June 10, 2015

Toon: This really just says it all...

June 10, 2015

Bernie Sanders : If the environment were a bank it would have been saved by now....

June 9, 2015

NO, I'n NOT "Ready for Hillary"

June 9, 2015

Sound familiar?

June 9, 2015

Bernie: 74% of Americans believe that large corporations have too much influence on American...

...life and politics....

June 9, 2015

Bernie: Either elected officials respond to the needs and views of an involved electorate, or...

they don't remain elected....

June 9, 2015

Bernie Sanders: We cannot turn our backs on this national tragedy....

June 9, 2015

The Pitchforks Are Coming… For Us Plutocrats

Memo: From Nick Hanauer
To: My Fellow Zillionaires

You probably don’t know me, but like you I am one of those .01%ers, a proud and unapologetic capitalist. I have founded, co-founded and funded more than 30 companies across a range of industries—from itsy-bitsy ones like the night club I started in my 20s to giant ones like Amazon.com, for which I was the first nonfamily investor. Then I founded aQuantive, an Internet advertising company that was sold to Microsoft in 2007 for $6.4 billion. In cash. My friends and I own a bank. I tell you all this to demonstrate that in many ways I’m no different from you. Like you, I have a broad perspective on business and capitalism. And also like you, I have been rewarded obscenely for my success, with a life that the other 99.99 percent of Americans can’t even imagine. Multiple homes, my own plane, etc., etc. You know what I’m talking about. In 1992, I was selling pillows made by my family’s business, Pacific Coast Feather Co., to retail stores across the country, and the Internet was a clunky novelty to which one hooked up with a loud squawk at 300 baud. But I saw pretty quickly, even back then, that many of my customers, the big department store chains, were already doomed. I knew that as soon as the Internet became fast and trustworthy enough—and that time wasn’t far off—people were going to shop online like crazy. Goodbye, Caldor. And Filene’s. And Borders. And on and on.

Realizing that, seeing over the horizon a little faster than the next guy, was the strategic part of my success. The lucky part was that I had two friends, both immensely talented, who also saw a lot of potential in the web. One was a guy you’ve probably never heard of named Jeff Tauber, and the other was a fellow named Jeff Bezos. I was so excited by the potential of the web that I told both Jeffs that I wanted to invest in whatever they launched, big time. It just happened that the second Jeff—Bezos—called me back first to take up my investment offer. So I helped underwrite his tiny start-up bookseller. The other Jeff started a web department store called Cybershop, but at a time when trust in Internet sales was still low, it was too early for his high-end online idea; people just weren’t yet ready to buy expensive goods without personally checking them out (unlike a basic commodity like books, which don’t vary in quality—Bezos’ great insight). Cybershop didn’t make it, just another dot-com bust. Amazon did somewhat better. Now I own a very large yacht.

But let’s speak frankly to each other. I’m not the smartest guy you’ve ever met, or the hardest-working. I was a mediocre student. I’m not technical at all—I can’t write a word of code. What sets me apart, I think, is a tolerance for risk and an intuition about what will happen in the future. Seeing where things are headed is the essence of entrepreneurship. And what do I see in our future now?

I see pitchforks.

At the same time that people like you and me are thriving beyond the dreams of any plutocrats in history, the rest of the country—the 99.99 percent—is lagging far behind. The divide between the haves and have-nots is getting worse really, really fast. In 1980, the top 1 percent controlled about 8 percent of U.S. national income. The bottom 50 percent shared about 18 percent. Today the top 1 percent share about 20 percent; the bottom 50 percent, just 12 percent.

But the problem isn’t that we have inequality. Some inequality is intrinsic to any high-functioning capitalist economy. The problem is that inequality is at historically high levels and getting worse every day. Our country is rapidly becoming less a capitalist society and more a feudal society. Unless our policies change dramatically, the middle class will disappear, and we will be back to late 18th-century France. Before the revolution.

And so I have a message for my fellow filthy rich, for all of us who live in our gated bubble worlds: Wake up, people. It won’t last.

If we don’t do something to fix the glaring inequities in this economy, the pitchforks are going to come for us. No society can sustain this kind of rising inequality. In fact, there is no example in human history where wealth accumulated like this and the pitchforks didn’t eventually come out. You show me a highly unequal society, and I will show you a police state. Or an uprising. There are no counterexamples. None. It’s not if, it’s when.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/06/the-pitchforks-are-coming-for-us-plutocrats-108014.html#ixzz3cWImA4wX

June 8, 2015

WikiLeaks Strikes Again: Leaked TISA Docs Expose ...

WikiLeaks Strikes Again: Leaked TISA Docs Expose Corporate Plan For Reshaping Global Economy

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An enormous corporate-friendly treaty that many people haven't heard of was thrust into the public limelight Wednesday when famed publisher of government and corporate secrets, WikiLeaks, released 17 documents from closed-door negotiations between countries that together comprise two-thirds of the word's economy.

Analysts warn that preliminary review shows that the pact, known as the Trade in Services Agreement (TISA), is aimed at further privatizing and deregulating vital services, from transportation to healthcare, with a potentially devastating impact for people of the countries involved in the deal, and the world more broadly.

"This TISA text again favors privatization over public services, limits governmental action on issues ranging from safety to the environment using trade as a smokescreen to limit citizen rights," said Larry Cohen, president of Communications Workers of America, in a statement released Wednesday.

Under secret negotiation by 50 countries for roughly two years, the pact includes the United States, European Union, and 23 other countries—including Israel, Turkey, and Colombia. Notably, the BRICS countries—Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa—are excluded from the talks.

"It’s a dark day for democracy when we are dependent on leaks like this for the general public to be informed of the radical restructuring of regulatory frameworks that our governments are proposing."
—Nick Dearden, Global Justice Now

Along with the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) negotiations, which are also currently being negotiated, TISA is part of what WikiLeaks calls the "T-treaty trinity." Like the TTP and TTIP, it would fall "under consideration for collective 'Fast-Track' authority in Congress this month," WikiLeaks noted in a statement issued Wednesday.

However, TISA stands out from this trio as being the most secretive and least understood of all, with its negotiating sessions not even announced to the public.

Wednesday's leak provides the largest window yet into TISA and comes on the heels of two other leaks about the accord last year, the first from WikiLeaks and the other from the Associated Whistleblowing Press, a non-profit organization with local platforms in Iceland and Spain.

While analysts are still poring over the contents of the new revelations, civil society organizations released some preliminary analysis of the accord's potential implications for transportation, communication, democratic controls, and non-participating nations:

Telecommunications: "The leaked telecommunications annex, among others, demonstrate potentially grave impacts for deregulation of state owned enterprises like their national telephone company," wrote the global network Our World Is Not for Sale (OWINFS) in a statement issued Wednesday.roughly 700 unions from more than 150 countries, warned on Wednesday that the just-published documents "foresee consolidated power for big transport industry players and threaten the public interest, jobs and a voice for workers." ITF president Paddy Crumlin said: "This text would supercharge the most powerful companies in the transport industry, giving them preferential treatment. What’s missing from this equation is any value at all for workers and citizens."

Bypassing democratic regulations: "Preliminary analysis notes that the goal of domestic regulation texts is to remove domestic policies, laws and regulations that make it harder for

Transportation: The International Transport Workers' Federation (ITF), comprised of transnational corporations to sell their services in other countries (actually or virtually), to dominate their local suppliers, and to maximize their profits and withdraw their investment, services and profits at will," writes OWINFS. "Since this requires restricting the right of governments to regulate in the public interest, the corporate lobby is using TISA to bypass elected officials in order to apply a set of across-the-board rules that would never be approved on their own by democratic governments."

Broad impact: "The documents show that the TISA will impact even non-participating countries," wrote OWINFS. "The TISA is exposed as a developed countries' corporate wish lists for services which seeks to bypass resistance from the global South to this agenda inside the WTO, and to secure and agreement on servcies without confronting the continued inequities on agriculture, intellectual property, cotton subsidies, and many other issues."

More here: http://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/06/03/wikileaks-strikes-again-leaked-tisa-docs-expose-corporate-plan-reshaping-global

June 8, 2015

And The Crowd Went Wild

Vermont Senator and presidential candidate Bernie Sanders was in Brattleboro, VT. yesterday for our annual “Strolling of the Heifers” parade. Sen Sanders walked in the parade, gave a short speech from the Gazebo on the Brattleboro Town Common, milked a cow, and then went to Keene, NH. for his first New Hampshire appearance as a presidential candidate.

It’s not surprising that Bernie was well received in Brattleboro. He’s been a supporter of the Stroll (AKA The Cow Parade), which celebrates family farmers, local food and rural life, since the first parade back in 2002. What was surprising was the reception Sen. Sanders got on the other side of the Connecticut River.

New Hampshire has been dominated by the Republican Party for generations and it is considered to be the most conservative state in the Northeast. But Sen. Sanders was greeted with a standing ovation from about 1000 Granite State residents. The Keene Recreational Center overflowed with people. Every seat was taken, the aisles were full, and the crowd spilled out into the parking lot to hear what the Democratic Socialist seeking the Democratic nomination for president had to say.

As Sanders spoke about the American economy the atmosphere took on an almost revival meeting quality; people nodded their heads in agreement and applauded as he called income inequality the great moral, economic, and political issue of our time.

“This type of economy is not only immoral; it is unsustainable,” he said. “In the last 30 years there has been a huge redistribution of wealth. Unfortunately, that redistribution has gone in the wrong direction. This type of rigged economy is not what our country is about,” Sanders said.

Sanders took direct aim at Citizen’s United telling the crowd that the Supreme Court decision corrupted our political system, undermined the foundations of democracy, and has allowed America’s 1% to own politics in addition to already owning the economy. “American democracy is not about billionaires being able to buy candidates and elections,” he said. If elected president he vowed to make overturning Citizen’s United a top priority of his administration.

But nothing will change without the support of the people, he cautioned the crowd. “You can have the best president in the history of the world, but that person will not be able to address the problems that we face unless there is a mass movement, a political revolution in this country,” Sanders said. “Right now, the only pieces of legislation that get to the floor of the House and Senate are sanctioned by big money, Wall Street, the pharmaceutical companies…The only way we win and transform America is when millions of people stand up as you’re doing today and say, ‘Enough is enough. This country belongs to all of us and not a handful of billionaires,’” he said.

Sen. Sanders outlined his policy platform that includes a livable wage, implementing a federal jobs program updating the country’s infrastructure, health care for all Americans, expanding social security, making education affordable for everyone, equal pay for women, and addressing climate change. “Our job, through a progressive agenda, is to bring our people together and to stop having people vote against their own best interests…Let me tell you a secret: We’re going to win New Hampshire,” he said. And the crowd went wild.

See the picture of Bernie milking the cow at: http://politicalmoll.com/and-the-crowd-went-wild/