SchwartzReport: USA Jailing the Poor for Profit

01 Poverty, 03 Economy, 07 Other Atrocities, 09 Justice, 11 Society, Commerce, Corruption, Government
Stephan A. Schwartz
Stephan A. Schwartz

There was a time when the American legal system was considered the benchmark for the world. Those days are long gone. The American gulag today and the courts and law enforcement agencies that service it constitute an octopus of the state that might described by Kafka on acid.  In the United States if you are an ivy league graduate and work for the right financial institution you can weasel billions from fixed income grandmothers with no fear of being held accountable.  If you are Black or Hispanic, and particularly if you are poor, however, any touch by one of the suckers of the octopus, and you are doomed. We manufacture criminals in the United States. Like cars they are created in the factories of the prison system. And they are needed, like terrorists, because they justify the expenditure of billions upon billions, producing profits made by a tiny faction of the population. There is a reason we have five per cent of the world's population, but twenty five per cent of the world's prisoners.

Lawsuits Show Gov. Contractors Intentionally Jailing The Poor For Profit

Kosmos: Double Enclosure — the shut down of democratic accountability, participation and transparency

03 Economy, 07 Other Atrocities, 10 Transnational Crime, 11 Society, Access, Commercial Intelligence, Cultural Intelligence, Culture, Design, Earth Intelligence, Economics/True Cost

kosmos logo‘Double Enclosure’- the shut down of democratic accountability, participation and transparency

What’s going on is a double-enclosure: a massive privatization and commodification of the physical world – the atmosphere, land, forests, genes, life forms, and more – and a massive privatization and commodification of economic decision making and democracy themselves.

Continue reading “Kosmos: Double Enclosure — the shut down of democratic accountability, participation and transparency”

Yoda: From Fast Food Strikes to Social Justice

03 Economy, 09 Justice, 11 Society, Civil Society, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics, Officers Call
Got Crowd? BE the Force!
Got Crowd? BE the Force!

Minimum wage is on the margins — electoral reform is root.

Fast-food strikes widen into social-justice movement

Central to Wednesday's strike is the evolution of its scope. What began two years ago as a fast-food workers movement has propelled into something wider, with Wednesday's protests including a range of workers workers from adjunct professors to home care and child care providers to Walmart employees.

See Also: Open Power / Electoral Reform

SchwartzReport: Republicans Seek to Sell Off or Give Away National Forests — Time for States to Repossess Land?

01 Agriculture, 03 Economy, 03 Environmental Degradation, 07 Other Atrocities, 12 Water, Corruption, Earth Intelligence, Government, Idiocy
Stephan A. Schwartz
Stephan A. Schwartz

It is the intention of the Republican Party to see that America's heritage of national forests be sold for a pittance, or just given away to a small group of corporations. This is so shameful I am amazed that that is not the lead story of the news cycle. But the corporate media doesn't really seem to think the issue is of much importance, so it doesn't get much coverage.

CONGRESS PASSES MEASURE TO ALLOW SELLING OFF NATIONAL FORESTS AND OTHER PUBLIC LANDS

Continue reading “SchwartzReport: Republicans Seek to Sell Off or Give Away National Forests — Time for States to Repossess Land?”

SchwartzReport: Seattle Data Demolishes Extreme Right Argument Against $15 Minimum Wage

03 Economy
Stephan A. Schwartz
Stephan A. Schwartz

Like marijuana prohibition the objections to raising the minimum wage are shibboleths and myths. As this report details raising the minimum wage in Seattle to $15 has had no bad effect on the restaurant business as the Rightists maintained must inevitably come to pass. Rather the contrary. Republican economic policies the data shows live in a fact free world along with its cousins, climate change denial, evolution denial, and young- Earthers.

Seattle Restaurant Data Demolishes Conservative Argument Against $15 Minimum Wage

SchwartzReport: EPA Blocks New Bee-Killing Pesticides But Protects Existing Pesticides

01 Agriculture, 03 Economy, 03 Environmental Degradation, 07 Health, 07 Other Atrocities, 10 Transnational Crime, 11 Society, Commerce, Corruption, Earth Intelligence, Government
Stephan A. Schwartz
Stephan A. Schwartz

This is the current state of neonicotinoid regulation in the U.S., and it is rather pathetic. Like DDT even skeptics now have to deal with the research on  neonicotinoids, because the evidence for the harm they do  is overwhelming. But it is easy to see the hand of special interests in this moratorium. Products already on the market are exempted, so the impact for good will be greatly compromised. Through corruption and greed we are tipping into a real crisis in agriculture, a double whammy: drought in the food basket counties in California, and the demise of the bees, essential agents for pollination. I think it is important to note that this regulation only occurred because of citizen action. Enough people were willing to stand up for the life-affirming option to compel this EPA action. We must continue to exert our intention to create non-toxic agriculture and humane husbandry policies that work with the meta-systems of Earth. This is a first step.

EPA issues moratorium on new pesticides that kill birds and bees

noble gold