Tag Archives: Progressives

Will economic stimulus avoid recession?

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The capitalists system is in meltdown. The apologist candidates won’t tell us what the real problems are because they were asleep at the wheel and have voted in support of and taken part in the corrupt capitalist system. They’re all millionaires!!!! It’s time to start a new economy and new currency, end war, cut the military budget to 1/4 of what it is and dismantle the Fed. …and the parasitical Stock Market gambling casino that robs those who produce goods and services of their bounty.

Will Economic Stimulus Measures Stave Off Recession?
by Richard C. Cook

The 2008 Presidential Election: Concepts Progressives Must Know About Monetary Policy and History

Greenspan’s Dark Legacy Unmasked
by Stephen Lendman

C.H. Douglas: Pioneer of Monetary Reform – A National Dividend and Social Credit. by Richard C. Cook

Sovereign Wealth Funds
http://www.goldenjackass.com

Young people don’t bother going through the motions

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The Gazette Christmas edition had a breakdown chart of El Paso County voting last election. It showed that more people vote from the morgue in this county than vote if they are aged 40 and under. Well almost!

Half the voters were 58 or older! Only slightly more than 10% of voters under 40 years old bother with it. Why do voting patterns run in such a pattern?

It would be wrong to say that young people are irresponsible and the older folk are not. Besides, people in their 30s are hardly young but still they are not voting in any numbers. There is another much simpler and real reason for people not voting in these election farces other than to point the finger at individual ‘responsibility’ or lack of it. Younger people do not vote because the political system in place simply seems like a charade to them. And you know what? They are right.

So Old Folk, why do you keep participating in this nonsense? Until we do get some semblance of a real democracy in place, just stop participating altogether in the sham. Do the responsible thing, and do not vote! Stop just passively going along and try to at least publicize some the need for a real democracy, instead of pretending that we already have one. Unfortunately, that’s what your voting now does, it just pretends to be meaningful when that is not the case.

Do like the young people do and don’t bother going through the motions. You need more than one corporate party (DemonRepublican Party) to have a democracy. We just don’t have that yet.

I filled out that ballot that was measured, let it sit in the house for several weeks, and then just said to myself ‘What the Hell?’ It still sat on the table the day after the election and I don’t really care. I’d rather vote for college cheerleaders than what I had before me then. It was that bad.

Don’t eat French Fries

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OK, OK! The dittoheads are back to eating French Fries, and we get stuck with the damn Freedom Fries. They taste so damn plastic, too.

Did this ‘socialist ‘French foreign minister, Kouchner, get tutored by the US Democratic Party? He is to socialism as Gorbachev is to communism… a negation. And in the US many Right Wingers are way more ‘Left’ than the Democratic Party ‘progressives’, too. We live in a topsy turvy world, it seems.

Now, we should all begin to pity poor France. Because so many dummies over there hated immigrants more than they ever loved France, now their France will be torn apart like Bush has torn apart America and Americanism.

The least we can do for them to show solidarity is to stop eating French Fries. Let’s try Belgian Fries instead. The Paris Commune is now turned into a Starbucks.

The think tank pretend thinkers

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Tim Robbins made a recent quip on Bill Maher, suggesting maybe “-if you fuck things up so badly, you can no longer be considered an expert.” I thought I’d call out the right-wing so-called experts, the traitorous anti-democratic unpatriotic lying think tank “scholars” for what they are: immoral and indefensible, opportunistic criminals, who by their damning credentials should be banned from public discourse until after long stints in prison.
 
THE INTELLECTUALLY-DISHONEST:
Heritage Foundation, (latest misdeed Africa)
Hudson Institute
Hoover Institute, (welcomes Rumsfeld)
Manhattan Institute, (welcomes Judith Miller)
Heartland Institute
Cato Institute
Rand Corporation
Brookings Institution
Progressive Policy Institute
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

THE ANTI-INTELLECTUALS:
American Enterprise Institute (AEI)
Project for a New American Century (PNAC)
Center for Security Policy (CSP)
Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA)
Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies
American Jewish Committee (AJC)
Ethics and Public Policy Center
Foundation for the Defense of Democracies
Council on Foreign Relations
Conservative Federalist Society
National Bureau of Economic Research
Center for the Study of American Business
Institute for International Economics
Competitive Enterprise Institute
International Institute for Strategic Studies
Progress and Freedom Foundation
National Center for Policy Analysis
Claremont Institute for the Study of Statesmanship and Political Philosophy
Free Congress Research and Education Foundation
Citizens for a Sound Economy
Capital Research Center
Pacific Institute for Public Policy Research
American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC)
State Policy Network
Center for Strategic and International Studies
American Council of Trustees and Alumni
(more)

IN DISGUISE:
Ethics and Public Policy Center
Reason Foundation
Freedom Forum
Coalition for a Democratic Majority
Committee on the Present Danger
Committee for the Free World
Center for the Study of Popular Culture (CSPC)
Foundation for Cultural Review
American Studies Center
Accuracy in Media
Center for Media and Public Affairs
Center for Science, Technology and Media
Media Research Center
Media Institute
Media Integrity Project
Institute for Justice (IJ)
Center for Individual Rights
Washington Legal Foundation
Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies
Institute on Religion and Democracy (IRD)
Institute on Religion and Public Life
Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty
(more)

IN PRINT:
The New Republic
Commentary (AJC)
National Review
The Public Interest
The National Interest
Weekly Standard
The New Criterion
The American Spectator
Public Opinion [not Public Opinion Quarterly] (AEI)
National Affairs
Washington Quarterly
Defense News
World Net Daily
“Radio America”
“Alan Keyes Show”
“Dateline Washington”
“Firing Line”
“Think Tank”
“Peggy Noonan on Values”
Washington Post
Wall Street Journal
New York Post

FUNDED BY:
Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation
Carthage Foundation
Earhart Foundation
Charles G. Koch Foundation
David H. Koch Foundation
Claude R. Lambe Charitable Foundation
Phillip M. McKenna Foundation
JM Foundation
John M. Olin Foundation
Henry Salvatori Foundation
Sarah Scaife Foundation
Smith Richardson Foundation
Adolph Coors Foundation

I might as well mention the good guys, lest they get caught up with the similarly named miscreants. But why not stick to the experts in the Universities? Certainly higher education has become corrupted, but it should be easier to police, through peer review, than corporate funded experts who just hang up any old shingle and make appearances as scholars on the corporate funded media. For what it’s worth, the
ACTUAL PROGRESSIVES:
Economic Policy Institute
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
Institute for Policy Studies
Worldwatch Institute
Center for Defense Information
Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies

Impeach! Goodbye Dems.

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Bush is claiming Executive Privilege in refusing to shed light on the possible nefarious dealing of his underlings. The press describes any investigation at an impasse “until one side or the other blinks.” Nonsense. Impeach!
 
Cheney surprises everyone by declaring that the Vice-Presidency is actually a fourth branch of government, out of reach of the checks and balances familiar to all. Congressmen want to joke about cutting off his funding, etc, meanwhile Cheney’s boys elude oversight. Impeach!

The Justice Department acting politically? Impeach! The Supreme Court behaving like cronies? Impeach.

Congress pretending to oppose endless war, yet refusing to cut off the funding? And eschewing that power, preferring false “impasses” to the option(s) above?

Apparently it’s the best they can do, at least that’s how the corporate media has it. But why let the corporations tell us what is or isn’t our prerogative? It’s time to impeach the lot of them. If the Democrats don’t want to do what they were elected to do, let’s leave them. And turn away from the TV.

It’s time for real bipartisanship. Real conservatives and real progressives need to bail from the two imposter parties and opt for representatives of their own. If big-oil interests can conspire with big-pharma, insurance, multi-national, communications and agri-biz to plunder America’s wealth, I’d hope from the people’s side, the Greens could join the Socialists could join the Libertarians could join the Reformers could join everyone else, Ross Perot’s upstarts perhaps. We can address our differences after we’ve wrestled the reins from the corporate greed parties. If even that will be possible. But we’re not going to see national health care, less war, or more equitable and just policies until we do.

And to those Democrats who fear that abandoning their so-called representatives will release them to the dark side, it shows what little faith you had in your candidates in the first place. The results are already in from last election: having a Democratic representative in Congress, unless it’s John Conyers, is like having no one at all. If the politician you elected really has firm intentions, he’ll have them without you. It’s time to nurture someone else, someone with potential, into power.

Have you seen Barack do anything? Hillary? You’ve seen Edwards capitulate to a fraudulent election. Gore too. You’ve seen Kucinich pretend that the Democratic tent was inclusive enough for voices against the war and that turned out to be a lie. The Dems have no one unsuited to do their bidding, and what a surprise, it’s not yours.

Rebecca Tinsley and Darfur- when ‘Waging Peace’ is calling for imperialist military action

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Rebecca Tinsley, head of a British group called ‘Waging Peace’, spoke this past Tuesday at Colorado College. Her topic was Darfur and stopping a supposed genocide going on there. The report of the meeting in the Colorado College student newspaper neglected to mention that she was also director of this group, ‘Waging Peace’, nor that Tinsley is also a hotshot within the Carter Center.

And who else is hot within the Carter Center right now? Why it happens to be Madelyn Albright, who once told a CBC reporter that the deaths of half a million Iraqis per Clinton’s sanctions ‘were worth it’. Albright was also a featured speaker last year at an American rally calling for ‘action’ against Sudan. ‘Waging Peace’ it seems, is in reality making propaganda in favor of imperialist intervention rather than against it, though they might try to deny it.

I was unable to get to the Colorado College forum on time, but a quick google on Tinsley and ‘Waging Peace’ is quite educational in itself. Here is Tinsley calling for European imperialist intervention into the African country of Sudan from the website of that group she directs. See their Feb. 15, 2007 press release.

Rebecca Tinsley spends much of her time lobbying Tony Balir and George W. Bush to ‘intervene’ in Africa where she is fond of shouting GENOCIDE, GENOCIDE, GENOCIDE in every direction. It seems that she is not that interested in the genocides underway against the peoples of Iraq, Palestine, or Afghanistan, though. She specializes in calling for imperialist action, not for calling to stop imperialist action. She calls this ‘Waging Peace’!

Progressives need to educate themselves more about these NGO types that do as Rebecca Tinsley and the Carter Center associated liberal hawks like Madelyn Albright are doing with Darfur. Edward Herman has an interesting commentary today on Znet about Human Rights Watch, another NGO that is prone to shrill for starting off imperialist ‘actions’ by crying GENOCIDE, while staying rather mum on ongoing genocides by imperialist countries. See HRW in Service to the War Party

Of note: Rebecca Tinsley is also a member of the London Human Rights Watch committee.

Democratic Guv Ritter betrays Colorado Labor-What a surprise!

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The Guv has just vetoed HB-1072, a Colorado bill that had already been passed in both houses of the Colorado State Government, and a bill he had promised the unions he would support. In doing this, he acted on behalf of the Republicans and business interests that want it to continue to be almost impossible to unionize work places in this state.

This veto was a total betrayal of the workers who voted for him, and believed his promise that he was pro-labor. He is not, and now has shown his true colors but only after he was elected by those in the Colorado Labor Movement who supported him with their votes, and in return got conned.

Workers would have been electing a union shop when they vote union if this legislation had been allowed to take effect. Now, if they vote to have a union, they don’t really get one since the current state law allows the losers of any employee vote to just opt out of paying dues, even as they still would benefit by any contracts negotiated to their benefit by the dues paying union workers in their workplace. This of course destroys the cohesiveness of those trying to present a solid front on behalf of the employees against the bosses, and as a result, makes it next to impossible to unionize.

The type of betrayal done by Democrat Bill Ritter is par for the course. Labor unions have been pumping billions of dollars through the years into the corporate Democrats, and as a result, is now so pitiful and debilitated in the US that essentially we have no functioning unions here in America. People don’t want to join the unions even if there is one around, simply because the laborcrats siphon off most of the dues to themselves, and into lobbying a political party, the Democratic party, that is pro business, and not pro worker. How stupid is that?

There is one bone thrown still tossed out by Ritter to the labor bosses of Colorado that spent union dues money in helping him get elected. They got a man with a Spanish last name, Don Mares, appointed to head up the Colorado Department of Labor. Oh Wow!

Mares is an attorney and vice president of the LAEF (Latin American Educational Foundation, and ex candidate for Denver mayor. The LAEF is a total corporate write-off and public relations group funded by the Coors Foundation, a major funder of Right Wing causes throughout the US. Some ‘labor’ rep Don Mares will make! The union hacks might as well throw their rank-and-filers’ union dues paying money to the wind as to keep funding these types of con artists. What losers they are, these trade union honchos lined up with the DP!

Governor Bill Ritter is just another case in point that the Democratic party sucks big time. Progressives need to stop wasting their time and money on these charlatans, and it sure is no way to rebuild the union movement in this state, or this country, to be trying to buy and lobby votes from the Democratic party politician scoundrels. All that good money wasted and for about next to total Zilch.

Mara Liasson, Washington gossip

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NPR correspondent Mara Liasson spoke at Colorado College last night. What we thought would be an insider’s glimpse of the primaries turned out to be just that. Ms. Liasson spoke only of Kerry, Edwards and Dean. When asked about the other prospects, she countered that she expected we only wanted to hear about the candidates who would prove to matter.

How is a candidate like Kucinich, who is trying to bring issues such as health care, fair labor, environment, an end to war, and a return to human rights, to the fore, how is such a candidate to get covered by reporters who only want to report dispassionately about a candidate’s odds of winning? I mean, you tell us that “a candidate who wins in W state, but fails to win X and Y has never won Z,” that’s reporting? That’s more like Sports Talk.

Why not have reported about who won the debates? Edwards and Kerry, your favorite subjects, came off very stiff in the debates. Kucinich and friends ran circles around them, wouldn’t that have been worthy of reporting?

Isn’t the only thing standing between Kucinich and a viable candidacy, a media that’s refusing to consider him viable? Can you separate Kucinich’s chances from the tough chance he has with networks bent on keeping his issues invisible? What about your own sense of responsibility to report on every candidate, especially if you know their platform will resonate with the American public, if only given some visibility?

You dismiss the Bush AWOL charges as having been reported in 2000. For the record they were ignored in 2000, and you’re doing it again by suggesting they’re old news. They’re 30 years old news! Members of the National Guard today who have gone AWOL from Iraq are sitting in the brig, they’re not out snorting cocaine, even dealing cocaine, and then serving community service for having been caught. But Bush’s records have not only gone missing, they’ve been erased or sealed in the name of National Security. Wouldn’t that merit reporting? But that’s not your beat? Crime? Issues? The environment?

My question? Shouldn’t NPR consider covering the presidential election with correspondents who want to report more than just political gossip and primary statistics like it’s a horse race?

No, my real question: How much does FOX and MSNBC’s framing of the news, like the New York Time’s “all the news that’s fit to print,” determine what NPR can report? Is NPR too anxious about looking into the margins for fear it will marginalize itself? I guess that’s rhetorical. More constructively: How can the mainstream framing, that focus, be increased to include the interests of the American middle class, progressives, and peace-loving peoples around the world?