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thinkahol *

YouTube - The End Of America - 0 views

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    More at http://www.theuptake.org ABOUT THIS VIDEO: President Obama's stimulus package is intended not only to shore up the economy, but the U.S. psyche. The American Dream itself. But what if we euthanize the American Dream? The Uptake wants to hear your voice. Submit your own video "letter to the editor." More information: How to submit a video 1) Have something intelligent to say 2) Record it on a video using your real name. 3) Upload it at www.tubemogul.com using info@theuptake.org as your log in and uptake411 as your password. 4) Send an email to info@theuptake.org telling us about your video. Dennis Trainor, Jr is a regular video contributor to TheUptake.org. He was a writer & media consultant for Dennis Kucinich's 2008 presidential campaign & a 2007 "Best of YouTube" nominee for his work as writer/ performer on "The Hermit with Davis Fleetwood." He is currently at work on two books: "My Progressive Dilemma" (chronicling President Obama's 1st year in office) and a novel adapted from his play, "I Coulda Been a Kennedy." Contact: dennistrainorjr (at) gmail (dot) com
thinkahol *

How Corporations Buy Congress | BuzzFlash.org - 0 views

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    With the November elections quickly approaching, the majority of  Americans will be thinking one thing: "Who cares?" This apathy isn't due  to ignorance, as some accuse. Rather, working people's disinterest in  the two party system implies intelligence: millions of people understand  that both the Democrats and Republicans will not represent their  interests in Congress.  This begs the question: Whom does the two party system work for? The  answer was recently given by the mainstream The New York Times, who  gave the nation an insiders peek on how corporations "lobby" (buy)  congressmen. The article explains how giant corporations - from  Wall-mart to weapons manufacturers - are planning on shifting their  hiring practices for lobbyists, from Democratic to Republican  ex-congressmen in preparation for the Republicans gaining seats in the  upcoming November elections: "Lobbyists, political consultants and recruiters all say that the  going rate for Republicans - particularly current and former House staff  members - has risen significantly in just the last few weeks, with  salaries beginning at $300,000 and going as high as $1million for  private sector [corporate lobbyist] positions." (September 9, 2010) Congressmen who have recently retired make the perfect lobbyists:  they still have good friends in Congress, with many of these friends  owing them political favors; they have connections to foreign Presidents  and Kings; and they also have celebrity status that gives good PR to  the corporations. Often, these congressmen have done favors for the corporation that  is now hiring them, meaning, that the corporations are rewarding the  congressmen for services rendered while in office, offering them million  dollar lobbyist jobs (or seats on the corporate board of directors)  that requires little to no work.  The same New York Times article revealed that the pay for 13,000  lobbyists currently bribing Congress is a combined $3.5 bil
thinkahol *

t r u t h o u t | Iraq: The Age of Darkness - 0 views

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    In the immediate aftermath of the 2003 invasion, the triumphalist verdict of the mainstream media was that the war had been won; Iraq was assured of a benevolent, democratic future. The Times's writer William Rees-Mogg hymned the victory: "April 9, 2003 was Liberty Day for Iraq … It was achieved by "the engine of global liberation," the United States. "After 24 years of oppression, three wars and three weeks of relentless bombing, Baghdad has emerged from an age of darkness. Yesterday was an historic day of liberation."
Matthew Davis

ColdType - Writing Worth Reading From Around The World - 0 views

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    Many writers on globalisation and anti-war critiques, all in one handy reader! Now Coldtype has a master index. The files come as PDF, very neat.
thinkahol *

YouTube - Peak Oil and a Changing Climate - 0 views

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    The scientific community has long agreed that our dependence on fossil fuels inflicts massive damage on the environment and our health, while warming the globe in the process. But beyond the damage these fuels cause to us now, what will happen when the world's supply of oil runs out? In a new video series from The Nation magazine and On The Earth Productions, Bill McKibben, Noam Chomsky, Nicole Foss, Richard Heinberg and other scientists, researchers and writers explain. Visit TheNation.com for more videos in this series.
thinkahol *

Peak Oil and a Changing Climate | The Nation - 0 views

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    Peak Oil is the point at which petroleum production reaches its greatest rate just before going into perpetual decline. In "Peak Oil and a Changing Climate," a new video series from The Nation and On The Earth productions, radio host Thom Hartmann explains that the world will reach peak oil within the next year if it hasn't already. As a nation, the United States reached peak oil in 1974, after which it became a net oil importer. Bill McKibben, Noam Chomsky, Nicole Foss, Richard Heinberg and the other scientists, researchers and writers interviewed throughout "Peak Oil and a Changing Climate" describe the diminishing returns our world can expect as it deals with the consequences of peak oil even as it continues to pretend it doesn't exist. These experts predict substantially increased transportation costs, decreased industrial production, unemployment, hunger and social chaos as the supplies of the  fuels on which we rely dwindle and eventually disappear. Chomsky urges us to anticipate the official response to peak oil based on how corporations, news organizations and other institutions have responded to global warming: obfuscation, spin and denial. James Howard Kunstler says that we cannot survive peak oil unless we "come up with a consensus about reality that is consistent with the way things really are." This documentary series hopes to help build that consensus. Click here to watch the introductory video, and check back here for new videos each Wednesday.
thinkahol *

Are We Running Out of Oil? | The Nation - 0 views

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    The scientific community has long agreed that our dependence on fossil fuels inflicts massive damage on the environment and our health, while warming the globe in the process. But beyond the damage these fuels cause to us now, what will happen when the world's supply of oil runs out? In a new video series from The Nation and On The Earth Productions, Bill McKibben, Noam Chomsky, Nicole Foss, Richard Heinberg and other scientists, researchers and writers explain. Go here to learn more about "Peak Oil and a Changing Climate," and to see the other videos in the series.
thinkahol *

GRITtv » Blog Archive » Chris Hedges: The World As it Is - 0 views

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    "You can't sustain a democracy in an oligarchic state. The writers on Athenian democracy understood that 2000 years ago," says Chris Hedges, whose new book The World As It Is: Dispatches on the Myth of Human Progress explores the problems of a crumbling empire, inside and out. Chris joins Laura in studio for a conversation about the death of Bin Laden and the continuing concern over terrorism, the end of empathy in the U.S., and what avenues are left for progressives to fight back.  "The elites are not going to help us," he warns, "We're going to have to help ourselves."
thinkahol *

YouTube - Economic Hitman reveals shocking truths about the Government - 0 views

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    Economist and writer John Perkins was deeply involved in Washington's economic schemes to create a global empire. Now he tells RT what's come out of it - and who really controls the world's biggest economy.
thinkahol *

Economic Scene; If taxes were lower, the economy would grow faster, right? Economists s... - 0 views

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    AS Election Day approaches, serious discussion about economic policies is hamstrung by the devotion of both parties to reducing taxes. The big reason, of course, is that President Bush emphasizes tax cuts, including elimination of the estate tax, to the exclusion of almost everything else. The Democrats, in turn, hesitate to propose an economic plan that does not include long-term reductions for middle-income workers, and most refuse to talk about rescinding the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy. But the degree of misleading information emanating from both Washington and the media about how taxes affect the economy is disturbing. As I listen to the radio, watch TV news and read a variety of newspapers, it seems that quite a few Americans, including economics writers and media hosts, think that low-tax countries unquestionably grow faster than high-tax economies. Right and left, they seem to attribute more rapid growth in America to lower taxes. What may surprise them is that there is no evidence for that. ''You can make a theoretical case that high taxes impede economic growth, but it is just not supported by the evidence in the U.S. or across countries,'' said William Easterly, a former World Bank economist soon to join the faculty of New York University.
thinkahol *

What is Debt? - An Interview with Economic Anthropologist David Graeber « nak... - 0 views

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    David Graeber currently holds the position of Reader in Social Anthropology at Goldsmiths University London. Prior to this he was an associate professor of anthropology at Yale University. He is the author of 'Debt: The First 5,000 Years' which is available from Amazon. Interview conducted by Philip Pilkington, a journalist and writer based in Dublin, Ireland.
The Ravine / Joseph Dunphy

John Bolton at CPAC: The Benefits of Nuking Chicago | Mother Jones - 0 views

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    Interesting how the warhead seems to be going off on the campus of Columbia College. I guess the bad guys are going to bring us to out knees by cutting off the supply of fashion illustrators and fiction writers? Those fiends! We would have never seen it coming. If you're read my stuff, you know exactly what I think of the Bush administration and how happy I was to see it leave Washington. I like a good neocon bash maybe even more than the next man. But, while this take on Bolton's remarks has been a popular one, I don't feel it's a reasonable one. As the article itself quotes Mr.Bolton "The fact is on foreign policy I don't think President Obama thinks it's a priority," said Bolton. "He said during the campaign he thought Iran was a tiny threat. Tiny, tiny depending on how many nuclear weapons they are ultimately able to deliver on target. Its, uh, its tiny compared to the Soviet Union, but is the loss of one American city" - here Bolton changes his tone subtly to prepare for the joke - "pick one at random - Chicago - is that a tiny threat?" Yes, there's a joke in that remark, but it's not the one that Jonathan Stein of Mother Jones wants it to be. The point of the joke is that if even one city gets hit, that's somebody's home and to that somebody, the difference between a vast nuclear arsenal and a small one isn't going to matter much. By naming the president's hometown in the hypothetical, he invites the president to put himself in the shoes of that person left facing a detonation close at hand. We don't have to guess how Obama would feel about such a prospect; it's the same way anybody would feel about it. To suggest, as the author does, that the audience validated a hope for mass murder by laughing at the joke is a disingenuous attempt to produce a hysterical response for the political gain of an already victorious faction. It's a cheap shot, and the author should have known better. This makes the Bush Administration and neoconservatism look bett
thinkahol *

Tim Harford: Trial, error and the God complex | Video on TED.com - 0 views

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    Economics writer Tim Harford studies complex systems -- and finds a surprising link among the successful ones: they were built through trial and error. In this sparkling talk from TEDGlobal 2011, he asks us to embrace our randomness and start making better mistakes.
thinkahol *

‪Gladwell on Income Inequality: We're Off the Rails‬‏ - YouTube - 0 views

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    Complete Premium video at: http://fora.tv/conference/new_yorker_festival_2010 Best-selling author Malcolm Gladwell discusses America's dramatically changing notions of wealth and income inequality since the mid-20th century. Gladwell notes that top-earning Americans faced a 91% income tax rate during most of the 1950s. "What's amazing is that, if you even bring this up now, people don't believe you," he says. ----- This excerpt was taken from a program titled "The Magical Year 1975," featuring Malcolm Gladwell. It was recorded in collaboration with the New Yorker Festival, on October 3, 2010. Malcolm Gladwell has been a staff writer at The New Yorker since 1996. He is the author of, most recently, "What the Dog Saw: And Other Adventures," and the Times best-selling books "The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference," "Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking," and "Outliers: The Story of Success."
thinkahol *

Naomi Wolf: How I was arrested at Occupy Wall Street | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk - 0 views

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    Arresting a middle-aged writer in an evening gown for peaceable conduct is a far cry from when America was a free republic
anonymous

قومی سلامتی پالیسی کیلئے سول ملٹری تضادات کا خاتمہ کیسے ممکن ہو گا؟ | ہم شہری - 0 views

  • ’کرنا یا نہ کرنا ایسا سوال نہیں جس پر سمجھوتا کیا جا سکے، یا تو آپ کرتے ہیں یا نہیں کرتے۔‘‘ گولڈا مئیر
  • ۔اب بھی کسی نے یہ نہیں بتایا کہ ہم اچھے اور برے طالبان کے منحوس چکر سے نکلے ہیں یا نہیں؟
  • کیا ان ظالمان کی جڑیں اس پالیسی میں نہیں ہیں جو ہم نے کئی دہائیاں قبل اپنائی تھی؟ ایک ایسی پالیسی جس میں مرکزی اہمیت ہمسایہ ممالک کو حاصل تھی۔ اب وہ وقت نہیں آ گیا کہ ایک ایسی پالیسی اپنائی جائے جس کا مرکز پاکستان ہو۔
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • یہ نہ صرف اس بد نصیب ملک کے لیے اچھا ہو گا بلکہ خطے کا امن بھی اسی پالیسی سے وابستہ ہے۔
  • عسکری خفیہ اداروں کو بھی یہ حقیقت مان لینی چاہیے کہ وہ اکیلے قومی سلامتی کے تمام امور کی دیکھ بھال نہیں کر سکتے۔
  • خصوصی حالات خصوصی قوانین کے متقاضی ہوتے ہیں۔
  • پنڈی اور اسلام آباد میں میٹرو بس کے لیے تو پیسے ہیں لیکن ملک میں انٹیلی جنس کے نظام کو مربوط بنانے کے لیے ادارے کی تشکیل کے لیے درکار پیسے نہیں ہیں
  • ان کی ’’دانش‘‘ اور ’’سیاسی بصیرت‘‘ سے بین کرتی ماؤں کے آنسوؤں کی اہمیت یقیناًزیادہ ہے۔
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    The magnanimity of this incidence is such that it has shaken the conscious of Pakistani nation. Writer has commented on such topic which normally is forbidden to be discussed by security establishment.The rise of terrorism in Pakistan is synonymous to a proverb "as you sow,so shall you reap" . Pakistan supported terrorist forces to destabilize other regional neighboring countries by using these forces as its proxies.Now those elements are targeting Pakistan itself. In this regard, security forces are facing the same forces which they cherished and supported.
Levy Rivers

Writers praise Barack Obama's inaugural address - long on plot - stood on shoulders - 0 views

  • Long on plot (and it will thicken), it did what literature does best: the backward glance, the standing on shoulders, the salute to ancestors and other sources of wisdom.
  • He is our first (in the best sense of the word) aristocratic president," author and journalist Malcolm Gladwell told The Times. "Bush was a buddy. Clinton was the kindly uncle. Obama is a prince."
  • Some, like memoirist Patricia Hampl, praised Obama's plain speaking. "I was glad," she said, "that he denied himself rhetorical flourishes and gave a speech as refined and restrained in its power so that political language itself was restored to its greatest value -- saying what the speaker means."
Ahmad Al-Shagra

Saddam is Hanged for His Crimes, Who will Hang Bush/Blair for Theirs? - 0 views

  • Rumsfeld's famous hand shake with Saddam provides the proof on tha
    • Ahmad Al-Shagra
       
      Ridiculous misinterpretation to back such a statement
  • Saddam was originally a CIA man recruited to assassinate the previous Iraqi president Abdel-Karim Qassem
    • Ahmad Al-Shagra
       
      First time I hear this one, also not substantiated with references, this article should be in the science-fiction section
    • Jin Jirrie
       
      http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article2849.htm Info on Saddam's relationship with the CIA
  • his war of aggression against Iran
    • Ahmad Al-Shagra
       
      From this I can safely say a Pro-Iran biased writer is the author
    • Jin Jirrie
       
      Iraq invaded Iran in September 1980 - partly instigated from a border dispute between the 2 countries - Iran was supplying the Kurds with weapons in the border areas. http://www.brucekelly.com/saddam-hussein-iran.html Both countries deployed chem weapons http://www.fas.org/irp/gulf/cia/960702/72566_01.htm The US supported Iraq against Iran. http://www.wsws.org/articles/2004/mar2004/irq8-m29.shtml
    • Jin Jirrie
       
      From a Facebook commentor on the article: "In a secret 1981 memo summing up a trip to the Middle East, then-Secretary of State Alexander Haig wrote: "It was also interesting to confirm that President Carter gave the Iraqis a green light to launch the war against Iran through Prince Fahd" of Jordan." U.S. National Security Adviser Zbigniev Brzezinski met with a Saddam Hussein in July 1980 in... Read More Amman, Jordan, to discuss joint efforts to oppose Iran."
    • Jin Jirrie
       
      From a commentator on the article on Facebook: "In a secret 1981 memo summing up a trip to the Middle East, then-Secretary of State Alexander Haig wrote: "It was also interesting to confirm that President Carter gave the Iraqis a green light to launch the war against Iran through Prince Fahd" of Jordan." U.S. National Security Adviser Zbigniev Brzezinski met with a Saddam Hussein in July 1980 in Amman, Jordan, to discuss joint efforts to oppose Iran."
    • Jin Jirrie
       
      Why doesn't this diigo thingy remove my posts when I tell it too ... grrrrr
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • 700 thousands mostly civilian Iraqis during the last three years of American occupation
    • Ahmad Al-Shagra
       
      actually 6 years, and more than 1,000,000
    • Ahmad Al-Shagra
    • Jin Jirrie
       
      The article refers to the past 3 years - the last estimate by Lancet (as we know the US doesn't count the results of its carnage) was in 2006 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lancet_surveys_of_casualties_of_the_Iraq_War 654,965 to 2006 - so a ballpark for the last 3 years around the 700000 mark is plausible if one accepts the Lancet methodology. http://www.iraqbodycount.org/ OTOH says around 100,000 all told.
  • hundreds of thousands of Iraqis
    • Ahmad Al-Shagra
       
      Millions in Syria Alone
    • Jin Jirrie
       
      Which incident are you referring to here?
    • Jin Jirrie
       
      Death counts from wars - good link is here: http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstat4.htm
  • Saddam is just a "baby" ruthless dictator compared to Bush and Blair.
    • Ahmad Al-Shagra
       
      Is this still an article?
  • when he converted Iraq's reserve funds from Dollars to Euros
    • Ahmad Al-Shagra
       
      This happened in the 21st century, not the 80's, but its agreed on by many that it changed the game
    • Jin Jirrie
       
      Saddam's fatal mistakes of trading oil in euros, not dollars happened twice - In 1999 and in November 2000. http://www.globalpolicy.org/nations/sovereign/dollar/2003/03oil.htm
    • Jin Jirrie
       
      Saddam's fatal mistake of switching to euros from dollars for oil happened in 1999. http://www.globalpolicy.org/nations/sovereign/dollar/2003/03oil.htm
  • that were used to bomb Kurdish Halabja
    • Ahmad Al-Shagra
       
      CIA published a report back in the 80's stating Iraq did not own the Chemical Weapons used in Halabja, yet, coincidently Iran did.
    • Jin Jirrie
       
      Some still dispute the events, yet http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halabja_poison_gas_attack and see discussion.
  • last three years
    • Ahmad Al-Shagra
       
      For the last time, 6 years - not 3
    • Jin Jirrie
       
      Sure - the article refers to the last 3 years though. I can't find any stats that cover the last 3 years death toll, so it's a fuzzy figure to me also.
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