Cornel West: ... The Heritage Foundation has been spreading lies to justify indifference toward poor people for three decades as part of the right-wing intellectual assault on working and poor people ... The Heritage Foundation supports the counter-revolution in the name of oligarchs and plutocrats. We want to be part of the fightback, and there’s millions out there who want to be part of the fightback, as the oligarchs and plutocrats attempt to squeeze all of the democratic juices out of the American social experiment ... So black folk find themselves in a dilemma: how do we protect [President Barack Obama] against the right-wing attacks and at the same time keep him accountable, especially when it comes to poor and working people? Unfortunately, Tim Geithner and [the Obama] economic team have nothing to do with the legacy of Martin King, have indifference toward poor and working people. [POTUS] listens to them, hence he’s rightly associated much more with the oligarchs than with poor people. We hope he changes his mind. We hope he gets a progressive economic team ..."A Declaration of War on the Poor": Cornel West and Tavis Smiley on the Debt Ceiling Agreement, Democracy Now, 8-9-10
Plutocracy Does Not "Promote the General Welfare." Foolish Military Adventures Do Not "Provide for the Common Defense."
By Richard Power
Consider our current dysfunction.
The Ayn Rand/Aryan Christ Cult formerly known as the Republican Party distorts POTUS into what they want him to be, i.e., a radical, anti-American, leftist; meanwhile, POTUS contorts himself into what Wall St wants him to be, i.e., what used to be called a moderate Republican in the 1990s. And so REALITY, with its legendary liberal bias, has been marginalized, along with the majority of the American people, who favor raising taxes on the rich and protecting Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid from corporatist raiders.
Listen, corporations are not people, and money is not speech. (Go to Move to Amend to act!)
It is not "austerity" that we need, it is sustainability.
Robert Reich who has been talking to people in the administration, says that there has been a deliberate decision to focus on the wrong issues, knowing that they’re the wrong issues ... And in Europe, says Kantoos Economics, a low inflation target has become a sacred icon even though all evidence – including the experience under the gold standard! — says that this will be fatal ... I’m still trying to make sense of this global intellectual failure. But the results are not in question: we are making a total mess of a solvable problem, with consequences that will haunt us for decades to come ... Paul Krugman, Economists Agree: Failed Policies 'Making a Total Mess of a Solvable Problem', New York Times, 8-10-11
If not spent on the good, "wealth" creates nothing but misery for all (including the wealthy in the end). Plutocracy does not "promote the General Welfare." Foolish military adventures do not ""provide for the Common Defense."
While 68.3 million Americans struggle to get enough food to eat and wages are declining for 90 percent of the population, US millionaire household wealth has reached an unprecedented level. According to an extensive study by auditing and financial advisory firm Deloitte, US millionaire households now have $38.6 trillion in wealth. On top of the $38.6 trillion this study reveals, they have an estimated $6.3 trillion hidden in offshore accounts.
In total, US millionaire households have at least $45.9 trillion in wealth, the majority of this wealth is held within the upper one-tenth of one percent of the population. David DeGraw, Meet the Global Financial Elites Controlling $46 Trillion In Wealth, AlterNet, 8-11-11
The human race can either choose to consciously evolve away from these absurd notions and harmful behaviors, or Gaia will choose to consciously evolve away from us.
But we continue to drive our "civilization" with fossil fuels instead of clean, renewable resources (e.g., sun, wind, tides, geothermal); in the process, we are destroying the planetary climate on which we depend. Likewise, we continue to predicate our political and economic life on the barbarism of corporatism and predatory capitalism.
A true civilization would be predicated on the oneness of all life and fueled by green energy. This is the future to articulate, and to live toward, collectively and individually.
Canada and the United States are now the center of Bizarro World. This is where leaders promise to reduce carbon emissions but ensure a new, super-sized oil pipeline called Keystone XL is built, guaranteeing further expansion of the Alberta tar sands that produce the world's most carbon-laden oil. "It's imperative that we move quickly to alternate forms of energy - and that we leave the tar sands in the ground," the U.S.'s leading climate scientists urged President Barack Obama in an open letter Aug. 3. "As scientists... we can say categorically that it's [the Keystone XL pipeline] not only not in the national interest, it's also not in the planet's best interest." The letter was signed by 20 world-renowned scientists, including NASA's James Hansen, Ken Caldeira of the Carnegie Institution, Ralph Keeling of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, and George Woodwell, founder of the Woods Hole Research Center. Stephen Leahy, Welcome to Bizarro World, Inter Press Service, 8-11-11
Do you know why 350 is the most important number in your life and the lives of everyone you love? Go to 350.org for the answer.
Richard Power's seventh book, Between Shadow and Night: The Singularity in Anticipation of Itself, is now available. Here are links to purchase it from Amazon.com, or from CreateSpace.