Corporations

OccupySF Sep. 29th March (video below)

More pics here

Report from OccupySF

So this afternoon I went over to San Francisco for the first OccupySF march/demo. It started about 3 p.m. in from of the Bank of America building in the financial district. In front of the building is a large black sculpture which has been known facetiously as "Banker's Heart" ever since it was installed- it had been fenced off. When I first got there around 2:30 there were probably as many cops as participants, but as three o'clock rolled around, I'd say there were at least a couple hundred people. Lots of SEIU people, lots of ACCE people (Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment), other unions including UAW and NNU (National Nurses United), a few Anonymous people, some with Guy Fawkes masks, others with scarves over their faces. Diverse crowd, not surprising for SF, of course.

Wangari Maathai

Hear a Kenyan environmentalist and Nobel Peace Prize recipient, Wangari Maathai who founded a grassroots organization(Green Belt Movement) that empowers African women to improve their lives and conserve the environment through planting trees. She speaks about the balance of human and natural resources, and her feelings about God. Interviewed by Krista Tippett.
Source: Planting the Future

Neo Johnson and Zjaeriq Sanders

Let 4th Graders Read A Credit Card Agreement

Is your credit card agreement readable? Does it really have to be so long and complicated? 4th graders read a credit card agreement and say what they think of it.
Source: The Friday Podcast: 4th Graders Read A Credit Card Agreement

Play Program or Download(below the fold)

Try to wrap your mind around the following revelations from a provocative 2009 article by Henry A. Giroux entitled “Commodifying Kids: The Forgotten Crisis”:

Kids can recognize logos by eighteen months, and before reaching their second birthday, they're asking for products by brand name. By three or three and a half, experts say, children start to believe that brands communicate their personal qualities, for example, that they're cool, or strong, or smart. Even before starting school, the likelihood of having a television in their bedroom is 25 percent, and their viewing time is just over two hours a day. Upon arrival at the schoolhouse steps, the typical first grader can evoke 200 brands. And he or she has already accumulated an unprecedented number of possessions, beginning with an average of seventy new toys a year.

And this:

One measure of the corporate assault on kids can be seen in the reach, acceleration and effectiveness of a marketing and advertising juggernaut that attempts to turn kids into consumers and childhood into a saleable commodity. Every child, regardless of how young, is now a potential consumer ripe for being commodified and immersed in a commercial culture defined by brands. According to Lawrence Grossberg, children are introduced to the world of logos, advertising and the "mattering maps" of consumerism long before they can speak:

David Cay Johnston

David Cay Johnston is a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and author. He has worked as an investigative reporter for several newspapers including the New York Times.
He is the author of two bestsellers, "Perfectly Legal: The Covert Campaign to Rig Our Tax System to Benefit the Super Rich--and Cheat Everybody Else" and "Free Lunch: How The Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expenses (and Stick You with the Bill)". In this interview, he talks with Terrence McNally, journalist and radio host.
Source: Q&A: DAVID CAY JOHNSTON - Pulitzer Prize Journalist / Author

Scott Horton

Scott Horton Interviews The Other Scott Horton

The Other Scott Horton discusses the protest letter signed by top U.S. legal scholars – including Obama’s law professor at Harvard – about Bradley Manning’s illegal and immoral conditions of detainment. They talk about how Manning is subjected to unnecessary security/suicide prevention measures to punish and vilify him.
Source: Scott Horton Interviews The Other Scott Horton

Music includes Earth Anthem, We'll Met Again, Charlie Parker - Scrapple from the Apple, Do You Hear?, Hero of War, drunken lullabies, Strange Fruit, South of the Border, Lodi, I Ain't Marching Anymore, If You Want to Stop Terrorism then Stop Killing Muslims

Play Program or Download(below the fold)

Originally published in the California Progress Report
By Karen Bernal
Progressive Caucus of the CA Democratic Party

We've had enough. The country has had enough.

As elated as we were when President Obama was elected in 2008, after a disastrous eight years under the repressive and war-mongering Bush Administration, the Obama Administration has been a major disappointment to the working class and Progressives of this country.

So much so that on July 30, the Progressive Caucus of the California Democratic Party adopted a resolution criticizing President Obama for negotiating away Democratic Party principles to extremist Republicans, and suggesting that we may explore steps to "effect necessary change, including a possible primary challenge to President Obama." The resolution, overwhelmingly adopted at a meeting of the Progressive Caucus of the California Democratic Party July 30, did not say President Obama would not be that candidate.

The officers and members of the caucus are willing to meet with the President if he wishes to discuss our concerns. In fact, we would welcome the opportunity. Our Caucus leadership wishes HOPE BEYOND HOPE that President Obama will rework his priorities to respond to the needs of working class Americans in order to get progressive support in 2012.

Charles Ferguson

I saw the movie 'Inside Job' and I highly recommend it. It was directed by Charles Ferguson. He also produced 'No End in Sight', a documentary of the Iraq war. He was interviewed by Adam Lashinsky who is Senior Editor at Large at Fortune magazine.

They ask if the global economic meltdown of the last few years could have been prevented? His documentary, Inside Job, makes a powerful case that an out-of-control finance industry took advantage of a deregulated atmosphere and purposely sought to get rich at the expense of others.
Source: Charles Ferguson: Inside Job (3/2/11)

Al McCoy

Policing America's Empire

Al McCoy, a professor of history at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, and author most recently of the award-winning book 'Policing America's Empire: The United States, the Philippines and the Rise of the Surveillance State,' talks about how empires are maintained, why the U.S. empire is in decline, and what the consequences might be depending on how we respond to that decline.
Source: TomCast for April 24, 2011: SubordiNations

From the movie Gandhi, Gandhi Advocates Policy of Nonviolence.
Source: Movie Gandhi (1982)

Music includes Earth Anthem, Coleman Hawkins - La Rosita, We'll Met Again, So Long, Mom (A Song For World War III), galveston, nelson willie - yesterday, Donovan To Susan on the West Coast Waiting, Hero Of War, Piggies

Play Program or Download(below the fold)

Bill Moyers

Bill Moyers examines the deteriorating and increasingly corrupt state of affairs that our government has devolved into and the accompanying divisiveness sweeping the country. Is there hope for things to improve? For the first time in his life, Moyers isn't optimistic.
Source: An Afternoon with Bill Moyers

Tavis Smiley speaks with William Cohan

Award-winning investigative reporter and former investment banker assesses the impact of S&P's downgrading its credit outlook for the U.S. and the taxpayer's subsidy of Goldman Sachs.
Source: Writer William Cohan

Music includes Charlie Parker - Relaxin' At Camarillo, Earth Anthem, Stand By Your Man, Black Sabbath - War Pigs, Freedom Isn't Free Tonight, Kenny Rogers - Ruby Don't Take Your Love To Town, Red House, The Fool on the Hill

Play Program or Download(below the fold)

King George III Won: Happy Fourth of July!
By David Swanson
http://warisacrime.org/node/58333

The Declaration of Independence is best remembered as a declaration of war, a war declared on the grounds that we wanted our own flag. The sheer stupidity and anachronism of the idea serves to discourage any thoughts about why Canada didn't need a bloody war, whether the U.S. war benefitted people outside the new aristocracy to whom power was transferred, what bothered Frederick Douglas so much about a day celebrating "independence," or what the Declaration of Independence actually said.

When you read the Declaration of Independence, it turns out to be an indictment of King George III for various abuses of power. And those abuses of power look fairly similar to abuses of power we happily permit U.S. presidents to engage in today, either as regards the people of this nation or the people of territories and nations that our military occupies today in a manner uncomfortably resembling Britain's rule over the 13 colonies.

Or perhaps I should say, a large portion of us take turns being happy or outraged depending on the political party with which the current president is identified.

White House Takes Heat for GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt's Advisory Role

BY JAKE TAPPER - THE WHITE HOUSE, March 25, 2011

The top tax bracket for U.S. corporations stands at 35 percent, one of the highest rates in the world. So how is it possible that a giant of American business, General Electric, paid nothing in federal taxes last year, even as it made billions in profit?

And should the CEO of GE, Jeffrey Immelt, be advising the president on business?

For two years, President Obama has been talking about the need for corporate tax reform, declaring that the system is too complicated and that companies pay too much.

"Simplify, eliminate loopholes, treat everybody fairly," Obama said in February.

For those unaccustomed to the loopholes and shelters of the corporate tax code, GE's success at avoiding taxes is nothing short of extraordinary. The company, led by Immelt, earned $14.2 billion in profits in 2010, but it paid not a penny in taxes because the bulk of those profits, some $9 billion, were offshore. In fact, GE got a $3.2 billion tax benefit.

Published on Friday, March 25, 2011 by CommonDreams.org
by Deborah Burger

If the deficit hawks in Congress are serious about righting our economic ship and reducing deficits in the federal budget and many state capitols, it would we worth listening to the voices rising from the streets suggesting a very different solution than more cuts in safety net programs, education, pensions, and worker’s rights.

This is not a budget fight, it’s a fight for the future of an America in which everyone should be able to retire in dignity, not worry about whether they can go to the doctor when they get sick, or whether there will still be schools for their kids.