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thinkahol *

Anarchists respond to the London riots - Solidarity Federation | libcom.org - 0 views

libcom.org/...response-london-riots-09082011

Anarchists respond to the London riots - Solidarity Federation | libcom.org

shared by thinkahol * on 14 Aug 11 - No Cached
  • thinkahol * on 14 Aug 11
     
    With media sources blaming "anarchy" for the unfolding violence in London and across England, the North London Solidarity Federation has released the following statement as a response from an anarchist organisation active in the capital.
thinkahol *

Running from Right-Wing Clowns | Consortiumnews - 0 views

consortiumnews.com/...running-from-right-wing-clowns

Running from Right-Wing Clowns | Consortiumnews

shared by thinkahol * on 25 Sep 11 - No Cached
  • thinkahol * on 25 Sep 11
     
    By the late 1970s, there was a serious national debate about the blood-soaked Vietnam War, but then came Ronald Reagan rebranding it a "noble cause" and right-wing accusations against critics who "blame America first," followed by the panicked retreat of everyone wanting to be part of the mainstream, as Phil Rockstroh observes.
Asif Sheeraz

Watch Off The Record - 24th May 2009 - 0 views

www.pkaffairs.com/playshow.asp

shared by Asif Sheeraz on 25 May 09 - Cached
  • Asif Sheeraz on 25 May 09
     
    Siraj Ul Haq (JI), Bashir Ahmad Bilour (Senior Minister NWFP), Syed Faisal Raza Abidi (PPP), Maulana Gul Nasseb Khan (JUI) in fresh episode of Off The Record and Discussing the trend in Pakistan to blame the United States With Kashif Abbasi.
thinkahol *

Billionaire self-pity and the Koch brothers - Glenn Greenwald - Salon.com - 0 views

www.salon.com/...koch

Billionaire self-pity and the Koch brothers - Glenn Greenwald Salon.com

shared by thinkahol * on 28 Mar 11 - No Cached
  • thinkahol * on 28 Mar 11
     
    Since the financial crisis of 2008, one of the most revealing spectacles has been the parade of financial elites who petulantly insist that they are the victims of societal hostility:  political officials heap too much blame on them, public policy burdens them so unfairly, the public resents them, and -- most amazingly of all -- President Obama is a radical egalitarian who is unprecedentedly hostile to business interests.  One particularly illustrative example was the whiny little multi-millionaire hedge fund manager (and CNBC contributor), Anthony Scaramucci, who stood up at an October, 201o, town hall meeting and demanded to know:  "when are we going to stop whacking at the Wall Street pinata?" The Weekly Standard now has a very lengthy defense of -- including rare interviews with -- Charles and David Koch, the libertarian billionaires who fund everything from right-wing economic policy, union-busting, and anti-climate-change advocacy to civil liberties and liberalized social policies -- though far more the former goals than the latter.  In this article one finds the purest and most instructive expression of billionaire self-pity that I think I've ever seen -- one that is as self-absorbed and detached from reality as it destructive.  It's really worth examining their revealed mindset to see how those who wield the greatest financial power (and thus the greatest political power) think of themselves and those who are outside of their class.
Bakari Chavanu

Robert Reich: David Brooks is Dead Wrong About Inequality | Alternet - 0 views

www.alternet.org/...ks-dead-wrong-about-inequality

shared by Bakari Chavanu on 22 Jan 14 - No Cached
  • Such is the case with his New York Times  column last Friday, arguing that we should be focusing on the “interrelated social problems of the poor” rather than on inequality, and that the two are fundamentally distinct.
    • Bakari Chavanu
      Bakari Chavanu on 22 Jan 14
       
      It's the old blame the poor argument.
  • Once the middle class has exhausted all its coping mechanisms – wives and mothers surging into paid work (as they did in the 1970s and 1980s), longer working hours (which characterized the 1990s), and deep indebtedness (2002 to 2008) – the inevitable result is fewer jobs and slow growth, as we continue to experience.
  • Third, America’s shrinking middle class also hobbles upward mobility. Not only is there less money for good schools, job training, and social services, but the poor face a more difficult challenge moving upward because the income ladder is far longer than it used to be, and its middle rungs have disappeared.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • o the contrary, as wealth has accumulated at the top, Washington has reduced taxes on the wealthy, expanded tax loopholes that disproportionately benefit the rich, deregulated Wall Street, and provided ever larger subsidies, bailouts, and tax breaks for large corporations. The only things that have trickled down to the middle and poor besides fewer jobs and smaller paychecks are public services that are increasingly inadequate because they’re starved for money.
Bakari Chavanu

Amazon.com: Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free eBook:... - 0 views

www.amazon.com/...ref=pd_sim_kinc_6

shared by Bakari Chavanu on 03 Oct 09 - No Cached
  • Question: What inspired, or should I say drove, you to write Idiot America? Charles P. Pierce: The germ of the idea came as I watched the extended coverage of the death of Terri Schiavo. I wondered how so many people could ally themselves with so much foolishness despite the fact that it was doing them no perceptible good, politically or otherwise.
  • Question: Is there a specific turning point where, as a country, we moved away from prizing experience to trusting the gut over intellect? Charles P. Pierce: I don't know if there's one point that you can point to and say, “This is when it happened.” The conflict between intellectual expertise and reflexive emotion—often characterized as “good old common sense,” when it is neither common nor sense—has been endemic to American culture and politics since the beginning. I do think that my profession, journalism, went off the tracks when it accepted as axiomatic the notion that “Perception is reality.”
  • Question: What is the most dangerous aspect of Idiot America? Charles P. Pierce: The most dangerous aspect of Idiot America is that it encourages us to abandon our birthright to be informed citizens of a self-governing republic. America cannot function on automatic pilot, and, too often, we don't notice that it has been until the damage has already been done.
  • ...9 more annotations...
  • To this day, we have a political party—the Republicans—who, because it embraced a “movement of Conservatism” that celebrated anti-intellectualism is now incapable of conducting itself in any other way. That has profound political and cultural consequences, and the truly foul part about it was that so many people engaged in it knowing full well they were peddling poison.
  • Charles P. Pierce: Look at the political opposition to President Obama. “Socialist!” “Fascist!” “Coming to get your guns.” Hysteria from the hucksters of Idiot America is still at high-tide. People are killing other people and specifically attributing their action to imaginary oppression stoked by radio talk-show stars and television pundits. That Glenn Beck has achieved the prominence he has makes me wonder if there is a just god in heaven.
  • "Idiot America" is great, informative book about concepts we see everyday. Also, many of the 1-star reviews are likely biased because of some of the political and religious topics noted. I think this book is definitely a full, 5-star book.
  • The author notes "The 3 Great Premises: and applies them to many instances in this book: 1. Any theory is valid if it moves units (rating, and making money). 2. Anything can be true if it is said loudly enough. 3. Fact is what enough people believe (the Truth is what you believe).
  • POLITICAL TALK RADIO: One set of rules noted by a professor studying radio discourse: *Never Be Dull *Embrace willfully ignorant simplicity *The American public is stupid; treat them that way *Always ignore the fact and the public record when it's convenient
  • TELEVISION: "Television is an emotional medium. It's entertainment, not analysis or reasoned discourse."
  • But to someone willing to take the time to read it, this book tells people what practically everyone should know about American politics -- that the American people are being sold a sob story about how experts are an elite that is keeping them from being The Best Damn Nation In The World. (In that regard, one should definitely read "The Paranoid Style In American Politics" by Richard Hofstadter -- it's over four decades old, but saw from the very beginning what has come into full bloom now with the barking lunacy of the American Right.)
  • The main problem with this book is this: the people who are likely to read it already know most of the story, and are mostly getting background information, and the people who won't read it are like the six reviewers I mentioned in my intro -- determined to ignore its stories and insights as "bias" because their politics and faith won't let them look outside the cloister.
  • He lays the blame at the feet of various ideology-driven entities, with special attention given to the same corporate-media war cheerleaders who happily passed on Bush's lies about Iraqi weaponry to a somnolent public, and who, in the name of putting "balance" over reality, treat specious creationist nonsense and hard scientific fact as if both had equal validity. Highly recommended!
David Corking

Replace Police With Spin Doctors « POLICE INSPECTOR BLOG - 0 views

inspectorgadget.wordpress.com/...place-police-with-spin-doctors

Culture

shared by David Corking on 16 Apr 09 - Cached
  • testing an age old theory about what happens when you approach a 6ft riot cop and tell him to fuck off repeatedly?
  • I blame Globalisation. Lets test this theory by choosing six other countries in the world, going over to each country one at a time, walking up to a riot cop and telling him to fuck off repeatedly. Compare injuries on return to UK. If you return to UK.
  • Will this person now be arrested for verbally abusing a Police Officer? If not, why not?
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • canteen culture of the mindless violence of the few backed up by the silence of the many.
  • As an A+E nurse would it be right for me to strike each and every member of the public if and when the became aggressive?
  • The Police should be held to a higher standard than other services, surely you are trained professionals and as such should be able to deal with the provacation in a much more proportional way?
  • it was against their clients human rights to be filmed with out their consent
  • When it’s not practical for you to be arrested because it would take police resources away from the lines then you deserve to get a shove. If you come back, then you deserve to be struck (something home office approved).
  • You ARE PROFESSIONALS and this kind of insta-agression is something that the public could gain at a fraction of the cost from a security guard. No one is denying that being a police officer is a difficult job at times
  • Sadly people are people, maybe he was wrong to hit her, she was maybe wrong for confronting him in the first place. All I can say that is if a uniformed officer tells me not to do something I don’t do it. Full stop.
  • David Corking on 16 Apr 09
     
    Other countries are worse. So? The rest of us would be jailed for assault if we hit someone with a stick in response to extreme provocation.
David Corking

London G20 Police outnumbered and attacked « POLICE INSPECTOR BLOG - 0 views

inspectorgadget.wordpress.com/...2937

Culture

shared by David Corking on 16 Apr 09 - Cached
  • Inappropriate use of force brings with it trouble for the officer who transgresses, as it always did except for the fact that such things were rarely captured on cctv or mini videos - but if they ever show the footage of the anti-Vietnam war Grosvenor Square riot in 1968 you’ll see some stick happy police officer who, ultimately, got the sack
  • Hardly something that should result in the local bobby from an English village being pilloried along with every other officer in the land.
  • I’m-a-citizen-not-a-criminal says that those police who “just stood and watched their colleagues break the law are equally to blame”. The same goes for protesters.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • A whack with the baton on a fleshy part of the body (as taught) ie thigh, calf, upper arm will hurt and sting and maybe bruise. it is a means of control and saying ‘Im in charge’. If the police didnt have these actions in their armoury, what do you think would happen?
  • David Corking on 16 Apr 09
     
    Nasty video of protester brutality
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