Tag: United States

The 1% Hit Back

On By southwerkIn Economic Justice

The knives are out. The corporations, the wealthy and their well paid minions (think of a crowd of Igors in an old Frankenstein movies) are going to portray the Occupy movement as anarchists and Marxists. An even casual reading of the news stories shows that as a lie. Can you find anarchists and Marxist in the movement? Of course you can; the same as you can find Klansmen and Christian Reconstructionists in the Tea Party and the Republican Party.

The question isn’t whether there are unpopular political beliefs in some participants of the movement but do they run it or is their influence the deciding factor in decisions. Neither of those things are true. I have no doubt that the primary motivations of Occupy Wall Street movement is the predominant influence the financial sector has in the government. There are also concerns for the decline of the middle class and the lack of penalties for those on Wall Street who did so much harm to the world economy.

Those are legitimate complaints held by millions of American. Take a look at this poll, this poll or this poll.

Does this new documentary wish to identify millions and millions of Americans as closet Marxists?

The hit job on the movement is expected. All criticism of the 1% is answered immediately, often borderline slander and almost always lies. The crude right wing message machine will say anything to keep Americans divided and powerless.

We can do better.

James Pilant

Right-wing documentary targets Occupy

Citizens United, which specializes in making documentaries with strong right-wing messages, is currently in production for a film about the Occupy movement, a spokesman for the group confirms to Salon.

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PBS is a Worthy Investment

On By southwerkIn Politics
paula kerger

Image by kthread via Flickr

Paula Kerger, PBS Chief, Calls For Views To Oppose Mitt Romney’s Stance Towards TV Funding

PBS chief Paula Kerger said Wednesday that she recognizes the United States has to make tough budget decisions but defended PBS as an effective public-private partnership.

Paula Kerger, PBS Chief, Calls For Views To Oppose Mitt Romney’s Stance Towards TV Funding

Watching regular television is a depressing experience. A constant barrage of ads designed to magnify every insecurity to sell products. I tend to believe modern television viewing exacerbates psychological problems.

But we in the United States have an alternative. We can watch public broadcasting. We can be enlightened. Our children can watch television without a constant barrage of sugar cereal ads and pleas to buy the latest toys.

I use some of their shows like Frontline for my classes. They deal with subjects with a great deal of documentary skill. I enjoy the History Channel and the like but sometimes their work is more a hash of history cliches than well assembled stories.

Some of the best viewing experiences of my life have been PBS programs. That’s where I learned about Kurosawa and Goddard. I absorbed a lot of history and learned to think outside the intellectual limits of rural Oklahoma.

There are those that believe that the free market produces the best possible outcome. They haven’t watched “Two and a Half Men,” a weekly half hour about a libertine whose impulses are out of control, a neurotic brother with a son so dumb, you wish the father has satisfied his fatherly urges by getting a pet. The show features discussion of unusual sex acts, fart jokes and a parade of easy women. Thus, the free market in action; a show aimed at a horny 14 year old.

Once this is published, someone is going to write me about the poor souls who do not watch public television and argue that they shouldn’t bear a burden of taxation for what interests me.

Yes, let’s excuse people from paying property taxes for schools because they don’t have any children. or pay for roads, police, firemen, soldiers they don’t use unless there’s war, etc.

Having a country in which there is a certain degree of belief in scientific beliefs, some investigative reporting and knowledge of common cultural and historical heritage is also a worthy goal.

That there are many people who have a philosophy of “if I can’t figure out how much money it’s worth, it’s a pointless activity,” is a sign of a declining civilization gradually descending into a third world status of ignorance.

While there is art, culture and literature, there is still some hope that the experiences of Americans will be respected, the we might be able to live lives of significance, and there might be a common cultural heritage of something more than fart jokes and quotations of corporate quarterly profits.

James Pilant

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The Writings and Speeches of the Founding Fathers are FREE!

On By southwerkIn Economic Justice
Benjamin Franklin

I was on the web looking at one of my sites and ran into a thing called the Founding Fathers Collection. For the sale price of $300, you can the works of the great men of the colonial period.

Don’t pay any money. Those writings are all public domain. I can’t imagine anything they’ve written isn’t available on the Internet.

Let’s just take Benjamin Franklin as an example.

You can go to the Franklin Papers at Yale University and read all of his works.

How about the Federalist Papers?

Here they are at Project Gutenberg.

If you want to hear them spoken, go here.

You don’t have to just settle for their writings. At Project Gutenberg, there are usually biographies of the founding fathers. Here is a link to a biography of each of these founding fathers –

George Washington

Benjamin Franklin

Alexander Hamilton

Thomas Jefferson

John Adams

Samuel Adams

John Hancock

Thomas Paine

Build your own library of the great works of American History. If the writing is before 1900, it’s all public domain, so freely available. I recommend you start with Project Gutenberg and then begin examining college and university collections.

If you load these in a popular word processing format, you can annotate them with your own thoughts, mark key pages and publish your favorite selections to the Internet.

English: I took photo with Canon camera of Ben...
Image via Wikipedia

American history, its stories, the speeches, the papers, – they are our common heritage and we should cherish them.

James Pilant

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Sign a Petition; Stop a Foreclosure

On By southwerkIn Business Ethics
Scrooge and Bob Cratchit illustrated by John L...

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Lauren Bloom writing in her blog is asking her readers to help a disabled woman keep her home. I join in this effort and ask you to sign a petition in the woman’s behalf.

Note to First Mortgage – don’t be a Grinch!

Ms. Chappell has posted a petition on Change.org asking First Mortgage Corporation to do the decent thing and let Ms. Bourchard pay off some of her mortgage through the Hardest Hit State Fund. It’s not as though First Mortgage Corporation wouldn’t get paid, folks – it just means that the company would have to do a little more paperwork. HUD currently has First Mortgage Corporation on hold while everyone works to find a more compassionate solution. Come on, First Mortgage! It’s Christmas, for pity’s sake – have a heart and don’t evict a disabled schoolteacher from her home. Even Ebenezer Scrooge would know better.

If you agree with me that Ms. Bouchard deserves the opportunity to stay in her home, you can sign the petition by clicking here.

Note to First Mortgage – don’t be a Grinch! | The Business Ethics Blog

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An Abraham Lincoln Story for the New Year, 2012

On By southwerkIn Business Ethics

CREDITOR PAID DEBTORS DEBT.

A certain rich man in Springfield, Illinois, sued a poor attorney for $2.50, and Lincoln was asked to prosecute the case. Lincoln urged the creditor to let the matter drop, adding, “You can make nothing out of him, and it will cost you a good deal more than the debt to bring suit.” The creditor was still determined to have his way, and threatened to seek some other attorney. Lincoln then said, “Well, if you are determined that suit should be brought, I will bring it; but my charge will be $10.”

The money was paid him, and peremptory orders were given that the suit be brought that day. After the client’s departure Lincoln went out of the office, returning in about an hour with an amused look on his face.

Asked what pleased him, he replied, “I brought suit against ——, and then hunted him up, told him what I had done, handed him half of the $10, and we went over to the squire’s office. He confessed judgment and paid the bill.”

Lincoln added that he didn’t see any other way to make things satisfactory for his client as well as the other.

 

This story is from Alexander K. McClure’s collection of Abraham Lincoln Stories entitled: Lincoln’s Yarns and Stories.  It has long ago passed into the public domain.

James Pilant

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Obama Over Rules His Own Experts – Plan B

On By southwerkIn Opinion1 Comment
I am a more than a little annoyed by this. Didn’t this guy promise to rely on the experts and instead we get some paternalistic crap about 11 year olds? This decision is going to have serious repercussions. Teenage girls are going to get pregnant with all that entails for their futures when they should have had a choice of contraception. We are not yet a nation of Baptists who believe ineffectual admonishments against having sex is an improvement over reality. Every day in this nation, particularly in the South, teenagers have sex, millions of them. They’ve been told not to. However, since the survival of the human species has depended on the young having sex for hundreds of thousands of years, it may well be possible that a church pamphlet and a pat on the head may not discourage them.
President Obama appears to be working his way through all of his campaign promises one by one, tossing them out like softballs at a little league game. I have been disgusted a long time. I don’t know what bothers me more, his fake populism or his gutless inability to negotiate.
Below are some thought from Salon.
James Pilant
Official photographic portrait of US President...
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Obama’s woman problem – Gender Roles – Salon.com

But as an American, I think it is important for my president not to turn to paternalistic claptrap and enfeebling references to the imagined ineptitude and irresponsibility of his daughters – and young women around the country – to justify a curtailment of access to medically safe contraceptives. The notion that in aggressively conscribing women’s abilities to protect themselves against unplanned pregnancy Obama is just laying down some Olde Fashioned Dad Sense diminishes an issue of gender equality, sexual health and medical access. Recasting this debate as an episode of “Father Knows Best” reaffirms hoary attitudes about young women and sex that had their repressive heyday in the era whence that program sprang.

Obama’s woman problem – Gender Roles – Salon.com

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Occupy Wall Street Poster!!

On By southwerkIn Economic Justice

My understanding is that this poster is free to use and I recommend you post it as well and visit OCCUPYWALLST.ORG. The struggle is just beginning.

James Pilant

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Big Brother = Carrier IQ?

On By southwerkIn Business Ethics
English: Al Franken, Senator from Minnesota

Image via Wikipedia

When you use Android  and Carrier IQ is running in the background on your phone, Carrier IQ is tracking your data – just a little bit of data. All they are getting is the following:

Every text message. Every web search. Every phone number. The user’s location and the URL of all web sites searched!

Now that’s service! You are not just another customer to Carrier IQ. They want to be close to you every moment of every day. I bet they keep a record of the names of your pets.

I suppose I am just some kind of reclusive paranoid because I can’t seem to feel that they are acting in my best interest. In fact, call me crazy, but I just get the impression that they are stealing private information and converting for their own use.

I am pleased that Al Franken is calling them on the carpet for this, but that’s not what I want. I want the Justice Department to investigate and prosecute these people. This is theft, a form of private espionage. Since these phones are used by government agencies, police, fire departments and the military, I would like an explanation as to how that does not violate The Espionage Act and laws governing homeland security. Isn’t this exactly the kind of data, another country would crave?

James Pilant

Al Franken Calls On Carrier IQ To Explain Mobile Tracking Software

Earlier this week, security researcher Trevor Eckhart posted a video detailing how Carrier IQ’s software — which has the same name — logs every text message, web search and phone number typed on a wide variety of smartphones and reports them to the mobile phone carrier.

The application also logs a user’s location and the URL of websites searched on the phone, even if the user intends to encrypt that data using a URL that begins with “HTTPS,” Eckhart said in the video. The software always runs when Android’s operating system is running and users are unable to stop it.

Al Franken Calls On Carrier IQ To Explain Mobile Tracking Software

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Hydraulic Fracking and Earthquakes?

On By southwerkIn Business Ethics

Does Hydraulic Fracturing Trigger Earthquakes?

Here’s a quote from the article entitled as above –

English: Hanging wall vs Foot wall - faults ar...

Image via Wikipedia

While the presence of a fault line in this region of the United States can be an apt explanation for the 5.6 magnitude Oklahoma earthquake, what about the sudden rise in seismic activity here? Between 1972 to 2008, an average of 2-6 earthquakes were recorded in the state of Oklahoma every year. In 2009, the number of earthquakes recorded reached 50, and further increased to a whopping 1047 in 2010. One cannot ignore the fact that more than a thousand drilling wells and more than a hundred injection wells have cropped up in this region over the course of time. Back in August itself, the region experienced a series of tremors, all ranging between the magnitude of 1 and 2.5, and now the 5.6 magnitude quake. While environmentalists are citing the link between hydraulic fracturing and earthquakes to oppose such projects, those in this business refute these allegations as baseless.

Does Hydraulic Fracturing Trigger Earthquakes?

Does hydraulic fracturing cause earthquakes? From what I have read so far, it would appear possible that fracking may have a lot to do with small earthquakes and may cause thousands of tiny almost insignificant earthquakes.

Having grown up in Oklahoma, I can’t help but recall that there was virtually never an earthquake. However, that they are much more common now is weak evidence that hydraulic fracking is the cause. If there is a pattern of fracking related earthquakes we will soon have measurable data. Both earthquakes and hydraulic fracking are trackable by geography, and patterns, if forming, should become visible.

Let us consider, however, what the effect of thousands of small quakes will be in a state like Oklahoma. What will the effects be? Generally they will be imperceptible one at a time. It seems to me though that bridges, roads and large concrete and stone structures are likely to take damage as the small insults multiply. How much damage? I have no idea. California has many small earthquakes a year. Maybe they have some data.

One thing is clear. Fracking should have been studied in depth before any large amount was done. There should now be continuous studies and a large tax laid upon the industry to finance both studies and regulation.

James Pilant

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The Principles of Occupy Harvard

On By southwerkIn Economic Justice

 

I have printed these in full from the Occupy Harvard Web Site. I believe that Occupy Harvard wanted its principles published in full as widely as possible. If I am mistaken in this, please let me know and I will remove the document or cut it down to “Fair Use” size of a paragraph or so.

James Pilant

University of the Pacific Arthur A. Dugoni Sch...
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Statement of Principles

We are Occupy Harvard. We want a university for the 99%, not a corporation for the 1%.

We are here in solidarity with the Occupy movement to protest the corporatization of higher education, epitomized by Harvard University.

We see injustice in the 180:1 ratio between the compensation of Harvard’s highest-paid employee—the head of internal investments at Harvard Management Company—and the lowest-paid employee, an entry-level custodial worker. We see injustice in Harvard’s adoption of corporate efficiency measures such as job outsourcing. We see injustice in African land grabs that displace local farmers and devastate the environment. We see injustice in Harvard’s investment in private equity firms such as HEI Hotels and Resorts, which profits off the backbreaking labor of a non-union immigrant workforce. We see injustice in Harvard’s lack of financial transparency and its prevention of student and community voice in these investments.

We stand in solidarity with Occupy Boston and the other occupations throughout the country. We stand in solidarity with students at other universities who suffer crushing debt burdens and insufficient resources. We stand in solidarity with the students who occupied Massachusetts Hall one decade ago, and we continue their pursuit of justice for workers. We stand in solidarity with all those in Boston and beyond who clamor for equity. We are the 99%.

A university for the 99% must settle a just contract with Harvard’s custodial workers. A university for the 99% must adopt a new transparency policy, including disclosure of Harvard’s current investments as well as a commitment to not reinvest in HEI Hotels & Resorts or in land-grabbing hedge funds like Emergent Asset Management. Further,

  • A university for the 99% would offer academic opportunities to assess responses to socioeconomic inequality outside the scope of mainstream economics.
  • A university for the 99% would implement debt relief for students who suffer from excessive loan burdens.
  • A university for the 99% would commit to increasing the diversity of Harvard’s graduate school faculty and students.
  • A university for the 99% would end the privilege enjoyed by legacies in the Harvard admissions process.
  • A university for the 99% would implement a policy requiring faculty to declare conflicts of interest.

Our statement of principles is subject to change by the Occupy Harvard General Assemblies.

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