9-11
- by Noam Chomsky
Failed States:
The Abuse of Power and the Assault on Democracy (American Empire Project)
- by Noam Chomsky
Media Control, Second Ed.
- By Noam Chomsky
Sunday, June 6, 2010
Your World is a Forgery - Noam Chomsky
9-11
- by Noam Chomsky
Failed States:
The Abuse of Power and the Assault on Democracy (American Empire Project)
- by Noam Chomsky
Media Control, Second Ed.
- By Noam Chomsky
Saturday, June 5, 2010
CA Solution: Split-Roll Property Tax
According to the Orange County Register "Disneyland would pay Orange County $4,672,217.74 more per year in tax" if not for CA-Prop.13 corporate tax loop-hole!
Want to learn more, read Chris Knap's special report from April 2004! He lists several case studies that embarrass some of the wealthiest corporations in California.
Please join "Close the Loophole" on Facebook
Consider when JP Morgan Chase merged with moribund Washington Mutual Bank in a $1.9 billionbuyout in 2008. Chase, the new owner, added more than 2,000 WaMu locations to its portfolio. Now, if those banks were homes, and you were the new owner, you could rest assured the property would be reassessed by the county assessor and then taxed accordingly. But very few of Chase’s new properties have been reassessed, according to the report – including the bank at 1455 Baker Street in Costa Mesa, which was last reassessed in 1998.
Want to learn more, read Chris Knap's special report from April 2004! He lists several case studies that embarrass some of the wealthiest corporations in California.
Please join "Close the Loophole" on Facebook
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
Perfecting Government-as-his-Mealticket
The Republicans are responsible for Abramoff. The Democrats, as much as the Republicans, are responsible for the financial mess that we're still suffering. And this is the Democrats' dirty money problem: For despite compelling documentaries like Gibney's, it is the blunder of financial mis-regulation that is going to get America's attention over the next three years, not Abramoff. - Lawrence Lessing
If the Democrats really want to get ahead of this populist storm, they need to demonstrate that they learned something real. They need to leverage this crisis into real and substantial reform. There is such reform in a bill in Congress right now -- The Fair Elections Now Act, with almost 150 cosponsors in the House, and 17 in the Senate. That bill would produce campaigns with small dollar contributions only. The most anyone could give a candidate is $100. That $100 gets matched 4 to 1 by the government. Small dollars become big enough dollars -- big enough to wage an effective campaign, yet small enough to make it impossible for anyone to believe that money is buying results in Congress. America will recognize that it can't trust Congress behind the wheel of critical national policy, so long as it remains under the influence of large campaign cash.
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Cheat the customrer, a fundamental conflict of interest.
Look, the problem is not that these high level bankers like Goldman Sachs are expert gamers and can manipulate the system by hedging and shorting via third parties while selling the same script to their clients. That's business.
The problem is not that the regulations are to weak or the incompetence of the SEC. The law is clear, and the government is corrupt and incompetent to keep up with the moving target of fraud.
The true problem is the fundamental premise of our capitalist system, that free market economics can work with less than full transparency. The "Federal" Reserve has absolute power to manipulate our economy, via legal tools, and yet profits from the market without ever taking losses if the market fails.
They get to con the world and when the finite nature of our resources is realized, they put the American public on the hook to insure there 'emergency' loans to prop up their own member banks.
This is the game, a long con where the wealth always wins. An investigation of the fundamental under-workings of our perverted form of capitalism, were oligopolies in every industry undermine democratic systems to their own gain, will yield only more questions.
The problem is not that the regulations are to weak or the incompetence of the SEC. The law is clear, and the government is corrupt and incompetent to keep up with the moving target of fraud.
The true problem is the fundamental premise of our capitalist system, that free market economics can work with less than full transparency. The "Federal" Reserve has absolute power to manipulate our economy, via legal tools, and yet profits from the market without ever taking losses if the market fails.
They get to con the world and when the finite nature of our resources is realized, they put the American public on the hook to insure there 'emergency' loans to prop up their own member banks.
This is the game, a long con where the wealth always wins. An investigation of the fundamental under-workings of our perverted form of capitalism, were oligopolies in every industry undermine democratic systems to their own gain, will yield only more questions.
Friday, April 9, 2010
Are we ready for justice?
Has enough time passed that we can begin to hold the former regime might be held accountable for war crimes? Is the world ready to deal with the wrongdoers: Bush, Cheney, Rumsfield, Rice, Woo, and their henchmen?
Well, the self appointed chairman of the bush crimes commission, Ramsey Clark, thinks the time has come.
It is difficult to tell from the quality of the de-scrambled black and white video, but there are obviously children in the car. It is also obvious that the US helicopter gunner mistakes the cameraman on the ground with his telephoto lens as a rocket propelled grenade. This kind of mistake is common in war.
The US soldiers are doing what they were trained to do, kill people. They are desensitized to the humanity of the civilians, and make dangerous assumptions about the nature of people on the ground, kill indiscriminately, using overwhelming force. The US Gunner does so with glee and without reason, because the civilians offered no evidence of malicious intent. It is clear that there are no US ground forces in the area, and that the people on the ground are walking around in broad daylight without weapons or cover, as innocent civilians often do.
This is the nature of war, what we need to see every night on the TV news in the USA, but don't. It isn't that the US soldiers are overly cruel or stupid, all soldiers are brainwashed into being so. It isn't that the uneven level of power is unjust, like shooting fish in a barrel, that is what we want from our expensive military. The only 'wrong' truly committed here was the invasion of IRAQ under the false pretenses of WMD and the 'potential' of some future threats. An unnecessary war of conquest.
When we in the USA go out and war on our neighbors, without reason, without proof, and invade them unilaterally (except for the 'coalition of the willing' like Tonga), we are no different than any other empire.
There are two Americas: one is the Christian Nation State, with holy warriors fighting for "God's" against the non-believers who want to destroy our 'way of life', the other is the dying liberal democracy designed by compromise that evolved through slavery to embrace freedom and justice. In today's America there is an internal struggle for the the soul of our nation being waged in the media and in the hearts of our citizens. Who will win? Which America will emerge?
Well, the self appointed chairman of the bush crimes commission, Ramsey Clark, thinks the time has come.
The chilling video came to light because two of the killed Iraqis happened to be Reuters journalists, and because of the heroic effort of a whistleblower inside the Pentagon who leaked the video posted by WikiLeaks.org .
It is difficult to tell from the quality of the de-scrambled black and white video, but there are obviously children in the car. It is also obvious that the US helicopter gunner mistakes the cameraman on the ground with his telephoto lens as a rocket propelled grenade. This kind of mistake is common in war.
The US soldiers are doing what they were trained to do, kill people. They are desensitized to the humanity of the civilians, and make dangerous assumptions about the nature of people on the ground, kill indiscriminately, using overwhelming force. The US Gunner does so with glee and without reason, because the civilians offered no evidence of malicious intent. It is clear that there are no US ground forces in the area, and that the people on the ground are walking around in broad daylight without weapons or cover, as innocent civilians often do.
This is the nature of war, what we need to see every night on the TV news in the USA, but don't. It isn't that the US soldiers are overly cruel or stupid, all soldiers are brainwashed into being so. It isn't that the uneven level of power is unjust, like shooting fish in a barrel, that is what we want from our expensive military. The only 'wrong' truly committed here was the invasion of IRAQ under the false pretenses of WMD and the 'potential' of some future threats. An unnecessary war of conquest.
When we in the USA go out and war on our neighbors, without reason, without proof, and invade them unilaterally (except for the 'coalition of the willing' like Tonga), we are no different than any other empire.
There are two Americas: one is the Christian Nation State, with holy warriors fighting for "God's" against the non-believers who want to destroy our 'way of life', the other is the dying liberal democracy designed by compromise that evolved through slavery to embrace freedom and justice. In today's America there is an internal struggle for the the soul of our nation being waged in the media and in the hearts of our citizens. Who will win? Which America will emerge?
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
End of Network Neutrality
The court has ruled that the FCC has no jurisdiction over the internet! Corporations win another major decision against free speech in America.
Federal Communications Commission chairman Julius Genachowski can simply change the FCC regulatory rules to give the Federal Communications Commission jurisdiction over the internet.
People have to remember, all media—television, radio, phone service—every type of media other than the printed page, will soon be delivered by a broadband or internet connection. That means these wonky sort of arcane rules that are being played out at the Federal Communications Commission and in the court ruling yesterday, these will shape the media for generations, what it looks like, whether independent voices like Democracy Now! can get into the suite of options that people have across the country when they turn on a television. It will determine whether we can bridge the digital divide that currently has the United States slipping from fourth in the year 2000 to twenty-second in broadband adoption and speed and affordability. It will really determine whether or not we will have a twenty-first century internet economy or whether we’ll continue to lag behind the rest of the world.
Call him [(202) 418-1000, and 888-CALL-FCC (888-225-5322)], email him [ Julius.Genachowski@fcc.gov ], and tell Federal Communications Commission chairman Julius Genachowski you want Network Neutrality, all information on the internet must be equal, or we loose free speech and we loose our democracy!
Federal Communications Commission chairman Julius Genachowski can simply change the FCC regulatory rules to give the Federal Communications Commission jurisdiction over the internet.
People have to remember, all media—television, radio, phone service—every type of media other than the printed page, will soon be delivered by a broadband or internet connection. That means these wonky sort of arcane rules that are being played out at the Federal Communications Commission and in the court ruling yesterday, these will shape the media for generations, what it looks like, whether independent voices like Democracy Now! can get into the suite of options that people have across the country when they turn on a television. It will determine whether we can bridge the digital divide that currently has the United States slipping from fourth in the year 2000 to twenty-second in broadband adoption and speed and affordability. It will really determine whether or not we will have a twenty-first century internet economy or whether we’ll continue to lag behind the rest of the world.
Call him [(202) 418-1000, and 888-CALL-FCC (888-225-5322)], email him [ Julius.Genachowski@fcc.gov ], and tell Federal Communications Commission chairman Julius Genachowski you want Network Neutrality, all information on the internet must be equal, or we loose free speech and we loose our democracy!
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Never Forget
