PAUL JAY: So there is a question I’ve always wanted to ask you. And this goes back to 2000 and the elections and the whole debate about whether or not you should have done something about Florida. As far as I know–and I’m persuaded from what I’ve seen that if you had made a big announcement that people shouldn’t vote for you in Florida, it probably wouldn’t have made any difference. I am persuaded that Gore lost the election, and not only lost it because he ran the stupidest, you know, lousiest campaign, not least of which was his ego trip of not allowing Bill Clinton to campaign for him, which he would have won if Clinton helped him–.
RALPH NADER: Certainly in Tennessee and Arkansas, which he both lost.
PAUL JAY: And then some. I mean, Clinton’s just–whatever you think of Clinton, he’s one of the great campaigners there is.
RALPH NADER: Yeah.
PAUL JAY: And he capitulates on the vote count. So on any number of things, without question the absolute blame is on Gore and American politics
Source: On Florida in 2000 and What to Do Next – Ralph Nader on Reality Asserts Itself (3/3)
Tag: Socialism
Paul Mason explains: Capitalism is failing, and it’s time to panic —video
‘Unless, Paul Mason argues, we take advantage of the technological revolution we are living through and create a postcapitalist sharing society. If we let prices fall and delink work from wages, we can save the world from disaster.’
Donald Trump: Performance Artist or Closet Anarchist?
BAIER: [….] And you said recently, quote, “When you give [money], they do whatever the hell you want them to do.”
TRUMP: You’d better believe it.
BAIER: — they do?
TRUMP: If I ask them, if I need them, you know, most of the people on this stage I’ve given to, just so you understand, a lot of money.
TRUMP: I will tell you that our system is broken. I gave to many people, before this, before two months ago, I was a businessman. I give to everybody. When they call, I give. And do you know what? When I need something from them two years later, three years later, I call them, they are there for me. And that’s a broken system.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What did you get from Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi?
TRUMP: Well, I’ll tell you what, with Hillary Clinton, I said be at my wedding and she came to my wedding. You know why?
She didn’t have a choice because I gave. I gave to a foundation that, frankly, that foundation is supposed to do good. I didn’t know her money would be used on private jets going all over the world. It was.
BAIER: Hold on…..We’re going to — we’re going to move on.”
Source: Trump’s Triumph: Billionaire Blowhard Exposes Fake Political System
Video starts at 1min 57secs…
Jimmy Carter: US Politics now Oligarchy ‘completely subverted’ by ‘unlimited political bribery’
President Carter does not comment if it is worth playing in a system so polluted.
This is the question I have for Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren who both agree that the system is corrupted, but our support of them requires also believing that there is some amount of HOPE that they could win.
This former US President goes further than them and says the system is ‘completely subverted’ — completely means the cancer has overtaken the body’s ability to heal itself, right? If the body politic is dead, then why keep trying to revive it?
HARTMANN: Our Supreme Court has now said, “unlimited money in politics.” It seems like a violation of principles of democracy. … Your thoughts on that?
CARTER: It violates the essence of what made America a great country in its political system. Now it’s just an oligarchy, with unlimited political bribery being the essence of getting the nominations for president or to elect the president. And the same thing applies to governors and U.S. senators and congress members. So now we’ve just seen a complete subversion of our political system as a payoff to major contributors, who want and expect and sometimes get favors for themselves after the election’s over. … The incumbents, Democrats and Republicans, look upon this unlimited money as a great benefit to themselves. Somebody’s who’s already in Congress has a lot more to sell to an avid contributor than somebody who’s just a challenger.
» Source: Jimmy Carter: The U.S. Is an “Oligarchy With Unlimited Political Bribery”
Yanis Varoufakis and Brecht’s Threepenny Opera
Stern.de: You talk as if you were in the midst of warfare.
Varoufakis: It was a war. A financial war. Nowadays you don’t need tanks to defeat someone. You have your banks. It’s a bit like in Brecht’s ‘Threepenny Novel’ where it says: “The days of crude violence are over. You no longer have to send out murderers if you can simply send a bailiff.”
via Yanis Varoufakis: "They bury the values of democracy" – Ausland | STERN.de.
https://youtu.be/bl1HLS9DWXI?t=1h15m54s
42 Years Later, Chilean Military Officers Charged for Murder of Victor Jara
More than four decades after the Chilean military tortured and killed beloved folk singer, playwright, and social activist Victor Jara during the coup of General Augusto Pinochet, former officers allegedly involved in the murder are finally facing charges.
Judge Miguel Vázquez Plaza on Wednesday announced homicide and kidnapping charges against 10 former military officers, including former lieutenant Pedro Barrientos Nuñez, a resident of Florida who is seeking to avoid extradition to Chile. Four of the people indicted have already turned themselves in, and arrests are expected to follow.
via 42 Years Later, Officers Charged for Murder of Defiant Chilean Folk Singer | Common Dreams | Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community.
U2…
…Jara sang, his song a weapon
In the hands of love
You know his blood still cries
From the ground…
U2 – One Tree Hill
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQC8la3fVlU
Remember when debt relief was political?
It always has been political.
New York Times March 1991:‘Western governments have agreed to forgive about half the $33 billion that Poland owes them…’
via POLAND IS GRANTED LARGE CUT IN DEBT – NYTimes.com.
The International Monetary Fund Says Trickle-Down Economics Doesn’t Work
It is a testament to the power of global state ideology and its media system that this paragraph’s contents are not more widely known – especially considering the source!
‘…"If the income share of the top 20% (the rich) increases, then GDP growth actually declines over the medium term, suggesting that the benefits do not trickle down. In contrast, an increase in the income share of the bottom 20% (the poor) is associated with higher GDP growth," the report says.
The paper looks at 159 advanced and developing economies between 1980 and 2012, investigating how income is distributed in each society and its level of national growth. It finds that when the income share of the top 20% increases 1%, economic growth is then down 0.08% in the following five years. At the same time, a 1% increase for the bottom 20% leads to increased GDP of 0.38% in the following years…’
via The International Monetary Fund Says Trickle-Down Economics Don't Work | Co.Exist | ideas + impact.
An Open Letter From Thomas Piketty to Angela Merkel – Austerity Has Failed
In the 1950s, Europe was founded on the forgiveness of past debts, notably Germany’s, which generated a massive contribution to post-war economic growth and peace. Today we need to restructure and reduce Greek debt, give the economy breathing room to recover, and allow Greece to pay off a reduced burden of debt over a long period of time. Now is the time for a humane rethink of the punitive and failed program of austerity of recent years and to agree to a major reduction of Greece’s debts in conjunction with much needed reforms in Greece.
To Chancellor Merkel our message is clear; we urge you to take this vital action of leadership for Greece and Germany, and also for the world. History will remember you for your actions this week. We expect and count on you to provide the bold and generous steps towards Greece that will serve Europe for generations to come.
via Austerity Has Failed: An Open Letter From Thomas Piketty to Angela Merkel | The Nation.
Eric Holder’s Revolving Door of Legal Corruption
This is why his Justice Department coordinated repression against the Occupy Movement and he is now being rewarded for it.
‘[Obama’s U.S. Attorney General (Min. of Justice) Eric] Holder also did a great deal to protect big banks during his tenure at the Department of Justice.
As journalist Lee Fang pointed out in the Intercept on Monday, “The Department of Justice under Holder not only failed to pursue criminal prosecutions of the banks responsible for the mortage meltdown, but in fact de-prioritized investigations of mortgage fraud, making it the ‘lowest-ranked criminal threat,’ according to an inspector general report.”
Moreover, Holder is famous for his ethos and phrase: big banks are “too big to jail.”…’
via After 6-Year Tenure Not Prosecuting Banks, Eric Holder Returns 'Home' to Defend Them | Common Dreams | Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community.
Young children carry out Restorative Justice
‘…"What surprised us is that children responded equally to the theft, unfairness, and loss conditions," Jensen says. "They treated all of them equivalent, whether they were affected or whether the puppet was affected." The children viewed a third-party violation with as much disdain as they did a personal one, and where adults might discriminate between outright theft, loss, or an unfair situation, the children punished them all equally. The children preferred restoration to punishment, and when they were able to restore stolen or lost items, they usually returned the hot items to the original owner, "even if the original owner was another puppet," Jensen says.
Taken together, the findings indicate that children’s reactions to third-party violations were more about responding to the needs of the "victim" than they were about punishing perpetrators.
"Young children seem to be very responsive to the distress that another individual might be feeling. This is called effective perspective taking," Jensen says. "This ability to show concern for others seems to be a very strong motivational force."
As adults, our sense of justice is based on learned rules and norms; we wield punishment as a deterrent and a form of revenge. But "in young children, it seems that we start with the pro-social aspect of [justice]," Jensen says, starting "with the concern we have for the individual who’s harmed. Those other aspects of justice then become layered on top of that."…’
via Toddlers Carrying Out Restorative Justice – Pacific Standard.
Tavis Smiley Interviews Chris Hedges (June 8, 2015)
https://youtu.be/ANxy9KGO2iQ
‘Chris Hedges describes how the media’s inability to do its job has weakened our democracy, and why the public’s loss of faith in traditional mechanisms of power has placed us on the brink of revolution.’
via The Tavis Smiley Show on PBS — Interview with Chris Hedges | June 8, 2015 – YouTube.
Goldman Sachs restricts workday to 17 hours a day
Go home before midnight, and don’t come back before 7am. Goldman Sachs – one of Wall Street’s toughest firms – has told interns they have got to work hard, but not too hard.
The new rules, introduced for this summer’s crop of investment banking interns, have been introduced “to improve the overall work experience of our interns”, a Goldman Sachs spokesman said. All of its summer interns across the world were informed of the new working hours rule on their first day in the office earlier this month.
Wall Street’s shift to caring capitalism comes in the wake of the death of a 21-year-old Bank of America Merrill Lynch intern who had regularly pulled all-nighters in a desperate bid to impress his bosses.
Moritz Erhardt was found dead in the shower at his London accommodation after working 72 hours straight. An inquest found he died of an epileptic seizure that could have been a triggered by his long working hours.
via Goldman Sachs restricts intern workday to 17 hours in wake of burnout death | Business | The Guardian.
Goldman Sachs only wants for their own employees what they also impose on entire nations…
Euronews video: 2011
IMF study disproves the Trickle Down theory (2015)
even the communists at the IMF agrees…
‘First, we show why policymakers need to focus on the poor and the middle class. Earlier IMF work has shown that income inequality matters for growth and its sustainability. Our analysis suggests that the income distribution itself matters for growth as well. Specifically, if the income share of the top 20 percent (the rich) increases, then GDP growth actually declines over the medium term, suggesting that the benefits do not trickle down. In contrast, an increase in the income share of the bottom 20 percent (the poor) is associated with higher GDP growth. The poor and the middle class matter the most for growth via a number of interrelated economic, social, and political channels…’
— http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/sdn/2015/sdn1513.pdf
Video: WikiLeaks to offer $100,000 bounty for missing TPP trade treaty chapters
Today WikiLeaks has launched a campaign to crowd-source a $100,000 reward for America’s Most Wanted Secret: the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP).
more info: https://wikileaks.org/WikiLeaks-issues-call-for-100-000.html
US Food Stamps Offer Best Economic Stimulus
Of course, the elite economists already know this – but who pays their salaries?
CNN.com / January 29 2008: ‘…The industry research firm Moody’s Economy.com tracked the potential impact of each stimulus dollar, looking at tax rebates, tax incentives for business, food stamps and expanding unemployment benefits.
The report found that "some provide a lot of bang for the buck to the economy. Others … don’t," said economist Mark Zandi.
In findings echoed by other economists and studies, he said the study shows the fastest way to infuse money into the economy is through expanding the food-stamp program. For every dollar spent on that program $1.73 is generated throughout the economy, he said.
[….] Finally, Moody’s report says business incentives such as tax breaks for buying new equipment – so-called accelerated depreciation – would give the least bang for the buck and potentially provide the slowest infusion of money. A dollar spent there would generate only 33 cents in the economy because, Zandi said, it takes longer for businesses to implement any benefit received….’
via Food stamps offer best stimulus – study – Jan. 29, 2008.
A Majority of US Public School Students Live in Poverty
I have no doubt that this is true, but how can this be true? WTF happened, America??!
‘Released by the Southern Education Foundation, the new analysis (pdf) used the most recent national census figures available to confirm that 51 percent of the students across the nation’s public schools were low income in 2013. According to the report’:
‘In 40 of the 50 states, low income students comprised no less than 40 percent of all public schoolchildren. In 21 states, children eligible for free or reduced-price lunches were a majority of the students in 2013.
Most of the states with a majority of low income students are found in the South and the West. Thirteen of the 21 states with a majority of low income students in 2013 were located in the South, and six of the other 21 states were in the West.
Mississippi led the nation with the highest rate: 71 percent, almost three out of every four public school children in Mississippi, were low-income. The nation’s second highest rate was found in New Mexico, where 68 percent of all public school students were low income in 2013.’
via ‘A Nation in Decline’: Majority of US Public School Students Live in Poverty | Common Dreams | Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community.
V Is for Varoufakis — His family’s history
‘… Yanis Varoufakis traces his political consciousness to his childhood in “the junta era” — the years when Greece was ruled by dictatorship. “It was very hard to avoid being political,” he said. “It was all around you.” His father, he said, was raised as “a liberal enlightenment person, not a left winger,” but when he immigrated to Greece from Cairo in the late 1940s, the royalist-communist civil war was underway. One day, the police roughed him up but said they would release him if he signed a denunciation of communism. “He said, ‘Look I am not a Buddhist, but I would never sign a denunciation of Buddhism,’ ” Varoufakis said. “He read Rousseau at 13 years old, and he knew about civil liberties.” He ended up in a concentration camp with communists — and joined the Communist Party, which made finding work nearly impossible. Eventually, he got a low-paying job as a personal assistant to the owner of a steel company, and today, at age 90, he is its chairman. Varoufakis’s mother, a biochemist, made “a pittance,” he said, because she was a woman. She became involved in the feminist movement in the 1970s. Varoufakis was also a political activist from a young age. When he began his career as an academic at the University of Essex, he said, his slogan became “subvert the dominant paradigm,” which some of his students later put on a T-shirt.
Varoufakis left England in 1988 to teach at the University of Sydney, where he began a series of conversations about the global economy with the economist Joseph Halevi, the two of them among academics in their field who contested the notion then popular that the world had entered a new phase of “perpetual growth,” what the former Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke called the “great moderation.” After the crash, Varoufakis decided to put those ideas into a book for a popular audience titled, “The Global Minotaur,” which presented the world, and Europe, as perilously yoked to the fluctuations of the American economy. When the crisis finally reached Greece, Varoufakis began working with the British economist Stuart Holland and, later, the American economist James Galbraith, on a pamphlet titled, “A Modest Proposal,” which identified four major crises in Europe — in banking, public debt, underinvestment and social welfare — and proposed solutions to each. “Europe is fragmenting,” they wrote. “As this happens, human costs mount, and disintegration becomes an increasing threat. . . . The fallout from a eurozone breakup would destroy the European Union, except perhaps in name. And Europe’s fragmentation poses a global danger.”
via A Finance Minister Fit for a Greek Tragedy? – NYTimes.com.
read ‘A Modest Proposal’ @ http://yanisvaroufakis.eu/euro-crisis/modest-proposal/
Five Big Banks Plead Guilty to Felony Charges, but No Real Punishment
‘For most people, pleading guilty to a felony means they will very likely land in prison, lose their job and forfeit their right to vote.
But when five of the world’s biggest banks plead guilty to an array of antitrust and fraud charges as soon as next week, life will go on, probably without much of a hiccup.
The Justice Department is preparing to announce that Barclays, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup and the Royal Bank of Scotland will collectively pay several billion dollars and plead guilty to criminal antitrust violations for rigging the price of foreign currencies…’
via 5 Big Banks Expected to Plead Guilty to Felony Charges, but Punishments May Be Tempered – NYTimes.com.
Representative Parliamentary ‘Democracy is a religion that has failed the poor’
Giles Fraser writes about this week’s UK election:
‘…What difference did my vote make? Why indeed do people vote, and care so passionately about voting, particularly in constituencies in which voting one way or the other won’t make a blind bit of difference? And why do the poor vote when, by voting, they merely give legitimacy to a system that connives with their oppression and alienation? The anthropologist Mukulika Banerjee suggests a fascinating answer: elections are like religious rituals, often devoid of rational purpose or efficacy for the individual participant, but full of symbolic meaning. They are the nearest thing the secular has to the sacred, presenting a moment of empowerment.But is this empowerment illusory? Is, as Banerjee asks, “the ability to vote … a necessary safety valve which allows for the airing of popular disaffection, but which nevertheless ultimately restores the status quo. In such a reading, elections require the complicity of all participants in a deliberate mis-recognition of the emptiness of its procedures and the lack of any significant changes which this ritual brings about, but are a necessary charade to mollify a restless electorate.”…’
via Democracy is a religion that has failed the poor | Giles Fraser | Comment is free | The Guardian.
Cuba not a Terrorist State anymore, but Venezuela is a now a threat?
It seems that in Obama’s last moments as a ‘lame duck’ president he is doing things which should have been done decades ago.
But, is it wrong to also criticise him for NOTdoing these things during his first 6 years as president??
‘…And after a careful review of Cuba’s record, which was informed by the intelligence community as well as insurance – excuse me – assurances provided by the Cuban Government, the Secretary of State concluded that Cuba met the conditions for rescinding its designation as a state sponsor of terrorism and forwarded that recommendation – the Secretary of State forwarded that recommendation to the President last week and recommended he submit to Congress the statutorily required report and certification. Today, this afternoon, the President submitted to Congress that required report and certification indicating the Administration’s intent to rescind Cuba’s designation as a state sponsor of terrorism….’
via Background Briefing on the Report Required To Rescind Cuba's State Sponsor of Terrorism Status.
But, Obama reassured the Military-Industrial Complex and endless war establishment by declaring Venezuela a national security threat to the United States of America. #wtf
‘…US President Barack Obama has issued an executive order declaring Venezuela a national security threat, and placed sanctions on seven officials….’
via Al Jazeera English
video from Venezuela’s TeleSur english language TV channel
Mario Draghi Attacked by Protester at ECB Press Conference
‘April 15 — European Central Bank President Mario Draghi was attacked by a protester yelling “end the ECB dictatorship” during a press conference today. The event resumed a few minutes later.’
UPDATE: Who was the woman that threw confetti at Mario Draghi?
http://redjade.noblogs.org/20150416/990
Hillary vs Bernie, or what a socialist looks like and what a corporate ***** [employee] looks like
Boots Riley + Rosa Luxemburg
Boots Riley, lead singer of The Coup (also www) doing spoken word at the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung – New York Office
David Harvey Interview: Syriza and Podemos
Sounds like Hungary.
il manifesto: In the book you predict a new cycle of revolts. Yet an appraisal of the last few years would have to say that the Arab Spring has proven a disaster, while Occupy has not been able to transform itself into an effective political force. Do you think the answer is something like Podemos, which has been able to give political expression to the 15-M movement?
David Harvey: Syriza and Podemos have opened up a political space, because something new is happening. What is it? I can’t say. Of course there will be those on the anti-capitalist left who accuse them of ‘reformism’. That may well be true, but they have also been the first forces to put forward some policies, and once we’ve started down that road then that will open up new possibilities. Finally breaking with the mantra of austerity and smashing the power of the Troika would, I believe, create the space for new perspectives, which could then further develop. I think that at this stage, this kind of parties we are seeing in Europe is the best thing that we can hope for, beginning to define the Left alternatives that we are currently lacking. They will probably be populist – with all the limits and dangers that populism entails – but as I have said, this is a movement: it opens up spaces, and what we can use these spaces for depends on our capacity to ask, ‘OK, now that we’ve got this far, what should we do now?’
via VersoBooks.com.