Stuart Jeanne Bramhall's Blog: The Most Revolutionary Act , page 1343

The Cost of Racism to White America

The Cost of Racism to White America

University of Massachusetts Professor John H Bracey (2011)

Film Review

In his lecture, Professor Bracey blames racism and white privilege for US having the most poorly organized working class in the industrialized world. From the start of Jim Crow after the Civil War to the late sixties, Africa Americans were deliberately excluded from trade unions, a perfect set-up for white bosses to use non-unions black workers to bust strikes and unions. This absence of working class solidarity meant it took American workers until the 1930s to win basic rights and benefits (eg Social Security, unemployment compensation and welfare) that European workers won in the 1880s.

Racism also keeps white people ignorant of their own history. For example they are unaware (I sure was) that the Battle of the Alamo was fought to extend slavery to Texas (slavery was illegal when Mexico owned Texas).

The refusal of northern whites to confront their own racism would ultimately culminate in the Civil War, which would result in more deaths (1 million) than all other US wars combined.

Bracey also blames racist attitudes for the absence of public education in the South until after the Civil War. It would be black Reconstruction governments that established free public education in the South – for all children (black and white). They would also establish the first state universities in Georgia and Mississippi.”

Ironically it was African Americans who founded Ole Miss (University of Mississippi), though they were later excluded when the Ku Klux Kan violently overthrew the southern Reconstruction governments.

It was also black women who organized the southern textile mills and not Norma Ray, as portrayed in the popular film starring Sally Fields.

Continuing racism forces white people to sacrifice education, health, housing and social service programs to cover the phenomenal cost of mass incarceration (of mainly black and Hispanic Americans. At an annual cost of $40,000 per inmate, the cost of incarcerating 2.4 million Americans adds up to $960 billion annually.

The presentation starts at 7 min.

 

Lawmakers Who Back Big Polluters Risk Losing GOP Voters

stuartbramhall:

 

 

New study shows growing concern among Republican voters over climate change. Extreme weather events are hitting moderate Republicans in the pocketbook – where it hurts.

Originally posted on thekirkshow:

Energy prices may be plummeting, but oil, gas, and coal companies are seeing a dramatic return on investment in one sector: the US Congress. The fossil fuel industry spent $721 million on the 2014 midterm elections. And now the GOP majority has vowed to make life easier for polluters by gutting long-standing protections for clean air and water and blocking measures the fight climate change.

Last week, for instance, House Republicans voted to fast-track the Keystone XL pipeline for dirty tar sands oil. Representatives who supported the Keystone XL bill received over 8.5 times more oil and gas money in 2014 than those who voted against it. Now the action moves to the Senate, where Majority Leader Mitch McConnell raked in $608,000 from oil, gas, and coal companies in 2014.

These fossil-fuel favors may please donors, but new research shows that lawmakers risk painting themselves into a corner with Republican…

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A New Economic Model to Save the Planet

Plenitude: The New Economics of True Wealth

by Juliet Schor

Penguin Press (2010)

Book Review

The main premise of Plenitude is that neoclassical or free market economic theory falls short in addressing the global economic crisis because it fails to account for the negative ecological impacts (aka externalities*) of markets. The author Juliet Schor proposes a new economic model which addresses both environmental impacts and inequality.

Schor’s new “plenitude” model builds from ideas on downshifting and simplified living she introduced in her 1998 book The Overspent American. It’s based on four main principles.

The first involves a new allocation of time away from the market economy and a reduced reliance on money to meet individual needs. By Oct 2009, eight million jobs had disappeared in the US alone. There’s no way these jobs will ever be restored. However by reducing their hours of work (either voluntarily or involuntarily), people can make a conscious trade-off of money for time. With more time, households can increase their social networks and supports and find new ways (other than money) of procuring consumption goods.

The second principle involves diversifying away from the traditional economy by “self-provisioning,” growing and making things for ourselves instead of paying other people to do it. Schor sees distributed production facilitated by 3D printing** as a big part of this process.

The third principle is what Schor calls “true materialism,” an environmentally aware approach to consumption in which people are more aware of the ecological impact of their purchases. Rather than sacrificing a comfortable lifestyle, this might mean paying more for better quality clothes, shoes and consumer goods.

The fourth principle is restoring our investment in one another and our communities. Especially in times of crisis, these connections, sometimes referred to as social capital, are every bit as important as money or material goods.

Government Interventions Required

Despite numerous examples Schor gives of individuals, groups and cities that have already transitioned to the new model she proposes, new government policies will be essential to ensure the planet reduces its carbon footprint in time to avert ecological catastrophe.

Unlike French economist Thomas Piketty, author of the bestseller Capital in the 21st Century, she specifically opposes after-the-fact taxation to redistribute market income. She rightly points out that it fails to increase new wealth. Instead she would support a proposal put forward by Peter Barnes to set up a Sky Trust similar to the Alaska Permanent Fund. The Sky Trust would tax corporations on the carbon dioxide emissions (and possibly their destruction of habitat and discharge of toxic chemicals) and return the revenue earned as a dividend to citizens.

Secondly she calls for the adoption of social program (single payer health care, support for child care and tertiary education and reliable pensions) common in other industrial countries. She cites studies the common misperception that Americas work the longest hours in the world to acquire more consumer goods. The real reason they stick with jobs with impossible long hours and stress is because that’s the only way they can pay for health care, child care, college and a secure retirement.

Third she calls for a change in intellectual property laws to facilitate sharing new techniques and technologies) permaculture, agroforestry, biodynamic farming, cob, earthen and strawbale home construction, alternative technology, renewable energy systems) that enable more efficient use of resources.

Fourth she sees an essential government role in cleaning up toxic waterways and brownfields and restoring forests, which are also fundamental steps in restoring true wealth and reducing inequality.

Finally she would call on government to abandon their growth at all cost policies. She blames the financialization of the US economy for the pressure for constant growth. Although the sale of financial products produces no new wealth, it requires a continuous increase in economic growth to pay shareholders and bondholders.

Reigning in the Financial Sector

The main weakness of Plenitude is Schor’s failure to propose specific policies to reign in an out-of-control financial sector. In European parliaments, the main policies being explored include ending the ability of banks to create and control the money supply (restoring this function to government)*** and a financial transaction tax.****

*In economics, an externality is a consequence of an industrial or commercial activity which affects other parties without this being reflected in market prices, such as rainforest destruction.

** 3-D printing is a manufacturing process that builds layers to create a three-dimensional solid object from a computer model. Video of houses being printed in China:

***See The IMF Proposal to Ban Banks from Issuing Money

**** A financial transaction tax is a levy placed on financial institution for specific types of monetary transactions.

Martin Luther King: The Truth About His Assassination.

stuartbramhall:

 

 

All the following information is in the public domain – available in every public library.

Originally posted on THE ONENESS of HUMANITY:

Posted on January 18, 2015

by Jerry Alatalo

How many people are aware that in 1999 an actual, official civil trial on Martin Luther King’s (MLK) murder took place? Is that 1999 trial of 30 days and 70 witnesses – where the jury delivered their conclusion that the man accused of the murder, James Earl Ray (deceased by 1999), was not guilty, but that Loyd Jouwers, owner of the grill across from the Lorraine Motel where MLK’s life was ended, and elements of the Memphis Police Department and United States military were behind the assassination – recorded in America’s history books?

The answer to the first question is probably not many, although every man, woman and child should be. The answer to the second question is probably no; the history books America’s schoolchildren read omit the 1999 MLK Assassination civil trial. That the trial, a truly historic event, and the findings and jury decision, are yet relatively…

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Credit Card Nation

Credit Card Nation

by Robert D Manning

Basic Books (2000)

Book Review

Credit Card Nation is about the role of plastic money in the rise of consumer capitalism. In addition to heartbreaking stories of real people struggling with credit card debt, it provides a comprehensive macroeconimc overview of the credit industry. The two main points Manning emphasizes are 1) marketing credit cards to unemployed college students and the working poor saved all the major banks from insolvency in the 1980s and 2) credit cards increase wealth inequality by offering free credit to the wealthy and usury to the poor.

As Manning describes it, the living standards of wealthy Americans are being subsidized by the usurious interest rates paid by the poor. Banks divide credit card users into two groups: the “convenience” (commonly referred to “deadbeats” by bank managers) users who pay their full balance every month and the “revolvers” who accumulate debt by only paying the minimum charge. As Mann points out, convenience users who pay their full balance are getting a month of free credit.

The Poor Are the Credit Niche Market

When banks first began issuing credit cards in the sixties and seventies, their credit card divisions lost money by only marketing them to the low risk middle class users with sufficient income to pay the full balance every month. This changed when US wages began their steep decline in the 1980s, as Reagan’s deregulatory regime lead to a frenzy of factory closures (as companies shut down and moved overseas) and merger-related downsizing. This enabled banks to discover the “niche” credit card of unemployed students (banks had the brainstorm of waiving parental signatures on credit card applications) and the working poor, a bonanza of consumers who were too poor to pay more than the minimum monthly payment.

Soaking the Poor to Service the Rich

Ratios between convenience and revolver credit card users vary. In 2000, there were 33.5 million convenience users for 44.5 million revolvers. When the percentage of convenience users gets too high, banks typically increase penalties and interest rates on revolvers. Credit card interest rates soared in the late eighties when banks began using credit car fees to subsidize deeply discounted auto and corporate loans.

In the interim, credit card interest rates have skyrocketed. Average annual interest rates on credit card balances increased from 1.4 to 14.3% between 1981 and 1992. By 2000, they had increased to 18.3%.*

The History of Credit

Credit Card Nation also provides an excellent overview of other types of consumer credit, starting with the boom in installment credit that fueled the initial post war consumption engine. Installment credit expanded rapidly as big box malls drove put neighborhood pharmacies and community merchants out of business. Both typically carried informal “open book” credit accounts for established customers.

Manning also traces the devastating effect of banking consolidation – the lost of community banks due to mergers and acquisitions into a handful of “too big to fail” banks. Aside from a one time gain from layoffs and interest-related tax deductions, studies show that big banks are less efficient and less profitable. They’re also deadly for start-up and small businesses, which are the most consistent job creators. Bank loans to small businesses virtually ceased in the early nineties. For both, the only credit option left is risky high interest credit card cash advances.

The Corporate Face of Loan Sharking

The most eye opening chapter is the one on fringe banking and second tier financial services that have moved in as banks have closed their inner city branches. The book examines the full range of fringe banking services, which charge average (annual) interest rates of 180-730%. These include check cashing and pay day loan companies, pawnshops, rent to own companies, sale-leaseback loans, auto title loans and cash leasing.

Many of these enterprises operate as nationwide chains and partner with major banks they rely on for capital. Cash America was the first pawnshop company to trade on the New York Stock Exchange. Ace Cash Express, the largest US check cashing company, trades on the NASDAQ.

Rent-to-own companies charge average interest rates of 180-360%, though most clients typically make only 3-4 payments before the appliance is repossessed.

Cash leasing is the worst. The term “leasing” rather than “loan” is used to evade state usury laws. A borrower pays 30% interest every fifteen days on the loan amount (730% total annual percentage rate). They must have an active checking account and verified ownership of three electronic items (TV, computer, etc) that can be pledged as collateral.

*According to Al Jazeera average US credit card interest rates hit 21% in April 2014

Are Israel, Jabhat al-Nusra terrorists coordinating on attacks in Syria?

stuartbramhall:

 

 

Al-Nusra are Islamic jihadists who collaborate with ISIS in Syria to cut people’s heads off – the bad guys, in other words.

Originally posted on Tony Seed's Weblog:

Israel’s hidden role in backing terrorism and subversion. Syrian opposition activists in southern Syria say Israel has played a vital role in Jabhat al-Nusra’s recent gains in Quneitra and Daraa. KHALED ATALLAH*

Reuters photo shows Israeli soldiers observing the Syrian side of the Quneitra border crossing between the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights and Syria, Aug. 29, 2014 | Ronen Zvulun

QUNEITRA, Syria (Jan. 14) — Since the start of the Syrian crisis, the Syrian regime has routinely accused Israel of playing a hidden role, from Qusair in the Homs countryside in May 2013 to the emergence and advances of the southern front in September 2014. UN reports published in December appear to vindicate the regime’s arguments that Israel is involved with the southern rebels.

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Roundup Linked to Autism and Alzheimers

Recent research reveals the main toxic effects of glyphosate, the main ingredient in the Monsanto weedkiller Roundup, are identical to the typical biological markers for autism and Alzheimer’s disease. MIT researcher Dr Stephanie Seneff PhD is also alarmed by the correlation between growing Roundup use and a big increase in the incidence of autism.

Roundup Kills Off Intestinal Bacteria

Seneff is mainly concerned about the negative effect of glyphosate on the microbiome. This is the scientific name for the normal intestinal bacteria responsible for immunity, weight maintenance, healthy neuropsychological function and a host of other biological processes.

Monsanto argues that glyphosate is harmless to people because the shikimate pathway, which glyphosate is designed to inhibit, is absent in human cells. Unfortunately, as Dr Seneff points out, our gut bacteria do have this enzyme pathway. In fact, several studies show that glyphosate kills off beneficial gut bacteria, allowing pathogens to overgrow.

Glyphosate also interferes with the ability to synthesize cytochrome P450 (CYP) enzymes, which are essential for gut bacteria to produce and process aromatic amino acids, methionine and sulfate. All these effects are linked to important diseases and conditions associated with the Western diet, including gastrointestinal disorders, obesity, diabetes, heart disease, depression, infertility and Alzheimer’s disease.

Seneff isn’t the first researcher to link autism with a derangement in gut bacteria. Scientists have been studying this potential link for more than a decade

Autism Rate Skyrocketing

In a Powerpoint presentation she gives all over the US, as well as in Taiwan and France,  she particularly emphasizes the strong correlation (Pearson correlation coefficient=0.99)* between the skyrocketing incidence of autism and increasing use of Roundup starting in the early 1990s.

In 1975, 1 in 5,000 children were diagnosed with autism. The current rate is 1 in 68.

In her presentation, Seneff also discusses research showing that children with autism commonly have biomarkers indicative of excessive glyphosate exposure, including zinc and iron deficiency, low serum sulfate and mitochondrial disorders. Similar markers are also found in Alzheimer’s disease.

Glyphosate in Breast Milk

Most of the GMO crops produced by Monsanto are “Roundup ready” and contain genetic modifications enabling them to withstand spraying with Roundup weed killer. In addition to large numbers of American farmers switching to GMO crops, the use of Roundup on each farm increases over time. This is because Roundup tends to create superweeds that are resistant to normal doses.

The US is unique in the extreme prevalence of foods containing GMOs (genetically modified organisms) that were likely treated with Roundup. Glyphosate can be found in soft drinks and candies sweetened by corn syrup, potato chips, chips, cereals and oil containing soy and cattle and chicken fed soy. According to Seneff, the only way to totally avoid glyphosate is to eat fresh organic food.

Unsurprisingly Americans have ten times as much glyphosate in their blood and European as Europeans. A study by Moms Across America showed that mothers across the US have excessively high levels of glyphosate in their breast milk.

Autism and Vaccines

In an interview with Age of Autism, Seneff was asked her opinion on the link between vaccines and autism. In reply, she talked about three other chemicals she believes are critical to the autism epidemic: aluminum, mercury and glutamate. All are found in specific vaccines. She adds that vaccines and glyphosate are synergistically toxic because the latter disrupts the body’s ability to metabolize glutamate, which is extremely toxic to the brain.

She advises if she were a young mother, she would try to avoid all the vaccines that contain aluminum, mercury and glutamate: DTaP, Hepatitis B, MMR, the measles vaccine, the flu shot, and Gardasil. For parents who feel reluctant to eliminate vaccines altogether, she recommends delaying them as long as possible. Infants have a very weak immune system.

When you look at the risk benefit ratio of the vaccines, it comes out short. You really have to think about whether it’s worth the cost. . . . Do you want your child to be permanently damaged in order to prevent it from getting measles? It doesn’t make sense. I think we really need to question whether the vaccines are an obligatory part of a child’s program. I certainly think they’re not, particularly because they are so dangerous. And in conjunction with the glyphosate, which is making them much worse.

*In statistics, the Pearson correlation coefficient is a measure of the linear correlation between two variables. It gives a value between +1 and −1, where 1 is total positive correlation.

photo credit: msdonnalee via photopin cc

Also posted in Veterans Today

Study Suggests Wi-Fi Exposure More Dangerous To Kids Than Previously Thought

stuartbramhall:

 

 

Wifi (whether from cellphones, cellphone towers or Smart Meters) is a carcinogen. Researchers have known this for at least a decade. I guess for WHO to admit it’s a “possible carcinogen” is a big step for them – but it’s far too little and much too late.

Originally posted on thekirkshow:

Most parents would be concerned if their children had significant exposure to lead, chloroform, gasoline fumes, or the pesticide DDT.  The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IRIC), part of the United Nations’ World Health Organization (WHO), classifies these and more than 250 other agents as Class 2B Carcinogens – possibly carcinogenic to humans.  Another entry on that same list is radio frequency electromagnetic fields (RF/EMF).  The main sources of RF/EMF are radios, televisions, microwave ovens, cell phones, and Wi-Fi devices.

Uh-oh. Not another diatribe about the dangers of our modern communication systems?  Obviously, these devices and the resulting fields are extremely (and increasingly) common in modern society.  Even if we want to, we can’t eliminate our exposure, or our children’s, to RF/EMF.  But, we may need to limit that exposure, when possible.

That was among the conclusions of a report published in the Journal of Microscopy and Ultrastructure

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Stuff I Should Have Learned in High School

Creating Waldens: An East-West Conversation on the American Renaissance

by Ronald Bosco, Joel Myerson and Daisaku Ikeda

Dialogue Path Press (2009)

Book Review

A Buddhist neighbor loaned me this odd little book. It consists of a series of conversations between 2001 and 2005 between American literature scholars Ronald Bosco and Joel Myerson and Soka schools founder Daisaku Ikeda. The purpose of the conversations was to explore “the poetic heart and reverence for life” in the lives of 18th century American Transcendentalists* Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau and Walt Whitman; Soka Gakkai International founders Tsunesaburo Makiguchi and Josei Toda and the spirituality of Nichieren Buddhism.

Soka Gakkai International (operating in six countries, including the US) is an alternative system of education that opposes authoritarianism and celebrates the sanctity of life, diversity, intellectual freedom and protection of nature and the environment. Both Makiguchi and Toda were imprisoned in Japan during World War II for opposing Japanese fascism.

For me, the book’s main value was to highlight the shoddy and biased way American history and literature are taught in US high schools. American renaissance? How come no one ever taught us there was an American renaissance? Nor that Emerson and Thoreau were dissidents and social critics – immensely popular ones with a large following.

As part of the American “lyceum movement,”** they gave well-attended public lectures, much as Noam Chomsky, Michael Parenti and other high profile dissidents do today. Besides being fiercely anti-war, both Emerson and Thoreau were extremely critical of the social injustices of early industrial society and the authoritarianism of public education.

Thoreau, in particular, was vehemently opposed to slavery and an active member of the underground railway, which assisted runaway slaves to escape to Canada. In 1846, he publicly manifested his opposition to slavery by refusing to pay his poll tax and was thrown in jail.

His famous essay “On the Duty of Civil Disobedience” inspired Mohandas Gandhi, Martin Luther King, the anti-Nazi resistance, the environmental movement started by Rachel Carson and the pro-democracy movement in cold war Easter Europe. Gandhi would write that he named his “civil disobedience” movement after Thoreau’s essay.

I was also very surprised to learn that both Emerson and Thoreau were heavily influenced by Eastern and Middle Eastern religions and philosophies. Likewise the growing Japanese environmental movement is strongly influenced by Thoreau.

The conversations are facilitated in such a way that they provide a good outline of the lives of Emerson and Thoreau, as well as the ups and downs of their relationship. The former was an early mentor to Thoreau, and Walden Pond*** was on his property.

*Transcendentalism was an American philosophy which taught that people have knowledge about themselves that transcends logic and the senses and can trust themselves to be their own authority on what is right.

**Founded by Joseph Holbrook in 1826, the lyceum movement was an early form of organized adult education popular in the eastern US and Midwest. In addition to Emerson and Thoreau, Frederick Douglass, Daniel Webster, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Susan B. Anthony were well-known lyceum speakers who traveled from state to state.

**In 1845, Thoreau embarked on an experiment in which he lived in the woods in near total isolation and self-sufficiency for two years, two months and two days. He writes about this in his book 1854 Walden; or, Life in the Woods

Slippery Soros Slides Into Kiev…Where Is His $50 Billion Bailout?

stuartbramhall:

 

 

Soros helped finance Ukraine’s first color revolution – the Orange Revolution in 2004 (and Georgia’s Rose Revolution in 2003, Serbia’s Bulldozer Revolution in 2000 and Kyrgyzstan’s Pink Revolution in 2005). None of these were real revolutions. They weren’t intended to be. Their real goal was to install governments friendly to US interests. The Orange Revolution didn’t take so he wants to do it again. Only this time he wants the US government to put up the $50 billion.

Originally posted on ThereAreNoSunglasses:

[SEE:  Soros urges giving Ukraine $50 billion of aid to foil Russia ]

George Soros arrived in Kiev

In Kiev flew American billionaire investor George Soros, who supports the new government of Ukraine.

According to Ukrainian «5 channel,” Soros stopped in one of the 5-star hotels of the Ukrainian capital.

Information about the visit of an American also confirms the head of the parliamentary committee on foreign affairs Anna Gopko. In his Facebook, she said that Soros, who “always original thoughts on the role and mission to Ukraine in the world”, arrived in Kiev in the head of the PACE Anne Brasseur.

Gopko noted that an important issue for the Ukrainian side is to extend sanctions on the participation of the Russian delegation to PACE, as well as the situation with the Ukrainian aviatrix Hope Savchenko.

Anna Gopko: “Among the issues to be discussed: how to promote real reform, financial…

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