out of town.
I trust that satisfies you with regards what happens to offenders if the law is seen to fail – pedophiles should be locked up and castrated as a danger to society – as for paedophile gangs – obviously they exist – however, before casting stones against the BBC, perhaps one should look closer to home and the Catholic Church.
far be it from me to encourage the details such as the above. Its not my issue.
Its the systemic nature of this particular child abuse in all its forms that gets my blood boiling. The BBC is only one institution involved. Involved for the world to see. The guy’s a creep -dead or alive. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that; yet the institution of the BBC supported and fueled his crimes. That kind of support leaves victims nowhere to turn. That’s the crime of child abuse; they can no longer trust the same adults they need to trust, they are hard wired to trust, for survival. I have no interest in the pornography you seem to find so interesting -or for that matter, snooping on people’s private lives when there is no victim.
The Right of Primogeniture and Imperial Dynastic Succession is what must be extirpated, root and branch. This *Royal/Noble Tradition* is the very soul of criminal abuse conveyed by *Male* Dynastic Divine Right to Reign Supremely and to Rule directly or through Imperial Agents–whether exercised through the body of a King or Queen, a Priest, General, Admiral, Corporate Chief, President or Paterfamilias–to lie, to defraud, to embezzle, loot, plunder and steal, to torture, and to murder “Others” with impunity.
2.5 words are missing from Lambert’s platform:
As Sandy has taught us, we can no longer sustain growth by raping Mother Nature.
Good point. “Jobs” also reinforces the nefarious notion of “growth”, consumption and GDP increases.
Instead of taxation, “Equality” might serve. I do not care how wealth inequality is reduced, as long as it is done.
I’d give them a flat income tax for a 100% inheritance tax on everything beyond 50 years x 2000 hours x minimum wage. Nothing will cut off inbred wealth as reliably as a drastic inheritance tax. Especially if the proceeds are dedicated to free childcare and education all the way to publicly funded universities and publicly funded research with results dedicated to the public domain.
Will Naked Capitalism be supporting the Rolling Jubilee on 11/15?
I think there are enough tea leaves scattered about to make a guess where the Great Betrayal is headed. Fruition, of course, but the terms will likely look like this: cutting into the social safety net in exchange for increased revenues but without income tax increases. That was the deal Obama rejected in 2011 when he felt he need the fig-leaf of a tax increase on the Rich. Now Obama doesn’t give a shit about fig-leaves. He just wants to fulfill his mission of removing the Third Rail from the social safety net. So Obama will attack the social safety net at the margins, just significantly enough to show that such attacks are possible. Obama will then exit and leave it to the next GOP president to launch the privatization and voucherization that the Neoliberals really want.
As I said yesterday (and Bob Dylan said before me), the plutocrats don’t care how many letters we send. Either we stand and fight or they will roll right over us.
That is exactly what I’ve been suspecting, too.
What’s surprising is the apparent lack of ambition of Michelle Obama. They must have her on Valium or something. She should get off the meds and raise hell, to give President Barack Obama a place in the history books that would make FDR envious. This Executive Couple has a unique opportunity to Make History in a way that has never before been seen, or What’s a Second Term For?
Obama should rise to the occasion to change the Regime of White Male Tyrants that exemplify all that was despised by our Founders, and all that is despised by Americans who want to see Our One Nation for the New Century. He should be certain to place William K. Black into the Office that was made for him: Attorney General of the United States, head of the Department of Justice. He should be certain to place Michael Hudson into the Office that was made for him: Secretary of the Treasury. He should be certain to place other such inherently noble American Patriots as Yves Smith and Catherine Austin Fitts into the Offices within his Cabinet which best suit them. He should honor the brave General Shinseki with the responsibility for re-making the Department of Defense.
President and Mrs. Obama should if turn over to William K. Black of the Department of Justice, for arrest and detention for trial, the Tyrants and Traitors in Government and Banking that have all but ruined his name, and who certainly have ruined the reputation of the First Black President for all time. Otherwise, we can conclude only, and finally, that President Barack Obama has been, and is still, a willing co-conspirator in Treason and Crime.
How does President Barack Obama choose to be remembered for all time? Will Michelle Obama miss their second-term opportunity for historical greatness? Will she reject this one chance for her husband to be remembered as the President who redeemed our nation, as the most daring, most courageous, most loving President that the People of the United States have ever known?
The stakes are as high as they were for George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. Will Michelle Obama do the right thing?
Nice Browning allusion.
I have a question about the Michael Hudson piece from yesterday. He writes:
“The neoliberals whom he appointed as a majority on the Simpson-Bowles Commission already have inflated their trial balloon claiming that the government must balance the budget by slashing Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, not by restoring progressive taxation.”
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/11/michael-hudson-my-take-on-obamas-big-win.html#g6mduf3QZ3R2S84o.99
Does that imply Hudson favors “restoring progressive taxation” as a means to “balance the budget”? I thought I understood from Stephanie Kelton and others that taxes don’t fund the federal government, so progressive taxation would only matter as far as its effects on wealth distribution among the private sector.
You’re changing the subject.
you can ‘restore a graduated tax’ to end disparity in income for its own sake. We have the largest disparity in history; it is extremely destructive. It is distructive to the health, well being and happiness of ‘the people.’ It is destructive of everything people value in their lives.
LeeAnne is right.
We want progressive taxation to end wealth inequality, i.e.for its own sake.
If it funds Social Security, Medicare, etc, all the better (and I believe it does).
Remember, the problem we have is wealth inequality, not poverty equality, or in terms of ineqaulity equation:
Wealth Inequality ≠ Poverty Equality.
In the former case, we have enougn wealth/money but it is not distribtuted evenly.
In the latter caes, we don’t have enough wealth/money though we all suffer the same fate equally.
To address the former, you need progressive taxation on the 0.01% (don”t be mislead by the definition of the rich as something making $250K/yr), properly aimed at wealth, and not on income), and not money-printing.
The solution to the latter is more wealth (again not by priting money) for the society as a whole.
Again to remind ourselves, the problem is Wealth Inequality, not Poverty Equality.
Wealth Inequality ≠ Poverty Equality
Sorry, I meant to emphasize by capping all letters but forgot.
Here it is:
WEALTH INEQUALITY ≠ POVERTY EQUALITY
The level of taxation required to end the current levels of disparity would be quite high and never make it through Congress. You’d be expecting the rich, as our Congress members are invariably all rich (my understanding is that Biden was the poorest member with $800+ net worth), to impose taxes on themselves that would strip them of their assets. Never gonna happen.
Look at how much we’ve fought over raising rates just to Clinton marginal rates, which won’t be close to sufficient to make a dent in the unequal distribution of wealth. And how close the country came to electing somebody who is a member of the 0.01% and pays a 13% effective tax rate…. though we can’t say for sure about before 2010 because he refused to release his returns (and surely he had good reason to hold out). Americans don’t like to impose taxes, even on the wealthy, and even when it’s against their own interests to keep taxes low. They don’t seem to realize they’re the ones who end up picking up the tab.
I could be wrong, but I think Hudson believes the deficit/debt falls under “debts that can’t be paid, won’t be paid”? So, yeah, progressive taxation just to lessen the power of the neoliberal oligarchs.
Re: If the Dems got a backbone. If not now, when? Obama’s ultimate defining moment has finally arrived.
Obama has a backbone aright. It is pointed straight at your heart like a dagger. Obama is not a nice but misguided person. He is a cruel and heartless bully.
Yves, in regards to the tiny tent. I feel the plan for white ppl is to take over the democrat party. Obviously, the guy who won on Tuesday has been a BFF to wall street.
And of course, the person with the most money always wins elections. So will it really matter who has the most voting bodies. As long as you spend far more than the other guy, you can convince idiots to not vote in their best interests.
it is sad, but truly predictable to see what Obama will and won’t do. and Warren and the rest of the Evil Democratic sides of the Elites.
just waiting for the deeds to follow. until then.. when pigs fly.
i don’t want a pony, a liveable Earth, yes.
re: the stupidest woman I have ever seen on television lost
Request to Yves and Lambert… if you are going to link to Daily Kos, please note that that is the source so that I can make an informed choice about whether to click on a link or not. I noticed that article sources were included for most everything else.
I do not wish to unknowingly be lead to that website. I left in disgust in 2008 when they became Dem propaganda central.
I felt the same way, Valissa. I thought it was a mis-link.
But then today I found my way, via links, to a Charles Pierce article. Looking at his blog-roll, I threw up a little in my mouth.
That said, I am enjoying the post-election take-down of the Romney/Republican campaign.
Amen. I was disgusted when I found myself inadvertantly led into that cesspool.
Yeah. Veal Pen central over there.
Nickname: “OrangeState”
LMAO…
Me too! Really would rather not be directed to that site. Left in disgust also in 2008.
Yeah, that was the Year of the Great Purge … there was a massive exodus of all the disobedient independent thinkers who refused to conform… ya know, us heretics ;)
The current Bible belt focused Republicans dependent on the South for its electoral count may likely spit with a reformed wing of the Republican Party moving to the left while the Bible Belt continues on its path. Basically a new Republican reform party appealing to various parts of the Democrat Party along with independents and disaffected Republicans could become an interesting element in the national political mix. I doubt that the moderate Republicans will just sit around and watch the current political circus rather they are the best hope for a new political alternative.
More likely that disaffected lefties, liberals and progressives will finally gather to support the actual Democratic Party Platform, rather than DLC/Third Way Corporatists leaders who have infiltrated and stolen the Party.
But the more Parties, the merrier…this duopoly-thing truly sucks.
Wealthy and moderate Eisenhower and Rockefeller Republicans already took over the Democratic Party starting in the 70’s. The DLC Third Way Dems really got going in the 1980s in response partially to Jesse Jackson’s growing strength in 1984 with his Rainbow Coalition that took on real steam in the 1988. He won 11 primaries including Michigan. So what we have now is basically the “nice” Republicans and minorities and women. Left libertarians need to disengage from the electoral process and devolve to local Occupy actions. Start the devolution!
far be it from me to encourage the details such as the above. Its not my issue.
Its the systemic nature of this particular child abuse in all its forms that gets my blood boiling. The BBC is only one institution involved. Involved for the world to see. The guy’s a creep -dead or alive. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that; yet the institution of the BBC supported and fueled his crimes. That kind of support leaves victims nowhere to turn. That’s the crime of child abuse; they can no longer trust the same adults they need to trust, they are hard wired to trust, for survival. I have no interest in the pornography you seem to find so interesting -or for that matter, snooping on people’s private lives when there is no victim.
<p
Apologies -that was meant for Chris Rogers.
We forgive you and it did break-up the theme one was reading.
Occupy Debt — How does a nation of debtors by up each others debt?
Going by the identity Total Debt = Total Credit, for the system as a whole, one can infer much.
Perhaps, there is no limit to total debt, as total credit will always match that.
Maybe the more you borrow, from your brother in law perhaps, the more he has in his credit.
umm, well here’s the deal about banking, yes they create money through creating debt or credit, depending on which side of the balance sheet you want to account. But if all a bank creates is bad debt, it quickly is insolvent and goes out of business.
What you’ve described is Ponzi finance, which is the present financial system with addition of the Fed to keep pumping liquidity to keep an insolvent system going.
Money, if it is to have any value to the system, needs to be in someway tied to the real economy.
Anyway, maybe you were being facetious or a faux-Keynesian? It would be of much more value to talk about how to democratize the money creation process, and the first thing to think about in that sense, is how money is tied to real economy.
Joe, you’re right.
It’s a Ponzi scheme.
Interesting piece on occupy by thomas frank: http://thebaffler.com/past/to_the_precinct_station
1. Medicare for All
2. End the Wars
3. Tax the Rich
4. A Jobs Guarantee
To that, I suggest we add
1.1 Ban any food that is toxic
And instead of 3 $ 4, I say we go for GDP sharing.
It would not be complete, I should say, without one more basic right: Equal Access to Immortality (when we find the secret).
Let’s walk before we run. I want to live forever, too, but not in a world of endless war and poverty.
From “David Koch Is the Worst Tipper at 740 Park”,
So we have the age pinned down when the sociopathic ethos of the plutocracy is inculcated in its young males– at the onset of adolescence. The onset of testosterone spiking probably potentiates the process. It would be interesting to compare this to the timing of the onset of the sociopathic lack of empathy in the plutocracy’s female spawn.
Right, Kurt. Puberty gels the tell. Creating the *right* progeny is a Very Big Deal; and for *Elite* Americans, as for the Hapsburg and Rothschild Dynasties, marriage-with-children is for ADVANTAGE social and financial.
Dreiser’s “An American Tragedy” is all about this brutally hard fact, which de Tocqueville might well have predicted. You can be sure that *genetic engineering* of progeny for maximum advantage every which way, which has already begun, shall continue to widen the Great Divide between the Haves and Have-nots. The .01%DNA Global Fourth Reich is in place, and the battle for supremacy among the facets of the .01% and their .99%Agency will be something to behold, as every vestige of what we call “humanity” disappears.
It won’t be pretty. Isn’t it a blessing to be on the other side of the mountain of vain ambition to Conquer All? Eternal Rest never looked so good.
The excerpt you posted says “kids” not “sons.” And pumping hormones into someone does not cause them to undertake behavior they wouldn’t do anyway. This is Psych 101, simple but for that reason usually misunderstood.
Alleged quote from frothy mixture from a Sunday morning CNN interview going around, “I see the hand of the homosexual in this massive election fraud,” Santorum explained, “Romney was tied or leading in most polls before the election. And then he loses?… Homosexual dirty tricks. It’s is the only explanation that makes sense.”
I’d like to see a good source for this.
Never mind. It is satire. That such isn’t self evident is telling still.
Oh it is? haha! I posted a link to a source for this story for you, which has not showed up for some reason. Fool me once…we can’t be fooled again!
Yanis Varoufakis. The global minotaur is dead. Killed by privateers pyramiding cash by financializing for their own profits. If that had not happened would the system for recycling global surpluses have survived? If everyone had been virtuous would we have had this crash? I dunno and he doesn’t speculate. There are some big pieces missing in the metaphor. Like why was it necessary to financialize and profiteer in the first place? Because profits were decreasing, etc? But I’d like to think that this was a system that could have made it, even balanced itself automatically. I also like to think that well regulated MMT economies could manage to do this globally. So all of us children of Athens, and China, should take heart because regulation is coming. Why? Because the world is fragile. All it takes is a 20% drop in revenue to crash the whole damn thing. And here’s another encouraging thought – all it takes domestically to bring the hogs to their knees is a 20% boycott of anything that is extorting us – like health care, drugs, food, gasoline, durable goods, discretionary spending… it won’t take long to discipline them all in this economy. Of course they’ll never admit it.
Yves, I a little tiny truth sprinkled with lots of propaganda
http://journals.lww.com/em-news/pages/articleviewer.aspx?year=2012&issue=11011&article=00001&type=Fulltext
First, he never blames the beauracry for having to be graded on his performance. Also, he acts entitled that since hes a doctor he doesn’t have to listen to customers complain. And then of course it’s all the liberals fault.
Yves, I have this theory about insurance. I think that it’s a form of discrimination. A doctor has to treat anyone and everyone. Yet, with insurance, a doctor can simply say he “doesn’t accept Medicaid” and then the doctor does not have to treat patients he doesn’t want to treat. And if we had Medicare for all, I would have the right to see the same doctor the president sees, and that’s not gonna be allowed by the plutocracy.
I resent that dude insulting aquifers ….
The 12 Word Platform
1. Medicare for All
2. End the Wars
3. Tax the Rich
4. A Jobs Guarantee
Disagree.
1. National Healthcare
2. Military budget cuts
3. 1952 Tax rates
4. Free Education through college
as in:
1) Call it what it is, and ditch the Rube-Goldberg that even Medicare has to drag around.
2) “Ending wars” means nothing in the age of bases and covert ops, and it misses the point. If you do not want illegal, elective war and aggression, restructure the military until the President cannot violate constitution and law. Defense is not what we are paying for today.
3) We tax everybody. We do not tax to “re-distribute”, we tax to compensate for the self-reinforcing dynamics of excessive wealth. Forget Too Big Too Fail, we need to worry about Wealth Too Big For Democracy. Excessive, inherited wealth is incompatible with an open society, or even a sustainable, successful market economy. 1952 worked.
4) Jobs are a distraction. Society does not owe you a job. A job is a means, not an end. It really gets me that so-called progressive cannot pull their head out of the neolib rear of “Jobs”. Jobs happen, or not, but the key is that individuals can be sure their families will live in dignity – and not being held hostage – if they decide to make a job where there is none. That means national healthcare, that means disability insurance, that means free education for yourself and your kids gated by aptitude and effort, and it means start-up funding, loans. Jobs are not opportunity, “jobs” reinforces “job creators” and aiding corporations, it is a message that reinforces the dysfunctional status quo. We do not need “jobs”, we need opportunity and minimal standards of living safety to take risks, and we will make the jobs ourselves if they can be made – and if not, we can still be useful members of society. Unemployment is not an embarrassment, the destruction we let it wreak on our society is. We cannot waste what corprolithic “job providers” call “human resources”, we will need everybody in the decades to come.
12 or 13 words, I think this needs more work.
They used to call #2 “Come Home America.” It’s what was supposed to happen when the “Evil Empire” collapsed two decades ago.
On #4, given how much automation has changed things, maybe many of those who do choose to take jobs could be shifted to 25 or 28 hour workweeks or something (and be considered full time). With certain professions, perhaps higher numbers of hours are needed to ensure top-level expertise. (Surgeons?) But otherwise…
“Call it what it is”
If the plan is to remove the age requirement from Medicare, than this is calling it what it is.
Medicare is one of the most popular programs in America. Why not leverage this popularity? Saying “nationalized health care” or something similar will only alienate people, and to what end?
Hey TK, did you see where I was posting about the 12 word platform and Dean Baker’s concise response to the Medicare crisis? I can’t find it and it’s driving me NUTS! (Also, the search function here is frustrating.)
Also, if anyone else remember what thread that was in, thanks in advance!
I’ll take a look and see if I can find it. It wasn’t that long ago, right?
Was this it?
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/11/bill-black-jobs-now-make-obamas-priority-reality-and-expose-the-lie-of-lazy-laborers.html#comment-904780
THANK YOU SO MUCH!
I’ll save my questions about how to keep track of conversations here for another day.
One can keep track of conversations, here? Man I’d REALLY like to know how to do that ….
Agreed. National Healthcare carries with it too much of the old Cold War stereotype the fear mongers love to exploit.
But…how about Improved Medicare-for-All? (See Dr. McCanne’s comment at the end.)
It’s more accurate, and it has a positive connotation that tends to counter the negative aspects about our current MediCare program.
It’s New and Improved! Can’t get any more American than that.
I like “Improved Medicare for all”.
But I just ran this by my fairly apolitical husband as a focus group of one, and he suggests just doing the KISS thing and going with “Free medical care for all!”
I’m thinking the NHS got it right with “Free at the point of need” messaging? Maybe?
Nothing is free.
With an improved MediCare-for-All, a single payer system, individual contributions are collected through payroll taxes, and other taxes, (see “Proposed Funding For The Improved Medicare For All Program” here), and paid by one entity instead of many.
I balk at the term “free” because it’s inaccurate and invites the kind of Tea Party style faux libertarian rhetorical nonsense that has helped to keep Single Payer off the table…”not politically feasible.”
Single Payer, an improved MediCare-for-All, is not the NHS. They got it right…until recently…but that’s not what Single Payer supporters are promoting here. Yet.
@ Leftover,
“Free at the point of need” acknowledges this, yes? My husband said he has negative associations with medicare regarding a few things. So, maybe we could just emulate the messaging that worked in the UK when the NHS was created?
Also, I know the NHS is under attack, and it breaks my heart that it’s working…
BUT. What the NHS is turning into is what Medicare already IS! So I don’t think the “Free at the point of need” message is flawed. Neoliberalism is flawed.
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Those are all very, very good points.
Disagree.
#1. See above.
#2. End the Wars implies the fundamental shift in our foreign policy necessary to economic justice. Military budget cuts implies no significant change to the status quo.
#3. Tax the Rich is more inclusive and easier to understand, especially for young people. They don’t know. or even want to know, about the Good Ole Days. And as an Old People, my response is, “It’s not 1952!”
#4. I’m a big fan of that, but stated in that way, we run into more of those Cold War stereotypes the fear mongers love to exploit. Besides, we know nothing is free. Even using the word “free” invites the type of emotional cataclysm that blinds fence-sitters to alternatives. A Jobs Guarantee says WORK…what every red-blooded patriotic American loves, or should love, more than baseball.
The way The Platform is presently framed is more inclusive. There’s even room for conservatives in there…principled, intelligent conservatives…but the room is still in there.
No, “Rnd the wars”
Military budget cuts is virtually content free
“End the wars” is not only a call for and end to the empire, it’s a call for ending the “drug wars” at home as well, and strike a blow at the militarization of the police and mass incarcertation.
No, “Medicare for all.”
Everybody knows what Medicare for All means, and Medicare is a very popular program.
Nobody knows what “National Health Care” means, and it sounds like National Health Service, which is going to draw every wingnut with an anecdote about the UK.
I’m not sure you understand the purpose here.
The purpose is to appeal to people by building a simple list of well understood programs that bring concrete material benefits.
The purpose is not to drive people away by offering phrases that sound like programs, but aren’t, or are so vague as to be meaningless.
I still think “free at the point of need” healthcare might be the best medicine. And ANYTHING that sounds like single payer will bring out the wingnuts. But the semi-politically semi-disengaged don’t really listen to the wingnuts.
Yes, “Jobs Guarantee.”
Jobs are certainly not a distraction to the many millions thrown out of work due to Washington’s policy of permanently high DISemployment (and who are losing their health, their homes, and in some cases their jobs.
And it’s not a matter of owing anybody a job. Check out the MMT proposals on a jobs guarantee.
NC Link 11 Nov 2012: “Occupy gets into the debt market” (Salon)
“3. Worse, there is a potential that the debts of people close to OWS get bought either by accident or design. Charges of self dealing would not be good for the movement.”
—————————————————-
Yves, keen insight. It’s all but certain that the 1% Wrench has hit the 99% Works.
re: gender/wage gap. Comments extremely depressing. And, ummm… is the concept of “comparable worth” ever going to be raised again?
Can someone more articulate than I am, and more knowledgeable about neoliberal fascism, please write an Oper Letter to Michael Moore at my.FDL?
In response to this:
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/mike-friends-blog/morning-america
I don’t think Mike’s one of the Pod People. I think he just needs to know about the neoliberal agenda to really get it and not fall for the verbal abuse hurled at the Anti-Obama left.
I don’t know if he reads the responses to his blog, but I’ve registered there and will post it to him just in case.
We REALLY need people like him on our side.
He seems to have a rather binary view of the world. It seems that I remember him being critical of Clinton though I so don’t quite get the Obama love.
I saw him on some program (Piers Morgan?) and he did not come across as particularly bright.
I think he’s wrangling for an invite to the inaugural festivities.
about a year (?) ago he was firmly advocating never voting for a candidate that took corporate money. Not sure why he changed his mind. The verbal abuse hurled at the anti-Obama left really is effective, so I’m thinking it affected him?
“…Moore has become the equivalent of the Right’s braying infotainers…”
http://www.amazon.com/Forgive-Us-Our-Spins-Michael/dp/047179306X
I just disagree. I think he’s a normal, flawed human like the rest of us, working through the cognitive dissonance the Dem party induces like a lot of other well intentioned people are.
Michael is a genetic Dem …
On Romneys cutting off of his camapaigners credit cards after midnigtht on election day. Wow, what a classy guy.
Romney pretty well lost in the summer, when the Obama campaign drew him as a greedy plutocrat who got rich by screwing others. But, supposedly, he couldn’t respond because his campaign didn;t HAVE ANY CASH.
Hello you f*cking prick, you’re worth a quarter billion dollars, minimum. Spend some of your own money.
That, and his not even paying 15% taxes for a few years cost him the election. No class at all.
Everybody should sign this petition: Texas requests to peacefully leave the USA: https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/peacefully-grant-state-texas-withdraw-united-states-america-and-create-its-own-new-government/BmdWCP8B
Just think about what the Republic of Texas gets to look forward to.
http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2012/11/parable-of-the-talents-basket-sale-charity-fundraiser.html
GRANDMOTHERS RAISING GRANDCHILDREN BASKET SALE CHARITY FUNDRAISER
Hear now the words of Rabbi Yeshua Ben Yosef:
Use well your talents for some good purpose. The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand, and if you use your talents well:
the LORD will say unto you: “Well done, thou good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy LORD.”
In honor of the Parable of the Talents, for the 24 hours starting at noon PST November 11, 2012, the DeLong-Marciarille household will match all donations made online to Grandmothers Raising Grandchildren at: http://grgahero.org/.
thanks to yves for posting her take on the strike debt rolling jubilee, a project i do not yet understand very well, though i sense something quite powerful and to the point there, just as are the debt resisters’ manual and occupy the sec work. it will be interesting to follow and to hear nc commenters’ takes on this undertaking as well.
if this commentariat comes up with more/better projects occupy might try out, perhaps occupiers who can make them happen will find them here. nc has provided a forum that is not within occupy but where matters occupy are discussed constructively and thoughtfully, a process i hope is useful and will continue and expand.
i believe occupy is the early stage of a strong movement that will develop as participants gain experience and clarify their thought together, and as it keeps spreading, like mold spores, to use lambert’s metaphor from near the beginning, last fall (if i recall the metaphor correctly). i hope the climate change exigency will become integrated into the project, perhaps initially through the recognition of environmental injustice.
many observers (not yves, thankfully) seem to see occupy through the lens of what they remember or have been told of the countercultural explosion of the 1960s. it is quite a different beast and has yet to be fully understood as such. with the new generation coming up a movement is coming up whose form cannot even be imagined yet, a mixture of the old and the new, something never before seen but also filled with resonance.
Gene Sharp wrote a book with acronym: FDTD .
FDTD has been tested in Myanmar.
It focuses on non-violent resistance.
It’s inspiring and has 200 tricks to
bring about meaningful change.
Humour for feeling better…
Lysistratic nonaction: what could that be?
Please see this Web page for further info:
http://sfmindtrap.wordpress.com/2009/03/31/lysistratic-nonaction/
Technique #199 (my own concoction, not in the
canon of 198 techniques by Gene Sharp):
199′ – Invent bogus codewords, e.g.
BERMUDAN PINK PANTHER
zfb
you’d have to get the prostitutes on board – set up a strike fund or something ….
That still leaves 197 methods, and I trust
Gene is the real thing for nonviolent protest …
yeah, I’m not crazy about the debt/OWS thing either. it reeks of playing by *their* rules (not ours).