Friday, October 31, 2014
Saturday, October 25, 2014
US Democracy is Broken! Need to Fix ASAP! Organize and Take Back our Democracy from the Plutocracy!
Please watch these excellent documentaries. Our democracy is broken
and 'We the People' must organize and demand that it be fixed ASAP. We
need major campaign finance reform/amendment to overturn the Citizens
United Supreme Court Decision - and have no more big money in our
election cycles. The future for the USA could be great but it won't be
if the current plutocracy/oligarchy is not torn down for good.
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/inside-the-koch-brothers-toxic-empire-20140924
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/inside-the-koch-brothers-toxic-empire-20140924
Friday, October 24, 2014
Austerity is an Insult!
To ask a majority of working, tax paying people to tighten their belts and "do more with less" as did the last mega-rich (5-25 billion over 3 terms) mayor of NYC - Michael Bloomberg, right before leaving office a year ago - is an insult to anyone with a shred of intelligence and sense of economic justice. He said it in response to not making union contract deals for over 3 years in the city, even though the city had billion dollar bonus surpluses for several years in a row. The new progressive NYC Mayor De Blasio has been making up for lost ground and is in the process of making contracts with the various city unions. The Department of Education in particular finally got a new contract this year, albeit with some regrettable concessions.
I am writing as a teacher in the New York City public school system who is fed up with giving up hard earned benefits that took over a 150 years of blood (literally), sweat and tears to make a reality. The recent ridiculous last minute rejection of the teachers contract in Philadelphia because of the health benefits is the latest example of the strapped state and city governments sticking it to the public service worker. Why are state and city budgets so tight? I will get to that in a minute.
All workers in America benefit from the worker's rights struggles over the last 150 years here in the US and even further back in Europe. Rights most now take for granted by most such as the 40 hour work week, safety in the work place, over time pay, no child labor, guaranteed breaks, sick time pay, due process and essential benefits such as health care and pension plans. But these hard earned rights, fair wages based on inflation, health coverage, and retirement plans in the form of pensions are quickly being eliminated from the picture by powerful private industry influence. What do the government politicians and the super rich executives who control them like puppets expect working people to do in retirement, never mind right now as far a living wage and health care are concerned? Do they think that folks can live on minimum wage ($7.25) or later on the meager Social Security payment plans, which average out to what are considered poverty scale salaries- 12-20,000 per year? This is peanuts - and the hard working, retiring middle class majority of peoples have paid their 35% taxes and SS/Medicaid etc. fees every week for 20-30 years, only to have all these hard earned living wages and benefits eaten away by special interests via their puppet representatives in federal, state and local governments. These ambitious, sell-out, no-integrity politician puppets will later get cushy high paying jobs as lobbyists, who in turn will do the future dirty work of the evil corporations - and on and on the corrupted cycle goes. That is unless we the people do something about it ASAP!
The median income in the US is around $30,000 in 2014. This is a cruel joke for anyone who has even one child never mind two or three. Just do the basic math of a bare minimum existence and one can figure out quickly that the only way that one can achieve the basic American Dream is now impossible. The dream being to eventually be a home owner, or least be able to house, clothe, and feed your children and help them get through college. This lesser, working class renter version is not even possible now without going into huge debt on several levels.
The current nationwide debt for college costs is over a trillion dollars+. The interest rates on graduate school loans in particular are anywhere from 8-14 %. That is 3 times higher than the rate to buy a car or a home at around 4%. Bankers will claim that it is a bigger risk - but the law is now on their side because college loans can be deducted from your paychecks if necessary. Conservative economists predict the next big economic crash will be tied into this growing higher education debt quagmire/nightmare.
The bottom line is that all education should be free, paid for by our tax dollars. Education should be a right and not a privilege for the few or mean indentured servitude for the many to big banks, private colleges and now the government with unreasonable tuitions and greedy, blood sucking interest rates. It stinks to high heaven. But this blog is about austerity in an age of billionaires and US workers ongoing high productivity.
Productivity in the US has been steadily growing over the last 30 years, while wages have stagnated or gone down for the majority of Americans (see links). This is not a good mix. In the meanwhile the top 1% of earners have quadrupled their fortunes - going from being millionaires to billionaires. How much money does one need to be happy? Obviously these top earners 1% are suffering from some kind of greed sickness. They sit on billions and do not pay decent wages (export jobs), provide pensions or reinvest back into society. And since they will not or simply do not have enough time to reinvest it - it is necessary for them to pay their fair share of taxes as in a Buffet billionaires tax. Warren Buffet, one of the top 10 richest people in the world - made a smart and honest observation a couple years ago about how his secretary pays more in taxes (around 35%) than he does. After all the tax breaks and loop holes for the super rich - they barely pay any taxes. Most of these super rich are rich mainly on paper as in stocks. Rich presidential hopeful Mitt Romney finally admitted that he only paid around 15% tax. This is the capital gains stocks tax and the current low rate for it is around 15%. An all time low if you consider that it was once 90% during the two term Eisenhower administration during the 1950s, which was a period of explosive growth and wealth creation in our nation's short history.
This low rate of 15% is irresponsible if one considers that we have been in 2 very expensive (3-5 trillion & counting) wars for the last 13 years. These wars were not payed for - we went trillions more into national US debt and rely on autocratic countries such as China and Saudi Arabia for loans to pay off just the interest on our own federal loans to keep the government floating. It is truly ridiculous that Bush II made them (capital gains tax) so low and that current President Obama does not push hard enough to bring them back up to at least later Reagan/Clinton era levels of the mid twenties. The late 1990s was the last time we had a healthy economy with low unemployment and a federal balanced budget under President Clinton. Balanced federal budgets are a rare thing in our country's history. Yet many of Clinton's deregulation(s) and international trade deals (overseas cheap labor and new markets for US to dominate) such as NAFTA helped put us in the current economic mess the US is in post the 2008 near total collapse of the stock market/economic system.
During a time of high productivity and record profits for the top 1%, government officials (federal, state & local) as puppet mouth pieces for the top 1%, who basically run the show at this point - have the nerve to constantly cut budgets for teachers, firemen, police, and all kinds of civil service workers who keep this country running smoothly. Have you ever lived in a city when the transportation broke down from a natural disaster or when civil service workers go on strike? How about sanitation workers not picking up the garbage for a couple weeks? All work is good work. I do not understand how Wall Street workers deserve million dollar bonuses for playing casino with old folks retirement monies, while teachers, firemen, police and garbage men have to continually battle to keep hard earned benefits and a decent living wage.
Everyone's work contribution to society is important. Yes - the street sweeper is important, as is the doctor. But If the streets are filthy - disease runs rampant and there are already not enough doctors to deal with such a scenario. Yes - supply and demand dictates our reality but I feel that there has been a steady and growing disrespect for manual labor as well as other professions that used to get more respect such as teaching and social work. People who are not in unions are often disparaging against them based on brain washing corporate media who are openly hostile toward unions because it threatens their personal billion dollar worth. Uninformed people obviously do not know the long history of the ongoing battles for workers rights and fair wages. This country is based on checks and balances and if you are ready to hand over the entire operation completely to the corporations, then you are ignorant, myopic and not thinking in terms of what's best for the entire country and need to educate your self (see Links).
'We the people' need to stick together. They (the creepy powers that be) love it when we are at each others throats in situations such as in Ferguson, MO where racial tensions are high. The reasons are historical endemic racism mixed with a bad economy. The US is becoming a stratified country where the police (white in Ferguson) are themselves struggling to survive. Whereas the marginalized black communities always have twice the unemployment levels as whites to put things in perspective. The winners of the new world economy are the top executives of big corporations who profit greatly while the losers are the US workers who are left in the dust to fend for themselves. This creates a perfect stressful pressure storm for all citizens that leads to divisions among 'we the people'. Yet citizens would be much more powerful united rather than divided. If one goes by the huge success of the Gofundme campaign for the white officer who shot the unarmed, young black man in Ferguson, MO and the ongoing black protests - it's obvious there is still a serious racial divide in our country, regardless of a two term, first ever black president.
Let's quickly examine some of the main reasons states and cities who rely on federal tax revenues have ever shrinking budgets. As mentioned earlier - 2 Middle East oil wars that cost the US $ trillions, and the super rich 1% not paying fair share of taxes based on the low capital gains tax rate, tax loopholes, offshore corporation incursions etc., all sucking billions of tax revenue dollars from our country. These rich idiots have no allegiance to anything but the almighty dollar. Yet they made their fortunes within the US infrastructure, paid for (taxes) and built by all US citizens. All these creepy, greedy shenanigans by the super rich 1% and the ongoing US war on 'terrorism' (in cahoots with the Military Industrial Complex), which has only created many more terrorists - are some of the core reasons workers are getting the shaft on many levels - as in austerity measures.
Austerity measures during WW II were necessary and made perfect sense. It was a collective effort of all Americans to make sacrifices (food rations), conserve and or donate/collect certain materials (alloys etc) and resources to help the war effort against fascism all over the world. But now, in 2014, to have the gaul to ask any of the struggling American working peoples to 'do more with less', while the top 1% are making fortunes - is not only an insult but makes me downright angry. Revolution is the thought that comes to mind. When the politicians are more concerned about the interests of a tiny minority of the super rich 1% versus the basic quality of life issues of the majority 99% - we no longer have a democracy for and by the people, but a plutocracy geared toward a tiny elite of around 400 families out of 317 million citizens. Something is drastically wrong with this picture.
The only way it is going to change is if 'we the people' - all working people - from all backgrounds - get off our couches and organize. We need to get into the streets and commit acts of civil disobedience. Just marching alone does not change things as we have sadly learned from past huge protests such as against the 1999 Seattle WTO meetings, the 2003 world wide marches of millions against the US invasion of Iraq, which happened anyway, and most recently in September, 2014 the 400,000 million strong People's Climate March here in NYC that received little corporate news coverage (not surprised), and seems to have done little to force any real change at the UN Climate Change meetings.
Therefore, as written by Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence in 1776 -
"But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their own future security."
In sum - F-U to any puppet politician trying to push any austerity measures while the rich get richer and American worker productivity is high. Enough is enough! Lets get corporate money out of election cycles! We need a constitutional amendment to undue the Supreme Court's huge blunder and blow to democracy - Citizens United decision. Until we fix our broken democracy, things will not ever change for the better. We will never get the best and brightest, but only have the current crop of no-integrity sell-out puppets who use our government as revolving door to a cushy, corporate, million-dollar lobbyist job. Sad but true - so do something now! Raise awareness, organize and rebel!
http://www.amazon.com/America-Working-Nations-Economy-Politics/dp/1572593032/ref=sr_1_6?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1413470987&sr=1-6&keywords=history+since+1877
http://www.amazon.com/A-Peoples-History-United-States/dp/0060838655
http://www.amazon.com/Profit-Over-People-Neoliberalism-Global/dp/1888363827/ref=pd_rhf_se_s_cp_2_7NE6?ie=UTF8&refRID=1XBN4BN4ZW64CQ043K1J
http://www.amazon.com/Hegemony-Survival-Americas-Dominance-American/dp/0805076883/ref=pd_rhf_se_s_cp_18_Z1KJ?ie=UTF8&refRID=0SM3RHEH4Q0526N0VX82
http://inequalityforall.com/
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/02/income-inequality-in-america-chart-graph
http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674430006
I am writing as a teacher in the New York City public school system who is fed up with giving up hard earned benefits that took over a 150 years of blood (literally), sweat and tears to make a reality. The recent ridiculous last minute rejection of the teachers contract in Philadelphia because of the health benefits is the latest example of the strapped state and city governments sticking it to the public service worker. Why are state and city budgets so tight? I will get to that in a minute.
All workers in America benefit from the worker's rights struggles over the last 150 years here in the US and even further back in Europe. Rights most now take for granted by most such as the 40 hour work week, safety in the work place, over time pay, no child labor, guaranteed breaks, sick time pay, due process and essential benefits such as health care and pension plans. But these hard earned rights, fair wages based on inflation, health coverage, and retirement plans in the form of pensions are quickly being eliminated from the picture by powerful private industry influence. What do the government politicians and the super rich executives who control them like puppets expect working people to do in retirement, never mind right now as far a living wage and health care are concerned? Do they think that folks can live on minimum wage ($7.25) or later on the meager Social Security payment plans, which average out to what are considered poverty scale salaries- 12-20,000 per year? This is peanuts - and the hard working, retiring middle class majority of peoples have paid their 35% taxes and SS/Medicaid etc. fees every week for 20-30 years, only to have all these hard earned living wages and benefits eaten away by special interests via their puppet representatives in federal, state and local governments. These ambitious, sell-out, no-integrity politician puppets will later get cushy high paying jobs as lobbyists, who in turn will do the future dirty work of the evil corporations - and on and on the corrupted cycle goes. That is unless we the people do something about it ASAP!
The median income in the US is around $30,000 in 2014. This is a cruel joke for anyone who has even one child never mind two or three. Just do the basic math of a bare minimum existence and one can figure out quickly that the only way that one can achieve the basic American Dream is now impossible. The dream being to eventually be a home owner, or least be able to house, clothe, and feed your children and help them get through college. This lesser, working class renter version is not even possible now without going into huge debt on several levels.
The current nationwide debt for college costs is over a trillion dollars+. The interest rates on graduate school loans in particular are anywhere from 8-14 %. That is 3 times higher than the rate to buy a car or a home at around 4%. Bankers will claim that it is a bigger risk - but the law is now on their side because college loans can be deducted from your paychecks if necessary. Conservative economists predict the next big economic crash will be tied into this growing higher education debt quagmire/nightmare.
The bottom line is that all education should be free, paid for by our tax dollars. Education should be a right and not a privilege for the few or mean indentured servitude for the many to big banks, private colleges and now the government with unreasonable tuitions and greedy, blood sucking interest rates. It stinks to high heaven. But this blog is about austerity in an age of billionaires and US workers ongoing high productivity.
Productivity in the US has been steadily growing over the last 30 years, while wages have stagnated or gone down for the majority of Americans (see links). This is not a good mix. In the meanwhile the top 1% of earners have quadrupled their fortunes - going from being millionaires to billionaires. How much money does one need to be happy? Obviously these top earners 1% are suffering from some kind of greed sickness. They sit on billions and do not pay decent wages (export jobs), provide pensions or reinvest back into society. And since they will not or simply do not have enough time to reinvest it - it is necessary for them to pay their fair share of taxes as in a Buffet billionaires tax. Warren Buffet, one of the top 10 richest people in the world - made a smart and honest observation a couple years ago about how his secretary pays more in taxes (around 35%) than he does. After all the tax breaks and loop holes for the super rich - they barely pay any taxes. Most of these super rich are rich mainly on paper as in stocks. Rich presidential hopeful Mitt Romney finally admitted that he only paid around 15% tax. This is the capital gains stocks tax and the current low rate for it is around 15%. An all time low if you consider that it was once 90% during the two term Eisenhower administration during the 1950s, which was a period of explosive growth and wealth creation in our nation's short history.
This low rate of 15% is irresponsible if one considers that we have been in 2 very expensive (3-5 trillion & counting) wars for the last 13 years. These wars were not payed for - we went trillions more into national US debt and rely on autocratic countries such as China and Saudi Arabia for loans to pay off just the interest on our own federal loans to keep the government floating. It is truly ridiculous that Bush II made them (capital gains tax) so low and that current President Obama does not push hard enough to bring them back up to at least later Reagan/Clinton era levels of the mid twenties. The late 1990s was the last time we had a healthy economy with low unemployment and a federal balanced budget under President Clinton. Balanced federal budgets are a rare thing in our country's history. Yet many of Clinton's deregulation(s) and international trade deals (overseas cheap labor and new markets for US to dominate) such as NAFTA helped put us in the current economic mess the US is in post the 2008 near total collapse of the stock market/economic system.
During a time of high productivity and record profits for the top 1%, government officials (federal, state & local) as puppet mouth pieces for the top 1%, who basically run the show at this point - have the nerve to constantly cut budgets for teachers, firemen, police, and all kinds of civil service workers who keep this country running smoothly. Have you ever lived in a city when the transportation broke down from a natural disaster or when civil service workers go on strike? How about sanitation workers not picking up the garbage for a couple weeks? All work is good work. I do not understand how Wall Street workers deserve million dollar bonuses for playing casino with old folks retirement monies, while teachers, firemen, police and garbage men have to continually battle to keep hard earned benefits and a decent living wage.
Everyone's work contribution to society is important. Yes - the street sweeper is important, as is the doctor. But If the streets are filthy - disease runs rampant and there are already not enough doctors to deal with such a scenario. Yes - supply and demand dictates our reality but I feel that there has been a steady and growing disrespect for manual labor as well as other professions that used to get more respect such as teaching and social work. People who are not in unions are often disparaging against them based on brain washing corporate media who are openly hostile toward unions because it threatens their personal billion dollar worth. Uninformed people obviously do not know the long history of the ongoing battles for workers rights and fair wages. This country is based on checks and balances and if you are ready to hand over the entire operation completely to the corporations, then you are ignorant, myopic and not thinking in terms of what's best for the entire country and need to educate your self (see Links).
'We the people' need to stick together. They (the creepy powers that be) love it when we are at each others throats in situations such as in Ferguson, MO where racial tensions are high. The reasons are historical endemic racism mixed with a bad economy. The US is becoming a stratified country where the police (white in Ferguson) are themselves struggling to survive. Whereas the marginalized black communities always have twice the unemployment levels as whites to put things in perspective. The winners of the new world economy are the top executives of big corporations who profit greatly while the losers are the US workers who are left in the dust to fend for themselves. This creates a perfect stressful pressure storm for all citizens that leads to divisions among 'we the people'. Yet citizens would be much more powerful united rather than divided. If one goes by the huge success of the Gofundme campaign for the white officer who shot the unarmed, young black man in Ferguson, MO and the ongoing black protests - it's obvious there is still a serious racial divide in our country, regardless of a two term, first ever black president.
Let's quickly examine some of the main reasons states and cities who rely on federal tax revenues have ever shrinking budgets. As mentioned earlier - 2 Middle East oil wars that cost the US $ trillions, and the super rich 1% not paying fair share of taxes based on the low capital gains tax rate, tax loopholes, offshore corporation incursions etc., all sucking billions of tax revenue dollars from our country. These rich idiots have no allegiance to anything but the almighty dollar. Yet they made their fortunes within the US infrastructure, paid for (taxes) and built by all US citizens. All these creepy, greedy shenanigans by the super rich 1% and the ongoing US war on 'terrorism' (in cahoots with the Military Industrial Complex), which has only created many more terrorists - are some of the core reasons workers are getting the shaft on many levels - as in austerity measures.
Austerity measures during WW II were necessary and made perfect sense. It was a collective effort of all Americans to make sacrifices (food rations), conserve and or donate/collect certain materials (alloys etc) and resources to help the war effort against fascism all over the world. But now, in 2014, to have the gaul to ask any of the struggling American working peoples to 'do more with less', while the top 1% are making fortunes - is not only an insult but makes me downright angry. Revolution is the thought that comes to mind. When the politicians are more concerned about the interests of a tiny minority of the super rich 1% versus the basic quality of life issues of the majority 99% - we no longer have a democracy for and by the people, but a plutocracy geared toward a tiny elite of around 400 families out of 317 million citizens. Something is drastically wrong with this picture.
The only way it is going to change is if 'we the people' - all working people - from all backgrounds - get off our couches and organize. We need to get into the streets and commit acts of civil disobedience. Just marching alone does not change things as we have sadly learned from past huge protests such as against the 1999 Seattle WTO meetings, the 2003 world wide marches of millions against the US invasion of Iraq, which happened anyway, and most recently in September, 2014 the 400,000 million strong People's Climate March here in NYC that received little corporate news coverage (not surprised), and seems to have done little to force any real change at the UN Climate Change meetings.
Therefore, as written by Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence in 1776 -
"But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their own future security."
In sum - F-U to any puppet politician trying to push any austerity measures while the rich get richer and American worker productivity is high. Enough is enough! Lets get corporate money out of election cycles! We need a constitutional amendment to undue the Supreme Court's huge blunder and blow to democracy - Citizens United decision. Until we fix our broken democracy, things will not ever change for the better. We will never get the best and brightest, but only have the current crop of no-integrity sell-out puppets who use our government as revolving door to a cushy, corporate, million-dollar lobbyist job. Sad but true - so do something now! Raise awareness, organize and rebel!
http://www.amazon.com/America-Working-Nations-Economy-Politics/dp/1572593032/ref=sr_1_6?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1413470987&sr=1-6&keywords=history+since+1877
http://www.amazon.com/A-Peoples-History-United-States/dp/0060838655
http://www.amazon.com/Profit-Over-People-Neoliberalism-Global/dp/1888363827/ref=pd_rhf_se_s_cp_2_7NE6?ie=UTF8&refRID=1XBN4BN4ZW64CQ043K1J
http://www.amazon.com/Hegemony-Survival-Americas-Dominance-American/dp/0805076883/ref=pd_rhf_se_s_cp_18_Z1KJ?ie=UTF8&refRID=0SM3RHEH4Q0526N0VX82
http://inequalityforall.com/
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/02/income-inequality-in-america-chart-graph
http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674430006
Wednesday, October 15, 2014
Another Physicist Who Worked with Quantum Founding Fathers Breaks with the Material Determinist Camp in Regards to Consciousness
Read what Quantum Physicist Henry P. Stapp has to say about consciousness aka soul.
http://www.theepochtimes.com/n3/757910-a-physicists-explanation-of-why-the-soul-may-exist/?sidebar=morein
http://www.theepochtimes.com/n3/757910-a-physicists-explanation-of-why-the-soul-may-exist/?sidebar=morein
Monday, October 13, 2014
Respected Celebrity Geneticist David Suzuki Warns of the Dangers of GMOS
Here is a video by a respected genetic scientist who is not beholden to any corporations and known for his integrity in a 40 year career on Canadian Public Television.
Sunday, October 12, 2014
Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Wealth Gap (HBO) - Income Inequality in the USA
This issue of income stratification is very important and needs to be addressed/discussed more often in the USA. Actions as in fair incremental taxes (capital gains) are necessary to redistribute the ridiculous wealth that a small fraction of the top .0001% have recently accumulated. They made this crazy wealth (billions) off of world wide casino stock market speculations and unrealistic over evaluations, and off the blood, sweat and tears of workers around the world as in cheap exploited labor working for poverty wages. Wages have stagnated for the middle class over the last 30 years - post Reagen revolution of empowering the corporations to the detriment of ordinary citizens - the 99%. Since the opening of world markets - paper shufflers and now digital market nano second traders rape the system for everything it is worth while 3rd world children work 12 hour days and live in squalor. There is a direct connection if you do your research.
The Market system is an illogical and corrupt economic model. The market defies basic physics and engineering principals. You cannot continually take from any system based on work/energy (movement of resources), while at the same time not putting enough liquid assets$/fuel/energy and not expect it to break down on a regular basis - which it always has and does. And the taxpayers/citizens - 'we the people' always pay the price as in trillions in tax payer bailouts in one form or another over the last 200 years. The current, stupid, supposedly free market system has a built in crash factor - that even Jamie Diamond - CEO of corporate monster bank JP Morgan Chase referred to in a matter-of-fact way to the congress during the all-for-show congressional hearings post the crash of 2008. The crashes happen based on evil casino-like over speculation and illogical financial investments such as derivatives and the predatory lending mortgage schemes/worthless assets that moved around like musical chairs until the inevitable crash of 2008. Did any of the culprits involved in making the crash happen get prosecuted - NO. Eric Holder, our Top Attorney General failed miserably - therefore Obama failed because Holder works for the President, who did not make it a top priority as he should have. Watch this great recent Bill Moyers interview with an expert bank regulator William Black. He mentions how many were prosecuted during the Savings and Loans scandals in the 1980s and that was during a Republican administration! Yet none were after this most recent financial crisis that nearly brought down the entire system!
http://billmoyers.com/episode/full-show-big-jail/
I am personally fed up with the stagnation in my own wages as a teacher in the NYC DOE. Have they gone up over the years - yes. Have they kept pace with inflation - NO. I made as much as I do now - (after taxes and union dues) in 1983, working as a bus boy at a fancy restaurant in Connecticut! That is pathetic and just plain wrong. We the People need to organize and demand that the super filthy rich pay their fair share as in a Warren 'Buffet' tax. Capital gains (stock market taxes) have been an irresponsible 15% during the last 12 years of wars put onto our multi-trillion dollar US debt bill. 15% is about half what they were during the latter Reagen administration - Republican mythical hero!
If something does not happen soon - you can see the cracks in the edifice already with protests by blacks based on police killing unarmed black men - but the issue is a much deeper one based on have-not poor folks of color and barely surviving whites that manifests as racial tensions and murder. These tensions are surfacing based on people not getting living wages in America - the richest country in the world. The white hegemony 1% loves it when we the people are at each others throats - this is how it has always worked, all the way back to the divide and conquer tactics of the Roman Empire, later written down by Machiavelli his evil little book The Prince.
One only has to look to history to see where this ends up now that average citizens are sick and tired of being sick and tired. Does the French Revolution of the peasants and working poor or the Russian and Chinese Communist Revolutions ring a bell? Look what happened to Marie Antoinette and The Romanov's. In a country of 300 million guns and ever increasing numbers of the angry working poor, many of whom posses fire arms - things could get very ugly unless the our government takes action and passes legislation to close tax loop holes, not allow corporations to move overseas as in inversion crap and make the mega-rich pay their fair share of taxes! This needs to happen sooner than later - so contact your reps in congress and the president himself and demand they do their jobs and redistribute the wealth that the super rich are sitting on like sick greedy geese on golden eggs - time to share the profits with the workers and the free country they made their fortunes in - The USA!
Check out these links about Nobel Prize winner Thomas Piketty who has done a scientific break down of all that is wrong with modern capitalism in his book Capital in the 21st Century, and basically says we need to raise taxes to even the playing field. And a Mother Jones article released a couple years back with colorful charts exposing the growing Inequality in America. And Billionaire Nick Hanauer's banned Ted Talk about how the rich do not create jobs. And Berkeley college Professor and former Clinton staff member Robert Reich's excellent documentary Inequality for All is a must see - although it leaves out some important factors such as stagnant wages via illegal immigration and the major negative implications of President Clinton ending the Glass-Steagall Act, which led to the crash of 2008. Then watch the funny but informative John Oliver clip from his HBO show. Another more recent link/chart sums up the post President Ronald Reagan/Donald Regan era multi-national corporate take over of America post 1980s. Republican puppets reducing taxes for the rich 1% and evil greed (stockpiling wealth in banks and sending work overseas for cheap labor) leading to stagnant wages for average US citizen. The rich 1% better redistribute their fortunes soon or else or hell is going to break loose in historically violent America!
http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2014/10/02/349863761/40-years-of-income-inequality-in-america-in-graphs
http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2015/02/11/384988128/the-fall-and-rise-of-u-s-inequality-in-2-graphs
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/apr/28/thomas-piketty-capital-surprise-bestseller
http://www.theguardian.com/money/2014/sep/21/-sp-thomas-piketty-bestseller-why
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/02/income-inequality-in-america-chart-graph
http://inequalityforall.com/
The Market system is an illogical and corrupt economic model. The market defies basic physics and engineering principals. You cannot continually take from any system based on work/energy (movement of resources), while at the same time not putting enough liquid assets$/fuel/energy and not expect it to break down on a regular basis - which it always has and does. And the taxpayers/citizens - 'we the people' always pay the price as in trillions in tax payer bailouts in one form or another over the last 200 years. The current, stupid, supposedly free market system has a built in crash factor - that even Jamie Diamond - CEO of corporate monster bank JP Morgan Chase referred to in a matter-of-fact way to the congress during the all-for-show congressional hearings post the crash of 2008. The crashes happen based on evil casino-like over speculation and illogical financial investments such as derivatives and the predatory lending mortgage schemes/worthless assets that moved around like musical chairs until the inevitable crash of 2008. Did any of the culprits involved in making the crash happen get prosecuted - NO. Eric Holder, our Top Attorney General failed miserably - therefore Obama failed because Holder works for the President, who did not make it a top priority as he should have. Watch this great recent Bill Moyers interview with an expert bank regulator William Black. He mentions how many were prosecuted during the Savings and Loans scandals in the 1980s and that was during a Republican administration! Yet none were after this most recent financial crisis that nearly brought down the entire system!
http://billmoyers.com/episode/full-show-big-jail/
I am personally fed up with the stagnation in my own wages as a teacher in the NYC DOE. Have they gone up over the years - yes. Have they kept pace with inflation - NO. I made as much as I do now - (after taxes and union dues) in 1983, working as a bus boy at a fancy restaurant in Connecticut! That is pathetic and just plain wrong. We the People need to organize and demand that the super filthy rich pay their fair share as in a Warren 'Buffet' tax. Capital gains (stock market taxes) have been an irresponsible 15% during the last 12 years of wars put onto our multi-trillion dollar US debt bill. 15% is about half what they were during the latter Reagen administration - Republican mythical hero!
If something does not happen soon - you can see the cracks in the edifice already with protests by blacks based on police killing unarmed black men - but the issue is a much deeper one based on have-not poor folks of color and barely surviving whites that manifests as racial tensions and murder. These tensions are surfacing based on people not getting living wages in America - the richest country in the world. The white hegemony 1% loves it when we the people are at each others throats - this is how it has always worked, all the way back to the divide and conquer tactics of the Roman Empire, later written down by Machiavelli his evil little book The Prince.
One only has to look to history to see where this ends up now that average citizens are sick and tired of being sick and tired. Does the French Revolution of the peasants and working poor or the Russian and Chinese Communist Revolutions ring a bell? Look what happened to Marie Antoinette and The Romanov's. In a country of 300 million guns and ever increasing numbers of the angry working poor, many of whom posses fire arms - things could get very ugly unless the our government takes action and passes legislation to close tax loop holes, not allow corporations to move overseas as in inversion crap and make the mega-rich pay their fair share of taxes! This needs to happen sooner than later - so contact your reps in congress and the president himself and demand they do their jobs and redistribute the wealth that the super rich are sitting on like sick greedy geese on golden eggs - time to share the profits with the workers and the free country they made their fortunes in - The USA!
Check out these links about Nobel Prize winner Thomas Piketty who has done a scientific break down of all that is wrong with modern capitalism in his book Capital in the 21st Century, and basically says we need to raise taxes to even the playing field. And a Mother Jones article released a couple years back with colorful charts exposing the growing Inequality in America. And Billionaire Nick Hanauer's banned Ted Talk about how the rich do not create jobs. And Berkeley college Professor and former Clinton staff member Robert Reich's excellent documentary Inequality for All is a must see - although it leaves out some important factors such as stagnant wages via illegal immigration and the major negative implications of President Clinton ending the Glass-Steagall Act, which led to the crash of 2008. Then watch the funny but informative John Oliver clip from his HBO show. Another more recent link/chart sums up the post President Ronald Reagan/Donald Regan era multi-national corporate take over of America post 1980s. Republican puppets reducing taxes for the rich 1% and evil greed (stockpiling wealth in banks and sending work overseas for cheap labor) leading to stagnant wages for average US citizen. The rich 1% better redistribute their fortunes soon or else or hell is going to break loose in historically violent America!
http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2014/10/02/349863761/40-years-of-income-inequality-in-america-in-graphs
http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2015/02/11/384988128/the-fall-and-rise-of-u-s-inequality-in-2-graphs
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/apr/28/thomas-piketty-capital-surprise-bestseller
http://www.theguardian.com/money/2014/sep/21/-sp-thomas-piketty-bestseller-why
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/02/income-inequality-in-america-chart-graph
http://inequalityforall.com/
Tuesday, October 7, 2014
More Secular Darwin Dogma from a Tenured College Professor - My Responce to a NY TImes Op Ed
The Following is my response to an annoying anachronistic 1950s material determinism secular paradigm "talk" by a typical tenured American college professor - that is no longer valid in a quantum universe as well as the fact that even though Darwin's theory is pretty solid - there are still holes that need filling as in valid scientific proofs that have yet to materialize. The link to the NY Times Op Ed article is below - followed by my response and some links I provided to back up my arguments.
http://nyti.ms/Yrj7pX
Brilliant people such as Freeman Dyson and Roger Penrose - two of several Quantum Dynamics founding fathers and Dr. Francis Collins - Human Genome Project Co-Chair - have allowed for a greater source or mystery and are able to do great science as well. Then there are very progressive iconoclasts thinkers like Cambridge's Rupert Sheldrake (biologist) with his Morphic Resonance hypothesis, Physics Professor Amit Goswami at Eugene U of Oregon with his top down East meets West perspective, or pop guru Deepak Chopra MD (biologist) with his similar concepts on pure consciousness being the core of life itself and NYC educator Christopher Meesto Erato's Sto-ology philosophy bridging the gap between the sacred and secular - is a new incredible scholarly work with 800 references/500 links to peruse. These are just a few (check out links below) of the new thinkers who are open minded enough and sharp enough to see the weakness and contradictions in the materialist determinism paradigm that has dominated science for too long. The Western reactionary swing to extreme secularism post the Enlightenment makes sense based on the dark history of the Catholic and Protestant churches.
http://www.amazon.com/Sto-ology-Metaphysical-Exploration-Human-Condition-ebook/dp/B00L6MFTC0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1412025881&sr=8-1&keywords=sto-ology
http://www.sto-ology.blogspot.com/2014/08/pradigm-shifts-in-evolution-theory.html
http://www.sto-ology.blogspot.com/2014/08/intelligent-design-freeman-dyson-golden.html
http://discovermagazine.com/2009/sep/06-discover-interview-roger-penrose-says-physics-is-wrong-string-theory-quantum-mechanics#.VBiwww1iDmd.blogger
http://www.sto-ology.blogspot.com/2014/09/kleibers-law-more-proof-for-intelligent.html
http://www.sto-ology.blogspot.com/2014/09/dangerous-ideas-excellent-dialogdebate.html
http://www.sto-ology.blogspot.com/2014/08/excellent-deepak-chopra-essay-on-sf.html
http://www.sto-ology.blogspot.com/2014/08/new-discoveries-in-plant-communication.html
http://nyti.ms/Yrj7pX
Dear Mr. Barash,
I was amazed that you actually
think that all the new scientific findings have reinforced many of your
old archaic arguments that disregard anything that questions Darwin
dogma or lends itself toward old theories like complexity - which could
now be referred to as Intelligent Design (ID). I feel you have not kept
up with a new wave of brilliant young and old scientists and thinkers
who humbly admit their ignorance to the big questions like where
consciousness comes from or what happened before the Big Bang.
Brilliant people such as Freeman Dyson and Roger Penrose - two of several Quantum Dynamics founding fathers and Dr. Francis Collins - Human Genome Project Co-Chair - have allowed for a greater source or mystery and are able to do great science as well. Then there are very progressive iconoclasts thinkers like Cambridge's Rupert Sheldrake (biologist) with his Morphic Resonance hypothesis, Physics Professor Amit Goswami at Eugene U of Oregon with his top down East meets West perspective, or pop guru Deepak Chopra MD (biologist) with his similar concepts on pure consciousness being the core of life itself and NYC educator Christopher Meesto Erato's Sto-ology philosophy bridging the gap between the sacred and secular - is a new incredible scholarly work with 800 references/500 links to peruse. These are just a few (check out links below) of the new thinkers who are open minded enough and sharp enough to see the weakness and contradictions in the materialist determinism paradigm that has dominated science for too long. The Western reactionary swing to extreme secularism post the Enlightenment makes sense based on the dark history of the Catholic and Protestant churches.
Darwin theory is pretty solid but there are gaps and yet
unexplained fits and starts in the evolution of species theory. Weak
concepts such as Stephen J. Gould's (obviously your hero) Punctuated
Equilibrium, which does a good job describing the mystery but offers no
solid causes. But the cracks are widening based on new science - quite
the opposite as you say in your 'talk' you give to your young
impressionable students. Your talk is no longer acceptable, especially
considering the scrutiny of ridiculous weak theories such as Hamilton's
Inclusive Fitness coming under fire by giants such as Harvard's E.O Wilson because
the numbers don't add up and additionally what has been recorded in the field since
1960 by scientists using new tech such as camcorders displaying
altruistic behaviors in nature among st animals of different species
never mind third cousins - completely opposing Hamilton's core concept -
relegates his long dominant hypothesis in biological evolution theory
to the dustbin of history.
Then there is the
overwhelming amount of new evidence supporting some kind of intelligent
design as in symmetry on every level from the micro to the macro. The
fine delicate balance of the 4 known forces that allow for life as we
know it. Our Goldie Locks position in this solar system. Many now
believe math itself to be pre-existing before human's discovery like
electricity. The fact that I need to write a long email to you in WA
where you teach - tenured I am sure - and that the out of touch editors
at NY Times printed your op ed - annoys me frankly. Professors such as
yourself make me think tenure is not a good thing. The evolution of
thought continues with or without you. I suggest you check out some of
the links below (Deepak vs Dawkins etc) and catch up on what's going on
out there. Paradigms do not go easy but it is time to open the dialog
about the holes in Darwin's theory. The burden of proof is now on the
old guard (bio-materialist/determinist) to back up these weak aspects of
the overall Evolutionary Adaption theory with real science.
http://www.dissentfromdarwin.org/scientists/
http://www.dissentfromdarwin.org/scientists/
http://www.amazon.com/Sto-ology-Metaphysical-Exploration-Human-Condition-ebook/dp/B00L6MFTC0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1412025881&sr=8-1&keywords=sto-ology
http://www.sto-ology.blogspot.com/2014/08/pradigm-shifts-in-evolution-theory.html
http://www.sto-ology.blogspot.com/2014/08/intelligent-design-freeman-dyson-golden.html
http://discovermagazine.com/2009/sep/06-discover-interview-roger-penrose-says-physics-is-wrong-string-theory-quantum-mechanics#.VBiwww1iDmd.blogger
http://www.sto-ology.blogspot.com/2014/09/kleibers-law-more-proof-for-intelligent.html
http://www.sto-ology.blogspot.com/2014/09/dangerous-ideas-excellent-dialogdebate.html
http://www.sto-ology.blogspot.com/2014/08/excellent-deepak-chopra-essay-on-sf.html
http://www.sto-ology.blogspot.com/2014/08/new-discoveries-in-plant-communication.html
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