The debate over corporate power and money in politics is beginning to generate some significant light – good analysis, integral thinking, creativity – as well as heat – passion, slogans, quick response. If both of these forces of nature can synergize we might get some seriously transformational results out of the process.
The Alternet article below by Steven Rosenfeld gives an excellent overview – the best I've seen so far – of many major streams of thought and action currently being played out regarding “money in politics”. It is an excellent contribution to helping us see the bigger landscape through which all these streams are flowing. (After the article, I've excerpted nine of the best comments on it, the ones with additional thought-provoking approaches to handling the problem.)
As a journalist, Rosenfeld is fairly – and with due complexity – presenting diverse perspectives so that we – citizens, activists, voters – can see them with all their strengths and weaknesses and make up our own minds. This is a gigantic gift and, in my view, one of the highest forms of journalism. The subsequent comments add to such journalism's service to our democratic collective intelligence.
But something is still missing. Even higher forms of democratic collective intelligence can be called forth, more dynamic uses of this rich diversity, namely productive conversations of the following two types:
As we’ve noted for years, the entire strategy of Washington towards the economy is to cover up the fraud which caused the financial crisis … even though prosecuting fraud and re-establishing the rule of law is the only way to get out of this depression.
One major front in Washington’s cover-up effort has been to settle fraud cases with the big banks for pennies on the dollar. This is a backdoor bailout for the banks, encourages them to commit more fraud, and fails to plug the basic holes in the economy which are preventing a recovery.
Why are we bringing this up now?
Because Obama is making a giant push to pressure the states attorneys general to settle all of their mortgage-related fraud claims against the banks for pennies on the dollar.
Yves Smith – who has an ear to the ground on this – warns that a settlement which hurts consumers and the economy will happen very quickly if people don’t raise a ruckus.
“Powerful solar disturbances over the last 24-hours indicate a period of strong seismic events in the coming days’ with the livelihood of a 7.2 magnitude earthquake during this watch. You are now looking at Cactus which is a digital presentation of coronal mass ejection release from the solar corona. Now yesterday a full coronal mass ejection is earthbound and earth directed and this implies January 22nd or January 23 we may receive severe impact on the Earth’s magnetic field which could cause a major rise in solar wind speed and also a seismic shock which may indicate a potential for a strong earthquake during this timeline.”
A disturbing report prepared by the Schmidt Institute of Physics of the Earth (IPE) in Moscow that is circulating in the Kremlin today warns that the 6.2 magnitude earthquake that struck the Chiapas region of Mexico yesterday is a ‘potential precursor’ to a ‘megaquake’ of at least 7.5-8.3 expected to hit the US-Mexican Pacific coastline within the next fortnight (+/- 7 days).
According to this IPE report, concerns were raised about this region after a 4.1 magnitude earthquake hit the Mexican Baja California peninsula on 18 January and emitted in the “4.433–4.498 micrometre range”“extreme” atmospheric temperature variations normally not associated with such a quake and that was verified yesterday as occurring again in Chiapas.
Click on Image to Enlarge
Important to note about this region, this IPE report says, fears were heightened after a 7.2 magnitude earthquake that hit on 4 April 2010 and was the first big earthquake to occur on this particular fault system since 1892, links Mexico’s seismic zone to California’s massive fault system, and points to a “reawakening” of this areas potential for catastrophic seismic/volcanic occurrences.
Everything said about KEYSTONE is a lie. It is about refining and exporting the dirtiest most expensive source possible, at great externalized cost to the public and future generations (including water needed to flush the tar). FURTHERMORE, not a single person running for the presidency–including Ron Paul who dismisses General Welfare in the Preamble to the Constitution–is being honest about the fact that we have a 22.4% unemployment rate.
Thanks be to Tony Blair and Bill Clinton for giving us the Kosovo narco statelet — a gift that keeps on giving. Think of the opportunities after achieving the near-term options discussed below: Occitania and Bretagnia, Flemishia and Walloonia, and then to the big game: Schleswigia, Bavaria, Thuringia, Pomerania, Silesia, Prussia and the endless opportunities to the east and south.
Spain is standing in the way of Scotland's ambitions to become an independent nation within the European Union because of fears that it could spark the break-up of the Spanish state.
Spanish officials have registered concerns with counterparts in the United Kingdom over the Scottish government's independence blueprint, senior Whitehall sources confirmed yesterday.
Spain has indicated it could block an independent Scotland's accession to the European Union, sources said. It has already refused to recognise Kosovo's existence as an independent state. Madrid fears such moves will encourage separatist ambitions in Spanish regions, particularly Catalonia and the Basque region. Spain's refusal to recognise Kosovo has frustrated the former Serbian province's ambitions to enter the union.
Phi Beta Iota: Brother Spinney is wrong on this one. There are 5,000 separatist movements in the world, 27 of them in the USA. 2012 is the tipping point year when “big” and “concentrated” die, and the original indigenous approach of “many small” begins to reinstate itself. It is not possible to micro-manage complexity. As Cambridge professor Philip Allott shows so well in The Health of Nations: Society and Law beyond the State, it was the colonial powers that distorted the centuries old balance among smaller tribes, natural resources, and geographic distribution. The people, not the state, are the center of gravity. The fastest way for any failing state to restore resilience is to embrace separatism. An Alert Reader sends in the following:
I would call it Devolution–perhaps in our own history, a re-look at the concepts contained in the Articles of Confederation (absent the bows to the preservation of slavery)–instead of Separation, but you hit it.
