Friday, September 21, 2018
Interview on Capitalism, Conservatives, Narratives, the Left, PC Culture, Hollywood
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aiUlBtAGJLk
Four dead in workplace shooting in Maryland, the third mass shooting in the US in 24 hours
By Adam Mclean
21 September 2018
On Thursday morning, a gunman
opened fire at a Rite Aid distribution center in Aberdeen, Maryland, killing
three people and injuring three more. The suspected shooter, Snochia Moseley,
was found dead at the scene and is believed to have fatally shot herself.
According to accounts of
coworkers given to police, Moseley was a disgruntled employee at the
distribution center. Previously a security guard at the facility, she was
working as a temporary worker at the same location at the time of the shooting.
Her exact motives remain unclear.
The Rite Aid distribution
center is a large warehouse, sitting next to an Amazon warehouse of similar
size. While the conditions at Amazon warehouses are particularly egregious, the
same exploitation, in different degree, exists in other warehouses.
Politicians responded by
piously lamenting the tragedy without providing any explanation of the
regularity of mass violence in the United States. Republican Governor Larry
Hogan tweeted “Our prayers are with all those impacted, including our first
responders. The State stands ready to offer any support.”
Democratic Senator Ben Cardin
echoed this in his own tweet, saying “Details are still emerging, but I've met
with the Harford County Executive and Sheriff to offer my sincere condolences.
I wanted to be there in person to thank them, as well as the many first
responders and federal law enforcement on the scene for their swift responses.”
He also put forward gun
control as a palliative for these shootings. Cardin continued, “There is no
rational reason we should not close the loophole that allows some gun purchases
to occur without a background check or reinstate the assault weapons ban,” but
had no other ideas for combating gun violence.
Images and video of police
raiding the warehouse with shotguns and assault weapons and of police
individually patting down employees appeared on the Washington Post.
Shootings also occurred this
week in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. In Wisconsin, software developer Anthony
Tong shot four people at his office on Wednesday, seriously wounding three,
before being killed himself in a shootout with police. He had worked at WTS
Paradigm, and his motive remains unknown. A nearby shopping center was placed
on lockdown at the request of the police.
The Middleton police chief
responding to the shooting said, “I think a lot less people were injured or
killed because police officers went in and neutralized the shooter.”
In Pennsylvania, Patrick
Dowdell shot three people at a courthouse where he was due to appear for domestic
violence charges on Wednesday. He was shot and killed by police at the scene as
well.
These recent episodes of gun
violence are only the latest in a long line of mass shootings in America. That
three separate shootings occurred in the space of two days is not exceptionally
rare is a testament to the frequency of gun violence in the US.
According to the Gun Violence
Archive, “There have been 262 American mass shootings (4+ shot or killed in the
same incident, not including the shooter) in the 263 days of 2018.” There have
been 1,800 mass shootings in the US since 2013.
That mass shootings have
become a near-daily phenomenon is a symptom of a society in deep crisis.
Political figures issue the standard laments after each tragedy, accompanied by
inevitable calls for increasing the powers of the state. These eruptions of
violence, however, cannot be separated from the glorification of militarism and
the general brutalization of social relations in America, promoted by the
entire political establishment.
In the most unequal country in
the world, the most psychologically fragile snap and erupt in violence. Mass
shootings are only one of the more palpable consequences of this larger trend.
Monday, September 17, 2018
Ending the Secrecy of the Student Debt Crisis
Posted on September 16, 2018 by Yves
Smith
Yves here. This article
describes how the stigma of struggling to pay student debt is a burden in and
of itself. I wish this article had explained how little it take to trigger an
escalation into default interest rates and how punitive they are. The piece
also stresses the value of activism as a form of psychological relief, by
connecting stressed student debt borrowers with people similarly afflicted.
But the bigger issue is the
way indebtedness is demonized in a society that makes it pretty much impossible
to avoid borrowing. One reader recounted how many (as in how few) weeks of
after tax wages it took to buy a car in the 1960s versus now. Dealers don’t
want to talk to buyers who want to pay in full at the time of purchase. And if
you don’t have installment credit or a mortgage, the consumer credit agencies
ding you!
It goes without saying that
the sense of shame is harder to endure due to how shallow most people’s social
networks are, which is another product of neoliberalism.
In keeping, the New York Times
today ran an op-ed by one of its editors on how student debtors are also
victims of the crisis, reprinted from a longer piece in The Baffler (hat tip Dan K). Key sections:
Because of the loans’
disgracefully high interest rates, my family and I have paid more or less the
equivalent of my debt itself in the years since I graduated, making monthly
payments in good faith — even in times of unemployment and extreme duress — to
lenders like Citigroup, a bank that was among the largest recipients of federal
bailout money in 2008 and that eventually sold off my debt to other lenders.
This ruinous struggle has been essentially meaningless: I now owe more than
what I started out owing, not unlike my parents with their mortgage….
Many people have and will
continue to condemn me personally for my tremendous but unexceptional student
debt, and the ways in which it has made the recession’s effects linger for my
family. I’ve spent quite a lot of time in the past decade accepting this blame.
The recession may have compounded my family’s economic insecurity, but I also
made the conscious decision to take out loans for a college I couldn’t afford
in order to become a journalist, a profession with minimal financial returns.
The amount of debt I owe in student loans — about $100,000 — is more than I
make in a given year. I am ashamed and embarrassed by this, but as I grow
older, I think it is time that those profiting from this country’s broken
economic system share some of my guilt…
[At my commencement in 2009]
Mrs. Clinton then echoed a fantasy of boundless opportunity that had helped
guide the country into economic collapse, deceiving many of the parents in
attendance, including my own, into borrowing toward a future that they couldn’t
work hard enough to afford. “There is no problem we face here in America or around
the world that will not yield to human effort,” she said. “Our challenges are
ones that summon the best of us, and we will make the world better tomorrow
than it is today.” At the time, I wondered if this was accurate. I now know how
wrong she was.
By Daniela Senderowicz.
Originally published in Yes! Magazine
Activists are building
meaningful connections among borrowers to counter the taboo of admitting they
can’t pay their bills.
Gamblers and reality TV stars
can claim bankruptcy protections when in financial trouble, but 44 million
student loan borrowers can’t. Unemployed, underpaid, destitute, sick, or
struggling borrowers simply aren’t able to start anew.
With a default rate
approaching 40 percent, one would expect armies of distressed borrowers
marching in the streets demanding relief from a system that has singled out
their financial anguish. Distressed student debtors, however, seem to be
terror-struck about coming forward to a society that, they say, ostracizes them
for their inability to keep up with their finances.
When we spoke to several
student borrowers, almost none were willing to share their names. “I can’t tell
anyone how much I’m struggling,” says a 39-year-old Oregon physician who went
into student loan default after his wife’s illness drained their finances. He
is terrified of losing his patients and reputation if he speaks out about his
financial problems.
“If I shared this with anyone
they will look down upon me as some kind of fool,” explains a North Carolina
psychologist who is now beyond retirement age. He explains that his student
debt balance soared after losing a well-paying position during the financial
crisis, and that he is struggling to pay it back.
Financial shame alienates
struggling borrowers. Debtors blame themselves and self-loathe when they can’t
make their payments, explains Colette Simone, a Michigan psychologist. “There
is so much fear of sharing the reality of their financial situation and the
devastation it is causing in every facet of their lives,” she says. “The consequences
of coming forward can result in social pushback and possible job–related
complications, which only deepen their suffering.”
Debtors are isolated, anxious,
and in the worst cases have taken their own lives. Simone confirms that she has “worked
with debtors who were suicidal or had psychological breakdowns requiring
psychiatric hospitalization.”
With an average debt of just
over $37,000 per borrower for the class of 2016, and given that incomes have been flat since the 1970s, it’s not surprising that borrowers are
struggling to pay. Student loans have a squeaky-clean reputation, and society
tends to view them as a noble symbol of the taxpayers’ generosity to the working
poor. Fear of facing society’s ostracism for failure to pay them back has left
borrowers alienated and trapped in a lending system that is engulfing them in
debt bondage.
“Alienation impacts mental
health issues,” says New York mental health counselor Harriet Fraad. “As long
as they blame themselves within the system, they’re lost.”
Student debtors can counter
despair by fighting back through activism and political engagement, she says.
“Connection is the antidote to alienation, and engaging in activism, along with
therapy, is a way to recovery.”
Despite the fear of coming
forward, some activists are building a social movement in which meaningful
connections among borrowers can counter the taboo of openly admitting financial
ruin.
Student Loan Justice, a national
grassroots lobby group, is attempting to build this movement by pushing
for robust legislation to return bankruptcy protections to
borrowers. The group has active chapters in almost every state, with members
directly lobbying their local representatives to sign on as co-sponsors to HR
2366. Activists are building a supportive community for struggling borrowers
through political agitation, local engagement, storytelling, and by spreading a
courageous message of hope that may embolden traumatized borrowers to come
forward and unite.
Julie Margetaa
Morgan, a fellow at The Roosevelt Institute, recently noted that student
debt servicers like Navient have a powerful influence on lawmakers. “Student
loan borrowers may not have millions to spend on lobbying, but they have
something equally, if not more, powerful: millions of voices,” she says.
A recent manifesto by
activist and recent graduate Eli Campbell calls for radical unity among
borrowers. “Young people live in constant fear that they’ll never be able to
pay off their debt. We’re not buying houses or able to afford the hallmarks of
the American dream,” he explains.
In his call for a unified
national boycott of student loan payments, inevitably leading to a mass default
on this debt, Campbell hopes to expose this crisis and instigate radical
change. In a recent interview he explained that the conditions for
borrowers are so bad already that debtors may not join the boycott willingly.
Instead, participation may simply happen by default given the lack of proper
work opportunities that lead to borrowers’ inability to pay.
While a large-scale default
may not happen through willful and supportive collective action, ending the
secrecy of the crisis through massive national attention may destigmatize the
shame of financial defeat and finally bring debtors out of the isolation that
causes them so much despair.
Activists are calling for a
significant conversation about the commodification of educating our youth,
shifting our focus toward investing into the promise of the young and able,
rather than the guarantee of their perpetual debt bondage. In calling for
collective action they soothe the hurt of so many alienated debtors, breaking
the taboos that allow them to say, “Me, too” and admit openly that in this
financial climate we all need each other to move forward.
Sunday, September 16, 2018
Fighting Debbie Wasserman Schultz & Election Fraud w/Tim Canova
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYXvLb_fhPY
A new authoritarian axis demands an international progressive front
There is a global struggle taking place of enormous consequence. Nothing less than the future of the planet – economically, socially and environmentally – is at stake.
At a time of massive wealth
and income inequality, when the world’s top 1% now owns more wealth than the
bottom 99%, we are seeing the rise of a new authoritarian axis.
While these regimes may differ
in some respects, they share key attributes: hostility toward democratic norms,
antagonism toward a free press, intolerance toward ethnic and religious
minorities, and a belief that government should benefit their own selfish
financial interests. These leaders are also deeply connected to a network of
multi-billionaire oligarchs who see the world as their economic plaything.
Those of us who believe in
democracy, who believe that a government must be accountable to its people,
must understand the scope of this challenge if we are to effectively confront
it.
It should be clear by now
that Donald
Trump and the rightwing movement that supports him is not a phenomenon
unique to the United States. All around the world, in Europe, in Russia, in the
Middle East, in Asia and elsewhere we are seeing movements led by demagogues
who exploit people’s fears, prejudices and grievances to achieve and hold on to
power.
This trend certainly did not
begin with Trump, but there’s no question that authoritarian leaders around the
world have drawn inspiration from the fact that the leader of the world’s
oldest and most powerful democracy seems to delight in shattering democratic
norms.
Three years ago, who would have
imagined that the United States would stay neutral between Canada, our democratic
neighbor and second largest trading partner, and Saudi Arabia, a
monarchic, client state that treats women as third-class citizens? It’s also
hard to imagine that Israel’s Netanyahu government
would have moved to pass the recent “nation
state law”, which essentially codifies the second-class status of
Israel’s non-Jewish citizens, if Benjamin Netanyahu didn’t know Trump would
have his back.
All of this is not exactly a
secret. As the US continues to grow further and further apart from our longtime
democratic allies, the US ambassador to Germany recently made clear the Trump
administration’s support for rightwing extremist parties across Europe.
In addition to Trump’s
hostility toward democratic institutions we have a billionaire president who,
in an unprecedented way, has blatantly embedded his own economic interests and
those of his cronies into the policies of government.
Other authoritarian states are
much farther along this kleptocratic process. In Russia, it is impossible to
tell where the decisions of government end and the interests of Vladimir Putin
and his circle of oligarchs begin. They operate as one unit. Similarly, in
Saudi Arabia, there is no debate about separation because the natural resources
of the state, valued at trillions of dollars, belong to the Saudi royal family.
In Hungary, far-right authoritarian leader Viktor Orbán is openly allied with
Putin in Russia. In China, an inner circle led by Xi Jinping has steadily
consolidated power, clamping down on domestic political freedom while it
aggressively promotes a version of authoritarian capitalism abroad.
We must understand that these
authoritarians are part of a common front.
They are in close contact with
each other, share tactics and, as in the case of European and American
rightwing movements, even share some of the same funders. The Mercer family,
for example, supporters of the infamous Cambridge Analytica, have been key
backers of Trump and of Breitbart News, which operates in Europe, the United
States and Israel to advance the same anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim agenda.
Republican megadonor Sheldon Adelson gives generously to rightwing causes in
both the United States and Israel, promoting a shared agenda of intolerance and
illiberalism in both countries.
The truth is, however, that to
effectively oppose rightwing authoritarianism, we cannot simply go back to the
failed status quo of the last several decades. Today in the United States, and
in many other parts of the world, people are working longer hours for
stagnating wages, and worry that their children will have a lower standard of
living than they do.
Our job is to fight for a
future in which new technology and innovation works to benefit all people, not
just a few. It is not acceptable that the top 1% of the world’s population owns
half the planet’s wealth, while the bottom 70% of the working age population
accounts for just 2.7% of global wealth.
Together governments of the
world must come together to end the absurdity of the rich and multinational
corporations stashing over $21tn in offshore bank accounts to avoid paying
their fair share of taxes and then demanding that their respective governments
impose an austerity agenda on their working families.
It is not acceptable that the
fossil fuel industry continues to make huge profits while their carbon
emissions destroy the planet for our children and grandchildren.
It is not acceptable that a
handful of multinational media giants, owned by a small number of billionaires,
largely control the flow of information on the planet.
It is not acceptable that
trade policies that benefit large multinational corporations and encourage a
race to the bottom hurt working people throughout the world as they are written
out of public view.
It is not acceptable that, with
the cold war long behind us, countries around the world spend over $1tn a year
on weapons of destruction, while millions of children die of easily treatable
diseases.
In order to effectively combat
the rise of the international authoritarian axis, we need an international
progressive movement that mobilizes behind a vision of shared prosperity,
security and dignity for all people, and that addresses the massive global
inequality that exists, not only in wealth but in political power.
Such a movement must be
willing to think creatively and boldly about the world that we would like to
see. While the authoritarian axis is committed to tearing down a post-second
world war global order that they see as limiting their access to power and
wealth, it is not enough for us to simply defend that order as it exists now.
We must look honestly at how
that order has failed to deliver on many of its promises, and how
authoritarians have adeptly exploited those failures in order to build support
for their agenda. We must take the opportunity to reconceptualize a genuinely
progressive global order based on human solidarity, an order that recognizes
that every person on this planet shares a common humanity, that we all want our
children to grow up healthy, to have a good education, have decent jobs, drink
clean water, breathe clean air and live in peace.
Our job is to reach out to
those in every corner of the world who share these values, and who are fighting
for a better world.
In a time of exploding wealth
and technology, we have the potential to create a decent life for all people.
Our job is to build on our common humanity and do everything that we can to
oppose all of the forces, whether unaccountable government power or
unaccountable corporate power, who try to divide us up and set us against each
other. We know that those forces work together across borders. We must do the
same.
Bernie Sanders is a US Senator
from Vermont
We asked Yanis
Varoufakis to comment on Bernie Sanders’ piece. Here is his response:
Bernie Sanders is spot-on.
Financiers have long formed an international “brotherhood” to guarantee
themselves international bailouts when their paper pyramids crash.
More recently, xenophobic
rightwing zealots also formed their very own Nationalist International, turning
once proud people against another so that they control their wealth and
politics.
It is high time that Democrats
from across the world form a Progressive International in the interests of a
majority of people on every continent, in every country.
Sanders is also right when he
says that the solution is not to go back to a status quo whose spectacular
failure has paved the ground for the rise of the Nationalist International.
Our Progressive International
must lead with a vision of the green, shared prosperity that human ingenuity is
capable of providing – as long as democracy is given a chance to enable it.
To that end we need to do more
than campaign together. Let us form a common council that draws out a common
blueprint for an International New Deal, a progressive New Bretton Woods.
Saturday, September 15, 2018
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