••can ye pass the acid test?••

ye who enter here be afraid, but do what ye must -- to defeat your fear ye must defy it.

& defeat it ye must, for only then can we begin to realize liberty & justice for all.

time bomb tick tock? nervous tic talk? war on war?

or just a blog crying in the wilderness, trying to make sense of it all, terror-fried by hate radio and FOX, the number of whose name is 666??? (coincidence?)

Monday, December 26, 2011

one day after Xmas,
and all thru the land,
5 days left in the year
and 8 till the Iowa caucuses,
on edge of seats all await
the GIGOP clown show's
first official step
toward choosing a
Great White Hope
to challenge the present wearer of the crown,
the dreaded New Brown Bomber,
Barack!
Hussein!
— never omit that middle name! —
Oba-a-a-ama!

Monday, December 19, 2011

occupywallst.org
do I love BHO? NO!
but the republican voter suppression machine is running full time here
THINK !!!!!
you know who you HAVE to vote for if you want>
abortions legal
higher taxes on the rich
GM workers working
an educational system based on books - not on a book
a supreme court appointment that is not bought
a fighter against grover
non-privatized social security

found that comment in a forum. here's another from the same page:
It seems to me that the world is far more complicated than it at first appears. Good intentions and ideas fall away when people find out the real truths behind what is going on. We the people are never fully informed about the entire situation so we fall victim to half truth and slogans.
If we all actually knew the whole truth then we might make the same decisions that Obama has had to make. Shitty thing to consider but there are many more factors that the bulk of the electorate is too stupid to understand.
I will vote for Obama, again, and if Elizabeth Warren runs for president then I will vote for her. I like that she tells it like it is.
factcheck
mistaken belief that leads to “end the fed” movement:
equating ownership with control

the only power private banks have in the federal reserve system is that member banks elect their regional reserve banks’ boards of directors. the national board of governors is appointed by the president, confirmed by congress, and has a voting majority on the open market committee.

member banks must invest 3% of their capital in the reserve banks. they cannot sell or trade their stock or even use it as security for loans. they get a fixed annual dividend of 6% that is unaffected by their actions.

private banks have a voice, but only as a minority. they do not control anything.

Sunday, December 18, 2011

newscientist

AS PROTESTS against financial power sweep the world this week, science may have confirmed the protesters' worst fears. An analysis of the relationships between 43,000 transnational corporations has identified a relatively small group of companies, mainly banks, with disproportionate power over the global economy.

The study's assumptions have attracted some criticism, but complex systems analysts contacted by New Scientist say it is a unique effort to untangle control in the global economy. Pushing the analysis further, they say, could help to identify ways of making global capitalism more stable.

The idea that a few bankers control a large chunk of the global economy might not seem like news to New York's Occupy Wall Street movement and protesters elsewhere (see photo). But the study, by a trio of complex systems theorists at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, is the first to go beyond ideology to empirically identify such a network of power. It combines the mathematics long used to model natural systems with comprehensive corporate data to map ownership among the world's transnational corporations (TNCs).

"Reality is so complex, we must move away from dogma, whether it's conspiracy theories or free-market," says James Glattfelder. "Our analysis is reality-based." [more]


investmentwatch
For working people the economy has been in recession since 1973

1. Before 1973, The inflation Adjusted Median Income rose at 2.5% per year:

1953 = $22,648
1973 = $34,762

2. From 1973 to 2009, Inflation Adjusted Median Income fell by $2,578.

1973 = $34,762
2009 = $32,184

3. While per capita GPD has doubled:

1969 = $21,021
2010 = $42,517

4. This is accomplish by shifting the income distributi­on:

Share Of Aggregate Income by Quintile:

BOTTOM 20% – 1967: 4.0% 2009: 3.4% Change: -0.6%
LOWER MIDDLE – 1967: 10.8% 2009: 8.6% Change: -2.2%
MIDDLE CLASS – 1967: 17.3% 2009: 14.6% Change: -2.7%
UPPER MIDDLE – 1967: 24.2% 2009: 23.2% Change: -1.0%
UPPER CLASS – 1967: 43.6% 2009: 50.3% Change: +6.7%


The last 40 years of conservati­ve think tank legislatio­n has killed the economy

The GOP and the rich corporatists have made a mess of everything­.

1. Before 1973, The inflation Adjusted Median Income rose at 2.5% per year:

1953 = $22,648
1973 = $34,762

2. From 1973 to 2009, Inflation Adjusted Median Income fell by $2,578.

1973 = $34,762
2009 = $32,184

3. The same thing shows up in Weekly Earnings.

All earners:

1979 = $339
2008 = $339

No Change over 30 years

Men:

1979 = $412
2010 = $389

Thursday, December 15, 2011

breitbart
DISGUSTING: NBC NEWS ACCUSES ROMNEY OF USING KKK SLOGAN; MATTHEWS APOLOGIZES ON BEHALF OF NETWORK

MSNBC's Thomas Roberts, 11AM: So you may not hear Mitt Romney say "Keep America American" anymore. That’s because it was a central theme of the KKK in the 1920s, it was a rallying cry for the group’s campaign of violence and intimidation against blacks, gays and Jews.

MSNBC's Chris Matthews, 5PM: During the 11AM hour on MSNBC we reported on a blog item that compared a phrase used by the Romney campaign to one used by the KKK in the 1920s. It was irresponsible and incendiary of us to do this and showed an appalling lack of judgment. We apologize to the Romney campaign.
that's breitbart's idea of disgusting? then what's this?:
In the hours immediately following Senator Ted Kennedy's death, Breitbart called Kennedy a "villain", a "duplicitous bastard", a "prick" and "a special pile of human excrement."
and did breitbart apologize? MSNBC did, tho perhaps they shouldn't have.

then again, which did he mean is "disgusting," the accusation or the apology?

it must have been the latter. breitbart has nothing against accusing people. he's accused obama of trying to "foment a revolution."

Sunday, December 11, 2011

huffpo

...
Whatever Occupiers may think of the Democrats, they can gain power within the Democratic Party and hence in election contests all over America. All they have to do is join Democratic Clubs, stick to their values, speak out very loudly, and work in campaigns for candidates at every level who agree with their values. If Occupiers can run tent camps, organize food kitchens and clean-up brigades, run general assemblies, and use social media, they can take over and run a significant part of the Democratic Party.

To what end? All the hundreds of the occupiers' legitimate complaints and important policy suggestions follow from a simple general moral principle: American democracy is about citizens caring about one another and acting responsibly on that care.

The idea is simple but a lot follows from it: a government that protects and empowers everyone equally, a government of the Public -- public roads and buildings, school and universities, research and innovation, public health and health care, safety nets, access to justice in the courts, enforcement of worker rights, and practical necessities like sewers, power grids, clean air and water, public safety including safe food, drugs, and other products, public parks and recreational facilities, public oversight of the economy -- fiscal and trade policy, banking, the stock market -- and especially the preservation of nature in the interest of all.

The Public has been what has made Americans free -- and has underwritten American wealth. No one makes it on his or her own. Private success depends on a robust Public.

The rationale for the Occupy movement is that all of this has been under successful attack by the right wing, which has an opposing principle, that democracy is about citizens only taking care of themselves, about personal and not social responsibility. According to right-wing morality, the successful are by definition the moral; the one percent are taken to be the most moral. The country and the world should be ruled by such a "moral" hierarchy. Except for national security, the Public should disappear through lack of funding. The nation and the world should be ruled for private profit alone -- and by force.

That idea is what is destroying American democracy, and America with it. That idea is what is behind everything the Occupy Movement opposes -- and everything that is going wrong with America today.

Not only is America divided between two opposing principles, but a great many individuals are of those two minds at once: progressive on some matters, conservative on others -- with all sorts of variations. They are called variously independents, moderates, or the center. They are mostly the population that elections depend on. They have not one fundamental principle, but are split between two.

What makes one of these ascendant in the individual brain is the language one hears most. That is why the domination of public discourse is so important. It is why advertising in the media is important, why talk radio and tv and social media matter. Elections are what focus attention on public discourse. [more]

Wednesday, December 07, 2011

npr

Fresh Air's resident linguist explains how the magic of metonymy gave "occupy" its symbolism — and how the word implies a culture that made a bunch of protests feel like a movement. [more]

Tuesday, December 06, 2011