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avivajazz jazzaviva

Homemade Prosperity by Shannon Hayes - YES! Magazine - 0 views

www.yesmagazine.org/...homemade-prosperity

radical homemaking

shared by avivajazz jazzaviva on 28 Jul 12 - Cached
  • avivajazz jazzaviva on 28 Jul 12
     
    "Caught in the consumer trap? Radical Homemaker Shannon Hayes discovered that producing what she needs at home lets her live on a fraction of what she thought she needed. "
avivajazz jazzaviva

Bailout for the People || Basic Income Guarantees || Cancerous Monetary System in USA - 0 views

dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/...-cook-plan-by-richard-c-cook-2

cook plan economy depression recession economics economic crisis income poverty wealth production disparities inequalities basic income guarantee

shared by avivajazz jazzaviva on 15 Oct 09 - Cached
  • avivajazz jazzaviva on 15 Oct 09
     
    Isn't it fiinally time to enact a "basic income guarantee"? The lack of individual and family income security in the midst of a highly-developed economy is a travesty under any circumstances. But the contradiction of "poverty in the midst of plenty" that has plagued the world since the start of the Industrial Revolution is becoming much more grave in the U.S. and abroad. The problem, of course, is one of distribution of earnings, and excess production capacity relative to available income... Winston Churchill gave eloquent testimony to this conundrum of the modern age when delivering the Romanes Lecture at Oxford University on June 19, 1930. This was a few months after the crash of the U.S. stock market marked the start of the Great Depression. Churchill said: "Who would have thought that it would be easier to produce by toil and skill all the most necessary or desirable commodities than it is to find consumers for them? Who would have thought that cheap and abundant supplies of all the basic commodities would find the science and civilization of the world unable to utilize them? Have all our triumphs of research and organization bequeathed us only a new punishment: the Curse of Plenty? Are we really to believe that no better adjustment can be made between supply and demand? Yet the fact remains that every attempt has failed. Many various attempts have been made, from the extremes of Communism in Russia to the extremes of Capitalism in the United States. They include every form of fiscal policy and currency policy. But all have failed, and we have advanced little further in this quest than in barbaric times. Surely it is this mysterious crack and fissure at the basis of all our arrangements and apparatus upon which the keenest minds throughout the world should be concentrated.
ken meece

Think Again: God - By Karen Armstrong | Foreign Policy - 1 views

www.foreignpolicy.com/...god_0

ReadItLater

shared by ken meece on 19 Oct 09 - Cached
  • An inadequate understanding of God that reduces “him” to an idol in our own image who gives our likes and dislikes sacred sanction is the worst form of spiritual tyranny. Such arrogance has led to atrocities like the Crusades. The rise of secularism in government was meant to check this tendency, but secularism itself has created new demons now inflicting themselves on the world.
  • In the West, secularism has been a success, essential to the modern economy and political system, but it was achieved gradually over the course of nearly 300 years, allowing new ideas of governance time to filter down to all levels of society. But in other parts of the world, secularization has occurred far too rapidly and has been resented by large sectors of the population,
  • Shiism had for centuries separated religion from politics as a matter of sacred principle, and Khomeini’s insistence that a cleric should become head of state was an extraordinary innovation.
  • ...18 more annotations...
  • In the same spirit, Hassan al-Banna (1906-1949), founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, began his movement by translating the social message of the Koran into a modern idiom, founding clinics, hospitals, trade unions, schools, and factories that gave workers insurance, holidays, and good working conditions. In other words, he aimed to bring the masses to modernity in an Islamic setting. The Brotherhood’s resulting popularity was threatening to Egypt’s secular government, which could not provide these services.
  • John F. Kennedy and Barack Obama have invoked faith as a shared experience that binds the country together -- an approach that recognizes the communal power of spirituality without making any pretense to divine right.
  • it is not God or religion but violence itself -- inherent in human nature -- that breeds violence. As a species, we survived by killing and eating other animals; we also murder our own kind. So pervasive is this violence that it leaks into most scriptures, though these aggressive passages have always been balanced and held in check by other texts that promote a compassionate ethic based on the Golden Rule
  • "religious" wars, no matter how modern the tools, always begin as political ones.
  • In recent Gallup polling conducted in 35 Muslim countries, only 7 percent of those questioned thought that the September 11 attacks were justified. Their reasons were entirely political.
  • Fundamentalism is not conservative. Rather, it is highly innovative -- even heretical -- because it always develops in response to a perceived crisis. In their anxiety, some fundamentalists distort the tradition they are trying to defend.
  • All fundamentalism -- whether Jewish, Christian, or Muslim -- is rooted in a profound fear of annihilation.
  • The Bible and the Koran may have prohibited usury, but over the centuries Jews, Christians, and Muslims all found ways of getting around this restriction and produced thriving economies. It is one of the great ironies of religious history that Christianity, whose founder taught that it was impossible to serve both God and mammon, should have produced the cultural environment that, as Max Weber suggested in his 1905 book, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, was integral to modern capitalism.
  • the religious critique of excessive greed is far from irrelevant. Although not opposed to business, the major faith traditions have tried to counterbalance some of the abuses of capitalism. Eastern religions, such as Buddhism, by means of yoga and other disciplines, try to moderate the aggressive acquisitiveness of the human psyche. The three monotheistic faiths have inveighed against the injustice of unevenly distributed wealth
  • Religion is not simply a matter of subscribing to a set of obligatory beliefs; it is hard work, requiring a ceaseless effort to get beyond the selfishness that prevents us from achieving a more humane humanity.
  • in their rebellion against the modern ethos, fundamentalists tend to overemphasize traditional gender roles. Unfortunately, frontal assaults on this patriarchal trend have often proven counterproductive.
  • But their reading of scripture is unprecedentedly literal. Before the modern period, few understood the first chapter of Genesis as an exact account of the origins of life; until the 17th century, theologians insisted that if a biblical text contradicted science, it must be interpreted allegorically.
  • Ironically, it was the empirical emphasis of modern science that encouraged many to regard God and religious language as fact rather than symbol, thus forcing religion into an overly rational, dogmatic, and alien literalism.
  • What has alienated many Muslims from the democratic ideal is not their religion but Western governments’ support of autocratic rulers, such as the Iranian shahs, Saddam Hussein, and Hosni Mubarak, who have denied people basic human and democratic rights.
  • a 2006 Gallup poll revealed that 46 percent of Americans believe that God should be the source of legislation.
  • A fatwa is not universally binding like a papal edict; rather, it simply expresses the opinion of the mufti who issues it. Muslims can choose which fatwas they adopt and thus participate in a flexible free market of religious thought, just as Americans can choose which church they attend.
  • Religion should be studied with the same academic impartiality and accuracy as the economy, politics, and social customs of a region, so that we learn how religion interacts with political tension, what is counterproductive, and how to avoid giving unnecessary offense.
  • In the Middle East, overly aggressive secularization has sometimes backfired, making the religious establishment more conservative, or even radical.
avivajazz jazzaviva

Monsanto's Harvest of Fear | Politics | Vanity Fair - 0 views

www.vanityfair.com/...monsanto200805

monsanto background history

shared by avivajazz jazzaviva on 18 Dec 11 - Cached
  • Monsanto developed G.M. seeds that would resist its own herbicide, Roundup, offering farmers a convenient way to spray fields with weed killer without affecting crops. Monsanto then patented the seeds. For nearly all of its history the United States Patent and Trademark Office had refused to grant patents on seeds, viewing them as life-forms with too many variables to be patented.
  • in 1980 the U.S. Supreme Court, in a five-to-four decision, turned seeds into widgets, laying the groundwork for a handful of corporations to begin taking control of the world’s food supply. In its decision, the court extended patent law to cover “a live human-made microorganism.”
  • So far, the company has produced G.M. seeds for soybeans, corn, canola, and cotton. Many more products have been developed or are in the pipeline, including seeds for sugar beets and alfalfa.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • marketing an artificial growth hormone for cows that increases their output, and it is taking aggressive steps to put those who don’t want to use growth hormone at a commercial disadvantage.
  • It’s estimated that Monsanto seeds now account for 90 percent of the U.S. production of soybeans, which are used in food products beyond counting.
avivajazz jazzaviva

Is Safe Offshore Oil Drilling Possible? Ask Norway. It Has a Great Safety Record - 0 views

www.dailykos.com/...-for-Night-Owls:-Safe-Drilling

oil offshore-oil-drilling safety Norway nationalized privatized socialized corporatocracy fraud corruption oilspill

shared by avivajazz jazzaviva on 04 May 10 - Cached
  • avivajazz jazzaviva on 04 May 10
     
    If anyone still believes we must drill, baby, drill offshore -- aside from Bill Kristol, that is, who wants to sink wells even closer to precious coastal wetlands -- then perhaps it is time to consider again the potential benefits of nationalization. After all, there is one country that has established an unrivaled record for environmental safety while exploiting its offshore petroleum reserves. That would be Norway, which created the company now known as Statoil Hydro as a fully state-owned entity and still controls nearly two-thirds of the company's "privatized" shares.
avivajazz jazzaviva

A way out of our dysfunctional politics - The Washington Post - 0 views

www.washingtonpost.com/...gIQATEQcQI_story.html

politics washington dysfunctional reform congress legislative executive

shared by avivajazz jazzaviva on 31 Jul 11 - No Cached
  • avivajazz jazzaviva on 31 Jul 11
     
    we can change the incentives that produce demonstrably bad government in Washington. We are not condemned to have a political system whose chief characteristics are venom, dysfunction and paralysis.
Anne Hulthen

How JFK Fathered The Modern Presidential Campaign : NPR - 0 views

www.npr.org/...-modern-presidential-campaigns

shared by Anne Hulthen on 09 May 14 - No Cached
  • "In 1960, when he ran for the presidency, first of all, if he won, he was going to be the youngest man ever elected to the White House," Dallek says. "Secondly, he was going to be the first Catholic, so there was something fresh and new, and this is what he spun out in the campaign. He called his potential administration the 'new frontier,' and he said the torch was being passed to a new generation."
    • Anne Hulthen
      Anne Hulthen on 09 May 14
       
      Novelty. The media loves an underdog and Kennedy used this to his advantage. His Youth and "Catholicism" also played in to the imaginations of Americans. Did they want to see themselves as different and unique, American culture as accepting and permissive? Did this reflect American values or is it merely the novelty?
  • energetic
    • Anne Hulthen
      Anne Hulthen on 09 May 14
       
      Energy!! This is a big part of the 1960s culture. We were just beginning to enter the age of idealization of American culture. Specifically ambition, intelligence, culture, worldliness and glamour that defined the American dreams of the 1960s. This was a lot different than the 50s which favored conformity and the status quo rather than striving to achieve greatness. Kennedy represented the youthful energy that flowed through the air during the 60s.
  • But when you toss in the rise of television and the way Kennedy harnessed the new medium's power
    • Anne Hulthen
      Anne Hulthen on 09 May 14
       
      One of the first uses of mass media. However's Kennedy's use of this medium reflects the Kennedy's campaigns strategy of Youth and being in touch with the Youth generation. Almost like Obama. This also reflects the 60s which was really the age of Youth and Newness.
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • when Kennedy came across as presidential
  • who was witty, charming, handsome
  • Filmmaker Robert Drew was given up-close access to Kennedy in Wisconsin to produce a documentary
  • JFK also tapped into popular culture to appeal to voters. His ads moved beyond the stodginess of past campaigns. There was no bigger star than Frank Sinatra, who reworked one of his big hits into a JFK jingle:
    • Anne Hulthen
      Anne Hulthen on 09 May 14
       
      Pop culture. This was another big thing in the late 50s, early 60s, the development of pocket change and rapid consumption of culture as a commodity. Perhaps JFK's biggest achievement in his presidential campaign was treating his presidency as a commodity, something he needed to commercialize and sell to the American people. Hence Frank Sinatra, a marketable aspect.
  • "They understood that when you run a campaign like this," Dallek says, "you not only have to present yourself as attractive, appealing, effective, promising, but you also have to show that your opponent has terrible weaknesses, things that you wouldn't want to see in the White House."
  • The Kennedy campaign also featured a strong outreach to Hispanic voters, presenting an ad with the candidate's wife, Jacqueline Kennedy, speaking in Spanish.
    • Anne Hulthen
      Anne Hulthen on 09 May 14
       
      He really courted all demographics of the American population.
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