Posts tagged “articles”
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Ralph Nader on California’s Proposition 14: California enshrines the duopoly
July 27, 2010
The prior public debate over Proposition 14, for those who noticed the measure, was strange. First, the Ballot Book, sent to voters, misled voters by describing the measure as one that “Increases Right to Participate in Primary Elections.” In fact, it wipes out all other candidates on other lines but the top two vote-getters in November, thereby decreasing the right to participate in the general election. Second, many of the state’s largest newspapers, except for the conservative Orange County Register, editorially endorsed Proposition 14, saying it would reduce “partisan bickering.”
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Ballot access obstacles are not enough for the monetized minds of corporations. Better, they say, to abolish election day altogether for minor parties and independent candidates. What’s next for the corporate supremacists, who misled and lied to the people to get their vote for Prop 14? When will the people awake and repeal it? — Ralph Nader on California Proposition 14Tags: articles, california, current events, elections, only the super-rich can save us, proposition 14, ralph nader
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Ted Rall: Protofascism comes to America
July 22, 2010
Robert O. Paxton defined fascism as “a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion.”
Typical Tea Party rants fit the classic fascist mold in several respects. America, Tea Partiers complain, is falling behind. Like Hitler, they blame leftists and liberals for a “stab in the back,” treason on the homefront. The trappings of hypernationalism—flags, bunting, etc.—are notably pervasive at Tea Party rallies, even by American standards. We see “collaboration with traditional elites”—Rush Limbaugh, Congressmen, Republican Party bigwigs (including the most recent vice presidential nominee)—to an extent that is unprecedented in recent history.
Tea Partiers haven’t called for extralegal solutions to the problems they cite—but neither did the National Socialists prior to 1933. Then again, they’re not in power yet. Wait. —Ted Rall at altweeklies.com
Tags: anti-american manifesto, articles, current events, fascism, politics/government, tea party, ted rall
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Cynthia O’Neal and Talk Softly profiled in San Francisco Chronicle
June 24, 2010
… There is an aside in the book that more than sums up the extraordinary journey of Cynthia O’Neal’s life. She is in New Mexico, having dinner with her son, Fitz, who is trying to figure out his own path in life and decides that his ability to size people up might lead him to a job placing children with adoptive families. He’d know, he says, if someone would make a good parent or not:
“There it was - the question of what my son thought of me as a parent - there it was lying right on the table … I took a very deep breath and said, ‘What about me, would you have given me a child?’ Fitz looked me right in the eye and replied, ‘I wouldn’t have then. I would now.’ “— San Francisco Chronicle on Cynthia O’Neal and Talk Softly
Tags: aids, articles, biography, cynthia o'neal, lgbt issues, san francisco chronicle, talk softly
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Economist: Ralph Nader’s “Only The Super-rich Can Save Us!” inspired the Buffett-Gates “giving pledge” initiative
June 18, 2010
From the June 17 edition of the Economist:
One of the unlikeliest books of last year was “Only the Super-Rich Can Save Us!”, a fictional account by Ralph Nader, a veteran left-wing campaigner, of a movement of billionaires led by Warren Buffett and featuring, among others, Ted Turner, George Soros and Barry Diller, who use their fortunes to clean up America. This was not, as you might suppose, a satire but what Mr Nader called “an exercise in practical Utopianism”. He even met Mr Buffett to urge him to take up the challenge.
Perhaps the Sage of Omaha, as Mr Buffett is known, was listening. On June 16th, with Bill Gates and his wife, Melinda, he launched a campaign to persuade America’s billionaires to give away much of their fortunes. They are invited to take the “giving pledge” by writing a public letter promising to donate 50% or more of their wealth. Mr Buffett himself has written the first, which is published on a website, givingpledge.org. He says he will ultimately give away 99% of his wealth, most of which he has already pledged to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Although the letters will not be legally binding, they are intended to create a moral obligation which will be reinforced by peer pressure from others who take the pledge—a bit like members of Alcoholics Anonymous who promise to stay off the booze.
As we said in our press materials for the book: Picture it, and it can happen.
Tags: articles, bill gates, current events, economist, fiction, giving pledge, melinda gates, only the super-rich can save us, philanthropy, ralph nader, warren buffett
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Guardian: US should nationalize the oil industry
June 16, 2010
… In Sonia Shah’s definitive history of the oil industry, Crude, the base greed and exploitative nature of oil company executives is detailed time and again, and the laissez-faire attitude of the respective governments involved in green-lighting their activities is an ubiquitous trait throughout every stage of the process. Public and private sector prospectors thought nothing of wreaking environmental havoc wherever they sought black gold, more often than not causing massive social upheaval to boot in the countries into which they expanded.
Mass spillages and pollution across the world – in Alaska, Nigeria, Iraq and elsewhere – barely register with consumers in the west, so long as they don’t occur in their backyard. The minute catastrophe occurs closer to home, suddenly everyone and their dog is a green campaigner, an environmental warrior ready to don cape and clutch sword in pursuit of a better future for Mother Earth and all her children. Which is all well and good, for about as long as the spills dominate the headlines and trend on Twitter, but when the crisis is over and the wells are recapped, all reverts to business as usual. And business as usual means a refusal to bring about serious, societal change. —Seth Freedman, Guardian
Tags: articles, current events, deepwater, guardian, obama, oil, seth freedman, sonia shah
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Ted Rall: First they came for the cranky White House columnist
June 10, 2010
On June 7, the professional life of Helen Thomas came to an end. The acid-tongued “dean” of the White House press corps since the Kennedy administration got fired by her newspaper syndicate, dumped by her speakers’ bureau, and disinvited by a Bethesda high school that had asked her to address its commencement ceremonies. The White House Correspondents Association condemned her. President Barack Obama took time out from not doing anything about unemployment or the Gulf oil spill to weigh in. Chastened, reviled and subjected to the kind of national opprobrium normally reserved for international terrorists and blind baseball umpires, Thomas apologized and announced her retirement. All in one day. — Ted Rall on Helen Thomas’s comments about Israel
Tags: anti-american manifesto, articles, helen thomas, israel, media studies, ted rall
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China Daily on Leonard Miller and Racing While Black
June 3, 2010
Leonard Miller, a pilot for United Airlines, has a life worth knowing about. Miller is the author of Racing While Black, a book chronicling his experience owning the first, and so far only, NASCAR team run by African Americans.
… “We came out of nowhere,” Miller said. “And it looked like we were taking away their thunder and their sport. Everywhere we went, they viewed it as, ‘Here we go again, if we let African Americans get involved in this, the sport will get away from us, like what happened with golf and tennis.’ It upset a lot of people.” — China Daily
Tags: articles, china daily, interviews, leonard t miller, race, racing while black, sports
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Jesus of Nazareth in the New Yorker
May 19, 2010
… Much of what he has to say [in Jesus of Nazareth] is shrewd and learned… Verhoeven, citing Crossan… imagines a man being nailed to a cross, cries of agony, two companion crosses in view, and then we crane out to see two hundred crosses and two hundred victims: we are at the beginning of the story, the mass execution of Jewish rebels in 4 B.C., not the end. This was the Roman death waiting for rebels from the outset, and Jesus knew it. — Adam Gopnik, writing in the New Yorker
Tags: adam gopnik, articles, god, jesus of nazareth, new yorker, paul verhoeven, religion
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Huffington Post on Leonard Miller & race relations in NASCAR
May 18, 2010
Could the majority-white live audience for NASCAR really be the reason for corporate reticence in doling out the dough? If so, it is insulting on many levels. … If NASCAR sponsors really aren’t giving Miller’s group a fair shot at their dollars because of race, then they underestimate the talent he has assembled, as well as the evolving NASCAR audience which also includes statistically significant numbers of Asian, Latino and African-American fans, according to Sports Business Daily.
To be sure, racism still exists everywhere, and there are, no doubt, some in the audience who wouldn’t cheer for Miller’s team because of race. Still, to assume that NO ONE, or even just a small minority would accept a black team, is to perpetuate a stereotype created in movies and comedic routines of NASCAR fans as beer-swilling, stars and bars flying, racist yokels. Again, to look at the numbers, that just ain’t so. — Susan Deily-Swearingen on Racing While Black
Tags: andrew simon, articles, huffington post, leonard t miller, race, racing while black, sports, susan deily-swearingen
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David Swanson: What does $33 Billion look like?
May 12, 2010
According to the Congressional Budget Office, Congress has already approved $345 billion for war in Afghanistan, not to mention $708 billion in Iraq. According to the National Priorities Project, for that same money we could have renewable energy in 1,083,271,391 homes for a year (or every home in the country for more than 10 years), or pay 17,188,969 elementary school teachers for a year. There may be 2.6 million elementary and middle school teachers in our country now. Assuming we could use 3 million teachers, we could hire them all for five years and employ that extra $13 billion or so to give them bonuses. “Honor our brave teachers” anyone? — from TomDispatch.com
Tags: afghanistan, articles, david swanson, daybreak, obama, politics/government, tom engelhardt, tomdispatch
“articles” Posts
- Jul 27, Ralph Nader on California’s Proposition 14: California enshrines the duopoly
- Jul 22, Ted Rall: Protofascism comes to America
- Jun 24, Cynthia O’Neal and Talk Softly profiled in San Francisco Chronicle
- Jun 18, Economist: Ralph Nader’s “Only The Super-rich Can Save Us!” inspired the Buffett-Gates “giving pledge” initiative
- Jun 16, Guardian: US should nationalize the oil industry
- Jun 10, Ted Rall: First they came for the cranky White House columnist
- Jun 3, China Daily on Leonard Miller and Racing While Black
- May 19, Jesus of Nazareth in the New Yorker
- May 18, Huffington Post on Leonard Miller & race relations in NASCAR
- May 12, David Swanson: What does $33 Billion look like?
