think big thoughts
RSSThe Truth about the Economics Behind SOPA & PIPA
EFF, in The Truth about the Economics Behind the Blacklist Bills:
“Trotting out overblown numbers and misleading rhetoric isn’t a new tactic for Big Content. It has long advocated extremist legislative and regulatory measures to protect its industry against ‘piracy.’ “…
“As in the 1980s, the correct answer from Congress and the courts should be: no, you can’t have control of the domain name system. You may want a veto power over every new business that springs up there, but doing so would run contrary to our free market and stifle the innovation that makes the tech sector the engine of America’s economy.”
The Remarkable Political Stupidity of the Street
From Robert Reich:
“…when it comes to the regulation of Wall Street, one overriding cost doesn’t make it into any individual weighing: The public’s mounting distrust of the entire economic system, generated by the Street’s repeated abuse of the public’s trust.”
Robert Reich: The Rebirth of Social Darwinism
What kind of society, exactly, do modern Republicans want? I’ve been listening to Republican candidates in an effort to discern an overall philosophy, a broadly-shared vision, an ideal picture of America.
They say they want a smaller government but that can’t be it. Most seek a larger national defense and more muscular homeland security. Almost all want to widen the government’s powers of search and surveillance inside the United States – eradicating possible terrorists, expunging undocumented immigrants, “securing” the nation’s borders. They want stiffer criminal sentences, including broader application of the death penalty. Many also want government to intrude on the most intimate aspects of private life….
George Carlin:
“The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice. You don’t. You have no choice. You have owners. They own you. They own everything. They own all the important land, they own and control the corporations. They’ve long since bought and paid for the senate, the congress, the state houses, the city halls, they’ve got the judges in their back pockets, and they own all the big media companies so they control just about all of the news and information you get to hear. They got you by the balls!”
How Wall Street occupied the Fed
From Salon:
The outrage, they all agree, is that the same determination and all-in blitzkrieg wasn’t aimed at unemployment and the foreclosure mess and the myriad woes affecting the rest of America. The 1 percent got a gift-wrapped bonanza, while the 99 percent got the shaft. As soon as the financial panic subsided and stock prices started to rise, policymakers started worrying far more about inflation and deficits than actual human suffering. And that’s unacceptable.
Fed Loans to Big Banks Undisclosed to Congress:
“Right now. we have a system where the government is incredibly entangled in the financial system by having to provide this support. And if you believe in a free market system, as most here in the United States do, you want that to be provided by the private sector, not by the government. And the way to do that is to have shareholders bear the risk. And right now, shareholders bear some of the risk but much of it is born by the government.”
“If you have this backstop reliance on the government to bail you out in the event that you take risks that turn out to go sour, this induces you to take risks that you wouldn’t otherwise, it’s one of these heads I win, tails you loose.”
http://bloom.bg/w5fmmj (Bloomberg)
Occupy Wall St: It is All About Fairness, and that is the Strength of It
“The information that is coming out from the OWS movement and its repetition has made it clear that there is a major lack of fairness in economic terms. It is hard to know if we would have addressed this if it had not become so stark, and there were not so many people out of work or underemployed. However now that we are talking about it, the time has come to stand up for fairness.”
“If we take this essential meme and really push it, focus on the fact that most of us, Republican and Democrat, Liberal and Conservative, Hippy and Square alike are mostly being treated unfair, then there is a chance to actually move the nation in the direction we need to go.”
The US Congress is considering America’s first system for censoring the Internet. Despite public outcry, the Internet Censorship bill could pass at any time. If it does, the Internet and free speech will never be the same.
Learn more about the Internet Censorship Bills (SOPA/PIPA)
Vandals hit Wells Fargo on Haight Street.
Yet one step closer to a police state
From the ACLU:
The U.S. Senate is considering the unthinkable: changing detention laws to imprison people — including Americans living in the United States itself — indefinitely and without charge.
The Defense Authorization bill — a “must-pass” piece of legislation — is headed to the Senate floor with troubling provisions that would give the President — and all future presidents — the authority to indefinitely imprison people, without charge or trial, both abroad and inside the United States.
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