Pages: << 1 ... 1092 1093 1094 1095 1096 1097 1098 1099 1100 1101 1102 ... 1269 >>
The Death of American Populism
by Stephen Lendman
Ideologically it believes governments must provide for the greatest good for the greatest number of people. It opposes concentrated wealth, demagogy, and despotism, and supports democracy, human and civil rights, and social justice - an ideology the 19th century People's Party and 20th century Progressive Party endorsed without majorities.
Until recently, faint echoes remained, sadly silenced after Senator Bernie Sanders and sole House populist capitulated.
Chris Dodd's wife and derivatives trading - "all in the family"
It’s all in the family! Senator Chris Dodd writes a financial reform bill but forgets to regulate derivatives, “financial weapons of mass destruction.” Then we find out that his wife works for the owners of two exchanges that will very likely benefit from Dodd's “reform” legislation.
They make the rules. They take the money, all of it, and leave us with debt. And they tell us it’s all legal.
Here’s the story.
America's "Houdini Recovery" under IMF-Type Austerity
by Stephen Lendman
It's what economist David Rosenberg calls recovery given plenty of supportive evidence, including:
-- over five million homeowners behind on their mortgage payments;
-- at record levels, foreclosures are alarmingly high; moreover, "the foreclosure pipeline is enormous;"
-- "housing, the quintessential leading indicator," turning lower again in starts, sales and prices;
Why We Reform
By PAUL KRUGMAN
One way or another, the fate of health care reform is going to be decided in the next few days. If House Democratic leaders find 216 votes, reform will almost immediately become the law of the land. If they don’t, reform may well be put off for many years — possibly a decade or more.
So this seems like a good time to revisit the reasons we need this reform, imperfect as it is.
As it happens, Reuters published an investigative report this week that powerfully illustrates the vileness of our current system. The report concerns the insurer Fortis, now part of Assurant Health, which turns out to have had a systematic policy of revoking its clients’ policies when they got sick. In particular, according to the Reuters report, it targeted every single policyholder who contracted H.I.V., looking for any excuse, no matter how flimsy, for cancellation. In the case that brought all this to light, Assurant Health used an obviously misdated handwritten note by a nurse, who wrote “2001” instead of “2002,” to claim that the infection was a pre-existing condition that the client had failed to declare, and revoked his policy.
Dodd's Dud
Shocking! Dodd and the Senate forget to take care of the cause of the financial crisis - Credit Default Swaps.
By Robert Oak - Economic Populist Posted by Michael Collins
You may be wondering why you haven't seen a post overview on the latest Senator Dodd's Financial Reform Bill, Restoring American Financial Stability Act of 2010 (link has legislative summary and text). That's because, as usual, it's a dud.
The Armenian, Assyrian and Greek Genocides: An Inconvenient Truth
By Lucine Kasbarian
Recent articles in the mainstream media would have us believe that governments around the world somehow question the factuality of the 1915 Armenian, Assyrian and Greek genocides committed by Turkey. These articles would also have us believe that the Turkish government’s latest temper tantrums over these genocides are justified. Turkey, of course, just recalled its ambassadors to protest the passage of resolutions by the U.S. House of Representatives’ Foreign Affairs Committee and the Swedish Parliament that acknowledged Turkish culpability for these genocides.
Despite what today’s mainstream media are declaring, the evidence proving the 1915 genocides is overwhelming. And formal resolutions affirming these unpunished crimes against humanity made appearances around the world long before 2010. Regardless of what pro-Turkish apologists would have us believe, the issue has never been about whether the Turkish regime carried out genocide. Rather, it has always been about when Turkey would be punished and deliver reparations and restitution to the rightful, indigenous inhabitants.
The Lawfare Project's Anti-Democratic Agenda
by Stephen Lendman
Its web site (thelawfareproject.org) calls Lawfare:
"The use of the law as a weapon of war."
Fact Check
Provided they contradict no others, laws are sacrosanct, especially fundamental international ones like the UN Charter, Four Geneva Conventions, their Common Article 3, the Rome Statute, Nuremberg Tribunal and judgment, Genocide Convention, Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and many others - ones Israel and America are sworn to uphold but consistently violate with impunity.
New Left
Marcia Bernsten & Andrew Lehman
We've been mulling over the relationship between the American Left and the new communications technologies. Integrally involved with this process is our role as co-facilitators of PJEP and its network of 41 statewide or multistate websites, where we are constantly seeking ways to empower small local organizations. The network sites provide them access to easy ways of communicating with allied organizations while building their effectiveness and contact lists through online petitions, eletters, boycotts and fundraisers. For example, right now we're posting demonstrations surrounding the 7th anniversary of the US led invasion of Iraq. Actions are occurring across the country, appearing in the 40 networks, to a central position on the home page of pjep.org that lists over 120 actions around the country. The question we keep asking ourselves is: What other vehicles are there, that not only share information, but also offer opportunities for organizing?
Anti-Semitism - What is it?
Jeff Gates
Is it Anti-Semitic to call for a New 911 Commission?
(TEMPE, Az.) - Several of us among the incurably curious asked ourselves a simple question: what is anti-Semitism? That it must be written with a capital “S” says a lot.
Then we realized it also morphs. To that feature I can attest. In November 2002, I met a “John Doe” in London who proposed a research challenge. While meeting that challenge, I encountered various versions of anti-Semitism.
A colleague advised against this challenge. First he fretted at the criminal nature of what the research has since confirmed. Then he inquired about my safety. That said a lot.
The colleague was M.I.T. Professor Noam Chomsky. For his criticism of Israeli policy, he was attacked as a self-hating Jew. Were he not Jewish, doubtless he would have been an anti-Semite. For critics of Israel, those are the only two options. He cautioned me:
Re-Remembering Rachel Corrie in the 60th year of the Nakba
Zahir Ebrahim
Re-Remembering Rachel Corrie (1979 – 2003) as the selfless teacher of Moral-Activism in the 60th year of the on-going Nakba of the Palestinian peoples with no end in sight!
On this 5th anniversary of Rachel's supreme self-sacrifice to stand up to tyranny on behalf of the beleaguered Palestinian people, it is à propos remembering this forgottened American victim of Jewish violence with these pitiless 1943 words of Yitzhak Shamir the import of which, among other atrocities upon its indigenous peoples, deliberately harvested the cataclysm of the holocaust and European anti-semitism for the construction of 'Eretz Yisrael' in Palestine:
“Neither Jewish morality nor Jewish tradition can be used to disallow terror as a means of war, ... We are very far from any moral hesitations when concerned with the national struggle”.
Lest those living in the void of modernity and 'united we stand' with the inexplicable 'war on terror' which has been deliberately divorced from its historical and imperial contexts think such terror doctrines were an aberration due to the tumultuous founding of 'Der Judenstaadt' in the aftermath of the holocaust in the otherwise vastly moral and lofty traditions of Zionism, it is also pertinent to remember Rachel Corrie in the context of these remorseless 1939 confessional words of Israel's first Statesman uttered before the word 'holocaust' even existed:
<< 1 ... 1092 1093 1094 1095 1096 1097 1098 1099 1100 1101 1102 ... 1269 >>
