Watch this osprey catch a trout in super slo-mo Boing Boning
Waste of Energy Dept: The new extreme sport of vacuum cleaner climbing TreeHugger. Darwin Award futures.
Indonesia Is Fighting Illegal Fishing By Blowing Up Boats Motherboard (resilc)
Glyphosate: the pesticide industry keeps the data secrecy scandal going in the name of ‘investment protection’ Corporate Europe Observatory
Tesla’s Done Being an Automaker—It’s Now an Energy Company Wired (resilc)
Has Technology Estranged Us to the Point That We Need to Rent Friends? TruthOut
Brexit
These Leave voters have changed their minds since voting Brexit – but it’s too late Mirror. Notice the protest sentiment.
Bernie Sanders explains why he’s still not endorsing Hillary Clinton CBS
The sky has not fallen after Brexit but we face years of hard labour Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, Telegraph
Fintan O’Toole: Brexit fantasy is about to come crashing down Irish Times (PlutoniumKun)
EU referendum: Boris Johnson and Michael Gove prepare ‘dream team’ to lead a Brexit government Telegraph (furzy)
A pyrrhic victory? Boris Johnson wakes up to the costs of Brexit Guardian (furzy)
Brexit Casts Dark Shadow on World’s Great Move to Openness Bloomberg (resilc)
Brexit and the Triumph of Insularity Harvard Business Review. Lambert: “Harumph.”
Colby Cosh: Britain voted for Brexit because it wants to be Canada — and we hate the idea National Post
‘If you’ve got money, you vote in … if you haven’t got money, you vote out’ Guardian. Important.
Brexit: Petition for second EU referendum so popular the government site’s crashing Independent (Chuck L). Not dispositive. 48% did vote Remain and they would hope a second referendum would turn things around.
D I V O R C E – Sarkozy Calls for New Treaty, Reiterates “Turkey Has No Place in EU” Michael Shedlock
US lessons from Britain’s Brexit blunder Edward Luce, Financial Times
How US Politicians Reacted to the Brexit Vice
Brexit vote could drive up New York real estate Crains New York (Tom D)
China?
How China Is Building the Biggest Commercial-Military Empire in History Defense One (resilc)
Hot off Brexit, Vladimir Putin goes to China RT
China Airlines Crew Begin Strike in Taipei The Diplomat
Refugee Crisis
Thousands Of British Refugees Make Dangerous Journey Across The Irish Sea Waterford Whispers News (Chuck L)
German nudists outraged at new rules ordering them to wear swimwear as refugee shelter arrives on lake Independent (resilc)
How Severe Is Venezuela’s Crisis? Venezuela Analysis (Catherine A)
Syraqistan
Iran Daily: Regime Plays Up Claims of “US-Supported Terrorists” EA WorldView
Big Brother is Watching You Watch
US Customs wants to collect social media account names at the border The Verge. Call or write your Congresscritter and object strenuously.
How to protect the future web from its founders’ own frailty Boing Boing. Important for sites like NC
The Data Hoarders Motherboard (resilc)
Exclusive: Google, Facebook quietly move toward automatic blocking of extremist videos | Reuters. Lambert: “It would be nice to have “extremist” defined.
Clinton E-mail Tar Baby
Clinton’s State Department Calendar Missing Scores of Entries Associated Press (resilc)
2016
It’s Official — Bernie Sanders Is Staying In The Race And Will Not Concede Huffington Post
Beyond Bernie: Still Not With Her Counterpunch (resilc)
Thousands of Bernie Sanders Supporters Are Suing the DNC in a Massive Class Action Lawsuit US Uncut (martha r). I hate to be a naysayer, but I don’t see this suit going anywhere.
President Democratic – Statewide Results | Primary Election California Secretary of State. Martha r: “Margin goes to below 9% this evening.”
Democrats Reject Platform Proposal Opposing Trade Deal ABC. Lambert: “So much for Clinton opposing it.”
Brexit doesn’t mean Hillary will lose the election, claims her campaign, after British ignored her demand they vote to stay in Daily Mail (Li). Screechy.
Hillary Clinton’s Likely Pentagon Chief Already Advocating for More Bombing and Intervention Intercept
No wonder Trump looks happy – Britain’s exit from Europe should leave Hillary Clinton shaking in her boots and Donald knows it! Piers Morgan (Li)
Republican delegate sues to avoid voting for Donald Trump at convention Guardian. I doubt this will go anywhere. Courts tend to treat the parties as private clubs and not intervene in their internal processes. And no one compelled this delegate to be a delegate.
Has Trump Found the Formula? American Conservative (resilc)
Persuasion Think-ahead Scott Adams (EM)
Tim Kaine & the Evolution of Pro-Choice Politics New York Magazine
State Department Turns Blind Eye to Evidence of Honduran Military’s Activist Kill List Intercept
Andrew Cuomo’s BDS Blacklist Is a Clear Violation of the First Amendment Nation (resilc)
Analysis: City loses Lucas Museum; Rahm loses big, politically Chicago Sun-Times
The next ‘Citizens United’ is coming Center for Public Integrity
West Virginia death toll rises to 23 in state’s worst floods in a century Guardian (furzy) :-(
Gunz
After Orlando, the Homemade AR-15 Industry Surges Wired (resilc)
The Godawful Bill at the Center of the Gun Sit-In Rolling Stone
Oil Glut Is Fading Where You Would Least Expect: Saudi Arabia Bloomberg
July May Be Back on the Table at the Fed — For a Rate Cut Bloomberg
Class Warfare
The Fining of Black American Price Economics
This Change Makes It Impossible to See Uber Surges New York Magazine
Texas judge orders prison to provide inmates with safe drinking water Boing Boing
Aerial Shots That Demonstrate The Stark Divide Between Rich and Poor Colossal
Confessions of a Payday Lender: “I Felt Like a Modern-Day Gangster” Intercept. Resilc: “Why dont the Demos in the House sit down over this? Affects more people than a couple of ARs a year.”
Antidote du jour (furzy):
And a bonus. @Ishtiaquex: LIVE: Cat takes over from David Cameron’s resignation:
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
176 comments
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Osprey / trout video is stunning. ty
Yes, thank you Yves! Amazing photography (and Ewan McGregor’s wonderful narration).
Filmed in Scotland, BTW — soon to be free of the UK! Cameron and Boris will have broken up the kingdom. I note the photos of Boris yesterday… What the fuck have I done?, he seemed to be asking himself.
A Britain led by Johnson as PM will be a wretched place — is “a nasty piece of work” as Eddie Mair of the BBC once remarked to his face. He is a documented liar and philanderer (he can’t seem to keep his pants zipped) and is all too pleased with himself.
(Apologies for injecting politics into a wonderful nature link!)
It was a nice video clip….
Regarding the above kitty-coup-d’etat……”I can haz Downing Street???”
I also enjoyed the man-tiger hug from awhile back…
Beautiful video. Thanks, Yves. (The typo giving credit to the source made me chuckle). I hated to see the video end.
As a wildlife photographer, I’m grateful to have a lake nearby where I can observe & film them.
After taking flight they will turn the fish in the direction of their body for better aerodynamics.
Sadly, for the Osprey, from what I’ve observed numerous times is that if there is a Bald Eagle in the area such as at this lake, they will steal the fish or duck from them. (Bald eagles steal much of their food after others capture it).
I’ve also seen a crow harass an Osprey in flight until it releases its catch & the crow then flies down to claim it.
This sometimes makes me think of the Osprey as the worker watching much of its ‘pay’ go to others.
I was once able to capture a photo of one coming in for a bath, facing me, with wings fanned up at its sides & feet just above the water. It reminded me of a Phoenix rising.
I prefer that image over that of them being the ‘lowly worker’ for ‘small pay’ as I’ve so often observed.
Loved the video, tho’!
Another example of the unbelievable arrogance ( or power, because they get away with it) of Monsanto and the other Kings of Glyphosate. Yes, of course we have studies about the toxicity level of the poison we purvey; unfortunately we will not reveal these studies to anybody. Just shut up and let us take over the entire planet, thank you very much. It’s a complicated issue to a layman like me. Yes, it is cancer-causing, but so are all the other chemicals that farmers use. But in this case is the crop itself (eg roundup-ready soybeans and corn) also cancer-causing? Monsanto’s defenders say it conserves soil because the farmers don’t have to till the soil–they just spray all the time.
Instead, they [Monsanto et al.] keep proposing useless “reading rooms”, which do not allow for public scrutiny of the studies, nor sufficient analysis of the data.
Gee, there seems to be a lot of this “useless reading room” thing going around.
The fact they aren’t willing to reveal anything to the public should tell you all you need to know.
They are afraid that the sheep will wake up to the fact that Monsanto is a key player of the global depopulation agenda. What is unnerving is that a CIA based think tank predicts US population to be reduced to 50 million by 2025. So what’s coming? The Zombie Apocalypse? Alien invasion?
Theyre already planning a war with China and Russia?
According to Pew Research, the US population is expected to grow by 89 million from 2010 to 2050.
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/02/03/10-projections-for-the-global-population-in-2050/
What reputable think tanks are saying the population will be reduced by 50 million and why?
Obviously you guys are just sheeple who don’t realize that the depopulation agenda has been going on for decades now. Just look at the stunning drop in world population over the past 30 years.. oh wait.
Well, maybe they just haven’t worked out the bugs yet. BUT THEY WILL!!!!!1!
The fact we wait for / expect the fox to honestly report on their own henhouse is another “all you need to know” head scratcher.
The fact that it’s a “1st cousin” to agent orange told me all I needed to know years ago.
And there is more coming (old article, but as far as I know, still accurate)
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2012/02/12/dow-agrosciences-developed-new-genetically-modified-crops.aspx
Hardly an original thought, but the history of the tobacco industry is capitalism in a nutshell. They knew about the cancer for decades. The same goes for the car companies and their exploding Pintos etc. A healthy Left is one that treats big business with deep skepticism. This is why the right counter reaction put so much effort into marginalizing Nader (and succeeded).
Thinking of tobacco, it’s ironic that smoking the tobacco plant on its own may not be bad–it’s all the secret, patent-protected chemicals that they add that make cigarettes so toxic. Reminds me of fracking–their chemical pollution gets protected as valuable Intellectual Property.
‘conserves DEAD soil’……..
About glyphosate and reading rooms and reasons why . . .
Glyphosate is not just used on those crops which are GMO’d to be Glypho Ready. It is also mass-used on wheat for sure ( that I’ve read about) and maybe other grain crops when harvest time is near. Why? To kill-down the wheat all at once so all the grains ripen exactly all at once at the same time. And the glyphosated wheat will of course have glyphosate residues on it / in it. And in/on everything that wheat is made into or mixed with.
Here is a University of Minnesota Extension Ag bulletin on HOW TO USE glyphosate on near-ready wheat to kill-desiccate it for even-age drydown.
http://www.extension.umn.edu/agriculture/small-grains/harvest/preharvest-management/
The only way to be sure to avoid glyphosated wheat is to only use certified organic wheat and/or things made with strictly certified organic wheat. Conventional wheat can no longer be trusted to be “no Glypho” . . . not with advice like THIS being GIVen by the Ag Extension people their very own selves.
Is glyphosate now being pre-harvest mass-sprayed on other conventional crops for uniform drydown
single harvest pass convenience? Who knows? For those who don’t want to take that chance, buy only certified organic grains, or grow your own grains. ( And beans too).
Meanwhile the more these companies are overtly backed into this corner, the worse they look in public. And the more of their customers will defect to either certified organic, or grow-your-own.
Wheat not Lawns?
Growing your own spaghetti is a pain in the ass.
Yes it is. But eating glyphosate is a pain in the cancer.
And one can buy certified organic spaghetti.
Priced like a cure for cancer, no doubt.
Well, what’s a cure for cancer worth? More to the point, what’s a pre-cure for cancer worth? A pre-cure such that you never get cancer and have to get cured to begin with?
Since organic spaghetti costs more to grow and make, it has to cost more just to pay for its own costs of production. Is ” no glypho” worth it to the customer? If so, the customer will pay the price.
If I were an organic wheat grower, I would certainly charge full price for full work and full value. Food for people not for profit? No. Food for pay not for free. ” The farmer is not your slave.” And if that means the poor cannot afford it, then the answer is either to give the poor enough money to buy it with, or buy it from the farmer at full fair price and give it to the poor.
But, but…the price of Obamacare will go up if everyone else gets cancer!
Besides, I don’t think no-glypho spaghetti is more expensive. Unless you have to have it blessed by a Rabbi, or buy it at Whole Foods.
Ahhh . . ! Then buying no-glypho spaghetti is perhaps NOT an unaffordable sacrifice for the non-rich. Even if that spaghetti is certified organic, which may be the only way to get no-glypho. And it doesn’t have to be Whole Foods expensive. Perhaps you have a legacy hippie co-op in your town or city.
“Britain voted for Brexit because it wants to be Canada” – bollocks, Canadians don’t play cricket.
I want my country be like Canada too, that’s why I voted for Bernie.
There’s a hashtag for that :) #Demexit
We should get away from the “Britain voted for Brexit” phrasing (which Roger Cohen used in his NYT op-ed today) — the voting maps clearly indicate that it was England and Wales who voted Leave.
Exit and Wexit.
Thanks for the ‘China Commercial Military’ link…Excellent graphs & maps
Six Chaos Strategies
19. Remove the firewood under the cooking pot.
When faced with an enemy too powerful to engage directly you must first weaken him by undermining his foundation and attacking his source of power.
…The 36 Strategies (considering the times; cakewalk)
President Democratic – Statewide Results | Primary Election California Secretary of State. Martha r: “Margin goes to below 9% this evening.
Here’s hoping that they finish counting the primary votes in the next few months. Do they realize that there’s another election in November?
They have until sometime in July to do it. That was setup by pre-election rules.
Re: US Customs wants to collect social media account names at the border
For $100 and your passwords to all your accounts, HomelandSecurity and customs will reduce your 3 hour wait for a cavity search at the airport. Brilliant. Orwell couldn’t have imagined a more dystopian future.
The first step would be the most strenuous objections to one’s National Federal officeholders deMANding that this be forbidden.
If the first step fails, the next step would be to drop all one’s social media accounts. Go analog. No facebook. No twitter. No nothing. No laptop computers anywhere outside one’s own house. And only the very dummest of dummphones.
Bernie Worrell R.I.P.
See: http://www.billboard.com/articles/news/7416532/bernie-worrell-dead-funkadelic-parliament
The fact that I remember those days makes me feel old.
Wanta feel even older? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UypeE3zTwBs
Auwww… Don’t remind me. I saw the Mothership tour in New Orleans. That and Dr Johns Mardi Gras Mambo, and shows at the Warehouse, and Tipatinas. “There Was A Golden Age.”
Aw, man…. :_(
I imagine, though, that he’s burning one down with St. Peter and some aliens right now.
Bowie, Prince, and now Bernie…this has been a tough year for music…
Other notable passings: Natalie Cole, Merle Haggard, and Glenn Frey.
Keith Emerson, by suicide apparently.
Uber: aren’t they simultaneously telling drivers that they can overcharge (penalize) the patron if they keep the driver waiting and that the passenger has no idea what the charge will be.
The rider is no longer a consumer, but just a cog in the machinery of the disrupt model.
Well, it would serve exactly right each and every jerk-sh*t f*ckhead who has ever taken a Uber, and every one of them who ever will or ever does.
CBS Bernie story.
Economic/social justice perspective:
Wages should be raised to $15 an hour but if you just stop there $15 becomes the new $8 an hour. Without concurrent price controls corps and rentiers will just raise there prices to vacuum up as much of these income gains as possible. NOT because Labor is too costly and they need to, to stay profitable, but because it just becomes another source of “growth” to be exploited.
Environmental perspective:
Fack no wages shouldn’t be increased to $15 an hour with price controls, because without massive increases in education about the effects of rampant consumerism. 300+ million of the worlds most virulent consumers gorging themselves on useless baubles and more energy, is an environmental catastrophe, that the world cannot sustain.
I believe JRS mentioned it awhile back and I like the idea. Not basic income, but basic needs. You get free education, housing, food, long vacations and the like, but you are not provided with more money to consume more shite just for the sake of consumption. People are perfectly capable of happiness when their needs are guaranteed, buying useless and temporary shite, with increased wages does provide this, and it just quickens environmental decline.
Even if all prices went up in equal measure to the new wage floor, it would help the vast majority of people as most people are deeply in debt. Reducing the size and scope of debts, by itself, is a laudable goal- one which our overlords would rather not happen.
Certainly, but I think it is important to look at the aggregate affect of a wage increase. Which while definitely being helpful from a social justice perspective also has some serious negative indirect effects in other areas.
Debt forgiveness would provide the same benefits, with less indirect negative impact s in other areas.
The current system would however unlikely never allow such a direct solution, but we still cling to it and place our hope in solutions that have questionable benefits, and certainly will drive negative cascading affects in other areas.
You can buy yourself some forgiveness with BIG money. I mean BIG is supposed to be a living wage isn’t it?
Reasons I am not in debt.
Didn’t play the obviously absurd student loan game in the 80’s.
Paid off and cut up credit cards 15 years ago.
Never took out a 30 year too high mortgage. Low rate 15 year mtg. paid off in 11 yrs.
Do not finance autos. Buy them outright at whatever I can afford.
Why should people like me forgive people who made poor choices…and especially the loan sharks who sold them, yet get nothing myself. Even with no debt I still can’t afford health care btw.
BIG gives everyone a break, no?
>Even with no debt I still can’t afford health care
Um maybe you should have played the “absurd student loan game”?? It’s f’d now but in the 80’s a (quick and focused… that is, out in 4 years and don’t try to grok advanced subjects between fast-food shifts) college education was worth it.
sad to see here that meme “people who made poor choices”, a favorite in the neoliberal ideology phrasebook.
it also applies to young women who get pregnant, people who can’t quit smoking, people who are addicted to meth and heroin, people who get diabetes, people who drop out of high school. and so on.
why should i have to blame these people for their “poor choices” in the first place, let alone forgive them for taking “more than their share” of resources i’m barred from because i’ve made some “better choices” yet am still struggling to get by. since when do we have to fight with such people, or they with us, over crumbs? a functioning society does not force people to this level of have-nots battling with have-almost-nots?
this is how they divide us.
i forgive you. even though i would wager you made a least one poor choice in your life that has led to your inability to buy health insurance. i admit i did make more then one if i view my life through that lens. it is a crappy, limited, distorted lens that denies a great deal of what i consider meaningful and worthwhile in being alive.
i am really hoping your post was ironic in some way i don’t understand. i admit i don’t get what you mean by “BIG” exactly.
The debate for a basic income guarantee or a federal jobs program needs to be framed around the massive failure of enshrining ownership of private property as a means for delivering the human necessities of life. Private ownership is failing humanity- all of life on this planet for that matter. The ideology of private ownership, and the policies and systems this thinking spawns, is destroying the biosphere on which all life depends. The failures of capitalism must be included in the debate or any effort to correct the problems we face will eventually be subverted.
If people could wrap their minds around the notion that all life necessities could be made available to all, for “free”, then we might be moving in the right direction. If we continue on the neoliberal path, enshrining competition and consumerism, humanity is doomed. There must be a system of universal rights that go beyond the right to extract profit form the world. Just as being a member of a healthy family, your needs are met and are “free” in the sense of working together to cover costs and labor to provide the goods and services required. That notion is extended to the nation.
The larger question for humanity is, now that we have gained control over the environment, what are we going to do with it? This notion that we must continue to exploit everything for profit is absurd and only fear, greed, and shelfishisness of the unknown prevents the great leap we must make as a species.
The elite have failed the mass of humanity and the more they try to hold onto their vision of the future, they will use divisive tactics which only spread xenophobia.
A nationalism based on the health and protection of the nations people is not a bad thing, as long as the underlying ideology is not one of aggression and conquest.
The weakness in the current world system is revealing itself and we shall see how this all plays out. It could be another chapter in the human saga of the elite having it all- and then tragically loosing it due to greed and shortsightedness.
During the New Deal era itself, what were prices of things the day before minimum wages and hours laws were passed and signed? What did wages go up to during the year after that happened? What did prices go up to during the same year?
In other words, the experiment has been done. The historical data can be looked back at to see if prices went up exactly as much as wages or not. And if rising prices exactly absorbed and nullified the rising wages or not.
It’s Official — Bernie Sanders Is Staying In The Race And Will Not Concede Huffington Post
It may be “official,” but that doesn’t mean it’s good. H.A. Goodman has been an ardent Sanders booster and suggests Berine may be hanging around in case Clinton gets indicted. I doubt that she will be indicted and, even if she is, I doubt the Democratic Party would allow Sanders to become the nominee. So this is really beginning to look like sheepdogging, keeping the Left from abandoning the Democratic Party and redirecting the energy in Sanders’ “movement” into a new poitical vehicle that might actually effectuate the disruption of the status quo that is a necessary precondition for a “political revolution.” You have to break a few eggs to make an omelette.
I think the lengthy campaign season somehow produces a sense of urgency every few weeks or so. Three weeks ago, Trump was up and Hillary was down. Now Trump is down and Hillary is up. Candidates–and parties–get written off one month and are doing fine the next.
My point–Hillary has only been the presumptive nominee for 2 and a half weeks. There are 4 and a half months to go before the election. The fact that Sanders hasn’t endorsed Hillary in that relatively short period of time imho doesn’t mean much at all, other than the fact that the media wants a story and they want it now. That doesn’t mean he isn’t sheepdogging, or refusing to endorse on principle, or holding out for an indictment, or any other number of scenarios. But it just might mean not much at all. Perhaps he’s just taking his time and waiting until the convention to make a decision. I just don’t think his delay is not necessarily anything significant in the long term.
Perhaps you’re right that it isn’t significant…no super-human 11 dimensional chess moves.
This is the real danger. Goodman’s cheerleading is often tinged with wishful thinking, unfortunately. Here’s the reality: So far, the Democrat platform committee has rejected the following–
1) $15 per hour minimum wage
2) Cost of living adjustment for minimum wage
3) Medicare for all
4) Vote against the TPP
5) Nationwide ban on fracking
6) Carbon tax
7) Climate test
8) Stop fossil fuel eminent domain abuse
9) All of Bernie’s Israel-Palestine proposals
This is just for starters. I expect the whole platform to be a right wing wet dream. One of Bernie’s stated reasons for staying in was to use his delegates and appointed platform reps to change the face of the Dem party. That approach has now failed dismally. Even Cornel West said he refused to support the Dem platform as written. Is Bernie going to try to defend the platform when it goes against everything he campaigned for?
Kshama Sawant’s article in Counterpunch captured the needed next steps. I am increasingly impressed with her as both an intellect and a fighter. Apparently, she is also a born organizing super-strategist. Bernie changed the dialog in a massive way, but, unless he is prepared to run third party, I see Sawant as the inheritor of the mantle.
Here’s how the AP is describing the platform:
Draft of Dems’ policy positions reflects Sanders’ influence
In other words, if Sanders doesn’t endorse Clinton, he’s being unreasonable.
Someone at the AP seems to be auditioning for a job in the WH Press Secretary’s office.
Will they address “free student loans” and WW3, or are we not to speak of these things?
Also too, Billionaires, Wall Street, Corporate tax breaks, Citizens United, campaign financing…
Thanks for that. I really enjoy reading your comments.
I agree wholeheartedly about Sawant. People need to hear more from public individuals actually dedicated to making lives better for the working class and not selling out to political careerism. Its actually having a representative in government and the feeling is empowering, even if you constantly loose battles. Backing a sellout or a fraud is the worst impediment holding back any true political change around the world.
It’s refreshing hearing someone dedicated to social equality and actually fighting to implement policies designed and proven to achieve that result. Listening to someone like Sawant give a public speech also illuminates the Orwellian doublespeak we are required to endure daily. Lets bring class discussions out in the open. Let talk about the root causes of poverty and decide as a society if we will tolerate its existence. Lets address the problems of militarism. Only candidates and elected representatives like Sawant will make that happen.
The sooner the working class leaves the Democratic party behind, the better.
Keep us from abandoning the Democratic Party? A lot of us lefties have already left.
The zeal of a convert (from an Independent to a Democrat)…
Something must have happened on the road to Damascus in Syria.
The American “left” is a motley assortment of feckless nincompoops. The Birkenstock wearing bunch in the Green Party – who run hopeless campaigns year after year – are the perfect example. Sanders is doing the right thing in fighting to realign the Democrats from within. He will not have much luck, but he’ll have more impact than Jill Stein and Gary Johnson combined.
I call that Green Privilege.
Sanders is accomplishing nothing but dissipating the political energy of the movement he tapped into. Or to be more charitable, the effort to “reform” the Democratic Party might be a positive thing if led by Democratic insiders. But Sanders is an outsider, with no wasta within the party. More significantly, Sanders right now has the opportunity to do something that is potentially transformational by helping the Left abandon a Democratic Party that has abandoned them already. Sanders is squandering the opportunity he has been given.
The ground is shifting, things are changing dramatically, and so is the American Left, most notably in that there is now a significant merger on economic issues between the populist Left and the populist Right.
One other point: The incessant bashing of the Green Party doesn’t impress me at all. In fact, I’d say it’s pretty remarkable that any non-corporate party can even exist in America today at the national level. Whatever the institutional problems of the Greens, the fact is that they alone have a truly progressive platform and a national presence. Maybe if the American Left stopped sneering and took the trouble to support the Greens they might actually thrive.
What we need in America is a strong labor movement and a workers party. Unions and laborers are not demonized without reason.
Failure of the “left” is only the fact that they gave up on the responsibility of actually working toward creating a society capable of fair distribution of wealth. Anyone still holding out on the notion the ruling corporate elite have any interest in a fair distribution of the world’s resources is kidding themselves. Workers supporting their corporate masters and fawning over their creativity and greatness has been more damaging to a fair life than anything in the Birkenstock crowd.
Blind support of corporate elite and violent nationalism are the real enemy of the commoners. Its not Democrats vs Republicans. Its Corporatists vs The Rest Of Us.
I recently saw a video of a Fire Ant colony moving its location due to a flood. The colony formed a living raft with the interlocked bodies of worker ants, all the while protecting the queen on top. Large numbers of worker ants eaten by fish and drowned in the moving process. Just as many natural phenomenon are used as inspiration in engineering products, our current social arrangements have many of the same features displayed by this ant colony. Fealty to a ruling elite dedicated only to their self preservation.
Since humans are not ants, which are exclusively driven by instincts, we must be socially conditioned to this fealty. Enter the world of propaganda.
The real counter revolution we are seeing is the flames of the enlightenment sputtering out. As a collective people, shall we see the promise of reason and science prevail for the betterment of humankind and the world, or will the unreason of a brutal primal instinct prevail.
Evolution, in the end will be the final arbiter.
If he were a sheepdog, he would have endorsed her as soon as she had enough delegates to be nominated. In the unlikely event that Clinton is indicted before the convention, if the Democrats don’t nominate Sanders, they’ll guarantee a Republican victory. For many in the Dem establishment, a Republican victory is preferable to a Sanders Presidency. But they don’t want the rank and file Democrats to know this, so things could become very interesting if there’s an indictment.
I agree with all of your comment except this part:
If he were a sheepdog, he would have endorsed her as soon as she had enough delegates to be nominated.
I don’t think so. It is Sanders’ refusal to endorse Clinton that keeps the rebels on board with the Democratic Party. When Sanders finally does officially endorse Clinton, probably at the convention, his supporters will be crushed, but it will then be too late for them to re-organize or mobilize for the 2016 election. That’s how this version of sheepdogging works: keep the marks on the hook while you run out the clock.
He ran too hard– too much energy for him to be a sheepdog. I cannot believe he put all this effort into a fake campaign.
He says stuff I don’t always agree with,… On Colbert, he said that it was crazy to let people on the No Fly List buy guns… Without any qualification about the validity/fairness/reliability of that list. Or any mention of the Republican Bill the Dems helped defeat earlier that exact same night (I’m trying to track down links now)
So I don’t think I have a purely rosie view of him. I just don’t think Sheepdog is a fair or accurate label.
Have you ever seen a candidate run as hard as he has?
I don’t think Bernie is a bad guy at all. His heart is definitely in the right place. But I think he is performing a sheepdogging function, nonetheless. He refused to even acknowledge Jill Stein’s overture and he explicitly says he wants to “reform” the Democratic Party which means keeping his supporters in that party. The hopelessness of that effort, coupled with the alternatives available to Sanders, make his choice a poor one, IMNSHO. Sanders surely thinks he’s doing the right thing, but everyone thinks that about themselves. And sometimes we are wrong.
I think he can’t acknowledge Stein in a way that would make me happy as long as he is still a candidate for the Dem. Nom. .. It’s my hope that if his campaign fails on the Convention Floor, that he will leave without an endorsement and immediately contact Stein.
… But my dreams get shattered all the time..
sanders has “thought he was doing the right thing” for his entire political career, and throughout that career he has rarely been understood as doing so. he certainly did a lot of right things over the past year that very few saw as such initially. his right things, largely considered quixotic and hopeless, have largely sooner or later (sometimes decades later, as we’ve seen this year) turned out to have been anything but. we might want to keep that in mind when assessing what he is doing today.
His career was in the Senate where gentlemanly compromise is the way to be effective, you wield power because your vote matters and the consequence is visible, the measure passes or it doesn’t.
But where’s the consequence if Bernie gets some of his positions “adopted” by the Dems? He sells out, then the Hilary-led Dems take whatever action their overlords (Kissinger, Rupert Murdoch, Goldman etc) demand. And gentleman Bernie is just left fuming from the sidelines.
He needs to channel a new internal warrior and boycott the convention, the spectacle of the Hilary-bots at the convention echo chamber trying to pretend there is some democracy happening will do more long-term good than any meaningless “deals” he could make now.
what is the long-term good you see in the spectacle you mention? i’m skeptical whether such a spectacle would make much of an impact except on those already disgusted. but maybe it would.
i believe he knows full well the limitations and pitfalls of trying to negotiate a “party platform” with craven people to whom it means nothing but public relations. he has chosen to take the path of pushing the party to open its doors to the next generation. i think he has chosen it because he feels it is the project he can be most effective at leading.
only when that push fails will he decide on his next move as leader of a new movement. i believe he knows full well how very likely it is to fail. meanwhile a lot of his supporters are, at his urging, running for office in the attempt. some will enter politics as leaders of the new movement. that may not be the only good result of his campaign, but it would certainly be far better than any political campaign has managed to do in a very long time to shift the orientation of the body politic in the direction of common sense.
i also think he knows that without a good number of other leaders both newly elected and outside the party system building and maintaining a strenuous, loud, growing opposition to the usual bullshit, he cannot effectively boycott the convention or do anything else to change the status quo. i believe he knows very well how near to impossible that endeavor really is.
i also think he sees very clearly the possibility of a new party forming, but he is committed first to pushing the dem party as far as he can. and i think he does not see himself as the natural or best leader of such a party but as continuing to do the most he can in the senate, now that his irrelevance there can no longer be taken for granted.
Didn’t the Secular-Sainted professor Noam Chomsky recently yet-again tell people they ought to vote for whichever Democrat gets nominated . . . Clinton or whomever else . . . recently? ( With the customary nod to strategic Third Party voting in those states which are sure to go so massively one way or the other that one’s vote for a Third Party will make no difference to the final outcome)
I mean! . . . talk about sheepdogging . . .
(And if I heard or read Chomsky all wrong , why I’ll take it all right back. Oh I will, yes I will, oh I surely will).
You are correct!
http://www.democracynow.org/2016/5/16/chomsky_on_supporting_sanders_why_he
After seeing that Democracy Now interview, I was left with a sense of cognitive dissonance. How can that be the political recommendation of a neoliberal critic? No wonder Chomsky is tolerated by the political and corporate elite. Its a more sophisticated approach to lesser of two evil voting. How can a vote for Trump be more dangerous that a vote for Clinton? The Democrats do not represent the interest of working people and in my estimation, are more detrimental because of their duplicity. If you are against neoliberalism, Trump is a more rational choice because he at least slows the mission down, if only by uncertainty or incompetence. Either way, the true perils of neoliberalism will finally be out in the open. Just to see who will support Clinton is worth supporting Trump.
Finding out who has been killed or imprisoned by the ruling classes sheds more light on the state of the world- and where the real threats to neoliberalism reside. Has not the desire to destroy the Russians and any form of Socialism been driven by the desire to protect private property at all costs? Corruption is tolerated as long as private interests are served? Public policy supporting the common good is subverted to serve private interests and their monopolies. Supporting incrementalism is an illusion.
Its also sobering to realize that the survival strategy of the elite has been to kill the opposition when all else fails. I don’t think we are anywhere close to reaching that point in social upheaval- but we are headed in that direction. Violence erupts. Social tensions rise until there is an explosion.
New leadership and ways of thinking are needed. Sending that message is accomplished through the voting booth and nonviolent civil disobedience. If the elite keep using the way of the gun, we are all in for a rough ride. Sooner or later, larger clashes will result.
Scared puppies:
What secession brings to light in modern welfare states is that there aren’t any assets to be divided up — only the poisoned legacy of unfunded promises.
If only ol’ Jean Monnet had put an “Abraham Lincoln roach motel” clause in the EU’s founding treaty — namely, if you try to check out, we shell your cities, kill your livestock, and burn your crops.
Then they might’ve built a marble Jean Monnet Monument on the banks of the Zenne, and there wouldn’t be no Brexit.
The German government (the mastermind is W Schäuble) is not unhappy with BREXIT.
The german conservatives always wanted a “Core-EU”, like the empire of Charlemagne, without Greece and the whole balkans, eastern Europe and of course without Britain.
More thoughts on Brexit implications from Ben Hunt:
The EU looked good back in the 1990s, when it was serving unlimited bubble rocket fuel at the all-you-can-drink frat keg party.
Now it’s more like a bitter, paranoid Jonestown cult, drinking the NIRP Kool-Aid and attacking would-be escapees.
Yes. If a hedge fund gets caught wrong footed on the “trade”. Or if banks went, gasp, insolvent. We certainly must be careful how we tread thru the world these days. One wrong step and we could get sucked into a black hole at any moment!
Of course Janet will cut rates from a half percent to a quarter percent. She’s our Super Hero!
Interesting Scott Adams on confirmation bias. He says Trump uses it to implant the trash talking moniker Crooked Hillary in voters minds and the Dems use it as well by labeling Trump a racist and then fitting all of his statements into that frame.
Of course blanket statements about other countries are certainly bigoted if not racist but he’s not the only one doing that. When asked who her biggest enemy was Hillary said “Iran.”
It’s turning out to be a strange year without a doubt.
I wonder if Sanders organizers ever engaged in such dastardly behavior.
Fighting the Clintons, Sanders needed to be more Brooklyn and less Vermont…
… or more “Vermont carry.”
Are the tactics Trump is accused of using Brooklyn, Vermont, or Other?
Honestly have no idea what that meant.
Along with confirmation-bias, we also have negation-bias and opposition-bias.
We oppose because momentum.
I hear a trigger word, and I am ready to oppose.
She said Iran because it wouldnt be politically correct for her to tell the truth and say that her biggest enemies are China and Russia.
Hey, it is in the top four, don’t forget Syria as well. Sure Russia (and China) may be closer to her heart, but she has learned to love hating and fearing Iran. I mean Israel and Saudi Arabia have paid her big money to think that.
Russians are white people, so it’s not racist to hate them. Hating Russians has always been politically correct.
Zbigniew Brzezinski hates them. And if its good enough for Zbiggie-poo, its good enough for us. Right?
I’ll never be able to spell that dudes name, but if he hates ’em, that’s good enough for me.
The ghost of Richard Nixon still haunts our politics. I think Trump is trying to get her to say “I am not crooked.”
I wish someone could get her to say:
“People want to know if their Clintons are a crook. Well . . . we’re NOT a crook! We’ve . . . WORKED for everything we’ve got”.
Where is the AP article on Clinton’s State Dept calendar? The link doesn’t work and when I search at AP, nothing comes up. Anybody else having this problem?
Link for Clinton State Dept Calendar missing entries not working. This does:
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/858997d5d9a540688d316654a5bb0c15/clintons-state-dept-calendar-missing-scores-entries
The link didn’t work for the Clinton Email Tar baby so I looked it up on AP. Was disappointed it wasn’t to be found on the first page.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_DEM_2016_CLINTON_CALENDARS_ABRIDGED?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
Better link on the S. African photos of sharp lines of inequality…
http://www.unequalscenes.com/projects
It made me recall a book I got on a whim awhile back about my wife’s hometown of Sao Paulo. That city, along with Rio, can definitely hang with anything S. Africa can dish out as far as sharp lines drawn illustrating inequality. I believe India has similar contrasting neighborhoods. Neither required the organized Apartheid system that S. Africa hard, either. Here’s one of the money shots of Teresa Caldeira’s “City of Walls”, about Sao Paulo.
https://tommydigital.wordpress.com/2010/03/10/city-of-walls/
Are we seeing the future template for our own societies that our wonderful elites have planned?
Yeap…..!
More on the dead dogs at Eastern Securities in Kuwait. Read it and weep.
http://nypost.com/2016/06/24/ex-workers-say-company-abused-bomb-sniffing-dogs-to-death/
“The dogs are CWDs — civilian working dogs, trained to detect explosives at oil refineries.
“Those dogs were mistreated,” says Amy Swope, an American who worked for Eastern Securities in Kuwait from July to November of 2014. “A lot of them were underfed, had eye and skin infections, lesions, bacterial infections, diarrhea, and cancerous growths. One dog had uterine cancer so bad I begged them to euthanize her.
Swope says the company refused, and made the cancer-stricken dog work until she died.
At the time, Eastern Securities was being paid $3,000 per dog, per month, by the Kuwaiti government. Other sources say that figure is much higher — up to $10,000 per dog, per month…”
They hired ‘vets’ with no more than a high school education.
Workers who abused the dogs were abused and exploited as well.
Good on the NYPost for following this story.
US Customs wants to collect social media account names at the border The Verge. Call or write your Congresscritter and object strenuously.
“Your Twitter handle may soon be part of the US visa process. Yesterday, US Customs and Border Patrol entered a new proposal into the federal register, suggesting a new field in which persons entering the country can declare their various social media accounts and screen names.”
==============================================
I’m changing my non de plume from fresno dan to:
a. none
b. I have no social accounts
c. I do not belong to facebook
d. what’s a twitter handle?
e. what is a social media account?
Odysseus, cyclops, no-body
Seriously, how many terrorists WILL NOT BE CAUGHT because resources will be wasted screwing around investigating people with provacative screen names…..(not that anybody at NC does that…you know who you are)
Move to Hawaii, comrade — where exercising a constitutional right gets you put on a criminal database:
Welcome to the tolerant, liberal police state.
Hopefully a “self confession” option will be added, so gun fetishists can just turn themselves in for arrest and re-education.
“Bring in the ‘precogs’…….. !!”
When you see a mad man ruining lives with his money (or gun), you correctly ask the government to pass money (or gun)-control.
I have seen too many tragedies of kids of Darwinian-award parents ruin their futures with money.
Money-control – the time has come.
And you own money, you will be placed on federal database and be monitored.
I just started The Ammosexual Reprogramming Institute.
We will specialize in turning fundamentally good people away from their sinful behaviors and guide them back onto the path of righteousness. For the owners of guns commit murder in their hearts, even when they have not yet done so in deed. We know this not only from the Revealed Word of Political Theory, but from the very teleology of the Gun.
We welcome the efforts of Hawaii’s legislature, and all those who have the strength of character to document the names of these moral deviants, which can only make our job easier.
/sit-in
This could be good for the ethnic HawiiaNative Hawaiians. If rigorous enough enforcement of this drives enough ethnic non-Hawaiians to leave the islands, the Hawaiian Hawaiians might become a politically dominant force on the Islands.
The law cross-indexes registered owners and arrest records. It doesn’t cross-index with political belief, income, or lifestyle. The article doesn’t indicate whether an arrest is grounds for revocation. The law is similar to car owners and drivers being indexed to driving records/violations. In CA, if a driver is arrested for .08 or higher, or refuses to take a test, his/her license is suspended. Is that an unreasonable infringement of civil liberties? If a registered firearms owner is arrested for armed robbery, would it be an infringement to have his/her right to bear arms suspended, pending the outcome of a trial? Methinks only ‘gun fetishists’ would disagree.
Or perhaps it’s time to stop the oppressive indexing of auto violation arrests with auto registration and licensing.
I’m sorry to juxtapose common sense with a right-wing victim-playing meme.
I’m not a gun fetish person and I disagree.
You don’t suspend someone’s rights unless they are convicted. By the way, driving isn’t a right, it’s a privilege and even though the California DMV does suspend licenses they also have administrative hearings to satisfy due process requirements.
So, driving is a privilege, but using a weapon that’s sole practical function is to inflict damage or death on mammals and birds is a right?
The second amendment is a right. You can dislike it but it doesn’t change that fact.
And by the way, you have to eat a living thing to exist. Plants may not have cute little eyes and mouths for you to empathize with but they still are LIVING THINGS. I find it hypocritical to imply it is somehow morally superior to abstain from eating animals and birds while inflicting damage on plants and eating their young to survive.
What in my statement implied vegetarianism? And rather than answer the logic of my statement, you say, “The second amendment is right.” If you were standing in front of an audience of like-minded believers that would certainly carry the day! There’s nothing in the second amendment guaranteeing firearms ownership to convicted felons.
The drunk driving/driver license analogy is dissimilar to the gun ownership case. One is about use and the other ownership of an object.
To make it similar- 1) if you are suspected of drunk driving, the state bans you from owning a car. 2) In addition to having to be licensed to drive a motor vehicles, citizens must also be licensed to own a motor vehicle.
I don’t know any state which do either of these two. Moreover (as far as I know) no state requires a license to drive on your own property… just roads.
Finally, does the proposition: “Only motor vehicle fetishists would disagree that being suspected of violating driving laws should result in not being allowed to own a motor vehicle” sound like a true statement?
Ownership implies right of use. Aside from target shooting (which was almost certainly begun to improve operating performance) the only operation a gun can perform is to injure or kill mammals and birds. Ownership of a gun enables its user to inflict injury or death, if he/she so chooses.
California does impound cars of drunk drivers, if there’s no sober person who can drive it home. It also impounds cars of drivers with suspended licenses.
Cars have constructive uses besides injuring or killing people in accidents. Cars are large, and their illegal use is difficult to conceal. Guns can do nothing but injure or kill (or confer power from the threat to injure or kill).
Guns are also small, portable, easy to conceal, and easier to steal than cars (for instance, from another person in a household). No convicted felon ought to live in a residence with firearms–they’re too easy to steal.
Finally, if a person shows continuing disregard for fellow citizens by violating rational auto laws, and/or injuring or killing fellow citizens through reckless operation…yes…any intelligent citizen would want that person to be banned from owning a car. Because cars have important constructive uses, the bar for banning needs to be higher than firearms, but in the end…yes, ban them.
FROM:‘If you’ve got money, you vote in … if you haven’t got money, you vote out’ Guardian. Important.
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/commentisfree/2016/jun/24/divided-britain-brexit-money-class-inequality-westminster
Interesting statement-press and Tv resented as much as politics. True in the US as well?? Wouldn’t surprise me at all. Wish he had been a bit more specific about the reasons for the resentment.
Apparently (just heard on the local public radio) that those 24 (or 25) and under, voted to remain.
Finally, younger voters agree with Hillary.
I would imagine they see perma-few opportunities in Britain, and always expected to have to look to Greater Europe for work, etc.
Los Angeles Antidote du Weekend
http://catconla.com
This is going around on social media: You Tube: Athens Live: Mark Blyth on the Brexit vote
Priceless.
Yeah but the 1% can hire a few millions peasants to defend the Hamptons. And the peasants will gladfully die defending it.
One of the best book titles ever: Trolls in the Hamptons.
Interesting interview. It says the full-length video is coming out on June 26th. He points out how logically inconsistent it is for Scotland to vote to remain, which means choosing to stay with austerity-promoting EU, and asks how that worked out for the Greeks.
The full-length talk should be interesting. I’m curious to see how he explains his own support for the unreformable EU.
That for me was one of the few false notes in the talk – Scotland could join without joining the Euro (as with Denmark or Sweden). The have a number of options – stay with Sterling, change to Euro, or go for an independent Scottish pound linked to one or the other.
One point that hasn’t been made though is that this potentially could make the euro look more attractive in relative terms. If, as seems very possible, sterling lurches into a crisis, it will make the Euro look more of a safe haven.
Good point. It’ll be interesting to see what points of view emerge in Scotland regarding currency. Keeping the British pound was one of the things they were selling at the last Scottish referendum. It’ll be interesting to see if the SNP now wants the Euro.
It’s a pity referendums don’t use something like the Irish preferential voting method to rank and choose among a number of options or variations on a theme. (And it’s a pity Irish constitutional referendums must use a binomial Yes/No format.)
A herd of stampeding water buffalo would stop and go “Awww” at this photo of moma and calf giraffe. You can’t show it too many times.
http://time.com/4381119/spain-spanish-elections-partido-popular-unidos-podemos/
Do NC readers have any insight as to how Brexit might affect the Spanish general election tomorrow?
One things for sure the disastrous Spanish real estate market is going to see further weakening. Spanish debt loading nicely described by Michael Hudson in his masterful book “Killing The Host” can only progress.
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/06/michael-hudson-the-slow-crash.html
Britons who own homes in Spain, and elsewhere in Europe, just lost a huge percentage of their currency value. This means fewer purchases, more sales of their foreign real estate and many more staying home and not spending on the Continent.
I don’t know what the ramifications for legal residency in Spain for Brits are now that Brexit passed, but it probably is not advantageous.
Perhaps the question is how will the spanish election effect brexit and the markets monday morning…female mayors in rome, madrid, barcelona.
Petty nobles and corporate royals will try to take home their marbles if people call them out by voting them out, but will any courts uphold the power and claims of the isda…??
Derivatives are just modern tulips and there do not seem to be too many judicial rulings in capital market jurisdictions strongly upholding them, considering the rulings in the bankruptcies of delphi and general growth properties.
Will the clowns that be lose control of the game if those newly elected to power by the plebes ignore the “value” of derivative contracts & call a tulip a 2lyp…???
When the affected start laughing at the wizard and smirk while burping out “splain loosee”…what will there be left in the chamber to fire ???
The average schmoe is so far removed from the spinning wheel and so consumerized, they wont even notice the ramifications and wont be invested in the “$tation” & “value” of the newly deposed and disposed…
The clowns that be…eaten up by their own bernaze sauce…shouting “aye yooz too bee a kuntendah” to a public so left behind, they do not even illicit so much as a glance…
We are living in interesting times…
The Daily Bezos chit chats with kindred soul, Brazil’s
jailbaitinstalled president Michel Temer. Too many outlandish statements to cite, but this question stood out for its braindeadness:So just to appreciate the level of madness: there was an interviewer, and interviewee, and several layers of editors, and none of them understood/or wants readers to understand that shrinking the defecit does not mean growing GDP.
*DISCLAIMER* RabidGandhi may not be held liable for any intestinal disorders caused by reading the aforementioned link.
To cut down on administrative bloat, clearly the first thing that a university should do
is fire the older, female support staff in the Humanities, because that’s where the big bucks are:
University of Chicago professors, students upset by layoffs and school finances
In the aftermath of the GFC, University of Chicago economics and business school faculty were at the forefront of demanding fiscal austerity. But, oddly, UChicago itself went on a spending spree and now has by far the largest debt load of any major research university relative to its size.
Now that the inevitable is happening, the little people will have to pay the price.
Also relevant to the U Chicago budget cuts (includes IHE link and comments by a full professor)
http://leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/2016/06/more-on-controversy-about-budget-cuts-at-the-university-of-chicago.html
You mean they are eliminating the Womens’ Studies faculty. Sniff…
No. Try reading the article, and the one NeqNeq linked to.
They are firing relatively low paid staff,
some of whom are the people who actually advise students about their majors.
Among the people in Humanities who lost their jobs was Alicia Czaplewski, a beloved, longtime secretary …
Seriously? There are people who still do secretarial work?
Yes, and there are also people who wash dishes and take out garbage.
W, is that you?
No, I have to do all my own. That’s what computers are for.
“That’s what computers are for.”
To wash dishes and take out garbage? Do they have computers which can do that?
my computer has a trash can on the screen, but it’s too small to be useful.
I have to put all my trash down the garbage chute in the hallway on my floor. sometimes that’s even too small and I have to take it downstairs to the trash room.
aka Administrative Assistant.
You’ve got to admire the rocket scientists who spent millions on a “state of the art library” and now have to let the librarians go as a cost cutting measure.
*head* *desk*
I sure do hope those new students don’t actually want to take out any reference materials from that library .
From a few days ago, so perhaps it was in earlier Links or WC, but I just stumbled on this at Alternet. And people (the elite) wonder why people support Trump or Brexit????
Jim Hightower: Oreo Rolling Its Cookie Factory to Mexico
Are these CEOs just completely tone deaf, or do they just not give a damn? I suspect the latter.
Do you think anyone who has the ear of the top management was anywhere near that announcement meeting? It isn’t that they are tone deaf, they are willfully deaf, along with not giving a damn. They will just hear that the employees were unhappy, not enraged at the company’s betrayal, if they hear about it at all.
I put most of our top corporate leaders in the same category as all the bankers who think they deserve the big bonuses for not crashing their banks this year, political pundits and experts who thought Trump was over how many times and now with Clinton, and the traders who were sure Brexit would never pass. It isn’t just that they live in a bubble, it is that it is a bubble largely of their own creation. “Don’t you bring me NO BAD NEWS!” or off with your head. Sure there are times they have to hear about it, but largely if there is no direct effect on them (like a possible stockholder revolt), they won’t. That our politicians are now focusing on the same premise (see Clinton’s emails or the typical response to a constituent complaint) is truly terrifying.
In a world where the good of the country in general was as important as that of our corporate masters, this wouldn’t even be a consideration as the Mexican made Oreos would not be allowed in the US without tariffs attached that essentially pay for the salaries of the workers they will be displacing, their pensions and benefits for the next twenty five years. And this would not just because it is wrong for whole communities, but also for the country overall – you don’t increase our trade deficit so you can have a bigger bonus or million dollar pay check. But we lost sight of important things, like evicting politicians who decided to so limit corruption that it was the active foundation of campaign fundraising and instead of jailing them, reelected them to do more damage. Falling for false memes and cannily named movements instead.
Maybe the decision makers don’t think there will be any noticeable repercussions?
I can’t say I would disagree with that evaluation. How many people do you think could be convinced to stop purchasing Oreos unless they are made in Chicago?
Well . . . one wonders if the vestigial Labor Movement still has enough members that if they all signed onto a visible audible “Don’t buy foreign scab oreos” . . . that it would have an impact. And for people who must have their cream filled chocolate bi-layered cookiers, perhaps Hydrox still exists, and perhaps they are still made in America.
Don’t get me wrong. I would love to see the abandonment of Oreos because of this. I would also love to see a widespread “buy American” (if you live there) movement.
My experience in sourcing my purchases domestically (whenever possible) is that many people don’t share my views. So, I am not particularly optimistic about the effectiveness of a national boycott campaign.
with the utmost apologies to the late George Carlin………
…….’T!Ts Up on a Ritz’…..!!
However the cost of oreo cookies will not go down. Reduce the cost of labor and continue to charge what the market can bear and watch profits soar.
Unless, of course, it’s reported in the news and people jettison their brand.
I give them two years and they’ll be back(and probably asking for huge tax breaks to move to Whereeverville, USA and benevolently give Americans back their jobs. Kraft is a botttom feeding company and, it’s what bottom feeding companies do these days.)
Has anyone ever done a study on what would really happen if ALL tax incentives, abatements, credits, etc were eliminated completely?
The World Economy would probably grind to a screeching halt!
Not necessarily. It would just do all the wrong things.
Personally I believe businesses should have to pay for the roads, schools, fire departments, and other services they use while in a community.
We hear an awful lot about how the poor shouldn’t own houses because they can’t afford the maintenance costs. Why should the really rich get away with deferring those maintenance costs of owning a business? If you can’t afford to pay the costs of owning a business then perhaps you, like that poor person who doesn’t get to own a house, don’t belong owning a business.
I’m really tired of businesses acting like they are doing communities favors by residing in a market where they have access to a workforce and consumers. They aren’t.
Min wage in Mexico is a tad under $5/hr, tho I’ve heard that is not necessarily enforced. Problem with being “competitive with China”, the corporations say to the Mexican government.
They had to get competitive with Chinese Oreo Cookies. TPP will get rid of pesky country of origon labeling, therefore Mexican Oreos will come in Pinata packaging and Chinese Oreos will have your fortune in the middle.
Another Brexit vote?
“They” always get another vote – NAFTA, the bank bailout of 2008, and now this…
A simple rule of thumb – any thing that gets a second vote, you likely want to oppose it.
For the Little People, there is no second chance in life.
We never got a first vote on Citizens United, much less a second one.
So if either Hillary or The Donald win in November, then we get a do-over?
After reading the stories and links here and stories elsewhere I have decided if I am ever willing to commit to non-fiction again it will be write a compilation of stories in the spirit of CONNEXTIONS only entitled, DISCONNECTIONS.
We really have a lost generation ruling the place right now: They have no conception of how the non-elite live.
(le sigh)
Someone needs to write up one of the most immediate casualties of Brexit: TTIP.
Can that corporate bill of privileges survive Brexit?
Surely not.
Brexit
the queen is still in charge, ditto for canada. It’s so cute when the proles pretend they have any say.
Aerial Shots That Demonstrate The Stark Divide Between Rich and Poor – an amazing series of photos. Seeing the difference in plot sizes and green space juxtaposed is moving.
There are other areas, sparsely populated, where the geographic face of poverty would look different from the air (e.g., native american reservations, Appalachia).
So much of poverty vs abundance has to do with our ability to recognize the abundances that we have, to acknowledge them, and understand how we can best use them for stewardship. For example, some of the most financially impoverished areas have some aspects of culture and well-being that are in abundance (humour, family solidarity, community, traditions), and nearby places with financial over-abundance might be impoverished in those other aspects.
It reminds me of a conversation I had on a plane last year with a doctor originally from the ME, now practising for many years in Germany. He said a recent study said that over 50% of the ailments that caused Germans to seek medical help ended up having their origins in psychological/emotional issues. He attributed that to the extent of family dispersion causing a lack of social support network for much of society.
LMFAO. Hank Paulson endorses Hillary Clinton!
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/when-it-comes-to-trump-a-republican-treasury-secretary-says-choose-country-over-party/2016/06/24/c7bdba34-3942-11e6-8f7c-d4c723a2becb_story.html
Trump should run that as an ad.
Just had an interesting phone call, on my land line, from a “survey research firm” asking for either me or my 25-year-old daughter.
Both of us had switched our voter registrations from “no party affiliation” to democrat during the primaries so that we could vote for Bernie.
She asked first if we vote at our current address: Yes, then asked if anyone in the household works for a newspaper, tv station or social media site. Answer: No.
Then she asked if I ever commented on any financial or political website. Haha. I told the truth and the “survey” was over.
Damn. I wonder what she was getting at.
Do phone survey-takers know the name Naked Capitalism? Have they been instructed that if a prospect says the words Naked Capitalism, that the phone caller should end the call with the :”tough customer” ?
Here’s what TPP will do:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-06-25/transcanada-files-15b-nafta-claim-on-keystone-xl-rejection
Led Zeppelin did not steal ‘Stairway’ riff, jurors say | Reuters
In a similar-themed music-industry lawsuit which is still ongoing, members of the legendary British heavy-metal band Spinal Tap are suing the estate of the late composer Ludwig van Beethoven for $11 million, claiming that one of his piano concerti unfairly appropriated a musical theme from the piano instrumental ‘lick my love pump’ written by the band’s lead guitarist Nigel Tufnel and featured in the 1984 rockumentary film This Is Spinal Tap.
I hope that you weren’t serious about the Democrats sitting down to tackle the predatory payday lending situation. Surely you know that this party is now the party of the rich. They do not bite the hand that feeds them. The Democrats care as little for the poor as do Republicans.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-D9xcZgKX4
WATERLOO SUNSET by The Kinks
The Empire has been gone for so long, no one even remembers what that means any more. OBE, an Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire. A conquering hero is now Elton John, or Judi Dench, someone to bring back hard currency to the enfeebled commonwealth of nations. David Bowie declined Knighthood, saying it wasn’t what he worked a lifetime to achieve. Empire for the Thin White Duke? No Sir! All things must pass, even
Albion crumbles before the weight of time.
J. G. Ballard declined a similar honor — OBE or MBE — on the same grounds. Though he expressed his contempt more openly than Bowie.
Regarding Albion, as opposed to the Empire, I wouldn’t count it out just yet. We’re all talking about what they’ve just done, aren’t we?
“Thousands of Bernie Sanders Supporters Are Suing the DNC in a Massive Class Action Lawsuit US Uncut (martha r). I hate to be a naysayer, but I don’t see this suit going anywhere. ”
It may not “go anywhere” but anything that encourages people to start looking at the election system is a good thing. I hope they don’t make it only about DWS.
Please, oh please, let it get Class Action status and get to discovery. Even if they end up settling, I’d love to see what dirt they can dig up.
Re: CA vote count.
For the first week or two, Bernie was shrinking the lead in % terms, but still falling behind in terms of the actual number of votes. Now, the more recent batches of votes show Bernie’s shrinking the lead in absolute terms. It’s now below where it was on 6/7. He was down by around 430k votes, the lead grew to about 500k, maybe a bit more. Now, every bundle of votes that comes in seems to have him winning by big margins and he’s got the vote gap back down to 428k. The problem is that they’re estimating about 6.2M total Dem votes cast, and they’ve counted almost 4.9M, leaving 1.3M to go. It’s REALLY hard to make up a gap of 428k out of 1.3M votes. He’d have to have a lead of around 30% in the remaining outstanding ballots.
However, there is the matter of those provisional ballots where there very well could be a YUGE lead….but will CA count enough of them??? And will it be a 30% lead for Sanders????
Are there still 650k uncounted provisionals? Anyone know?
My guess is 100% of the provisional ballots are Bernie’s. The Dems already got the good, easy to count ballots. Dunno how many left are provisional, except they say they are counting those last. Almost like a plan, a cynical person might think.
California primary as of Friday 6/24
Clinton 2,632,238 53.9%
Sanders 2,203,663 45.2%
Uncounted (PDF) 605K total 420K provisional
Wolf points out that continent stocks and, in particular, southern banks, were far higher hit than Brit stocks. The real weakness on account of Brexit is the EU.
Spain votes tomorrow, there was a major scandal last wed agains the ruling party (PP)… if Iglesias wins he will want to end austerity.
Honduras hit squad(intercept).
“no credible evidence”…
govt doublespeak 4
“guilty as charged”
but we have it all covered up & you can’t do jack about it…
amazing though…if we find “gross” violations of human rights, we will
“Cut back aid by 50%”…
so how many murders and assassinations does it take to
“Cut back aid by 50%”…???
Well…
guessing there must be a “snuff film” room @ foggy bottom where $hillary used to pop her nipples watching people take their last breath…
maybe that’s what she scrubbed from her emails…
How to protect the future web from its founders’ own frailty Boing Boing. Important for sites like NC
Tangentially related to “sites like NC”, but actually about human behavior and how one governs it. Looks at the central vs distributed pattern, relevant to a whole lot more than technology deployment.
it’s a must-read, very dense but not a technical deep dive.
Depending on how dark one’s view of what “governs” means in practice with a highly centralized Internet, it may bear a very direct relationship indeed to sites like NC.
But as you say, it’s very readable, though dense. Good job by Doctorow.