The Lobby Cancer at the Core of American Politics American "Way of Life", CLASS STRUGGLE, DEBATING POINTS Comments Off Apr 272011 Lobby, Lobbification, Lobbified – An Analysis By Lawrence Davidson | Part One (Originally posted on 16 April 2011) THE BUSINESS OF INFLUENCE PEDDLING Few politicos personify the seamless corruption permeating the American political system than Tom Daschle, a onetime top Democrat who now works as an unregistered lobbyist with the tacit benediction of the Obama White House, while his wife plows the same dirty waters as a well-connected registered lobbyist.* Lobbification is a word I have just coined for the corruptive process that bends politicians to the will of special interests–that is to the will of lobbies. The result of lobbification can be seen in the stilted and fawning behavior of the lobbified political brain. Politicians with lobbified brains become the obedient instruments of the lobbies which have captured their political souls. Below are a few examples of the results of lobbification. Continue reading » Did you like this? Share it:
The Truth About GOP Hero Ayn Rand ASSHOLES, BASTARDS & CRIMINALS, CAPITALISM & SOCIALISM, HEADLINERS 3 Responses » Apr 272011 By ThinkProgress Posted on April 26, 2011 http://www.alternet.org/story/150680/the_truth_about_gop_hero_ayn_rand Rand: She made selfishness respectable. Only in America. Ayn Rand — Russian emigre, founder of the mid-century Objectivist movement, putative philosopher, writer of the novels The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, and the inspiration for a small but intensely devoted band of acolytes — has been enjoying a resurgence of late on the American right. The cultural capstone to this resurgence arrived last week with the release of a filmed adaptation of the first third of Atlas Shrugged, independently financed by a wealthy devotee of Rand’s work and pitched explicitly at the Tea Party demographic. Continue reading » Did you like this? Share it:
Among Ciphers, Barn Burners and Confidence Artists: a comb-over treatment for declining empire CITIZEN TOOLS, CLASS STRUGGLE 1 Response » Apr 272011 By Phil Rockstroh The Donald and some of his trophies. Like postmodernist architecture, in which the aesthetic criteria of a structure’s exterior often possesses little correlation to its interior function, media age journalistic and political style exhibits a similar disparity between facade and content: The political content aired by mass media institutions and the cant of the governmental class are the political equivalent of the useless ornamental pediments, context-devoid cupolas, and empty atriums of postmodernist architecture. Continue reading » Did you like this? Share it:
5 Reasons to Be Hopeful We Haven’t Totally Screwed Ourselves and the Planet … Yet CITIZEN TOOLS, ENVIRONMENTAL STRUGGLES, HEADLINERS Comments Off Apr 272011 By Tara Lohan, AlterNet Posted on April 26, 2011 This article is also found HERE. SOME DAYS MY MORNING TEA seems half full, other days half empty. Sometimes I wake up emboldened with hope. Such as when read about activist and shrimper Diane Wilson taking on BP’s Tony “I Want My Life Back” Hayward. Or when I hear about the 10,000 young activists who made a ruckus in DC for Powershift 2011 — even earning face time with the president. Continue reading » Did you like this? Share it:
The Vermont Senate Passes Bill Establishing A Single Payer Health Care System In The State CAPITALISM & SOCIALISM, CLASS STRUGGLE Comments Off Apr 272011 By Zaid Jilani As ThinkProgress previously reported, the Vermont legislature, led by Gov. Peter Shumlin (D), has been considering a proposal to establish some sort of single payer health care system — a system in which a single public insurer provides health insurance to all state residents, similar to the Medicare system for American seniors. Continue reading » Did you like this? Share it:
