How many ways do we have to say the American Corporate Empire is
failing to serve the Working Class? Not only are Black Americans
being oppressed and thus, removed from full citizenship, but All
Working Class Americans are being denied access to the very laws
governing this nation.
We may want to stop Donald Trump from entering the White House, but
will Hillary Clinton really lose her Spots and become the Champion of
the Working Class?
When Pigs Fly!
Carl Jarvis
On 8/30/16, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@optonline.net> wrote:
>
> Excerpt: "In the 19,359 days since Martin Luther King Jr. delivered perhaps
> his most praised address - a sort of christening of a new and better
> Republic - a case can be made that the material conditions of African
> Americans has actually worsened, not improved."
>
> Martin Luther King Jr. addresses a crowd from the steps of the Lincoln
> Memorial where he delivered his famous, 'I Have a Dream,' speech during the
> Aug. 28, 1963, march on Washington, D.C. (photo: Reuters)
>
>
> Life Materially Worse for Black People 53 Years Since King's 'Dream'
> By teleSUR
> 29 August 16
>
> By most measures, Black living conditions have declined since Martin Luther
> King Jr. delivered the keynote address at March on Washington 53 years ago
> today.
>
> First, the day: It was an unseasonably pleasant summer day 53 years ago
> today when nearly 250,000 people assembled peacefully and purposefully on
> the National Mall for the March on Washington D.C. Accounts describe an
> almost cloudless sky, bluer than reality, the air unseasonably dry, with
> the
> mercury hovering in the mid 70s for most of the day. And the mood,
> famously,
> was electric, crackling with energy, pregnant with triumph, as though the
> park were a leviathan, roofless church.
> But then there is this: In the 19,359 days since Martin Luther King Jr.
> delivered perhaps his most praised address-a sort of christening of a new
> and better Republic-a case can be made that the material conditions of
> African Americans has actually worsened, not improved.
> When King stepped to the dais, the incarceration rate in the U.S. was
> roughly identical to Germany and Finland's, as Michelle Alexander notes in
> her bestselling book, The New Jim Crow. In the intervening years, the U.S.
> has quadrupled its prison population, Finland has cut its incarceration
> rate
> by more than half, and Germany's has remained stable. Drug offenses account
> for virtually the entire explosion in the U.S. prison population, and
> Blacks, in turn, represent nearly three-quarters of offenders sentenced to
> jail for drug offenses, despite representing only 13 percent of the
> population and the same percentage of the nation's drug users.
> And blacks have fallen much farther behind whites since 1963. According to
> the Urban Institute, average white family wealth in 1963 exceeded that of
> African-American families by about $117,000 in 1963. By 2013, the average
> wealth of white families exceeded Black families by $500,000, when adjusted
> for inflation.
> Another reason why African-Americans have less wealth than whites is debt.
> With good-paying manufacturing jobs drying up, especially since Congress
> passed the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1993, Blacks have
> redoubled their efforts to improve their earning power, but mostly what
> they
> have to show for it is merely debt. Forty-two percent of African-American
> Americans between the ages of 25 and 55 had student loan debt in 2013,
> compared to 28 percent of whites. The figure was negligible for both in
> 1963
> which was two years before the federal government began its program of
> federally-guaranteed educational loans.
> This dispossession, and the loss of decent work for men especially has
> fundamentally restructured the Black family, making marriage almost
> obsolete. This has a compounding effect because research shows that
> marriage
> almost erases racial disparities in income and health.
> In 1950, 17 percent of African-American children lived in a home with their
> mother but not their father. By 2010 that had increased to 50 percent. In
> 1965, only eight percent of childbirths in the Black community occurred
> out-of-wedlock. In 2010 that figure was 41 percent; and today, the
> out-of-wedlock childbirth in the Black community sits at an astonishing 72
> percent. The number of African-American women married and living with their
> spouse was recorded as 53 percent in 1950. By 2010, it had dropped to 25
> percent.
> And to dismiss the trope that these figures on family formation merely
> reflect Black male irresponsibility, a 2007 study by a Boston University
> researcher found that Black men who did not live with their families make
> more of an effort to spend time with their children than any other racial
> or
> ethnic group.
> Reflecting on the 50 year anniversary three years ago, one of King's top
> lieutenants, the Rev. Joseph Lowery stood on the same marble steps of the
> Lincoln Memorial and summed up the last half century thusly:
> "Everything has changed," he said succinctly, "and nothing has changed."
>
> Error! Hyperlink reference not valid. Error! Hyperlink reference not
> valid.
>
> Martin Luther King Jr. addresses a crowd from the steps of the Lincoln
> Memorial where he delivered his famous, 'I Have a Dream,' speech during the
> Aug. 28, 1963, march on Washington, D.C. (photo: Reuters)
> http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Life-Materially-Worse-for-Blacks-53-Ye
> ars-Since-Kings-Dream-20160828-0007.htmlhttp://www.telesurtv.net/english/new
> s/Life-Materially-Worse-for-Blacks-53-Years-Since-Kings-Dream-20160828-0007.
> html
> Life Materially Worse for Black People 53 Years Since King's 'Dream'
> By teleSUR
> 29 August 16
> By most measures, Black living conditions have declined since Martin Luther
> King Jr. delivered the keynote address at March on Washington 53 years ago
> today.
> irst, the day: It was an unseasonably pleasant summer day 53 years ago
> today when nearly 250,000 people assembled peacefully and purposefully on
> the National Mall for the March on Washington D.C. Accounts describe an
> almost cloudless sky, bluer than reality, the air unseasonably dry, with
> the
> mercury hovering in the mid 70s for most of the day. And the mood,
> famously,
> was electric, crackling with energy, pregnant with triumph, as though the
> park were a leviathan, roofless church.
> But then there is this: In the 19,359 days since Martin Luther King Jr.
> delivered perhaps his most praised address-a sort of christening of a new
> and better Republic-a case can be made that the material conditions of
> African Americans has actually worsened, not improved.
> When King stepped to the dais, the incarceration rate in the U.S. was
> roughly identical to Germany and Finland's, as Michelle Alexander notes in
> her bestselling book, The New Jim Crow. In the intervening years, the U.S.
> has quadrupled its prison population, Finland has cut its incarceration
> rate
> by more than half, and Germany's has remained stable. Drug offenses account
> for virtually the entire explosion in the U.S. prison population, and
> Blacks, in turn, represent nearly three-quarters of offenders sentenced to
> jail for drug offenses, despite representing only 13 percent of the
> population and the same percentage of the nation's drug users.
> And blacks have fallen much farther behind whites since 1963. According to
> the Urban Institute, average white family wealth in 1963 exceeded that of
> African-American families by about $117,000 in 1963. By 2013, the average
> wealth of white families exceeded Black families by $500,000, when adjusted
> for inflation.
> Another reason why African-Americans have less wealth than whites is debt.
> With good-paying manufacturing jobs drying up, especially since Congress
> passed the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1993, Blacks have
> redoubled their efforts to improve their earning power, but mostly what
> they
> have to show for it is merely debt. Forty-two percent of African-American
> Americans between the ages of 25 and 55 had student loan debt in 2013,
> compared to 28 percent of whites. The figure was negligible for both in
> 1963
> which was two years before the federal government began its program of
> federally-guaranteed educational loans.
> This dispossession, and the loss of decent work for men especially has
> fundamentally restructured the Black family, making marriage almost
> obsolete. This has a compounding effect because research shows that
> marriage
> almost erases racial disparities in income and health.
> In 1950, 17 percent of African-American children lived in a home with their
> mother but not their father. By 2010 that had increased to 50 percent. In
> 1965, only eight percent of childbirths in the Black community occurred
> out-of-wedlock. In 2010 that figure was 41 percent; and today, the
> out-of-wedlock childbirth in the Black community sits at an astonishing 72
> percent. The number of African-American women married and living with their
> spouse was recorded as 53 percent in 1950. By 2010, it had dropped to 25
> percent.
> And to dismiss the trope that these figures on family formation merely
> reflect Black male irresponsibility, a 2007 study by a Boston University
> researcher found that Black men who did not live with their families make
> more of an effort to spend time with their children than any other racial
> or
> ethnic group.
> Reflecting on the 50 year anniversary three years ago, one of King's top
> lieutenants, the Rev. Joseph Lowery stood on the same marble steps of the
> Lincoln Memorial and summed up the last half century thusly:
> "Everything has changed," he said succinctly, "and nothing has changed."
> http://e-max.it/posizionamento-siti-web/socialize
> http://e-max.it/posizionamento-siti-web/socialize
>
>
>
Tuesday, August 30, 2016
Sunday, August 28, 2016
Re: [blind-democracy] Re: what is the working class?
Class distinctions ebb and flow. What determines our current Class
Assignments comes from today's general agreement, based upon where the
folks making the determination see themselves. When I previously
wrote that I see our society in two Classes, only. The Working Class
and the Ruling Class, I understood that this is not a current belief
held by most people, in what our Class Structure looks like. In my
simple-mindedness, I see only "Givers", and "Takers".
All other qualifiers are simply window dressing.
Now I know there are many who will disagree with my division. And
probably I might do so myself, one fine day.
Certainly my heart surgeon would scowl at my inclusion of him as,
"Working Class". He is a fine surgeon, highly skilled and trained at
one of our nation's foremost "Doctor Schools". Indeed, in several
conversations, he indicates that he is not even comfortable calling
himself, "Middle Class". While he did not say so, I get the
impression that he feels that he is in either a Professional Class, or
in an Upper Middle Class. My doctor is also a strong Republican
supporter. I have not seen him since Donald Trump was uplifted to
"lead" his Republican Party, since my doctor's skill cured me nearly
one year ago, I can only speculate on his plight. But just who he
will give his vote to, is his problem, not mine. Whoever my doctor
votes for, he is still in the Working Class. Despite his high
education and his high income and where he lives and what he drives,
he still is serving the Ruling Class. Setting aside my doctor's
attitude regarding his standing in the Human Pecking Order, his income
taxes are sent to the US treasury, where they are used to support the
objectives of the Ruling Class. His taxes, like mine and yours,
assuming you pay Income Taxes, cannot be targeted to only certain
purposes. All of us understand that the major share of our income tax
goes to support the Empire's War.
Without becoming too involved in arguing my point that there are only
two classes, I know that my doctor supports a wide number of state and
local candidates who, if elected, will go to their various government
offices and begin working hard to support the American Empire's
objectives. And just who decides these Objectives? They are set in
place by the people most effected by them, of course, it's the Ruling
Class.
If anyone is confused and wonders just which Class they are in, ask
yourselves, :How much do I profit by the deaths of thousands of young
American people placed in foreign lands, who die protecting my special
way of life? If you can see that your personal fortune has increased
by 50% since our "Recovery", as has happened in the case of the
world's richest man, Bill Gates, whose fortune increased from 60
billion dollars, to over 90 billion dollars during this so called
recovery,while at the same time, the lower half of our American
population has seen a slight decrease in our personal fortunes, then
you are probably in the Ruling Class.
Of course my heart specialist does not relate to that lower half,
since he is in a protected group which has seen small increases in
their personal wealth. Naturally my doctor is not going to want to
"associate" with the people who took the loss. But whether he likes
it or not, he is a member of the working class.
A former student of mine, from the days when I taught Braille at the
Orientation and Training Center, chatted with me the other day. He
said, "I'm not a member of the Working Class, because I haven't worked
in ten years". I asked him if he believed that anyone who wanted to
work should have a job, and that their job should pay a living wage?
I said that just because the Ruling Class has put in effect laws and
conditions that relegate you to Life's trash heap, does not mean that
you are no longer a member of the working class.
I said that the Ruling Class has robbed you of your meager wealth and
of your opportunity to work. Don't let them rob you of your dignity.
Gather together others who, like yourself have been cast aside, and go
to the offices and homes of the Ruling Class and their Totties and
demand that you be treated with respect.
Personally, I would far rather be earning a decent living flipping
hamburgers at Joe's Cafe, rather than managing some pharmaceutical
corporation, making my living off the highly over priced life-saving
drugs that are beyond the financial means of so many Working Class
folks.
We, in the Working Class, need to turn our focus away from our
differences and count our many similarities. Regardless of perceived
differences, we all need to learn to respect one another. Respect.
The cornerstone on which we build a better society.
Carl Jarvis
On 08/27/16, Alice Dampman Humel <alicedh@verizon.net> wrote:
> But doctors are not considered working class, neither in capitalist society
> nor in the socialist and communist societies that have existed so far.
> Working class is not as rigidly simple as those who apply labor to nature to
> produce something. I think it does also include less measurable or
> tangible, things such as education, income or economic level, cultural
> affinities, behavior, life style, dress, food, And I think both the Marxist,
> the capitalist, and the socialist and communist societies that have existed
> so far all include such things, too. The whole anti-intellectual actions
> seen on both sides historically is an example of that. You grew up the son
> of a doctor? You are going to work in a factory to learn to give up your
> bourgeois ways. My son, the doctor is a far cry from my son, the factory
> worker in most contemporary society. It's not a feeling in the heart, it's
> not entirely subjective, but assuming the actions of the person do somehow
> fit with the words he uses to define himself, then I do think that where one
> places one's self has some validity. What I get a little suspicious about,
> though, is how one person or a committee or other determining body insists
> on critiqueing another, often based on false assumptions and/or flawed logic
> and saying I am/we are working class, but you are not.
>
> If someone calls himself working class and frequents fancyish restaurants a
> few times a week and blows $100 each time, is he working class? And
> capitalist commerce has blurred the lines, too. Now, anyone can buy diamonds
> at Sears, so although those diamonds are hardly the quality found at
> Fortunoff's or Tiffany's, the working class now has diamonds, too, and along
> with bread and circus, they're deceived into thinking the upper class has
> admitted them to their ranks. And there's that blurring of what Roger will
> accept as class definition and what he rejects. But I think it's all part of
> the same puzzle. And I also think that upper, middle, lower class has a seat
> at the table, too, because it fleshes out this whole class thing. When is
> the last time you saw a debutante in her white dress at her coming-out
> cotillion with her upper class arms and shoulders covered in tattoos? Maybe
> a little rose or butterfly on her ankle or on her tush, but…
> All of this is part of an objective reality, too. The difficulty is how it
> fits together, and what the sort of ripple effect does with it. A classless
> society? I'm not sure what that even is or would be. There will always be
> differences, until we're all robots or zombies. And even then… Maybe more to
> the point is that it shouldn't matter that much, and it shouldn't be quite
> so existential. The shuffling money around class certainly contributes to
> making class determine what the lives of others will be, and that is all
> wrong.
>
> On Aug 27, 2016, at 10:21 PM, Roger Loran Bailey (Redacted sender
> "rogerbailey81" for DMARC) <dmarc-noreply@freelists.org> wrote:
>
>>
>> Doctors do useful labor. That is enough for them to be working class. The
>> fact that they have been granted certain privileges in capitalist society
>> does not change the fact that their labor is useful. Trading stocks is not
>> useful though.
>> On 8/27/2016 7:58 PM, joe harcz Comcast wrote:
>>> Roger and Marx did have a good definition though. In fact working class
>>> does not exclude doctors, for example per se. They do labor of a certain
>>> sort and do indeed alter nature in healing people through science and
>>> skill.
>>> Income in the capitalist schema doesn't matter to Marxists, or other
>>> schooled socialists in definitional terms.
>>>
>>> In other words doctors would be considerred a part of the working class
>>> in a socialist schema.
>>>
>>> They probably wouldn't make the average income they do in capitalist
>>> society, but they would still be working class.
>>>
>>>
>>> ----- Original Message -----
>>> From: Alice Dampman Humel
>>> To: blind-democracy@freelists.org
>>> Sent: Saturday, August 27, 2016 7:49 PM
>>> Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: what is the working class?
>>>
>>> I do not use the Marxist definition of working class. Not at all.
>>> On Aug 27, 2016, at 7:35 PM, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@optonline.net>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Alice, Roger and Carl use the Marxist definition of working class with
>>>> Carl
>>>> doing a bit of expanding. If we were on an email list with no members
>>>> who
>>>> were dedicated to the classic theory of working class, we could talk
>>>> about
>>>> all the complexities. Given that we're were we are, I'm trying to avoid
>>>> the
>>>> whole question, entirely.
>>>>
>>>> Miriam
>>>>
>>>> ________________________________
>>>>
>>>> From: blind-democracy-bounce@freelists.org
>>>> [mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@freelists.org] On Behalf Of Alice
>>>> Dampman
>>>> Humel
>>>> Sent: Saturday, August 27, 2016 5:10 PM
>>>> To: blind-democracy@freelists.org
>>>> Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: what is the working class?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> to expand on my own message and questions:
>>>> who gets to decide whether one is working class?
>>>> If that surgeon, using his own definition of working class, as Frank
>>>> wishes
>>>> and claims the right to do, sees himself as working class, does a third
>>>> party, including me, have the right to say he is not?
>>>> How much does the life one lives, the choices one makes to do with the
>>>> same
>>>> wages as the next person, factor into the working class designation?
>>>> Does the factory worker who puts every penny he can into buying a house
>>>> in
>>>> the burbs cease to be working class when he and his family move out of
>>>> their
>>>> cramped, substandard apartment even though he still works in the same
>>>> factory at the same job at the same wage? What about his buddy who earns
>>>> the
>>>> same money laboring at the same job but blows every paycheck at the
>>>> local
>>>> bar? Is he more working class? Is one answer, or are both answers, yes
>>>> or no
>>>> stereotyping and profiling?
>>>> If my questions indicate nothing else, they surely indicate quite
>>>> clearly
>>>> that this is a complex question that can't be left to each person's
>>>> personal
>>>> preference or to some rigid, two-line definition.
>>>> Where does that leave us? ?
>>>>
>>>> That's what I mean when I say that in order to have any kind of
>>>> meaningful
>>>> conversation that included anything about the working class
>>>>
>>>> On Aug 27, 2016, at 4:26 PM, Alice Dampman Humel <alicedh@verizon.net>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> so if you're working class, you're not permitted to earn a good
>>>> living?
>>>> . And Bob's arbitrary income and/or educational measuring standards
>>>> seem completely irrelevant. I really doubt anyone has investments that
>>>> they
>>>> live from that give them such a modest return. There wouldn't be such a
>>>> problem with that.but when those returns for no labor at all are
>>>> millions
>>>> and millions, it's an entirely different matter.
>>>> and Carl added the requirement that the working class person must be
>>>> working to support the ruling class.
>>>> Many people seem to require a certain degree of suffering and
>>>> hardship to qualify for the working class.
>>>> Roger quotes a definition that the labor must be directly applied to
>>>> nature.
>>>> So it seems to me that everyone has their own personal spin on it,
>>>> and, it also seems to me that many spins include a certain amount of
>>>> exclusion of others and inclusion of the self based at least in part on
>>>> those spins
>>>> On Aug 27, 2016, at 10:02 AM, Bob Hachey <bhachey@verizon.net>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Hi all,
>>>> No doubt, trying to define what is the working class is not
>>>> going to be
>>>> easy. One could argue that it means earning less than a
>>>> certain income,
>>>> let's say $40,000.00. The flaw there is that one could be
>>>> earning such
>>>> income from investments and not working at all. Also,
>>>> picking a number for
>>>> the income is problematic at best.
>>>> Others might say that it means doing some sort of physical
>>>> labor. But some
>>>> folks like plumbers and electricians earn a pretty good
>>>> living doing
>>>> physical labor.
>>>> Still others might argue that it is based on one's education
>>>> level. But we
>>>> all know folks who are relatively well educated who don't
>>>> make much money
>>>> and we know other less educated types who earn more money.
>>>> By the way, I
>>>> hesitate to use the word earn because it implies that all
>>>> who get money
>>>> deserve what they get and that is certainly not true in
>>>> these days of
>>>> injustice and tremendous income inequality.
>>>> Perhaps the best way to look at this is to take the approach
>>>> that former
>>>> SCOTUS justice Potter took in trying to define what is
>>>> obscenity. He said
>>>> that he couldn't define it specifically but that he knew
>>>> what it was when he
>>>> saw it.
>>>> Bob Hachey
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>
>
Assignments comes from today's general agreement, based upon where the
folks making the determination see themselves. When I previously
wrote that I see our society in two Classes, only. The Working Class
and the Ruling Class, I understood that this is not a current belief
held by most people, in what our Class Structure looks like. In my
simple-mindedness, I see only "Givers", and "Takers".
All other qualifiers are simply window dressing.
Now I know there are many who will disagree with my division. And
probably I might do so myself, one fine day.
Certainly my heart surgeon would scowl at my inclusion of him as,
"Working Class". He is a fine surgeon, highly skilled and trained at
one of our nation's foremost "Doctor Schools". Indeed, in several
conversations, he indicates that he is not even comfortable calling
himself, "Middle Class". While he did not say so, I get the
impression that he feels that he is in either a Professional Class, or
in an Upper Middle Class. My doctor is also a strong Republican
supporter. I have not seen him since Donald Trump was uplifted to
"lead" his Republican Party, since my doctor's skill cured me nearly
one year ago, I can only speculate on his plight. But just who he
will give his vote to, is his problem, not mine. Whoever my doctor
votes for, he is still in the Working Class. Despite his high
education and his high income and where he lives and what he drives,
he still is serving the Ruling Class. Setting aside my doctor's
attitude regarding his standing in the Human Pecking Order, his income
taxes are sent to the US treasury, where they are used to support the
objectives of the Ruling Class. His taxes, like mine and yours,
assuming you pay Income Taxes, cannot be targeted to only certain
purposes. All of us understand that the major share of our income tax
goes to support the Empire's War.
Without becoming too involved in arguing my point that there are only
two classes, I know that my doctor supports a wide number of state and
local candidates who, if elected, will go to their various government
offices and begin working hard to support the American Empire's
objectives. And just who decides these Objectives? They are set in
place by the people most effected by them, of course, it's the Ruling
Class.
If anyone is confused and wonders just which Class they are in, ask
yourselves, :How much do I profit by the deaths of thousands of young
American people placed in foreign lands, who die protecting my special
way of life? If you can see that your personal fortune has increased
by 50% since our "Recovery", as has happened in the case of the
world's richest man, Bill Gates, whose fortune increased from 60
billion dollars, to over 90 billion dollars during this so called
recovery,while at the same time, the lower half of our American
population has seen a slight decrease in our personal fortunes, then
you are probably in the Ruling Class.
Of course my heart specialist does not relate to that lower half,
since he is in a protected group which has seen small increases in
their personal wealth. Naturally my doctor is not going to want to
"associate" with the people who took the loss. But whether he likes
it or not, he is a member of the working class.
A former student of mine, from the days when I taught Braille at the
Orientation and Training Center, chatted with me the other day. He
said, "I'm not a member of the Working Class, because I haven't worked
in ten years". I asked him if he believed that anyone who wanted to
work should have a job, and that their job should pay a living wage?
I said that just because the Ruling Class has put in effect laws and
conditions that relegate you to Life's trash heap, does not mean that
you are no longer a member of the working class.
I said that the Ruling Class has robbed you of your meager wealth and
of your opportunity to work. Don't let them rob you of your dignity.
Gather together others who, like yourself have been cast aside, and go
to the offices and homes of the Ruling Class and their Totties and
demand that you be treated with respect.
Personally, I would far rather be earning a decent living flipping
hamburgers at Joe's Cafe, rather than managing some pharmaceutical
corporation, making my living off the highly over priced life-saving
drugs that are beyond the financial means of so many Working Class
folks.
We, in the Working Class, need to turn our focus away from our
differences and count our many similarities. Regardless of perceived
differences, we all need to learn to respect one another. Respect.
The cornerstone on which we build a better society.
Carl Jarvis
On 08/27/16, Alice Dampman Humel <alicedh@verizon.net> wrote:
> But doctors are not considered working class, neither in capitalist society
> nor in the socialist and communist societies that have existed so far.
> Working class is not as rigidly simple as those who apply labor to nature to
> produce something. I think it does also include less measurable or
> tangible, things such as education, income or economic level, cultural
> affinities, behavior, life style, dress, food, And I think both the Marxist,
> the capitalist, and the socialist and communist societies that have existed
> so far all include such things, too. The whole anti-intellectual actions
> seen on both sides historically is an example of that. You grew up the son
> of a doctor? You are going to work in a factory to learn to give up your
> bourgeois ways. My son, the doctor is a far cry from my son, the factory
> worker in most contemporary society. It's not a feeling in the heart, it's
> not entirely subjective, but assuming the actions of the person do somehow
> fit with the words he uses to define himself, then I do think that where one
> places one's self has some validity. What I get a little suspicious about,
> though, is how one person or a committee or other determining body insists
> on critiqueing another, often based on false assumptions and/or flawed logic
> and saying I am/we are working class, but you are not.
>
> If someone calls himself working class and frequents fancyish restaurants a
> few times a week and blows $100 each time, is he working class? And
> capitalist commerce has blurred the lines, too. Now, anyone can buy diamonds
> at Sears, so although those diamonds are hardly the quality found at
> Fortunoff's or Tiffany's, the working class now has diamonds, too, and along
> with bread and circus, they're deceived into thinking the upper class has
> admitted them to their ranks. And there's that blurring of what Roger will
> accept as class definition and what he rejects. But I think it's all part of
> the same puzzle. And I also think that upper, middle, lower class has a seat
> at the table, too, because it fleshes out this whole class thing. When is
> the last time you saw a debutante in her white dress at her coming-out
> cotillion with her upper class arms and shoulders covered in tattoos? Maybe
> a little rose or butterfly on her ankle or on her tush, but…
> All of this is part of an objective reality, too. The difficulty is how it
> fits together, and what the sort of ripple effect does with it. A classless
> society? I'm not sure what that even is or would be. There will always be
> differences, until we're all robots or zombies. And even then… Maybe more to
> the point is that it shouldn't matter that much, and it shouldn't be quite
> so existential. The shuffling money around class certainly contributes to
> making class determine what the lives of others will be, and that is all
> wrong.
>
> On Aug 27, 2016, at 10:21 PM, Roger Loran Bailey (Redacted sender
> "rogerbailey81" for DMARC) <dmarc-noreply@freelists.org> wrote:
>
>>
>> Doctors do useful labor. That is enough for them to be working class. The
>> fact that they have been granted certain privileges in capitalist society
>> does not change the fact that their labor is useful. Trading stocks is not
>> useful though.
>> On 8/27/2016 7:58 PM, joe harcz Comcast wrote:
>>> Roger and Marx did have a good definition though. In fact working class
>>> does not exclude doctors, for example per se. They do labor of a certain
>>> sort and do indeed alter nature in healing people through science and
>>> skill.
>>> Income in the capitalist schema doesn't matter to Marxists, or other
>>> schooled socialists in definitional terms.
>>>
>>> In other words doctors would be considerred a part of the working class
>>> in a socialist schema.
>>>
>>> They probably wouldn't make the average income they do in capitalist
>>> society, but they would still be working class.
>>>
>>>
>>> ----- Original Message -----
>>> From: Alice Dampman Humel
>>> To: blind-democracy@freelists.org
>>> Sent: Saturday, August 27, 2016 7:49 PM
>>> Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: what is the working class?
>>>
>>> I do not use the Marxist definition of working class. Not at all.
>>> On Aug 27, 2016, at 7:35 PM, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@optonline.net>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Alice, Roger and Carl use the Marxist definition of working class with
>>>> Carl
>>>> doing a bit of expanding. If we were on an email list with no members
>>>> who
>>>> were dedicated to the classic theory of working class, we could talk
>>>> about
>>>> all the complexities. Given that we're were we are, I'm trying to avoid
>>>> the
>>>> whole question, entirely.
>>>>
>>>> Miriam
>>>>
>>>> ________________________________
>>>>
>>>> From: blind-democracy-bounce@freelists.org
>>>> [mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@freelists.org] On Behalf Of Alice
>>>> Dampman
>>>> Humel
>>>> Sent: Saturday, August 27, 2016 5:10 PM
>>>> To: blind-democracy@freelists.org
>>>> Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: what is the working class?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> to expand on my own message and questions:
>>>> who gets to decide whether one is working class?
>>>> If that surgeon, using his own definition of working class, as Frank
>>>> wishes
>>>> and claims the right to do, sees himself as working class, does a third
>>>> party, including me, have the right to say he is not?
>>>> How much does the life one lives, the choices one makes to do with the
>>>> same
>>>> wages as the next person, factor into the working class designation?
>>>> Does the factory worker who puts every penny he can into buying a house
>>>> in
>>>> the burbs cease to be working class when he and his family move out of
>>>> their
>>>> cramped, substandard apartment even though he still works in the same
>>>> factory at the same job at the same wage? What about his buddy who earns
>>>> the
>>>> same money laboring at the same job but blows every paycheck at the
>>>> local
>>>> bar? Is he more working class? Is one answer, or are both answers, yes
>>>> or no
>>>> stereotyping and profiling?
>>>> If my questions indicate nothing else, they surely indicate quite
>>>> clearly
>>>> that this is a complex question that can't be left to each person's
>>>> personal
>>>> preference or to some rigid, two-line definition.
>>>> Where does that leave us? ?
>>>>
>>>> That's what I mean when I say that in order to have any kind of
>>>> meaningful
>>>> conversation that included anything about the working class
>>>>
>>>> On Aug 27, 2016, at 4:26 PM, Alice Dampman Humel <alicedh@verizon.net>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> so if you're working class, you're not permitted to earn a good
>>>> living?
>>>> . And Bob's arbitrary income and/or educational measuring standards
>>>> seem completely irrelevant. I really doubt anyone has investments that
>>>> they
>>>> live from that give them such a modest return. There wouldn't be such a
>>>> problem with that.but when those returns for no labor at all are
>>>> millions
>>>> and millions, it's an entirely different matter.
>>>> and Carl added the requirement that the working class person must be
>>>> working to support the ruling class.
>>>> Many people seem to require a certain degree of suffering and
>>>> hardship to qualify for the working class.
>>>> Roger quotes a definition that the labor must be directly applied to
>>>> nature.
>>>> So it seems to me that everyone has their own personal spin on it,
>>>> and, it also seems to me that many spins include a certain amount of
>>>> exclusion of others and inclusion of the self based at least in part on
>>>> those spins
>>>> On Aug 27, 2016, at 10:02 AM, Bob Hachey <bhachey@verizon.net>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Hi all,
>>>> No doubt, trying to define what is the working class is not
>>>> going to be
>>>> easy. One could argue that it means earning less than a
>>>> certain income,
>>>> let's say $40,000.00. The flaw there is that one could be
>>>> earning such
>>>> income from investments and not working at all. Also,
>>>> picking a number for
>>>> the income is problematic at best.
>>>> Others might say that it means doing some sort of physical
>>>> labor. But some
>>>> folks like plumbers and electricians earn a pretty good
>>>> living doing
>>>> physical labor.
>>>> Still others might argue that it is based on one's education
>>>> level. But we
>>>> all know folks who are relatively well educated who don't
>>>> make much money
>>>> and we know other less educated types who earn more money.
>>>> By the way, I
>>>> hesitate to use the word earn because it implies that all
>>>> who get money
>>>> deserve what they get and that is certainly not true in
>>>> these days of
>>>> injustice and tremendous income inequality.
>>>> Perhaps the best way to look at this is to take the approach
>>>> that former
>>>> SCOTUS justice Potter took in trying to define what is
>>>> obscenity. He said
>>>> that he couldn't define it specifically but that he knew
>>>> what it was when he
>>>> saw it.
>>>> Bob Hachey
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>
>
Friday, August 26, 2016
Re: [blind-democracy] what is the working class?
The term, Working Class differs from Society to Society and from
generation to generation. I lean toward the Marxist definition, with
my own modifications. Here is the brief Marxist definition:
Marxist definition
- The working class (also labouring class and proletariat) is the
people employed for wages, especially in manual-labour occupations and
in skilled, industrial
work. Working-class occupations include blue-collar jobs, some
white-collar jobs, and most service-work jobs.
For my purposes I have an even broader inclusion. Anyone working to
support the Ruling Class is a part of the Working Class.
In my simple world there are only two Classes: Ruling Class and
Working Class. Of course there exist divisions within the two
Classes.
Within the Ruling Class the divisions usually occur when clashes over
whose interests should receive the biggest share of the Bounty.
The Working Class has been subdivided into many subgroups due to
special interests and also through misdirection by the Ruling Class.
The Working Class has divided itself into blue collar and White
Collar, or professional versus manual labor.
Beyond these divisions are those created through the need for jobs.
Employment is mostly controlled by the Ruling Class's needs. By
playing workers against one another, wages are held down and a united
front is avoided(read, A People's History of the United States, by
Howard zinn).
The Ruling Class also uses Status to divide the Working Class. The
designation of some labor as more valuable than other, earning a
higher financial reward, develops distance through snobbery.
Education is another device used to promote one group over another.
Also, the Ruling Class must take measures to prevent a united front
from developing. Deception and out and out lies help to accomplish
this end. For example, our history is built on the "Rugged
Individual", and the "Self-made Man". Labor unions are considered to
be controlled by Communists and Gangsters. Team work is pictured as
making men into sissies. And until more recent times, the great
American Heroes were White Males. Superman, Joe Palooka, the Lone
Ranger, and on and on. While we say stuff like, "The more the
merrier", or "two heads are better than one", our hero worship does
not reflect this. Although we do have one area where group power is
promoted by the Ruling Class. The FBI in Action, is an example. Law
enforcement such as the FBI, CIA and Special Services are often
depicted as unified actions. But even then there is often a single
White Male Star.
We would move more quickly toward a People's Government if we were
together on just who the Working Class really is. Try to think in
terms of anyone whose work, in main, supports the Ruling Class.
As my dad was fond of saying, "There is dignity in All labor."
Carl Jarvis
On 8/26/16, Alice Dampman Humel <alicedh@verizon.net> wrote:
> the subject line says it…as I read all these messages about the working
> class, I begin to suspect everyone has his/her own definition of it, and
> that, of course determines all the rest…
> And, it also often seems that the definitions shift and drift depending on
> the particular point being made at any given time…
> Thoughts?
generation to generation. I lean toward the Marxist definition, with
my own modifications. Here is the brief Marxist definition:
Marxist definition
- The working class (also labouring class and proletariat) is the
people employed for wages, especially in manual-labour occupations and
in skilled, industrial
work. Working-class occupations include blue-collar jobs, some
white-collar jobs, and most service-work jobs.
For my purposes I have an even broader inclusion. Anyone working to
support the Ruling Class is a part of the Working Class.
In my simple world there are only two Classes: Ruling Class and
Working Class. Of course there exist divisions within the two
Classes.
Within the Ruling Class the divisions usually occur when clashes over
whose interests should receive the biggest share of the Bounty.
The Working Class has been subdivided into many subgroups due to
special interests and also through misdirection by the Ruling Class.
The Working Class has divided itself into blue collar and White
Collar, or professional versus manual labor.
Beyond these divisions are those created through the need for jobs.
Employment is mostly controlled by the Ruling Class's needs. By
playing workers against one another, wages are held down and a united
front is avoided(read, A People's History of the United States, by
Howard zinn).
The Ruling Class also uses Status to divide the Working Class. The
designation of some labor as more valuable than other, earning a
higher financial reward, develops distance through snobbery.
Education is another device used to promote one group over another.
Also, the Ruling Class must take measures to prevent a united front
from developing. Deception and out and out lies help to accomplish
this end. For example, our history is built on the "Rugged
Individual", and the "Self-made Man". Labor unions are considered to
be controlled by Communists and Gangsters. Team work is pictured as
making men into sissies. And until more recent times, the great
American Heroes were White Males. Superman, Joe Palooka, the Lone
Ranger, and on and on. While we say stuff like, "The more the
merrier", or "two heads are better than one", our hero worship does
not reflect this. Although we do have one area where group power is
promoted by the Ruling Class. The FBI in Action, is an example. Law
enforcement such as the FBI, CIA and Special Services are often
depicted as unified actions. But even then there is often a single
White Male Star.
We would move more quickly toward a People's Government if we were
together on just who the Working Class really is. Try to think in
terms of anyone whose work, in main, supports the Ruling Class.
As my dad was fond of saying, "There is dignity in All labor."
Carl Jarvis
On 8/26/16, Alice Dampman Humel <alicedh@verizon.net> wrote:
> the subject line says it…as I read all these messages about the working
> class, I begin to suspect everyone has his/her own definition of it, and
> that, of course determines all the rest…
> And, it also often seems that the definitions shift and drift depending on
> the particular point being made at any given time…
> Thoughts?
Monday, August 22, 2016
Re: [blind-democracy] Russian Threat Is Good for Business, U.S. Defense Contractors Tell Investors
So we're all supposed to join in supporting Hillary Clinton, in order
to keep that "monster" Donald Trump out of office. At what point in
time will the Ruling Class fess up to the fact that we've been taken
over by a bloodless coup by the Military/Industrial Complex?
We are tied to the worship of wealth. The Golden Calf is our Idol.
Sure, we lie to ourselves. We go trouping off to our little churches
and synagogues, and temples, hopeful that there really is something
waiting for us, but deep down inside we never live it. The madness of
our American Empire will only increase, just as long as we allow it to
grow. But we can't keep on trying to be accepted into the Empire's
Golden Fold, while still permitting ourselves to be used by the
Empire.
Carl Jarvis
On 8/20/16, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@optonline.net> wrote:
>
> Truthdig
>
> Russian Threat Is Good for Business, U.S. Defense Contractors Tell
> Investors
>
> http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/us_defense_contractors_tell_inve
> stors_russian_threat_is_good_for_20160819/
>
>
>
>
> AddThis Sharing Buttons
> Share to FacebookShare to TwitterMore AddThis Share optionsShare to Email
> Posted on Aug 19, 2016
>
>
>
>
>
> Ian Burt(https://www.flickr.com/photos/oddsock/) /
> (CC-BY-2.0)(https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/)
>
> As the media and politicians work to cast Russia as a great threat to
> Americans, the arms industry is pressuring NATO member states to spend at
> least 2 percent of their gross domestic products on weapons and defense
> systems.
>
> Lee Fang
> reports(https://theintercept.com/2016/08/19/nato-weapons-industry/)
> at The Intercept:
>
>
> Retired Army Gen. Richard Cody, a vice president at L-3 Communications, the
> seventh largest U.S. defense contractor, explained to shareholders in
> December that the industry was faced with a historic opportunity. Following
> the end of the Cold War, Cody said, peace had "pretty much broken out all
> over the world," with Russia in decline and NATO nations celebrating. "The
> Wall came down," he said, and "all defense budgets went south."
>
> Now, Cody argued, Russia "is resurgent" around the world, putting pressure
> on U.S. allies. "Nations that belong to NATO are supposed to spend 2
> percent
> of their GDP on defense," he said, according to a transcript of his
> remarks.
> "We know that uptick is coming and so we postured ourselves for it."
>
> Speaking to investors at a conference hosted by Credit Suisse in June,
> Stuart Bradie, the chief executive of KBR, a military contractor, discussed
> "opportunities in Europe," highlighting the increase in defense spending by
> NATO countries in response to "what's happening with Russia and the
> Ukraine."
>
> The National Defense Industrial Association, a lobby group for the
> industry,
> has called on Congress to make it easier for U.S. contractors to sell arms
> abroad to allies in response to the threat from Russia. Recent articles in
> National Defense, NDIA's magazine, discuss the need for NATO allies to
> boost
> maritime military spending, spending on Arctic systems, and missile
> defense,
> to counter Russia.
>
> Many experts are unconvinced that Russia poses a direct military threat.
> The
> Soviet Union's military once stood at over 4 million soldiers, but today
> Russia has less than 1 million. NATO's combined military budget vastly
> outranks Russia's - with the U.S. alone outspending Russia on its military
> by $609 billion to less than $85 billion.
>
> And yet, the Aerospace Industries Association, a lobby group for Lockheed
> Martin, Textron, Raytheon, and other defense contractors, argued in
> February
> that the Pentagon is not spending enough to counter "Russian aggression on
> NATO's doorstep."
>
>
>
>
to keep that "monster" Donald Trump out of office. At what point in
time will the Ruling Class fess up to the fact that we've been taken
over by a bloodless coup by the Military/Industrial Complex?
We are tied to the worship of wealth. The Golden Calf is our Idol.
Sure, we lie to ourselves. We go trouping off to our little churches
and synagogues, and temples, hopeful that there really is something
waiting for us, but deep down inside we never live it. The madness of
our American Empire will only increase, just as long as we allow it to
grow. But we can't keep on trying to be accepted into the Empire's
Golden Fold, while still permitting ourselves to be used by the
Empire.
Carl Jarvis
On 8/20/16, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@optonline.net> wrote:
>
> Truthdig
>
> Russian Threat Is Good for Business, U.S. Defense Contractors Tell
> Investors
>
> http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/us_defense_contractors_tell_inve
> stors_russian_threat_is_good_for_20160819/
>
>
>
>
> AddThis Sharing Buttons
> Share to FacebookShare to TwitterMore AddThis Share optionsShare to Email
> Posted on Aug 19, 2016
>
>
>
>
>
> Ian Burt(https://www.flickr.com/photos/oddsock/) /
> (CC-BY-2.0)(https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/)
>
> As the media and politicians work to cast Russia as a great threat to
> Americans, the arms industry is pressuring NATO member states to spend at
> least 2 percent of their gross domestic products on weapons and defense
> systems.
>
> Lee Fang
> reports(https://theintercept.com/2016/08/19/nato-weapons-industry/)
> at The Intercept:
>
>
> Retired Army Gen. Richard Cody, a vice president at L-3 Communications, the
> seventh largest U.S. defense contractor, explained to shareholders in
> December that the industry was faced with a historic opportunity. Following
> the end of the Cold War, Cody said, peace had "pretty much broken out all
> over the world," with Russia in decline and NATO nations celebrating. "The
> Wall came down," he said, and "all defense budgets went south."
>
> Now, Cody argued, Russia "is resurgent" around the world, putting pressure
> on U.S. allies. "Nations that belong to NATO are supposed to spend 2
> percent
> of their GDP on defense," he said, according to a transcript of his
> remarks.
> "We know that uptick is coming and so we postured ourselves for it."
>
> Speaking to investors at a conference hosted by Credit Suisse in June,
> Stuart Bradie, the chief executive of KBR, a military contractor, discussed
> "opportunities in Europe," highlighting the increase in defense spending by
> NATO countries in response to "what's happening with Russia and the
> Ukraine."
>
> The National Defense Industrial Association, a lobby group for the
> industry,
> has called on Congress to make it easier for U.S. contractors to sell arms
> abroad to allies in response to the threat from Russia. Recent articles in
> National Defense, NDIA's magazine, discuss the need for NATO allies to
> boost
> maritime military spending, spending on Arctic systems, and missile
> defense,
> to counter Russia.
>
> Many experts are unconvinced that Russia poses a direct military threat.
> The
> Soviet Union's military once stood at over 4 million soldiers, but today
> Russia has less than 1 million. NATO's combined military budget vastly
> outranks Russia's - with the U.S. alone outspending Russia on its military
> by $609 billion to less than $85 billion.
>
> And yet, the Aerospace Industries Association, a lobby group for Lockheed
> Martin, Textron, Raytheon, and other defense contractors, argued in
> February
> that the Pentagon is not spending enough to counter "Russian aggression on
> NATO's doorstep."
>
>
>
>
Re: [blind-democracy] Clinton's Transition Team: A Corporate Presidency Foretold
Yawn!...this is no news, news. Hillary Clinton could well make Barak
Obama appear to be a moderate Liberal, once she has put her mark on
the white house oval office.
But even knowing that she is talking out both sides of her mouth, I
get steamed over the idea that Hillary Clinton thinks my people, the
working class Americans, are so stupid we will actually take her words
over her past actions. Am I the only one who froths at the mouth over
being lied to? Why do we allow this sham of a thing called a National
Presidential Election take place, at the cost of a billion dollars?
Why don't we simply let the Oligarchy have their own little election,
and the rest of us go about setting up a truly representative People's
government?
Carl Jarvis
On 8/22/16, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@optonline.net> wrote:
> Clinton's Transition Team: A Corporate Presidency Foretold
> Published on
> Monday, August 22, 2016
> by
> Common Dreams
> Clinton's Transition Team: A Corporate Presidency Foretold
> by
> Norman Solomon
>
> Hillary Rodham Clinton is introduced by Sen. Ken Salazar, D-Colo., center,
> and Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter before Clinton speaks in the east Denver
> suburb of Aurora, Colorado, Oct. 24, 2008. (Photo: David Zalubowski/AP)
> Like other Bernie Sanders delegates in Philadelphia a few weeks ago, I kept
> hearing about the crucial need to close ranks behind Hillary Clinton.
> "Unity" was the watchword. But Clinton has reaffirmed her unity with
> corporate America.
> Rhetoric aside, Clinton is showing her solidarity with the nemesis of the
> Sanders campaign-Wall Street. The trend continued last week with the
> announcement that Clinton has tapped former senator and Interior secretary
> Ken Salazar to chair her transition team.
> After many months of asserting that her support for the "gold standard"
> Trans-Pacific Partnership was a thing of the past-and after declaring that
> she wants restrictions on fracking so stringent that it could scarcely
> continue-Clinton has now selected a vehement advocate for the TPP and for
> fracking, to coordinate the process of staffing the top of her
> administration.
> But wait, there's more-much more than Salazar's record-to tell us where the
> planning for the Hillary Clinton presidency is headed.
> On the surface, it might seem like mere inside baseball to read about the
> transition team's four co-chairs, described by Politico as "veteran Clinton
> aides Maggie Williams and Neera Tanden" along with "former National
> Security
> Adviser Tom Donilon and former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm." But the
> leaders of the transition team-including Clinton campaign chair John
> Podesta, who is also president of the Clinton-Kaine Transition Project-will
> wield enormous power.
> "The transition team is one of the absolute most important things in the
> world for a new administration," says William K. Black, who has held key
> positions at several major regulatory agencies such as the Federal Home
> Loan
> Bank Board. Along with "deciding what are we actually going to make our
> policy priorities," the transition team will handle key questions: "Who
> will
> the top people be? Who are we going to vet, to hold all of the cabinet
> positions, and many non-cabinet positions, as well? The whole staffing of
> the senior leadership of the White House."
>
> Black's assessment of Salazar, Podesta and the transition team's four
> co-chairs is withering. "These aren't just DNC regulars, Democratic
> National
> Committee regulars," he said in an interview with The Real News Network.
> "What you're seeing is complete domination by what used to be the
> Democratic
> Leadership Council. So this was a group we talked about in the past. Very,
> very, very right-wing on foreign policy, what they called a muscular
> foreign
> policy, which was a euphemism for invading places. And very, very tough on
> crime-this was that era of mass incarceration that Bill Clinton pushed, and
> it's when Hillary was talking about black 'superpredators,' this myth, this
> so dangerous myth."
> Black added: "And on the economic side, they were all in favor of
> austerity.
> All in favor of privatization. Tried to do a deal with Newt Gingrich to
> privatize Social Security. And of course, were all in favor of things like
> NAFTA."
> As for Hillary Clinton's widely heralded "move to the left" in recent
> months, Black said that it "was purely calculated for political purposes.
> And all of the team that's going to hire all the key people and vet the key
> people for the most senior positions for at least the first several years
> of
> what increasingly looks likely to be a Clinton administration are going to
> be picked by these people, who are the opposite of progressive."
> In that light, Salazar is a grotesquely perfect choice to chair the
> transition team. After all of Clinton's efforts to present herself as a foe
> of the big-money doors that revolve between influence peddlers and
> government officials in Washington, her choice of Salazar-a partner at the
> lobbying powerhouse WilmerHale since 2013-belies her smooth words. That
> choice means the oil and gas industry just hit a political gusher.
> On both sides of the revolving doors, the industry has been ably served by
> Salazar, whose work included arguing for the Keystone XL pipeline. His
> support for fracking has been so ardent that it led him two years ago to
> make a notably fanciful claim: "We know that, from everything we've seen,
> there's not a single case where hydraulic fracking has created an
> environmental problem for anyone."
> Salazar is part of a clear pattern. Clinton's selection of Tim Kaine for
> vice president underscored why so many progressives distrust her. Kaine was
> among just one-quarter of Democrats in the Senate who voted last year to
> fast track the TPP. When he was Virginia's governor, Kaine said that "I
> strongly support" a so-called right-to-work law that is anathema to
> organized labor. A few years ago he faulted fellow Democrats who sought to
> increase taxes for millionaires.
> Clinton announced the Kaine pick while surely knowing that many
> progressives
> would find it abhorrent. A week beforehand, the Bernie Delegates Network
> released the results of a survey of Sanders delegates showing that 88
> percent said they would find selection of Kaine "unacceptable." Only 3
> percent of the several hundred respondents said it would be "acceptable."
> The first big post-election showdown will be over the TPP in the lame-duck
> session of Congress. Clinton's spokesman Brian Fallon reiterated a week ago
> that "she is against the TPP before the election and after the election."
> But her choices for running mate and transition team have sent a very
> different message. And it's likely that she is laying groundwork to convey
> anemic "opposition" that will be understood on Capitol Hill as a
> wink-and-nod from a president-elect who wouldn't mind "aye" votes for the
> TPP.
> Blessed with an unhinged and widely deplored Republican opponent, Hillary
> Clinton may be able to defeat him without doing much to mend fences with
> alienated Sanders voters. But Clinton's smooth rhetoric should not change
> the fact that-on a vast array of issues-basic principles will require
> progressives to fight against her actual policy goals, every step of the
> way.
> This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0
> License
> Norman Solomon
>
> Skip to main content
> //
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> . Home
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> Clinton's Transition Team: A Corporate Presidency Foretold
> Published on
> Monday, August 22, 2016
> by
> Common Dreams
> Clinton's Transition Team: A Corporate Presidency Foretold
> by
> Norman Solomon
> . 51 Comments
> .
> . Hillary Rodham Clinton is introduced by Sen. Ken Salazar, D-Colo.,
> center, and Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter before Clinton speaks in the east
> Denver suburb of Aurora, Colorado, Oct. 24, 2008. (Photo: David
> Zalubowski/AP)
> . Like other Bernie Sanders delegates in Philadelphia a few weeks ago,
> I kept hearing about the crucial need to close ranks behind Hillary
> Clinton.
> "Unity" was the watchword. But Clinton has reaffirmed her unity with
> corporate America.
> . Rhetoric aside, Clinton is showing her solidarity with the nemesis
> of the Sanders campaign-Wall Street. The trend continued last week with the
> announcement that Clinton has tapped former senator and Interior secretary
> Ken Salazar to chair her transition team.
> . After many months of asserting that her support for the "gold
> standard" Trans-Pacific Partnership was a thing of the past-and after
> declaring that she wants restrictions on fracking so stringent that it
> could
> scarcely continue-Clinton has now selected a vehement advocate for the TPP
> and for fracking, to coordinate the process of staffing the top of her
> administration.
> . But wait, there's more-much more than Salazar's record-to tell us
> where the planning for the Hillary Clinton presidency is headed.
> On the surface, it might seem like mere inside baseball to read about the
> transition team's four co-chairs, described by Politico as "veteran Clinton
> aides Maggie Williams and Neera Tanden" along with "former National
> Security
> Adviser Tom Donilon and former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm." But the
> leaders of the transition team-including Clinton campaign chair John
> Podesta, who is also president of the Clinton-Kaine Transition Project-will
> wield enormous power.
> "The transition team is one of the absolute most important things in the
> world for a new administration," says William K. Black, who has held key
> positions at several major regulatory agencies such as the Federal Home
> Loan
> Bank Board. Along with "deciding what are we actually going to make our
> policy priorities," the transition team will handle key questions: "Who
> will
> the top people be? Who are we going to vet, to hold all of the cabinet
> positions, and many non-cabinet positions, as well? The whole staffing of
> the senior leadership of the White House."
> http://commondreams.org/omissionhttp://commondreams.org/omission
> Black's assessment of Salazar, Podesta and the transition team's four
> co-chairs is withering. "These aren't just DNC regulars, Democratic
> National
> Committee regulars," he said in an interview with The Real News Network.
> "What you're seeing is complete domination by what used to be the
> Democratic
> Leadership Council. So this was a group we talked about in the past. Very,
> very, very right-wing on foreign policy, what they called a muscular
> foreign
> policy, which was a euphemism for invading places. And very, very tough on
> crime-this was that era of mass incarceration that Bill Clinton pushed, and
> it's when Hillary was talking about black 'superpredators,' this myth, this
> so dangerous myth."
> Black added: "And on the economic side, they were all in favor of
> austerity.
> All in favor of privatization. Tried to do a deal with Newt Gingrich to
> privatize Social Security. And of course, were all in favor of things like
> NAFTA."
> As for Hillary Clinton's widely heralded "move to the left" in recent
> months, Black said that it "was purely calculated for political purposes.
> And all of the team that's going to hire all the key people and vet the key
> people for the most senior positions for at least the first several years
> of
> what increasingly looks likely to be a Clinton administration are going to
> be picked by these people, who are the opposite of progressive."
> In that light, Salazar is a grotesquely perfect choice to chair the
> transition team. After all of Clinton's efforts to present herself as a foe
> of the big-money doors that revolve between influence peddlers and
> government officials in Washington, her choice of Salazar-a partner at the
> lobbying powerhouse WilmerHale since 2013-belies her smooth words. That
> choice means the oil and gas industry just hit a political gusher.
> On both sides of the revolving doors, the industry has been ably served by
> Salazar, whose work included arguing for the Keystone XL pipeline. His
> support for fracking has been so ardent that it led him two years ago to
> make a notably fanciful claim: "We know that, from everything we've seen,
> there's not a single case where hydraulic fracking has created an
> environmental problem for anyone."
> Salazar is part of a clear pattern. Clinton's selection of Tim Kaine for
> vice president underscored why so many progressives distrust her. Kaine was
> among just one-quarter of Democrats in the Senate who voted last year to
> fast track the TPP. When he was Virginia's governor, Kaine said that "I
> strongly support" a so-called right-to-work law that is anathema to
> organized labor. A few years ago he faulted fellow Democrats who sought to
> increase taxes for millionaires.
> Clinton announced the Kaine pick while surely knowing that many
> progressives
> would find it abhorrent. A week beforehand, the Bernie Delegates Network
> released the results of a survey of Sanders delegates showing that 88
> percent said they would find selection of Kaine "unacceptable." Only 3
> percent of the several hundred respondents said it would be "acceptable."
> The first big post-election showdown will be over the TPP in the lame-duck
> session of Congress. Clinton's spokesman Brian Fallon reiterated a week ago
> that "she is against the TPP before the election and after the election."
> But her choices for running mate and transition team have sent a very
> different message. And it's likely that she is laying groundwork to convey
> anemic "opposition" that will be understood on Capitol Hill as a
> wink-and-nod from a president-elect who wouldn't mind "aye" votes for the
> TPP.
> Blessed with an unhinged and widely deplored Republican opponent, Hillary
> Clinton may be able to defeat him without doing much to mend fences with
> alienated Sanders voters. But Clinton's smooth rhetoric should not change
> the fact that-on a vast array of issues-basic principles will require
> progressives to fight against her actual policy goals, every step of the
> way.
> This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0
> License
>
>
>
Obama appear to be a moderate Liberal, once she has put her mark on
the white house oval office.
But even knowing that she is talking out both sides of her mouth, I
get steamed over the idea that Hillary Clinton thinks my people, the
working class Americans, are so stupid we will actually take her words
over her past actions. Am I the only one who froths at the mouth over
being lied to? Why do we allow this sham of a thing called a National
Presidential Election take place, at the cost of a billion dollars?
Why don't we simply let the Oligarchy have their own little election,
and the rest of us go about setting up a truly representative People's
government?
Carl Jarvis
On 8/22/16, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@optonline.net> wrote:
> Clinton's Transition Team: A Corporate Presidency Foretold
> Published on
> Monday, August 22, 2016
> by
> Common Dreams
> Clinton's Transition Team: A Corporate Presidency Foretold
> by
> Norman Solomon
>
> Hillary Rodham Clinton is introduced by Sen. Ken Salazar, D-Colo., center,
> and Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter before Clinton speaks in the east Denver
> suburb of Aurora, Colorado, Oct. 24, 2008. (Photo: David Zalubowski/AP)
> Like other Bernie Sanders delegates in Philadelphia a few weeks ago, I kept
> hearing about the crucial need to close ranks behind Hillary Clinton.
> "Unity" was the watchword. But Clinton has reaffirmed her unity with
> corporate America.
> Rhetoric aside, Clinton is showing her solidarity with the nemesis of the
> Sanders campaign-Wall Street. The trend continued last week with the
> announcement that Clinton has tapped former senator and Interior secretary
> Ken Salazar to chair her transition team.
> After many months of asserting that her support for the "gold standard"
> Trans-Pacific Partnership was a thing of the past-and after declaring that
> she wants restrictions on fracking so stringent that it could scarcely
> continue-Clinton has now selected a vehement advocate for the TPP and for
> fracking, to coordinate the process of staffing the top of her
> administration.
> But wait, there's more-much more than Salazar's record-to tell us where the
> planning for the Hillary Clinton presidency is headed.
> On the surface, it might seem like mere inside baseball to read about the
> transition team's four co-chairs, described by Politico as "veteran Clinton
> aides Maggie Williams and Neera Tanden" along with "former National
> Security
> Adviser Tom Donilon and former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm." But the
> leaders of the transition team-including Clinton campaign chair John
> Podesta, who is also president of the Clinton-Kaine Transition Project-will
> wield enormous power.
> "The transition team is one of the absolute most important things in the
> world for a new administration," says William K. Black, who has held key
> positions at several major regulatory agencies such as the Federal Home
> Loan
> Bank Board. Along with "deciding what are we actually going to make our
> policy priorities," the transition team will handle key questions: "Who
> will
> the top people be? Who are we going to vet, to hold all of the cabinet
> positions, and many non-cabinet positions, as well? The whole staffing of
> the senior leadership of the White House."
>
> Black's assessment of Salazar, Podesta and the transition team's four
> co-chairs is withering. "These aren't just DNC regulars, Democratic
> National
> Committee regulars," he said in an interview with The Real News Network.
> "What you're seeing is complete domination by what used to be the
> Democratic
> Leadership Council. So this was a group we talked about in the past. Very,
> very, very right-wing on foreign policy, what they called a muscular
> foreign
> policy, which was a euphemism for invading places. And very, very tough on
> crime-this was that era of mass incarceration that Bill Clinton pushed, and
> it's when Hillary was talking about black 'superpredators,' this myth, this
> so dangerous myth."
> Black added: "And on the economic side, they were all in favor of
> austerity.
> All in favor of privatization. Tried to do a deal with Newt Gingrich to
> privatize Social Security. And of course, were all in favor of things like
> NAFTA."
> As for Hillary Clinton's widely heralded "move to the left" in recent
> months, Black said that it "was purely calculated for political purposes.
> And all of the team that's going to hire all the key people and vet the key
> people for the most senior positions for at least the first several years
> of
> what increasingly looks likely to be a Clinton administration are going to
> be picked by these people, who are the opposite of progressive."
> In that light, Salazar is a grotesquely perfect choice to chair the
> transition team. After all of Clinton's efforts to present herself as a foe
> of the big-money doors that revolve between influence peddlers and
> government officials in Washington, her choice of Salazar-a partner at the
> lobbying powerhouse WilmerHale since 2013-belies her smooth words. That
> choice means the oil and gas industry just hit a political gusher.
> On both sides of the revolving doors, the industry has been ably served by
> Salazar, whose work included arguing for the Keystone XL pipeline. His
> support for fracking has been so ardent that it led him two years ago to
> make a notably fanciful claim: "We know that, from everything we've seen,
> there's not a single case where hydraulic fracking has created an
> environmental problem for anyone."
> Salazar is part of a clear pattern. Clinton's selection of Tim Kaine for
> vice president underscored why so many progressives distrust her. Kaine was
> among just one-quarter of Democrats in the Senate who voted last year to
> fast track the TPP. When he was Virginia's governor, Kaine said that "I
> strongly support" a so-called right-to-work law that is anathema to
> organized labor. A few years ago he faulted fellow Democrats who sought to
> increase taxes for millionaires.
> Clinton announced the Kaine pick while surely knowing that many
> progressives
> would find it abhorrent. A week beforehand, the Bernie Delegates Network
> released the results of a survey of Sanders delegates showing that 88
> percent said they would find selection of Kaine "unacceptable." Only 3
> percent of the several hundred respondents said it would be "acceptable."
> The first big post-election showdown will be over the TPP in the lame-duck
> session of Congress. Clinton's spokesman Brian Fallon reiterated a week ago
> that "she is against the TPP before the election and after the election."
> But her choices for running mate and transition team have sent a very
> different message. And it's likely that she is laying groundwork to convey
> anemic "opposition" that will be understood on Capitol Hill as a
> wink-and-nod from a president-elect who wouldn't mind "aye" votes for the
> TPP.
> Blessed with an unhinged and widely deplored Republican opponent, Hillary
> Clinton may be able to defeat him without doing much to mend fences with
> alienated Sanders voters. But Clinton's smooth rhetoric should not change
> the fact that-on a vast array of issues-basic principles will require
> progressives to fight against her actual policy goals, every step of the
> way.
> This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0
> License
> Norman Solomon
>
> Skip to main content
> //
> . DONATE
> . SIGN UP FOR NEWSLETTER
>
>
> Monday, August 22, 2016
> . Home
> . World
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> Clinton's Transition Team: A Corporate Presidency Foretold
> Published on
> Monday, August 22, 2016
> by
> Common Dreams
> Clinton's Transition Team: A Corporate Presidency Foretold
> by
> Norman Solomon
> . 51 Comments
> .
> . Hillary Rodham Clinton is introduced by Sen. Ken Salazar, D-Colo.,
> center, and Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter before Clinton speaks in the east
> Denver suburb of Aurora, Colorado, Oct. 24, 2008. (Photo: David
> Zalubowski/AP)
> . Like other Bernie Sanders delegates in Philadelphia a few weeks ago,
> I kept hearing about the crucial need to close ranks behind Hillary
> Clinton.
> "Unity" was the watchword. But Clinton has reaffirmed her unity with
> corporate America.
> . Rhetoric aside, Clinton is showing her solidarity with the nemesis
> of the Sanders campaign-Wall Street. The trend continued last week with the
> announcement that Clinton has tapped former senator and Interior secretary
> Ken Salazar to chair her transition team.
> . After many months of asserting that her support for the "gold
> standard" Trans-Pacific Partnership was a thing of the past-and after
> declaring that she wants restrictions on fracking so stringent that it
> could
> scarcely continue-Clinton has now selected a vehement advocate for the TPP
> and for fracking, to coordinate the process of staffing the top of her
> administration.
> . But wait, there's more-much more than Salazar's record-to tell us
> where the planning for the Hillary Clinton presidency is headed.
> On the surface, it might seem like mere inside baseball to read about the
> transition team's four co-chairs, described by Politico as "veteran Clinton
> aides Maggie Williams and Neera Tanden" along with "former National
> Security
> Adviser Tom Donilon and former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm." But the
> leaders of the transition team-including Clinton campaign chair John
> Podesta, who is also president of the Clinton-Kaine Transition Project-will
> wield enormous power.
> "The transition team is one of the absolute most important things in the
> world for a new administration," says William K. Black, who has held key
> positions at several major regulatory agencies such as the Federal Home
> Loan
> Bank Board. Along with "deciding what are we actually going to make our
> policy priorities," the transition team will handle key questions: "Who
> will
> the top people be? Who are we going to vet, to hold all of the cabinet
> positions, and many non-cabinet positions, as well? The whole staffing of
> the senior leadership of the White House."
> http://commondreams.org/omissionhttp://commondreams.org/omission
> Black's assessment of Salazar, Podesta and the transition team's four
> co-chairs is withering. "These aren't just DNC regulars, Democratic
> National
> Committee regulars," he said in an interview with The Real News Network.
> "What you're seeing is complete domination by what used to be the
> Democratic
> Leadership Council. So this was a group we talked about in the past. Very,
> very, very right-wing on foreign policy, what they called a muscular
> foreign
> policy, which was a euphemism for invading places. And very, very tough on
> crime-this was that era of mass incarceration that Bill Clinton pushed, and
> it's when Hillary was talking about black 'superpredators,' this myth, this
> so dangerous myth."
> Black added: "And on the economic side, they were all in favor of
> austerity.
> All in favor of privatization. Tried to do a deal with Newt Gingrich to
> privatize Social Security. And of course, were all in favor of things like
> NAFTA."
> As for Hillary Clinton's widely heralded "move to the left" in recent
> months, Black said that it "was purely calculated for political purposes.
> And all of the team that's going to hire all the key people and vet the key
> people for the most senior positions for at least the first several years
> of
> what increasingly looks likely to be a Clinton administration are going to
> be picked by these people, who are the opposite of progressive."
> In that light, Salazar is a grotesquely perfect choice to chair the
> transition team. After all of Clinton's efforts to present herself as a foe
> of the big-money doors that revolve between influence peddlers and
> government officials in Washington, her choice of Salazar-a partner at the
> lobbying powerhouse WilmerHale since 2013-belies her smooth words. That
> choice means the oil and gas industry just hit a political gusher.
> On both sides of the revolving doors, the industry has been ably served by
> Salazar, whose work included arguing for the Keystone XL pipeline. His
> support for fracking has been so ardent that it led him two years ago to
> make a notably fanciful claim: "We know that, from everything we've seen,
> there's not a single case where hydraulic fracking has created an
> environmental problem for anyone."
> Salazar is part of a clear pattern. Clinton's selection of Tim Kaine for
> vice president underscored why so many progressives distrust her. Kaine was
> among just one-quarter of Democrats in the Senate who voted last year to
> fast track the TPP. When he was Virginia's governor, Kaine said that "I
> strongly support" a so-called right-to-work law that is anathema to
> organized labor. A few years ago he faulted fellow Democrats who sought to
> increase taxes for millionaires.
> Clinton announced the Kaine pick while surely knowing that many
> progressives
> would find it abhorrent. A week beforehand, the Bernie Delegates Network
> released the results of a survey of Sanders delegates showing that 88
> percent said they would find selection of Kaine "unacceptable." Only 3
> percent of the several hundred respondents said it would be "acceptable."
> The first big post-election showdown will be over the TPP in the lame-duck
> session of Congress. Clinton's spokesman Brian Fallon reiterated a week ago
> that "she is against the TPP before the election and after the election."
> But her choices for running mate and transition team have sent a very
> different message. And it's likely that she is laying groundwork to convey
> anemic "opposition" that will be understood on Capitol Hill as a
> wink-and-nod from a president-elect who wouldn't mind "aye" votes for the
> TPP.
> Blessed with an unhinged and widely deplored Republican opponent, Hillary
> Clinton may be able to defeat him without doing much to mend fences with
> alienated Sanders voters. But Clinton's smooth rhetoric should not change
> the fact that-on a vast array of issues-basic principles will require
> progressives to fight against her actual policy goals, every step of the
> way.
> This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0
> License
>
>
>
Thursday, August 18, 2016
Re: [blind-democracy] World's Biggest Corporations Won't Pay Taxes at the Olympics
Question:
When is a minority not a minority?
Answer:
When it holds all the marbles.
We could just as well say that it is also when the minority proclaims
itself to be immortal, while the majority remains mere mortals. But,
we ask, how can so few stay on top so long!
The ancient Egyptian pyramid stands as a fine example. The very few
stand atop an ever larger base. Notice that the top is doing nothing,
holding up nothing? But the ever larger growing base is kept busy
holding up that which is above it.
And the reward for doing this deed? There is no reward. It is simply
the order of things.
Such power must be controlled by some Universal Law, else why would we
allow it to continue? In a sane world, the masses, the majority,
would simply spank the bottoms of the greedy corporations, take away
their piggy banks and send them to bed without any porridge.
Carl Jarvis
On 8/18/16, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@optonline.net> wrote:
>
> Excerpt: "Coca-Cola, McDonald's, Visa and the rest of the corporate
> sponsors
> of the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro won't be paying any taxes on the
> money they earn there due to a tax exemption law that's set to cost Brazil
> hundreds of millions of dollars."
>
> Rio de Janeiro. (photo: Olympic Committee)
>
>
> World's Biggest Corporations Won't Pay Taxes at the Olympics
> By teleSUR
> 18 August 16
>
> Brazil will lose about a billion dollars in revenue thanks to a law that
> turns the Olympics into a tax haven.
> Coca-Cola, McDonald's, Visa and the rest of the corporate sponsors of the
> Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro won't be paying any taxes on the money they
> earn there due to a tax exemption law that's set to cost Brazil hundreds of
> millions of dollars.
> The exemption, which lasts until Dec. 31, 2017, excludes from taxes revenue
> generated by advertising, product sales, imports and any other activity
> related to the organization of the games.
> "It is yet another manifestation of the privileges that multinationals
> worldwide have today," said Antonio Martins, director of the alternative
> Brazilian news outlet Outras Palavras. "And it's not an isolated event,
> which is limited to a sports mega event," he told the BBC.
> Brazil has 37 million people living in extreme poverty, its economy is
> currently in recession and the interim government of Senate-imposed
> President Michel Temer has approved a fiscal austerity program. Meanwhile,
> the country is expected to lose about a billion dollars in tax revenue
> thanks to the exemption, according to BBC.
> According to Naomi Fowler of the Tax Justice Network, the tax exemption on
> corporations is a precondition forced on any candidate to host a world
> sport
> event.
> "Every country must accept that they will become a tax haven for these
> companies during a period of time," Fowler told the BBC.
> Among the main sponsor companies of Rio 2016 are Coca-Cola, McDonald's,
> Visa, Bridgestone, Samsung, Panasonic, Omega, Procter & Gamble, General
> Electric, Nissan, Globo, Nike, Microsoft and Airbnb.
> According to organizers, the Olympic Games are an opportunity for the host
> country to bring in tourists, invest in infrastructure and promote a
> healthy
> lifestyle among its citizens, but it's also true that most countries are in
> debt after the games and have to undertake severe austerity measures.
> Error! Hyperlink reference not valid. Error! Hyperlink reference not
> valid.
>
> Rio de Janeiro. (photo: Olympic Committee)
> http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Worlds-Biggest-Corporations-Wont-Pay-T
> axes-at-the-Olympics-20160817-0018.htmlhttp://www.telesurtv.net/english/news
> /Worlds-Biggest-Corporations-Wont-Pay-Taxes-at-the-Olympics-20160817-0018.ht
> ml
> World's Biggest Corporations Won't Pay Taxes at the Olympics
> By teleSUR
> 18 August 16
> Brazil will lose about a billion dollars in revenue thanks to a law that
> turns the Olympics into a tax haven.
> oca-Cola, McDonald's, Visa and the rest of the corporate sponsors of
> Error!
> Hyperlink reference not valid. in Rio de Janeiro won't be paying any taxes
> on the money they earn there due to a tax exemption law that's set to cost
> Brazil hundreds of millions of dollars.
> The exemption, which lasts until Dec. 31, 2017, excludes from taxes revenue
> generated by advertising, product sales, imports and any other activity
> related to the organization of the games.
> "It is yet another manifestation of the privileges that multinationals
> worldwide have today," said Antonio Martins, director of the alternative
> Brazilian news outlet Outras Palavras. "And it's not an isolated event,
> which is limited to a sports mega event," he told the BBC.
> Brazil has 37 million people living in extreme poverty, its economy is
> currently in recession and the interim government of Senate-imposed
> President Michel Temer has approved a fiscal austerity program. Meanwhile,
> the country is expected to lose about a billion dollars in tax revenue
> thanks to the exemption, according to BBC.
> According to Naomi Fowler of the Tax Justice Network, the tax exemption on
> corporations is a precondition forced on any candidate to host a world
> sport
> event.
> "Every country must accept that they will become a tax haven for these
> companies during a period of time," Fowler told the BBC.
> Among the main sponsor companies of Rio 2016 are Coca-Cola, McDonald's,
> Visa, Bridgestone, Samsung, Panasonic, Omega, Procter & Gamble, General
> Electric, Nissan, Globo, Nike, Microsoft and Airbnb.
> According to organizers, the Olympic Games are an opportunity for the host
> country to bring in tourists, invest in infrastructure and promote a
> healthy
> lifestyle among its citizens, but it's also true that most countries are in
> debt after the games and have to undertake severe austerity measures.
> http://e-max.it/posizionamento-siti-web/socialize
> http://e-max.it/posizionamento-siti-web/socialize
>
>
>
When is a minority not a minority?
Answer:
When it holds all the marbles.
We could just as well say that it is also when the minority proclaims
itself to be immortal, while the majority remains mere mortals. But,
we ask, how can so few stay on top so long!
The ancient Egyptian pyramid stands as a fine example. The very few
stand atop an ever larger base. Notice that the top is doing nothing,
holding up nothing? But the ever larger growing base is kept busy
holding up that which is above it.
And the reward for doing this deed? There is no reward. It is simply
the order of things.
Such power must be controlled by some Universal Law, else why would we
allow it to continue? In a sane world, the masses, the majority,
would simply spank the bottoms of the greedy corporations, take away
their piggy banks and send them to bed without any porridge.
Carl Jarvis
On 8/18/16, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@optonline.net> wrote:
>
> Excerpt: "Coca-Cola, McDonald's, Visa and the rest of the corporate
> sponsors
> of the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro won't be paying any taxes on the
> money they earn there due to a tax exemption law that's set to cost Brazil
> hundreds of millions of dollars."
>
> Rio de Janeiro. (photo: Olympic Committee)
>
>
> World's Biggest Corporations Won't Pay Taxes at the Olympics
> By teleSUR
> 18 August 16
>
> Brazil will lose about a billion dollars in revenue thanks to a law that
> turns the Olympics into a tax haven.
> Coca-Cola, McDonald's, Visa and the rest of the corporate sponsors of the
> Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro won't be paying any taxes on the money they
> earn there due to a tax exemption law that's set to cost Brazil hundreds of
> millions of dollars.
> The exemption, which lasts until Dec. 31, 2017, excludes from taxes revenue
> generated by advertising, product sales, imports and any other activity
> related to the organization of the games.
> "It is yet another manifestation of the privileges that multinationals
> worldwide have today," said Antonio Martins, director of the alternative
> Brazilian news outlet Outras Palavras. "And it's not an isolated event,
> which is limited to a sports mega event," he told the BBC.
> Brazil has 37 million people living in extreme poverty, its economy is
> currently in recession and the interim government of Senate-imposed
> President Michel Temer has approved a fiscal austerity program. Meanwhile,
> the country is expected to lose about a billion dollars in tax revenue
> thanks to the exemption, according to BBC.
> According to Naomi Fowler of the Tax Justice Network, the tax exemption on
> corporations is a precondition forced on any candidate to host a world
> sport
> event.
> "Every country must accept that they will become a tax haven for these
> companies during a period of time," Fowler told the BBC.
> Among the main sponsor companies of Rio 2016 are Coca-Cola, McDonald's,
> Visa, Bridgestone, Samsung, Panasonic, Omega, Procter & Gamble, General
> Electric, Nissan, Globo, Nike, Microsoft and Airbnb.
> According to organizers, the Olympic Games are an opportunity for the host
> country to bring in tourists, invest in infrastructure and promote a
> healthy
> lifestyle among its citizens, but it's also true that most countries are in
> debt after the games and have to undertake severe austerity measures.
> Error! Hyperlink reference not valid. Error! Hyperlink reference not
> valid.
>
> Rio de Janeiro. (photo: Olympic Committee)
> http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Worlds-Biggest-Corporations-Wont-Pay-T
> axes-at-the-Olympics-20160817-0018.htmlhttp://www.telesurtv.net/english/news
> /Worlds-Biggest-Corporations-Wont-Pay-Taxes-at-the-Olympics-20160817-0018.ht
> ml
> World's Biggest Corporations Won't Pay Taxes at the Olympics
> By teleSUR
> 18 August 16
> Brazil will lose about a billion dollars in revenue thanks to a law that
> turns the Olympics into a tax haven.
> oca-Cola, McDonald's, Visa and the rest of the corporate sponsors of
> Error!
> Hyperlink reference not valid. in Rio de Janeiro won't be paying any taxes
> on the money they earn there due to a tax exemption law that's set to cost
> Brazil hundreds of millions of dollars.
> The exemption, which lasts until Dec. 31, 2017, excludes from taxes revenue
> generated by advertising, product sales, imports and any other activity
> related to the organization of the games.
> "It is yet another manifestation of the privileges that multinationals
> worldwide have today," said Antonio Martins, director of the alternative
> Brazilian news outlet Outras Palavras. "And it's not an isolated event,
> which is limited to a sports mega event," he told the BBC.
> Brazil has 37 million people living in extreme poverty, its economy is
> currently in recession and the interim government of Senate-imposed
> President Michel Temer has approved a fiscal austerity program. Meanwhile,
> the country is expected to lose about a billion dollars in tax revenue
> thanks to the exemption, according to BBC.
> According to Naomi Fowler of the Tax Justice Network, the tax exemption on
> corporations is a precondition forced on any candidate to host a world
> sport
> event.
> "Every country must accept that they will become a tax haven for these
> companies during a period of time," Fowler told the BBC.
> Among the main sponsor companies of Rio 2016 are Coca-Cola, McDonald's,
> Visa, Bridgestone, Samsung, Panasonic, Omega, Procter & Gamble, General
> Electric, Nissan, Globo, Nike, Microsoft and Airbnb.
> According to organizers, the Olympic Games are an opportunity for the host
> country to bring in tourists, invest in infrastructure and promote a
> healthy
> lifestyle among its citizens, but it's also true that most countries are in
> debt after the games and have to undertake severe austerity measures.
> http://e-max.it/posizionamento-siti-web/socialize
> http://e-max.it/posizionamento-siti-web/socialize
>
>
>
Wednesday, August 17, 2016
Fwd: [blind-democracy] The Birthday
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@optonline.net>
Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 09:29:34 -0400
Subject: [blind-democracy] The Birthday
To: blind-democracy@freelists.org
Castro writes: "Tomorrow I will turn 90 years old. I was born in a territory
called Biran, in the eastern region of Cuba. It's known by that name,
although it has never appeared on a map."
Cuban soldiers visit the photo and audiovisual exhibition called 'Fidel,'
dedicated to Fidel Castro in Havana. (photo: Yamil Lage/AFP/Getty Images)
The Birthday
By Fidel Castro, CounterPunch
16 August 16
Tomorrow I will turn 90 years old. I was born in a territory called Birán,
in the eastern region of Cuba. It's known by that name, although it has
never appeared on a map. Given its good conduct it was known for close
friends and, of course, a stronghold of political representatives and
inspectors who involved in any commercial or productive activity typical of
the neocolonized countries of the world.
On one occasion I accompanied my father to Pinares de Mayarí. I was eight or
nine years old. How he enjoyed talking when he left the house in Birán!
There he was the proprietor of the land where sugar cane, pasture and other
agricultural crops were planted. But in Pinares de Mayarí he was not a
proprietor, but a leaseholder, like many Spaniards, who were the owners of a
continent under the rights granted by a papal bull, of whose existence none
of the peoples and human beings of this continent were aware. The
transmitted knowledge was already largely treasures of humanity.
The altitude rises to approximately 500 meters, with inclined, rocky slopes,
where the vegetation is scarce and at times hostile. Trees and rocks
obstruct transit; suddenly, at a certain height, a vast plateau begins which
I estimate extends over approximately 200 square kilometers, with rich
deposits of nickel, chromium, manganese and other minerals of great economic
value. From that plateau dozens of trucks of pines of great size and quality
were extracted daily.
Note that I have not mentioned the gold, platinum, palladium, diamonds,
copper, tin, and others that at the same time have become symbols of the
economic values that human society, in its present stage of development,
requires.
A few years before the triumph of the Revolution my father died. Beforehand,
he suffered a lot.
Of his three sons, the second and third were absent and distant. In
revolutionary activities both fulfilled their duty. I had said that I knew
who could replace me if the adversary was successful in its elimination
plans. I almost laughed about the Machiavellian plans of the presidents of
the United States.
On January 27, 1953, after the treacherous coup by Batista in 1952, a page
of the history of our Revolution was written: university students and youth
organizations, alongside the people, carried out the first March of the
Torches to commemorate the centenary of the birth of José Martí.
I had already reached the conviction that no organization was prepared for
the fight we were organizing. There was complete disorientation from the
political parties that mobilized the masses of citizens, from the left to
the right and the center, sickened by the politicking that reigned in the
country.
At the age of 6 a teacher full of ambitions, who taught in the small public
school of Birán, convinced my family that I should travel to Santiago de
Cuba to accompany my older sister who would enter a highly prestigious
convent school. Including me was a skill of that very teacher from the
little school in Birán. She, splendidly treated in the house in Birán, where
she ate at the same table with the family, was convinced of the necessity of
my presence. Certainly, I was in better health than my brother Ramón – who
passed away in recent months – and for a long time was a classmate. I do not
want to be extensive, only that the years of that period of hunger were very
tough for the majority of the population.
I was sent, after three years, to the Colegio La Salle in Santiago de Cuba,
where I was enrolled in the first grade. Almost three years past without
them ever taking me to the cinema.
Thus began my life. Maybe I will write, if I have time, about this. Excuse
me for not having done so before now, it's just I have ideas of what a child
can and should be taught. I believe that a lack of education is the greatest
harm that can be done.
Humankind today faces the greatest risk of its history. Specialists in these
areas can do the most for the inhabitants of this planet, whose number rose,
from one billion at the end of 1800, to seven billion at the beginning of
2016. How many will our planet have within a few years?
The brightest scientists, who now number several thousand, are those who can
answer this question and many others of great consequence.
I wish to express my most profound gratitude for the shows of respect, the
greetings and the gifts that I have received in recent days, which give me
the strength to reciprocate through ideas that I will transmit to the
militants of our Party and relevant organizations.
Modern technical means have allowed for scrutiny of the universe. Great
powers such as China and Russia can not be subject to threats to impose the
use of nuclear weapons. They are peoples of great courage and intelligence.
I believe that the speech by the President of the United States when he
visited Japan lacked stature, and it lacked an apology for the killing of
hundreds of thousands of people in Hiroshima, in spite of the fact that they
knew the effects of the bomb. The attack on Nagasaki was equally criminal, a
city that the masters of life and death chose at random. It is for that
reason that we must hammer on about the necessity of preserving peace, and
that no power has the right to kill millions of human beings.
Error! Hyperlink reference not valid. Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.
Cuban soldiers visit the photo and audiovisual exhibition called 'Fidel,'
dedicated to Fidel Castro in Havana. (photo: Yamil Lage/AFP/Getty Images)
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/08/16/the-birthday/http://www.counterpunch.
org/2016/08/16/the-birthday/
The Birthday
By Fidel Castro, CounterPunch
16 August 16
omorrow I will turn 90 years old. I was born in a territory called Birán,
in the eastern region of Cuba. It's known by that name, although it has
never appeared on a map. Given its good conduct it was known for close
friends and, of course, a stronghold of political representatives and
inspectors who involved in any commercial or productive activity typical of
the neocolonized countries of the world.
On one occasion I accompanied my father to Pinares de Mayarí. I was eight or
nine years old. How he enjoyed talking when he left the house in Birán!
There he was the proprietor of the land where sugar cane, pasture and other
agricultural crops were planted. But in Pinares de Mayarí he was not a
proprietor, but a leaseholder, like many Spaniards, who were the owners of a
continent under the rights granted by a papal bull, of whose existence none
of the peoples and human beings of this continent were aware. The
transmitted knowledge was already largely treasures of humanity.
The altitude rises to approximately 500 meters, with inclined, rocky slopes,
where the vegetation is scarce and at times hostile. Trees and rocks
obstruct transit; suddenly, at a certain height, a vast plateau begins which
I estimate extends over approximately 200 square kilometers, with rich
deposits of nickel, chromium, manganese and other minerals of great economic
value. From that plateau dozens of trucks of pines of great size and quality
were extracted daily.
Note that I have not mentioned the gold, platinum, palladium, diamonds,
copper, tin, and others that at the same time have become symbols of the
economic values that human society, in its present stage of development,
requires.
A few years before the triumph of the Revolution my father died. Beforehand,
he suffered a lot.
Of his three sons, the second and third were absent and distant. In
revolutionary activities both fulfilled their duty. I had said that I knew
who could replace me if the adversary was successful in its elimination
plans. I almost laughed about the Machiavellian plans of the presidents of
the United States.
On January 27, 1953, after the treacherous coup by Batista in 1952, a page
of the history of our Revolution was written: university students and youth
organizations, alongside the people, carried out the first March of the
Torches to commemorate the centenary of the birth of José Martí.
I had already reached the conviction that no organization was prepared for
the fight we were organizing. There was complete disorientation from the
political parties that mobilized the masses of citizens, from the left to
the right and the center, sickened by the politicking that reigned in the
country.
At the age of 6 a teacher full of ambitions, who taught in the small public
school of Birán, convinced my family that I should travel to Santiago de
Cuba to accompany my older sister who would enter a highly prestigious
convent school. Including me was a skill of that very teacher from the
little school in Birán. She, splendidly treated in the house in Birán, where
she ate at the same table with the family, was convinced of the necessity of
my presence. Certainly, I was in better health than my brother Ramón – who
passed away in recent months – and for a long time was a classmate. I do not
want to be extensive, only that the years of that period of hunger were very
tough for the majority of the population.
I was sent, after three years, to the Colegio La Salle in Santiago de Cuba,
where I was enrolled in the first grade. Almost three years past without
them ever taking me to the cinema.
Thus began my life. Maybe I will write, if I have time, about this. Excuse
me for not having done so before now, it's just I have ideas of what a child
can and should be taught. I believe that a lack of education is the greatest
harm that can be done.
Humankind today faces the greatest risk of its history. Specialists in these
areas can do the most for the inhabitants of this planet, whose number rose,
from one billion at the end of 1800, to seven billion at the beginning of
2016. How many will our planet have within a few years?
The brightest scientists, who now number several thousand, are those who can
answer this question and many others of great consequence.
I wish to express my most profound gratitude for the shows of respect, the
greetings and the gifts that I have received in recent days, which give me
the strength to reciprocate through ideas that I will transmit to the
militants of our Party and relevant organizations.
Modern technical means have allowed for scrutiny of the universe. Great
powers such as China and Russia can not be subject to threats to impose the
use of nuclear weapons. They are peoples of great courage and intelligence.
I believe that the speech by the President of the United States when he
visited Japan lacked stature, and it lacked an apology for the killing of
hundreds of thousands of people in Hiroshima, in spite of the fact that they
knew the effects of the bomb. The attack on Nagasaki was equally criminal, a
city that the masters of life and death chose at random. It is for that
reason that we must hammer on about the necessity of preserving peace, and
that no power has the right to kill millions of human beings.
http://e-max.it/posizionamento-siti-web/socialize
http://e-max.it/posizionamento-siti-web/socialize
From: Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@optonline.net>
Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 09:29:34 -0400
Subject: [blind-democracy] The Birthday
To: blind-democracy@freelists.org
Castro writes: "Tomorrow I will turn 90 years old. I was born in a territory
called Biran, in the eastern region of Cuba. It's known by that name,
although it has never appeared on a map."
Cuban soldiers visit the photo and audiovisual exhibition called 'Fidel,'
dedicated to Fidel Castro in Havana. (photo: Yamil Lage/AFP/Getty Images)
The Birthday
By Fidel Castro, CounterPunch
16 August 16
Tomorrow I will turn 90 years old. I was born in a territory called Birán,
in the eastern region of Cuba. It's known by that name, although it has
never appeared on a map. Given its good conduct it was known for close
friends and, of course, a stronghold of political representatives and
inspectors who involved in any commercial or productive activity typical of
the neocolonized countries of the world.
On one occasion I accompanied my father to Pinares de Mayarí. I was eight or
nine years old. How he enjoyed talking when he left the house in Birán!
There he was the proprietor of the land where sugar cane, pasture and other
agricultural crops were planted. But in Pinares de Mayarí he was not a
proprietor, but a leaseholder, like many Spaniards, who were the owners of a
continent under the rights granted by a papal bull, of whose existence none
of the peoples and human beings of this continent were aware. The
transmitted knowledge was already largely treasures of humanity.
The altitude rises to approximately 500 meters, with inclined, rocky slopes,
where the vegetation is scarce and at times hostile. Trees and rocks
obstruct transit; suddenly, at a certain height, a vast plateau begins which
I estimate extends over approximately 200 square kilometers, with rich
deposits of nickel, chromium, manganese and other minerals of great economic
value. From that plateau dozens of trucks of pines of great size and quality
were extracted daily.
Note that I have not mentioned the gold, platinum, palladium, diamonds,
copper, tin, and others that at the same time have become symbols of the
economic values that human society, in its present stage of development,
requires.
A few years before the triumph of the Revolution my father died. Beforehand,
he suffered a lot.
Of his three sons, the second and third were absent and distant. In
revolutionary activities both fulfilled their duty. I had said that I knew
who could replace me if the adversary was successful in its elimination
plans. I almost laughed about the Machiavellian plans of the presidents of
the United States.
On January 27, 1953, after the treacherous coup by Batista in 1952, a page
of the history of our Revolution was written: university students and youth
organizations, alongside the people, carried out the first March of the
Torches to commemorate the centenary of the birth of José Martí.
I had already reached the conviction that no organization was prepared for
the fight we were organizing. There was complete disorientation from the
political parties that mobilized the masses of citizens, from the left to
the right and the center, sickened by the politicking that reigned in the
country.
At the age of 6 a teacher full of ambitions, who taught in the small public
school of Birán, convinced my family that I should travel to Santiago de
Cuba to accompany my older sister who would enter a highly prestigious
convent school. Including me was a skill of that very teacher from the
little school in Birán. She, splendidly treated in the house in Birán, where
she ate at the same table with the family, was convinced of the necessity of
my presence. Certainly, I was in better health than my brother Ramón – who
passed away in recent months – and for a long time was a classmate. I do not
want to be extensive, only that the years of that period of hunger were very
tough for the majority of the population.
I was sent, after three years, to the Colegio La Salle in Santiago de Cuba,
where I was enrolled in the first grade. Almost three years past without
them ever taking me to the cinema.
Thus began my life. Maybe I will write, if I have time, about this. Excuse
me for not having done so before now, it's just I have ideas of what a child
can and should be taught. I believe that a lack of education is the greatest
harm that can be done.
Humankind today faces the greatest risk of its history. Specialists in these
areas can do the most for the inhabitants of this planet, whose number rose,
from one billion at the end of 1800, to seven billion at the beginning of
2016. How many will our planet have within a few years?
The brightest scientists, who now number several thousand, are those who can
answer this question and many others of great consequence.
I wish to express my most profound gratitude for the shows of respect, the
greetings and the gifts that I have received in recent days, which give me
the strength to reciprocate through ideas that I will transmit to the
militants of our Party and relevant organizations.
Modern technical means have allowed for scrutiny of the universe. Great
powers such as China and Russia can not be subject to threats to impose the
use of nuclear weapons. They are peoples of great courage and intelligence.
I believe that the speech by the President of the United States when he
visited Japan lacked stature, and it lacked an apology for the killing of
hundreds of thousands of people in Hiroshima, in spite of the fact that they
knew the effects of the bomb. The attack on Nagasaki was equally criminal, a
city that the masters of life and death chose at random. It is for that
reason that we must hammer on about the necessity of preserving peace, and
that no power has the right to kill millions of human beings.
Error! Hyperlink reference not valid. Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.
Cuban soldiers visit the photo and audiovisual exhibition called 'Fidel,'
dedicated to Fidel Castro in Havana. (photo: Yamil Lage/AFP/Getty Images)
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/08/16/the-birthday/http://www.counterpunch.
org/2016/08/16/the-birthday/
The Birthday
By Fidel Castro, CounterPunch
16 August 16
omorrow I will turn 90 years old. I was born in a territory called Birán,
in the eastern region of Cuba. It's known by that name, although it has
never appeared on a map. Given its good conduct it was known for close
friends and, of course, a stronghold of political representatives and
inspectors who involved in any commercial or productive activity typical of
the neocolonized countries of the world.
On one occasion I accompanied my father to Pinares de Mayarí. I was eight or
nine years old. How he enjoyed talking when he left the house in Birán!
There he was the proprietor of the land where sugar cane, pasture and other
agricultural crops were planted. But in Pinares de Mayarí he was not a
proprietor, but a leaseholder, like many Spaniards, who were the owners of a
continent under the rights granted by a papal bull, of whose existence none
of the peoples and human beings of this continent were aware. The
transmitted knowledge was already largely treasures of humanity.
The altitude rises to approximately 500 meters, with inclined, rocky slopes,
where the vegetation is scarce and at times hostile. Trees and rocks
obstruct transit; suddenly, at a certain height, a vast plateau begins which
I estimate extends over approximately 200 square kilometers, with rich
deposits of nickel, chromium, manganese and other minerals of great economic
value. From that plateau dozens of trucks of pines of great size and quality
were extracted daily.
Note that I have not mentioned the gold, platinum, palladium, diamonds,
copper, tin, and others that at the same time have become symbols of the
economic values that human society, in its present stage of development,
requires.
A few years before the triumph of the Revolution my father died. Beforehand,
he suffered a lot.
Of his three sons, the second and third were absent and distant. In
revolutionary activities both fulfilled their duty. I had said that I knew
who could replace me if the adversary was successful in its elimination
plans. I almost laughed about the Machiavellian plans of the presidents of
the United States.
On January 27, 1953, after the treacherous coup by Batista in 1952, a page
of the history of our Revolution was written: university students and youth
organizations, alongside the people, carried out the first March of the
Torches to commemorate the centenary of the birth of José Martí.
I had already reached the conviction that no organization was prepared for
the fight we were organizing. There was complete disorientation from the
political parties that mobilized the masses of citizens, from the left to
the right and the center, sickened by the politicking that reigned in the
country.
At the age of 6 a teacher full of ambitions, who taught in the small public
school of Birán, convinced my family that I should travel to Santiago de
Cuba to accompany my older sister who would enter a highly prestigious
convent school. Including me was a skill of that very teacher from the
little school in Birán. She, splendidly treated in the house in Birán, where
she ate at the same table with the family, was convinced of the necessity of
my presence. Certainly, I was in better health than my brother Ramón – who
passed away in recent months – and for a long time was a classmate. I do not
want to be extensive, only that the years of that period of hunger were very
tough for the majority of the population.
I was sent, after three years, to the Colegio La Salle in Santiago de Cuba,
where I was enrolled in the first grade. Almost three years past without
them ever taking me to the cinema.
Thus began my life. Maybe I will write, if I have time, about this. Excuse
me for not having done so before now, it's just I have ideas of what a child
can and should be taught. I believe that a lack of education is the greatest
harm that can be done.
Humankind today faces the greatest risk of its history. Specialists in these
areas can do the most for the inhabitants of this planet, whose number rose,
from one billion at the end of 1800, to seven billion at the beginning of
2016. How many will our planet have within a few years?
The brightest scientists, who now number several thousand, are those who can
answer this question and many others of great consequence.
I wish to express my most profound gratitude for the shows of respect, the
greetings and the gifts that I have received in recent days, which give me
the strength to reciprocate through ideas that I will transmit to the
militants of our Party and relevant organizations.
Modern technical means have allowed for scrutiny of the universe. Great
powers such as China and Russia can not be subject to threats to impose the
use of nuclear weapons. They are peoples of great courage and intelligence.
I believe that the speech by the President of the United States when he
visited Japan lacked stature, and it lacked an apology for the killing of
hundreds of thousands of people in Hiroshima, in spite of the fact that they
knew the effects of the bomb. The attack on Nagasaki was equally criminal, a
city that the masters of life and death chose at random. It is for that
reason that we must hammer on about the necessity of preserving peace, and
that no power has the right to kill millions of human beings.
http://e-max.it/posizionamento-siti-web/socialize
http://e-max.it/posizionamento-siti-web/socialize
Re: [blind-democracy] Clinton Transition Team Headed by Anti-Climate 'Powerbroker'
By Their Friends Ye Shall Know Them.
I'm sure that's in the Bible somewhere.
It should come as no surprise that Hillary Clinton would turn to the
folks she knows best, to put together her various teams and to fill
key jobs. Isn't that how we all do it? We turn to those we know and
trust to help us work through difficult tasks. When our generator
acts up we call Russ. He knows that generator inside and out. I
wouldn't call some total unknown when Russ is around. When the truck
acts up we call Rudy. After over 300 thousand miles, Rudy knows how
to tickle a few more miles out of the tired old motor. When I worked
for the Washington State Department of Services for the Blind, and I
had positions to fill, I first looked among my closest associates, and
then broadened out to search among people recommended to me by trusted
associates. That's how it's done.
So of course Hillary Clinton is going to go to those folks she knows
and trusts. And next she will search among folks recommended to her
by these trusted associates. All normal behavior.
So when the word came out that Clinton had selected Ken Salazar to
head up her transition team, it should have been totally expected.
What troubles me most regarding this announcement is not who Clinton
named, but that it disturbed people who had actually bought into her,
"shift to the Left" propaganda. When do we wake up and understand
that the use of language is a central tool of any successful
politician. Speaking all things to all people is not an easy thing to
do.
And one other thought. Our brain needs exercise in order to grow.
What we put into it will determine how strong it becomes. My stomach
loves sugar and chocolate. It constantly grows large and flabby if I
don't take care to put decent food into it.
We have been "dumbed down" through our schools and our mass media,
until our brain can handle nothing more than snippets of information,
before being distracted. We have had our brain trained to accept
without much question, the rules and laws set down by our Ruling
Class.
Well, if your brain is still listening, and that is doubtful, I'll
tell it that Hillary Clinton will be our next president, and she will
"Walk Back" her Left leanings, telling us that the timing is not
right, or the progressive plans are not in the best interest of our
National Security. When this happens, and it's going to happen, just
remember to check out Clinton's friends. That will tell your brain
just which American's Security is at stake.
Carl Jarvis
On 8/16/16, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@optonline.net> wrote:
> Clinton Transition Team Headed by Anti-Climate 'Powerbroker'
> Published on
> Tuesday, August 16, 2016
> by
> Common Dreams
> Clinton Transition Team Headed by Anti-Climate 'Powerbroker'
> Ken Salazar has previously claimed "there's not a single case where
> hydraulic fracking has created an environmental problem for anyone"
> by
> Nadia Prupis, staff writer
>
> Salazar has previously promoted the TPP, fracking, and the Keystone XL
> pipeline. (Photo: Casa de América/flickr/cc)
> Hillary Clinton has named her transition team should she be elected in
> November, and the roster—as many feared—is a who's-who of establishment
> figures, including former Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, who has a
> maligned
> track record on climate.
> The team will also include former national security adviser Tom Donilon,
> former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm, president of the Center for
> American
> Progress (CAP) Neera Tanden, and director of Harvard University's Institute
> of Politics Maggie Williams. Two of the campaign's policy advisers, Ed
> Meier
> and Ann O'Leary, will also serve as co-executive directors.
> Salazar, whose career includes positions both in government and corporate
> Washington, D.C. firms, has previously pushed for projects that are reviled
> among environmental activists, such as fracking, the Trans Pacific
> Partnership (TPP), and the Keystone XL pipeline.
> Just a year ago, Clinton and Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) penned an op-ed
> for
> the Huffington Post decrying the cyclical nature of Capitol Hill
> institutions that enable lawmakers and lobbyists to jump in and out of the
> private and public sectors.
> "[I]ncreasingly, Americans' trust in government is eroding. And a big
> reason
> for that is the so-called revolving door between government and the private
> sector," they wrote.
> But as David Sirota noted Tuesday at International Business Times, putting
> Salazar in charge of Clinton's transition team only empowers more of the
> same:
> Salazar served as Colorado's Attorney General, U.S. Senator and Interior
> Secretary before traveling through that revolving door and taking a job in
> 2013 as a partner at WilmerHale—a law and lobbying colossus that has been
> called one of the most influential forces in Washington. Salazar's
> biography
> says that he "provides legal, strategic and policy advice to national and
> international clients, particularly on matters at the intersection of law,
> business and public policy." He is one of 39 former public officials now
> working at WilmerHale, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive
> Politics. The firm has recently been the subject of a ProPublica
> investigation that showed one of its partners gave a personal loan to Gene
> Sperling, then President Obama's economic adviser, as the firm represented
> major financial institutions.
> Salazar is not a registered lobbyist but he appears to fit the description
> of the kind of powerbroker that Clinton has criticized.
>
> The former interior secretary has also previously said, "The TPP is a
> strong
> trade deal that will level the playing field for workers to help
> middle-class families get ahead. It is also the greenest trade deal ever,"
> and has claimed that "there's not a single case where hydraulic fracking
> has
> created an environmental problem for anyone."
> According to Politico, Salazar is also opposing an anti-fracking ballot
> measure in his home state of Colorado.
> The team was announced just days after 15 progressive groups published an
> open letter calling on Clinton to appoint personnel that would prove her
> commitment to issues such as ending economic inequality and stopping the
> TPP.
> "Historically, too many Wall Street executives and corporate insiders have
> traveled through the revolving door between private industry and
> government," the letter stated. "The result of this practice is that the
> interests of elites are over-represented in Washington."
> The signatories included advocacy groups Public Citizen, RootsAction, and
> MoveOn.org. They urged Clinton to "publicly state that, should you win the
> presidency, you will appoint personnel from backgrounds in public interest
> advocacy, academia, and public service to influential positions within your
> administration, rather than merely drawing from the usual set of corporate
> insiders."
> "Personnel is policy," they wrote.
> This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0
> License
> Skip to main content
> //
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>
> Tuesday, August 16, 2016
> • Home
> • World
> • U.S.
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> Clinton Transition Team Headed by Anti-Climate 'Powerbroker'
> Published on
> Tuesday, August 16, 2016
> by
> Common Dreams
> Clinton Transition Team Headed by Anti-Climate 'Powerbroker'
> Ken Salazar has previously claimed "there's not a single case where
> hydraulic fracking has created an environmental problem for anyone"
> by
> Nadia Prupis, staff writer
> • 64 Comments
> •
> • Salazar has previously promoted the TPP, fracking, and the Keystone
> XL pipeline. (Photo: Casa de América/flickr/cc)
> • Hillary Clinton has named her transition team should she be elected
> in November, and the roster—as many feared—is a who's-who of establishment
> figures, including former Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, who has a
> maligned
> track record on climate.
> • The team will also include former national security adviser Tom
> Donilon, former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm, president of the Center
> for
> American Progress (CAP) Neera Tanden, and director of Harvard University's
> Institute of Politics Maggie Williams. Two of the campaign's policy
> advisers, Ed Meier and Ann O'Leary, will also serve as co-executive
> directors.
> • Salazar, whose career includes positions both in government and
> corporate Washington, D.C. firms, has previously pushed for projects that
> are reviled among environmental activists, such as fracking, the Trans
> Pacific Partnership (TPP), and the Keystone XL pipeline.
> • Just a year ago, Clinton and Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) penned an
> op-ed for the Huffington Post decrying the cyclical nature of Capitol Hill
> institutions that enable lawmakers and lobbyists to jump in and out of the
> private and public sectors.
> "[I]ncreasingly, Americans' trust in government is eroding. And a big
> reason
> for that is the so-called revolving door between government and the private
> sector," they wrote.
> But as David Sirota noted Tuesday at International Business Times, putting
> Salazar in charge of Clinton's transition team only empowers more of the
> same:
> Salazar served as Colorado's Attorney General, U.S. Senator and Interior
> Secretary before traveling through that revolving door and taking a job in
> 2013 as a partner at WilmerHale—a law and lobbying colossus that has been
> called one of the most influential forces in Washington. Salazar's
> biography
> says that he "provides legal, strategic and policy advice to national and
> international clients, particularly on matters at the intersection of law,
> business and public policy." He is one of 39 former public officials now
> working at WilmerHale, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive
> Politics. The firm has recently been the subject of a ProPublica
> investigation that showed one of its partners gave a personal loan to Gene
> Sperling, then President Obama's economic adviser, as the firm represented
> major financial institutions.
> Salazar is not a registered lobbyist but he appears to fit the description
> of the kind of powerbroker that Clinton has criticized.
> http://commondreams.org/crossroadshttp://commondreams.org/crossroads
> The former interior secretary has also previously said, "The TPP is a
> strong
> trade deal that will level the playing field for workers to help
> middle-class families get ahead. It is also the greenest trade deal ever,"
> and has claimed that "there's not a single case where hydraulic fracking
> has
> created an environmental problem for anyone."
> According to Politico, Salazar is also opposing an anti-fracking ballot
> measure in his home state of Colorado.
> The team was announced just days after 15 progressive groups published an
> open letter calling on Clinton to appoint personnel that would prove her
> commitment to issues such as ending economic inequality and stopping the
> TPP.
> "Historically, too many Wall Street executives and corporate insiders have
> traveled through the revolving door between private industry and
> government," the letter stated. "The result of this practice is that the
> interests of elites are over-represented in Washington."
> The signatories included advocacy groups Public Citizen, RootsAction, and
> MoveOn.org. They urged Clinton to "publicly state that, should you win the
> presidency, you will appoint personnel from backgrounds in public interest
> advocacy, academia, and public service to influential positions within your
> administration, rather than merely drawing from the usual set of corporate
> insiders."
> "Personnel is policy," they wrote.
> This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0
> License
>
>
>
I'm sure that's in the Bible somewhere.
It should come as no surprise that Hillary Clinton would turn to the
folks she knows best, to put together her various teams and to fill
key jobs. Isn't that how we all do it? We turn to those we know and
trust to help us work through difficult tasks. When our generator
acts up we call Russ. He knows that generator inside and out. I
wouldn't call some total unknown when Russ is around. When the truck
acts up we call Rudy. After over 300 thousand miles, Rudy knows how
to tickle a few more miles out of the tired old motor. When I worked
for the Washington State Department of Services for the Blind, and I
had positions to fill, I first looked among my closest associates, and
then broadened out to search among people recommended to me by trusted
associates. That's how it's done.
So of course Hillary Clinton is going to go to those folks she knows
and trusts. And next she will search among folks recommended to her
by these trusted associates. All normal behavior.
So when the word came out that Clinton had selected Ken Salazar to
head up her transition team, it should have been totally expected.
What troubles me most regarding this announcement is not who Clinton
named, but that it disturbed people who had actually bought into her,
"shift to the Left" propaganda. When do we wake up and understand
that the use of language is a central tool of any successful
politician. Speaking all things to all people is not an easy thing to
do.
And one other thought. Our brain needs exercise in order to grow.
What we put into it will determine how strong it becomes. My stomach
loves sugar and chocolate. It constantly grows large and flabby if I
don't take care to put decent food into it.
We have been "dumbed down" through our schools and our mass media,
until our brain can handle nothing more than snippets of information,
before being distracted. We have had our brain trained to accept
without much question, the rules and laws set down by our Ruling
Class.
Well, if your brain is still listening, and that is doubtful, I'll
tell it that Hillary Clinton will be our next president, and she will
"Walk Back" her Left leanings, telling us that the timing is not
right, or the progressive plans are not in the best interest of our
National Security. When this happens, and it's going to happen, just
remember to check out Clinton's friends. That will tell your brain
just which American's Security is at stake.
Carl Jarvis
On 8/16/16, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@optonline.net> wrote:
> Clinton Transition Team Headed by Anti-Climate 'Powerbroker'
> Published on
> Tuesday, August 16, 2016
> by
> Common Dreams
> Clinton Transition Team Headed by Anti-Climate 'Powerbroker'
> Ken Salazar has previously claimed "there's not a single case where
> hydraulic fracking has created an environmental problem for anyone"
> by
> Nadia Prupis, staff writer
>
> Salazar has previously promoted the TPP, fracking, and the Keystone XL
> pipeline. (Photo: Casa de América/flickr/cc)
> Hillary Clinton has named her transition team should she be elected in
> November, and the roster—as many feared—is a who's-who of establishment
> figures, including former Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, who has a
> maligned
> track record on climate.
> The team will also include former national security adviser Tom Donilon,
> former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm, president of the Center for
> American
> Progress (CAP) Neera Tanden, and director of Harvard University's Institute
> of Politics Maggie Williams. Two of the campaign's policy advisers, Ed
> Meier
> and Ann O'Leary, will also serve as co-executive directors.
> Salazar, whose career includes positions both in government and corporate
> Washington, D.C. firms, has previously pushed for projects that are reviled
> among environmental activists, such as fracking, the Trans Pacific
> Partnership (TPP), and the Keystone XL pipeline.
> Just a year ago, Clinton and Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) penned an op-ed
> for
> the Huffington Post decrying the cyclical nature of Capitol Hill
> institutions that enable lawmakers and lobbyists to jump in and out of the
> private and public sectors.
> "[I]ncreasingly, Americans' trust in government is eroding. And a big
> reason
> for that is the so-called revolving door between government and the private
> sector," they wrote.
> But as David Sirota noted Tuesday at International Business Times, putting
> Salazar in charge of Clinton's transition team only empowers more of the
> same:
> Salazar served as Colorado's Attorney General, U.S. Senator and Interior
> Secretary before traveling through that revolving door and taking a job in
> 2013 as a partner at WilmerHale—a law and lobbying colossus that has been
> called one of the most influential forces in Washington. Salazar's
> biography
> says that he "provides legal, strategic and policy advice to national and
> international clients, particularly on matters at the intersection of law,
> business and public policy." He is one of 39 former public officials now
> working at WilmerHale, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive
> Politics. The firm has recently been the subject of a ProPublica
> investigation that showed one of its partners gave a personal loan to Gene
> Sperling, then President Obama's economic adviser, as the firm represented
> major financial institutions.
> Salazar is not a registered lobbyist but he appears to fit the description
> of the kind of powerbroker that Clinton has criticized.
>
> The former interior secretary has also previously said, "The TPP is a
> strong
> trade deal that will level the playing field for workers to help
> middle-class families get ahead. It is also the greenest trade deal ever,"
> and has claimed that "there's not a single case where hydraulic fracking
> has
> created an environmental problem for anyone."
> According to Politico, Salazar is also opposing an anti-fracking ballot
> measure in his home state of Colorado.
> The team was announced just days after 15 progressive groups published an
> open letter calling on Clinton to appoint personnel that would prove her
> commitment to issues such as ending economic inequality and stopping the
> TPP.
> "Historically, too many Wall Street executives and corporate insiders have
> traveled through the revolving door between private industry and
> government," the letter stated. "The result of this practice is that the
> interests of elites are over-represented in Washington."
> The signatories included advocacy groups Public Citizen, RootsAction, and
> MoveOn.org. They urged Clinton to "publicly state that, should you win the
> presidency, you will appoint personnel from backgrounds in public interest
> advocacy, academia, and public service to influential positions within your
> administration, rather than merely drawing from the usual set of corporate
> insiders."
> "Personnel is policy," they wrote.
> This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0
> License
> Skip to main content
> //
> • DONATE
> • SIGN UP FOR NEWSLETTER
>
>
> Tuesday, August 16, 2016
> • Home
> • World
> • U.S.
> • Canada
> • Climate
> • War & Peace
> • Economy
> • Rights
> • Solutions
> • Our Revolution
> • Bernie Sanders
> • Hillary Clinton
> • Jill Stein
> • Donald Trump
> Clinton Transition Team Headed by Anti-Climate 'Powerbroker'
> Published on
> Tuesday, August 16, 2016
> by
> Common Dreams
> Clinton Transition Team Headed by Anti-Climate 'Powerbroker'
> Ken Salazar has previously claimed "there's not a single case where
> hydraulic fracking has created an environmental problem for anyone"
> by
> Nadia Prupis, staff writer
> • 64 Comments
> •
> • Salazar has previously promoted the TPP, fracking, and the Keystone
> XL pipeline. (Photo: Casa de América/flickr/cc)
> • Hillary Clinton has named her transition team should she be elected
> in November, and the roster—as many feared—is a who's-who of establishment
> figures, including former Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, who has a
> maligned
> track record on climate.
> • The team will also include former national security adviser Tom
> Donilon, former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm, president of the Center
> for
> American Progress (CAP) Neera Tanden, and director of Harvard University's
> Institute of Politics Maggie Williams. Two of the campaign's policy
> advisers, Ed Meier and Ann O'Leary, will also serve as co-executive
> directors.
> • Salazar, whose career includes positions both in government and
> corporate Washington, D.C. firms, has previously pushed for projects that
> are reviled among environmental activists, such as fracking, the Trans
> Pacific Partnership (TPP), and the Keystone XL pipeline.
> • Just a year ago, Clinton and Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) penned an
> op-ed for the Huffington Post decrying the cyclical nature of Capitol Hill
> institutions that enable lawmakers and lobbyists to jump in and out of the
> private and public sectors.
> "[I]ncreasingly, Americans' trust in government is eroding. And a big
> reason
> for that is the so-called revolving door between government and the private
> sector," they wrote.
> But as David Sirota noted Tuesday at International Business Times, putting
> Salazar in charge of Clinton's transition team only empowers more of the
> same:
> Salazar served as Colorado's Attorney General, U.S. Senator and Interior
> Secretary before traveling through that revolving door and taking a job in
> 2013 as a partner at WilmerHale—a law and lobbying colossus that has been
> called one of the most influential forces in Washington. Salazar's
> biography
> says that he "provides legal, strategic and policy advice to national and
> international clients, particularly on matters at the intersection of law,
> business and public policy." He is one of 39 former public officials now
> working at WilmerHale, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive
> Politics. The firm has recently been the subject of a ProPublica
> investigation that showed one of its partners gave a personal loan to Gene
> Sperling, then President Obama's economic adviser, as the firm represented
> major financial institutions.
> Salazar is not a registered lobbyist but he appears to fit the description
> of the kind of powerbroker that Clinton has criticized.
> http://commondreams.org/crossroadshttp://commondreams.org/crossroads
> The former interior secretary has also previously said, "The TPP is a
> strong
> trade deal that will level the playing field for workers to help
> middle-class families get ahead. It is also the greenest trade deal ever,"
> and has claimed that "there's not a single case where hydraulic fracking
> has
> created an environmental problem for anyone."
> According to Politico, Salazar is also opposing an anti-fracking ballot
> measure in his home state of Colorado.
> The team was announced just days after 15 progressive groups published an
> open letter calling on Clinton to appoint personnel that would prove her
> commitment to issues such as ending economic inequality and stopping the
> TPP.
> "Historically, too many Wall Street executives and corporate insiders have
> traveled through the revolving door between private industry and
> government," the letter stated. "The result of this practice is that the
> interests of elites are over-represented in Washington."
> The signatories included advocacy groups Public Citizen, RootsAction, and
> MoveOn.org. They urged Clinton to "publicly state that, should you win the
> presidency, you will appoint personnel from backgrounds in public interest
> advocacy, academia, and public service to influential positions within your
> administration, rather than merely drawing from the usual set of corporate
> insiders."
> "Personnel is policy," they wrote.
> This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0
> License
>
>
>
Monday, August 15, 2016
Re: [blind-democracy] Will Congress Rubber Stamp Another $1.15 Billion Weapons Deal With Saudi Arabia?
Well, I'll bet a box of Cream sickles against a box of Charleston
Chews that the rubber stamp will be bouncing without a pause.
Remember, I believe that our Oligarchy has been quietly taken over by
that Industrial/Military Complex. Eternal war is the way to trunks
full of gold. Hey, those people were going to die some day, anyway.
What's the big deal if it's a few years one way or the other. Gold is
so much more pleasant to run your fingers through, than wrinkled old
bags of bones.
Carl Jarvis
On 8/15/16, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@optonline.net> wrote:
>
> Published on Alternet (http://www.alternet.org)
> Home > Will Congress Rubber Stamp Another $1.15 Billion Weapons Deal With
> Saudi Arabia?
> ________________________________________
> Will Congress Rubber Stamp Another $1.15 Billion Weapons Deal With Saudi
> Arabia?
> By Sarah Lazare [1] / AlterNet [2]
> August 13, 2016
> As the Saudi-Arabia-led coalition escalates its military assault on Yemen
> following the dissolution of a fragile ceasefire, human rights campaigners
> are calling on lawmakers to urgently intercede to block a massive U.S. arms
> sale to the Gulf monarchy and help stem large-scale war crimes.
> The U.S. State Department announced [3] last week that it has approved a
> $1.15 billion deal to ship military equipment and weapons to Saudi Arabia,
> including tanks, machine guns and grenade launchers. This deal comes on top
> of the more than $20 billion in weapons that the U.S. has shipped to Saudi
> Arabia since March 2015, when the coalition began its military campaign.
> Following state department approval, Congress has only 30 days to block or
> change the deal. Given that lawmakers are now in the midst of their summer
> recess, this timeline means they will have to act urgently following Labor
> Day weekend-if they muster the will to take action all.
> Now, the advocacy groups Oxfam, Just Foreign Policy and Code Pink are
> pressing members of Congress find that will. Nearly 6,000 people have
> signed
> a petition [4] that calls on Congress to "Force a public debate on U.S.
> participation in the Saudi war in Yemen by advocating for blocking the
> planned transfer of U.S. tanks and armored vehicles to Saudi Arabia."
> If approved without debate, the shipments would be in line with
> long-standing U.S. practice. According to a report [5] released by the
> Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), the United States
> has been the world's top exporter over the past five years, with the Middle
> East the top recipient of American arms and Saudi Arabia the number-one
> importer.
> However, Robert Naiman, policy director for Just Foreign Policy, told
> AlterNet that there is a slim hope that this deal could go differently.
> Earlier this summer, the U.S. House of Representatives came surprisingly
> close [6] to barring the transfer of U.S. cluster bombs to Saudi Arabia.
> Both Human Rights Watch [7] and Amnesty International [8] report that the
> Saudi-led coalition is dropping U.S.-manufactured cluster bombs on civilian
> areas, killing and maiming civilians, including children.
> "The fact that we almost won two months ago in the House on banning the
> transfer of cluster bombs to Saudi Arabia suggests that blocking this sale
> could be more plausible than a lot of people in the Beltway seem to think,"
> said Naiman.
> In approving the arms deal, the state department claimed [3], "This
> proposed
> sale will contribute to the foreign policy and national security of the
> United States by helping to improve the security of a strategic regional
> partner which has been and continues to be a leading contributor of
> political stability and economic progress in the Middle East."
> In reality, the nearly-17-month military assault is unleashing a
> humanitarian nightmare on the people of Yemen, this week alone killing [9]
> over a dozen civilians at a potato chip factory and bombing [10] the main
> bridge between the port city of Hodeidah and capital Sanaa, cutting off a
> critical transport line for food and fuel. Throughout the campaign,
> coalition bombs have rained down on factories [11], weddings [12] and even
> a
> center for the blind [13]. The Saudi-led coalition is responsible for the
> majority [14] of more than 3,500 civilians [15] who have been killed since
> March 2015.
> Furthermore, all evidence indicates that the coalition attacks have opened
> up space for the Yemen-based al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) to
> gain territory and power. Meanwhile, journalist Safa Al Ahmad has unearthed
> [16] evidence that elements of the Saudi-led coalition have even fought in
> alliance alongside militants affiliated with Al Qaeda.
> Scott Paul, a senior policy adviser at Oxfam America, told [17] Foreign
> policy that yet another massive sale of arms would signal that the U.S. is
> "all-in on a senseless war that has created one of the world's largest
> humanitarian emergencies."
> To fully address the U.S. role in driving this emergency, it is necessary
> to
> look beyond arms shipments. The Obama administration has deployed troops,
> assisted the coalition in identifying bomb targets and conducting
> "intelligence" and sent warships to enforce the naval blockade that has
> choked off critical imports, contributing to a crisis that has left at
> least
> 21 million people [18] in desperate need of food. The U.S. is one of at
> least a dozen countries participating in or backing the coalition,
> including: Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Morocco, Jordan, Pakistan, Sudan, United
> Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and Britain.
> The Saudi-led military coalition is waging its attacks armed with U.S.
> weapons, as well as with effective immunity from the United Nations. As
> recently as June, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon admitted that he
> scrubbed
> the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen from a "list of shame" of armed forces
> that
> violate the rights of children because Saudi Arabia threatened to pull its
> funding from key programs as a retaliatory measure.
> Sarah Lazare is a staff writer for AlterNet. A former staff writer for
> Common Dreams, she coedited the book About Face: Military Resisters Turn
> Against War. Follow her on Twitter at @sarahlazare [19].
> Share on Facebook Share
> Share on Twitter Tweet
>
> Report typos and corrections to 'corrections@alternet.org'. [20]
> [21]
> ________________________________________
> Source URL:
> http://www.alternet.org/world/will-congress-rubber-stamp-another-115-billion
> -weapons-deal-saudi-arabia
> Links:
> [1] http://www.alternet.org/authors/sarah-lazare-0
> [2] http://alternet.org
> [3]
> http://www.dsca.mil/major-arms-sales/kingdom-saudi-arabia-m1a2s-saudi-abrams
> -main-battle-tanks-and-m88ala2-heavy
> [4] http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/congress-block-transfer?r_by=1135580
> [5]
> http://www.alternet.org/world/exporting-death-when-it-comes-arming-planet-am
> erica-unrivaled
> [6]
> https://theintercept.com/2016/06/16/worried-about-stigmatizing-cluster-bombs
> -house-approves-more-sales-to-saudi-arabia/
> [7]
> https://www.hrw.org/news/2016/05/06/yemen-saudis-using-us-cluster-munitions
> [8]
> https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2016/05/yemen-children-among-civilian
> s-killed-and-maimed-in-cluster-bomb-minefields/
> [9] http://www.reuters.com/article/us-yemen-security-idUSKCN10K0SB
> [10]
> https://www.oxfamamerica.org/press/yemeni-peoples-ability-to-access-food-thr
> eatened-as-main-supply-route-to-sanaa-targeted-by-airstrikes/
> [11]
> https://www.hrw.org/news/2015/04/15/yemen-factory-airstrike-killed-31-civili
> ans-0
> [12]
> http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/29/world/middleeast/airstrikes-in-yemen-hit-w
> edding-party-killing-dozens.html
> [13]
> https://theintercept.com/2016/01/05/saudi-coalition-just-bombed-a-center-for
> -the-blind-in-yemen/
> [14] http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-35842708
> [15] http://www.voanews.com/a/yemen-civilian-casualties/3370540.html
> [16] http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/yemen-under-siege/
> [17]
> http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/08/11/with-yemeni-casualties-rising-gop-senato
> r-looks-to-block-big-arms-sale-to-saudi-arabia/
> [18]
> http://time.com/3935125/yemen-humanitarian-aid-united-nations-famine-ceasefi
> re/
> [19] https://twitter.com/sarahlazare
> [20] mailto:corrections@alternet.org?Subject=Typo on Will Congress Rubber
> Stamp Another $1.15 Billion Weapons Deal With Saudi Arabia?
> [21] http://www.alternet.org/
> [22] http://www.alternet.org/%2Bnew_src%2B
>
> Published on Alternet (http://www.alternet.org)
> Home > Will Congress Rubber Stamp Another $1.15 Billion Weapons Deal With
> Saudi Arabia?
>
> Will Congress Rubber Stamp Another $1.15 Billion Weapons Deal With Saudi
> Arabia?
> By Sarah Lazare [1] / AlterNet [2]
> August 13, 2016
> AddThis Sharing ButtonsShare to FacebookShare to TwitterShare to
> Google+More
> AddThis Share optionsShare to Email
> As the Saudi-Arabia-led coalition escalates its military assault on Yemen
> following the dissolution of a fragile ceasefire, human rights campaigners
> are calling on lawmakers to urgently intercede to block a massive U.S. arms
> sale to the Gulf monarchy and help stem large-scale war crimes.
> The U.S. State Department announced [3] last week that it has approved a
> $1.15 billion deal to ship military equipment and weapons to Saudi Arabia,
> including tanks, machine guns and grenade launchers. This deal comes on top
> of the more than $20 billion in weapons that the U.S. has shipped to Saudi
> Arabia since March 2015, when the coalition began its military campaign.
> Following state department approval, Congress has only 30 days to block or
> change the deal. Given that lawmakers are now in the midst of their summer
> recess, this timeline means they will have to act urgently following Labor
> Day weekend-if they muster the will to take action all.
> Now, the advocacy groups Oxfam, Just Foreign Policy and Code Pink are
> pressing members of Congress find that will. Nearly 6,000 people have
> signed
> a petition [4] that calls on Congress to "Force a public debate on U.S.
> participation in the Saudi war in Yemen by advocating for blocking the
> planned transfer of U.S. tanks and armored vehicles to Saudi Arabia."
> If approved without debate, the shipments would be in line with
> long-standing U.S. practice. According to a report [5] released by the
> Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), the United States
> has been the world's top exporter over the past five years, with the Middle
> East the top recipient of American arms and Saudi Arabia the number-one
> importer.
> However, Robert Naiman, policy director for Just Foreign Policy, told
> AlterNet that there is a slim hope that this deal could go differently.
> Earlier this summer, the U.S. House of Representatives came surprisingly
> close [6] to barring the transfer of U.S. cluster bombs to Saudi Arabia.
> Both Human Rights Watch [7] and Amnesty International [8] report that the
> Saudi-led coalition is dropping U.S.-manufactured cluster bombs on civilian
> areas, killing and maiming civilians, including children.
> "The fact that we almost won two months ago in the House on banning the
> transfer of cluster bombs to Saudi Arabia suggests that blocking this sale
> could be more plausible than a lot of people in the Beltway seem to think,"
> said Naiman.
> In approving the arms deal, the state department claimed [3], "This
> proposed
> sale will contribute to the foreign policy and national security of the
> United States by helping to improve the security of a strategic regional
> partner which has been and continues to be a leading contributor of
> political stability and economic progress in the Middle East."
> In reality, the nearly-17-month military assault is unleashing a
> humanitarian nightmare on the people of Yemen, this week alone killing [9]
> over a dozen civilians at a potato chip factory and bombing [10] the main
> bridge between the port city of Hodeidah and capital Sanaa, cutting off a
> critical transport line for food and fuel. Throughout the campaign,
> coalition bombs have rained down on factories [11], weddings [12] and even
> a
> center for the blind [13]. The Saudi-led coalition is responsible for the
> majority [14] of more than 3,500 civilians [15] who have been killed since
> March 2015.
> Furthermore, all evidence indicates that the coalition attacks have opened
> up space for the Yemen-based al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) to
> gain territory and power. Meanwhile, journalist Safa Al Ahmad has unearthed
> [16] evidence that elements of the Saudi-led coalition have even fought in
> alliance alongside militants affiliated with Al Qaeda.
> Scott Paul, a senior policy adviser at Oxfam America, told [17] Foreign
> policy that yet another massive sale of arms would signal that the U.S. is
> "all-in on a senseless war that has created one of the world's largest
> humanitarian emergencies."
> To fully address the U.S. role in driving this emergency, it is necessary
> to
> look beyond arms shipments. The Obama administration has deployed troops,
> assisted the coalition in identifying bomb targets and conducting
> "intelligence" and sent warships to enforce the naval blockade that has
> choked off critical imports, contributing to a crisis that has left at
> least
> 21 million people [18] in desperate need of food. The U.S. is one of at
> least a dozen countries participating in or backing the coalition,
> including: Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Morocco, Jordan, Pakistan, Sudan, United
> Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and Britain.
> The Saudi-led military coalition is waging its attacks armed with U.S.
> weapons, as well as with effective immunity from the United Nations. As
> recently as June, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon admitted that he
> scrubbed
> the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen from a "list of shame" of armed forces
> that
> violate the rights of children because Saudi Arabia threatened to pull its
> funding from key programs as a retaliatory measure.
> Sarah Lazare is a staff writer for AlterNet. A former staff writer for
> Common Dreams, she coedited the book About Face: Military Resisters Turn
> Against War. Follow her on Twitter at @sarahlazare [19].
> Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.
> Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.
> Report typos and corrections to 'corrections@alternet.org'. [20]
> Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.[21]
>
> Source URL:
> http://www.alternet.org/world/will-congress-rubber-stamp-another-115-billion
> -weapons-deal-saudi-arabia
> Links:
> [1] http://www.alternet.org/authors/sarah-lazare-0
> [2] http://alternet.org
> [3]
> http://www.dsca.mil/major-arms-sales/kingdom-saudi-arabia-m1a2s-saudi-abrams
> -main-battle-tanks-and-m88ala2-heavy
> [4] http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/congress-block-transfer?r_by=1135580
> [5]
> http://www.alternet.org/world/exporting-death-when-it-comes-arming-planet-am
> erica-unrivaled
> [6]
> https://theintercept.com/2016/06/16/worried-about-stigmatizing-cluster-bombs
> -house-approves-more-sales-to-saudi-arabia/
> [7]
> https://www.hrw.org/news/2016/05/06/yemen-saudis-using-us-cluster-munitions
> [8]
> https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2016/05/yemen-children-among-civilian
> s-killed-and-maimed-in-cluster-bomb-minefields/
> [9] http://www.reuters.com/article/us-yemen-security-idUSKCN10K0SB
> [10]
> https://www.oxfamamerica.org/press/yemeni-peoples-ability-to-access-food-thr
> eatened-as-main-supply-route-to-sanaa-targeted-by-airstrikes/
> [11]
> https://www.hrw.org/news/2015/04/15/yemen-factory-airstrike-killed-31-civili
> ans-0
> [12]
> http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/29/world/middleeast/airstrikes-in-yemen-hit-w
> edding-party-killing-dozens.html
> [13]
> https://theintercept.com/2016/01/05/saudi-coalition-just-bombed-a-center-for
> -the-blind-in-yemen/
> [14] http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-35842708
> [15] http://www.voanews.com/a/yemen-civilian-casualties/3370540.html
> [16] http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/yemen-under-siege/
> [17]
> http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/08/11/with-yemeni-casualties-rising-gop-senato
> r-looks-to-block-big-arms-sale-to-saudi-arabia/
> [18]
> http://time.com/3935125/yemen-humanitarian-aid-united-nations-famine-ceasefi
> re/
> [19] https://twitter.com/sarahlazare
> [20] mailto:corrections@alternet.org?Subject=Typo on Will Congress Rubber
> Stamp Another $1.15 Billion Weapons Deal With Saudi Arabia?
> [21] http://www.alternet.org/
> [22] http://www.alternet.org/%2Bnew_src%2B
>
>
>
Chews that the rubber stamp will be bouncing without a pause.
Remember, I believe that our Oligarchy has been quietly taken over by
that Industrial/Military Complex. Eternal war is the way to trunks
full of gold. Hey, those people were going to die some day, anyway.
What's the big deal if it's a few years one way or the other. Gold is
so much more pleasant to run your fingers through, than wrinkled old
bags of bones.
Carl Jarvis
On 8/15/16, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@optonline.net> wrote:
>
> Published on Alternet (http://www.alternet.org)
> Home > Will Congress Rubber Stamp Another $1.15 Billion Weapons Deal With
> Saudi Arabia?
> ________________________________________
> Will Congress Rubber Stamp Another $1.15 Billion Weapons Deal With Saudi
> Arabia?
> By Sarah Lazare [1] / AlterNet [2]
> August 13, 2016
> As the Saudi-Arabia-led coalition escalates its military assault on Yemen
> following the dissolution of a fragile ceasefire, human rights campaigners
> are calling on lawmakers to urgently intercede to block a massive U.S. arms
> sale to the Gulf monarchy and help stem large-scale war crimes.
> The U.S. State Department announced [3] last week that it has approved a
> $1.15 billion deal to ship military equipment and weapons to Saudi Arabia,
> including tanks, machine guns and grenade launchers. This deal comes on top
> of the more than $20 billion in weapons that the U.S. has shipped to Saudi
> Arabia since March 2015, when the coalition began its military campaign.
> Following state department approval, Congress has only 30 days to block or
> change the deal. Given that lawmakers are now in the midst of their summer
> recess, this timeline means they will have to act urgently following Labor
> Day weekend-if they muster the will to take action all.
> Now, the advocacy groups Oxfam, Just Foreign Policy and Code Pink are
> pressing members of Congress find that will. Nearly 6,000 people have
> signed
> a petition [4] that calls on Congress to "Force a public debate on U.S.
> participation in the Saudi war in Yemen by advocating for blocking the
> planned transfer of U.S. tanks and armored vehicles to Saudi Arabia."
> If approved without debate, the shipments would be in line with
> long-standing U.S. practice. According to a report [5] released by the
> Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), the United States
> has been the world's top exporter over the past five years, with the Middle
> East the top recipient of American arms and Saudi Arabia the number-one
> importer.
> However, Robert Naiman, policy director for Just Foreign Policy, told
> AlterNet that there is a slim hope that this deal could go differently.
> Earlier this summer, the U.S. House of Representatives came surprisingly
> close [6] to barring the transfer of U.S. cluster bombs to Saudi Arabia.
> Both Human Rights Watch [7] and Amnesty International [8] report that the
> Saudi-led coalition is dropping U.S.-manufactured cluster bombs on civilian
> areas, killing and maiming civilians, including children.
> "The fact that we almost won two months ago in the House on banning the
> transfer of cluster bombs to Saudi Arabia suggests that blocking this sale
> could be more plausible than a lot of people in the Beltway seem to think,"
> said Naiman.
> In approving the arms deal, the state department claimed [3], "This
> proposed
> sale will contribute to the foreign policy and national security of the
> United States by helping to improve the security of a strategic regional
> partner which has been and continues to be a leading contributor of
> political stability and economic progress in the Middle East."
> In reality, the nearly-17-month military assault is unleashing a
> humanitarian nightmare on the people of Yemen, this week alone killing [9]
> over a dozen civilians at a potato chip factory and bombing [10] the main
> bridge between the port city of Hodeidah and capital Sanaa, cutting off a
> critical transport line for food and fuel. Throughout the campaign,
> coalition bombs have rained down on factories [11], weddings [12] and even
> a
> center for the blind [13]. The Saudi-led coalition is responsible for the
> majority [14] of more than 3,500 civilians [15] who have been killed since
> March 2015.
> Furthermore, all evidence indicates that the coalition attacks have opened
> up space for the Yemen-based al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) to
> gain territory and power. Meanwhile, journalist Safa Al Ahmad has unearthed
> [16] evidence that elements of the Saudi-led coalition have even fought in
> alliance alongside militants affiliated with Al Qaeda.
> Scott Paul, a senior policy adviser at Oxfam America, told [17] Foreign
> policy that yet another massive sale of arms would signal that the U.S. is
> "all-in on a senseless war that has created one of the world's largest
> humanitarian emergencies."
> To fully address the U.S. role in driving this emergency, it is necessary
> to
> look beyond arms shipments. The Obama administration has deployed troops,
> assisted the coalition in identifying bomb targets and conducting
> "intelligence" and sent warships to enforce the naval blockade that has
> choked off critical imports, contributing to a crisis that has left at
> least
> 21 million people [18] in desperate need of food. The U.S. is one of at
> least a dozen countries participating in or backing the coalition,
> including: Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Morocco, Jordan, Pakistan, Sudan, United
> Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and Britain.
> The Saudi-led military coalition is waging its attacks armed with U.S.
> weapons, as well as with effective immunity from the United Nations. As
> recently as June, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon admitted that he
> scrubbed
> the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen from a "list of shame" of armed forces
> that
> violate the rights of children because Saudi Arabia threatened to pull its
> funding from key programs as a retaliatory measure.
> Sarah Lazare is a staff writer for AlterNet. A former staff writer for
> Common Dreams, she coedited the book About Face: Military Resisters Turn
> Against War. Follow her on Twitter at @sarahlazare [19].
> Share on Facebook Share
> Share on Twitter Tweet
>
> Report typos and corrections to 'corrections@alternet.org'. [20]
> [21]
> ________________________________________
> Source URL:
> http://www.alternet.org/world/will-congress-rubber-stamp-another-115-billion
> -weapons-deal-saudi-arabia
> Links:
> [1] http://www.alternet.org/authors/sarah-lazare-0
> [2] http://alternet.org
> [3]
> http://www.dsca.mil/major-arms-sales/kingdom-saudi-arabia-m1a2s-saudi-abrams
> -main-battle-tanks-and-m88ala2-heavy
> [4] http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/congress-block-transfer?r_by=1135580
> [5]
> http://www.alternet.org/world/exporting-death-when-it-comes-arming-planet-am
> erica-unrivaled
> [6]
> https://theintercept.com/2016/06/16/worried-about-stigmatizing-cluster-bombs
> -house-approves-more-sales-to-saudi-arabia/
> [7]
> https://www.hrw.org/news/2016/05/06/yemen-saudis-using-us-cluster-munitions
> [8]
> https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2016/05/yemen-children-among-civilian
> s-killed-and-maimed-in-cluster-bomb-minefields/
> [9] http://www.reuters.com/article/us-yemen-security-idUSKCN10K0SB
> [10]
> https://www.oxfamamerica.org/press/yemeni-peoples-ability-to-access-food-thr
> eatened-as-main-supply-route-to-sanaa-targeted-by-airstrikes/
> [11]
> https://www.hrw.org/news/2015/04/15/yemen-factory-airstrike-killed-31-civili
> ans-0
> [12]
> http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/29/world/middleeast/airstrikes-in-yemen-hit-w
> edding-party-killing-dozens.html
> [13]
> https://theintercept.com/2016/01/05/saudi-coalition-just-bombed-a-center-for
> -the-blind-in-yemen/
> [14] http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-35842708
> [15] http://www.voanews.com/a/yemen-civilian-casualties/3370540.html
> [16] http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/yemen-under-siege/
> [17]
> http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/08/11/with-yemeni-casualties-rising-gop-senato
> r-looks-to-block-big-arms-sale-to-saudi-arabia/
> [18]
> http://time.com/3935125/yemen-humanitarian-aid-united-nations-famine-ceasefi
> re/
> [19] https://twitter.com/sarahlazare
> [20] mailto:corrections@alternet.org?Subject=Typo on Will Congress Rubber
> Stamp Another $1.15 Billion Weapons Deal With Saudi Arabia?
> [21] http://www.alternet.org/
> [22] http://www.alternet.org/%2Bnew_src%2B
>
> Published on Alternet (http://www.alternet.org)
> Home > Will Congress Rubber Stamp Another $1.15 Billion Weapons Deal With
> Saudi Arabia?
>
> Will Congress Rubber Stamp Another $1.15 Billion Weapons Deal With Saudi
> Arabia?
> By Sarah Lazare [1] / AlterNet [2]
> August 13, 2016
> AddThis Sharing ButtonsShare to FacebookShare to TwitterShare to
> Google+More
> AddThis Share optionsShare to Email
> As the Saudi-Arabia-led coalition escalates its military assault on Yemen
> following the dissolution of a fragile ceasefire, human rights campaigners
> are calling on lawmakers to urgently intercede to block a massive U.S. arms
> sale to the Gulf monarchy and help stem large-scale war crimes.
> The U.S. State Department announced [3] last week that it has approved a
> $1.15 billion deal to ship military equipment and weapons to Saudi Arabia,
> including tanks, machine guns and grenade launchers. This deal comes on top
> of the more than $20 billion in weapons that the U.S. has shipped to Saudi
> Arabia since March 2015, when the coalition began its military campaign.
> Following state department approval, Congress has only 30 days to block or
> change the deal. Given that lawmakers are now in the midst of their summer
> recess, this timeline means they will have to act urgently following Labor
> Day weekend-if they muster the will to take action all.
> Now, the advocacy groups Oxfam, Just Foreign Policy and Code Pink are
> pressing members of Congress find that will. Nearly 6,000 people have
> signed
> a petition [4] that calls on Congress to "Force a public debate on U.S.
> participation in the Saudi war in Yemen by advocating for blocking the
> planned transfer of U.S. tanks and armored vehicles to Saudi Arabia."
> If approved without debate, the shipments would be in line with
> long-standing U.S. practice. According to a report [5] released by the
> Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), the United States
> has been the world's top exporter over the past five years, with the Middle
> East the top recipient of American arms and Saudi Arabia the number-one
> importer.
> However, Robert Naiman, policy director for Just Foreign Policy, told
> AlterNet that there is a slim hope that this deal could go differently.
> Earlier this summer, the U.S. House of Representatives came surprisingly
> close [6] to barring the transfer of U.S. cluster bombs to Saudi Arabia.
> Both Human Rights Watch [7] and Amnesty International [8] report that the
> Saudi-led coalition is dropping U.S.-manufactured cluster bombs on civilian
> areas, killing and maiming civilians, including children.
> "The fact that we almost won two months ago in the House on banning the
> transfer of cluster bombs to Saudi Arabia suggests that blocking this sale
> could be more plausible than a lot of people in the Beltway seem to think,"
> said Naiman.
> In approving the arms deal, the state department claimed [3], "This
> proposed
> sale will contribute to the foreign policy and national security of the
> United States by helping to improve the security of a strategic regional
> partner which has been and continues to be a leading contributor of
> political stability and economic progress in the Middle East."
> In reality, the nearly-17-month military assault is unleashing a
> humanitarian nightmare on the people of Yemen, this week alone killing [9]
> over a dozen civilians at a potato chip factory and bombing [10] the main
> bridge between the port city of Hodeidah and capital Sanaa, cutting off a
> critical transport line for food and fuel. Throughout the campaign,
> coalition bombs have rained down on factories [11], weddings [12] and even
> a
> center for the blind [13]. The Saudi-led coalition is responsible for the
> majority [14] of more than 3,500 civilians [15] who have been killed since
> March 2015.
> Furthermore, all evidence indicates that the coalition attacks have opened
> up space for the Yemen-based al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) to
> gain territory and power. Meanwhile, journalist Safa Al Ahmad has unearthed
> [16] evidence that elements of the Saudi-led coalition have even fought in
> alliance alongside militants affiliated with Al Qaeda.
> Scott Paul, a senior policy adviser at Oxfam America, told [17] Foreign
> policy that yet another massive sale of arms would signal that the U.S. is
> "all-in on a senseless war that has created one of the world's largest
> humanitarian emergencies."
> To fully address the U.S. role in driving this emergency, it is necessary
> to
> look beyond arms shipments. The Obama administration has deployed troops,
> assisted the coalition in identifying bomb targets and conducting
> "intelligence" and sent warships to enforce the naval blockade that has
> choked off critical imports, contributing to a crisis that has left at
> least
> 21 million people [18] in desperate need of food. The U.S. is one of at
> least a dozen countries participating in or backing the coalition,
> including: Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Morocco, Jordan, Pakistan, Sudan, United
> Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and Britain.
> The Saudi-led military coalition is waging its attacks armed with U.S.
> weapons, as well as with effective immunity from the United Nations. As
> recently as June, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon admitted that he
> scrubbed
> the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen from a "list of shame" of armed forces
> that
> violate the rights of children because Saudi Arabia threatened to pull its
> funding from key programs as a retaliatory measure.
> Sarah Lazare is a staff writer for AlterNet. A former staff writer for
> Common Dreams, she coedited the book About Face: Military Resisters Turn
> Against War. Follow her on Twitter at @sarahlazare [19].
> Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.
> Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.
> Report typos and corrections to 'corrections@alternet.org'. [20]
> Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.[21]
>
> Source URL:
> http://www.alternet.org/world/will-congress-rubber-stamp-another-115-billion
> -weapons-deal-saudi-arabia
> Links:
> [1] http://www.alternet.org/authors/sarah-lazare-0
> [2] http://alternet.org
> [3]
> http://www.dsca.mil/major-arms-sales/kingdom-saudi-arabia-m1a2s-saudi-abrams
> -main-battle-tanks-and-m88ala2-heavy
> [4] http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/congress-block-transfer?r_by=1135580
> [5]
> http://www.alternet.org/world/exporting-death-when-it-comes-arming-planet-am
> erica-unrivaled
> [6]
> https://theintercept.com/2016/06/16/worried-about-stigmatizing-cluster-bombs
> -house-approves-more-sales-to-saudi-arabia/
> [7]
> https://www.hrw.org/news/2016/05/06/yemen-saudis-using-us-cluster-munitions
> [8]
> https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2016/05/yemen-children-among-civilian
> s-killed-and-maimed-in-cluster-bomb-minefields/
> [9] http://www.reuters.com/article/us-yemen-security-idUSKCN10K0SB
> [10]
> https://www.oxfamamerica.org/press/yemeni-peoples-ability-to-access-food-thr
> eatened-as-main-supply-route-to-sanaa-targeted-by-airstrikes/
> [11]
> https://www.hrw.org/news/2015/04/15/yemen-factory-airstrike-killed-31-civili
> ans-0
> [12]
> http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/29/world/middleeast/airstrikes-in-yemen-hit-w
> edding-party-killing-dozens.html
> [13]
> https://theintercept.com/2016/01/05/saudi-coalition-just-bombed-a-center-for
> -the-blind-in-yemen/
> [14] http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-35842708
> [15] http://www.voanews.com/a/yemen-civilian-casualties/3370540.html
> [16] http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/yemen-under-siege/
> [17]
> http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/08/11/with-yemeni-casualties-rising-gop-senato
> r-looks-to-block-big-arms-sale-to-saudi-arabia/
> [18]
> http://time.com/3935125/yemen-humanitarian-aid-united-nations-famine-ceasefi
> re/
> [19] https://twitter.com/sarahlazare
> [20] mailto:corrections@alternet.org?Subject=Typo on Will Congress Rubber
> Stamp Another $1.15 Billion Weapons Deal With Saudi Arabia?
> [21] http://www.alternet.org/
> [22] http://www.alternet.org/%2Bnew_src%2B
>
>
>
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