And why should we care about this material rarely mentioned outside of science-fiction? Well, it involves recycling, our energy future, and a chance to de-proliferate nuclear weaponry and reduce the threat of "dirty" bombs. First, a brief bit of history: Back in the 1930's, it was discovered that isotopes of…
A few weeks ago I ate dinner with friends. One of the friends mentioned that, a few weeks earlier, he had attended a party in an upscale neighborhood. At that party, one of the guests announced that she had brought her own bottle of wine because the host’s expensive wine wasn’t good enough. From my end of the table, I blurted out that it is not necessary to have expensive wine to have a meaningful gathering with friends or family. In fact, I added, “wine is not necessary at all.” I was about to elaborate when I noticed that the other adults at the table were staring at me like I had three eyes. “That’s not correct,” they told me, almost in unison. I know that “look” well. I have received that same “look” from various people on other occasions. On one occasion I got “the look” from someone who was trying to justify that an ordinary car wasn’t sufficient, so he needed to buy a BMW. Another person who gave me “the look” was trying to convince me that her $75,000 kitchen remodeling was “necessary,” even though all of the appliances in her existing kitchen functioned perfectly. The problem with her current kitchen was that it was “old.” I have also received that same look from fundamentalists when I explain that the earth is billions of years old. The “look” is a “we-will-pretend-you-didn’t-say-that” look. It shouldn’t surprise me to draw the same “look” from both consumers and Believers, given that wasteful and pretentious spending is the de facto national religion of the United States. We’ve moralized extravagant spending to such an extent that “living the good life” means buying lots of things we don’t really need.
How often have you heard this phrase: “powerful members of Congress.” It gets under my skin. It sometimes makes me seethe. I saw it on the front page of yesterday’s St. Louis Post-Dispatch dealing with the President’s State of the Union address:
The prospects: Democrats in Congress have proposed raising the requirement to 60 billion gallons of 2030. Some experts say big reductions in gas usage won’t happen unless Bush orders much higher fuel economy standards, which powerful members of Congress would resist.
[By the way, I’m not trying to single out the Post-Dispatch. This is just an illustrtion. Almost every media publisher across America also uses this phrase]
So there it is. Some members of Congress are more “powerful” than others. What does that mean? Does it mean that they go to the gym more often so that they have big muscles? Or does it mean something more sinister? And if it’s a sinister thing, why is it so nonchalantly placed on the front page of the newspaper as though it’s not a scandalous thing?
There’s nothing in the Constitution that would give any clue to the mania of “powerful member of Congress.” To the extent that belonging to a particular political party makes one “powerful,” the Constitution is totally silent about political parties. The “power” of Congress should not be determined by reference to who belongs to what club. When it comes down to voting on issues, each member of Congress has the same number of …
The following remarks were delivered by Bernie Sanders to the National Conference for Media Reform. Sanders is the junior United States Senator from Vermont. He is an independent, but caucuses with the Democrats. Amy Goodman describes Sanders’ speech as an “alternative State of the Union.”
The full text to Sanders’ speech can be found here. Video of his presentation can be found here. Here are excerpts of Sanders’ speech to the NCMR in Memphis:
…[W]e will not succeed unless you are there, unless there is a strong grassroots media, which demands fundamental changes in media today and the end of corporate control over our media. We’ve got to work together on that.
Now, you are going to hear from a lot of folks who know more about the details of the media than I do, but what I do know a lot about is how media impacts the political process, what media means for those of us who day after day struggle with the major issues facing our country and a goal of trying to improve the quality of life for all of our people.
And I want to spend just a minute in telling you what I suspect most of you already know. If you are concerned, as been said, about healthcare, if you are concerned about foreign policy and Iraq, if you are concerned about the economy, if you are concerned about global warming, you are kidding yourselves if you are not concerned about corporate control over the
I’ve written before about how banking laws are for sale (some would say I’ve ranted before). In that post I discussed payday lending. I often hear that payday lending is not predatory and that such lenders must be offering a service, else why would people borrow money at 300%, 400%, 500% or even more?
I also hear people blame the victims of payday lending. Others say the borrowers are at fault for borrowing money at horrible interest rates. Even borrowers hold themselves at fault. When (if) they get out of the trap (and make no mistake, it is a trap with a cycle of borrowing the same money repeatedly, because the costs are so high people have great difficulty paying the debt without borrowing to do so) they still blame themselves for getting into it.
Many borrowers blame themselves for being stupid or taking the ‘easy way’ out. One person I know, when faced with the choice of becoming homeless or getting some money, said she thought the loan was an answer to prayer. “As I prayed for help,” she said, “an ad for payday loans came on tv. I thought God was answering my prayer.” Hundreds and hundreds of dollars later in interest, she thinks it was the devil.