think big thoughts

The Truth about the Economics Behind SOPA & PIPA

Sat, 14 Jan 2012 13:12:02 -0800

The 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

Fri, 09 Dec 2011 23:13:49 -0800

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

Wed, 30 Nov 2011 21:08:57 -0800

Robert Reich: The Rebirth of Social Darwinism:

robertreich:

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...

Tue, 29 Nov 2011 21:10:37 -0800

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

Tue, 29 Nov 2011 08:26:48 -0800

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...

Mon, 28 Nov 2011 21:36:30 -0800

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

Mon, 28 Nov 2011 07:18:35 -0800

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...

Sun, 27 Nov 2011 20:57:43 -0800

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)

http://americancensorship.org/

Vandals hit Wells Fargo on Haight Street.

Thu, 24 Nov 2011 14:53:14 -0800

Vandals hit Wells Fargo on Haight Street.

Yet one step closer to a police state

Wed, 23 Nov 2011 18:37:00 -0800

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.

Urge the Senate to Oppose Indefinite Military Detention

Robert Reich speaking about why we must occupy our...

Tue, 22 Nov 2011 21:35:00 -0800

Robert Reich speaking about why we must occupy our democracy:

“The first amendment is being stood on its head. According to the Supreme Court, money is now speech, and corporations are now people. As a result, our democracy is being engulfed in big money. But when real people without money assemble to express their dissatisfaction with the political consequences of this, they’re treated as public nuisances, and evicted.”

“Our democracy is increasingly being taken over by big money. And that’s wrong. Demonstrating to take it back is the essence of free speech in a democratic society. We need to occupy our democracy.”

The First Amendment Upside Down. Why We Must Occupy Democracy

UC Davis faculty member open letter demanding Chancellor Katehi's resignation

Sun, 20 Nov 2011 00:33:52 -0800

UC Davis faculty member open letter demanding Chancellor Katehi's resignation:

UC Davis Assistant Professor Nathan Brown demands Chancellor Linda Katehi’s resignation for ordering the police to use force against student protesters. This blatant police brutality against peaceful protesters is despicable.

Robert Reich speaks at UC Berkeley: “…there are a...

Thu, 17 Nov 2011 22:01:00 -0800

Robert Reich speaks at UC Berkeley:

“…there are a few supreme court decisions that have said, that essentially, money is speech and corporations are people. Now when you think that money is speech and corporations are people, that becomes extraordinarily important to protect the first amendment rights of ordinary americans, of regular citizens, of students, of everybody else who doesn’t have the money and who is not a corporation.”

….

“….all of you, right now, understand intuitively, that if we allowed American to continue in the direction it was going, when the wealth and the income and the power and the political potential for corruption that all of that represents, that the bullies would be in charge. And you know and you understand how important it is to fight the bullies, to protect the powerless, to make sure the people without a voice have a voice.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Reich

Dear Taxpayer is a short film by Corey Ogilvie about how the...

Sun, 13 Nov 2011 20:19:00 -0800

Dear Taxpayer is a short film by Corey Ogilvie about how the biggest taxpayer rip-off of human history happened right under our noses. His director’s statement:

Generations of American taxpayers have bailed out today’s big banks to the tune of $12 trillion (New York Times, July 2011). That is $83,000 per American taxpayer, plus interest. Still today, the big banks gamble with government (taxpayer) backing - a ‘heads I win, tails you lose’ scenario. This absurd scenario obliterates any notion of a true free-market society, we are slowly being reduced to a feudal society: where a small group of individuals, behind closed doors, shape our common economic future, and there is nothing we can do about it. This film explores how this all came to be over the last 3 years.

Chris Hedges discusses the rise of the corporate class and the...

Wed, 09 Nov 2011 23:07:00 -0800

Chris Hedges discusses the rise of the corporate class and the death of democracy:

“We’ve seen the rise of the corporate state, it exists in Canada but is far more pronounced in the United States. And what we’ve created is what the political philosopher Sheldon Wolin is a system of inverted totalitarianism, which is different form classical forms of totalitarianism. It’s not built around a demagogue or a charismatic leader, but find expression in the anonymity of the corporate state. And in inverted totalitarianism, he argues, you don’t have a revolutionary force that seeks to tear down decaying structures and replace them with new structures. They speak in the iconography and language of patriotism, of the constitution, and yet have so corrupted the internal levers of power as to render the citizenry impotent.”

Rawls on Wall Street

Mon, 07 Nov 2011 20:49:00 -0800

Rawls on Wall Street:

NYT opinion piece about how Occupy Wall Street could benefit from the wisdom of American political philosopher John Rawls.

…in a just society, citizens should be understood as free and equal participants in a system of social cooperation. Some individuals may be more motivated and harder working, and thus can legitimately expect greater rewards for their efforts. But everyone deserves the same bundle of individual rights and liberties, and everyone is entitled to “fair equality of opportunity,” including access to a decent education and a genuine chance of success in pursuing one’s life plans.

Inequality becomes injustice when the cooperative nature of society breaks down and a significant segment of the population finds itself unable to thrive, despite its best efforts.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Rawls

Recorded November 3, 2011, 10.15am. The People vs. Goldman Sachs...

Sun, 06 Nov 2011 19:59:33 -0800

Recorded November 3, 2011, 10.15am. The People vs. Goldman Sachs mock trial people’s hearing held at Liberty a/k/a Zuccotti Park with fiery commentary by Dr. Cornel West, Christ Hedges, and testimonies from people directly affected by Goldman Sachs policies.

Frank Zappa talk about the problems with...

Sat, 05 Nov 2011 17:42:00 -0700

Frank Zappa talk about the problems with democracy:

“…we’ve got a big problem, because you can’t really have a democracy, if one man’s vote equals another man’s vote, then one man’s education has to equal another man’s education, so that people have, not only the basic machinery to assimilate the data from which they will draw their conclusion and cast their vote. You have to have that as a basis for democracy. And when you have a society where too many people can’t read or write, how can you say, you know, we all have an equal voice in the government.”

Noam Chomsky, from “Manufacturing...

Sat, 05 Nov 2011 13:10:00 -0700

Noam Chomsky, from “Manufacturing Consent”:

“As long as some specialized class is in a position of authority, it is going to set policy in special interest that it serves. But the conditions of survival, let alone justice, require rational social planning in the interest of the community as a whole, and by now, that means the global community. The question is whether privileged elite should dominate mass communications and should use this power as they tell us they must, mainly to impose necessary illusions to manipulate and deceive the stupid majority and remove them from the public arena. The question, in brief, is whether democracy and freedom are values to be preserved, or threats to be avoided. In this possible phase of terminal human existence, democracy and freedom are more than just values to be treasured, they may well be essential to survival.”

Psychologists tie the reluctance to protest Wall Street bailouts to a deep-seated need to justify the status quo.

Sat, 05 Nov 2011 00:33:00 -0700

Psychologists tie the reluctance to protest Wall Street bailouts to a deep-seated need to justify the status quo.:

From Miller-McCune:

A new psychological study… finds people are strongly motivated to perceive the socioeconomic system they live under as fair and just, and links this pro-status-quo impulse with a reluctance to protest against the Wall Street bailout.

…

“Because of our immense psychological capacity to justify and rationalize the status quo, human societies are very slow to fix system-level injustices and to enact substantive changes.”