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ken meece

AlterNet: Is the Constitution Suited to Today's Church/State Issues? - 0 views

www.alternet.org/...142414

ReadItLater

shared by ken meece on 11 Oct 09 - Cached
  • The government increasingly sees citizens as pastoral-care clients, as persons in need of spiritual care, and I want to describe the law that makes this possible.
  • how religion is being regulated in hospitals and, more generally, how chaplaincies are multiplying in this country: municipal chaplaincies, crisis chaplaincies, hospital chaplaincies, even school and workplace chaplaincies.
  • people are understanding themselves in terms of a new revival of a holistic image of the human being as, in some sense, basically spiritual.
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • It's a next step in the radical disestablishment of religion in this country.
  • The exclusivity of materialist/medicalized understandings of the entire range of human capabilities and experience, as well as ecclesiastical capacity to insist on orthodoxy and particularity, are both fast eroding
  • We have so much religious diversity, and we don't have the history of an established church that can provide a location and an umbrella under which to reinvent ourselves as a multireligious society, as progressive reformers in Britain are trying to do. On the one hand, I want to remind religious folks of that. On the other, I want to say to the secularists that, look, you have lost the game. You didn't provide a language and an understanding of the human person that's adequate. So, to a certain extent, these religious reformers are right. Personal transformation, particularly in Americans' eyes, is understood as something that is spiritual or religious. It's about more than fixing people in an engineering sense. I think that secularists are going to have to make bridges toward these spiritual communities and languages. People get better when they're treated as whole human beings, and religion is one way in which that wholeness is imagined, culturally.
  • We have so much religious diversity, and we don't have the history of an established church that can provide a location and an umbrella under which to reinvent ourselves as a multireligious society, as progressive reformers in Britain are trying to do. On the one hand, I want to remind religious folks of that. On the other, I want to say to the secularists that, look, you have lost the game. You didn't provide a language and an understanding of the human person that's adequate. So, to a certain extent, these religious reformers are right. Personal transformation, particularly in Americans' eyes, is understood as something that is spiritual or religious. It's about more than fixing people in an engineering sense. I think that secularists are going to have to make bridges toward these spiritual communities and languages. People get better when they're treated as whole human beings, and religion is one way in which that wholeness is imagined, culturally.
  • We have so much religious diversity, and we don't have the history of an established church that can provide a location and an umbrella under which to reinvent ourselves as a multireligious society, as progressive reformers in Britain are trying to do. On the one hand, I want to remind religious folks of that. On the other, I want to say to the secularists that, look, you have lost the game. You didn't provide a language and an understanding of the human person that's adequate. So, to a certain extent, these religious reformers are right. Personal transformation, particularly in Americans' eyes, is understood as something that is spiritual or religious. It's about more than fixing people in an engineering sense. I think that secularists are going to have to make bridges toward these spiritual communities and languages. People get better when they're treated as whole human beings, and religion is one way in which that wholeness is imagined, culturally.
  • We have so much religious diversity, and we don't have the history of an established church that can provide a location and an umbrella under which to reinvent ourselves as a multireligious society, as progressive reformers in Britain are trying to do. On the one hand, I want to remind religious folks of that. On the other, I want to say to the secularists that, look, you have lost the game. You didn't provide a language and an understanding of the human person that's adequate. So, to a certain extent, these religious reformers are right. Personal transformation, particularly in Americans' eyes, is understood as something that is spiritual or religious. It's about more than fixing people in an engineering sense. I think that secularists are going to have to make bridges toward these spiritual communities and languages. People get better when they're treated as whole human beings, and religion is one way in which that wholeness is imagined, culturally.
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

Shake your fists, then get real | @Karoli on the "death" of healthcare reform, and my r... - 0 views

www.drumsnwhistles.com/...shake-your-fists-then-get-real

healthcare reform HCR #HCR @karoli @avivao disqus comments blogs politics

shared by avivajazz jazzaviva on 16 Dec 09 - Cached
  • avivajazz jazzaviva on 16 Dec 09
     
    Lots of good points, @Karoli; much to meditate on. Would love clarification on the following comment, though: "Can anyone familiar with history point to any time where a bill has made it this far, been pulled back by proponents, and lived as a stronger version of itself?" How is it a "stronger version of itself?" I don't follow Congressional maneuvers with the same background knowledge or attention to detail that you do; I'm probably missing some key information that would clarify your meaning. Really like your myth-busting data. It's refreshing to see a recap of details that can easily escape us. In some cases, your data gives me a point of departure for further research, so I can come to my own conclusions. Without your article, sorting out the key questions to investigate would be much harder for me. Also, I agree that waiting for a better bill, with so many "people hanging by a thread," is a luxury that only the well-heeled can afford. For many legislators, insulated from financial woes, much of this healthcare debate is about anything and everything except healthcare reform. All that said, I'm obviously an idealist who yearns for global, systemic change. I would want to change the fundamental nature of dance competition's culture, if my daughter were involved. It would be hard for me to keep my eye on the pragmatic truths: deep, systemic change of any cultural institution (socioeconomic, sociocultural, or sociopolitical) is a project for centuries, for eons. It's evolutionary. For today, how does your daughter keep following her passion in a system that's unfair? For today, how do we facilitate efforts to get as many health insurance benefits for the most people in a system that's unjust? I'm not sure I entirely buy your solution―but overall, it's a hell of a lot more practical than the one I was about to employ: sinking into helplessness, hopelessness, and depression... In fact, it's a hell of a lot more idealistic than sinking into despair, too! I fe
Anne Hulthen

Digital History - 0 views

www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm

shared by Anne Hulthen on 05 Sep 13 - No Cached
    • Anne Hulthen
      Anne Hulthen on 05 Sep 13
       
      What was the burden of proof previous? Multiple witnesses, artifacts? It seems like witchcraft is so incorporeal an activity and crime that it would be difficult, if not impossible to prove. Was that the point?
  • The Salem witch scare had complex social roots. It drew upon preexisting rivalries and disputes within the rapidly-growing Massachusetts port town: between urban and rural residents; between wealthier commercially-oriented merchants and subsistence-oriented farmers; and between Congregationalists and other religious denominations: Anglicans, Baptists, and Quakers.
    • Anne Hulthen
      Anne Hulthen on 05 Sep 13
       
      I think in many ways the red scare too was caused by a tension between the new glorified culture "Hollywood" and the old, less taboo culture. The freedom and easiness of the Hollywood life terrified many of the leading politicians who still placed the same value on patriotism, nationalism, and conservative traditions, ideas that the Hollywood and artistic society of the 1950s scoffed at.
  • salem" means peace, and the town's founders had hoped that Salem would be a village of peace. Further, they had drawn the word salem from Jerusalem,
    • Anne Hulthen
      Anne Hulthen on 05 Sep 13
       
      This is similar in many ways to the puritan dream in general, that of creating a Mecca, a new holy land drawing the devout to live together in harmony. However religious fervor, however well intentioned has the tendency to create an atmosphere of intolerance.
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • hoping that this new village would serve as a foundation for a new Jerusalem.
  • "In the depths of every heart, there is a tomb and dungeon, though the lights, the music, the revelry above us may lead us to forget their existence, and the...prisoners whom they hide."
  • The New Englanders are a people of God settled in those, which were once the devil's territories.
  • The devil is now making one attempt more upon us; an attempt more difficult, more surprising, more snarled with unintelligible circumstances than any that we have hitherto encountered; an attempt so critical, that if we get well through, we shall soon enjoy halcyon days, with all the vultures of hell trodden under our feet. He has wanted his incarnate legions to persecute us, as the people of God have in the other hemisphere been persecuted;
  • An army of devils is horribly broke in upon the place which is the center, and after a sort, the firstborn of our English settlements.
  • just suspicion that the demons might impose the shapes of innocent persons in their spectral exhibitions upon the sufferers
  • yea that at prodigious witch meetings the wretches have proceeded so far as to concert and consult the methods of rooting out the Christian religion from this country, and setting up instead of it perhaps a more gross diabolism than ever the world saw before. And yet it will be a thing little short of miracle if, in so spread a business as this, the devil should not get in some of his juggles to confound the discovery of the rest.
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.
avivajazz jazzaviva

Elena Kagan: We Need an Assertive Liberal Counterweight to Scalia ~ Not a Mediator (or ... - 0 views

www.huffingtonpost.com/...hat-we-need----a_b_571133.html

kagen scotus progressives

shared by avivajazz jazzaviva on 11 May 10 - Cached
  • avivajazz jazzaviva on 11 May 10
     
    "What the Court needs right now is someone who will fight for the rights of people who aren't part of the upper crust. What we need to hear is that Elena Kagan knows how to stand firm and doesn't think that compromise is the only way out of disagreement or that making the other side happy no matter how closed minded and belligerent they are is somehow admirable. We've had enough of that lately."
Anne Hulthen

John F. Kennedy and the Press - John F. Kennedy Presidential Library & Museum - 0 views

www.jfklibrary.org/...n-F-Kennedy-and-the-Press.aspx

shared by Anne Hulthen on 09 May 14 - No Cached
  • The public loved John F. Kennedy's press conferences, although some of his advisors worried about the risk of mistakes by the president and others thought the press showed insufficient respect for the dignity of his office
    • Anne Hulthen
      Anne Hulthen on 09 May 14
       
      He's making himself not only seem more relatable but more attainable as though we, ourselves, could become friends with the president. As if we were of his same class and he was speaking to us. Given the aspirational nature of late 50s/ early 60s society, it makes sense that this would be a greatly affective strategy. He was also making himself not only a public figure, but a celebrity. Seen on the screen nearly as often as Cary Grant or Humphrey Bogart.
  • 65 million people
    • Anne Hulthen
      Anne Hulthen on 09 May 14
       
      Here is the example of celebrity and glamour. By presenting himself to the public on his own terms, he therebye marketed himself to them and chose how he would portray himself instead of the media. 18 million watched him on average which is an incredible number. He had some draw that pulled them in, a quintessential thing that made everyone relate to him. Hope? Idealism? Can you commercialize these? Can intangible ideas be marketed?
  • even though we disapprove, there isn't any doubt that we could not
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • President Kennedy helped to significantly enlarge the role of television as a news medium,
  • but he continued to be a voracious consumer of print journalism
  • Oh, yes. No, no, I think it is invaluable, even though it may cause you—it is never pleasant to be reading things that are not agreeable news, but I would say that it is an invaluable arm of the presidency, as a check really on what is going on in the administration, and more things come to my attention that cause me concern or give me information.
    • Anne Hulthen
      Anne Hulthen on 09 May 14
       
      Appears educated and Sophisticated. Perhaps this was another aspect of the Kennedy appeal. Sophistication and Education were really two ideals of modern American life during the 1960s. The whole Kennedy family had this air of sophistication which captured the whole of America. They had this image of royalty. In the 60s, we see the image of the sophisticated family, who all read and discussed politics. America was changing it's image from vulgar to glamorous, Seeking to aquire a culture that the rest of the world always seemed to think we lacked. Kennedy played into our own ego's by presenting himself as a man of the world, ready to promote American intelligence and competence at home and abroad. His wife, Jackie, who spoke French and Spanish, added to this air of worldly appeal.
avivajazz jazzaviva

Informed Comment: Thoughts on the Middle East, History, and Religion, by Juan Cole, Pre... - 0 views

www.juancole.com

politics iraq blogs history war middle-east israel palestine middle-eastern iran terrorism

shared by avivajazz jazzaviva on 16 Sep 09 - Cached
  • avivajazz jazzaviva on 16 Sep 09
     
    Wednesday, September 16, 2009 Goldstone Report Finds Israeli Military Guilty of War Crimes in Gaza The Independent reports that a United Nations fact-finding inquiry has found that Israel committed war crimes during its attack on Gaza last winter, as did the Palestinian Hamas. The lion's share of blame in the report, however, falls on Israeli forces, which stand accused of planning out a disproportionate use of force, the punishing of a civilian population, and reckless disregard for civilian lives-- all of which are war crimes in international law. The report suggests that some Israeli actions may have gone beyond being mere war crimes to being crimes against humanity. The report will go to the UN Human Rights Commission, which will likely accept it. The findings could in theory drag Israeli officials before the World Court in the Hague, though in practice this outcome is highly unlikely. Both the Israeli government and Hamas rejected the report as biased, which is a pretty good indication that it is even-handed.
avivajazz jazzaviva

Sotomayor Issues Challenge to a Century of Corporate Law | WSJ.com - 0 views

online.wsj.com/...SB125314088285517643.html

corporate law corporations rights sotamayor

shared by avivajazz jazzaviva on 18 Sep 09 - Cached
  • avivajazz jazzaviva on 18 Sep 09
     
    Judges "created corporations as persons, gave birth to corporations as persons," she said. "There could be an argument made that that was the court's error to start with...[imbuing] a creature of state law with human characteristics." Heritage Foundation: it "doesn't give me a lot of confidence that she respects the corporate form and the type of rights that it should be afforded."
avivajazz jazzaviva

Corporatism - 0 views

en.wikipedia.org/Corporatism

corporatist corporatism labor labor unions wage restraint civil society

shared by avivajazz jazzaviva on 30 Sep 09 - Cached
  • avivajazz jazzaviva on 30 Sep 09
     
    Critics of capitalism often argue that any form of capitalism would eventually devolve into corporatism, due to the concentration of wealth in fewer and fewer hands. A permutation of this term is corporate globalism. John Ralston Saul argues that most Western societies are best described as corporatist states, run by a small elite of professional and interest groups, that exclude political participation from the citizenry. Corporatism has been supported from various proponents, including: absolutists, conservatives, fascists, progressives, reactionaries, socialists and theologians. In the United States, economic corporatism involving capital-labour cooperation was influential in the New Deal economic program of the United States in the 1930s as well as in Fordism and Keynesianism.[36] In the post-World War II reconstruction period in Europe, corporatism was favoured by Christian democrats, national conservatives, and social democrats in opposition to liberal capitalism.[37] This type of corporatism faded but revived again in the 1960s and 1970s as "neo-corporatism" in response to the new economic threat of stagflation.[38] Neo-corporatism favoured economic tripartism which involved strong and centralized labour unions, employers' unions, and governments that cooperated as "social partners" to negotiate and manage a national economy.[39]
avivajazz jazzaviva

Daily Kos: Open Letter: Call me a BOZO, I'm for Health Reform: UPDATE 4X w/POLL - 0 views

www.dailykos.com/...ealth-Reform:-UPDATE-4X-w-POLL

healthcare healthreform#hcr HCR mandate #passthedamnbill kucinich healthreform

shared by avivajazz jazzaviva on 10 Mar 10 - Cached
  • avivajazz jazzaviva on 10 Mar 10
     
    *I've been very critical of HCR (1+ / 0-)Obama, and the whole process and what appears that the end result will be.  What would be enough for the democrats opposed to the bill to support it? Personally speaking, I recognize that it's never going to be perfect.  But the sticking point is forcing people to buy a product from a private company without any effective cost control measures.  That's it, anything else I can work with. So for me, I would need either the mandate taken out, strict cost regulation added, or a non-profit pulic option added. What about the rest of you? by Skellen on Tue Mar 09, 2010 at 11:59:13 AM PST[ Reply to This | Recommend ] REPLY by .@avivao: Mandate to buy private insurance? (0 / 0)Exactly. A mandate to buy from private insurers (who're already raising rates in advance of the bill's passage--a way of gaming medical loss ratios, etc.) must be counterbalanced by a substantive public plan (Medicare for All or Medicare for More would be the most expeditious way to go, I suspect). Also, the mandate will surely cause suffering "down the road" unless regulation of insurers is actually enforceable. Still, we must pass this #HCR bill, I think. I'm extremely worried about (1) passing it with a unilateral mandate; (2) not passing it because of a unilateral mandate. How did we get trapped like this? What went wrong? Sure; a lot has gone right. I don't deny it. I'm glad. But we're backed into a corner now on passing this health bill. If we don't pass it, the news is very, very bad. If we do pass it, the news is probably very,very bad (for a different constellation of reasons). I say: #PassTheDamnBill. But I'm very disturbed by the potential consequences of doing so. There are many benefits to this bill; I pray that the liabilities don't outweigh them. We'll see. by avivagabriel on Wed Mar 10, 2010 at 11:56:59 AM PST[ Parent | Reply to This ]
avivajazz jazzaviva

Senator Levin: "Your Clients Lost. Goldman Profits" | Kris Broughton | Big Think - 0 views

bigthink.com/19866

goldman-sachs goldman congress investigation banksters fraud corruption politics economy economics

shared by avivajazz jazzaviva on 04 May 10 - Cached
  • avivajazz jazzaviva on 04 May 10
     
    I was tooling around the internet for awhile yesterday, looking for a transcript of the Congressional hearings that featured Goldman Sachs executives and traders as the star witnesses, before I realized that nowhere in print was there any real sense of what had gone on. Congressional hearings may have been effective at some point in the past, but these days, the witnesses are usually far too polished and used to dissembling for hours at a time to be of any real value, and the senators and congressmen who are asking the questions are usually too polite to do more than ask questions of little or no value. Senator Carl Levin tried to deviate from that formula on Tuesday. He was harsh, unyielding and relentless. "Your clients lost. Goldman profits" rang out several times during his opening address. But Senator Levin didn't have enough of an understanding of the business to really pin back the ears of any of the witnesses, including Lloyd Blankfein, Goldman Sachs chairman. I couldn't figure out for the life of me why his staffers didn't line up a few disgruntled traders and insiders to give the senator a three or four day crash course on the business. His gambling analogies were something that might appeal to my grandmother, who puts gambling of any kind up there with the cardinal sins, but missed the mark when it came to characterizing Wall Street's shenanigans.
avivajazz jazzaviva

The Big Bank Lobby: Too Big to Bare? | OurFuture.org - 0 views

ourfuture.org/...big-bank-lobby-too-big-bare

#finreg congress legislation corporatism fraud corruption too-big-to-fail bank-breakup financial-reform regulation deregulation

shared by avivajazz jazzaviva on 11 May 10 - Cached
  • avivajazz jazzaviva on 11 May 10
     
    Clearly, the only thing that limits the power of the banking lobby is the anger of American voters that the very banks that drove the economy over the cliff and were bailed out by taxpayers are now spending lavishly to block reforms needed to insure this doesn't happen again. That popular anger makes legislators reluctant to appear in the banks' pockets in public.
avivajazz jazzaviva

Why Bother With the Constitution? Elena Kagan and Our Constitution : NYTimes.com - 0 views

opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/...y-bother-with-the-constitution

kagen scotus constitution

shared by avivajazz jazzaviva on 11 May 10 - Cached
  • avivajazz jazzaviva on 11 May 10
     
    It's Supreme Court nomination time again, which means that it will soon be nomination hearing time, which means that Elena Kagan will soon be asked how she believes the Constitution should be interpreted. But just in time comes a new book - "The Living Constitution," by David A. Strauss - that tells us not to bother about that question because, odd though it might seem, the Constitution does not play a central role in constitutional interpretation.
avivajazz jazzaviva

Obama Warns Debt Ceiling Should Not Be 'Used As A Gun' To Extract Tax Breaks - Politica... - 0 views

blogs.abcnews.com/...gun-to-extract-tax-breaks.html

obama debt ceiling GOP taxes corporate wealthy hostage jobs economy

shared by avivajazz jazzaviva on 31 Jul 11 - No Cached
  • avivajazz jazzaviva on 31 Jul 11
     
    Speaking at the Twitter Town Hall at the White House today, the president said Congress "shouldn't be toying" with the debt ceiling and cautioned against risking the financial health of the country in order to protect the interests of the super wealthy.   "Never in our history has the United States defaulted on its debt. The debt ceiling should not be something that is used as a gun against the heads of the American people to extract tax breaks for corporate jet owners, for oil and gas companies that are making billions of dollars because the price of gasoline has gone up so high.  I mean, I'm happy to have those debates.  I think the American people are on my side on this," Obama said. The president was adamant that when it comes to fixing the economy and solving the deficit problem "we should go with what works," and that's a tax increase on the wealthy. "If the wealthiest among us -- and I include myself in this category -- are willing to give up a little bit more, then we can solve this problem.  It does not take a lot… when people say, you know, "job-killing tax increases, that's what Obama's proposing," we're not going to," he said. "You're entitled to your own opinions, but not your own facts.  And the facts are that a modest increase for wealthy individuals is not shown to have an adverse impact on job growth." "We can test the two theories.  You had what happened during the '90s.  Right?  Taxes for wealthy individuals were somewhat higher, businesses boomed, the economy boomed, great job growth;  and then the 2000s, when taxes were cut on wealthy individuals, jobs didn't grow as fast, businesses didn't grow as fast. I mean, it's not like we haven't tried what these other folks are pitching.  It didn't work.  And we should go with what works," he said.
avivajazz jazzaviva

The Bipartisan Debt Deal Fact Sheet: A "Victory" For The Republicans, The Democrats And... - 0 views

www.zerohedge.com/...mocrats-and-course-white-house

obama surrender capitulation rightwing debt deal

shared by avivajazz jazzaviva on 01 Aug 11 - No Cached
  • avivajazz jazzaviva on 01 Aug 11
     
    White House Spin on Cave-In: In Securing this Bipartisan Deal, the President Rejected Proposals that Would Have Placed the Sole Burden of Deficit Reduction on Low-Income or Middle-Class Families: The President stood firmly against proposals that would have placed the sole burden of deficit reduction on lower-income and middle-class families. This includes not only proposals in the House Republican Budget that would have undermined the core commitments of Medicare to our seniors and forced tens of millions of low-income Americans to go without health insurance, but also enforcement mechanisms that would have forced automatic cuts to low-income programs. The enforcement mechanism in the deal exempts Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare benefits, unemployment insurance, programs for low-income families, and civilian and military retirement.
avivajazz jazzaviva

Daily Kos: Poverty in America and Class Warfare - 0 views

www.dailykos.com/...y-in-America-and-Class-Warfare

poverty america classwarfare classwar corporatocracy

shared by avivajazz jazzaviva on 24 Aug 11 - No Cached
  • avivajazz jazzaviva on 24 Aug 11
     
    It's intellectually dishonest to have a discussion over the fairness of the tax code and welfare programs without FIRST addressing the inherent inequality of our labor markets, capital markets, access to education, access to the judicial system, access to infrastructure, and intellectual property laws. Fundamentally, if a business leader makes his profits from paying his employees minimum wage at $7.50/hour in an area where a decent livable wage is $15/hour, but where workers have little negotiating leverage and few other options, then it is RIGHT to expect government to tax the business/owner at a high percentage and the workers at a low percentage, and to use tax funds to provide the under-compensated workers with housing and food assistance, as well as other forms of aid. In that scenario, the scenario in which most of our country operates (accounting also for middle-class wage-earners that are under-paid), it is disturbingly unfair to demand that "equality" be applied only at the tax code (even moreso that it only be leveled at the income tax, specifically), as if wealth is earned solely in proportion to some fantastical Randian ideal of personal worth and NOT heavily influenced by real-world power dynamics.
avivajazz jazzaviva

Enlightened Economics: There Is an Alternative - 0 views

www.laprogressive.com/enlightened-economics

capitalism paradigm economy economics

shared by avivajazz jazzaviva on 28 Aug 12 - Cached
  • avivajazz jazzaviva on 28 Aug 12
     
    Both Republicans and Democrats have been explaining that "There Is No Alternative," we need public policies promoting austerity because government is "out of money." The question seems to be not "do we need austerity?" but "will we be austere sooner or austere later?" Meanwhile, the bipartisan consensus is that the government is definitely out of money. But these assertions are at odds with the common knowledge that the U.S. government literally creates its own money. Unlike the euro, the dollar is a sovereign, fiat currency, unconstrained by exchange rates or treaties. And since Nixon closed the gold window, government can issue dollars without waiting for gold or silver mines to provide any backing for them. So we can't possibly be "out of money," any more than the Bureau of Weights and Measures can be "out of inches."
avivajazz jazzaviva

Multi-front fights & the influence machine: Obama & lobbyists who know no limit | "We a... - 0 views

tomdispatch.com/...gton%2520Influence%2520Machine

lobbying lobbyists influence congress whitehouse commerce legislation special-interests

shared by avivajazz jazzaviva on 17 Sep 09 - Cached
  • avivajazz jazzaviva on 17 Sep 09
     
    As of mid-August 2009, there were six (6) lobbyists per single (1) member of House and Senate (Bloomberg News). That's 6:1, folks. Just for healthcare reform. For financial industry reform, there are 2,400 lobbyists in play. The Chamber of Commerce spent $26.2 million--in the first 2 quarters (6 months) of 2009. Clearly, private industries and their foot soldiers on K Street/Capitol Hill influence/dictate American policymaking. No matter who's 'voted in,' it's the influence machine that rules Washington. Worse, there's a good chance that the Supreme Court will grant corporations (as 'fictive persons') to spend unlimited dollars in funding electoral campaigns. Is there hope that this country will be a democracy one day? Or is it doomed to become increasingly, irrevocably plutocratic?
avivajazz jazzaviva

Health-care bill wouldn't bring real reform | Howard Dean | Dec 17, 2009 - 0 views

www.washingtonpost.com/...AR2009121601906.html

healthcare reform HCR #HCR comments politics debate dean howarddean

shared by avivajazz jazzaviva on 17 Dec 09 - Cached
  • avivajazz jazzaviva on 17 Dec 09
     
    "Health-care bill wouldn't bring real reform TOOLBOX Resize Print E-mail Yahoo! Buzz ad_icon COMMENT 248 Comments | View All » POST A COMMENT You must be logged in to leave a comment. Log in | Register Why Do I Have to Log In Again? Log In Again? CLOSE We've made some updates to washingtonpost.com's Groups, MyPost and comment pages. We need you to verify your MyPost ID by logging in before you can post to the new pages. We apologize for the inconvenience. Discussion Policy Your browser's settings may be preventing you from commenting on and viewing comments about this item. See instructions for fixing the problem. Discussion Policy CLOSE Comments that include profanity or personal attacks or other inappropriate comments or material will be removed from the site. Additionally, entries that are unsigned or contain "signatures" by someone other than the actual author will be removed. Finally, we will take steps to block users who violate any of our posting standards, terms of use or privacy policies or any other policies governing this site. Please review the full rules governing commentaries and discussions. You are fully responsible for the content that you post. Who's Blogging » Links to this article By Howard Dean Thursday, December 17"
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