The truth at any cost lowers all other costs — curated by former US spy Robert David Steele.
“We the People…”
WHAT IF voters got to VOTE on a revolution?
I'm Jeff Block, a 56 year old husband, father, and grandfather.
I've also created my own “American Dream” business, JustPaperRoses.com
Serving YOU as President of the United States of America is not high on my list of things I want to do!
Bottom Line Summary: 3 Presidents (Office of the Presidents); 9 Cabinet Secretaries (see Discussion tab); 9 Supreme Court Judges; 150 elected-Senators; 151 citizen-Senators; 50 Governors
Good summary of the American sickness.
William Pfaff – truthdig – 02/11/11
The theme of most political and social commentary is that things are more complicated than you think. For once, I wish to write that things are simpler than you think. This concerns two matters at the core of the present American political crisis.
The first is that control over the government has passed all but completely into the hands of business corporations. The country has become a plutocracy. This has occurred because corporations are the principal supplier of funds essential to the election of federal officials—the president and the members of the United States Senate and House of Representatives, and through them, the members of the Supreme Court and the rest of the federal judiciary, all of whom are nominated and confirmed by the elected officials of the executive and legislative branches of the government.
. . . . . . .
I spoke of a second source of American crisis to which there is a simple solution, an intellectual solution, which to impose would require conversion of the hard hearts and biased minds of a sizable part of the international economic community (at least that part of it educated at the University of Chicago since the Second World War), as well as a near-revolutionary change in how the American government presently functions (see above). The crisis is easily described as the 1 percent problem. One percent of the American population receives income equivalent to the other 99 percent put together.
This is caused by the consensus decision of the economists and business schools to define profit as the sole criterion of corporation efficiency and public (and civic) worth. The automatic consequence of this has been the de-industrialization of the United States, the export of its manufacturing capacity, unemployment in the U.S. comparable to that of the Great Depression, poverty levels with no modern American precedent, and the moral corruption of American politics.
Mike Bloomberg's Marie Antoinette Moment
Rolling Stone, November 3, 11:00 AM ET
Last year I had a chance to see New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg up close at the Huffington Post’s “Game Changers” event. I was standing right behind the guy when he was introduced by Nora Ephron, and watched as the would-be third party powerhouse wowed the liberal crowd with one zinger after another.
Includes short video.
The whole game was based on one new innovation: the derivative instruments like CDOs that allowed them to take junk-rated home loans and turn them into AAA-rated instruments. It was not Barney Frank who made it possible for Goldman, Sachs to sell the home loan of an occasionally-employed janitor in Oakland or Detroit as something just as safe as, and more profitable than, a United States Treasury Bill. This was something they cooked up entirely by themselves and developed solely with the aim of making more money.
Read full skewering of Mike Bloomberg.
See Also:
Review: Griftopia–Bubble Machines, Vampire Squids, and the Long Con That Is Breaking America
The below link goes to Matt Ridley's excellent lecture analyzing the importance of heresy in science; and by extension, the danger to science posed by an Authority that dictates what is acceptable and what is unacceptable. The oppression of authority is a subject Galileo learned to his chagrin, and a central theme of Jacob Bronoski's brilliant Ascent of Man, in my opinion, the finest television series ever produced. (Bronoski's subject was the growth of knowledge and its central role in the cultural evolution of mankind. To appreciate the squandered potential of television and the mass media, one need only to watch Bronoski's series of programs.)
Ridley gave the Angus Millar Lecture of the Royal Society of the Arts in Edinburgh a few days ago 31 October 2011. Ridley is trained in evolutionary biology — he has a PhD in Zoology from Oxford. His libertarian philosophy makes him controversial in some quarters, but he one of the best science writers out there, particularly on the subject of evolution. Like Darwin, he thinks and writes from the point view of the bottom-up empiricist (which is my favorite point of view).
Ridley's specific subject is pseudo-science: its temptations, its fallacies, and its dangers: his case study is the theory of anthropogenic global warming–a theme about which he says: “When a study was published recently saying that 98% of scientists ‘believe’ in global warming, I looked at the questions they had been asked and realized I was in the 98%, too, by that definition, though I never use the word ‘believe’ about myself.”
Chuck Spinney
Alexandria, Virginia
Below the Line: PDF Link and Also Full Text Online
Continue reading “Chuck Spinney: Matt Ridley on Why Heresy is Important”
QUOTE: The Summum Bonum (Highest Good) of Social Capitalism
Summum Bonum = Latin for the highest good.
The tranformation of Capitalism from an ancillary activity (as opposed to the activities of monarchs) into an engine of material and technological bounty was through the (likely accidental) introduction of an ethical/moral substrate. This ethical substrate enabled a rate of cummulative progress that went far, far beyond what was possible with a traditional Capitalism that was limited to the motivational capacity of ethically unbounded greed (i.e. the ideal type being the speculator, trader, or mercantile adventurer).
With that in mind, here's something to think about from the founder of the extremely innovative and amazingly efficient Khan Academy:
Question: Are you interested in turning this into a business? Maybe with some VC funding?
Answer: I've been approached several times, but it just didn't feel right. When I'm 80, I want to feel that I helped give access to a world-class education to billions of students around the world. Sounds a lot better than starting a business that educates some subset of the developed world that can pay $19.95/month and eventually selling it to some text book company or something. I already have a beautiful wife, a hilarious son, two hondas and a decent house. What else does a man need? With that said, if you are a social venture capitalist and are looking to deploy capital with the highest possible social return per dollar invested, we should talk. I think you'll find that there is no more measurable, scalable and high impact way to educate the world.
NO LABELS was laughed out of existence.
America Elects was scorned into oblivion.
Is this false flag “Tea Party of the Left” a Trojan Horse, a blatant dishonorable attempt to misdirect the energy of the Occupy movement?
Note the absence of contact information, a sure sign that this is funded by friends of Wall Street.
Phi Beta Iota: This is lame, phoney, and the photo is so obviously Madison Avenue stupid that we expect this web site to self-destruct within weeks. Tea Party of the Left? The level of idiocy within the “Save the Two-Party Tyranny” gang is higher than ever.
Moyers is a sanctimonious preacher who sometimes speaks the truth.
Bill Moyers: “Our Politicians Are Money Launderers in the Trafficking of Power and Policy”
Remarks as Prepared for Delivery
Public Citizen 40th Gala
Washington, DC
October 20, 2011
I am honored to share this occasion with you. No one beyond your collegial inner circle appreciates more than I do what you have stood for over these 40 years, or is more aware of the battles you have fought, the victories you have won, and the passion for democracy that still courses through your veins. The great progressive of a century ago, Robert LaFollette of Wisconsin – a Republican, by the way – believed that “Democracy is a life; and involves constant struggle.” Democracy has been your life for four decades now, and would have been even more imperiled today if you had not stayed the course.
VIDEO (21:15): Bill Moyers keynote at Public Citizen's 40th Anniversary Gala
