Comment

Comment by Joan Denoo on April 13, 2013 at 2:33am

"Robin Hood In Reverse, Lady Thatcher, Died: She Smashed The Miners, Midwifed The Speculators.
During her administration, Baroness Thatcher redistributed wealth upward, from the workers to the tycoons. Her policies were particularly reactionary. On the one hand, she conducted a vitriolic attack against the miners and labour unions that once defined as “The Enemy Within.” On the other hand, she defended the freedom of the rich and speculators to make money out of thin air though policies of market deregulation and financialisation.

Of course, Lady Thatcher never bothered to ask herself whether she was acting as a Robbin Hood in reverse, fighting for the freedom of the deserving rich to accumulate wealth beyond the dream of avarice. For sure, she never apologised for helping the rich fighting against the poor. Her policies were effective. The Gini index, an indicator of income inequality going from 0 (minimum) to 1 (maximum) sharply increased thanks during the years in which she run the country. It now remains at a historical height and nobody knows when and whether it will be reduced in the future."
The Rise of Income Inequality During Thatcher Neoliberal Policies in Britain.
http://www.progressorcollapse.com/the-rise-of-income-inequality-dur...

Comment by Grinning Cat on April 12, 2013 at 8:44pm

This is not a Poe:

("If babies had guns they wouldn't be aborted."
A tweet promoting this bumper sticker from the reelection campaign of Steve Stockman, "the most conservative congressman in Texas!")

Despite this slogan's emotionally appealing fallacy, blastocysts or embryos are potential children, NOT the same as actual babies. This point bears repeating.

Comment by Joan Denoo on April 12, 2013 at 12:34pm

We need to maintain political defense of Social Security. The president should have been "praising Social Security, rather than picturing Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid and food stamps as the problem. If we did not have those four programs, the United States would have been thrown back into something very akin to the Great Depression." And the amount of human misery at this point, we would literally have people starving to death in America on a frequent basis."

The Grand Betrayal has Arrived

Four legs:  Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and food stamps.

Comment by Joan Denoo on April 11, 2013 at 11:16am

The Origins Project at Arizona State University (ASU) presents the final night in the Origins Stories weekend, focusing on the science of storytelling and the storytelling of science. The Storytelling of Science features a panel of esteemed scientists, public intellectuals, and award-winning writers including well-known science educator Bill Nye, astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, theoretical physicist Brian Greene, Science Friday's Ira Flatow, popular science fiction writer Neal Stephenson, executive director of the World Science Festival Tracy Day, and Origins Project director Lawrence Krauss as they discuss the stories behind cutting edge science from the origin of the universe to a discussion of exciting technologies that will change our future. They demonstrate how to convey the excitement of science and the importance helping promote a public understanding of science.

The Great Debate: THE STORYTELLING OF SCIENCE (OFFICIAL) - (Part 1/2)

The Great Debate: THE STORYTELLING OF SCIENCE (OFFICIAL) - (Part 2/2)

Comment by Joan Denoo on April 9, 2013 at 7:30pm

"The way to deal with superstition is not to be polite to it, but to tackle it with all arms, and so rout it, cripple it, and make it forever infamous and ridiculous. Is it, perchance, cherished by persons who should know better? Then their folly should be brought out into the light of day, and exhibited there in all its hideousness until they flee from it, hiding their heads in shame.

“True enough, even a superstitious man has certain inalienable rights. He has a right to harbor and indulge his imbecilities as long as he pleases, provided only he does not try to inflict them upon other men by force. He has a right to argue for them as eloquently as he can, in season and out of season. He has a right to teach them to his children. But certainly he has no right to be protected against the free criticism of those who do not hold them. He has no right to demand that they be treated as sacred. He has no right to preach them without challenge. Did Darrow, in the course of his dreadful bombardment of Bryan, drop a few shells, incidentally, into measurably cleaner camps? Then let the garrisons of those camps look to their defenses. They are free to shoot back. But they can't disarm their enemy."

~  H.L. Mencken

Comment by Joan Denoo on April 9, 2013 at 7:07pm

Does natural selection favor cooperative or competitive behaviors?

“For almost 100 years, no single person did more to promote the study of the evolution of cooperation than Peter Kropotkin.”

Tom Sarbeck, thanks for the lead to Lee Alan Dugatkin  | Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2012. The Russian Anarchist Prince Who Challenged Evolution Are we cooper...

SourceURL:file://localhost/Users/joandenoo/Documents/Anarchist%20files%20/Peter%20Kropotkin.doc

Peter Kropotkin 

I kind of have an affinity for such men: 

Charles Darwin 

and 

Daniel Dennett 

Comment by Joan Denoo on April 9, 2013 at 5:17pm

The poor and weak are fully capable of joining together and exerting their power as a combined force. They have far more power than they think they have. Sometimes power of poor and weak can come from non-violent means, others use violence, slaughter, fire, bombing, and bullets. No one wins in a confligration. 

A non-violent strategy takes a lot of people, for the long haul. Sustained effort in face of a police state means there will be casualties. So, get started before the civil police receive training and equipment for war.

Comment by Joan Denoo on April 9, 2013 at 5:10pm

When are clerics going to call a fatwa on men who abuse others, babies or adults, and hold them accountable for their crimes. A baby with a sheet over its head is no more safe than a baby lying on a pillow, butt naked. The same is true for women. Cloth cannot protect one from assault and to claim otherwise is either uneducated, misinformed, or insane. Let's put burqas on all men without a peep hole so they can't see baby girls, children or women.

“Burkas for babies”: Saudi cleric’s new fatwa causes controversy

Sunday, 03 February 2013

"To protect baby girls from being sexually exploited, the Saudi cleric, Sheikh Abdullah Daoud, has called parents to make their female children wear the Islamic headscarf."

Comment by Alan Perlman on April 7, 2013 at 4:51pm

Tom - yes, but there was supposed to be less of it here in the Land of Opportunity.  So lots of poor people came here, where they were exploited by the rich.

Joan - They're not outraged because they're narcotized by the constant barrage of sports, media, marketing, political crap, and tech-toys.  Capitalism has managed to create a degree of comploance and apathy that Hitler or Stalin would envy.

Comment by Tom Sarbeck on April 7, 2013 at 1:50am

Isn't it pretty much true that the rich and powerful have always mercilessly exploited the poor and weak, and they will continue doing so until the poor and weak organize to stop them?

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