Nighthawks 2012
In a corporatized nation only the politically powerful & very rich do not get their pockets picked. One cannot look upon our youth & not bemoan what awaits them, debt peonage in return for pursuing an education, thereafter servitude with little prospect of getting deserved rewards, no influence over anything meaningful when voting, decades of day to day body & mind ruining anxiety over such things as being housed, having health care, feeding the children they may soon have, ceaseless bombardment of news designed not to inform or enlighten but to frighten them into alienated conformity with & subordination to invisible masters.
The truthful American journalist now most effectively expressing the overwhelmingly dismal consequences of modern casino capitalism is Chris Hedges. This morning - September 26, 2012 - I read his latest essay, which can be found along with the rest of his great work at Truthdig.com. Hedges reminds us, first, that, in the presidential campaign we're now suffering, the two major candidates, Obama & Romney, are spending two & one-half billion dollars to manipulate us with lies.
EXCERPT: We will be assaulted this January when automatic spending reductions, referred to as “the fiscal cliff,” begin to dismantle and defund some of our most important government programs. Mitt Romney will not stop it. Barack Obama will not stop it.
And while Romney has been, courtesy of the magazine Mother Jones, exposed as a shallow hypocrite, Obama is in a class by himself. There is hardly a campaign promise from 2008 that Obama has not broken. This list includes his pledges to support the public option in health care, close Guantanamo, raise the minimum wage, regulate Wall Street, support labor unions in their struggles with employers, reform the Patriot Act, negotiate an equitable peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians, curb our imperial expansion in the Middle East, stop torture, protect reproductive rights, carry out a comprehensive immigration reform, cut the deficit by half, create 5 million new energy jobs and halt home foreclosures. Obama, campaigning in South Carolina in 2007, said that as president he would fight for the right of collective bargaining. “I’d put on a comfortable pair of shoes myself, I’ll … walk on that picket line with you as president of the United States of America,” he said. But when he got his chance to put on those “comfortable pair of shoes” during labor disputes in Madison, Wis., and Chicago he turned his back on working men and women.
Obama, while promising to defend Social Security, also says he stands behind the planned cuts outlined by his deficit commission, headed by Morgan Stanley board member Erskine Bowles and former Sen. Alan Simpson, a Wyoming Republican. The Bowles-Simpson plan calls for cutting 0.3 percentage points from the annual cost-of-living adjustment in the Social Security program. The annual reduction would slowly accumulate. After a decade it would mean a 3 percent cut. After two decades it would mean a 6 percent cut. The retirement age would be raised to 69. And those on Social Security who continued to work and made more than $40,000 a year would be penalized with further reductions. Obama’s payroll tax cuts have, at the same time, served to undermine the solvency of Social Security, making it an easier target for the finance corporations that seek to destroy the program and privatize the funds.
But that is just the start....
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How Do You Take Your Poison?
Pub'l. Sept. 24, 2012 @ Truthdig.com
By Chris Hedges
www.truthdig.com/report/item/how_do_you_take_your_poison_...
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Nighthawks 2012
In a corporatized nation only the politically powerful & very rich do not get their pockets picked. One cannot look upon our youth & not bemoan what awaits them, debt peonage in return for pursuing an education, thereafter servitude with little prospect of getting deserved rewards, no influence over anything meaningful when voting, decades of day to day body & mind ruining anxiety over such things as being housed, having health care, feeding the children they may soon have, ceaseless bombardment of news designed not to inform or enlighten but to frighten them into alienated conformity with & subordination to invisible masters.
The truthful American journalist now most effectively expressing the overwhelmingly dismal consequences of modern casino capitalism is Chris Hedges. This morning - September 26, 2012 - I read his latest essay, which can be found along with the rest of his great work at Truthdig.com. Hedges reminds us, first, that, in the presidential campaign we're now suffering, the two major candidates, Obama & Romney, are spending two & one-half billion dollars to manipulate us with lies.
EXCERPT: We will be assaulted this January when automatic spending reductions, referred to as “the fiscal cliff,” begin to dismantle and defund some of our most important government programs. Mitt Romney will not stop it. Barack Obama will not stop it.
And while Romney has been, courtesy of the magazine Mother Jones, exposed as a shallow hypocrite, Obama is in a class by himself. There is hardly a campaign promise from 2008 that Obama has not broken. This list includes his pledges to support the public option in health care, close Guantanamo, raise the minimum wage, regulate Wall Street, support labor unions in their struggles with employers, reform the Patriot Act, negotiate an equitable peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians, curb our imperial expansion in the Middle East, stop torture, protect reproductive rights, carry out a comprehensive immigration reform, cut the deficit by half, create 5 million new energy jobs and halt home foreclosures. Obama, campaigning in South Carolina in 2007, said that as president he would fight for the right of collective bargaining. “I’d put on a comfortable pair of shoes myself, I’ll … walk on that picket line with you as president of the United States of America,” he said. But when he got his chance to put on those “comfortable pair of shoes” during labor disputes in Madison, Wis., and Chicago he turned his back on working men and women.
Obama, while promising to defend Social Security, also says he stands behind the planned cuts outlined by his deficit commission, headed by Morgan Stanley board member Erskine Bowles and former Sen. Alan Simpson, a Wyoming Republican. The Bowles-Simpson plan calls for cutting 0.3 percentage points from the annual cost-of-living adjustment in the Social Security program. The annual reduction would slowly accumulate. After a decade it would mean a 3 percent cut. After two decades it would mean a 6 percent cut. The retirement age would be raised to 69. And those on Social Security who continued to work and made more than $40,000 a year would be penalized with further reductions. Obama’s payroll tax cuts have, at the same time, served to undermine the solvency of Social Security, making it an easier target for the finance corporations that seek to destroy the program and privatize the funds.
But that is just the start....
• Please continue to full text ⤵⤵⤵
How Do You Take Your Poison?
Pub'l. Sept. 24, 2012 @ Truthdig.com
By Chris Hedges
www.truthdig.com/report/item/how_do_you_take_your_poison_...
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