freshwest
freshwest's JournalAn expansive view. I'm going to re-read this several times. Regarding the scarcity mindset:
Have you read or listened to David Korten's words on this matter?
His is an argument against heirarchical societal structure and some of his works stress an inverse pyramid in which each individual, free to express one's self would expontentially help the world if unleashed.
Although you have worked this all out on your own!
The Great Turning: From Empire to Earth Community
by David C. Korten
Nathan's review - Sep 08, 13
Korten uses the metaphors of "empire" and "earth community" to signify the essential choice we must make as human beings between relationships based on power (dominance/hierarchy/violence) and those based on partnership (democracy/community/stewardship/). And now, as we reach the global limits of ecological sustainability, it is just as critical that this relationship extend to all living creatures and the living systems that support them. After 5000 years of Empire, our only real hope is to turn towards a form of community that embraces all the inhabitants of this earth and lives in wise and respectful relation to the global biosphere that sustains life. We, as humans, must return to earth.
With broad strokes, Korten traces the path of 5000 years of empire, it's origins and development, in order to show us that this mode of being has been a choice and not a historic inevitability. The scope of this book is vast, but the perspective is necessary to expand our consciousness beyond the mind colonized by empire. There is a different way to live. The sweep of history gives way to the most critical issues of our time, and Korten provides us a vision of how our own moment can and must begin the transformation from empire to earth community.
I personally believe that Korten has put his finger on the heart of the matter, and this is a timely and necessary book. Read it and then begin to find ways to live on earth together with the rest.
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/129571119
I expressed myself somewhat as you did, on this and religion, ideology and other constructs that people use to explain such situations without taking into account the physical aspects. I termed that 'materialism' but I don't mean it in the modern sense as a complaint about the consumer culture:
Agreed, even if not proven in this. The ISIS and Boko Harum actions aren't about religion, either.
In Ukraine, India, and so many other countries, the terrorism is about money and territory.
Religious, political and ideological explanations follow actions that could have been made sans any of those excuses. They are justifications for the acts and encouragement for warriors at a shallow thinking level, but they know deep down what they will get in the end even if they don't admit it to themselves.
They will get more 'stuff' and say they deserved it and those they slaughter or oppress didn't deserve possession. I now see sexism and racism and all of it in that lens now.
I know non-believers and believers who made their decisions according to a view of the market place, be it marriage, jobs, party, then add on religion or political reasons to say they are beyond reproach after taking their pure materialist approach to all of those matters.
The 'because of religion' crowd, both supporters or detractors of religion, are dismissing intended, if not admitted, real world consequences underlying the words that seek to obscure the acts. This is where the focus needs to be and not the words that are being used to justify or demonize their acts.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1218136141#post22
Your post also reminds me of a post including the book I may have referred you to already:
The First Feminist President, Barack Obama
by Mandy Van Deven - March 23, 2009
On January 20th the first self-identified feminist was named President of the United States of America. Just two days after taking office, Barack Obama performed his first presidential act of solidarity with women around the world by repealing the Global Gag Rule. Established in 1984 by President Reagan, the Global Gag Rule denies aid to international groups "which perform or actively promote abortion as a method of family planning." The Global Gag Rule has come to be seen as a litmus test of the current US President's stance on women's rights, though it is just one aspect of the complicated story of the impact of American reproductive rights policy in countries around the globe. [17]
After witnessing the impact of President Bush's reinstatement of the Global Gag Rule, Michelle Goldberg, journalist, author, and long-time critic of the Bush Administration's policies on sexual and reproductive health, decided that a book about the global battle for reproductive justice was long overdue. So she wrote The Means of Reproduction: Sex, Power, and the Future of the World. [17]
The cover art depicting a woman holding the Earth on her shoulders is more than appropriate for this deeply-researched, historically-informed examination: fifty years worth of research about four continents has convinced Goldberg that women's oppression is at the crux of many of the world's most intractable challenges. She illustrates how US policies act as a catalyst for or an impediment to women's rights worldwide, and puts forth a convincing argument that women's liberation worldwide is key to solving some of our most daunting problems. "Underlying diverse conflicts - demography, natural resources, human rights, and religious mores - is the question of who controls the means of reproduction," she writes. "Women's intimate lives have become inextricably tied to global forces."
http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2009/03/23/controlling-means-reproduction-an-interview-with-michelle-goldberg/
The war on women is not just a war on women, but on men, too. Men who don't support women's rights are sealing their own fate. But that's what division always does.
Not just an American problem. It is about global control and reducing all of mankind to commodities.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/110212801#op
I really appreciate your support of women in this thread. And no hate, just guiding to the real source of the problem.
Agreed, even if not proven in this. The ISIS and Boko Harum actions aren't about religion, either.
In Ukraine, India, and so many other countries, the terrorism is about money and territory.
Religious, political and ideological explanations follow actions that could have been made sans any of those excuses. They are justifications for the acts and encouragement for warriors at a shallow thinking level, but they know deep down what they will get in the end even if they don't admit to themselves.
They will get more 'stuff' and say they deserved it and those they slaughter or oppress didn't deserve possession. I now see sexism and racism and all of it in that lens now.
I know non-believers and believers who made their decisions according to a view of the market place, be it marriage, jobs, party, then add on religion or political reasons to say they are beyond reproach after taking their pure materialist approach to all of those matters.
The 'because of religion' crowd, both supporters or detractors of religion, are dismissing intended, if not admitted, real world consequences underlying the words that seek to obscure the acts. This is where the focus needs to be and not the words that are being used to justify or demonize their actions.
JMHO.
This should be the ACA Medicaid expansion's daily mantra:
States pay 0 percent of expansion costs through 2016 and never more than 10 percent after that.That's all that needs to be said to any GOP smear on the programs. Game, set and match to Obama.
You're saying it really does say this:
We see all difficulties explained by obsolete media now resort for positive benefit by Russia Today. Now this organization for American brotherhood, the masculine Klan organization, is an understandable alternative to the lies of White House. The Kremlin is funding several Klan chapters and we salute the use by Klan American soldiers with arms and training. I will gladly taking my shirt off with the men men of the KKK. Their words sound true and supporting values like Russia I humbly help to enlarge. I will enlarge with Klan. Tomorrow I put KKK show on Russia Today. After Abby Martin.The video is in Russian. We need a translation on this, because the one you got sounds crazy. If this really is what he's saying and they put the KKK on the Russia Today network, post it here, please.
Some claim the USA and Obama want another Cold War. Sounds like he's fomenting violence against Obama and the American government. This would put the shoe on Putin's foot, so please give more than what you say here.
This is serious and it goes beyond the freedom of the press and alternative views. I want to see more on the claim because that is my take on it, that it's not just about the KKK, it's about overthrowing our government.
Romnesia - A potent myth is being used to justify economic capture by a parasitic class
George Monbiot - 24th September 2012
We could call it Romnesia: the ability of the very rich to forget the context in which they made their money. To forget their education, inheritance, family networks, contacts and introductions. To forget the workers whose labour enriched them. To forget the infrastructure and security, the educated workforce, the contracts, subsidies and bail-outs the government provided...
The rich lists are stuffed with people who either inherited their money or who made it through rent-seeking activities: by means other than innovation and productive effort. They’re a catalogue of speculators, property barons, dukes, IT monopolists, loansharks, bank chiefs, oil sheikhs, mining magnates, oligarchs and chief executives paid out of all proportion to any value they generate.
Looters, in short. The richest mining barons are those to whom governments sold natural resources for a song. Russian, Mexican and British oligarchs acquired underpriced public assets through privatisation, and now run a toll-booth economy(4). Bankers use incomprehensible instruments to fleece their clients and the taxpayer. But as rentiers capture the economy, the opposite story must be told...
Equal opportunity, self-creation, heroic individualism: these are the myths that predatory capitalism requires for its political survival. Romnesia permits the ultra-rich both to deny the role of other people in the creation of their own wealth and to deny help to those less fortunate than themselves. A century ago, entrepreneurs sought to pass themselves off as parasites: they adopted the style and manner of the titled, rentier class. Today the parasites claim to be entrepreneurs.
Edited to fit DU rules. More at the link:
http://www.monbiot.com/2012/09/24/romnesia/
References:
1. The Ragged Dick series.
2. http://www.nytimes.com/1985/08/31/world/in-soviet-eager-beaver-s-legend-works-overtime.html
3. http://www.ipa.org.au/sectors/northern-australia-project/publication/2081/let%27s-get-back-to-our-roots
4. Mike Lofgren uses this term in this fascinating article: http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/revolt-of-the-rich/
5. http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/09/full-transcript-mitt-romney-secret-video
6. http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/greed-and-debt-the-true-story-of-mitt-romney-and-bain-capital-20120829
7. http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-federal-bailout-that-saved-mitt-romney-20120829
8. Emmanuel Saez, 2nd March 2012. Striking it Richer: the Evolution of Top Incomes in the United States (Updated with 2009 and 2010 estimates). http://elsa.berkeley.edu/~saez/saez-UStopincomes-2010.pdf
9. Joseph Stiglitz, 2012. The Price of Inequality. Allen Lane, London.
10. Lawrence Mishel, Jared Bernstein and Heidi Shierholz. The State of Working America 2008/2009. Economic Policy Institute, cited by Joseph Stiglitz, as above.
11. http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/23/was-greed-good/
12. OECD, 2010. Economic Policy Reforms: Going for Growth. Chapter 5, Figure 5.1. http://www.oecd.org/tax/publicfinanceandfiscalpolicy/45002641.pdf
Romney, we remember how good you are at 'busting' the lives and hopes of millions. You are dismissed!
Schultz tried to argue over benefits. It'll be $15/hour in Seattle anyway:
15 Now to Starbucks's CEO: Pay Your Employees $15 an Hour!...Besides offering no evidence for why $15 an hour would be bad for small businesses, Schultz also argued that any minimum wage increase in Seattle should be calculated by the "total compensation" an employee receives (such as health care, meals, and bus passes) and not merely the hourly wage. This idea of "total compensation" has been a contentious issue in the debate over the minimum wage in Seattle, and 15 Now advocates vehemently reject this idea, claiming that such an approach would undermine the very meaning of a "minimum wage" and would open the window for employers to manipulate the law to their advantage.
Schultz is currently the highest paid CEO in the Northwest and in 2012 received a staggering $28.9 million from Starbucks. For comparison, the average pay for a Barista at Starbucks in 2012 was just $8.79 an hour, or about $17,580 a year for 40 hours work a week (minus two weeks unpaid vacation). Based on his previous year's earnings, Schultz would have had to work just 1.2 hours to earn what the average Starbucks barista makes in an entire year. That's about 1,644 times as much per year as the average worker. This sort of disparity is, to put it mildly, shocking...
It is clear that Schultz's advocacy on behalf of small businesses is nothing more than an attempt to use them as a pawn to secure continued record profits for his company. Cynically hiding behind small businesses while paying your employees unsustainably low wages is not all right, and 15 Now activists are demanding that Schultz immediately raise the minimum wage of his employees to $15 an hour. After all, even he admits Starbucks can afford it...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/william-blueher/15-now-to-starbuckss-ceo-_b_5153885.html
She is NOT a rightwing religionist. Period. It's easily proven that she is not:
Her stances on gay rights, minorities, immigrants, abortion, family planning, equal pay for equal work, educating girls, against violence against women, forced marriage, for child care, health care and support for women and children have garnered extreme hatred from right wing religionists.
These are HUGE issues to many Americans. For whom they are not, well, they can go their own way and stop the pretense of being the allies of those whom these are life and death, quality of life and maintaing our freedoms under secular, progressive law issues.
I saw many of those who left the Democratic Party in 2008, many of them were HRC supporters. It left a bitter taste in my mouth I cannot forget and bet a lot of others have not forgotten it either. It was a gut wrenching experience but realized they were not allies to our principles.
But that cannot describe who HRC really is, not really. Anymore than many terming themselves the 'followers of Christ' are representative of his work or message, a good one that centuries later encouraged many to support the social safety net and fight the social darwinists. Not by relying on the church, but seeing the government as the a democraticl force able to take care of those who are unknown to many and unchurched as well.
She's not a RW kind of Christian and the wingers know it well. It's silly to pretend she's a right winger on the basis of her religious belief when one looks at her with a clear eye. Many very liberal people took their cues in guiding their life from the Golden Rule and the belief we are all brothers and sisters. Not that they are perfect or effective in their applications.
All that being said, HRC is not my first choice for nominee, but I'll support her in the general if she makes it through the process. She needs make the case clearly so that anyone can understand her stances.
Warren stated repeatedly she is not running and supports HRC. Sanders has stated clearly that he does not think she will lead in the ways he thinks we need to go but supports her on social issues. But I doubt he would stand aside and let her fail against the nightmare that the GOP is sure to nominate.
She has the support of most of the progressives and liberals who have been activists for many years and she is from an older generation. I'd have to perform a bit of mental gymnastics to see her as favorably as I have seen Obama. I do not see in her the same qualities for leadership that he has, but neither did I in Biden who is excellent in his role beside Obama.
I'll vote for her in the end if that's what it takes. I hope the primaries will reveal the differences in her and her opponents and she will explain her decisions well to the satisfaction of all. It's possible that Obama will campaign for her and he could explain her to many.
I admit, I was furious with her in the debates in 2008, before I even looked at Obama. It was his words and behavior at that time which convinced me he was of the type I was, an activist who knew some things can be negotiated to save lives, some things are possible amd some are not and that lives depend on even tiny victories.
And Obama is moving to get going to war as an option off the table. She won't be able even if she wanted (and I'm not saying she would, although she is more hawkish than I prefer), to start a war with what he will leave as his legacy, an American public who has lost its belief that war is the answer to anything. And I believe she was caught up in a certain time frame, which no longer exists.
So on that, I don't feel there is any danger from what the OP is about. She'll have to prove her bonafides during the primary. I'm looking forward to seeing it.
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