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marmar
marmar's Journal
marmar's Journal
September 10, 2014
...... the Democratic candidates for governor and U.S. Senate, respectively, here in Michigan this November.
One theme became abundantly clear: Anger and disgust toward the two major parties (yes, both of them) is widespread. I was in a working- to working middle class suburb of Detroit with lots of union members, one that tends to vote for Democrats but where the majority of the voters identify as independents and there's a good number of Republicans.
At almost every door: "I'm sick of all of them." "They're all liars." "None of them are looking out for everyday people."
Most of the Democratic households identified getting rid of Tricky Ricky Snyder as their top priority, but could identify very little that they liked about Schauer. The Republicans who said they were voting for Snyder almost universally said there's a lot they don't like about him. And there were lots of people who were undecided and dissatisfied with their choices.
I read lots of stats about Americans' unhappiness with Congress, and canvassing kind of crystallized it for me.
As one Democratic voter, whose big issue was women's rights, said, "But we're not really voting for anybody these days, right? We're voting against someone."
Sadly, the (corporately sponsored) tone deafness of the party leadership won't hear her.
I did some canvassing yesterday for Mark Schauer and Gary Peters......
...... the Democratic candidates for governor and U.S. Senate, respectively, here in Michigan this November.
One theme became abundantly clear: Anger and disgust toward the two major parties (yes, both of them) is widespread. I was in a working- to working middle class suburb of Detroit with lots of union members, one that tends to vote for Democrats but where the majority of the voters identify as independents and there's a good number of Republicans.
At almost every door: "I'm sick of all of them." "They're all liars." "None of them are looking out for everyday people."
Most of the Democratic households identified getting rid of Tricky Ricky Snyder as their top priority, but could identify very little that they liked about Schauer. The Republicans who said they were voting for Snyder almost universally said there's a lot they don't like about him. And there were lots of people who were undecided and dissatisfied with their choices.
I read lots of stats about Americans' unhappiness with Congress, and canvassing kind of crystallized it for me.
As one Democratic voter, whose big issue was women's rights, said, "But we're not really voting for anybody these days, right? We're voting against someone."
Sadly, the (corporately sponsored) tone deafness of the party leadership won't hear her.
September 10, 2014
By Juan Cole
Juliet Eilperin and David Nakamura at WaPo report on a Monday evening dinner at the White House attended by foreign policy experts, in which President Obama expressed confidence that he had the authority to bomb ISIL positions in Syria.
In other reports, Obama officials have leaked that they think this is a 3 years war. (Ronald Reagan began vastly increasing the aid to Afghan rebels against the then Communist government in Kabul in 1982, and US counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency in that country is still going on in 2014, 32 years later; so three years have a way of becoming multiplied by 10).
Everyone should just understand that the social science literature finds that external interventions typically extend, not shorten, civil wars, as Marc Lynch has pointed out.
At the same time, Obama appears to envisage arming and training the “moderates” of the Free Syrian Army, who have consistently been pushed to the margins by al-Qaeda offshoots and affiliates. Private billionaires in the Gulf will continue to support ISIL or its rival, Jabhat al-Nusra (the Succor Front, which has pledged allegiance to al-Qaeda). Strengthening yet another guerrilla group will, again, likely prolong the fighting. Moreover, in the past two years, Free Syrian Army moderate groups have gone radical and joined Nusrah or ISIL at an alarming rate. Defectors or defeated groups from the FSA will take their skills and arms with them into the al-Qaeda offshoots. ................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.juancole.com/2014/09/obama-fight-against.html
Juan Cole: 3 Years War? Obama to Bomb Syria in fight against ISIL
By Juan Cole
Juliet Eilperin and David Nakamura at WaPo report on a Monday evening dinner at the White House attended by foreign policy experts, in which President Obama expressed confidence that he had the authority to bomb ISIL positions in Syria.
In other reports, Obama officials have leaked that they think this is a 3 years war. (Ronald Reagan began vastly increasing the aid to Afghan rebels against the then Communist government in Kabul in 1982, and US counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency in that country is still going on in 2014, 32 years later; so three years have a way of becoming multiplied by 10).
Everyone should just understand that the social science literature finds that external interventions typically extend, not shorten, civil wars, as Marc Lynch has pointed out.
At the same time, Obama appears to envisage arming and training the “moderates” of the Free Syrian Army, who have consistently been pushed to the margins by al-Qaeda offshoots and affiliates. Private billionaires in the Gulf will continue to support ISIL or its rival, Jabhat al-Nusra (the Succor Front, which has pledged allegiance to al-Qaeda). Strengthening yet another guerrilla group will, again, likely prolong the fighting. Moreover, in the past two years, Free Syrian Army moderate groups have gone radical and joined Nusrah or ISIL at an alarming rate. Defectors or defeated groups from the FSA will take their skills and arms with them into the al-Qaeda offshoots. ................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.juancole.com/2014/09/obama-fight-against.html
September 9, 2014
from truthdig:
What College Students Can Teach Us About Beheadings and Our Own System of Capital Punishment
Posted on Sep 8, 2014
By Bill Blum
Like everyone this side of a serial killer, I was repulsed by the videotapes showing the beheadings of captured American journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff by a knife-wielding masked executioner of the Sunni jihadist organization that now calls itself the Islamic State. And like most, I was also moved by the dominant American narrative that both condemned the slayings and asserted the moral superiority of Western culture and the value we supposedly place on human life in contrast to the debasements and depravities promoted and practiced by the radical terror group.
But last week, shortly after news of the second beheading broke, something happened to disrupt the narrative, at least for me: I went back to college—not as a student, but to speak at a small undergraduate seminar on ethics and communication taught by Truthdig Editor-in-Chief Robert Scheer at USC.
I arrived on campus without much advance information about what we’d be discussing, told only that the class would be an informal gathering of no more than 15 students, and that I should just show up and be prepared to “schmooze” about my career in the law and as a writer. I had no idea until shortly before the first student poked her head inside the classroom that the topic du jour would be beheading. The students had even less of a hint.
Scheer began the class by reminding his charges that in their previous session they had examined conflicts between ethics and the law, and the fact that despite what we hear in the media and from our political leaders, the law often fails to live up to its ideals. And then he asked, point blank, “Does everyone know about the beheadings?” ...................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/what_college_students_can_teach_us_about_beheadings_and_our_own_system_of_c
What College Students Can Teach Us About Beheadings and Our Own System of Capital Punishment
from truthdig:
What College Students Can Teach Us About Beheadings and Our Own System of Capital Punishment
Posted on Sep 8, 2014
By Bill Blum
Like everyone this side of a serial killer, I was repulsed by the videotapes showing the beheadings of captured American journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff by a knife-wielding masked executioner of the Sunni jihadist organization that now calls itself the Islamic State. And like most, I was also moved by the dominant American narrative that both condemned the slayings and asserted the moral superiority of Western culture and the value we supposedly place on human life in contrast to the debasements and depravities promoted and practiced by the radical terror group.
But last week, shortly after news of the second beheading broke, something happened to disrupt the narrative, at least for me: I went back to college—not as a student, but to speak at a small undergraduate seminar on ethics and communication taught by Truthdig Editor-in-Chief Robert Scheer at USC.
I arrived on campus without much advance information about what we’d be discussing, told only that the class would be an informal gathering of no more than 15 students, and that I should just show up and be prepared to “schmooze” about my career in the law and as a writer. I had no idea until shortly before the first student poked her head inside the classroom that the topic du jour would be beheading. The students had even less of a hint.
Scheer began the class by reminding his charges that in their previous session they had examined conflicts between ethics and the law, and the fact that despite what we hear in the media and from our political leaders, the law often fails to live up to its ideals. And then he asked, point blank, “Does everyone know about the beheadings?” ...................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/what_college_students_can_teach_us_about_beheadings_and_our_own_system_of_c
September 8, 2014
From Pine Beetles to Disappearing Glaciers, NASA Scientists Tell of "Dramatic" Planetary Changes
Monday, 08 September 2014 10:31
By Dahr Jamail, Truthout | News Report
Until very recently, popular thinking assumed that anthropogenic climate disruption (ACD) was in a "slow" period. However, last year, a study published in Geophysical Research Letters showed that the planet had experienced more overall warming in the 15 years leading up to March 2013 than it had in the 15 years before that. In case there was any doubt that the planet is warming more quickly than previously thought, a study published in the August 22, 2014 issue of Science has verified this.
Another study from July addressed how regional climate systems were synchronizing, after which "the researchers detected wild variability that amplified the changes and accelerated into an abrupt warming event of several degrees within a few decades." Shortly thereafter, yet another study showed that rapid warming of the Atlantic waters, most likely due to ACD, has "turbocharged" the Pacific Equatorial trade winds. Whenever that phenomenon stops, it is highly likely we will witness very rapid changes across the globe, including a sudden acceleration of the average surface temperature of the planet.
The vast majority of the myriad studies generating our present data on ACD paint a dire picture of what our CO2 emissions, and now massive methane releases, have done to the climate of Earth.
Truthout recently spoke with several NASA-affiliated scientists about what they are seeing. .................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://truth-out.org/news/item/25994-from-pine-beetles-to-disappearing-glaciers-nasa-scientists-tell-of-dramatic-planetary-changes
From Pine Beetles to Disappearing Glaciers, NASA Scientists Tell of "Dramatic" Planetary Changes
From Pine Beetles to Disappearing Glaciers, NASA Scientists Tell of "Dramatic" Planetary Changes
Monday, 08 September 2014 10:31
By Dahr Jamail, Truthout | News Report
Until very recently, popular thinking assumed that anthropogenic climate disruption (ACD) was in a "slow" period. However, last year, a study published in Geophysical Research Letters showed that the planet had experienced more overall warming in the 15 years leading up to March 2013 than it had in the 15 years before that. In case there was any doubt that the planet is warming more quickly than previously thought, a study published in the August 22, 2014 issue of Science has verified this.
Another study from July addressed how regional climate systems were synchronizing, after which "the researchers detected wild variability that amplified the changes and accelerated into an abrupt warming event of several degrees within a few decades." Shortly thereafter, yet another study showed that rapid warming of the Atlantic waters, most likely due to ACD, has "turbocharged" the Pacific Equatorial trade winds. Whenever that phenomenon stops, it is highly likely we will witness very rapid changes across the globe, including a sudden acceleration of the average surface temperature of the planet.
The vast majority of the myriad studies generating our present data on ACD paint a dire picture of what our CO2 emissions, and now massive methane releases, have done to the climate of Earth.
Truthout recently spoke with several NASA-affiliated scientists about what they are seeing. .................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://truth-out.org/news/item/25994-from-pine-beetles-to-disappearing-glaciers-nasa-scientists-tell-of-dramatic-planetary-changes
September 8, 2014
....... I'm watching a "Consider This" interview with former CIA director James Woolsey about ISIS, and Woosley asserted that the administration is acting like "Europe in the 1930s" in not confronting ISIS. And Antonio Mora, the host, is not challenging him on any of his propaganda. Very disappointing.
I generally like Al Jazeera's news coverage, but .........
....... I'm watching a "Consider This" interview with former CIA director James Woolsey about ISIS, and Woosley asserted that the administration is acting like "Europe in the 1930s" in not confronting ISIS. And Antonio Mora, the host, is not challenging him on any of his propaganda. Very disappointing.
September 8, 2014
from truthdig:
by Chris Hedges
Politics, if we take politics to mean the shaping and discussion of issues, concerns and laws that foster the common good, is no longer the business of our traditional political institutions. These institutions, including the two major political parties, the courts and the press, are not democratic. They are used to crush any vestiges of civic life that calls, as a traditional democracy does, on its citizens to share among all its members the benefits, sacrifices and risks of a nation. They offer only the facade of politics, along with elaborate, choreographed spectacles filled with skillfully manufactured emotion and devoid of real political content. We have devolved into what Alexis de Tocqueville feared—“democratic despotism.”
The squabbles among the power elites, rampant militarism and the disease of imperialism, along with a mindless nationalism that characterizes all public debate, have turned officially sanctioned politics into a carnival act.
Pundits and news celebrities on the airwaves engage in fevered speculation about whether the wife of a former president will run for office—and this after the mediocre son of another president spent eight years in the White House. This is not politics. It is gossip. Opinion polls, the staple of what serves as political reporting, are not politics. They are forms of social control. The use of billions of dollars to fund election campaigns and pay lobbyists to author legislation is not politics. It is legalized bribery. The insistence that austerity and economic rationality, rather than the welfare of the citizenry, be the primary concerns of the government is not politics. It is the death of civic virtue. The government’s system of wholesale surveillance and the militarization of police forces, along with the psychosis of permanent war and state-orchestrated fear of terrorism, are not politics. They are about eradicating civil liberties and justifying endless war and state violence. The chatter about death panels, abortion, gay rights, guns and undocumented children crossing the border is not politics. It is manipulation by the power elites of emotion, hate and fear to divert us from seeing our own powerlessness.
“Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country,” Edward Bernays observed in his 1928 book, “Propaganda.” “We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of.”
Politics in the hands of the corporate state is anti-politics. It is designed to denigrate and destroy the values that make a liberal democracy and political participation possible. It is a cynical form of mass control. Corporate money has replaced the vote. Dissent is silenced or ignored. Political parties are Punch and Judy shows funded by corporate puppeteers. Universities, once the epicenter of social change, are corporate headquarters, flush with corporate money, government contracts and foundation grants. The commercial press, whose primary task is attracting advertising dollars, has become an arm of the entertainment industry. It offers news as vaudeville. ...............(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/driving_american_politics_underground_20140907
Chris Hedges: Driving American Politics Underground
from truthdig:
by Chris Hedges
Politics, if we take politics to mean the shaping and discussion of issues, concerns and laws that foster the common good, is no longer the business of our traditional political institutions. These institutions, including the two major political parties, the courts and the press, are not democratic. They are used to crush any vestiges of civic life that calls, as a traditional democracy does, on its citizens to share among all its members the benefits, sacrifices and risks of a nation. They offer only the facade of politics, along with elaborate, choreographed spectacles filled with skillfully manufactured emotion and devoid of real political content. We have devolved into what Alexis de Tocqueville feared—“democratic despotism.”
The squabbles among the power elites, rampant militarism and the disease of imperialism, along with a mindless nationalism that characterizes all public debate, have turned officially sanctioned politics into a carnival act.
Pundits and news celebrities on the airwaves engage in fevered speculation about whether the wife of a former president will run for office—and this after the mediocre son of another president spent eight years in the White House. This is not politics. It is gossip. Opinion polls, the staple of what serves as political reporting, are not politics. They are forms of social control. The use of billions of dollars to fund election campaigns and pay lobbyists to author legislation is not politics. It is legalized bribery. The insistence that austerity and economic rationality, rather than the welfare of the citizenry, be the primary concerns of the government is not politics. It is the death of civic virtue. The government’s system of wholesale surveillance and the militarization of police forces, along with the psychosis of permanent war and state-orchestrated fear of terrorism, are not politics. They are about eradicating civil liberties and justifying endless war and state violence. The chatter about death panels, abortion, gay rights, guns and undocumented children crossing the border is not politics. It is manipulation by the power elites of emotion, hate and fear to divert us from seeing our own powerlessness.
“Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country,” Edward Bernays observed in his 1928 book, “Propaganda.” “We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of.”
Politics in the hands of the corporate state is anti-politics. It is designed to denigrate and destroy the values that make a liberal democracy and political participation possible. It is a cynical form of mass control. Corporate money has replaced the vote. Dissent is silenced or ignored. Political parties are Punch and Judy shows funded by corporate puppeteers. Universities, once the epicenter of social change, are corporate headquarters, flush with corporate money, government contracts and foundation grants. The commercial press, whose primary task is attracting advertising dollars, has become an arm of the entertainment industry. It offers news as vaudeville. ...............(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/driving_american_politics_underground_20140907
September 7, 2014
The Socialist Alternative to a World of Injustice
Sunday, 07 September 2014 12:52
By Danny Katch, Socialist Worker | Op-Ed
Before you get to socialism, you first have to ask yourself a more basic question: Which side am I on?
As I was writing this article at the end of August, Israel was raining bombs on Gaza, and Black people were staring down the police in the streets of Ferguson, Mo. In these conflicts and others, some will identity with the oppressors and others with the oppressed. (And then there are those who carefully criticize both sides to justify sitting on their gentle neutral butts.)
What accounts for these different responses? Information certainly plays a role, or rather the misinformation that most of us get from the corporate-owned media. Many people who have never been at a demonstration won't realize that "protests turn violent" headlines really mean "police got violent because their authority was questioned."
However we get our news, most of us choose sides based on a sense of fairness, which in turn is connected to our overall place in society. When fast-food workers go on strike to demand $15 an hour and a union, some instinctively support them because they know what it's like to work hard for little. Others might be sympathetic to McDonald's because they also own a business, or think they might one day. .................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/26035-the-socialist-alternative-to-a-world-of-injustice
The Socialist Alternative to a World of Injustice
The Socialist Alternative to a World of Injustice
Sunday, 07 September 2014 12:52
By Danny Katch, Socialist Worker | Op-Ed
Before you get to socialism, you first have to ask yourself a more basic question: Which side am I on?
As I was writing this article at the end of August, Israel was raining bombs on Gaza, and Black people were staring down the police in the streets of Ferguson, Mo. In these conflicts and others, some will identity with the oppressors and others with the oppressed. (And then there are those who carefully criticize both sides to justify sitting on their gentle neutral butts.)
What accounts for these different responses? Information certainly plays a role, or rather the misinformation that most of us get from the corporate-owned media. Many people who have never been at a demonstration won't realize that "protests turn violent" headlines really mean "police got violent because their authority was questioned."
However we get our news, most of us choose sides based on a sense of fairness, which in turn is connected to our overall place in society. When fast-food workers go on strike to demand $15 an hour and a union, some instinctively support them because they know what it's like to work hard for little. Others might be sympathetic to McDonald's because they also own a business, or think they might one day. .................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/26035-the-socialist-alternative-to-a-world-of-injustice
September 7, 2014
Fed Survey of Consumer Finances Shows Americans Understand Their Lousy Economic Condition
Posted on September 5, 2014 by David Dayen
The Fed’s Survey of Consumer Finances came out yesterday, and it offered a pretty good answer for why the country won’t just snap out of it and admit that Recovery Summer is here. The survey covers 2010 to 2013 and it’s stocked with interesting data, but the main point is the continued breaking away of top income earners from the rest of their counterparts. McClatchy summarizes:
Matthew C. Klein supplies the charts, and they’re quite striking. Median income has dropped 12.4 percent since 2004, a dramatic decline in fortunes:
Good news, the gains are not only accruing to the top 1 percent of the distribution. More like the top 3 percent:
Looks like the rest of the top 10 percent have flatlined, while the bottom 90 percent have a lower income share than they did in the late 1980s. Median net worth is down at early-1990s levels. ......................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2014/09/fed-survey-consumer-finances-shows-americans-well-informed-economic-well.html
Fed Survey of Consumer Finances Shows Americans Understand Their Lousy Economic Condition
Fed Survey of Consumer Finances Shows Americans Understand Their Lousy Economic Condition
Posted on September 5, 2014 by David Dayen
By David Dayen, a lapsed blogger, now a freelance writer based in Los Angeles, CA. Follow him on Twitter @ddayen
The Fed’s Survey of Consumer Finances came out yesterday, and it offered a pretty good answer for why the country won’t just snap out of it and admit that Recovery Summer is here. The survey covers 2010 to 2013 and it’s stocked with interesting data, but the main point is the continued breaking away of top income earners from the rest of their counterparts. McClatchy summarizes:
Americans’ average income of grew by 4 percent from 2010 to 2013, a misleading number since it was pulled up by the richest Americans who grew wealthier during the period, according to a Federal Reserve report released Thursday.
In its Survey of Consumer Finances, conducted every three years, the Fed found that while average income rose by 4 percent, the midpoint income for American families actually fell 5 percent “consistent with increasing income concentration during this period.”
Translation: The growing wealth of the richest Americans pulled up the average. It’s the same phenomenon as if you and Microsoft founder Bill Gates pooled your salaries, you too would be a billionaire.
Matthew C. Klein supplies the charts, and they’re quite striking. Median income has dropped 12.4 percent since 2004, a dramatic decline in fortunes:
Good news, the gains are not only accruing to the top 1 percent of the distribution. More like the top 3 percent:
Looks like the rest of the top 10 percent have flatlined, while the bottom 90 percent have a lower income share than they did in the late 1980s. Median net worth is down at early-1990s levels. ......................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2014/09/fed-survey-consumer-finances-shows-americans-well-informed-economic-well.html
September 7, 2014
Fed Survey of Consumer Finances Shows Americans Understand Their Lousy Economic Condition
Posted on September 5, 2014 by David Dayen
The Fed’s Survey of Consumer Finances came out yesterday, and it offered a pretty good answer for why the country won’t just snap out of it and admit that Recovery Summer is here. The survey covers 2010 to 2013 and it’s stocked with interesting data, but the main point is the continued breaking away of top income earners from the rest of their counterparts. McClatchy summarizes:
Matthew C. Klein supplies the charts, and they’re quite striking. Median income has dropped 12.4 percent since 2004, a dramatic decline in fortunes:
Good news, the gains are not only accruing to the top 1 percent of the distribution. More like the top 3 percent:
Looks like the rest of the top 10 percent have flatlined, while the bottom 90 percent have a lower income share than they did in the late 1980s. Median net worth is down at early-1990s levels. ......................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2014/09/fed-survey-consumer-finances-shows-americans-well-informed-economic-well.html
Fed Survey of Consumer Finances Shows Americans Understand Their Lousy Economic Condition
Fed Survey of Consumer Finances Shows Americans Understand Their Lousy Economic Condition
Posted on September 5, 2014 by David Dayen
By David Dayen, a lapsed blogger, now a freelance writer based in Los Angeles, CA. Follow him on Twitter @ddayen
The Fed’s Survey of Consumer Finances came out yesterday, and it offered a pretty good answer for why the country won’t just snap out of it and admit that Recovery Summer is here. The survey covers 2010 to 2013 and it’s stocked with interesting data, but the main point is the continued breaking away of top income earners from the rest of their counterparts. McClatchy summarizes:
Americans’ average income of grew by 4 percent from 2010 to 2013, a misleading number since it was pulled up by the richest Americans who grew wealthier during the period, according to a Federal Reserve report released Thursday.
In its Survey of Consumer Finances, conducted every three years, the Fed found that while average income rose by 4 percent, the midpoint income for American families actually fell 5 percent “consistent with increasing income concentration during this period.”
Translation: The growing wealth of the richest Americans pulled up the average. It’s the same phenomenon as if you and Microsoft founder Bill Gates pooled your salaries, you too would be a billionaire.
Matthew C. Klein supplies the charts, and they’re quite striking. Median income has dropped 12.4 percent since 2004, a dramatic decline in fortunes:
Good news, the gains are not only accruing to the top 1 percent of the distribution. More like the top 3 percent:
Looks like the rest of the top 10 percent have flatlined, while the bottom 90 percent have a lower income share than they did in the late 1980s. Median net worth is down at early-1990s levels. ......................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2014/09/fed-survey-consumer-finances-shows-americans-well-informed-economic-well.html
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