Search Episodes (Truth Is Marching On)

Elderly Civil Rights Activist Faces Foreclosure, Eviction

Added 02/08/12
0 Views

Elderly Civil Rights Activist Faces Foreclosure, Eviction

[LESS INFO] 0 VIEWS | ADDED 23:00:37 02/08/12
I've lost count of the number of reports I've read in recent years of an elderly person facing the trauma of losing their home to foreclosure and being taken by ambulance to the hospital on eviction day due to the effects of stress on their physical health. Or those who would rather end their own lives rather than face the possibility of being put out on the streets in their senior years. The story of 78-year-old Helen Bailey is especially poignant this Black History Month, as she was active in the civil rights movement and marched with Martin Luther King. Change.org has started a petition calling on Chase Bank to make a settlement with Ms. Bailey, and cancel any scheduled foreclosure auction: > Helen Bailey is a 78-year-old grandmother who participated in the civil rights movement, worked as a childcare provider for autistic children, and was a community volunteer. She has paid her mortgage since 1999, but now she can't keep up the payments. All she wants is to stay in her home until she dies, in the neighborhood where she feels safe and has lived for nearly quarter of a century. She could have refinanced with a company willing to let her live in the house for free until her death, but Chase Bank would not reduce her principal by $9,000. She's been paying 7% interest, well above most rates, so Chase could have decided they had made enough. Instead, they have started foreclosure and Ms. Bailey could end on the street. Since then, Ms. Bailey's lawyer has found an alternate buyer for her home. This sale would provide Ms Bailey with an exit from her current mortgage and allow her to pursue other options for housing. We request that Chase: · accept the offer of $85,000 · write off any deficiency between the loan balance and the offer · waive all interest, legal fees and penalties accrued since the initial refinance offer · cancel any foreclosure auction scheduled It has been estimated that at foreclosure, Chase may lose over $30,000 compared to this settlement offer. Therefore this option makes the most sense financially for Chase and given Ms Bailey's specific circumstances, there is little moral hazard in this solution. If you'd like to add your name to the petition calling on Chase to keep Ms. Bailey in her home, you may do so online here .

EPICA - Monopoly on Truth - Pt. 1 Drums

Added 01/24/12
0 Views

#OccupyCongress Cop: 'If This is Democracy - I Don't Like It.....

Added 01/21/12
0 Views

Protoje Feat. Ky-Mani Marley - "Rasta Love": SXSW 2012 Showcas...

Added 01/12/12
0 Views

Protoje Feat. Ky-Mani Marley - "Rasta Love": SXSW 2012 Showcas...

Added 01/12/12
0 Views

French Journalist Killed In Syria

Added 01/12/12
0 Views

Mitt Romney's Big Promises - and Bigger Lies

Added 12/29/11
6 Views

Mitt Romney's Big Promises - and Bigger Lies

[LESS INFO] 6 VIEWS | ADDED 16:00:56 12/29/11
Click here to view this media In the election of 1928, the Republican Party of Herbert Hoover promised voters "a chicken in every pot and a car in every backyard." (We all know how that turned out.) Now, Mitt Romney is pledging that "If I'm President" every college graduate will be guaranteed a job, Iran will have no nuclear weapons and the United States will dominate the 21st century. And when Romney isn't making fantastic promises about what he'll do when he gets to the White House, he's slandering the current occupant , Barack Obama. "I Won't Let Iran Get Nukes" Governor Romney's guarantees start with Iran and its nuclear program . In a November 10, 2011 op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, Romney pledged, " I won't let Iran get nukes ." Or as he put it 10 days earlier during a GOP national security debate : > "If we re-elect Barack Obama, Iran will have a nuclear weapon. If you elect me as president, Iran will not have a nuclear weapon." As to how he'll ensure that outcome, Romney explained that "If you want peace, prepare for war." And despite occasionally acknowledging the complexity of a strike against Iran and even the questionable possibility of success, Romney told the Wall Street Journal this weekend how he would get it done: > So what would he do about it? "I do not have a top secret security clearance at this stage to be able to define precisely what kinds of actions we could take." But he adds that "the range includes something of a blockade nature, to something of a surgical strike nature, to something of a decapitate the regime nature, to eliminate the military threat of Iran altogether." No U.S. Decline in Romney's "American Century" Romney's promise to "eliminate the military threat of Iran altogether" is just part of his larger assurance that the 21st century will be another " American Century ." Pretending that the rise of India, China and Brazil doesn't inevitably entail the relative loss of U.S. power and influence, Romney announced in his October address at The Citadel : > "This century must be an American Century. In an American Century, America has the strongest economy and the strongest military in the world. In an American Century, America leads the free world and the free world leads the entire world...As President of the United States, I will devote myself to an American Century. And I will never, ever apologize for America." Not content to rest there, Romney accused President Obama of "waving the white flag of surrender": > "An eloquently justified surrender of world leadership is still surrender. > I will not surrender America's role in the world. This is very simple: If you do not want America to be the strongest nation on Earth, I am not your President. > You have that President today." Two months later, Mitt Romney repackaged his promise and his slander at the December 15 Republican debate in Sioux City, Iowa: > "Our president thinks America is in decline. It is if he's president. It's not if I'm president. This is going to be an American century." As for Romney's charge that President Obama "went around the world and apologized for America," the Washington Post Fact Checker deemed it a Four-Pinocchio lie . A Job for Every College Graduate At an event in New Hampshire last week, Governor Romney's pandering went from the sublime to the ridiculous. There, Mitt pledged President Romney would deliver full-employment for all American college graduates: > "What I can promise you is this -- when you get out of college, if I'm president you'll have a job. If President Obama is reelected, you will not be able to get a job. That's the reason I will hopefully get young people who are in college is to say, You know what, I understand what it takes to get jobs in America." As the record shows , not so much. After all, as the Los Angeles Times recently documented, Romney's "Bain Capital often maximized profits in part by firing workers." That's why FactCheck.org , the Washington Post Fact Checker and Fortune all refused to vouch for Romney's claim that "In those hundreds of businesses we invested in, tens of thousands of jobs net-net were created." Obama "Has Not Created Any New Jobs" If Mitt Romney can't prove his boasts about his own job creation record, neither can he justify his blatant lie about President Obama's : > "25 million people are out of work because of Barack Obama. And so I'll compare my experience in the private sector where, net-net, we created over 100,000 jobs." > "I'll compare that record with his record, where he has not created any new jobs." Sadly for Mitt Romney, the Bush recession began in December 2007. As ThinkProgress rightly noted, "The private sector has added 2.3 million new jobs since March 2010, and it took the Obama economy one year to create more jobs than the economy under President Bush did in eight." As The Economist explained earlier, the recession was not at its deepest just as Barack Obama was entering office, but far worse than official statistics revealed at the time. Romney might also want to check with former McCain economic adviser Mark Zandi as well as the non-partisan CBO , who concluded that the Obama stimulus program "added up to 0.9 million jobs in 2009, 3.3 million jobs in 2010 and 2.6 million jobs in 2011." Obama's Debt Exceeds All Previous Presidents Combined Mitt Romney didn't just lie about Barack Obama's jobs record. At the Sioux City debate, he got President Obama's contribution to the federal debt all wrong as well: > "We all understand that the spending crisis is extraordinary, with $15 trillion now in debt, with a president that's racked up as much debt as almost all of the other presidents combined." Of course, we don't all understand that, because it's not true . After Ronald Reagan tripled the gross national debt and George W. Bush doubled it again, Uncle Sam's red ink totaled almost $11 trillion when Barack Obama took the oath of office. Obama is "Taking over 100 Percent" of Health Care In his desperate quest to win over conservative Republican primary voters, Mitt Romney has turned his back on his signature achievement which he once boasted was a health care model for the nation. And to do it, Romney has been lying for months by telling voters "Obamacare is about taking over 100 percent of the people's insurance in this country." In a September 15, 2011 interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer , Romney made the same charge: > "The Massachusetts plan was crafted for Massachusetts, for the needs of 8 percent of our population that didn't have insurance, not for the 92 percent that did. Obamacare is a plan that takes over 100 percent of the people in the country and their health care, and that's one of the reasons why people don't want it." Sadly for Mitt Romney, repetition of a lie doesn't make it any more true. The Affordable Care Act passed by Congress and signed by President Obama in the spring of 2010 targets the 17 percent of people (over 50 million people) who are uninsured . As Politifact explained in deeming Romney's fraud another "Pants on Fire" lie: > According to the Census Bureau, the percentage of Americans without health insurance nationally was slightly under 17 percent in 2009, the year Obama began pushing for the bill. According to a Congressional Budget Office estimate, the number was about the same in 2010, when the measure was signed into law. Other estimates have pegged the national number at about 15 percent. As Henry Aaron, a senior fellow with the centrist-to-liberal Brookings Institution right noted, comparing 8 percent to 17 percent "would have been apples to apples" when it comes to the impact of the individual mandate at the center of both the Massachusetts and national plans. Sadly, Politifact concluded, Romney was guilty of "a felony case of comparing apples and oranges." Romney "Will Reverse President Obama's Massive Defense Cuts" During that same "American Century" speech in October, Governor Romney pledged: > "I will reverse President Obama's massive defense cuts. Time and again, we have seen that attempts to balance the budget by weakening our military only lead to a far higher price, not only in treasure, but in blood." Sadly for Romney, as Steve Benen pointed out, defense spending has not only gone up every year of the Obama presidency . It is higher than it ever was when George W. Bush sat in the Oval Office. Of course, Romney's confusion over matters of war and peace are hardly new. In an April op-ed for the Manchester Union Leader, Mitt forgot about the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan as he denounced President Obama for "one of the biggest peacetime spending binges in American history." Obama's "Equal Outcomes" and "Entitlement Society" Last week, the Romney campaign rolled out what may well become the meta-theme and meta-lie for the 2012 general election race. After President Obama declared in his Osawatomie, Kansas address that Republican trickle down economics "never worked," Romney struck back. Just not with the truth: > "Just a couple of weeks ago in Kansas, President Obama lectured us about Teddy Roosevelt's philosophy of government. But he failed to mention the important difference between Teddy Roosevelt and Barack Obama. Roosevelt believed that government should level the playing field to create equal opportunities. President Obama believes that government should create equal outcomes. > "In an entitlement society, everyone receives the same or similar rewards, regardless of education, effort, and willingness to take risk. That which is earned by some is redistributed to the others. And the only people who truly enjoy any real rewards are those who do the redistributing -- the government. > "The truth is that everyone may get the same rewards, but virtually everyone will be worse off." By raising the mythical red menace of communism and falsely attributing it to Barack Obama, Romney in the words of Paul Krugman had introduced " The Big Lie " into his " Post-Truth Campaign ." While Andrew Sullivan announced "Mitt Romney is a big, fat liar," Steve Benen lamented that "Romney, allegedly the responsible one in the Republican field, has been reduced to lying uncontrollably." And while Greg Sargent in the past had expressed amazement at "Mitt Romney's casual, effortless falsehoods," New York Magazine's Jonathan Chait explained that Romney's red scare rose to a whole new level of duplicity: > "This isn't just a casual line. In eight sentences, Romney asserts over and over again that Obama wants to create "equal outcomes" and give everybody the "same rewards." This is nuts, Glenn Beck-level insane. Restoring Clinton-era taxes is not a plan to equalize outcomes, or even close. It's not even a plan to stop rising inequality. Obama's America will continue to be the most unequal society in the advanced world -- only slightly less so. The alternative proposals accelerate inequality even further." Of course, as the proliferating profiles from the Wall Street Journal , the New York Times , the Washington Post and others show, Mitt Romney is no stranger to inequality. Legendarily cheap and analytical , as a Harvard Business School student Romney gave a presentation to his classmates that "proved the value of family time based not on emotion but on yield." Two Romney quotes - " I love business " and " I love data " - seem to sum up the man. As for loving the truth, that for Mitt Romney is apparently another matter altogether. (This piece also appears at Perrspectives .)

Gingrich Just the Latest Republican to Threaten Judges

Added 12/21/11
6 Views

Gingrich Just the Latest Republican to Threaten Judges

[LESS INFO] 6 VIEWS | ADDED 17:00:55 12/21/11
"Judicial activism" is in the eye of the beholder. Threatening judges is not. That explains why even Michael Mukasey and Alberto Gonzales , former Bush Attorneys General and ardent defenders of detainee torture and illicit domestic surveillance, denounced Newt Gingrich's assault on the federal bench as "dangerous, ridiculous, totally irresponsible, outrageous, off-the-wall and would reduce the entire judicial system to a spectacle." Sadly, Gingrich has plenty of company among conservatives threatening judges. As the dangerous rhetoric of John Cornyn, Tom Delay and a host of other Republican officeholders and propagandists shows, judicial intimidation is now standard fare for many of the leading lights of the GOP. On Face the Nation Sunday, Gingrich the fading frontrunner told CBS News host Bob Schieffer he wouldn't hesitate to send the Capitol police or U.S. marshals to round up judges with whom he disagreed and force them to respond to subpoenas. As McClatchy reported Saturday: > In order to restore balance between Congress, the White House, and the courts, Gingrich recommended ignoring rulings, impeaching judges, subpoenaing justices to have them explain their rulings and, as a last resort, abolishing the courts altogether... > "I was frankly just fed up with elitist judges imposing secularism on the country and fundamentally changing the American Constitution," Gingrich told reporters, adding that "it was clear to me that you have a judicial psychology run amok, and there has to be some method of bringing balance back to the three branches." During the height of the Terri Schiavo controversy in 2005, some Republican leaders darkly suggested what one of those methods might be. Senator John Cornyn (R-TX), himself a former Texas Supreme Court Justice, has been at the forefront of GOP advocacy of violence towards members of the bench whose rulings part ways with conservative orthodoxy. Back in 2005, Cornyn was one of the GOP standard bearers in the conservative fight against so-called "judicial activism" in the wake of the Republicans' disastrous intervention in the Terri Schiavo affair . On April 4th, Cornyn took to the Senate floor to issue a not-too-thinly veiled threat to judges opposing his reactionary agenda. Just days after the murders of judge in Atlanta and another's family members in Chicago, Cornyn offered his endorsement of judicial intimidation: > "I don't know if there is a cause-and-effect connection, but we have seen some recent episodes of courthouse violence in this country...And I wonder whether there may be some connection between the perception in some quarters, on some occasions, where judges are making political decisions yet are unaccountable to the public, that it builds up and builds up and builds up to the point where some people engage in, engage in violence." Facing criticism for his remarks seemingly endorsing right-wing retribution against judges, Cornyn held his ground . "I didn't make the link," he said on Fox News Sunday, adding with a note of sarcasm: > "It was taken out of context. I regret it was taken out of context and misinterpreted." As it turns out, Cornyn was merely echoing the words of the soon-to-be indicted House Majority Leader Tom Delay. On March 31st, Delay issued a statement regarding the consistent rulings in favor of Michael Schiavo by all federal and state court judges involved: > "The time will come for the men responsible for this to answer for their behavior, but not today." The impact of tacit conservative endorsement of violence against judges cannot be dismissed. After all, it extends to members of the Supreme Court of the United States. In March 2006, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg revealed that she and Justice Sandra Day O'Connor were the targets of death threats . On February 28th, 2005, the marshal of the Court informed O'Connor and Ginsburg of an Internet posting citing their references to international law in Court decisions (a frequent whipping boy of the right) as requiring their assassination: > "This is a huge threat to our Republic and Constitutional freedom...If you are what you say you are, and NOT armchair patriots, then those two justices will not live another week." Neither O'Connor nor Ginsburg are shy about making the connection between Republican rhetoric of judicial intimidation and the upswing in threats and actual violence against judges. Ginsburg noted that they "fuel the irrational fringe" O'Connor blamed Cornyn and his fellow travelers for "creating a culture" in which violence towards judges is merely another political tactic: > "It gets worse. It doesn't help when a high-profile senator suggests a 'cause-and-effect connection' [between controversial rulings and subsequent acts of violence.]" When anthrax spores were mailed to the Supreme Court in 2001, Americans could be forgiven for speculating on the ideological persuasion of the culprit. Aided by best-selling conservative author and media personality Ann Coulter , who joked in January 2006, "We need somebody to put rat poisoning in Justice Stevens' creme brulee," the right-wing endorsement of retribution against judges increasingly permeates the culture. Just ask Judge Reggie Walton. A federal judge on the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, Walton was picked by Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts to serve on the FISA court which must approve government requests for domestic electronic surveillance. But when Dick Cheney's chief-of-staff Scooter Libby was convicted in his court in 2007, Judge Walton received death threats : > "I received a number of angry, harassing mean-spirited phone calls and letters. Some of those were wishing bad things on me and my family." One of those seemingly wishing bad things on judges is Montana Republican Congressman Denny Rehberg . Just weeks after the Tucson slaughter that claimed the life of circuit judge John Roll , Rehberg responded to a recent ruling by declaring he wanted to " put some of these judicial activists on the Endangered Species list ": > "Environmental obstructionists found a federal judge in Missoula that was willing to ignore the scientific evidence as well as the expert opinions of on-the-ground wildlife managers here in Montana. And he ruled last August that the grey wolf had to remain on the Endangered Species List.! > When I first heard his decision, like many of you I wanted to take action immediately. I asked: how can we put some of these judicial activists on the Endangered Species List? I am still working on that!" As are, in myriad other ways, many of his GOP allies. By proposing to abolish the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals , Newt Gingrich was hardly the first Republican to call for simply ending jurisdiction for the federal courts across a broad swath of issues. Even after the calamitous intervention in the Schiavo imbroglio, conservative stalwarts continued to turn to "court-stripping" as a favorite tactic. As the Eagle Forum's Phyllis Schlafly put it in 2006, "The American people are waiting for this year's Congress to pass legislation defining the jurisdiction of the federal courts so that supremacist judges will not be able to ban the Pledge of Allegiance, the Ten Commandments, the Boy Scouts, or the traditional definition of marriage as the union of a man and a woman." On terror detainees, the EPA's regulation of greenhouse gases and so much more, Republicans want eliminate the prospect of future rulings with which they might disagree. In 2008, former Supreme Court Justice and Reagan appointee Sandra Day O'Connor wrote, "What worries me is the manner in which politically motivated interest groups are attempting to interfere with justice." As O'Connor explained the next year to Jon Stewart of The Daily Show , that threat prompted her to launch a new online civics education project: > "Well, what I became aware of increasingly in those last years was all the criticism of judges across America. We heard a lot in Congress and in state legislature. We heard a lot about "activist judges," didn't we? "Secular, godless humanists trying to tell us all what to do." I mean, that was what we were hearing. And I just didn't see it that way, and I thought perhaps a lot of Americans had stopped understanding about the three branches of government." Americans, that is, like Newt Gingrich and many of his friends in the Republican Party. (This piece also appears at Perrspectives .)

Thank You - For the Occupation, For the Intensity, For Lettin'...

Added 11/25/11
2 Views

Thank You - For the Occupation, For the Intensity, For Lettin' Me Be Myself Again

[LESS INFO] 2 VIEWS | ADDED 17:30:23 11/25/11
It's like the old-timers always said: Don't quit before the miracle happens. While the Arab Spring showed that people can still accomplish the impossible, Our political debate was frozen in corporate cynicism. Now everything has changed. For the United States, spring came in autumn. Who says miracles don't happen? Like a Prayer A few months ago I prayed for something. Granted, it wasn't the kind of prayer that's sanctioned by any ecclesiastical authority. And, okay, maybe it wasn't exactly a "prayer." I guess the technical term for it would be "blog post." But trust me, it was a prayer. I'd been asked to write something for the Fourth of July, and I wrote we have to fight a new war, a " war of independence from corporate politics ." To be honest, those words felt Utopian even as I wrote them. Still, I never doubted them. The words were born out of the desperate sense that so many of us shared, a sense that our society is collapsing. And that it will keep on collapsing unless we change the way we think. I wasn't arguing for any particular policy or platform. "The problem isn't just with politicians, or even the system," I said then. "The problem is dependence itself." Oh, come on. How starry-eyed can you get? Stop depending on politicians? Declare psychic and political independence from celebrity-driven politics and media-made leaders? I'd always considered myself a realist, but this was almost embarrassingly idealistic. Except for the fact that it happened. Passionate Intensity Like so many others, I had grieved and raged over the lack of commitment displayed by good people. Cynics, robber barons, and American warlords are hard at work degrading - and downgrading - this country. In a strange set of parallels, we were reenacting the stories of the Third World countries we'd invaded. Like them, we were becoming a nation where servile or fearful politicians served a cynical oligarchy while the people's way of life died all around them. Some might call it karma - or simply "payback." But whatever you call it, the forces of hate and greed were running wild. The "two-party" system seemed to offer nothing in response except a) posturing, b) surrender, and c) a politics of compromise that seemed to amount to little more than ... well, see "a)" and "b)", above. Good people were fighting for better policies, and I tried to play my part. But too many of us focused on the prose of politics and not its poetry. Meanwhile, too many politicians got lazy quoting Bill Clinton's hack line: Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. It can be, of course. But before our eyes, the "good" became the enemy of the "perfect" and the mediocre became the enemy of the good. Then the cynical became the enemy of the mediocre, and democracy began to die. Meanwhile the other side gained its momentum with every passing month, fueled by a pseudo-populist movement ginned up by corporate-funded political hacks. A nation that had rejected the politics of greed and oligarchy at the ballot box was even more suffocated by it than before. No wonder so many people were uninspired, discouraged, despondent. Some people quoted William Butler Yeats: The best lack all conviction while the worst are full of passionate intensity. The good people who did burn with passionate intensity were in danger of turning the torch on themselves. " The game is over," wrote Chris Hedges . "We lost. The corporate state will continue its inexorable advance until two-thirds of the nation is locked into a desperate, permanent underclass." As boom times came back to Wall Street, depression - emotional as well as economic - entombed the majority. But the suffering of the majority turned invisible inside the Beltway, as politicians debated deficits in a broken economy. It was like debating water conservation while the house burned down. The Condition of Everything Miles of commentary have been written about the Occupy movement. As the occupations gained steam, people criticized them for their lack of specific policy demands. But they were right not to issue specific demands. They were declaring independence from a frame of mind, a set of assumptions that led to passive acceptance of an unacceptable system. And they had passionate intensity. I've told this story before, but I'll tell it again: When OccupyDC marched down K Street, in the early days of the movement, a young security guard asked an older one what they were protesting. "I'm not sure," said the older man. "But I think they're objecting to ..." He circled his hands to indicate the environment around him. ".... the condition of everything. " By objecting to the condition of everything, the Occupiers changed the political dialog in this country. By rejecting leaders and insisting on self-governance through General Assemblies, they taught us by example how to escape emotional dependence. Like William Butler Yeats, they understood that you can't distinguish the dancer from the dance. One of the movement's most articulate and forceful advocates is Chris Hedges. Recalling Democracy The Wisconsin uprising had been going on for months, even in the dark days of July. The miracle of Wisconsin is that it's still going on. People there occupied their capitol to protest laws designed to break the middle class, laws written by corporate America's "ALEC" division. Then they mounted recall efforts against recently elected GOP State Senators, reducing their majority and draining resources from their coffers. Now Gov. Walker is facing a recall. The struggle in Wisconsin isn't about "Democrats" against "Republicans." It's about resisting politicians that are wholly-owned subsidiaries of corporate America. The people of Wisconsin showed the country how to resist. Now they're showing us how to persist. And just this month, Ohio voters rejected an ALEC-inspired initiative to strip that state's workers of rights. Maine voters rejected a move to overturn election-day registration, another attempt to restrict the ability of lower-income citizens to vote. And Mississippi rejected a definition of prenatal rights so extreme that many anti-abortion advocates were disturbed by its implications for the rights, health, and safety of women. Like I was saying: Miracles. Radical Innocence But elections aren't the point. They can be a reflection of the change we need, but they're not the change itself. The real changes are personal. "When I remake a song," said Yeats, "it is myself that I remake." The Rolling Stones said "It's the singer, not the song." We misunderstood our own power. We were being distracted and manipulated by fear and anger. Our minds, our souls, were being manipulated by what the Native American poet and activist John Trudell calls "the mining of the essence." One of the reasons we were powerless is that we believed we were powerless. That's even true economically. "All money is a matter of belief," said Adam Smith. We needed to push our fear and anger away to see the obvious truths all around us: The corporations rule our political process. That our democracy is dying. That Wall Street is filled with people who broke moral (and sometimes actual) laws and forced the rest of the country to pay the price. We had to see with fresh eyes. "All hatred driven hence," wrote Yeats, "the soul recovers radical innocence." Our political process has become too cynical. Even reasonable and very moderate ideas favored by a majority of Republican voters, as well as others - a breakup of five or six too-big-to-fail banks, a public option health plan that's only available to one American in twenty - were declared impossible. We needed an infusion of radical innocence, the innocence of Thomas Paine and Thomas Jefferson, of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela. We sometimes think of innocence as something childlike and weak. But innocence has great power. Innocence changes the world. We needed that radical innocence,and we got it. What we do with it now is up to us. Can we commit ourselves to moving forward, to persevering against all odds? The future's unwritten. But we know what's happening right now. The political dialog has shifted in a way that seemed impossible a few months ago. I don't know how you feel about that, but I know how I feel. I feel thankful. So thankful, in fact, that I'm gonna let Sam & Dave tell you all about it. Take it away, fellas:

UFCW Workers Prepare for Upcoming Battle with Giant and Safeway

Added 11/18/11
27 Views

UFCW Workers Prepare for Upcoming Battle with Giant and Safeway

[LESS INFO] 27 VIEWS | ADDED 00:00:00 11/18/11
Members of the United Food & Commercial Workers Local 400 are preparing and training in advance of a collective bargaining fight with grocery chains Giant and Safeway in Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia. The current contract ends in March of 2012, but the union has requested an early start to negotiations, only to be rejected by the grocery chains. The fight looks to be a tough one: > “Yes, there are reasons to expect that negotiations will be difficult,” [UFCW Local 400 President Tom] McNutt said. “What’s happened in Southern California this year is a perfect example,” he added. McNutt said contract talks in California earlier this year were characterized by sharp tensions, including threats of a strike or lockout. A coalition of union locals there struggled for nearly a year with three large grocery chains in the area—including Safeway—over wages, health care benefits and pensions, he said. “We need an early start to avoid the problems we saw in California. I’m hopeful Giant and Safeway will agree before it is too late,” McNutt said. The corporations are saying that they are facing tough times and that concessions will be necessary from the employees. But the facts show otherwise : > Giant, which is owned by Royal Ahold NV, a Netherlands-based company, raked in profits of $29.5 billion euros, up 4.4 percent from last year’s total sales. The company’s CEO, Dick Boer, made $2.7 million euros in total compensation last year and CFO Kimberly Ross received nearly $3 million euros. The bulk of Ahold’s profits are generated by the company’s unionized American workers. Last year, Safeway also survived the recession with an increase in sales to $41.5 billion dollars, which meant the company and its shareholders enjoyed $1.2 billion in profits, while CEO Steve Burd’s compensation increased to nearly $11 million. Meanwhile, half of the employees at these companies make $10 an hour or less. President McNutt recently rallied the members for the coming battle: > “We’ve got to stand together as one,” Local 400 President Tom McNutt told the stewards, “because we’re up against greedy, amoral multinational corporations that care about nothing other than their bottom line, and we’re up against global economic and domestic political forces arrayed against us. “That might sound intimidating, but we can do it,” McNutt said. “Because there is strength in numbers and power in our collective will. “We’re looking to you to engage our members one on one, to hold meetings among all your sisters and brothers at your store, and to fully participate in all union-wide events, too,” McNutt explained. “Talk to our members, listen to them, engage them, motivate them, energize them, activate them. Help them understand how we’re all in this together, and how much of a profound difference in their lives they will make by playing an active role in this round of bargaining. “For we are family,” he said. “One big family. Just like family, we’ve got to have each other’s backs. We’ve got to treat an attack on one like it’s an attack on all. And we’ve got to always put our family first.” Hundreds of UFCW members recently went through training seminars to prepare them for the organizing efforts for rallying co-workers and public support for the negotiations.

Max Payne 3 - Design & Technologie Reihe (1) - Entstehung eine...

Added 11/17/11
1 Views

Max Payne 3 - Design & Technologie Reihe (1) - Entstehung eines wegweisenden Action-Shooters (DE)

[LESS INFO] 1 VIEWS | ADDED 18:58:29 11/17/11
Max Payne 3 - Design & Technologie Reihe (1) - Entstehung eines wegweisenden Action-Shooters (DE) Der erste Teil der "Design und Technologie" -Reihe wirft einen ersten Blick auf die Zielmechanik, die Bewegungen und Animationen, die gegnerische Intelligenz und andere technische Design-Innovationen, die in die Entstehung des ausgefeilten, nervenzerrei%szligenden und packenden Action-Shooters Max Payne 3 einflie%szligen. ---ENGLISH--- The first part of the "Design and Technology" Video Series offers a detailed look at the targeting mechanics, movement and animation, enemy intelligence and other technical design innovations going into building an advanced, intense and immersive action-shooter with Max Payne 3. ABOUT THIS GAME ************************ Max Payne 3, the sequel developed by Rockstar Vancouver for PC, Xbox 360 and PS3. Max Payne 3 tells the story of Max Payne, a hard-boiled New York City detective with a penchant for violence, out to avenge the death of his family. Since leaving the NYPD and New York itself behind, Max has drifted from bad to worse. Double-crossed and a long way from home, Max is now trapped in a city full of violence and bloodshed, using his weapons and instincts in a desperate search for the truth and a way out. Max Payne 3 will be launched in North America and Europe in March 2012. Max Payne 3 ***************** GENRE: Action Shooter RELEASE DATE(S): + US: March 2012 + EU: March 2012 PLATFORM: Xbox 360 ALSO ON: PS3, PC WEBSITE: www.rockstargames.com/maxpayne3 AVAILABLE @ AMAZON: Coming soon. PUBLISHER: Rockstar Games DEVELOPER: Rockstar Vancouver ESRB ... From: XboxViewTV Views: 667 23 ratings Time: 04:04 More in Gaming

Max Payne 3 - Design & Technology Series (1): Creating a Cutti...

Added 11/17/11
1 Views

#OccupySeattle: Priest, Pregnant Teen, Elderly Woman Pepper Sp...

Added 11/16/11
2 Views

Veterans of the 99% March in Support of Occupy Wall Street and...

Added 11/04/11
1 Views

#OccupyVentura: The 99 Percent Speak (And Carry Big Signs)

Added 10/16/11
1 Views

#OccupyVentura: The 99 Percent Speak (And Carry Big Signs)

[LESS INFO] 1 VIEWS | ADDED 14:00:06 10/16/11
Ventura County is a study in wide contrasts. Comprised of bedroom and beach communities, it's a mashup of conservative and progressive values weighted toward the edges with smatterings in the middle. But until this past month, the conservatives have dominated public office and the public eye. That has changed, and changed in a big way. Saturday's OccupyVentura gathering was peaceful and happy, but it carried a heavy undertow of determination to see change. I brought the camera to listen and observe, while talking to some of the people who came to Mission Park on a Saturday to speak against those who, in their view, are stealing their futures and those of their children. There was Melody Joy Baker , a homeless woman who is running for a seat on the Ventura City Council. She is determined to do what she can within her power to help people who are homeless and living in poverty. This is important in Ventura -- many homeless live in the Ventura River bottom, and many of those living there are drug and alcohol addicts. Melody says she is determined to do something to help them. There were others. One was a high school student who said his father is a socialist and his mother is a banker, so he sees both sides of the duality. In his words, "that duality is severely out of balance right now." Indeed, it is. There were students and grandparents; mothers and fathers. There was a place for children to play under careful supervision while their parents marched down Main Street to the local Bank of America, which closed early to avoid confrontation with the people pictured above. There were men in masks and unmasked men, all carrying the same message: They are tired of being the silent ones. Two policemen stood in the corner of the park, relaxed and smiling. There was no tension between them and the people in the park. None. Our numbers weren't huge, but for this area, they were more than I've seen in the over-twenty years I've lived here. Remarkably, those who drove past our group were unanimously supportive. Unlike other demonstrations I've attended, where there's a mix of haters and supporters, no one was anything less than supportive. At times the burst of car horns blaring was a little jarring, but in a good way. I left in the late afternoon as the crowd began to dwindle away, though I had heard there were some planning to stay the night, and for the first time in a long time, felt optimistic about the possibility that real change was coming, and this was bigger than a person or a candidate or a leader. It was a self-empowering moment where people were standing up for themselves and speaking. Finally. Having found their voice, they will be silent no more. There is a determination to turn public energy into public action, to push for changes that will protect their futures. Change is going to come. (Many thanks to Daily Kos blogger RL Miller for the ride up there and back. Couldn't have done it without her.)