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Martin Luther King Was a Radical, Not a Saint

The official US beatification of Martin Luther King has come at the heavy price of silence about his radical espousal of economic justice and anticolonialism….We haven’t gotten there yet. But Dr. King is still with us in spirit. The best way to honor his memory is to continue the struggle for human dignity, workers’ rights, racial equality, peace and social justice.

2014-01-21 chasdarwinLeave a comment

Source: Truthout

Author: Peter Dreier

“In fact, King was a radical. He believed that America needed a “radical redistribution of economic and political power.” He challenged America’s class system and its racial caste system. He was a strong ally of the nation’s labor union movement. He was assassinated in April 1968 in Memphis, where he had gone to support a sanitation workers’ strike. He opposed US militarism and imperialism, especially the country’s misadventure in Vietnam…

It is often forgotten that the August 1963 protest rally at the Lincoln Memorial, where King delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” speech, was called the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. King was proud of the civil rights movement’s success in winning the passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1964 and the Voting Rights Act the following year. But he realized that neither law did much to provide better jobs or housing for the masses of black poor in either the urban cities or the rural South. “What good is having the right to sit at a lunch counter,” he asked, “if you can’t afford to buy a hamburger?”

These experiences led King to develop a more radical outlook. King supported President Lyndon B. Johnson’s declaration of the War on Poverty in 1964, but, like his friend and ally Walter Reuther, the president of the United Auto Workers, King thought that it did not go nearly far enough. As early as October 1964, he called for a “gigantic Marshall Plan” for the poor – black and white. Two months later, accepting the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, he observed that the United States could learn much from Scandinavian “democratic socialism.” He began talking openly about the need to confront “class issues,” which he described as “the gulf between the haves and the have-nots.”

This essay is adapted from the entry for Martin Luther King in Peter Dreier’s book, The 100 Greatest Americans of the 20th Century: A Social Justice Hall of Fame.

Emphasis Mine.

See: http://truth-out.org/news/item/21281-martin-luther-king-was-a-radical-not-a-saint

Sunni politician: U.S. broke Iraq, is morally obligated to fix it Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2014/01/14/214495/sunni-politician-us-broke-iraq.html#emlnl=World_Newsletter#storylink=cpy

2014-01-15 chasdarwinLeave a comment

source: McClatchy

authors:HANNAH ALLAM AND MOHAMMED AL DULAIMY

(N.B.: file under Separation of Church/State…)

“One of Iraq’s top Sunni Muslim leaders on Tuesday delivered a pointed message to Washington: The United States has a moral responsibility to help defeat Iraq’s twin ills of sectarianism and terrorism because those forces were unleashed by the U.S.-led invasion of 2003.

Deputy Prime Minister Saleh Mutlaq repeatedly warned that it would be impossible to conquer a deadly resurgence of al Qaida in the country’s Anbar province without simultaneously pushing for a more representative government than the one led by Nouri al Maliki, the Shiite Muslim prime minister who’s enraged Sunnis with sectarian rhetoric and policies.

So far, the Obama administration has expedited weapons deliveries to Maliki and dispatched envoys to nudge him toward reaching out to Sunnis, but the efforts have done little to thwart al Qaida, which remains in control of Fallujah, the Anbar city that was the scene of the bloodiest battle of the American-led occupation of Iraq.

Mutlaq warned that there would be no peace in Iraq until legitimate Sunni grievances are addressed with reforms to include more Sunnis in security and other government posts and until there’s a crackdown on politicians’ inflammatory sectarian rhetoric. He stuck to this theme in interviews, a Wall Street Journal opinion piece and an appearance at the U.S. Institute of Peace, where the audience looked like a reunion of U.S. occupation-era policymakers and strategists.

“Arming the Iraqi army is not enough on its own,” Mutlaq said in his speech at the U.S. Institute of Peace. “A cohesive society also is needed to fight terrorism, and if you don’t have these two factors, things will be very difficult. And, as you know, the American army with all its might couldn’t defeat al Qaida without the cooperation of the local people.”

Mutlaq was referring to the movement known as the Sons of Iraq, a tribal backlash against al Qaida in Anbar province that U.S. military commanders say was instrumental in the campaign to rout militants from their strongholds there.

Today, however, tribesmen in Fallujah and other Anbar hubs say they’re divided because they lack reliable allies from a pool that includes the openly anti-Sunni government, Sunni politicians who lack street credibility and al Qaida militants whose promises of protection always turn into takeovers. The effort is also hurt because al Qaida’s Islamic State of Iraq and Syria has established a major presence in Syria and can move its forces back and forth across the Syria-Iraq border largely without challenge.

In telephone interviews, residents of Anbar echoed Mutlaq’s talking points but said they no longer viewed him as a legitimate envoy for their concerns because he’d refused to resign from the Maliki administration. Tribal leaders said Mutlaq should have consulted with them about their priorities before he went to Washington representing the Sunni population.

Some Anbar residents say the U.S. silence as Maliki’s forces target residential areas, ostensibly to flush out al Qaida militants, amounts to ingratitude for their help in battles against jihadists in late 2005.

Suhaib al Mihamdi, an engineer and housing project manager whose offices were destroyed in recent fighting in Fallujah, said the United States was making a mistake in supporting Maliki’s “sectarian” government by “giving him weapons to kill us, to kill those who defeated al Qaida from 2005 to 2007.” Mihamdi said the U.S.-trained Iraqi army’s No. 1 mission now was attacking Sunnis.

“They are pushing Sunnis into a corner and leaving them with no allies but the devil, al Qaida, in order to protect themselves from being massacred by both the Iraqi army and the Shiite militias that are free to detain and kill Sunnis,” Mihamdi said.

Anbar residents, reached by phone from the United States, suggested that rather than consulting with someone like Mutlaq, a Baghdad insider, U.S. officials should reach out to new tribal councils that are struggling to contain the violence.

More than 60 people have been killed in clashes between militants and security forces that erupted after the arrest of a Sunni legislator and the dismantling of a protest camp in the provincial capital of Ramadi last month. The spate of violence is described as the worst unrest since the sectarian bloodshed of 2008.

“We hope that the American administration will pressure Maliki to release the thousands of innocent prisoners and to answer the demands of demonstrators that participated in a peaceful protest for over a year,” said Sheikh Khalid Daham, a tribal leader in Fallujah who’s been active in council efforts to quell the violence. “We need the U.S. to help us make the Iraqi government listen to the voice of logic.”

Maliki has stuck to a hard line, insisting the battle is against terrorists and that he won’t negotiate. Even a visit this week by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon didn’t seem to sway the prime minister. Ban urged the government to address the “root causes” of the violence; Maliki said dialogue with militants wasn’t an option.

It’s unclear whether the United States would have much better luck at encouraging Maliki to make overtures to reassure Sunnis that his campaign is targeting extremists, not the sect in general.

Iraq’s violence is so diffuse and complex that even when they occupied the fortified Green Zone in Baghdad, Americans officials had only had limited influence with real power brokers. Then U.S. troops withdrew from Iraq in 2011 without a “status of forces agreement” under which some Americans would stay as trainers and advisers. The parties failed to strike a deal and the talks collapsed.

Mutlaq, at the U.S. Institute of Peace, shrugged off the breakdown with two words: “It happened.” The absence of a bilateral agreement, he argued, didn’t absolve the United States from its moral responsibility toward Iraq. Instead of just taking out Saddam Hussein’s regime, he said, the United States “destroyed” the country.

Anbar residents worry that the sectarianism of the government is so institutionalized now that any efforts, whether by the United States or others, are doomed to fail. They say they’re desperate to fight the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria – the local al Qaida branch, which one resident described as “alien to our customs and traditions” – but are afraid to take up arms without reassurance that they won’t face an Iraqi military backlash against all Sunnis.

“America must pressure Maliki – and I’m afraid it’s too late – to open dialogue with the newly formed military councils that are now fighting the Iraqi army. They need guarantees so they will turn their weapons against the Islamic State,” said a former high-ranking army officer from Fallujah, who spoke only on the condition of anonymity for fear of government retaliation.

U.S. observers of Iraq offer mixed views on how the Obama administration should deal with the flare-up in the country. Generally, one camp advocates full-throttle support for Maliki because it’s in the U.S. interest to pursue al Qaida, even if it means ignoring its partner’s authoritarian tendencies. The other camp counters that it’s precisely Maliki’s dictator-in-training behavior that pushes Sunnis toward the dubious “protection” of al Qaida.

Anthony Cordesman, a former senior defense official who’s now with the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, wrote in an opinion piece this week that “far too much of the evidence points to Prime Minister Maliki as an equal threat to Iraq and to U.S. interests.”

“Ever since the 2010 election,” Cordesman wrote, “he has become steadily more repressive, manipulated Iraq’s security forces to serve his own interests and created a growing Sunni resistance to his practice of using Shiite political support to gain his own advantage.”

McClatchy special correspondent Dulaimy reported from Columbia, S.C.

Emphasis Mine

see: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2014/01/14/214495/sunni-politician-us-broke-iraq.html#emlnl=World_Newsletter

Surprise! Right-Wing Buffoonery Continues in 2014: Pope Pisses Off Rich Republicans Edition

2014-01-05 chasdarwinLeave a comment

Source: Alternet

Author: Janet Allon

1. Ken Langone: Pope Francis, stop pissing off rich people… or else.

Pope Francis has been shaking a lot of conservative Christians up by de-emphasizing the church’s view of gays and atheists as sinners. But the people he is upsetting the most are super-rich so-called Christians, who apparently had no idea that this Jesus fellow was so sympathetic to the poor and downtrodden. And the Pope’s indictment of greed and the implication that trickledown economics doesn’t work, and isn’t something Jesus would condone, is just a step too far.

Them’s fighting words to billionaire Home Depot founder Ken Langone, who issued a warning to the poverty-conscious pontiff this week. In a nutshell, Langone said, shut up with your criticisms of rich capitalists or we’re not going to give any more money to charity. One of Langone’s favorite charities is the Republican Party, so no great loss there. But Langone also said “his friends” might be less inclined to give money for the restoration of St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York if that mean old pope does not stop hurting their feelings by saying they lack compassion for the poor.

Right, the old “my friends” story. And where is people’s compassion for the rich? Meanies.

2. David Brooks: Don’t legalize it, even though I got to smoke it, and yeah, it was pretty fun, but….

Apparently, David Brooks is a haunted man. See, way before he became a conservative columnist for theNew York Times, he made an embarrassing speech in a class. The reason: that ole devil weed. He smoked it at lunch and was too stoned to function in English class.

The memory of that embarrassing episode still keeps Brooks up at night sometimes. He would very much like to help prevent other teenagers from having bad memories like that. He would also like to prevent teenagers (and others) from having the silly fun and bonding experiences he admits he had while smoking pot as a youth. Curiously, he is less concerned about preventing kids, especially and statistically, black kids, from having nightmarish, life-ruining experiences with the criminal justice system after being caught with even small amounts of pot. His main point is that although he smoked it, and kind of liked it at one point, other people shouldn’t be able to because they won’t be able to modulate their use like he was able to. And they won’t pursue higher moral pleasures, like being David Brooks.

3. Maine GOP senate candidate: The system is terribly unfair to domestic abusers, like me.

Integrity. That’s something we can all agree Washington is sorely in need of. We might however have different ideas about what constitutes integrity. For Erick Bennett, who is running in the primary against Senator Susan Collins, serving time in jail for assaulting his now ex-wife proves he has integrity.

“The fact that I have been jailed repeatedly for not agreeing to admit to something I didn’t do should speak to the fact of how much guts and integrity I have,” he explained to the Bangor Daily News. “If I go to D.C., I’m going to have that same integrity in doing what I say, and saying what I do, when it comes to protecting people’s rights, as well as their pocketbooks.”

Bennett is a fighter, all right. He battled his conviction all the way until the Maine Supreme Judicial Court shut him down in 2004, denying his claim that the court treated him unfairly. He’s going as far as he can with this line of argument, saying his opponent supports the system that railroads innocent men facing domestic abuse charges.

Salon’s Katie McDonough reported that to show he isn’t a single-issue misogynist, Bennett has also called Maine Rep. Michael Michaud a “closet homo.”

That’s integrity, all right.

4. Donald Trump and Stu Varney: Global cooling has been proven by the recent chilly weather.

As we all know, Donald Trump and Fox Business anchor Stu Varney are PhD climate scientists and have dedicated themselves for years to the close observation of snowfall in Central Park. Both habitual climate change deniers were considerably cheered this week by weather news they claim proves approximately 100 percent of the scientific community is wrong. Trump, whose preferred method of communicating his philosophy is Twitter, spewed: “This very expensive GLOBAL WARMING bullshit has got to stop. Our planet is freezing, record low temps, and our GW scientists are stuck in ice.”

Previously, a snowy winter inspired Trump to demand that Al Gore’s Nobel prize be rescinded.

Stu Varney similarly crowed this week that his theory of “global cooling” had been once and for all proven correct. Unable to suppress his trademark smirk, Varney said. “The ship, sent to the Antarctic to study climate change, has been stranded in the ice for 10 days. Attempts to rescue the passengers using ice breaker ships failed. Rescuers finally got through using a whopping, great big helicopter that was landing on the supposedly, very thin ice…. So, it looks to me like we are looking at global cooling. Forget this global warming. That’s just my opinion.”

We can only assume they both enjoyed the snowstorm on the East Coast this week, very, very much.

5. WSJ’s retired David Wessel: I was wrong about, well, basically, everything. Oops!

One of theWall Street Journal’s best-known economic columnists, David Wessel, wrote his swan song column this week, in which he admitted making at least two big mistakes in his 25 years at the paper during which he was a staunch defender of unfettered American capitalism. Oops, the middle class is not actually better off; and oops, Wall Street is capable of causing a global financial crisis.

Wow! Those would seem to be pretty big mistakes for an economic columnist. Kind of important, too. Wonder how long he was keeping those under his hat.

“Looking back over that quarter-century, four surprises stand out,” his New Year’s Day columnsaid, starting with “the middle-class hasn’t done better,” a claim he had painstakingly made in books and columns. He wrote:

Where did the money go? Disproportionately to the best off, the best educated, the two-professional couples, the winners on Wall Street and in Silicon Valley. Technology and globalization favored the best-educated. The rise of finance paid some handsomely. Earnings of those at the top of almost every field rose faster than at the middle.

Two of his other big “surprises” were China’s economic explosion and the fact that the 9/11 attacks in 2001 didn’t have a “longer-lasting harmful economic effect.”

But his other big mea culpa concerned the financial market’s supposed inability to cause great economic dislocations after indulging in greed-driven bubbles. Amazingly, Wessel said he and other economists thought that would never happen.

One of few things on which most economists and policy makers agreed in 1987 was that the U.S. would never be threatened by anything resembling the Great Depression….

That was wrong. The 2007-’09 financial crisis shattered the illusion that the U.S. had a well-regulated or well-managed financial system or that it could absorb a financial hit

I wonder if Wessel’s new bosses, at the Brookings Institution where he’ll be the new director of the Hutchins Center on Fiscal and Monetary Policy, know he’s sounding practically like a socialist.

6. Anti-LGBT hater/crusaders: ‘Trans-people are circus freaks.’

LGBT haters had a tough week, what with Robin Roberts’ coming out and being shown all that love by everybody. Then there’s the apparently unstoppable-even-in-Utah march toward marriage equality. It’s all just a little too much for Peter LaBarbera, director of Americans for the Truth (ha!) About Homosexuality. In a radio interview, he spewed all the bigoted venom he could muster, disparaging Roberts, calling transgendered people “satanic” and saying the “homosexual so-called marriage movement” is a force of “evil” designed to “corrupt children.”

His host, Vic Eliason of Voice of Christian Youth (VCY) America’s radio show on Thursday joined right in, upping the ante by calling transgender people “circus freaks” and agreeing with LaBarbera that “Satan” is working through them.

“Every coming out is a tragedy,” LaBarbera said regarding Roberts. Even Michelle Obama, he sighed, is in on the pro-homosexual agenda, which he likened to “evil empire.”

These are not nice people, and perhaps we shouldn’t be shocked. But we can’t help it — we still are.

7. William Gheen: I’m not a racist. I just think white rule is best.

Gheen is head of a rabid anti-immigrant group called Americans for Legal Immigration (ALIPAC). And he’s extremely worried that immigration reform might be on the agenda in the new year. But it hurts his feelings when people call him a racist because of his anti-immigrationist views. He is not a racist, he explained to a radio host in Idaho this week — he’s just against the people who are trying to change America’s history of being “predominently governed by people of European descendancy.” And by that, he doesn’t mean whities, although those are the people of European descent.

And it isn’t racist.

How could you even think that?

8. Another anti-immigrationist: Hispanics lack strong family values.

The Center for Immigration Studies is sometimes portrayed as a more sober think-tanky anti-immigration group, if such a thing exists. But it showed its true racist colors this week whensenior policy analyst Stephen Steinlight, according to Right-Wing Watch, told a Washington Timescommunities blogger that immigration reform would cause “the unmaking of America” because it “would subvert our political life by destroying the Republican Party” and turn the United States into a one-party state similar to Mexico under the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI).

Sounds like he’s a teensy bit nervous.

Hispanics, he went on to claim, “don’t exemplify ‘strong family values’” due to “illegitimacy” rates and “anti-social behavior such as teenage child-bearing….”

Just remember, up is down, black is white. That will help you understand what these people are saying.

Pope invites atheists to desire peace; atheist responds

2014-01-03 chasdarwinLeave a comment

Source: The Examiner

Author: Stacks Rosch

Emphasis Mine

During his first Christmas message, Pope Francis called for people of all faiths to pray for peace throughout the world. He even invited atheists to join with believers in a desire for peace. Invitation accepted!

The overwhelming majority of atheists within the greater atheist/humanist community have a strong desire for peace and justice throughout the world. But we also have more than that. Because we understand that this world is the only world we have; we not only desire peace and justice, but actively work toward those aims. As an atheist, I formally invite the Pope to do more than pray or desire peace, but to actively work toward both peace and justice in a few major ways.

First, effective immediately the Pope can release the names of every priest and Vatican employee who has ever been transferred around the globe as an attempt to avoid prosecution for sex crimes. He can stop shielding these people and allow the criminal justice systems in local areas around the world take their course. He can then turn over the Pope Emeritus to the world court for prosecution on the charge of obstruction of justice.

Second, he can admit that the use of condoms actually will prevent the spread of AIDS in 99% of cases. He can still talk about how abstinence is the best prevention, but he should admit that condoms work and help distribute them to those who would like them – especially in Africa where millions of people are dying from AIDS. Hell, the Pope can even give outcondoms with the former Pope’s picture on them.

Third, the Pope can do more than a few photo-ops to show how much he cares about the poor. He can take comedian Sarah Silverman’s advice to “Sell the Vatican, feed the world.” Okay, that may be a bit extreme, but he can certainly downsize the Vatican… a lot and donate those funds (no strings attached) to various secular charity organizations like the Red Cross and Doctors Without Borders. Doing this rather than using the current Catholic charities will reassure the non-theist community that he is in this for the right reasons and not to just proselytize in the name of charity.

There are of course many other things he can do, but these three would be a huge start. If he really wanted to score some bonus points on helping to make the world a better place, he can officially declare that homosexuality is no longer a sin and that women are equal to men and ought to have equal rights in the church – including the right to become a priest. Doing that would send a huge message and it would take almost no effort on his part – just a short speech declaring that God in an act of supreme grace has changed his mind on the whole gay is an abomination thing and the whole women shouldn’t be allowed to teach thing. He is the Pope after all; he can do that, right?

I can’t speak for all atheists, but this atheist would also like to invite the Pope to join us in the 21st century. I know I am asking too much here, but maybe the Pope should just admit that God doesn’t really exist and that we should just be kind and decent to people for goodness sake instead of out of the greed of Heaven and/or the fear of Hell.

This Pope seems like a progressive sort, but these ancient superstitions really aren’t doing humanity any favors. Pope Francis seems to be on the right track by gaining authority by his words instead of relying on his title, but I think he should take the leap of faith (if you will) and go all the way. I think he should renounce his supernatural beliefs and see if people will respect and follow him on his own merits. I actually think they might – consider the current Dali Lama as an example. His words don’t just carry sway with Tibetan Buddhists – millions of people of various religions and no-religion respect him for his insight and wisdom and not because he is alleged to be the Buddha incarnate. I invite the Pope to aspire to be that too.

As the New Year begins, let us work together to bring about positive change in the world. We can’t just pray for it or desire it – we have to actually work for it.

Please check out the Atheism 101 series for frequently asked topics.

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See: http://www.examiner.com/article/pope-invites-atheists-to-desire-peace-atheist-responds?CID=examiner_alerts_article

Fox News’ 5 Worst Moments of 2013

It was another banner year for Rupert Murdoch’s propaganda shop. Here are the most cringeworthy moments.

2014-01-01 chasdarwinLeave a comment

Source: Salon, via AlterNet

Author: Elias Isquith

“Along with death and taxes, Fox News is one of the few things we can depend on in this world. Just as the sun rises and sets, it’s a given that, over the course of 12 months, many ridiculous, offensive, stupid and bewildering things will be said by persons seated in front of a Fox News studio camera. Whether it’s from the hosts, guests or mere contributors, you can be assured that someone is going to say something that was better left unsaid.

With that in mind, join us as we go through some of the lowest lows from Fox News, moments to remind us that when it comes to lizard-brained inanity, no one holds a candle to the guys and gals at Fox.

5. Bill O’Reilly says Asians aren’t liberals because they’re “industrious and hard-working.”

O’Reilly may be considerably less relevant today than he was around 10 years ago — but he’s still totally racist! While this aside about Asian people isn’t quite so outlandishly bigoted as his infamous recollection of that one time he ate at a place with black people, it’s still a brain-dead comment founded entirely on a racial stereotype. And, in fact, it’s kind of doubly (or triply) racist because it implies that people who vote for liberal politicians are not industrious or hard-working. Other than that, though, it was a totally defensible thing to say.

4. Megyn Kelly insists Santa Claus is white.

As Salon’s Daniel D’Addario has argued, Kelly is basically a slicker version of Bill O’Reilly, so it shouldn’t come a surprise to find her world rocked by the possibility that a fictional character isn’t necessarily white. Yet there’s something remarkable about seeing a grown person, someone who is supposedly relatively sophisticated, so overcome with cultural panic. And while Kelly’s non-apology apology, in which she accused her critics of race-baiting, was arguably more offensive, the original meltdown makes this list for so deftly mixing the ridiculous with the absurd.

3. Ben Carson compares LBGTQ people to NAMBLA, bestiality supporters.

For Ben Carson — who, in another life, was a very respected and successful neurosurgeon — 2013 was a breakout year. With his anti-Obama speech at the National Prayer Breakfast, Carson became one of the right’s favorite new talking heads. At one point, the Wall Street Journal even urged him to run for president. Unfortunately, Carson soon revealed himself to be more paranoid than presidential, likening LGBTQ people to all manner of sexual criminals. Subsequent comments would make clear that this was not a one-off from Carson; when it comes to politics, he really is this terrible.

2. Geraldo Rivera says jurors would have shot Trayvon Martin sooner than Zimmerman did.

Geraldo Rivera is just the worst, and his coverage of the Trayvon Martin trial was him at this worst. Rarely has one man had such an extended freakout over one article of clothing as did Rivera concerning Martin’s hoodie. What makes this moment of Rivera’s life all the more regrettable, though, is the way he just blithely assumes everyone else (especially women, it seems) is as deathly terrified of young black men as he is. Extra cringe points to Steve Doocy’s “Wow!” in response to Rivera’s assertion.

1. Lauren Green interviews Reza Aslan, can’t figure out why a Muslim would write a book about Jesus.

With the possible exception of Megyn Kelly’s white Santa comments (delivered during a slow news day, not incidentally) no Fox News moment garnered more attention — and outrage — than Lauren Green’s brutally embarrassing and ignorant interview of Reza Aslan. Aslan was there to talk about his book “Zealot,” a historical work about the Jesus. The whole thing is just torturous to watch, but the absolute, no doubt, rock-bottom, worst-of-the-worst moment is probably when Green compares a Muslim writing about Jesus to a Democrat writing about Reagan. Say this much for the segment, though: It’s the kind of thing you only really get at Fox News. Thank god for that.”

Emphasis Mine

See: http://admin.alternet.org/tea-party-and-right/fox-news-5-worst-moments-2013?akid=11355.123424.OgihRc&rd=1&src=newsletter942117&t=7

How Rev. Billy Graham Taught the Republican Party to Sacrifice the Poor on the Altar of Big-Business

2013-12-18 chasdarwinLeave a comment

Source: AlterNet

Author: C J Wehrleman

Since turning 95 last month, Reverend Billy Graham’s health has deteriorated, and judging by his family’s call for prayers, his life is nearing its end. Many things will be written about Graham’s life by both disciples and his detractors, but if you want to know where the base of today’s Republican Party—the Christian Right—gets its mojo, look no further than this Southern Baptist preacher.

The genetic makeup of the GOP is one chromosome away from Graham’s DNA. Today’s Republican Party is a neo-Confederate pro-corporation movement, thanks to the supposed life-long Democrat (when he wasn’t endorsing Mitt Romney)—the Reverend Billy Graham. A childhood friend of Richard Nixon’s it was Graham who helped the disgraced president articulate the “Southern Strategy,” which won Nixon the White House in 1968.

Steven P. Miller, author of Billy Graham and the Rise of the Republican South,writes that it was Graham’s public relationship with Southern Baptist ministers, and quips like, “Prejudice is not just a sectional problem” and “Criticism of the South is one of the most popular indoor sports of some Northerners these days,” that made him an much-loved figure among his fellow Southerners. Miller also says that Graham’s evangelical understanding of the sins of racism allowed many white Southerners to declare themselves absolved from past guilt.

Millennials can be forgiven for mistakenly thinking the Christian Right has been the main strain of the GOP since ad infinitum. It hasn’t. The Christian Right is still a relatively new dynamic on the American political landscape. Prior to the election of Jimmy Carter in 1976, no serious presidential candidate ever claimed to have been “born again,” and the emphasis of faith for a politician seeking high office was as rare then as a candidate declaring his atheism is today.

But something weird happened on the way to the forum. Religious fundamentalists banded together to oppose Jimmy Carter’s 1980 reelection campaign (Carter was a Southern Baptist), and in turn, put their support behind Ronald Reagan, who was a divorced Hollywood actor. This strange coalition on the right became a movement better known as the Moral Majority, and Billy Graham and Jerry Falwell were the tip of the sword.

The Moral Majority surprised nearly everyone by helping sweep Reagan into the White House. The Sarasota Journal wrote as much on Feb 9, 1981: “The merging of the political right with the religious right has taken the country by surprise.”

Until then, not even your most casual political observer believed that conservative Christians could or would play a pivotal role in shaping the outcome of elections. Screenplay writer Norman Lear said at the time, “The Moral Majority is neither the moral point of view, nor the majority.”

With help from the likes of Pat Robertson and a coalition of anti-gay, anti-Muslim, anti-feminist, and anti-ACLU networks, the Moral Majority became the Christian Right. While Graham publicly distanced himself from the Moral Majority, this was done purely for political optics. The media’s gullibility in falling for the “genteel, bipartisan, apolitical preacher” narrative gave Graham’s voice even more political clout.

Graham was a skillful orator, and he adeptly infused the teachings of Ayn Rand with those of Jesus Christ. In the Bible, Jesus says, “The meek shall inherit the earth,” and urges his followers, “To sell what you have and give to the poor.” But Graham, with the biggest Christian following in America during the ’80s,

But something weird happened on the way to the forum. Religious fundamentalists banded together to oppose Jimmy Carter’s 1980 reelection campaign (Carter was a Southern Baptist), and in turn, put their support behind Ronald Reagan, who was a divorced Hollywood actor. This strange coalition on the right became a movement better known as the Moral Majority, and Billy Graham and Jerry Falwell were the tip of the sword.

Where Bible Jesus feeds the masses with two loaves of bread, Ayn Randian Jesus says, “Bugger off, this bread is mine, you lazy moochers.” While Graham removed Southern Christians’ guilt over segregation, Ayn Rand removed the Christian Right’s guilt for being selfish and uncaring about anyone except themselves. Bruce E. Levine, author of Get Up, Stand Up: Uniting Populists, Energizing the Defeated, and Battling the Corporate Elite [4], wrote on AlterNet, “Not only did Rand make it ‘moral’ for the wealthy not to pay their fair share of taxes, she ‘liberated’ millions of other Americans from caring about the suffering of others, even the suffering of their own children.”

With the explosion of cable television, Graham turned his church into a mega money-making empire for himself. The self-proclaimed political non-partisan also turned his massive flock into a loyal legion of storm troopers for the Republican Party. Today, Graham’s son, Franklin, is the CEO of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. He has continued his father’s legacy of being a shill and supporter of far-right pro-corporate causes while pulling down a $600,000 salary.

On the eve of the 2012 election, the younger Graham bragged that it was his father’s appearance with George W. Bush at a rally in Florida which won the Texas governor the presidency in 2000.

In endorsing Mitt Romney, Billy Graham said, “I believe it is vitally important that we cast our ballots for candidates who base their decisions on biblical principles and support the nation of Israel. I urge you to vote for those who protect the sanctity of life and support the biblical definition of marriage between a man and a woman. Vote for biblical values this November 6, and pray with me that America will remain one nation under God.”

Today, evangelism is synonymous with sacrificing the poor on the altar of big-business’ interests and is becoming the most reliable and agitated voting bloc of the Republican Party since the election of Reagan. We can rightfully accuse the Christian Right of ushering in three decades of failed trickle-down economics, which has made this nation one of the most wealth-disparate of the developed countries. It’s the political descendants of Graham who shut down the government with their radical Jesus said replace every government-funded service with a for-profit corporation ideology.

Graham’s coalition of hate also put social issues front and square in the GOP primary process, and no one was more hateful than Graham. White House tapes recorded him openly telling President Nixon he believed that the Jews had a “stranglehold on the American media” and that “this Jewish stranglehold has got to be broken or the country’s going down the drain.”

The National Archive tapes reveal the nation’s best-known preacher in agreement with a stream of bigoted Nixon comments about Jews and their perceived influence on American life. “If you get elected a second time, then we might be able to do something. There also the ones putting out the pornographic stuff,” said Graham. To which Nixon replied, “the Jews are an irreligious, atheistic, immoral bunch of bastards.”

Repeatedly, Graham’s judgment was found wanting, yet politicians on both sides seek his and/or his family’s approval and photo-ops, which shows how far the Christian Right has pulled this country to the right since 1980.

Graham blames today’s economic doldrums on God punishing the nation for its growing secularization and what he perceives to be an increase in immorality. “I don’t see our country turning to God…Maybe he will have to bring this country down economically before we turn our hearts back to God. We need to repent.”

Come the 2016 campaign season, when the likes of Rand Paul, Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry, and Rick Santorum talk about how “Christianity is under attack” and how the “takers” are destroying America, it will be Billy Graham’s shadow you have to blame for that.

Emphasis Mine

see: http://www.alternet.org/tea-party-and-right/how-rev-billy-graham-taught-republican-party-it-could-sacrifice-poor-altar-big?akid=11287.123424.rDZ6dc&rd=1&src=newsletter937898&t=5

The Eight Worst Conservative Responses To Nelson Mandela’s Death

2013-12-10 chasdarwinLeave a comment

Source: Ourfuture.org

Author: Terrance Heath

” 1. “Don’t mourn for Mandela.”

In his December 6 column, WorldNetDaily editor-in-chief Joseph Farah told his readers, “Don’t mourn for Mandela.” After acknowledging that apartheid was “inarguably an evil and unjustifiable system,” Farah went on to claim that Mandela brought about a system “in which anti-white racism is so strong today that a prominent genocide watchdog group has labeled the current situation a “precursor” to the deliberate, systematic elimination of the race.”

In just a few sentences, Farah managed to make Mandela’s death all about white people. It’s impressive, in a kind of stomach-turning way.

2. “He was a great man, but he was a communist.”

Bill O’Reilly and Rick Santorum called Mandela a “great man,” but also a “communist.

Pajama’s Media got in on the fun with a headline that also called Mandela a “communist.”

It’s reminiscent of the old segregationist billboard labeling Martin Luther King Jr. a “communist.”

3. “Obamacare is like apartheid.”

Rich Santorum Insulted the memory of countless black South Africans who perished under apartheid, when he compared the Affordable Care Act to apartheid, and said Mandela would have opposed Obamacare.

Spoken like someone who has no idea what life under apartheid was like. Because a system that demeaned, dehumanized, and degraded generations of black South Africans is exactly like a system that brings health care coverage to millions who were uninsured, because they were too poor to afford private health insurance, but not poor enough to qualify for Medicaid.

Wrong again. South Africa has a socialized health care system.

4. Ted Cruz Slammed by Conservative Base For Honoring Mandela

It’s almost enough to make you feel sorry for Sen. Ted Cruz (R, TX). The man who held a 21-hour filibuster-about-nothing and got away with it, really stepped it when he eulogized Mandela on his Facebook page, saying that Mandela was “an inspiration for defenders of liberty around the globe… Because of his epic fight against injustice, an entire nation is now free.”

Sen. Cruz’s Facebook Fans were not amused.

To his credit, Sen. Cruz’s office defended, which currently has over 500,000 likes.

5. Gingrich Gets Slammed on Facebook

Sen. Cruz is not alone. Former House Speaker and GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich was slammed by Facebook commenters when he praised Mandela on his Facebook page. Gingrich later claimed to be “surprised” by the vehement reactions.

This from a guy who played the race card every chance he got during his presidential run.

Gingrich later accused the “left” of turning Mandela’s death into an opportunity to “smear” Reagan.

(N.B.: Reagan opposed sanctions against South Africa, and vetoed the law (which veto was over ridden).

6. Dick Cheney Would Still Vote To Keep Mandela In Prison

In 1986, then Rep. Dick Cheney voted against a resolution calling for the release of Nelson Mandela and the recognition of the African National Congress. In 2013, after Mandela’s death,former Vice President Dick Cheney defended his vote.

Cheney not only voted against the resolution, but voted to uphold Ronald Reagan’s veto.

7. Rush Limbaugh Used Mandela’s Death to Trash The Civil Rights Movement

It should come as no surprise that Rush Limbaugh used Mandela’s death to spew his usual brand of. On Friday, Limbaugh praised Mandela’s forgiveness, only to turn and denounce the American Civil Rights Movement.

Of course, Mandela realized that both truth and reconciliation were necessary if South Africa was to move on. Thus, after apartheid South Africa set up a restorative justice body called theTruth and Reconciliation Commission. The commission held public hearings which were a crucial part of its transition to from minority rule to a flu(sic) and equal democracy. Victims of gross human rights violations under apartheid were invited to give statements, about their experiences. Perpetrators of violence could also give testimony, and request amnesty from civil and criminal prosecution.

Maybe the U.S. needs its own Truth and Reconciliation Commission. What are the chances Limbaugh would embrace that?

8. Westboro Baptist Church Heads to South Africa

Well, we’ve reached the bottom of the barrel, where we find Westboro Baptist Church trying to book flights to Johannesburg, to protest Mandela’s funeral.

Famous for picketing the funeral of dead soldiers, the church says it’s targeting Mandela’s divorce and remarriage as evidence of his “damnation.” Wait until someone tells them that Mandela was also a strong supporter of gay rights.

It’s ironic that some of the worst reactions on the right come the conservative base, in response the attempts of Republicans official to hop on the Mandela bandwagon. Republicans probably hoped that enough time had passed for most Americans to forget that conservatives stood on the wrong side of history when it mattered, on apartheid. But even the GOP base has not forgotten that conservatives called Mandela a terrorist long before they called him a hero.

In 1986, moderate Republicans were thoroughly denounced by conservatives for bucking President Reagan and supporting the Anti-Apartheid Act. Back then, conservatives like Sen. Mitch McConnell (R, KY) preached delay in overturning apartheid. But at least there were someRepublicans who understood the immorality of asking people to continue to endure injustice. Those moderates have largely disappeared from the GOP today.

That’s part of the problem conservatives have with Nelson Mandela. Opposing apartheid was just as much the right thing to do then as it is now, when it’s far easier and safer to denounced a system that was largely defeated without their help.

The other part of the problem is that things Mandela always stood for are decidedly progressive.

He spoke out against the Iraq war in 2003, and criticized then President Bush as “a president who has no foresight, who cannot think properly, is now wanting to plunge the world into a holocaust,” and questioned why the U.S. acted with such arrogance.
He led South Africa to become the first African nation to ban anti-gay discrimination, and embrace marriage quality in its constitution.
He defended workers’ rights and collective bargaining.
He was a committed advocate of women’s rights, and placed gender equality at the top of his agenda declaring, “Freedom cannot be achieved unless women have been emancipated from all forms of oppression.”

And that’s just to name a few.

No wonder the right doesn’t know how to deal with Nelson Mandela. In life, and in death, his legacy exposes that the American right has always stood on the wrong side of history; both American and world history.

Emphasis Mine

see: http://ourfuture.org/20131209/the-eight-worst-conservative-responses-to-nelson-mandelas-death

Walmart Is Not the Bargain You Might Think

“People flock to Walmart for perceived bargains and convenience. Here are some facts that might keep them from adding their hard-earned cash to the profits of a company that’s squashing lives and worker rights worldwide.”

2013-12-08 chasdarwinLeave a comment

Source: Truthout

Author: Maura Stephens

“Next time someone tells you they shop at Walmart because it’s cheap or convenient, share this.

Despite 1,500 protests nationwide against Walmart, the world’s biggest retailerclaimed its most lucrative Black Friday ever in 2013. Our friends and neighbors flock there.

They do – even those who have seen mom-and-pop stores shut down when Walmart moved into town, who miss being able to pick up one or two items and be out of a store in 10 minutes, who personally know Walmart employees relying on food stamps and who have heard how much money the Walton family continues to accumulate.

Walmart is the poster child for how huge corporations have undermined people’s ability to make a living. It does this by sending manufacturing abroad to countries where labor is cheap, at the same time paying its own employees less than a living wage, using other unfair labor practices in numerous locations in the United States, and undercutting locally owned enterprises right out of business. It harms Main Streets and local commerce centers across the country and further drives people to malls.

So why do people go there? When asked this question, Walmart shoppers uniformly respond that “it’s cheap and convenient, and I can’t afford to shop at [other places].”

I’d wager they never saw Robert Greenwald’s chilling 2005 documentary for Brave New Films, Walmart: The High Cost of Low Price, or read some basic facts about Walmart put together in one place. I think they’d feel differently if shown ways to shop that are just as inexpensive. At least I hope so.

Raking It In

In 2012, the world’s largest retailer registered about $466 billion in sales ($13 billion of which went to shareholders). Since its founding in 1962 by Sam Walton, the megalithic privately held corporation has blanketed the USA with more than 4,100 stores and the world with nearly 11,100. It employs 2.2 million people, about 1.3 million in the United States. It’s the 26th-largest economy in the world, bigger thanthose of Belgium, the Philippines, Venezuela, Sweden, Austria and many other prosperous nations.

In 2010, CEO Michael Duke‘s annual salary of $35 million (excluding perks) earned him more in an hour than a full-time employee makes in an entire year – 1,034 times the average worker’s pay. (A longtime employee from outside the Walton clan, Doug McMillon, was named the new CEO in late November 2013, but his compensation figures have not been released.)

The six heirs of Sam Walton have more money than the bottom 41.5 percent – or 48.8 million families – of all Americans, according to an analysis of Federal Reserve data. (And the heirs’ income rose 22 percent during the years 2008-12, while the Forbes 400 lost 19 percent and the rest of us saw our median family wealth drop 38.8 percent.)

So What?

What’s wrong with this? Isn’t it every American’s right to make as much money as possible? If they’re doing a good job, why shouldn’t they be well-compensated?

Let’s say we forget about the family members who were just born into the family of Sam Walton and who inherited the money he’d earned by hard work and crafty planning – the heirs who are expert at shielding their inheritance billions from taxation by taking advantage of (quite legal) tax loopholes set up to benefit billionaires – which Congress apparently won’t even contemplate scrutinizing.

Let’s talk instead only about workers who deserve to be compensated for their hard work – that’s the American dream, after all. Toil and dedication are supposed to pay off with a comfort level that includes a decent home in a safe neighborhood, with reasonably nice furnishings; the ability to put good, healthful food on your family’s table; being able to pay your medical and education bills; having a vehicle or access to public transportation that makes your commute and errand-running simple and convenient; having a little money for entertainment, recreation and retirement savings; and being able to take at least a small vacation annually.

Not too much to expect, is it? Especially if you’re working for the biggest retailer by far on the planet. ( Walmart is huger than the next six retailers combined.)

The median annual salary for a full-time Walmart employee has been estimated at$18,000 to $22,000. In a study commissioned by the (Democratic Party) Committee on Education and the Workforce in 2013 in Wisconsin, Walmart was ranked as the employer with the most workers – 3,216 – on the state’s Medicaid program. Walmart was responsible for 9,207 enrollees, including the children and adult dependents of those workers. Thus the burden of paying for the Walmart employees’ families’ food assistance and medical services falls (estimated at nearly $1 million at one store alone) to their fellow taxpayers.

That’s how Walmart likes it. It’s part of its business model, just as is outsourcing jobs to countries with lower wages.

War on Workers

A CNN Money senior editor calculated in 2013 that Walmart could afford to give all its employees a 50 percent pay raise without hurting its bottom line. But it does not.

Instead, it had 110 or so peaceful protesters (including Santa Claus in Claremont, California) arrested on Black Friday 2013 outside its stores from coast to coast. There were some 1,500 demonstrations altogether, which makes it quite obvious there’s something radically wrong at the house that Sam built. (And the peaceful demonstrators, not the violent brawlers inside, were arrested!)

This all seems pretty unfriendly to the US economy and society – downright unAmerican, in fact.

Black Friday 2012 saw protests by Walmart employees and supporters as well; the movement is growing, as people realize there’s more to fear from slowly starving to death and being squeezed out of affordable housing than from protesting peacefully, even if the latter involves getting arrested.

The employees who were forced to work on Thanksgiving (because “it’s what shoppers want; it’s the retail trend”) had to give up their own time with their friends and families and had no choice in the matter. Do we really need another shopping day that badly?

Shop ‘Til You Drop (Someone)

The entire consumerism culture is personified by Walmart. Remember the employee who was trampled to death a few years ago by shoppers who knocked down the doors on Black Friday to be the first in the store? Apparently #WalMartFights and #BrawlMart were breaking out all over the country this year, too. It’s sickening, and Walmart plays that stuff up.

But many argue in defense of their use of Walmart (which now, thanks to the same kind of strong-arm tactics it uses with suppliers of other goods, has a phenomenal 25 percent share of all US food market sales), that it’s cheap and healthful.

Stacy Mitchell wrote in Grist in December 2011, pointing to a study in Social Science Quarterly that showed that neighborhoods where a Walmart store opens have more poverty and food-stamp usage than communities without a Walmart. This might have something to do with Walmart’s record of putting other employers out of business – and more people out of work.

If that’s not bad enough, another recent study concluded that Walmart makes us fat. “An additional supercenter per 100,000 residents increases … the obesity rate by 2.3 percentage points. … These results imply that the proliferation of Walmart supercenters explains 10.5 percent of the rise in obesity since the late 1980s.”

Walmart employees, restaurant employees and other retail workers are fighting for decent pay across the country, even as politicians in collusion with megacorporations are doing their darnedest to squash the labor movement and convince us that we need big corporations like Walmart, which are “creating jobs” and making the world safe for consumption.

In truth, this is class warfare, pure and simple, and the workers and employees of the big corporations, the ones doing the hardest work, as well as the customers, are considered the lower classes by the ones at the top. About 99 percent of us are in the lower classes.

The moneyed class is starting to get worried as it sees more of the “lesser” people starting to realize how bad things are – and who’s to blame. Corporations are now acting out more against the people, which is a sign of their fear of the strength of organized resistance.

A Few Big Problems

But we still need to understand more widely that shopping at Walmart and other huge retail corporations is spending money toward our own economic downward spiral. (If the minimum hourly wage had advanced with the cost of living and productivity from its high-water mark of 1968, it would have been $21.72 in 2012, according to a March 2012 study by John Schmitt for the Center for Economic Policy and Research. How close is your salary to that number?)

Walmart workers – just like fast-food workers, retail staff, hospitality workers, adjunct faculty members, journalists, nurses, teachers, firefighters, factory workers, domestic workers, administrative assistants, middle managers and everyone else who is working for ever-shrinking paychecks – don’t want a government or corporate handout.

They simply want to be paid a decent, livable wage for their honest labor. They’d like to be able to expect to leave their kids as much as or more than they were left by their parents, even though their parents were able to leave them less than the previous generation did. But the next generations are not only going to be left less economically, they’re going to be fighting for their very survival.

If the working classes don’t realize we all need to stand up for one another, starting with our shopping choices, we are hopeless.

Walmart and fast food chains, with their low prices, convenience and addictive high-fat, high-sugar content, are really just a part of a much bigger picture – one that includes the looming “trade agreement” called the Trans-Pacific Partnership, something that makes job-exporting NAFTA look benign. Walmart is one of the huge corporations pushing the TPP hard, because it would then be able to move more of its factories into countries like Vietnam, where the minimum hourly wage is 36 cents. (The TPP is another whole ball of wax, to which we should be paying close attentionbecause it will affect our lives directly and unremittingly.)

Not Our Responsibility

But back to talking about Vietnam, which isn’t that far from Bangladesh in that it’s another of the poor countries with low wages where people assemble many of the goods sold in US stores like Walmart.

One hundred twelve Bangladeshi workers were killed in a November 2012 fire, caused by negligence, as they were sewing garments to be sold primarily in Walmart and Sears. We learned after this tragedy that those two giant corporations had earlierrefused to fund safety improvements at any of the more than 4,000 factories in which Bangladeshis labored to make goods for US markets – and in which more than 700 garment workers had died since 2005.

Even after the tragic fire, Walmart and Gap and other big brands refused to sign a new safety plan introduced by unions. They claimed it was “not financially feasible.” Yet, as the Atlantic reported, Scott Nova at the DC-based Worker Rights Consortium calculated that sufficient safety retrofits and new systems would add 8 cents to the cost of a garment, or .00004 (four one-thousandths of a percent) of a retailer’s total corporate revenue.

Just five months after the fire, Bangladesh was hit by an even more unspeakable disaster when the eight-story Rana Plaza collapsed, killing at least 1,129 and harming more than 2,000, some of whom lost limbs and suffered other extreme injuries. (None of the victims had yet been compensated six months after the May 2013 catastrophe;Walmart claimed it was not liable because at the time of the collapse it was no longer using any of the five garment factories that operated out of the building’s third to eighth floors.)

It is clear that Bangladeshis’ deaths – and lives – don’t mean much to US commerce (transcript, May 5, 2013, about two-thirds of the way down the page.[i] It’s just a cost of doing business[ii], and the bad public relations last only days before “consumers,” as we are considered by Walmart and other retailers, forget all about these human tragedies and go back to our bargain hunting.

Maybe It Is Our Responsibility

But maybe we’ll realize those bargains come with too steep a price. What price, for example, might we put on the life of the pregnant mother of two who was in the process of stitching the trim on that $14 scarf for Walmart when she was partially crushed by bricks in the Rana Plaza building (and would finally, mercifully, die 17 hours later)[iii]?

Maybe we’ll begin understanding the connections between the conditions suffered by those slogging away in factories halfway around the world; the outrageous salaries of CEOs who work sometimes fewer hours than we do, even including two-hour lunches; the gutting of labor laws; the spikes in health care and education costs (have you looked at college tuition numbers lately?); the easing of regulations intended to protect the environment and people from corporate harm; the court decisions on behalf of negligent corporations; and our own lack of upward mobility and hope.

Maybe we’ll see that shopping at Walmart isn’t the affordable, convenient delight we’d thought it.

Many Americans are starting to understand firsthand what it feels like to be dehumanized. We are losing our jobs, having to switch careers, finding ourselves in a credit bind, and maybe losing our homes to foreclosure – or at least we know some middle-class people who have experienced such tough circumstances. It does not sit well.

Walmart is sued several times a day, sometimes in class action lawsuits, sometimes forallegations of employee rights violations, sometimes for injuries sustained by customers or employees in its stores or parking lots. And in November 2012, it allegedly fired 117 workers because they threatened to join Black Friday protests. That case is with the National Labor Relations Board, which may sue.

But to get back to that worry over affordability: It’s all well and good to say we might make a statement with our wallets, but practical matters prevail. We need to pinch pennies in these economic times – when few workers have any chance of upward mobility.

Yet there are numerous ways of shopping conveniently and supporting local farmers and businesses that are as affordable as shopping at megamonsters like Walmart (which may have started off pretty decent in the Sam Walton days, when he went out of his way to hire older workers, people with disabilities and veterans).

Here are a few ideas to get you started and that don’t demand a drastically changed lifestyle (well, except maybe for number 5).

1. Community-supported agriculture means you can buy a share in a farm to have fresh vegetables every week during the growing season.

2. Cooperative extensions and other community groups teach how to can, freeze and dry food for the months when things aren’t growing.

3. You can grow herbs and salad leaves, including the increasingly popular microgreens, indoors on a windowsill and add vitamins to your family’s diet.

4. If your family eats meat, it is much more economical to arrange with a farmerto buy one-quarter or one-half a pig or bull or lamb, or so many chickens or ducks or turkeys, or split an order with a neighbor.

5. Switch to a vegetarian diet, and you will really save money (and almost certainly feel better).

6. Buy dry goods such as beans, rice, cereal, grains, flour, sugar, nuts and dried fruits in bulk.

7. Use cloth napkins instead of paper and reusable blotters instead of paper towels

8. Switch to a menstrual cup and cloth pads instead of tampons and disposable pads.

9. Challenge yourself to buy only goods made in the United States, and check the labels on everything.

10. Go to or start a swap meet, where people bring clothing or items they no longer want and pick up your discards.

11. Do a seedswapor plant swap or plant-pots swap to get your flower and vegetable garden started, or boost your indoor garden. Start an indoor garden per number 3.

12. Try to wean yourself off plastic of every kind.

13. When things break that shouldn’t, mail them back to the manufacturer COD (collect on delivery, so they pay), with a letter saying you are not satisfied with their shoddy products.

14. There are scores more ideas. Visit your cooperative extension site for ways to save. There are plenty of websites and blogs devoted to stopping consumerism and becoming more self-reliant.

You will feel better about yourself and your habits – but if none of that is enough, here’s the coup de grace.

The most common defense given by colleagues and friends about their decision to continue shopping at Walmart is, hands down, price. They say they can’t afford to shop elsewhere, and that Walmart is a one-stop shop where they can save time as well as money.

Sticker Shock

But Walmart is not cheaper for fresh food. I understood that it undercut other stores on packaged foods such as cereals and canned goods, but most fresh vegetables and dairy foods cost more there.

Plus, in an online spot check on December 2, 2013, I found, to my complete surprise, that my local food store Wegmans had considerably better prices on almost all of the brand items I tried. Walmart either didn’t have preferred sizes or did not supply in-store prices on its website; one would have to order by the case online or go to the store to find out how much things cost. Generally I would not buy brand-name goods – I frequently buy in bulk – and I’d be saving even more by buying the Wegmans (“Food You Feel Good About”) brand or brandless options.

Goya black beans, 29-ounce can

Walmart: $2.47/can when bought in a case of 12 online

Wegmans: $1.99 per can

Bumblebee solid white albacore tuna, 5-ounce can

Walmart: $2.33/can when bought in a case of 24 online

Wegmans: $1.59 per can

DeCecco Fettucini Pasta, 16-ounce box

Walmart: $4.55/box when bought in case of 10

Wegmans (Penne, Angel Hair, Spaghettini or Orrechiette only): $2

Blue Diamond Almond Breeze Almond Milk, 64 ounces

Walmart: 32-ounce case of 12, $3.15 (x 2) – $6.30 for 64 ounces

Wegmans: $2.99

Planters Dry Roasted Party Size Peanuts With Sea Salt, 34.5 ounces

Walmart: $5.98

Wegmans: $6.99

Hellman’s Real Mayonnaise, 30-ounce jar

Walmart: (not available)

Wegmans: $3.99

Quaker Oats, Quick, 18 ounces

Walmart: $2.48

Wegmans: $2.59

Kashi Autumn Wheat Cereal, 16.3 ounces

Walmart: $3.68

Wegmans: $3.69

So that last great argument about Walmart being more affordable is dead in the water. Could a caring, sensible person continue to shop there, knowing all that we now know?

Sign the petition to Walmart to pay its workers a living wage before December 31, 2013.

Here’s one useful and brief article from a conservative financial publication that succinctly lists the factors whereby Walmart costs Americans jobs.

Here’s a great list of resources on Walmart and its impact on the US economy.

New poll: Americans optimistic about Obamacare, overwhelmingly oppose GOP position

2013-12-02 chasdarwinLeave a comment

Source: The Jed Report, via Daily Kos

Author: staff

(N.B. The term ‘Obamacare’ is a conservative term for the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) used by it’s GOP conservative critics. As the ACA succeeds, will these critics still want their arch enemy’s name on it? It might also be noted that as the law addresses health care insurance, not health care itself, ‘health care law’ may be a bad frame.)

“CNN has a very interesting new poll that not only debunks the notion that Americans have already decided Obamacare is a failure, but also reveals that Americans overwhelmingly oppose the GOP’s conservative critique of the health care law.

According to the poll (pdf), which surveyed American adults between Nov. 18-20 with a margin of error of ±3.5 points:

Most Americans believe Obamacare’s current problems will be solved. 54 percent say they believe current problems will be fixed, compared with 43 percent who say they won’t be.
Most Americans believe it’s too early to judge whether Obamacare is a success or failure. A total of 53 percent think it is too early to say whether Obamacare is a success or failure. A total of 39 percent think it’s a failure and 8 percent already think it is a success.
Most Americans do not support conservative critiques of Obamacare. According to the poll, 41 percent of Americans think Obamacare is too liberal, slightly more than 40 percent who support Obamacare. But 14 percent think it’s not liberal enough.

As you might expect, the poll’s crosstabs show that most Republicans are certain Obamacare can’t be fixed and has already failed, but outside of the GOP universe, people aren’t merely open to Obamacare, they are optimistic about its prospects and want it to work.

Obviously, it doesn’t matter how open or optimistic the public is if the Obama administration can’t ultimately deliver on the promise of Obamacare, but if they do, most Americans are on their side. Republicans have bet everything on failure. If they lose that bet, it will be an absolute political nightmare for them—and it should be.”

ORIGINALLY POSTED TO THE JED REPORT ON WED NOV 27, 2013 AT 09:41 AM PST.

ALSO REPUBLISHED BY DAILY KOS.

Emphasis Mine

see: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/11/27/1258749/-New-poll-Americans-optimistic-about-Obamacare-overwhelmingly-oppose-GOP-position

Understanding the fourth Thursday in November: Church & State, Separate!

2013-11-262013-11-27 chasdarwinLeave a comment

When all else fails, we can rock and roll! — When all else fails, we can always rock and roll!

Rather than separation of church and state in England in the 1600’s, it was illegal to be part of any church other than the Church of England. A group of dissenters moved from England to the Netherlands – where church and state were separate – and then back to England. Their leadership decided to establish a colony in North America, where they would be free not only to practice their own religion but eventually, free to persecute those whose religions differed! They sailed for North America (in the ship Mayflower), and established a town. The colonists – known to us as pilgrims – “A pilgrim is a person who goes on a long journey often with a religious or moral purpose, and especially to a foreign land.” – see http://www.plimoth.org/learn/just-kids/homework-help/who-were-pilgrims – experienced – despite their piety – a difficult first year, and only about half of them survived. They were aided in practical matters – such as obtaining sufficient food – not by supernatural intervention, but rather by the local aborigines (who did not have a help desk in India)! The colonists made a mutual protection treaty with these Native Peoples, and invited them to a feast in 1621 to celebrate their first harvest – and this feast is the basis of our national holiday. (Based on the way the descendants and successors of the Pilgrims reciprocated the kindness extended by our Native People, eventually driving them off of their lands and into refugee camps known as ‘reservations’, it is unlikely that Native Americans share the same warm, fuzzy feelings about this day…)

(N.B.: It is of interest to note that at that time when the pilgrims were struggling for survival, to the South – in present day Virginia, – a colony had been established which by 1619 already had an elected legislature, which brings to question the value of “I have relatives who came over on the Mayflower“. American humorist Will Rogers – who had some Native American Ancestry – once responded to a lady who most pompously and arrogantly stated: “My ancestors came over on the Mayflower” with: “My ancestors were there to greet them!”)

Enjoy the holiday, endure the insipid deportment of some in attendance, keep in mind the need for Church State Separation, share with those less fortunate, and reflect on our national guilt.