The skies were gray and the wind was gusting from the south when Koko and I went walking this morning. It was very warm, and the perfume from the angel’s trumpets wafted through the air, making it feel far more like spring than the dead of winter.
The Advertiser, reporting that the dry conditions are expected to last through May, with adverse consequences for agriculture and an increased likelihood of brush fires, also noted:
Rain gauges at the Kaua'i mountaintop measured 308 inches in 2009, 73 percent of normal levels, and a scant 3 inches in December, only 7 percent of normal. It was Mount Wai'ale'ale's third-driest December on record, according to National Weather Service data.
This was followed by the comment:
Less rain means I don't have to mow my lawn as often. I hope the dry spell goes beyond May.
Every time I start to think there’s hope for the human race, I am reminded anew of just how stupid, short-sighted and selfish so many of its members are — much like the corporations that share our legal status. Democracy Now! has an interesting, and ironic, interview today with filmmaker Michael Moore, who talks about the role that “Fahrenheit 9/11” played in that landmark Supreme Court decision. Btw, a very interesting discussion on that decision is going on in the comments section of the "Bleeding Heart" post.
I heard a comment in passing on the radio yesterday about how corporations aren’t like humans because they can’t be jailed or put to death. Now I’m not a fan of the death penalty, but it got me thinking about how different things would be if corporations actually could be executed, wiped off the face of the earth, exterminated.
Would the threat of such a punishment change the way they do business, just as capital punishments proponents believe that the death penalty deters crime?
Would Texas, which accounts for about a third of all the people put to death in this nation, suddenly see an exodus of corporate headquarters?
Would Monsanto face the gallows for the scourge of genetically modified foods, especially now that a study published in the International Journal of Biological Sciences shows that its GM corn, which is found in almost every non-organic processed food product you eat, is linked to organ damage in rats?
Would Bayer CropScience and the other pesticide companies that produced the toxins beekeepers are linking to colony collapse disorder face death by lethal injection after long years in solitary confinement on death row?
Or maybe we could just skip the charges, trials and appeals altogether and simply assassinate them based on the presumption of their guilt, as the U.S. is mulling in the case of American citizen Anwar al Awlaki, now in Yemen. Heck, there’s already a precedent, as ABC News reports:
An American citizen with suspected al Qaeda ties was killed in Nov. 2002 in Yemen in a CIA predator strike that was aimed at non-American leaders of al Qaeda. The death of the American citizen, Ahmed Hijazi of Lackawanna, NY, was justified as "collateral damage" at the time because he "was just in the wrong place at the wrong time," said a former U.S. official familiar with the case.
Like if Massey Energy just happened to somehow get blown up by the same explosives it’s used to blast the tops off some 470 mountains in Appalachia, would that be “collateral damage,” a case of tough shit — wrong place, wrong time?
Because, you know, morality doesn’t matter anymore, right?
The owner has a right to their property, and as long as they extract the mineral in compliance with the law as it's written today, then they have the right to do so," said Randy Huffman of the state's [West Virginia] DEP [Dept. of Environmental Protection]. "There are only certain things that allow me to deny a permit. And you know, what's morally right or wrong in mine or someone else's opinion is not one of those things."
Yes, it’s a crazy, mixed up world. But that’s what you get when human and corporate psychopaths, as a contributor to comments astutely identified them, are running the show.
Except for a few days of sprinkles, January has been really dry, too. I remember dry periods during the winter and spring, but this winter has been alarmingly so. I've never watered my yard but I now throw dishwater and bathwater on to the lawn and plants. Is this it? Are we past the tipping point?
ReplyDeleteA corporation can be put to death. Its charter can be revoked. Google corporation charter revocation.
ReplyDeleteThe reality is, though, that corporations run our government, which acts primarily in corporate interests. So I suspect not too many charter revocations are likely to occur.
Still, it is interesting, and who knows where the technique might be successful.
Thanks, Larry. Very interesting. I did find this helpful Citizen's Guide to Charter Revocation, which included the warning:
ReplyDeleteA final note: the process outlined in this Manual is not for the weak hearted. Corporate bank accounts hold immense wealth, which is controlled by Directors and Officers intent on building more wealth for the corporation and its stockholders. If you pose enough of a threat to this structure, they will pursue you.
the french rat gmo corn study said "[...] possibly due to the new pesticides specific to each GM corn. In addition, unintended direct or indirect metabolic consequences of the genetic modification cannot be excluded." anywho, important to note that while both mammals, pretty different animals, rats and humans (solitary rats get more cancer, paralyzed rats can be made to walk again, etc etc). plus there are a few pretty good responses to it offered here: http://www.monsanto.com/products/techandsafety/fortherecord_science/2010/monsanto_response_de_vendomois.asp
ReplyDeleteso not quite a "gallows" level infraction. but im all for condemning half assed assertions
otherwise, will be interesting to see how the bee / pesticide case plays out in that NY (?) court
lastly, as a person thats worked in the private sector (blue and white collar) and public sector on the county, state, and federal level (and as to elections in same), id love to hear more about how "[...] corporations run our government, which acts primarily in corporate interests" as thats totally new news to me. so do tell
dwps
From "How Corporations Influence the Government":
ReplyDeleteFurthermore, the regulatory agencies are always the targets of corporate influence. In each area of policy, a triangular relationship exists. The players are the lobbyists and corporations and other private organizations in that area, the congressional committees and subcommittees who make decisions about that subject area, and the executive agencies and regulatory commissions that operate in that field. The connections between these players are as follows: Corporations for whom the lobbyists work give campaign contributions to members of the congressional committees that make decisions about that field. These committees and subcommittees in turn determine the jurisdictions, and sometimes the budgets, of the executive agencies and regulatory commissions that work in the field. Finally, the executive agencies give out government contracts, which can be very lucrative to the industry; while the regulatory commissions adopt regulations, which can be beneficial or restrictive to the industry at hand. If everyone in the triangle cooperates, as they usually do, everyone benefits--that is, everyone except the general public.
Here's an example:
ReplyDeletehttp://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3720/is_200205/ai_n9038426/?tag=content;col1
The article discusses Michael Powell's chairmanship of the FCC:
One of the last pieces of the puzzle was the lead, which Bauerlein and I agreed should be anecdotal. Perusing Powell's personal Web site, I came across a speech that he'd delivered in December 2000, in which he characterized regulation as an "oppressor." The speech had been delivered at something called the Progress and Freedom Foundation (PFF), a name that was not familiar to me. But I visited the PFF's Web site and found a detailed reference to the conference at which Powell had delivered his address. Using the always wonderous Google, I discovered that most attendees were lobbyists for Verizon, AOL, and other big-name communications players.
Intrigued, I phoned the PFF and asked for some background information on the group's communications policy program. They sent me a six-year-old report on telecommunications, in which they proposed disbanding the FCC altogether--perhaps industry's biggest pipe dream. That Powell, the soon-to-be-installed FCC chairman, was appealing to this group was disturbing evidence of his commitment to abdicating government's role in regulating communications.
Come on, dwps. Rats are commonly used to assess risks to human safety.
ReplyDeleteIn case you missed it, scientists' reponse to Monsanto's response:
“Our study contradicts Monsanto conclusions because Monsanto systematically neglects significant health effects in mammals that are different in males and females eating GMOs, or not proportional to the dose. This is a very serious mistake, dramatic for public health. This is the major conclusion revealed by our work, the only careful reanalysis of Monsanto crude statistical data.”
More at:
http://foodfreedom.wordpress.com/2010/01/01/three-approved-gmos-linked-to-organ-damage/
"Come on, dwps. Rats are commonly used to assess risks to human safety."
ReplyDelete-- look i though the distinction i noted was worth noting (esp here). and yes of course i agree with your above comment
and i noted the monsanto link as it cited some other studies. im all for looking into if a rat's pancreas is hurt by GMOs or whatever
thank you
dwps
"A corporation can be put to death. Its charter can be revoked. Google corporation charter revocation."
ReplyDeleteYeah Right. Name any corporation in modern times that has been put to death through charter revocation.
"Would the threat of such a punishment change the way they do business, just as capital punishments proponents believe that the death penalty deters crime?"
ReplyDeleteThe whole purpose of incorporation is to avoid liability for your actions. If that protection were removed it would no longer be a corporation but a psychopathic gang (organized criminal enterprise without the protection of law. Would Fear of punishment be a deterrent? Doesn't have seemed to deter organized crime.
No worries about the lack of rain. Just move. Won't be the first or last time that humans have changed locations because of environmental upheaval, emotional duress or just plain boredom.the planet is littered with pockets of humanity that made the wrong decisions and paid the consequences.
ReplyDeleteCheck out Collapse by J. Diamond.
Opps, Unpack the bags it's raining now in the house lots.
ReplyDelete"Yeah Right. Name any corporation in modern times that has been put to death through charter revocation"
ReplyDeleteTobacco Institute
Council for Tobacco Research
Lionheart Newspapers Inc.
Hightec
S.I.N.C.L.A.R.E. Group
Revocations are common when a corporation fails to file required papers or pay its taxes, but otherwise, indeed, very few (though not zero). Corporations run government, you see, and they have done things like pass "taking" laws so that there are plenty of incentives to leave them alone. Probably corporations have more rights than human beings at present.
Still, moving to revoke a charter can bring publicity to an issue and possibly produce some change in its behavior. My point earlier was that corporations can be put to death. Yes, it's rare.
Larry said Tobacco Instiutute charter revocation (1998) is an example of corporate charter revocation.
ReplyDeleteYour joking right? The corporations that comprised the cabal of the Tobacco Institute were all exempted from private tort liability regarding harm caused by tobacco use as part of the settlement. Putting to death a straw man and letting the real criminals go is a faux sentence without merit except perhaps a minor point in a formal debate. Get real and stop grasping at technical straws. Charter revocation is totally ineffective. A constitutional amendment stating corporations are not people and the subsequent revocation of their first amendment rights is the only answer short of revolution.
"Revolution"
ReplyDeleteRiiiiiiiiiiight.
I agree. "The colonists did not make a revolution over a tax on tea. They foughtfor many reasons, but chiefly to create a nation where citizens were the government and ruled corporations. So even as Americans were routing the king’s armies, they vowed to put corporations under
ReplyDeletedemocratic command." (TCOB at 2).
Lets get back to our roots and route these psychopaths.
"But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."
ReplyDeleteIf you need a cite for this please go back to school.
They foughtfor many reasons, but chiefly to create a nation where citizens were the government and ruled corporations.
ReplyDeleteI guess they musta missed that...in every history book on the American Revolution ever written.
Its from the Communist Manofesto.
ReplyDelete"I guess they musta missed that...in every history book on the American Revolution ever written."
ReplyDeleteWrong. Read the Peoples History of the United States among others.
Wrong. Read the Peoples History of the United States among others.
ReplyDeleteHave it. It Doesn't say that anywhere in the Peoples History of the US.
Howard Zinn would never throw away his academic credibility by saying such inane blather as the colonists fought chiefly to create a nation where citizens were the government and ruled corporations.
ReplyDelete"Have it. It Doesn't say that anywhere in the Peoples History of the US."
ReplyDeleteSo do I and although Zinn did not say those EXACT WORDS, many references expressing similar opinions are replete throughout. Perhaps a closer read?
So do I and although Zinn did not say those EXACT WORDS, many references expressing similar opinions are replete throughout. Perhaps a closer read?
ReplyDeleteYou are wrong and you're not helping the cause by making us look like dopes.
"You are wrong and you're not helping the cause by making us look like dopes."
ReplyDeleteStart reading PHUS at page 258 (2003 edition) and decide who is the dope. What cause are you working for teanbaggers?
K. Nothing there could possibly be read to mean that the colonists fought chiefly to create a nation where citizens were the government and ruled corporations.
ReplyDeleteJust stick with corporations are not people and shouldn't be able to use their massive wealth to influence politics. Don't try to rewrite history. It makes us all look bad. And it's not cool to put stupid words in Professor Zinn's mouth.
Although not from PHUS here is a recent Howard Zinn quote.
ReplyDelete"Liberals get excited about things like that as if they signal a dramatic change. No, the corporations ran our elections before the decision and will do so now -- just with a fig leaf of "legality." The designation of corporations as "persons" which started in 1886 is just proof of how our legal system, the Constitution, the courts have always been tools of the wealthy classes."
"And it's not cool to put stupid words in Professor Zinn's mouth."
ReplyDeleteI never attributed that quote to Zinn.
"Don't try to rewrite history."
ReplyDeleteThat's EXACTLY wHAT Zinn did REWRITE HISTORY from the peoples perspective.
I never attributed that quote to Zinn
ReplyDeleteSigh.
You: They fought for many reasons, but chiefly to create a nation where citizens were the government and ruled corporations.
Anon: I guess they musta missed that...in every history book on the American Revolution ever written.
You: Wrong. Read the Peoples History of the United States among others.
Maybe you missed the connection. A People's History of the United States is by Howard Zinn.
Rewriting history seems to be a thing with you.
"Maybe you missed the connection. A People's History of the United States is by Howard Zinn."
ReplyDeleteSigh. No I made the connection I just did not attribute the quote to Zinn. You did!
Qoutes are words. Words express ideas. Many history books including PHUS expressed peoples fear of corporate control.
ReplyDelete"Rewriting history seems to be a thing with you."
ReplyDeleteAs it is with Howard Zinn.
i am not sure why, but personally, i really liked the first part of your response - tho the "constitutional amendment stating corporations are not people and the subsequent revocation of their first amendment rights is the only answer short of revolution" thing kinda threw me a bit. not sure its quiet time for pitchforks etc
ReplyDeleteand i too missed the part where the founding fathers got pissed at corporations. not like many of them didnt own and run some nifty profitable little enterprises or anything. heck, as i think about it for 5 secs - Franklin set up formal franchises RE his printing operation. ya, so, wtf
oh, and it is good of course that smart guys like zinn dig up largly lost perspectives etc and that he is noted here above - but zinn dont got no monopoly on historical truths, sorry (and corps have been pretty helpful all in all, like most mad-made tools). just sayin. ty
dwps
and by quiet i meant quite :)
ReplyDeleteNo I made the connection I just did not attribute the quote to Zinn. You did!
ReplyDeleteOooookaaaay. Backing slowly away. Making no sudden moves.
Ever been in one of those conversations that starts to skid sideways and you start to wonder about the person and then they say something that makes you suddenly realize that you've been talking to a nut all along?
"you suddenly realize that you've been talking to a nut all along?"
ReplyDeleteYes I know that now!
The Boston Tea Party was an act against the British East India Company (a corporation). It would be Odd if The Peoples History of the United States failed to mention that seminal event.
Yes I seem to remember failure to reimburse the East India Company for the loss of the Tea was what brought the Brits down on the colonies.
ReplyDeleteAs then so now. Gov acting at the behest of corporations. Where United Fruit goes the Marines are sure to follow!
ReplyDeleteThe Boston Tea Party was an act against the British East India Company (a corporation).
ReplyDeleteWow... Just, wow.
The Boston Tea Party was a direct action against the Tea Act, specifically the section imposing a tax on tea, passed by the British Parliament. The colonists objected to the tax because they had no representation in the parliament.
Saying it was against the East India Co. is like saying the actions of an income tax resister are actions against the resister's employer. absurd.
IMHO partnerships should be more than enough for honest people to conduct business among themselves.
ReplyDelete"Saying it was against the East India Co. is like saying the actions of an income tax resister are actions against the resister's employer. absurd."
ReplyDeleteNot absurd at all. It was the British Gov enforcing East India Co. right to be paid. No payment then no taxes owed to the crown for the sale of the tea.
Absurd indeed! That's like claiming United Fruit influenced US Policy towards Central and Latin America! Everyone knows it was commies not United Fruit that required US intervention. That's historical fact.
ReplyDeleteNot according to Wikipedia "The 1954 Guatemalan coup d'état was a covert operation organized by the United States Central Intelligence Agency to overthrow Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán, the democratically-elected President of Guatemala. Arbenz's government put forth a number of new policies, such as seizing and expropriating unused, unfarmed land that private corporations set aside long ago and giving the land to peasants, that the U.S. intelligence community deemed communist in nature and, suspecting Soviet influence, fueled a fear of Guatemala becoming what Allen Dulles described as a "Soviet beachhead in the western hemisphere".[1] Dulles' concern reverberated within the CIA and the Eisenhower administration, in the context of the anti-communist fears of the McCarthyist era. Arbenz instigated sweeping land reform acts that antagonized the U.S.-based multinational United Fruit Company, which had large stakes in the old order of Guatemala and lobbied various levels of U.S. to take action against Arbenz.[2] Both Dulles and his brother were shareholders of United Fruit Company.
ReplyDeleteThe operation, which lasted from late 1953 to 1954, planned to arm and train an ad-hoc "Liberation Army" of about 400 fighters under the command of a then-exiled Guatemalan army officer, Colonel Carlos Castillo Armas, and to use them in conjunction with a complex and largely experimental diplomatic, economic, and propaganda campaign. The operation effectively ended the experimental period of representative democracy in Guatemala known as the "Ten Years of Spring", which ended with Arbenz's official resignation.[3]
The operation was preceded by a plan, never fully implemented, as early as 1951, to supply anti-Arbenz forces with weapons, supplies, and funding, Operation PBFORTUNE. Afterwards there was an operation, Operation PBHISTORY, whose objective was to gather and analyze documents from the Arbenz government that would incriminate Arbenz as a Communist puppet.[4]"
I'll put it like this. We might, might, get majorities to support a constitutional amendment against corporate involvement in elections. But if we go around saying the revolution was fought against corporations then you can kiss it goodbye. We'll just be laughing stocks. Try not to beclown the effort.
ReplyDelete"But if we go around saying the revolution was fought against corporations then you can kiss it goodbye. We'll just be laughing stocks. Try not to beclown the effort."
ReplyDeleteClown! You mean like Jon Stewart and Colbert? Yeah they are totally ineffective.
The grease has been hot for years and it is time to put the chicken in.
People don't kill people, corporations do.
ReplyDelete"The Boston Tea Party was an act against the British East India Company (a corporation)."
ReplyDelete-- i think i get how you are trying to interpret that event * shakes head *
but ya united fruit pressured / asked dulles (cia dir.) to get involved and he did. and that has nothing to do with what promoted those guys to pick the tea boats that night, pls
i think the examples you want to cite are things like carnegie busting up and shooting strikers, ted roosevelt busting up trusts (corps) that got too big, stuff like that (?). but i like how this is moving forward, maybe soon to how other corp's (like banks) played into the america rev (such as the dutch banks, which financed both the UK and US around that time). but for the existence and impact of corps, and a few other things, we'd be speaking the queen's english for sure (save for hawaii, i suspect)
anyways, back to the thing - ya those 2 bush appointees look like they will be changing alot of shit for some time here. but in the next few yrs scalia could get always get hit by a car or something, get shot by cheney duck hunting etc. we'll see
dwps
Howard Zinn has just died of a heart attack at 87.
ReplyDeleteHoward Zinn has just died of a heart attack at 87.
ReplyDeleteHE must have seen this comment:
They fought for many reasons, but chiefly to create a nation where citizens were the government and ruled corporations.
I guess they musta missed that...in every history book on the American Revolution ever written.
Wrong. Read the Peoples History of the United States.
He probably thought, "why does it seem that only freshmen and idiots read my books?" before succumbing.
In an essay titled, "How Democratic Is America?," historian Howard Zinn writes
ReplyDelete" . . . the powerlessness of the American people to participate in economic decision-making, which affects his [sic] life at every moment. As a consumer, that is, as the person for whom the economy is presumably intended to serve, he has virtually nothing to say about what is produced for him. The corporations make what is profitable; the advertising industry persuades him to buy what corporations produce. He becomes the passive victim of the misallocation of resources, the production of dangerous commodities, the spoiling of his air, water, forests, beaches, and cities."
"Daniel Shays, a farmer from Pelham and a Revolutionary war veteran, organized poor farmers from the Connecticut Valley try to shut down the courts that were sending them to debtors prisons on behalf of big Boston banks and business interests calling in debts. Many of the farmers were veterans who had trudged home from the Revolution "with not a single month's pay" in their pockets, but only worthless government certificates."
ReplyDeleteWhy do people like Zinn think everyone but they are too stupid to know what they want and are just dupes of advertisement.
ReplyDeleteI guess it's related to the Marxist myth of false consciousness which is a reassuring self-peptalk that says, "everyone disagrees with my ideas not because I'm wrong but because they are stupid." It's a bit too self-congratulatory to take seriously.
"Why do people like Zinn think everyone but they are too stupid to know what they want and are just dupes of advertisement."
ReplyDeleteDuh! Because corporations themselves also believe the same thing and are willing to spend billions of advert dollars based on this belief? You of course are immune to such adverts, because you are so smart. Surely I jest ;-)
After reading Zinn's simplistic anti-American narratives, always bereft of mitigating historical context, I found it hard to determine whether he really believes what he writes, or just craves the “authority” he gains pleasing a naïve, sophomoric, trendy following that will eat it up his screeds in desperate search of radical chic.
ReplyDeleteWhen he started showing-up backstage at rock concerts in the last couple years in connection with media projects, I think I got my answer.
Zinn would have written about America's assistance during the Indonesian tsunami crisis by homing in on a puppy run over by a truck delivering medical supplies. Then he would give careful consideration to Hugo Chavez's assertion that the CIA caused the entire disaster by using their secret earthquake-creating weapon.
ReplyDelete"think I got my answer."
ReplyDeleteLet me take a wild guess. Your answer was a perfect match for your preconceived ideas?
"After reading Zinn's simplistic anti-American narratives, always bereft of mitigating historical context"
ReplyDeleteYeah Zinn always takes rthings out of context like when he writes about the evils of slavery he overlooked the fact that whitey needed cotton picked! A bad man. A very bad man!
"The death of the American citizen, Ahmed Hijazi of Lackawanna, NY, was justified as "collateral damage" at the time because he "was just in the wrong place at the wrong time," said a former U.S. official familiar with the case."
ReplyDeleteHmmm just like the puppy Zinn was accused of being concerned about. His name was "Ahmed" so I doubt he was a real American anyhow.
genuflect, sycophants, genuflect!
ReplyDeleteHoward Zinn was just another anti-American Red. With Germany gone, they needed another nation to blame for the magic failure of Marxism to succeed and the Soviets to prevail - so they settled on US hatred in the 50s.
Chomsky, Zinn, the Schiffs, Marcuse, Derrida, Freidan, the Rosenbergs - all Stalinist peas in a pod.
"people's history" used some quote from a Commerce Department bureaucrat about economic opportunity as the primary motivator for our involvement in WWII. LAME!
ReplyDeleteChomsky a Stalinist? Why, because he criticizes American foreign and domestic policies? Jon Stewart must be a Maoist.
ReplyDeleteJanuary 27, 2010 5:38 PM. ripping. nice
ReplyDeleteotherwise, chomsky skull crushes zinn, fyi. anywho, both persons are of keen intellect. they make unique and valuable observation such that one is smarter for considering their point of view...and that can be said of a very few
oh and larry, any day now..
Closer to home in today's TGI the sexist headline "8 arrested for selling alcohol to underage girls" exemplifies the local mollycoddling of corporations while castigating humans. First women (UH students age 19 to 20 from Oahu) are not "girls", secondly why were no 18 to 19 males used in the sting operation, and thirdly why were the 8 people arrested (but not convicted) names put in the paper but not the names of the businesses at which they worked? I know it might be bad for business!
ReplyDeleteBTW - Chomsky is an self confirmed anarchist, and anyone with even a passing familiarity with his writings knows his criticism of communism and capitalism are to use Faux News' motto "fair and balanced".
pardon, but worth saying again: chomsky is a juggernaut. i think he does error some, but if you can hang in a debate with that guy, you are world class. as opponents go, chomsky is about as dangerous as it gets: super smart, very well informed, seemingly unflappable, thinks fast, and deadly articulate. the only guy i ever really saw be able to run with him, arguably, to some extent, was william f. buckley jr
ReplyDeleteid suggest if you can verbally grind alan dershowitz into a pulp (as to israel, for example) you're a force to be reckoned with:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULvJrb5lKu4&feature=related
sorry for the tangent
dwps
I once read transcripts that European journalists Noam Chomsky's interviews by European journalists in the mid to late sixties. In one of the interviews, conducted in 1968, he accurately described how the United States would eventually withdraw from Vietnam some seven years before it happened. Say what you want, but you can't deny his depth of knowledge and analytical skills.
ReplyDelete“I think people are dazzled by Obama’s rhetoric, and that people ought to begin to understand that Obama is going to be a mediocre president — which means, in our time, a dangerous president — unless there is some national movement to push him in a better direction.”
ReplyDeleteFrom Howard Zinn's essay in the Nation.
dwps - "chomsky is about as dangerous as it gets"
ReplyDeleteDoes it follow that anyone that makes sense poses a danger, and the more sense they make the more danger they pose?
I applaud sense-making, and deplore nonsense, but that's just me.
Chomsky and others pay tribute to Zinn:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.democracynow.org/2010/1/28/howard_zinn_1922_2010_a_tribute
Oh goody, a deep end of the pool to jump into. Whee!! While all of you decipher, pick apart and rationalize these authors, lets really look at some simple realities right now. There is a growing backlash among all of the conservatives, from the tea baggers, Christian Taliban right wing extremist theocratic movements and everything in between to do several things. And scarily enough it seems they are winning. When theocratical emblematic and dogmatic idealogies run corporations, and those corporations get control you have a budding civil war and a possible new Marxist/Theocracy/Oligarchy in the near future, with democratic United States of America no longer existing. What will be interesting to see, is if condom companies, birth control companies and the millions and millions of gays in this country can exert their own corporate purchasing power to out muscle the Christian Taliban and Right Wing Conservatives. They will probably get a huge shot in the arm from solar panel companies, and wind companies, electric power companies and fuel cell companies as well as environmently friendly and sustainable corporations, and hordes of attorney's now honed to a fine toothed comb on how the other side operates. That doesn't even include the millions and millions of liberated women who are not about to live under Christian Taliban shari'a style law. It will truly be a battle for the soul of America. Interesting to see how it all turns out..huh, kids? Plan on being a spectator or a participant?
ReplyDelete