World Economics
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Sacriliege with a Smile.: The Internet.
Man’s crowning achievement. All of human knowledge available for easy consumption. The disconnection and insurmountable distance of our past made trivial. The ability to organize on a scale that past political dissidents and advocates of social change could only dream of. A billion books, any song…
Source: paulsego
Better blog
This blog has been shifted for some time now and is now co-authored by several people instead of just one. Anyone interested please like the page, participate in debate, and feel free to share viewpoints.
Source: atheism-
Tax breaks for the wealthy and corporations? That’s a-ok! Why are students complaining? Working 3 jobs to pay back student loans is the American dream.
Source: mohandasgandhi
Almost Hard To Believe A Conservative Is Saying This of the night: “That idea - that we should choose someone based on their religion* for public office**… I find that troubling.” - Mitt Romney
*Good luck, Muslim Americans. **Sorry, atheists not applicable.
Source: pantslessprogressive
A Message To Wall Street
”As we gather together in solidarity to express a feeling of mass injustice, we must not lose sight of what brought us together. We write so that all people who feel wronged by the corporate forces of the world can know that we are your allies. As one people, united, we acknowledge the reality: that the future of the human race requires the cooperation of its members; that our system must protect our rights, and upon corruption of that system, it is up to the individuals to protect their own rights, and those of their neighbors; that a democratic government derives its just power from the people, but corporations do not seek consent to extract wealth from the people and the Earth; and that no true democracy is attainable when the process is determined by economic power. We come to you at a time when corporations, which place profit over people, self-interest over justice, and oppression over equality, run our governments. We have peaceably assembled here, as is our right, to let these facts be known. They have taken our houses through an illegal foreclosure process, despite not having the original mortgage. They have taken bailouts from taxpayers with impunity, and continue to give Executives exorbitant bonuses. They have perpetuated inequality and discrimination in the workplace based on age, the color of one’s skin, sex, gender identity and sexual orientation. They have poisoned the food supply through negligence, and undermined the farming system through monopolization. They have profited off of the torture, confinement, and cruel treatment of countless nonhuman animals, and actively hide these practices. They have continuously sought to strip employees of the right to negotiate for better pay and safer working conditions. They have held students hostage with tens of thousands of dollars of debt on education, which is itself a human right. They have consistently outsourced labor and used that outsourcing as leverage to cut workers’ healthcare and pay. They have influenced the courts to achieve the same rights as people, with none of the culpability or responsibility. They have spent millions of dollars on legal teams that look for ways to get them out of contracts in regards to health insurance. They have sold our privacy as a commodity. They have used the military and police force to prevent freedom of the press. They have deliberately declined to recall faulty products endangering lives in pursuit of profit. They determine economic policy, despite the catastrophic failures their policies have produced and continue to produce. They have donated large sums of money to politicians supposed to be regulating them. They continue to block alternate forms of energy to keep us dependent on oil. They continue to block generic forms of medicine that could save people’s lives in order to protect investments that have already turned a substantive profit. They have purposely covered up oil spills, accidents, faulty bookkeeping, and inactive ingredients in pursuit of profit. They purposefully keep people misinformed and fearful through their control of the media. They have accepted private contracts to murder prisoners even when presented with serious doubts about their guilt. They have perpetuated colonialism at home and abroad. They have participated in the torture and murder of innocent civilians overseas. They continue to create weapons of mass destruction in order to receive government contracts.* To the people of the world, We, the New York City General Assembly occupying Wall Street in Liberty Square, urge you to assert your power. Exercise your right to peaceably assemble; occupy public space; create a process to address the problems we face, and generate solutions accessible to everyone. To all communities that take action and form groups in the spirit of direct democracy, we offer support, documentation, and all of the resources at our disposal. Join us and make your voices heard!” -SentientMind *These grievances are not all-inclusive.
Cynicism.
March 17th, 2011 was the day I abdicated my preconceived notions of American excellence and endorsed the idea that I had worked so hard to subdue: cynicism. I realized that there had been a slow but abiding antagonism-not from within a representative body, specifically-but from the core of our political system: the under-zealous and uninformed collective American intelligence which will fight against its own interest and the interests of humanity for any cluster of malignant corruption so long as it divulges in those few key words of liberty, freedom, and choice.
On March 17th, 2011 the elected representatives of the House voted 228-192 for the largely symbolic move (in the name of combating the growing deficit) of defunding NPR, to which my response was: Yes, in a culture dominated by the so acquaint productions of reality television, cutting the public refinement from dialogue is a generally good idea. How much would this have reduced the budget deficit if passed? Possibly a few million dollars a year.
That same day, March 17th, 2011, the House rejected a measure to end the War in Afghanistan 93-321, which contributed $119.4 billion to the US debt in the 2011 fiscal year alone. Even if you supports this occupation, it has a prerequisite of a low percentage of debt relative to GDP to be sustainable, which won’t be a convenience in the future.
If this had been an isolated instance of disconnection, perhaps I wouldn’t have been so disconcerted. However, it isn’t, and to these votes there was no public uproar; no declarations of discontent. In fact, a good bit of the public endorsed the idea that their representatives were functionally dissonant. Seven months later a form of reasoned protest has taken place among a small minority of America, but thus far it’s been secluded to protests against the financial districts, asserting frustration towards the centers of irrational cupidity who will never succumb to the public good unless forced to do so. This is one of the rare occurrences where Americans are actually showing animosity towards the right people. However, they aren’t showing it for all of the right people.
Make up your own mind about who those people are, but at the minimal level your lifestyle requires political involvement. You have the luxury of participation denied to a vast majority of the rest of the world, so take advantage of it and relegate those who seek impoverishment into contrition.
Picture of the Day. Sirte, Libya. 10 October. “You guys go on shooting, I’m going to provide us with some musical accompaniment.”
Photo Credit: Aris Messinis/AFP/Getty Via.
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Source: MSNBC
Paying Attention: TEA PARTIERS vs. 99%ers
How to compare and contrast America’s two “populist” movements — the Tea Party movement vs. the Occupy Wall Street/We are the 99%ers movement…
- Both are angry at Wall Street bailouts, American plutocracy, and our whorish two-party system.
- One blames the poor, immigrants,…
Source: arewepayingattention
California DREAM Act
The public’s view of the California Dream Act has been, and probably will remain, that it is iniquitously unjust in that it allows for illegal immigrants to receive state-funded college grants. Critics have pointed to the voter’s desire to keep taxpayer money away from social programs for illegal immigrants and California’s budget deficit of over $20 billion. Many mainstream dispositions toward illegal immigration generally, and the Dream Act specifically, are considerably distorted from reality.
Some general facts include that:
-Over two-thirds of illegal immigrants pay Medicare, Social Security, and personal income taxes. This is contradictory to the common rhetoric that illegal immigrants pay no taxes except sales tax. In 1996 the IRS began using identification numbers for illegal immigrants who don’t have Social Security numbers used to file taxes.
-Due to the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act, undocumented immigrants are disqualified from all means-tested government programs. The only services allowed to illegal immigrants are emergency medical care and K-12 education.
-The annual cost of the Dream Act is expected to be $14.5 million, a small 1% of the state’s $1.4 billion Cal Grant program.
Cool beans.
Politicians who oppose gay marriage are exactly like the retards who harass other kids in high school, only the former bullies from debate podiums, dresses in formal attire, and speaks with scarcely more eloquence than his teenage counterpart.
I am the most interesting man in the world.