The Greanville Post —Vol. VII- 2013

Things to consider—

Since early 2011, Obama's been waging proxy war on Syria. Imported death squads masquerade as freedom fighters. The scheme's familiar. It repeats. It reflects US imperialism's dark side. In the 1980s, CIA-recruited mujahideen fighters battled Afghanistan's Soviet occupiers. Ronald Reagan called them "the moral equivalent of our founding fathers." He characterized Contra killers the same way. —Stephen LendmanFor over a century now US ambassadors have acted as fifth columns in the nations they are embedded in, their role chiefly to foster corporate and plutocratic power and coordinate machinations against any truly pro-democratic government.•••••"The dead end identity politics of SF Pride, which sells out a peace hero like Bradley Manning to curry favor with the American ruling class, is what I had in mind. The empire loves your tameness, irrelevance and cowardice, SF Pride. You don’t bother the American ruling class — a five foot two, 105 pound soldier does because he has a conscience and because he didn’t make comfort the guiding principle of his life...." —Randy Shields

TOO MUCH —Chronicles of Inequality [April 8, 2013]

AMERICAN STUDIES, CORPORATE MENTALITY, CORPORATE OWNED PARTIES, INEQUALITY, MEDIA TURDS, PLUTOCRATIC POWER, PLUTOCRATS, POLITICAL ECONOMY Comments Off

Apr 082013

	April 8, 2013
THIS WEEK
President Obama announced last week he’ll be turning back 5 percent of his salary, as a gesture of solidarity with furloughed federal employees. The move will cost the President $20,000 out of his $400,000 annual salary.A few days earlier, news reports revealed that Danaher CEO Larry Culp has become the latest corporate chief exec to join the $100 million club. Culp collected $106.4 million last year. He essentially made more in a day — for running a tech firm — than the President made for the entire year. Continue reading »

Did you like this? Share it:

Wealth Inequality in America

AMERICAN STUDIES, GOVERNMENT CRIMES, GREAT HYPOCRISY, INEQUALITY, POLITICAL ECONOMY Comments Off

Mar 052013

____________________________

Did you like this? Share it:

Masters of Fraud

AMERICAN STUDIES, CORPORATE OWNED PARTIES, CULTURE & CRITICISM, POLITICAL ECONOMY Comments Off

Feb 232013

The Untouchables

by ROB URIE

Lanny Breuer— a typical errand boy for the capitalists

The most telling line from PBS’s Frontline piece ‘The Untouchables,’ on the absence of criminal prosecutions for the large-scale bank lending fraud behind the financial crisis of 2008, came when the head of the Justice Department’s Criminal Enforcement division, Lanny Breuer, voiced his concern that bringing criminal charges might cause thousands of bankers to lose their jobs. This came after voluminous evidence was provided that senior bankers, including former Clinton Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, were culpably aware the mortgage securitization businesses they were running were purchasing, packaging and re-selling trillions of dollars of mortgage loans that were never intended to be paid. It also came after it was known the economic calamity caused by corrupt bankers cost tens of millions of people around the globe their jobs, homes, life savings and all hope for a better future. Continue reading »

Did you like this? Share it:

To Save Social Security, Raise the Minimum Wage

AMERICAN STUDIES, IDEOLOGICAL STRUGGLE, POLITICAL ECONOMY Comments Off

Jan 222013

Salvatore Babones

Social Security is the bedrock entitlement program that directly supports over 56 million Americans. That’s over 18 percent of the population.

If you’re receiving Social Security, you know that Social Security benefits are modest. The average Social Security benefit is just $14,800 per year. In other words, Social Security beneficiaries make just about as much as a full-time minimum wage worker. With retirement savings low and private pensions hard to come by, that’s not much after a lifetime of work.

Social Security is the main source of income for the majority of American retirees, so it’s important that Social Security
The 2012 Social Security Trustees Report predicts that the Social Security retirement trust fund will run dry in 2035.
If Social Security retirement funds are used to make up shortfalls in the Social Security disability programs, that date moves up to 2033.

That’s hardly tomorrow, but it’s close enough to be worth worrying about. Continue reading »

Did you like this? Share it:

OpEds: The Parable of the Frogs

AMERICAN STUDIES, PHILOSOPHY, PLUTOCRATIC POWER, POLITICAL ECONOMY Comments Off

Jan 202013

“Hell is Truth Seen Too Late”
The Parable of the Frogs
by MORRIS BERMAN
One who knows “enough is enough” always has enough.–Tao Te Ching

What does it take to produce large-scale social change? Most historians, if you catch them in an honest moment, will admit that the popular levers of social change, such as education or legislation, are bogus; they don’t really amount to very much. What does make a difference–and then only potentially–is massive systemic breakdown, such as occurred in the United States in the fall of 2008. It was the greatest market crash since 1929, leading to widespread unemployment (something like 18% of the population, in real–as opposed to official–statistics*) and the loss of billions of dollars in retirement savings. In fact, the crash wiped out $11.1 trillion in household wealth, and this is not counting the several trillion lost in stock market investments. Continue reading »

Did you like this? Share it:

The Debt Ceiling Gives the President Enormous Power — He Should Use It

AMERICAN STUDIES, ANNOTATED NEWS, BATTLE OF COMMUNICATIONS, POLITICAL ECONOMY, SICK SOCIETY Comments Off

Jan 122013

by Salvatore Babones, Inequality.org

In theory the federal government will bump up against the debt ceiling in late February or early March. Ever since George Bush’s 2001 tax cuts the government hasn’t collected enough in taxes to cover its obligations. As a result the national debt gets higher and higher every year.

Congress has currently authorized the federal government to borrow no more than $16,394,000,000,000. The government hit that limit on December 31, 2012. With no further ability to borrow money, that means we’re now living on borrowed time. The federal government still has money coming in, so it doesn’t have to stop spending entirely, but like a struggling family it has to start prioritizing which bills to pay. The Treasury Department expects to be able to shift funds around to keep paying all bills through March 1. Continue reading »

Did you like this? Share it:

Older Entries

Many topics to choose from

There’s violence and there’s violence

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.