Saudi Arabia is a land of abject poverty, dominated by whichever tribal warlord claimed to hold the deed when the British started tapping it for oil. While the common inhabitants are subjugated under crushing poverty, fundamentalist Islam, and repressive injustice punctuated with beheadings, Saudi "royals" require gold plated escalators to descend from their jet planes. Now the "crown prince", dubbed MbS, is consolidating power by arresting his fellow royal billionaires, accusing them of corruption. Isn't that rich? Corruption defines feudal kleptocracy. As supplies of oil near their end, the robber barons get ever greedy about the last drop. Did you wonder why the Al Saud windfall wasn't shared with the poor? Now they want to cut out their own relatives. No honor among thieves. Thereby settling the oxymoron of Saudi nobility.
Tag: Greed
Bad News for the CorpoFascists… Cali woman gasses other shoppers
at a WalMart, scuffling over an X-Box. All the Corporate Goodies in one bag here, pepper spray, Capitalism, WalMart, Microsoft, greed, all in one fell swoop. On the main YouTube video of UC Davis Occupy being peppersprayed, 30 thousand comments and most from a tiny minority of the viewers, Right Wing Retards cheering for violence against their Fellow Americans. Now the Corporate Whores are seeing what their system is promoting in a different light, and I bet none of them like what's happening. They'll try, probably, to blame Occupy, Liberals in general, Hippies, pot smoking, everything other than the greed their corporate Masters need to justify the very existence of Capitalism At another Wally World, a shooting. Merry Christmas you stupid stupid bastards.
Silly honeybee, High Fructose Corn Syrup is for kids, American humans, fat
If you'd like one reason to despise corporate honey producers, how's this? Humans come by honey because of the largess of bees. Beekeepers harvest the surplus as honeybees go about --what we've learned is their more critical responsibility for human interests-- pollinating our crops. Unfortunately it's become more profitable to milk the hives of more of the honey and leave sugar water or High Fructose Corn Syrup for the hardworking honeybees. Yes it's killing them. Never mind it's suspected as the leading cause of why American honeybees are dying off, it's crude and parasitic. There might have been a time we'd say it was un-American. HFCS-induced obesity and diabetes is too gentle a fate for greedy beekeepers. Likewise for cattle farmers who sell the milk, leaving their calves to nurse on a concocted dilution containing cow's blood and other dairy substitutes -- care to wager HFCS is not among them? You can avoid Big Agra honey, and no doubt any processed foods which market themselves as containing honey. Although, you might check the label, most often the corporate nutritionists have already swapped out your honey for HFCS.
Howard Zinn disses civil obedience
"Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience. Our problem is that people all over the world have obeyed the dictates of leaders and millions have been killed because of this obedience. Our problem is that people are obedient all over the world in the face of poverty, starvation, stupidity, war and cruelty. Our problem is that people are obedient while the jails are full of petty thieves and the grand thieves are running the country. That’s our problem." --Howard Zinn
Sarah Palin and the Republican Lie of “sacrifice”
Since she makes so much political hay over having sacrificed "her own" son to the Military Establishment, maybe she should have a short tutorial on the word Sacrifice. First, stolen goods, stolen money and humans aren't viewed as Clean for the Temple. Just like Caiphas couldn't spend the thirty shekels, because it was the price of blood. Sarah Palin could not in any way OWN her son. He's another separate human being. Not a possession. He might consider himself a sacrifice (he'd be wrong) but it would be HIS blood offering, not hers. Also he doesn't seem to be dying for the atonement of anybody's sin, if he DOES get his fascist face blown through the back of his skull it'll be because he's in a foreign country enslaving the people, taking their land and oil in the name of the corporations for whom Momma Grizzly does her whorin'. and one of them would get in a good shot while defending his country against Young Sgt Palin. Not anything similar to a sacrifice. A sacrifice is to make one Holy. Not to make one a simple grubby little cowardly murderer. But it goes right along with the Capitalist Theme, that the Captains of Industry should be allowed the full fruits of something other people built or did. Mrs Palin and the rest of them can say that they "sacrificed" their own kids to the Killing Machine, but they, like the Captains of Industry, who never put their own hand to the plough, never take up the sword to commit their own murders, and take whatever gain or sick emotional credit for the actions of others. They are a disgusting and slimy lot. No wonder the local business and civic and social "leaders" look up to them, especially those who pretend to be ministers of God. Her "sacrifice" of her son, or more truthfully the people murdered by her son, mirrors all their vainglorious actions.
They never vote themselves off the lifeboat….
There's a Psych101 example that just about everybody who experiences college in America would find familiar, the Lifeboat Question. Setup for it is, you're on a lifeboat, with absolutely no hope of rescue, You have passengers on board whose needs exceed the supply of fresh water and food. You have a baby, an elderly professor, a laborer, ... that kind of thing. Then you're told to group up and discuss who you would kill. Drown, Toss from the lifeboat. The discussions get long and involved but somehow a few basic facts never get mentioned. Like: The one person who NOBODY tosses off the boat is himself. If there's no hope of rescue or landfall with the extra person on board, there's not really any chance without him either. If you're in a lifeboat then you're in a shipping lane, unless every vessel on the sea suddenly vanished, you're very likely to have one come near. If every ship on the ocean has vanished, then so, apparently, has civilization. You and the fellow lifeboaters would be, as far as you know, the only living humans left. It would be up to you to restore any semblance of civilized behavior. Yet to do it, according to the TRICK question, you would first have to make a human sacrifice. What kind of a sick society can you build on that foundation? Hint: it's all around us. Right now the debate in Budget Committees, especially those in the House and thus, top heavy with so-called "conservatives", is centered on who to toss out of the lifeboat first. I say "first" because that sort of thing is damnably hard to stop once it gets started. Their figures and calculations all pointedly leave in THEIR source of income, the Military Industrial complex which is the only driving force left for Capitalism. They're not tossing themselves out of the lifeboat. It's more like get in the canoes and take grandma out, put her on an ice-floe and smear her all over with seal meat to draw the polar bears. Then row away with all the villagers chanting traditional Leave-grandma-to-die songs.
Iran had ‘preconditions’ for nuclear talks, Great Powers miffed..
Actually Baroness Ashton and other "diplomats" said they were "disappointed". Baroness Ashton led a delegation from France, Germany, Russia, the UK, US and China, at the two-day talks. The international team had proposed a new version of a plan to keep Iranian enrichment within civilian-grade levels by having it send uranium abroad to be processed. But Western diplomatic sources have spoken of anger and frustration over Iran's behavior at the talks. But of course... Arrogantly demanding that one's own nation be accorded the same Sovereign Rights as any other is a privilege accorded to the Great Powers. "Simply EVERYBODY knows THAT, Dah-link" So the Baroness is pissed. GOOD. The Royals got snubbed by Peasants. GOOD. Apparently, unilateral demands should only come from the Empire. Only, since World War One they've shied away from being called that. One of the reasons for the British Crown starting the war was the same with King George V as it was with Elizabeth II, Iranian oil for the Empire. And Iraqi. Only it was under Turkish control at the time, and had to be taken away from Turkish control by force of arms. Arms carried in the arms of Peasants who had to be conscripted or cajoled into doing Their Masters' bidding. So they invented a lie, of course. Happens all the time in Diplomatic Circles, as Wikileaks has recently revealed. Just like Gueen Bess 2 cheerily signing on to the BushBlairCheneyCo. lies about WMDs both in Iraq and Iran, King George V jumped at a chance to pit "his" Imperial Army against those of his cousins in a gigantic game of Risk where the pawns actually scream, bleed and die when gassed, shot or bombed. By telling the Suckers errr "Loyal Subjects Patriots that they, as subjects and property of an Emperor, were to fight Imperialism. "That small nations would have the same rights as the the Great Powers." What a crock of Lying Pig Shit. The Emperors made out like the murdering bandits they were then and still are today. The peasants filled millions of graves. Same as always.
War on Santa
Tis the season for conspicuous consumption.
First, connoisseurs of the history of Jesus would know that He was born in a barn. Nothing about flying reindeer, dancing snowmen, or a huge elf. Or trees. There was a little bit of Grinchiness this year on the part of the U.S. Forest service, because of the global warming, the massive swarm of pine bark beetles that spawned, and the weakened conditions of the trees due to warmer temperatures and less water. One of the largest sections of Christmas Tree Harvesting the White River National Forest Not, of course, going to affect COMMERCIAL tree-slaughter anytime soon, because the Timber companies have a big lobby and some impressive corporate ties to even MORE corporate lawyers and lobbyists. And they don't give three shits about whether there'll be forests in 50 years. Greedy Bastards is just a good start at describing them and the list gets uglier from there. Then there's the Christmas Tree in Abu Dhabi, UAE. at The Emirates Hotel. 45 feet tall and crusted with 14 MILLION dollars worth of ornaments. Ornaments like watches, necklaces, bracelets, rings... Everything to tickle the fancy of your average Corporate Traveler. Remember the Corporate Partners of the tree-killing industry? Like the Oil industry....
The Law, in its Majestic equality, forbids rich and poor from being alike
At least when it comes to Urban Camping. Seems the "no camping" ordinance didn't apply at the mall when Greed rather than Need was the motivation to take to the tents. People started camping out early Thanksgiving day to be the first in line for "doorbuster" specials on Black Friday. How about it, Doug, Janis, Sean, Lionel? Chief Meyers? Sheriff Mussolini errr Maketa? How about it Tame Ass Right Wing Media in town, Praising the HomeFull campers for their bravery in voluntarily pitching their tents with plenty of police protection, unlike anything the HomeLess PEOPLE ever got. Hypocrisy, thou hast a name, and thy name is Colorado Springs Establishment. Maybe they could redeem themselves by publishing stories detailing how many of those purchases were made on Credit and in 6 months how many of the Credit Cards used are in default. Black Friday is allegedly a Triumph of Capitalism. Yes, once again the Corporate BigPigs got the commoners to push themselves further into debt which they'll never be able to repay. What a lovely victory that is!
Pullout from Afghanistan? not for another 3 years..
BBC had a story "An hour away from Kabul, despair grows as NATO discusses exit..." Meaning, the BBC is required to report that the war is a positive thing for Afghan people so they focus on government officials who got their jobs handed to them by the American and British Conquerors and Occupiers errr "liberators and nation builders" and will, justifiably, have their heads handed to them by people who had friends and family (anybody in Afghanistan) Murdered, raped, imprisoned and tortured by the NATO Occupation forces. And the reader/listener is supposed to take pity on these poor, sad, wretched pathetic Traitors who sold their own people to the invaders as a means of gaining Puppet Local Dictator status. Awwwwww.... Shed a fake tear with me, Glenn Beck showed us how, put Vicks Vapo-Rub under your eyes... On the other hand, if 3 more years of the Mightiest Empire on earth wouldn't be enough time to build up a sense of safety in the Karzhai Puppet Regime, how long WOULD it take? Analysts who aren't in the pay of the Pentagon say there's no way, and that if the occupation succeeds it could only be by being Permanent. Finally, in other news, Oceania has ALWAYS been at war with Eastasia.
So-called Free Market Capitalism doesn’t pay its bills
It instead leeches off Tax-supported Publicly paid enterprises like the Army and Police agencies, not coincidentally the only agencies they want to be continued to have Public Funding...Allow the wealthiest to not pay taxes on money they obtained through blatantly aggressive Government Interventions in the so-called "free" markets by using publicly funded Soldiers to take over any of the competing trade partnerships aka "Sovereign Nations" by extreme violence or the threat thereof. The Ayn Rand worshipers wouldn't be able to obtain the agricultural and mineral riches of MesoAmerica by their own machinations, even were they willing (unlike the huge majority of their favorite Mouthpieces like Reagan, Bush, John Wayne, Limbaugh, Coulter, Malkin, O'Reilly, Beck etc ... chickenhawks on parade) to use their OWN physical presence and risk their OWN worthless parasitic lives to do so. Their "superior" Invisible Hand of the "free" market wasn't in any way capable to take over even ONE nation, even the Stone-age technology nations they much more than decimated (decimated means taking only ten percent off, and the slaughter left alive more like 7%, more than NINE TIMES mere decimation) first through disease and then through violence using "superior" technologies against, again, Stone Age peoples. The Pilgrims and Puritans they worship as being Godlike Beings had Publicly Funded armies and navies behind them when they conquered the Northeastern U.S., not exactly Daniel Boone Striding Alone Into The Wilderness... (he was slightly more than a century later and even he, brave though he might have been, had the British Army backing him up. Even if they weren't sharing his camp) All that Publicly funded conquest is the basis for American Wealth but even the Rich White-boy so-called "Founding Fathers" weren't willing to pay the rent on the Soldiers and Equipment used to gain their financial base. They're not willing to pay the workers and even their own Corporate Partners who provide the construction and maintenance of the infrastructure, dams, water treatment, roads, that they would need to continue gaining their wealth. With "no new taxes" but plenty of new construction, at Public Expense and the most immediate benefit from that construction going to the "no taxes" manipulators and their mouthpieces like Doug Bruce and Tom Tancredo they say, literally, "We want you to sell us your labor, and your materiel, for a minuscule fraction of what it costs you to produce it, and if you don't give us what we want we'll have the Publicly Paid tax-supported Army and Police force you to comply, just like they did and still do in all the other Conquered Territories which pay THEIR tributes into our 'free' Market system" They're treating American workers the way they've treated the forced-labor of every "lesser" economy in the World, again, using the Fascist "freedom fighters" in the Police and Military, private and public to force us to comply the same way the "Operation Iraqi Freedom" PIGS force the Iraqi people to comply with their Corporate Whore-lords. Again, just like the Tea-Bag and other Right Wing Terrorist Extremists,
September, Fiscal Year, No Billion Dollars falling from the sky.
Budget time cometh. Three years ago, when Real Estate started to crap all over the economy, Rivera, our mayor for those who don't speak Coloradospringsish... said that what the city needed was for a Billion Dollars to fall from the sky. That $42 Million he later turned down, because it was earmarked to stuff he didn't think were priorities, like dinner parties for his Rich Sponsors to discuss how to redirect the rest of it to their bank accounts.. That would help a lot. But, it was "earmarked" so NO to the schools, the parks, the streetlights, the Cops and Fire and Ambulance, and especially NO to Bus Service. A bit of rumor hit my ears today. Bus Service to be cut even further. Of course, any real announcement would be made after the election. When somebody else can take the heat, I suppose. The time frame spoken for the schedule, doesn't even cover kids going home from school. Far less people who work a 9-to-5. So one more time the Working Class gets to bite the something or other in order for the Parasite Class to continue their Massive Theft Ventures. I can almost understand Capitalists, Why SHOULD other people besides themselves get the goodies, and further, why should THEY, the ones who actually profit from Capital, Pay for the services only they get? It's just not FAIR! Poor little Rich Bitches. As for the ones who don't profit from capital, as one third of Americans don't, who work themselves further into debt because they're not paid enough to cover the costs of producing their labor, we're the ones who should pay the price for THEM to get services, and not them. No, Citizen, it is our DUTY to support the Parasite class, for to claim a share of what we actually earn rather than feed it into the Greedy Maws of Capitalist Hogs and their sows and piglets... that would be SOCIALISM! and we all know that Socialism is purest evil. We know this because the Capitalists, who like the rest of us have never actually had or experienced a Socialist Economy on any more than a local level, pay spokes-freaks to tell us so. There's probably to be another rally downtown. Of course we know now, as we knew then, that the Arrogant Ones at City Hall won't budget funds for anything but what makes their Rich Bitch buddies (and owners) richer. One feels like Oliver Twist at the orphanage asking the docent for more gruel.
Think of it as enhanced evolution, Un-natural selection, cull the gulls…
The debate turns now to whether or not to rescue marine animals from the oil. Pelicans and gulls specifically, but there's more. Of course, animals that took millions of years to be what they are, should learn to mutate themselves a lot faster. Seagulls and turtles and manatees and sea-otters, fish, crustaceans, jellyfish, plankton, all need to mutate in a matter of days rather than eons. True, it would be a LOT simpler for the HUMAN species to modify our behavior, not set our entire economic plan on one focus, like Fossil Fuels. The plan with a built in Self-Destruct button that gets armed and starts ticking away once we drill the first well. Of course that first well was "well" over a century ago, BUT there's still time to ramp down the madness, get back to a point where we can actually turn off he Self Destruct switch. Of course, it would take eliminating some of the things the Oil Industry advertising partners have been selling us as "essential to the American Lifestyle". Things like easily available in large quantities "food" that our bodies don't have the ability to process correctly, at least not in the concentrations which are being sold to us as a "normal" diet. Thus diabetes, colon cancers, increased. Also increased are heart disease, respiratory, kidney, thyroid, liver, just every part of the Human Biotic System that depends on a certain chemical balance that the McDiet not only doesn't provide but actively disrupts. The private automobile, sure, if you could afford to drive it, but, really, the cost to The Rest Of Us to maintain YOUR "right" to a private car is long since out of control. Witness, for instance the Oil Spills. Witness the wars being fought to secure more Oil, publicly subsidized wars. If the person driving sole occupant in a car made for 8 actually had to Pay His Way he wouldn't be able to do it. The ultimate Welfare Cadillac. We're required to provide "cheap" oil to the Consumer or be called Terrorist and Traitor. A system where everybody in the entire world is required to chip in to make a really expensive activity "affordable".... for a privileged few. People in nations where starvation is in the top 5 causes of death have to chip in for YOUR automotive pleasure. But things like Public Transportation and subsidizing better forms of energy harvesting and use, that the bad ol' wicked "Socialism". Summary of that, Public support of the entire population, BAD. The entire World Population support of an elite minority GOOD. Public Support of Mega Corporations like McDonalds altering the agricultural economy, GOOD. Public criticism of the fact that this impoverishes other PEOPLE in other nations, to the point of people who live on gigantic plantation style "food" factory farms starve.... that's Bolshevism and BAD. The Oil Corporations have been for the past year putting out some very expensive publicity campaigns saying that actually requiring the Corporations (mainly) and the Consumers to PAY what isn't anywhere near the Real Cost
BP, Meet Agatha
As in, the first named storm of the season. So far, 12 killed in Guatemala. Oh, and we were duly informed that the Top Kill maneuver failed. If it's any consolation to us they didn't wait two weeks to tell us that. A bit of further consolation, such as it is, this poisoning of the ocean has the potential to end America's involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan. NATO as a whole, too, because the rest of the NATO countries are facing budget crisis and crises, the first shared and the second individual, country by country case by case. The core of it isn't socialized medicine or public welfare programs. The core of it is NATO itself, with the NATO mission of buying more expensive equipment, hiring more soldiers and not fighting one single God-Damn war that isn't strictly for the benefit of the Wealthiest individuals on the planet. No wars of Defense, no wars for Freedom, or Nation Building, all that is window dressing, sham, frosting on a cake that's baked from the mortal remains of the Imperialist Manifesto. A manifesto that's written in not one document, nor book... but the death records of hundreds of millions of people, civilian, military, or militant, the ones described in 1916 as "The Great Fallen". The Great Fallen was made a slogan to memorialize one particular battle, that was neither at the beginning nor the end of the Imperial Meat Grinder. It counts only those fallen by gunfire in pitched battle. Not those killed by the plagues unleashed, one after another, the famines, also known as "Recessions, Depressions" and (my personal favorite, that used by the richest themselves) "Bubbles and Adjustments." Oh, the market is going through one of it's periodic correction cycles. That's great news for those who have vast wealth, but for the people who put that vast wealth in their pockets, it's a tragedy reduced to numbers and statistics. Now, we come to a point in history where there's a perfect storm. An economy that's been kicked out from under the entire world, the ecology that underpinned it so mangled and twisted it would be unrecognizable to Audubon, the greedy quest for More Money has now trashed one of the last places on Earth that HAD a chance to be redeemed. Those who 6 weeks ago were screaming that the new restrictions to try to save that very niche of the environment would "put an end to sport fishing in the gulf"... and condemning every member of the government who even dared to use the words Environmental or Ecology in policy statements, no similar level of vilification for Their Corporate Masters now that their Corporate Masters have blown off not just sport fishing, but Commercial Fishing, and in a not surprising outcome, might kill or alter the balance of algae in the ocean that produces oxygen. Oxygen which is an anti-greenhouse gas. People who breathe regularly might recognize the term Oxygen as well. Less Oxygen, perhaps more Methane from the decaying remains of
Goldman Sachs hires ethics advisers, forms committee to study legal aspects of their investments.
You know, a company as large and old as that would have done something like that Centuries ago. If they'd any intent of actually following any kinds of ethical or legal standard guidelines. "Well, Gosh dang it, fellers, we just didn't have any Idea that stealing from large numbers of people is immoral, dishonest and illegal." They could have called me, paid me a thousand dollars to study it, I would have given them their answer before they hung up, "No, Stealing is NOT Legal" and I would e ahead a cool grand, and they would, if they took such profound and sage advice, wouldn't be out hundreds of millions in fees to law firms (Like Boyd, Dewey, Cheatham and Howe) who charge a million dollars a day to figure ways to LIE and say that it IS legal. Lawyers are expensive, a conscience is free.
11 more miners killed, 64 still missing
That might not include the 20 in the rescue party with whom contact was lost. A second explosion has now been reported at the Raspadskaya mine near Mezhdurechensk, and contact has been lost with a team of 20 rescuers. Mezhdurechensk, bet you can't say that three times real fast. The governor of Kemerovo, Aman Tuleyev, has taken charge of the rescue operation. "The rescue work will continue when the atmosphere in the mine is restored, but to conduct rescue work now means to send people to their death," he said. Emergency teams are now trying to pump air into the underground shafts. Mines in the region are noted for their poor safety record, not surprising as Capital has reared its ugly head in Russia, kept the KGB and assumed the very Worst parts of Capitalism... oh.. that's right, there aren't any GOOD parts to it. Remembering that it was the underpinning (and eventual downfall) for the Roman Empire. And the Mafia. The system is admirably well represented by the prestigious Wall Street Law Firm of Boyd, Dewey, Cheatham and Howe. Bets on the major shareholders having a lot in common with the major shareholders of BP and Massey Energy? Say, I wonder what the statistics on percentage or raw numbers of employees in the Solar Panel Manufacturing killed or maimed on the job would be? Since Einstein's invention of the basic principle took place when the Internal Combustion Engine and the Turbine Generator were still relatively new inventions. Guess which ones were subsidized in every way possible, from government contracts for the products to outright grants of Free Land that just by a coincidence belong to Other Nations and had to be secured and maintained at Lots of Gunpoint.
Between Iraq and a Hard Place, Slave Labor + Corporate Welfare = Warfare
Since all available national resources are being called in to fight what's the worst unnatural disaster and getting worse, to smite us in a long while, it pays to recognize one huge fact. The equally Corporate Welfare To The Oil Industry wars against Afghan and Iraqi people (for Corporate Profit-not "freedom") and the beneficiaries of this hastily pulled in Public Largesse, an Oil Corporation, BP, which presumably has more corporate money available than the entire U.S. Government does, is "big-assing" us on the subject of actually having to eventually repay the U.S. and State governments... Like Exxon-Valdez being blamed on the actions of one employee, who was imprisoned, and saddled further with a debt that's in the hundred billion dollar range, leaving the Creditors to twist in the wind (Exxon to fishermen: don't blame us, we ain't paying you a thing, F.O.A.D.) It pays, however little, to realize that the main reason for the lack of Federal Funding is the Corporate Welfare given to several of the Largest and Wealthiest entities in THE FRACKIN' WORLD, MON!!! including the very expensive for actual taxpaying citizens, as opposed to Tax-Dodging Corporate "citizens", Wars of Conquest which benefit exactly Whom? Why, the same Oil Companies, like BP, who are expecting the underfunded Federal Government to clean up their little oopsie. And are already filing briefs countering the expected bill coming their way. How very DARE those Peasants demand that we pay for the damage we do? They're also deploying Texas and Louisiana Inmate Unpaid Slave Laborers to fight the damage. Sweet, eh? The ultimate use of Slavery for the benefit of the Ultimate Slave Corporations. If there's any payment made to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, or the Louisiana counterparts, the Slaves ain't gonna get any of it, not an extra bean on their plates. Same as always.
Obama breaks truth to widows: Miners died as Corporate Slaves, get used to it
Not really. He said they died in pursuit of a better life. But since the Coal Companies and other Corporate owners of West Virginia aren't going to actually invest anything in developing some other way for the people who live there to survive, and the people have not nearly enough opportunity to build their own enterprises, it IS a cycle of corporate slavery. The Horatio Alger and Ragged Dick rags-to-riches stories were Bullshit when they were first published, and still are today. The Mine Workers union song popularized by "Tennessee" Ernie Ford, 16 Tons, says it more realistically. "you load 16 tons what do ya get? Another day older and deeper in debt St Peter don'cha call me cause I can't go I owe my soul to the Company Store." The same people who lobby hard against Unions and fair wages, lobby for "Tort Reform" meaning a Landlord's Lien not only on your possessions, should you default on your lease, but a period of bond-service, debt slavery, should you default. The Mining corporations, in particular, used this as a way of keeping the workers docile. The Company Store, just that, the only way you could get groceries or clothing or any other necessities of life was to purchase them from a commissary owned by the Company. Your lodgings were also owned by the Company. A rigged system where you always owed the Boss for the privilege of working for him. Paid less than you're forced to spend to survive. Try to leave and you get a warrant for your arrest under the Fugitive Laws, have the equivalent of Dog the Bounty Hunter chasing you down, putting you into the County Prison to work out your debt. In a county that's owned by, you guessed it, your Loving Employer. America is sliding backward into that quagmire of Corporate Dictatorship. The saddest part, many of the miners and their families actually eat that crap up with a spoon, the Corporate Lies that they're working for a better future and for their freedom, and that of their children. It's a shameful thing for ONE political party to pay homage to that Blatant Lie. For ALL of the three largest political parties in America, Democratic, Republican, and Tea Parties, to pander to that meaningless CRAP is beyond shameful. Maybe he simply misspoke, and was off by one letter, they were working for a bItter life.
Massey orphan, suddenly fatherless, says Coal equals Freedom
AFTER the Massey Company took her daddy's life with their Union-Busting activities, AFTER they got rich off her Daddy's work and her Daddy didn't... (edit: the comment following was sloppy editing on the part of the "news" service, she blurts out that Fascist Anti-Earth Propaganda about working in the coal mine being the key to economic recovery and compared her Daddy dying to "fighting for freedom." The rest of it is Gospel.) The Massey company, their only concern is that the mine is out of production for a while so they don't get Richer off the sweat and blood and toil and deaths of "their" workers. They continuously refused to provide safety upgrades, "Too expensive." Miners are cheaper than safety equipment. The Massey Energy Corporation is already angling to use this tragedy as propaganda for the Open-Pit, or Mountaintop Removal, or Strip-mine method. Saying they're only concerned about worker safety, of course. This one, for instance, is what used to be southern Deciduous forest, sprinkled with a few pines, see anything growing anywhere near there? The parts downstream from the mine, a Massey project, look nearly as bad, from the toxic runoff. The usually rich forest environment locally suddenly ends up looking like the mountains of the Desert Southwest. Worse, actually. Downstream, the fish are changing sex. Male small-mouth bass are being genetically/hormonally changed into female smallmouth bass. Massey also operates strip mines on land coerced from Indian Nations, like the Northern Cheyenne, and the Navajo and Hopi tribes... and the Eastern Band of the Cherokee Nation, one of our sacred mountains near Chattanooga Tennessee is scheduled to be eco-murdered by Massey. And after they get done killing the mountain they're going to give the toxic waste-dump to the State of Tennessee as a park and low-income housing sites. Aren't they wondrously generous? The state of Tennessee offices which decided to sell Property Which Is Not Theirs, say they can't find any heirs of the original owners, Excusez-Vous? There are tribal offices of the Eastern Band right down the street from them. If they can't find the Cherokee Nation they just ain't looking. They can't find their collective arse with both hands. So they gave... ooops "Leased" land to Massey. Now, if I leased a room and promised the landlord that I would trash it, and put poison all over it, the landlord would rightly be suspicious of my intentions. If I were to promise faithfully to clean it up afterward, even with a record (like Massey's) of destroying properties and never repairing them, and always with the prior promise to fix the damage, the landlord would have to be an utter fool to rent to me. Let's take another look at the CEO, shall we?
“Energy (oil) ministers say 23 Trillion in investment needed” according to AP
--to find new sources of Oil and natural gas, of course. Strangely, that's about what my estimate of the cost of the recent 8 years worth of Federal Giveaways to the Oil Corporations would total. So, do the Oil Corporations REALLY need Welfare from all the governments of the world? Where would that much-ballihooed "Free Market" supremacy account for such a huge bailout to what's supposedly the single most profitable industry of the past century? To be honest, I didn't read past that shocking headline. I just DON'T need to ruin my day reading veiled threats (almost typo-ed "vealed" as in Fatted Calf) from the richest people on the planet about what will happen if they're not given the rest of the Planetary Treasury, the fealty of every son of Adam and a lien on the souls and service of our children for generations to come.
List of top privately held US companies
The shift of businesses into private ownership represents the eroding stake which common Americans have in the Capitalist system. Stock holdings in most public corporations are predominantly in wealthy hands, but private corporations drop even the pretense of serving the middle class economy. Biggest ($90B) is Koch Industries which provides "beef, fuels, fertilizer and plastics." Forbes has a list of America's largest privately held companies, 424 of which have yearly earnings over one billion dollars. We've grouped them by category for easier perusal, ranked by their earnings. Colorado is headquarters to twelve: TransMontaigne, First Data, Pro-Build Holdings, CH2N Hill Cos, Vistar, Sports Authority, Leprino Foods, Hensel Phelps Construction, TIC Holdings, MediaNews Group and NWH. CONSUMER PRODUCTS: Mars VA -Combos, Dove, M&Ms, Pedigree, Snickers, Uncle Ben's Rice Levi Strauss & Co CA Textile - Apparel Clothing SC Johnson & Son WI Personal Products Ashley Furniture Industries WI Home Furnishings & Fixtures Rich Products NY Confectioners MGA Entertainment CA Toys & Games Mary Kay TX Cleaning Products Alticor MI Personal Products Conair CT Personal Products JohnsonDiversey WI Cleaning Products ViewSonic CA Computer Peripherals New Balance Athletic Shoe MA Textile - Apparel Footwear Dawn Food Products MI Confectioners to Starbucks, Krispy Kreme Roll International CA -Teleflora, Fiji Water, POM, Suterra Genmar Holdings MN Recreational Boats Williamson-Dickie Manufacturing TX Textile - Apparel Clothing McKee Foods TN Confectioners: Little Debbie, Sunbelt Samsonite MA Personal Products NewPage OH Paper & Paper Products Bose MA Electronic Equipment WL Gore & Associates DE Textile - Apparel Clothing Milliken & Co SC Textile - Apparel Clothing MTD Products OH Recreational Goods, Other RETAILERS: Toys "R" Us NJ Toy & Hobby Stores Dollar General TN Discount, Variety Stores Menard WI Home Improvement Stores Neiman Marcus Group TX Department Stores 84 Lumber PA Home Improvement Stores Hallmark Cards MO Entertainment - Diversified Michaels Stores TX Specialty Retail, Other Belk NC Department Stores Burlington Coat Factory NJ Apparel Stores Linens 'n Things NJ Home Furnishing Stores Sports Authority CO Sporting Goods Stores Bass Pro Shops MO Sporting Goods Stores Fry's Electronics CA Specialty Retail, Other Mervyns CA Department Stores Follett IL Specialty Retail, Other General Parts NC Auto Parts Stores ShopKo Stores Operating WI Discount, Variety Stores Petco Animal Supplies CA Specialty Retail, Other Discount Tire AZ Auto Parts Stores Guitar Center CA Music & Video Stores Academy Sports & Outdoors TX Sporting Goods Stores Rooms To Go FL Home Furnishing Stores Hobby Lobby Stores OK Toy & Hobby Stores Barnes & Noble College Booksellers NJ Specialty Retail, Other Duane Reade NY Drug Stores LL Bean ME Catalog & Mail Order Houses Newegg.com CA Specialty Retail, Other GNC PA Drug Stores Goody's Family Clothing TN Department Stores Les Schwab Tire Centers OR Auto Parts Stores Beall's FL Department Stores PC Richard & Son NY Specialty Retail, Other Micro Electronics OH Specialty Retail, Other Sutherland Lumber MO Home Improvement Stores Boscov's PA Department Stores 24 Hour Fitness Worldwide CA Consumer Services Ritz Camera Centers MD Specialty Retail, Other Schottenstein Stores OH Home Furnishing Stores Cinemark USA TX General Entertainment Marc Glassman
Corrupt Fed wants control
These bastards are brazen thieves and agents of disinformation. Has the entire fricking country gone stupid? We are witnessing the transfer of vast sums of our money... not theirs, ours... to them!! And a Fed who wants to get the SEC out of the way so they can do it! Paulson, Bernake, Greenspan, Volker, Rubin... all wall street thieves and crooks, liars and scum. This is the fascist business model in full head long dive to the bottom with the Fed cleaning up the mess and divvying up the bailout money to their wall street buddies. For the next 6 months. This had to be planned. No concerned economic professional in their right mind would have let this happen. The Fed is responsible for the housing bubble, the subprime crime, the weak dollar and now for looting the U.S. citizen treasury!! JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, Bank America... they're all going down. They've all got the CDO-SIV-Hedge Fund cancer bad. Why is the Fed taking on all this worthless paper and risk? All for show. They create and destroy money all the time. Regardless, they will bail them all out... on our tab. Bear Stearns was sacrificed to keep JP Morgan on life support. But you can bet the Bear Stearns management got out before the crash of stock price. I think the SEC would investigate that right? And how is it that the Fed can act alone on these things, and the Congress (many of whom voted to repeal the Glass-Steagal act with Clinton) [there's a question for Hillary] in the aftermath asks their sniveling little questions of how the deal was structured? Because the Fed runs the show. It is a private banking system... not a government agency! We are witnessing the power of the central banking system that was set up in Europe by the Bauers (Rothchilds), the Greens, the Schifts, the Warburgs...all German banking Zionists. Then brought to the U.S. (The Money Masters -dvd). Talmudist Jews by the way. Sold out Germany with the British to bring U.S. into WWI. Even though Germany was offering England a return to peace with no reparations or conditions. Now, what happened to that 2.4 trillion that went missing from the Pentagon... just before 9-11? Hmmmm Dov Zakhiem might know. Another Zionist and dual Israeli/U.S. citizen who was in charge of the Pentagons budget as comptroller. Funny how that "plane" hit the accounting area of the Pentagon, destroying all evidence and records of misplaced funds. Darn the luck. Who'd have thought?
Merck Alors! What a load of caca!
The CDC study of teens showing a quarter to have already contracted an STD, implying that THREE MILLION teenage girls are infected, is sensational alright. It's also five years old, extrapolates from an incredibly small sample of girls who'd been treated only by public health services, and offers a skewed result to be sure. Who would foist upon us such a canard? (Merck) And why now? (Gardasil) HPV is to STD, as a wart is to Leprosy. What outrageous fear mongering all because a pharmaceutical giant wants to mandate its vaccine on all girls aged nine. Gardasil is of dubious efficacy and had proved to be a risk in its own right, so it hasn't been catching on as Merck had first hoped. The State of Texas has made it obligatory because its governor, a Republican (on the take), bypassed the state legislature to do it. Merck is now lobbying to require their product nationwide. An American populace frightened for its little girls will give our lawmakers the cover they need. Looking into HPV and cervical cancer prevention, even annual pap smears appear to be excessive medical procedures. What I couldn't learn anywhere, is whether Greek immigrant Dr. Papanicolaou, inventor of the Pap Test, was only by coincidence studying the Papillomavirus. Or was HPV named after him, his father, or yours?
Income distribution according to religion
Income Distribution of U.S. Religious Traditions -PEW %Pop. Sample Religious Tradition