Stuart Jeanne Bramhall's Blog: The Most Revolutionary Act , page 1288
June 10, 2016
Talk About the Queen of Chaos!
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More blatant electoral fraud in California primary.
Wolfessblog -- Guillotine mediocrity in all its forms!
June 9, 2016
Where are the Missing California Primary Votes?
Richmond California is a refinery town in the San Francisco Bay Area. It is also where there is a diverse working class community with a strong Richmond Progressive Alliance which previously elected a Green Party Mayor. Bernie Sanders visited the city and actively supported the populist movement in February 2014 making it likely that Bernie Sanders would receive strong support in Richmond.
My daughter is a school psychologist in Richmond’s local school system. Here is her experience yesterday in the California Primary Election:
“Never have I felt so much that my vote doesn’t count!
My Richmond, CA polling place at 1340 Marina Way South was an absolute mess.
1.The location was different from every other time I’ve voted out here and Google initially mapped me to an abandoned patch of dirt next to a park.
2. After…
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A Film About Dismantling Corporate Rule
Owned and Operated
Relic (2012)
Film Review
Owned and Operated is a documentary about dismantling corporate rule. This non-ideological film features dissidents across the political spectrum, among them John Oliver, George Carlin, Bernie Sanders, Jeremy Rifkin, Rob Hopkins, Ron Paul, Ray McGovern, James Corbett, Alex Jones and Brian Wilson. In addition to the film’s touchy-feely ending, I was also disappointed in the filmmakers heavy promotion of technology as the solution to the world’s urgent political and ecological crises.
In my view, the best part of the film is Part 1, The Freak Show. This is a humorous but surprisingly accurate depiction of modern corporate culture and the dangerous and bizarre effect of systematic corporate indoctrination on human behavior.
Part 2, Class War and Organized Greed, concerns the obscene greed of the 1% and their systematic takeover of our supposedly democratic political systems.
Part 3, Freedom vs Security concerns the systematic loss of civil liberties that has accompanied the War on Terror.
Part 4, The Awakening, concerns recent mass movements triggered by the 2008 global economic meltdown, including Occupy, the Arab Spring, Anonymous and the Zeitgeist, Transition and Open Source Ecology movements.
Part 5, the Future, heavily promotes Jeremy Rifkin’s views on the role of the Internet and mass connectivity in solving mankind’s most pressing problems. I tend to agree with Ronald Wright’s analysis (in A Short History of Progress) that humanity’s eagerness to rush into new technologies has tended to create more problems than it solves.
That being said the film ends on an extremely positive note by scrolling the web addresses of scores of social change movements for viewers to explore.
June 9, 2016
Green Party Nominee Dr. Jill Stein: Clinton’s Policies Are ‘Offensive to Concept of Feminism’
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Why Hillary Clinton’s policies are deeply offensive to feminists.
From Mediaite.com:
Green Party Nominee Jill Stein: Clinton’s Policies Are an ‘Offense to Concept of Feminism’
by Sam Reisman
Speaking to The Young Turks‘ Cenk Uygur in a video interview published Wednesday, Green Party presidential nominee Jill Steinsaid it was “an offense to the concept of feminism” to claim thatHillary Clinton represented feminism simply because of her “chromosomes.”
Is It Sexist For Dr. Jill Stein To Stay In The 2016 Race?
Published on Jun 8, 2016
Cenk Uygur, host of The Young Turks asks Green Party Presidential Candidate Dr. Jill Stein about the charges that Bernie Sanders is sexist for staying in the race against Hillary Clinton.
“Of course, I think it’s an insult to the concept of feminism,” Stein said, “To say that feminism is the gender you are born with, period, and that’s feminism. That’s outrageous to say it’s simply a…
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Reuters 6-6-16… “EU countries refuse to back new license for glyphosate weed-killer”
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EU nations refused to back a limited extension of the herbicide glyphosate’s use on Monday, threatening withdrawal of Monsanto’s Roundup and other weed-killers from shelves if no decision is reached by the end of the month.
Related to the prior post, Reuters reports that it’s possible there will be a “withdrawal of Monsanto’s Roundup and other weed-killers from shelves if no decision is reached by the end of the month“. Bring it on, I say.
The poisoners are having a tougher and tougher time of it these days.
“EU nations refused to back a limited extension of the herbicide glyphosate’s use on Monday, threatening withdrawal of Monsanto’s Roundup and other weed-killers from shelves if no decision is reached by the end of the month.
“The EU executive had offered a 12- to 18-month extension to allow time for further scientific study by the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA), in hopes of allaying health concerns. Its earlier proposal to renew the glyphosate license for up to 15 years had failed to win support in two meetings this year.
“Monsanto has not ruled out a legal appeal…
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June 8, 2016
Why I will #SeeYouInPhilly
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“They won’t hand the power over to the people — unless we make them.”
Greetings, my sisters, brothers, & others
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Since the first article on the delegate math, I’ve (mostly) kept my mouth shut about the coming marches & demonstrations in Philadelphia & the rest of the nation (& the world) — this is because I felt that it was of the utmost importance for the people to keep focused on winning as many votes as the rigged system would allow.
Now — the primary season is all but over & I’d like to talk about the next phase of our political revolution — massive demonstrations.
Why I’ll #SeeYouInPhilly
Here’s the truth, as I see it — in late 2015, democratic party registrations reached a low tide, with a mere 29% of registered voters (and forget the GOP at a pitiful 26%). Think about it — 26% 29% = 55% — that means that barely over half of registered voters’ interests overlap with the 2 state-sanctioned parties combined!
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Shut Down the Democratic National Convention
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When people are denied a democratic voice in government, they have no choice but to take the streets.
By Chris Hedges
June 07, 2016 “Information Clearing House” – “Truth Dig” – On July 25, opening day of the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, Cheri Honkala, leader of the Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign, who was denied a permit to march by city authorities, will rally with thousands of protesters outside City Hall. Defying the police, they will march up Broad Street to the convention.
We will recapture our democracy in the streets of cities such as Philadelphia, not in convention halls such as the aptly named Wells Fargo Center, where the Democratic Party elites intend to celebrate the results of the rigged primary elections and the continuity of corporate power.
Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein, other activists and I will march with Honkala. It is not as if we have a choice. No one invited us into the center or…
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How European Banks Hijacked the Euro Monetary Union
Buy, Buy Europe
Pieter De Vos (2013)
Film Review
This is a five-part miniseries describing how European banks have hijacked the euro monetary union to vastly increase their wealth. The upcoming Brexit vote in Britain makes this a particularly relevant topic.
Part 1 A Bank Crisis a Week
The series begins by describing the history of the European monetary union. Built at the height of neoliberalism it adopted all the rhetoric of Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher and Alan Greenspan promising that globalized capitalism and free markets would end economic crises, increase prosperity and end inequality.
What really happened is that creating the euro massively increased inequality between northern and southern Europe and between workers and the super rich.
In seeking to make European banks as strong and competitive as US and British banks, Eurozone leaders ceased regulating them. Wall Street is often blamed for the EU’s 2008 meltdown. In actuality, deregulated European banks were equally guilty of risky speculation in derivatives and subprime mortgages.
Following the 2008 economic crash, European banks required massive government bailouts to keep European economies from collapsing. Promised banking reforms to prevent a recurrence of 2008 never happened. And according to the IMF, the global banking system is even more unstable today as it was right before the meltdown.
Part 2 Austerity Till the Grave
The bailouts required to keep their banks (and economies) going virtually bankrupted all Eurozone governments. All borrowed deeply (from the global banking system they had just bailed out) to keep their governments going. As a condition of this borrowing, the banks required them to reduce their deficits via deep austerity cuts. To qualify for further loans, they all cut pensions and benefits and laid off public service workers.
This segment focuses on Spain, where workers are organizing to block evictions, and Greece, where unemployed parents are forced to drop their kids off at orphanages because they can’t get welfare benefits to support them.
Part 3 Tax Haven Europe
This segment begins by profiling the Greek shipping magnates who run the largest merchant fleet in the world and pay virtually no tax. Corporations and the super rich pay far less tax than working people in all the EU countries. This massive tax avoidance forces all European governments to acquire major debt to keep from collapsing.
The documentary offers the example of Belgium, where the average tax rate is 12.5% and the most profitable corporations pay only 5% of their earnings in tax.
The filmmakers maintain that workers create wealth, though I doubt most neoliberals would see it that way. In 1981 Europe, 74% of the wealth workers created was returned to them as wages and government benefits. By 2012 only 49% of this wealth was returned to them and the super rich claimed the rest.
Part 4 Bratwurst, Lederhosen and Minijobs.
This was the most eye-open segment for me. It exposes the punitive conditions imposed on German workers from 2000 with the goal of making German export industries more competitive. Under former chancellor Gerhart Schroeder, massive wage reductions were imposed on all German workers – something IMF chief Christine LaGarde likes to call “labor market reform.”
Among other labor “reforms,” were a massive increase in “minijobs” – low wage part-time temporary positions that pay an average of 400 ($US 448) euros a month. Given Germany’s high cost of living, both parents need to work 2-3 “minijobs” (if they can find them) to cover a family’s basic needs.
The result was truckloads of cheap German imports flooding into southern EU countries (Greece, Spain, Portugal and Italy), shutting down local industries that couldn’t compete.
In this way, Germany’s vicious attack on their own workers forced wages down in other EU countries. This, in turn, forced countries like Greece and Spain to borrow lots of money from German banks to keep their governments going.
Ironically Germany currently has the highest number of working poor (7 million) of all EU countries.
Part 5 What Kind of Europe Do We Want?
It’s vital for people to understand that the mantra EU governments repeat ad nauseum – that saving the euro is essential to strengthening the EU and restoring prosperity – is pure propaganda. Seven years of austerity is massively increasing deficits and debt by putting so many people out of work.
The truth is that the Eurozone has been hijacked by banks and multinational corporations who are determined to use trade agreements to lock member countries into austerity and statutory destruction of Europe’s proud tradition of democratic socialism.
The only solution is a public takeover of too-big-to fail banks. Continuing to bail them out, while allowing them to privatize all the profits, is simply legalized theft of public monies. And a yes vote on Brexit.
June 7, 2016
Baby Bust: US Fertility Rate Unexpectedly Drops to Lowest on Record
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Large numbers of women electing not to have children is one of the clearest signs the US economy is in deep trouble. I guess it’s not terribly surprising with all the young people forced to live with their parents for economic reasons.
Economists figured the recovery would bring about increased confidence and a rise in the birth rate.
Instead, the rate dropped into a tie with the lowest birth rate on record.
This is yet another surprise for economists to ponder.
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NZ hits 400ppm – climate denial vs climate reality « The Daily Blog
Check out this climate denial bullshit put out last week by the farcical New Zealand Climate Science Coalition…
Many newspaper articles over the past few years have emphasised the dangers of man-made global warming (aka “climate change”) and warned us that extreme measures are needed to save us from this imminent climatic disaster. Almost without exception, the authors of these articles have assumed that man-made carbon dioxide causes dangerous global warming, rapid sea level rise and more floods, droughts, cyclones and so on.
But what does the evidence tell us?
Regarding world temperatures, historical records from ice cores tell us that it was warmer during the Mediaeval Warm Period, the Roman Warm Period and the Bronze Age. The Mediaeval Warm Period was experienced all over the world including Australia and New Zealand.
…this tripe goes on an on. The NZ Climate Science Coalition is to science what the Taxpayers Union is to Unions they’re both astro-turf front group for interests who don’t want their interests to be seen.
This crap is being spouted right as NZ hits 400ppm – the first time in bloody 3million years!
Science milestone not one to celebrate
The last time the amount of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere was at a level of 400 parts per million (ppm), sea levels were at least 10 metres higher than they are today.
During the Pliocene period, about three million years ago, when global temperatures were 2C or so above today’s levels, forests grew on what today is a mostly barren island in the Canadian Arctic and savannas and woodlands were spread across what is now North African desert.
It was a wetter, warmer period in the planet’s recent geological history.
And last week, at a windswept point at the bottom of the North Island, the 400ppm milestone was reached in New Zealand for the first time since.
Scientists from the National Institute of Water and Atmosphere (Niwa) had been watching the readings recorded at the Clean Air Monitoring Station at Baring Head closely at it edged toward the symbolic threshold.
It came a year after it was crossed at the Mauna Loa station in Hawaii, which has recorded a 24 per cent rise in carbon dioxide levels since it began gathering data in 1958.
…as a huge storm surge destroys Australia’s coast line, as NZ hits its highest green house gases in 25 years and as dairy intensification robs us of fresh water we are watching an environmental catastrophe unfold in front of our eyes that will have dramatic impacts on our civilisation…
Read on: NZ hits 400ppm – climate denial vs climate reality « The Daily Blog
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