HughBeaumont
HughBeaumont's JournalThe Onion: No Longer a Satirical Newspaper, Part III:
http://www.theonion.com/articles/bangladesh-factory-owners-vow-to-change-nothing-so,32451/SAVAR, BANGLADESH—In the wake of a garment factory collapse last month that claimed the lives of more than 1,100 laborers, clothing factory owners throughout Bangladesh issued a joint statement Wednesday, pledging to spare every expense necessary to ensure that a tragedy like this definitely happens again. “This terrible loss of life has not opened our eyes to the conditions for workers throughout Bangladesh, and we promise to take the proper inaction so that we can guarantee all safety hazards are completely and fully ignored,” wrote Wal-Mart contractor Sujon Majumdar on behalf of over 2,000 plant owners, who vowed to stand idly by and do absolutely nothing within their power to prevent another catastrophe. “In our opinion, the workers of Bangladesh are our least important resource and deserve nothing more than unsafe and inhumane working conditions. Rest assured, this will happen again on our watch.” The statement from the owners concluded by urging readers to pledge to a relief fund to support the revenues that were tragically lost in the recent collapse.
Corporate UhMerica laughs at labor's plights. They're wondering how much Dead Peasant's Insurance they can collect. Sorry there ain't no better way of putting it.
Men who are physically strong are more likely to have right wing political views. WOW.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2325414/Men-physically-strong-likely-right-wing-political-views.htmlThe Daily Fail is officially a parody website.
Men who are physically strong are more likely to take a right wing political stance, while weaker men are inclined to support the welfare state, according to a new study.
Researchers discovered political motivations may have evolutionary links to physical strength.
Men's upper-body strength predicts their political opinions on economic redistribution, according to the research.
(snip)
Professor Petersen said: ‘Our results demonstrate that physically weak males are more reluctant than physically strong males to assert their self-interest - just as if disputes over national policies were a matter of direct physical confrontation among small numbers of individuals, rather than abstract electoral dynamics among millions.’
However, the researchers found no link between upper-body strength and redistribution opinions among women.
Too much Benghazi bullshit floating on wingding sites this week, so . . .
http://thinkprogress.org/security/2013/05/08/1982151/witnesses-debunk-benghazi/?mobile=nc#GOP Star Witnesses Debunk Right-Wing Benghazi Conspiracy Theories
Part of the prevailing theory surrounding the events the night of the Benghazi attacks is that the Obama administration did not do enough militarily to respond to the crisis. Gregory Hicks — a Foreign Service Officer and the former Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Libya — claimed during his pre-hearing testimony that fighter jets could have been flown over Benghazi, preventing the second wave of the attack from occurring.
Ranking Member Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) questioned that statement, asking Hicks whether he disagreed with Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff Gen Martin Dempsey’s assessment that no air assets were in range the night of the attack. Hicks didn’t disagree, saying he was “speaking from [his] perspective” and what “veteran Libyan revolutionaries” told him, rather than Pentagon assessments.
snip
3. A Special Forces Team that could have saved lives was told to stand down
One of the most shocking reveals in the lead-up to today’s hearing was that a team of Special Forces in Tripoli were told not to deploy to Benghazi during the attack. That decision has led to an uproar on the right, including claims of dereliction of duty towards Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey for not taking actions that could have saved lives.
During questioning, Hicks confirmed that the team was ready to be deployed — not to join the fighting at the CIA annex — but “to secure the airport for the withdrawal of our personnel from Benghazi after the mortar attack.” Hicks also confirmed that it was the second such team to be readied for deployment, with the first having proceeded to Benghazi earlier. Despite the second team not deploying, the staff was all evacuated first to Tripoli, then to Germany, within 18 hours of the attack taking place.
They're seriously and desperately trying to hunt for "The Scandal That Brings Down President (insert racial slur here)" that isn't there . . . just like they did with Clinton.
Here's a great place to start job creation in Cleveland: The RTA (a story)!
Taking the train yesterday, unbeknownst to me in the morning, was a huge mistake.
I go eastbound from the W. 140th/Triskett Station. The station after it (W. 117th and Madison) has service blocked from both sides to the West Blvd/Cudell station. We had to take shuttle busses to the Cudell station and then had to wait 15 minutes for the next train to arrive. The platform was DC packed, and they had only three small cars for all of us, which is one more than they normally have for a rush hour commute that arrives every 13-15 minutes.
That wasn't the worst of it. On the way home, I was standing in the Tower City platform and had to wait 20 minutes for a train to arrive. During rush hour, mind you.
The train finally approaches and all of a sudden, there was a giant banging noise as if something exploded. Turns out that a giant 4 x 4 metal grate fell from it's ceiling confines with such force that the tile underneath it cracked. Everyone on the platform was stunned and they had good reason to be: had anyone been under this thing, which weight a good 60-80 pounds on it's own, they'd have been hospitalized at best and dead at worst.
I looked up and the area above the ceiling had such a great amount of water damage and rot all over.
So does RTA mean to tell me that, despite jacking up pass rates every year (to the point where parking downtown is actually the less costly option), they can't keep at least one set of tracks open? They can't update it's Carl Stokes-adminstration-era cars or at the very least, add more cars during rush hour? They can't add another desperately needed line along the Lake Erie coast that conveniences everyone and not just east-siders? They can't simplify their needlessly complicated train-pass system (activate or not? REALLY?)?
The RTA's Rapid is literally the WORST train system I've ever been on. It's infrastructure is crumbling, it's unsafe (not just the cars or the platforms, but the people on them . . . your morning commute is awesome with students getting into shouting matches or fistfights on the damned train, let me tell you), it's very inadequate for 2013, it stops in only one place downtown and very few places of any importance, it's becoming less of an economic option for the return on investment and it's infrequency is a problem.
You want a TDA project/giant overhaul that will bring much needed jobs and work, why not start HERE? MAKE this city an example of how a great and adequate transportation system benefits a city and revives its job-starved economy. Many cities can use infrastructure repair for certain, but this would bring a lot of people for sure.
Can someone tell CNBC's Rick Santelli that the Cold War is over?
Can someone tell that fuckstick lunatic, who just went on a yelling boilerplate tirade to Steve Liesman about "pro-growth policies as opposed to socialism!", that Red-Baiting terms have zero emotional significance to most of America that's moved ON from that sort of nonsense?
Can someone tell that ranting, rubber-room candidate that the President is actually a centrist Chi-Schooler when it comes to economics, and that Republicans are the ones who control the purse strings?
Can someone give him a nice fat valium or a bat in the jaw?
How'd that Tea Party work out for you, Ricky?
Here's What Happens When Good Jobs Go Away and Don't Come Back
http://inplainsight.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/04/26/17825677-heres-what-happens-when-good-jobs-go-away-and-dont-come-back?liteEven as overall unemployment has been improving, this long-term unemployment hasn’t been getting better – and it’s far worse than at any other time since the government began keeping track after World War Two.
Why, of all the places you could have been writing about, did you pick Janesville?
For starters, I wanted a place that had never been part of the Rust Belt, so that I’d be looking just at the effects of the country’s recent economic crisis and not at decades of accumulated economic decay. Janesville definitely fit the bill. Two days before Christmas of 2008, the Janesville Assembly Plant shut down. It belonged to General Motors and was a 4.8 million square foot behemoth that had begun turning out Chevrolets in 1923. When it closed, it laid off about 3,000 people and took thousands of other jobs with it, because Janesville also had local companies that had supplied goods and services to the plant, and when GM went away, they went away too. And after that, some small businesses couldn’t make it either.
snip
So, what does it look like in a community when thousands of good, middle-class jobs go away and they don’t come back?
I think the main thing I’ve been learning is that falling out of the middle class is very different than having been poor all along. If you’ve grown up poor – been in generational poverty, it’s called – you are used to it. Often, people around you are poor and, even if there are not great options, you pretty much know what to do: apply for what used to be known as food stamps, for instance, or go to the local emergency room if you’re sick. But when you’ve always thought of yourself as middle class, and suddenly you’ve tumbled downhill, well, that can be a real stunner. You don’t want your neighbors to know, and you’re not sure where to turn for help. You don’t even want to ask for help, because you never saw yourself as someone who would need it.
snip
You wrote an article about job retraining for the dislocated workers of Janesville. As you pointed out, the idea of retraining has a lot of bipartisan political support, and it sounds like a great idea – teach people how to do the jobs that are available so they can get back on their feet. Does retraining work?
I think retraining can work, but it doesn’t always. I looked at a two-year college in Janesville, called Blackhawk Tech, which was deluged with former factory workers. It’s been doing basically everything that policymakers recommend: working closely with local employers, steering students into fields where jobs seem most likely to exist, providing extra help for these people who’d been thrown out of their jobs and, sometimes, were scared, angry, depressed and nervous about whether they could succeed in school. Still, not everyone who has retrained there has found a good job – or any job at all. As one counselor at the college told me, “Retraining, yes. But retraining for what?”
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The 33-Year Plague Called Reaganomics: The Rule, The Gospel, The Way of Life.
What do we do to change it? I say "we", because short of having a million dollars, it's quite evident we're on our own.
Is anyone with any kind of power a moderate conservative to straight-up right winger?
What's happening now is that on CNBC, there's Hagel trying to drum up a reason to invade Syria . .. you got that whole mess with the War Criminal getting his own library and his flesh-rotted legacy literally being reanimated by pundit after pundit as if nothing bad ever happened during the Decade of Decline . . . . you got a background check bill that just got flipped off by a talking turtle and his merry band of geriatric cackling thugs five months after 20 first-graders get taken apart by a Bushmaster . . . you have a country that refuses to move into the 20th century on three basic human rights (education, health care and marriage) . . .
I'm trying to fish, to dig for some kind of hope that economics, the environment, culture, labor rights, human rights, senior citizen's livelihoods, our children's futures, our national resources and infrastructure . .. are going to improve for the better (and dear God, they all need to).
Then I look at just about every avenue of power and think that it's all far too gone to be repaired.
Nearly EVERYONE that has any kind of power in America, whether it's in the government or the private sector, subscribes to either counter-productive glad-handing of conservative business and economic policies at best or, at worst, embraces and wholeheartedly believes in wealthmongering, plutonomy, laissez-fail, complete corporate fealty and austerity as sound and sturdy life practice.
Who in corporate America values their labor enough to domestically employ them; forget the notion of paying them a living wage comparable to the costs of living and offering benefits that will allow the retirement-to-new-worker cycle to continue? Who in corporate America DOESN'T believe in the long-standing myth of "fiduciary duty to the shareholders being the ONLY thing corporations should care about"?? Who in corporate America isn't constantly playing the "persecuted victim" card? Who in corporate America isn't trying to game the system?
Look at your wealthy. I could devote three paragraphs to their destructive behavior in terms of the environment, the electoral process, wealth inequality, governmental productivity, labor rights, human rights, etc. . . . but I'm not going to.
Out of the three branches of government, HOW many Sherrod Brown/Bernie Sanders/Elizabeth Warren Progressives are there? You could count them on your hands. Likely, ONE of them.
Look at your media channels. Are there ANY domestic channels that have truly OBJECTIVE voices and aren't trying to underhandedly push toxic narratives?
Police? Don't we both have the same oppressors? Yet who do they brutalize? Who do they assault? Whose protests do they break up? Don't even for ONE SECOND tell me that they don't collectively dislike and hold in contempt anyone to the left of Joe Lieberman. It's still, by and large, a very conservative institution. See them at any Tea Party events? See them at any Glen Beck gatherings? Why do they come in riot gear to our protests? Do we have caches of heavy weaponry?
Democrats? Except for the ones I mentioned and a few others, the lot of them are Third Way appeasers who worship at the altar of Milton Friedman, don't believe in basic human rights like Universal Health Care and cry "powerless" when it comes to getting even a simple gun background check Bill passed. They're doing absolutely nothing at all to disprove the "both parties are the same" people when it comes to economics and only care about social issues when they're being pushed to do so.
The Republicans are nothing but obstructionist, greedbag, fundamental-religion-poisoned, oblivious, know-nothing, do-nothing, inaffectual, warmongering, selfish, lying, immoral failures filled with sour hatred and blackened hearts. Looking for help from them is like looking for talent in 2013 pop music. They're not looking for the next bridge to repair, they're looking for the next nation to blow up and markets to vacuum. They don't want you to retire, they want you to be unemployed, starving and DEAD. Let's not pretend these pig resource hogs don't have a herd to cull.
Where do we turn when everyone's purchased?
Is it nature or nurture that institutions absolutely HAVE to be run by authoritarians who don't care about the fate of mankind and only live in the quarterly short-term?
How is there a future for America when these above-mentioned institutions will try everything in their power to obstruct and prevent that from happening?
Where's the PROMISE? WHERE'S THE HOPE??
When are we going to get a progressive or a hundred to change things?
You'll love this interview. Most hilarious 49 minutes you'll spend.
http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/saturday/20111022If there were ever a definition of "uncomfortable", it's Thomas "Milton" Friedman trying to bob-and-weave his way out of an actual journalist's questioning of his flimsy, overassumptive theories that he learned from "random chai wallahs while waiting for his plane in the Dehli airport", or something along those lines. Among the things you learn from Tommy's squirm-a-thon:
* It's either live with what we have or North Korea/Totalitarianism, and there is no in-between, fairer economic happy medium anywhere in the world that has any kind of success.
* Don't shoot the messenger.
* He really . . . REALLLLLLLLLLY doesn't like his personal wealth being called out.
* We're not in Kansas anymore.
* He's never heard of the word "neo-liberal".
* Tommy's a tad blind to pachyderms inside rooms.
* We need balance and cooperation (and hey, while we're throwing out pipe dreams, I want a new car).
* Our economy is NOT zero-sum and Americans AREN'T losing their jobs when third world nations are lifted out of poverty.
* Anyone who questions him has an "agenda".
No, Thomas. What you just experienced is called "Objective JOURNALISM". You want softball-lobbing Trickle-down fawning, go on CNBC.
36 Sure Fire Signs . . .: Written in 2007, How Much of It Still Sadly Applies Today?
http://www.commondreams.org/views07/0202-26.htmSome snippets . . .
You know your empire's crumbling when almost half the soldiers in that war are high-paid mercenaries, and you don't dare institute a draft.
snip
You know your empire's crumbling when a member of the Axis of Evil can test missiles and explode nuclear warheads, and all you can do about it is mumble some pathetic warnings about how they better not do that again or there will be consequences.
You know your empire's crumbling when you even think that there is an Axis of Evil.
You know your empire's crumbling when a rag-tag military hodge-podge of irregulars has you pinned down in an endless fight you can't win, but also can't lose.
snip
You know your empire's crumbling when you're the richest country in the world, but nearly 50 million of your people don't have basic health care coverage.
You know your empire's crumbling when the World Health Organization ranks your healthcare system 37th best in the world, just above Slovenia, and just below Costa Rica. (And far below Colombia, Cyprus, Saudi Arabia and Morocco.)
You know your empire's crumbling when instead of making it easier for citizens to obtain a higher education, you're making it harder and more expensive.
You know your empire's crumbling when your government gives tax breaks to industries as a reward for exporting your jobs elsewhere.
snip
You know your empire's crumbling when your middle class has been stagnant for three decades, while the wealth of the hyper-rich continues to climb through the roof.
snip
You know your empire's crumbling when the predatory class has taken over your government and is stripping the country of everything not bolted down to the floor. And then it sells the floor itself, as well, to your rivals.
snip
You know your empire's crumbling when gays and immigrants are used as diversionary issues to keep people from thinking about the pillaging of their country and their wallets actually taking place. And it works.
You know your empire's crumbling when people are getting more religious and less scientific, not the other way around.
Have we learned absolutely NOTHING? Will we EVER? I don't have to ask will THEY ever learn, since, you know, "they got theirs" and learning from mistakes they don't even know or care that they're making isn't really part or parcel in their bubbles.
Must be nice to be able to relegate a planet to a scorched Earth, piecemeal, dumpster scrap, shipping-crate-home future. Greed is a hereditary plague that we're all going to pay dearly for.
1. Treat Horatio Alger as "pie-in-the-sky" and not "The Rule".
2. Get it instilled that making a living with a living wage, a pension and stability is far more fruitful in the long run than "get-rich-quick" and a more probable and reasonable solution than relying on "STARTYEROWNBUSINESS/BEYEROWNBOSS!" as the cure-all for America's chronic joblessness.
3. ACE Marty Feldstein's HBS Laissez-Fail CRAP from our business schools. The reason corporations are ruthless and uncaring is because this little bastard's right-wing teachings have been poisoning student's minds since the 1980s and they go on to RUN these corporations . . . into the ground. We're creating a generation of short-term, profit-happy Hank Kravises, Michael Milkens, Lloyd Bankfiends and Jamie Dimons and it's KILLING us.
4. Guaranteed basic income combined with maximum wage. Nobody NEEDS more than a billion dollars when there are people with degrees fighting for former high-schooler jobs.
5. Universal Health Care.
6. End ridiculously expensive and painfully useless folly wars and have the military help rebuild our badly crumbling infrastructure. I can't think of a better plan for national security than that.
7. Shore up public transportation to European standards and get some goddamned high speed RAIL in this country.
8. Reinstate Glass-Stegall.
9. Reinstate The Fairness Doctrine.
10. Equal rights for all humans.
This is in no particular order, but it's a start.
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