Latest installment in CBS’s march to the right came this morning when the producers of the CBS This Morning show, featuring Charlie Rose, chose (who else?) an archtypical one-percenter, “Neutron Jack”, to share his wisdom with the audience. Please examine this presentation closely and do file an opinion offering what YOU would have done as interviewer or producer for this show. Note the softballs, the glaring missed opportunities to set the correct frame for this discussion, and so on.Keep in mind that the corporate tax rate was about 50% from 1950s to 1970. Currently it’s 35%, but riddled with loopholes so the effective tax rate is ludicrously lower than that with some corporations paying no tax at all and/or receiving government subsidies.
We will publish all opinions and draw some conclusions. —Eds.
Welch: Obama on right path, but GOP still better
CBS News This Morning [Transcript follows] Watch Jack Welch’s full interview in the video player below.
(CBS News)
Former General Electric CEO Jack Welch says President Barack Obama is moving in the right direction on corporate taxes and there’s “no question the economy is picking up,” but he will still support whoever wins the Republican nomination in November’s general election.
Appearing on “CBS This Morning,” Welch said that Mr. Obama is “clearly” on the right path in terms of corporate tax policy and “as long as they go in this direction, it’s all good.” Still, he doesn’t anticipate anything concrete happening on corporate taxes in an election year. Read more…
Something rather curious has been happening recently. Leading politicians, Tory, Lib Dem and Labour, have started talking about capitalism. It has happened before, but not for some time and then, referring to some particularly egregious example of corporate malfeasance, terms such as the “unacceptable face of capitalism” were used. Tory prime minister Edward Heath coined the phrase in 1973 to describe the activities of Lonrho chief executive Tiny Rowlands who had broken sanctions against the white racist Smith government of Rhodesia. Later, in 2004, Jim O’Donnell, managing director of BMW applied it to five directors of Phoenix Venture Holdings, the parent company of GM Rover, who had pocketed more than £16 million, even though the company had lost £89 million. The chairman and vice chairman were accused by Martin O’Neill, chairman of the Commons Trade and Industry Select Committee, of using “financial sleight of hand” to line their own pockets and of failing to exercise good corporate governance.
LEFT: Tory PM Edward Heath’s “unacceptable face of capitalism” has now become the normal face of capitalism. Maybe there never was any other. Read more…
Syria: Pro-government rally. They are usually discounted or omitted from mainstream reporting. -
For nearly a year, externally generated violence wracked Syria. Dirty Western hands planned and implemented it. Rogue regional despots were enlisted for support. Replacing an independent regime with a pro-Western one and isolating Iran are planned. Russia and China thwarted two Security Council resolutions designed to facilitate intervention.
On February 16, a non-binding Arab League General Assembly resolution passed with similar language. Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states backed it. Pressure’s building for escalated anti-Assad measures. Sooner or later expect intervention, perhaps war. At issue is isolating Iran, then targeting the Islamic Republic. Replicating 1953 in some form’s coming, perhaps more war that may involve Russia and China defending their interests. Read more…
by Stephen Lendman, SENIOR CONTRIBUTING EDITOR “Entrapment is…manufactured to manipulate fear and justify America’s global war on terrorism. Nearly always, Muslims are charged. It’s part of America’s war on Islam.”
Incarcerated Muslims. Minorities continue to constitute the overwhelming majority of prisoners. -
With around 2.4 million incarcerated, America has by far the world’s largest prison system. Two-thirds in it are Black or Latino.
Most held are non-violent. Over half are for drug related charges. Around 75% are Blacks or Latinos. On all charges, many are persecuted political prisoners.
In her book titled, “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness,” Michelle Alexander called today’s Jim Crow a modern-day elitist-designed racial caste system. Believing poor Blacks (and Latinos) are dangerous and economically superfluous, America’s gulag became an instrument of social control. According to Alexander:
“Any movement to end mass incarceration must deal with (it) as a racial caste system, not (a method) of crime control. We need an effective system of crime prevention and control in our communities, but that is not what the current system is. (It’s) better designed to create crime, and a perpetual class of people labeled criminals, rather than to eliminate crime or reduce the number of criminals.” Read more…
If you’re one of the estimated 14 million American homeowners stuck with negative home equity or struggling to make your mortgage payments, you may have cheered the recent news of a national mortgage foreclosure settlement,thinking that help has finally arrived. And it has…kind of. Unfortunately, it probably won’t help you.
In an attempt to make voters believe it can be “tough” on Wall Street, the Obama administration is promoting the approximately $25 billion national mortgage foreclosure settlement between the attorneys general of 49 states and the nation’s five largest banks as a significant accomplishment. The settlement is purported to provide substantial help for homeowners, while holding banks accountable for their past crimes related to the mortgage crisis and preventing similar illegal actions in future. In reality, the settlement is nothing more than an election year publicity stunt, savings and opportunities for investors and a “get out of jail really, really cheap” card for Wells Fargo, Citigroup, Ally Financial/GMAC, JP Morgan Chase and Bank of America [BofA]. Read more…
First in a series prepared by Eric Schechter “The world is changing quickly, and we need to help steer it according to our shared values — our vision of what might be.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR “Imagine no possessions.” I’m just like John Lennon, except without the talent.
I’m single and heterosexual, or maybe asexual. I might consider taking a partner if I found a woman who is perfect for me, if such a thing is possible. Women who want to know more about that can look at either of
I recently retired from teaching advanced mathematics. At the age of 55 I finally saw what most people know at age 10: that the most important questions in our lives are not mathematical. Even in economics, the math is just window-dressing and quantification; the most basic ideas contain virtually no math. And the most important question of all is, how can we all learn to live in peace together? No math in that at all. Read more…
By Alejandro López, WSWS.ORG, a socialist organization Thank you, WSWS.ORG
A casualty of the Valencia clashes.
Hundreds of thousands of workers demonstrated in 57 Spanish cities on Sunday against the latest labour reform passed by the right wing Popular Party (PP).
The demonstrations were called by the main trade unions, Comisiones Obreras (Workers Commissions—CC.OO) and Unión General de Trabajadores (General Union of Workers—UGT).
In Madrid an estimated 110,000 protestors took the streets according to El País, while the unions put the figure at 500,000. In Barcelona the same newspaper estimated 100,000 protestors and the unions 400,000. Demonstrations in Saragossa, Gijón, Seville, Gerona, Murcia, León, Toledo, Pamplona and Tarragona were sizable. Read more…
Tactics & Strategies— The Black Panther Party Militancy made BPP big, not community activities
Veteran activist Joost Van Steenis questions the reformist path for Occupy. Is he right? Do reforms have a legitimate role in the Occupy protest movement?
By Joost Van Steenis
The fast rise and decline of the Black Panther movement. After the murder of Malcolm X in 1965 the BPP was founded in Oakland and reached its peak in 1969 with 10.000 members and a newspaper circulation of 250.000. The first action point was the militant defence of blacks by wearing black clothing and showing loaded guns. The State Assembly Chamber in Sacramento was invaded in 1967 by armed members when the Party was still fairly small. The Party had a list of ten demands to promote the situation of blacks in the USA as decent housing and education, freedom for black prisoners, against police brutality, etc.
Only after the decline the Party started in 1971 with community activities and later got involved in electoral policies. Reform tactics and community activities did not stop the decline and in 1980 the party had virtually disappeared. Read more…
Revolutionary Violence vs Institutionalized Violence
"There were two 'Reigns of Terror,' if we could but remember and consider it; the one wrought murder in hot passions, the other in heartless cold blood; the one lasted mere months, the other had lasted a thousand years; the one inflicted death upon a thousand persons, the other upon a hundred million; but our shudders are all for the "horrors" of the minor Terror, the momentary Terror, so to speak; whereas, what is the horror of swift death by the axe compared with lifelong death from hunger, cold, insult, cruelty and heartbreak? A city cemetery could contain the coffins filled by that brief terror that we have all been so diligently taught to shiver at and mourn over; but all France could hardly contain the coffins filled by that older and real Terror - that unspeakable bitter and awful Terror which none of us has been taught to see in its vastness or pity as it deserves..." —Mark Twain, writing about the French Revolution.
Make creeps like Kissinger
and Palin miserable.
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