May 19, 2012

Instead of anti-globalization, think alter-globalization. We want FAIR trade.

Trade deals between countries should have protections for workers, consumers, and the environment built in. Currently this is mostly not the case. And in rare cases when these protection exist, they are usually not enforced.

All trade deals should have promotion of economic and social justice at the core of the agreement. Instead of what we have now, where trade deals exist only to serve the interests of corporate profits, which mostly ends up enriching those who are already super-wealthy.

In other words, trade pacts and organizations should exist to serve human need, not human greed.

That's an anti-capitalist message. In my opinion it's very close to the heart of what Occupy is about. Without that message I'm not sure Occupy would even exist at all.

It's the common interest that allows labor, environment, anti-war/anti-imperialists, and other grass roots activists to come together in a common cause. Occupy is a convergence of anti-capitalist activists, in my opinion. Separately we have suffered decades of defeats because the power of big-money special interests (capitalists) is too strong. But together we stand a chance of being able to win some victories against the big-money special interests.

May 14, 2012

The solutions to US healthcare woes are so glaringly obvious they hardly bear repeating.

Everybody knows we need a public plan like at least a Canadian-style system, if not a UK-style system, at least as an option for people to choose.

Yet we simply can't have it because the strangle hold of big money over our government is too great. Not even as an option for people to choose if they wish.

I hope some day we will get there. I would like to see us revisit the public option in Obama's second term. The President seems to have found some new courage and clarity recently, speaking clearly that gay people should be able to get married.

Stong leader, that's good. I hope he is able to find some similar courage on this health care issue and make a clear statement that access to high quality health care ought to be a basic right in America.

It's truly disgraceful to think some of these underdevloped "third world" countries might actually start passing us up on health care outcomes. And all because we're so determined that nobody should get anything for free, and that nothing has any real value unless some person or corporation profits from it.

May 13, 2012

This is a scandal.

We need a fundamental change in the way people look for and find jobs in this country.

There is no reason anybody who wants to work should ever be denied employment. The government ought to open an employment agency. If you want a job just go there and they match you up with a job. That's it. It's that simple.

End the race to the bottom system that sends people out begging door to door to to be accepted by an employer who deems them worthy, like slaves at an auction praying to be bought by a master who will show them a little mercy.

Enough is enough already. The US economy has changed permanently. It's not meeting the human needs of the people who live here. There is no way to measure the human cost of that moment when a parent come home to face the kids after just having lost a job, not knowing where the money for the next month's rent or mortgage is going to come from.

Our current system places too much emphasis on frivolous bullshit like "dressing for success" to make yourself more attractive to employers and how to format your resumé to make it stand out. Are you fucking kidding me?

We have everthing backwards. We ought to start from the premise that people have a right to productive meaningful work if they want it. If private businesses are not fulfilling that expectation then the government ought to immediately step in and either hire people directly or match them into jobs.

May 13, 2012

Forgive all student loan debt now to save the economy.

A One Trillion Dollar bailout.

That's the stimulus we need to get the economy going.

All of our Democratic economists, Krugman, Reich etc., they all keep saying we need a big stimulus to get out of the depression. This answer is staring America in the face but we refuse to admit it because people are so friggin hung up on the idea that nobody should get away with something for free, that people need to be punished for their poor financial decisions.

Even though in many cases, when people took these loans out, the decision seemed to make a lot of sense to them.

If we can bail out the banks twice, bail out the auto industry, afford wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, afford to flush billions down the toilet waging a failed useless war on drugs, afford to incarcerate more people that any other nation on earth...then why can't we bail out our own people when the economy tanks and they are drowning in debts that many will never be able to pay off. The system is rigged to protect wealth for those who have it. But when working class (middle class) people need a little help, there's never any money, we can't afford it. What gives.

May 9, 2012

Roughly speaking this area

One of my favorite all time maps. Counties where Obama(2008) did worse than John Kerry(2004).

May 8, 2012

Of course that's how the police behave...that's their expected behavior.

Cops are brutal against occupy.

That doesn't make smashing windows and buring flags a good idea.

Whether one thinks it is justified or not, it is not a successful protest tactic. There is no sense in defending it.

It gets MSM headlines and then that's the only thing people know.

Instead of "Protesters Burn Flag" a much better headline for us would be "Police Attack Non-Violent Demonstrators".

Remember that UC Davis pepper spray cop?
Remember Tony Bolongna attacking those girls in New York?

Those are the incidents we remember as successes. The MSM is just looking for negative stuff on Occupy so why give them the opportunity?.

Even trying to take over that empty civic center in Oakland, and the cops excessive reaction, made some very good videos. The MSM might have been compeled to cover it. But instead they had the flag burning incident and that's really all they needed to make a shitty news show.

I know it's impossible for a leaderless resistence, but Occupy could really benefit from a little message discipline.

Occupy is not all about defending occupiers no matter what they do, and justifying it based on the behavior of the police. Sometimes protecting Occupy means protecting it from infiltrators and assholes who want to make it look bad on TV.

May 8, 2012

Enclosures of farmland in 17th century England...

Talk about a war on the poor...

Well I suppose maybe it was really the beginning of 'poverty' as we know it in the modern sense, as the modern working class and the modern landlord/commercial/capitalist class were being created simultaneously by the same process.

With one small group accumulating vast pools of private capital and the other large group now landless and without subsistence, the stage was perfectly set for the wage labor system, in which workers were compelled to rent out their labor in exchange for subsistence wages. It's the principle of social organization that dominated during the industrial revolution and is continuing straight through into the post-industrial age.

But there isn't any particular reason why it had to happen that way or why it needs to be that way now. Our modern social and economic system is the result of particular historical events, including especially the English land enclosures. Remembering this can help us to understand that the wage-work system has not always existed and other forms of social and economic organization are possible and maybe preferable.

Thanks for the thread.

May 6, 2012

Nope and nope.

The Melissa Harris Perry show is smart TV. I dig it.

Lockup is boring I admit. Think of it as eating your vegetables. I'm glad some TV channel is forcing us to look at the inside of a prison so we don't forget about the million people we have locked up. We incarcerate more than any other nation. And for every 1 locked up, several more lives are affected.

It's a big business in America. A few people make a lot of money on keeping people in prison.

The whole human face of the prison system has a way of just becoming invisible unless it gets put right in front of our faces.

We should all watch prison documentaries every week. Or at least have the option if we want to.

May 6, 2012

Just thought he was the best person for he job.

In 2008 I think maybe I was planning on voting for Dennis Kucinich or John Edwards(before we knew about his problems obviously). But by time by primary rolled around for Ohio I think it was down to just him and Hillary. I think she would have made a great president too, by the way.

But I really liked that Obama had come from a different background. Some people might think he's exotic, but really I think his ethnic mix and how he grew up is as much of a typical American story as Bill Clinton's. And certainly a more typical American story than Mitt Romney's or George W. Bush.

I also liked that he had that background as a community organizer. I really admire that kind of thing. I think the final decision came for me when somebody started attacking him for being associated with Rev. Wright, based on some of the Reverend's views. It was intended to scare people away I know. But for me it had the reverse effect. It made me like him more. The speech he gave talking about Rev. Wright and race issues, I think in Philadelphia, right around that time, it had a big impact on me. Even though I criticize the President a lot on some of his policies, really I like him a lot. I support him very strongly. He's done a good job and the alternative would be way worse.

May 6, 2012

But there are still some real prejudices based on myths that affect access to equal justice.

What's this myth that needs pushing back against? Who supposedly thinks or is promoting the idea that"black people are in a huge amount of danger from gun toting racists"?

The Trayvon controversy was amount multiple issues. Most importanly it was about unequal treatment of people of color by the criminal justice system. It's also about the presumption of guilt that Trayvon had to face, first from Zimmerman and then from the cops. And some common misconceptions about crime do help create an environment where stereotypes about black people as criminals can flourish.

A lot of people face George Zimmermans every day, who just don't happen to have a gun on them. They just treat you like a guilty criminal for no reason. Pull you over for no reason, folllow you around a store just in case you might be stealing. In some cities cops can stop you and search you for no reason. Smaller indigities like ladies clutching their purses at the sight of you. These are all related to negative stereotypes about criminal behavior.

Nobody thinks "black people are in a huge amount of danger from gun toting racists". That's not what the Trayvon controversy was about. It was primarily about equal justice under the law. And also about a social attitude, which affects the behavior of both private citizens and law enfocement, whereby people of color are presumed guilty.

In my opinion this info-graphic in the linked article was trying to take on some myths that contribute to the stereotype of black people as criminals, and it was not unsuccessful at doing that.