How Offshoring Has Destroyed the Economy ANNOTATED NEWS, OLVIDADOS, THE LABOR FRONT Comments Off May 312011 May 31, 2011 Nobel Laureate: Globalism Has Been Ruinous for Americans By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS It is a very serious mistake to think that the employer class cares one fig about the working class. The historical record does not support that conclusion. These are discouraging times, but once in a blue moon a bit of hope appears. I am pleased to report on the bit of hope delivered in March of 2011 by Michael Spence, a Nobel prize-winning economist, assisted by Sandile Hlatshwayo, a researcher at New York University. The two economists have taken a careful empirical look at jobs offshoring and concluded that it has ruined the income and employment prospects for most Americans. Continue reading » Did you like this? Share it:
Activists Hack Fox News Times Square Ticker: Well done!!! ANNOTATED NEWS, ASSHOLES, BASTARDS & CRIMINALS, CITIZEN TOOLS, MEDIA SCUM Comments Off May 312011 Pompous bullies like Bill O’Reilly have polluted the public mind for years with impunity (and grown rich in the process) thanks to the backing and protection of his puppetmasters, criminals like Roger Aisles and Rupert Murdoch, the Big Wigs behind the lies and crimes at Fox News. Now the people are beginning to wake up and fight back. Watch the video below: simply inspirational. Continue reading » Did you like this? Share it:
Obama administration seeks to block legal challenges to Medicaid cuts ANNOTATED NEWS, ASSHOLES, BASTARDS & CRIMINALS, LIBERAL BETRAYALS Comments Off May 312011 By Naomi Spencer, WSWS.ORG | 31 May 2011 Phony of phonies: Many thought that by electing Obama they would not elect McCain, but they got McCain. The Obama administration is seeking to block lawsuits challenging state budget cuts to Medicaid, the joint state- and federal-funded health care program for the poor and disabled. Many states are slashing already inadequate reimbursement rates for medical providers serving Medicaid recipients, even as the economic crisis has caused enrollment in the program to soar. Medicaid serves low-income children, pregnant women, the elderly, blind and disabled—an enormous but politically disenfranchised segment of the population. Currently, some 60 million Americans receive health care through the program, including one in three children, four in ten pregnant women, and 70 percent of nursing home residents. Continue reading » Did you like this? Share it:
Egypt’s “second revolution” ANNOTATED NEWS, The Middle East Comments Off May 312011 As the US whoremedia move on, the American public is denied once again a proper understanding of the evolution of a critical revolutionary process. Under all the gloss, keeping the American public ignorant is what the American media really excel at. By Joseph Kishore, Socialist Equality Party / WSWS.ORG, 31 May 2011 Demonstrations last Friday in Egypt were among the largest since the revolutionary movement of workers and youth forced out the longtime dictator Hosni Mubarak on February 11. Hundreds of thousands gathered in the capital of Cairo and other cities to denounce the policies of the military government established after Mubarak’s downfall. Among the slogans raised by the protesters was the call for a “second revolution.” Contained in this phrase is a critical understanding, namely that the fall of Mubarak three-and-a-half months ago has not solved the basic democratic and social aspirations of the mass protests. Continue reading » Did you like this? Share it:
Public Banking: An Idea Whose Time Has Come ANNOTATED NEWS, FINANCE CAPITAL Comments Off May 312011 Bank of North Dakota, Bismarck (new building inaugurated in 2008). Editor’s Note: A public bank for the entire United States. Ah, what a refreshing idea, or, as the Victorians might say, “What a capital idea!” We certainly think this is a solid concept, a motion whose time has certainly come. In fact, we thought the taxpayer bailout of the Wall Street investment houses, insurance gamblers, and other players caught in the subprime scandal could have been avoided entirely by simply creating such a bank, a National Reconstruction Bank with precisely the funds wasted on these crooks. But the problem in America for at least 150 years now has always been not a shortage of good ideas but the political will to implement them, as it is this society’s mammoth corrupt vested interests at the top that run the nation, through their shills at all levels, and not honest representatives of the public weal. Continue reading » Did you like this? Share it:
Reflections on the U.S. Counterrevolution ANNOTATED NEWS, Policies & Politicians, US Foreign Policy Comments Off May 302011 By Edward S. Herman As usual, Herman underscores, the mainstream media play a vital and—let’s say it—utterly evil role in fanning out and propping up the counter-revolution. It’s quite obvious that the countless overpaid mediocrities that populate the corporate media never read these analyses, and should they stumble upon one (unlikely, given their superficiality) they will swiftly dismiss it as a mere “leftist rant”. In that manner, day after day bourgeois ideology and careerism win the day, as the “white picket fence” is placed above any other personal priority or goal. But whether these people know it or not, they’re fully complicit in truly horrific crimes, and some day some accounting will be necessary.—Eds. Edward S. Herman We are in the midst of a counterrevolution and intensifying class war, one that proceeds in fits and starts but is today advancing impressively. What makes its present efflorescence so striking is that it is taking place under the presidency of Barack Obama, a man elected in good measure by an aroused mass base, that is now taking its lumps. The power structure no longer permits serious attention to the welfare of that mass base. The great upward redistribution of income, the increased importance of money in elections, the centralization of corporate and media control and the media’s rightward drift, globalization, outsourcing, the weakening of organized labor, and the permanent war system, have all combined to effectively eliminate a “populist” option in politics. The Democrats invariably betray their voting base, but not their investor base. Continue reading » Did you like this? Share it:
ARCHIVES: Serb Demonization as Propaganda Coup ANNOTATED NEWS, MEDIA SCUM, PROPAGANDA 3 Responses » May 302011 ARCHIVES: Materials you should have read, watched or listened to the first time around, but didn’t. By Edward S. Herman. Edited by Emily Schwartz Greco, March 19, 2009 This is part of a strategic dialogue on Yugoslavia. See John Feffer’s opposing argument here, and their respective responses here. The successful demonization of the Serbs, making them largely responsible for the Yugoslav wars, and as unique and genocidal killers, was one of the great propaganda triumphs of our era. It was done so quickly, with such uniformity and uncritical zeal in the mainstream Western media, that disinformation had (and still has, after almost two decades) a field day. The demonization flowed from the gullibility of Western interests and media (and intellectuals). With Yugoslavia no longer useful as an ally after the fall of the Soviet Union, and actually an obstacle as an independent state with a still social democratic bent, the NATO powers aimed at its dismantlement, and they actively supported the secession of Slovenia, Croatia, the Bosnian Muslims, and the Kosovo Albanians. That these were driven away by Serb actions and threats is untrue: they had their own nationalistic and economic motives for exit, stronger than those of the Serbs. Continue reading » Did you like this? Share it:
The Fight for Memorial Day ANNOTATED NEWS, ANTIWAR, IDEOLOGICAL STRUGGLE Comments Off May 302011 Antiwar.com | May 27, 2008 David R. Henderson The media, including the pseudoleft media, like the HuffPo, not to mention Obama, all pay obeisance to the "nation's heroes" on dates like Memorial Day, without ever mentioning the fact that most wars are waged to protect and expand the interests of a puny minority. Yes, there is a debate. On one side are those who say that the purpose of Memorial Day is, or should be, to honor soldiers who have fought, or are fighting, for our freedom. This is the view we hear a lot on and around Memorial Day. We hear it from presidents, governors, congressmen, mayors, military officers, and military analysts. On the other side are those who say that the purpose of Memorial Day is to mourn those who lost their lives in wars and to reflect on how to prevent this from happening in the future. We hear this view from antiwar activists and those who, more generally, are fairly skeptical of governments’ motives and actions. I would love not to have such a debate. And that’s why I waited. There are a lot of people in the United States whose relatives or friends died or were wounded in foreign wars. It must be hard for them to hear or read armchair analysts like me talking about the “real meaning” of Memorial Day. Continue reading » Did you like this? Share it:
Obama in Joplin: More empty promises to disaster survivors ANNOTATED NEWS, LIBERAL BETRAYALS, MEDIA SCUM, Obama, PROPAGANDA Comments Off May 302011 The scripted presidency marches on. By Patrick Martin, WSWS.ORG | 30 May 2011 Obama comforts a Joplin survivor. A gifted artist of the photo-op, he's a natural for this type of exhibition. President Obama’s visit to Joplin, Missouri Sunday was his third tour in a month at the site of a monumental natural disaster. He visited Tuscaloosa, Alabama April 29 after a spate of tornadoes struck across the South, then spoke with victims of the Mississippi River flooding in Memphis, Tennessee May 16. The appearances follow what is now an established ritual. The president arrives and is shown scenes of devastation by local dignitaries. He shakes hands with disaster relief workers and hugs survivors. He then speaks before a local audience assembled for the purpose, usually invoking religious consolation and promising federal aid. Continue reading » Did you like this? Share it:
Obama Plans Gutting Regulations for Corporate Favorites ANNOTATED NEWS, ASSHOLES, BASTARDS & CRIMINALS, Obama, Stephen Lendman 1 Response » May 302011 More manure from the nation’s leading demagog. By Stephen Lendman Promising change after eight Republican dominated years, Obama betrayed the public trust by special favors given business at the expense of essential growing needs. Spurning them, in fact, he shows contempt for the things he rhetorically supports, proving he’s no different from the worst of the bipartisan criminal class, serving wealth and power interests only. Continue reading » Did you like this? Share it:
