Corporate Personhood is eating our economy alive.

Corporate personhood is eating our economy alive.

I'm curating this Facebook comment for future reference because it will soon sink into that platform's quagmire. Go to the link for an informative thread of comments. 

President Carter had no economic experience on the international level & couldn’t leverage our very strong economic power nor control the American oil companies. Big business/Corporations began their control of our economy. There was plenty of oil. But they made more money by enhancing the shortage. Interest rates climbed to 22%. Oil & Banks ran wild for profits. 

The Banks remain in control as Citizens United gave them unlimited power. Reagan enhanced Corporate independence as America sold most of our manufacturing capabilities to China. The IBM PC division was sold & the sale approved. Before that technology got into Chinese hands, their missiles couldn’t hit intercontinental targets. It took force to bring OPEC (Saudi Arabia) to negotiate reasonably. From Reagan through today, both Parties moved American financial power to foreign Countries, stole the 2+ Trillion & from the Social Security fund which was prohibited by having the Federal Reserve trade T-bills in debt to the Fund drying it up. It was never paid back & is now forgotten.

Biden is in over his head but trying very hard. Sadly he’s using out of date methods drastically failing as our Economics policy is very out of date. This argument on how to manage our economy through a National banking system goes back to the Alexander Hamilton/ Aaron Burr duel. Hamilton was killed. We got a National Bank which has yet to change their tactics in controlling inflation. Trump engaged in tariff wars which broke much of our farming capability.

World wide shipping to America became very difficult as too few international shipping docks were updated over 40+ years & local zoning will not allow stacking of containers over 2 high. Covid-19’s increased International shipping to America, as Asia now makes most everything, & modern freighters carry containers 4 or more stacked high could not be unloaded. No National help was ordered by our huge West coast Navy (now not at war) to help!!! Federal fuel prices for freight trucks was not locked at previous prices. 

America has had price control Federal limits ordered many times in modern history as has food pricing & rationing by a simple Presidential order. Big Corporations (now with the privileges & rights of being considered “People”) take advantage to raise prices long before shipping shortages actually give a reason as they had not experienced shortages. Gasoline & Diesel fuel prices went up long before the now very expensive oil reached our shores. We have done this to ourselves in the name of large corporations shrinking our broader market through great political power they did not have before Citizens United!

Noorah Alhamdan and B'Tselem Notes

Nooran Alhamdan is a graduate research fellow for the Middle East Institute's Cyber Program for the 2021-2022 academic year. She previously served as a graduate research fellow for the Middle East Institute's Program on Palestine and Palestinian-Israeli Affairs, where she focused primarily on Palestinian refugee rights. She is currently pursuing her Masters in Arab Studies at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. As a graduate fellow for the Cyber program, she will focus on digital rights and the intersection of online political speech and Palestine.

When Secretary of State Antony Blinken addressed graduates yesterday she and others used the occasion to once again bring attention to the killing of Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Aqleh, killed last week during actions of Israeli Occupation Forces. I noted the story on Facebook but I have no confidence that what I wrote will be readily linked in the future so I am crafting these notes for backup and future reference. In short, part of the ceremony included all of the graduates formally shaking hands with the dignitaries, and when her turn came she conspicuously refused to shake hands with the Secretary of State, a gesture bringing attention her cause

Myself & my classmates in Arab Studies honored the legacy of Shireen Abu Aqleh during Anthony Blinken’s commencement address. We demand an independent investigation & an end to American aid to Israel now. I relayed these demands to Blinken personally & refused to shake his hand.

At the end of commencement @SecBlinken came up to me personally and said “I hear you.” I reiterated that an independent investigation and accountability for Israel were necessary. He walked away when I told him to cut all American aid to the Israeli military.

This link via B'Tselem has a number of first-person accounts of the recent IOF actions.

For 11 days, Israel relentlessly bombarded the Gaza Strip, one of the most crowded places on earth, killing 232 Palestinians. Almost a quarter of those killed were minors, and more than half were not taking part in the hostilities. Many were killed at home, with nowhere to run or hide. Thousands were injured and thousands lost everything they owned. A year on, B'Tselem's field researchers in Gaza talked to people who lost their loved ones and homes. These are their testimonies...

B’Tselem – The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories strives for a future in which human rights, liberty and equality are guaranteed to all people, Palestinian and Jewish alike, living between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. Such a future will only be possible when the Israeli occupation and apartheid regime end. That is the future we are working towards. B’Tselem (in Hebrew literally: in the image of), the name chosen for the organization by the late Member of Knesset Yossi Sarid, is an allusion to Genesis 1:27: “And God created humankind in His image. In the image of God did He create them.” The name expresses the universal and Jewish moral edict to respect and uphold the human rights of all people.

Since B’Tselem’s inception in 1989, we have been documenting, researching and publishing statistics, testimonies, video footage, position papers and reports on human rights violations committed by Israel in the Occupied Territories. The initial mandate we took upon ourselves focused on the occupation regime in the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) and in the Gaza Strip. However, over the years, it has become clear that the concept of two parallel regimes operating between the Mediterranean Sea and Jordan River – a permanent democracy west of the Green Line and a temporary military occupation to the east of it – is divorced from reality. The entire area that Israel controls is ruled by a single apartheid regime, governing the lives of all people living in it and operating according to one organizing principle: establishing and perpetuating the control of one group of people – Jews – over another – Palestinians – through laws, practices and state violence.

In more than 30 years of work, B'Tselem has earned a place of honor in the local and international human rights community, and has received various awards, including the Carter-Menil Award for Human Rights (1989, jointly with Al-Haq); the Danish PL Foundation Human Rights Award (2011, jointly with Al-Haq); the Stockholm Human Rights Award (2014); and the Human Rights Award of the French Republic (2018, jointly with Al-Haq). B’Tselem’s video project has also received various awards, including the British One World Media Award (2009) and the Israeli Documentary Filmmakers Forum Award (2012).

B’Tselem is an independent, non-partisan organization. It is funded solely by donations: grants from European and North American foundations that support human rights activity worldwide, and generous contributions by private individuals in Israel and abroad.

Twitter thread & Replies - Abortion and the Bible

My favorite part of the Bible is where Jesus denies someone communion for an issue Jesus never spoke about.
   ~ Tristan Snell

This tweet and replies are worth keeping for future reference. 
Many more at the link but you get the idea...

• He actually did speak about it. He said the Old Testament was good for learning and was inspired scripture. 

The Old Testament:

• So many forget that communion is supposed to cleanse the soul and bring one closer to The Lord.

Goes to show how fallible man is...especially an Archbishop.

• You're not Roman Catholic. We don't do bible. We got a quarterly missalette (back in the day-I'm lapsed for a long time), where all the the things we needed to know were parsed out. And then we were fed the right message. I was always impressed when others could quote the bible.

• You mean you’re not ALLOWED to read the doctrine you’re expected to follow. You just listen to someone else’s think piece on it and sing dry hymnals while incense is burning. Just join Shea Butter Twitter. You can think for yourself, there 🤣

• Well Jesus was Jewish so He probably wouldn’t know what communion is, but don’t tell the Catholics that..

• Catholics are by far the most Jewish of the Christian denominations-(pragmatic, pompous, archaically conservative, traditional, disciplined). Of varying intensity across east/west branches.

Though the Mormons have their eye on the prize. 😇😜

• The number of things that are not in the Bible and certainly opposite from what Jesus said is incalculable. I focus on the positive (Beatitudes, Acta of Mercy) in my 2nd grade classrooms.  And, as a disclaimer, I am a devout Catholic. I just don’t push my faith on others.

• Sometimes I speak to the youth about smoking the pot. And Dr Oz said something interesting the other day. People don't go to work anymore because they smoke the ganja. So I try to get people addicted to Jesus instead of grass. It's free. And u don't have to pay any dime bags

• Jesus did not speak about a lot of things.

Very few people, virtually none, are "pro abortion".

Pro-choice means that a woman makes her own decision.  

That's a very important distinction that some people refuse to recognize. 

• I think this archbishop goes too far.  

I doubt that he interprets official church doctrine correctly.  

If Pelosi were to bend on this issue, she would be quickly accused of being controlled by the Pope.

• The tenant of the modern Republican Party are contrary to many of the things Jesus said. And I'm not a religious guy at all.

I have no idea if this is correct but it appears at the link.

Democracy is fragile (Brian Klaas thread)

Democracy is fragile. It requires many key features to survive—and I fear that the US has now lost several of those features because of the GOP’s embrace of authoritarianism. Worse, these trends are accelerating, with no obvious brake in sight. So, what has been destroyed? 

• A shared sense of reality. Without it, compromise—a core function of democracy—becomes impossible. The more that GOP extremists push QAnon rhetoric and lies about elections and other debunked lunacy, how can you compromise? You don’t even inhabit the same political universe. 
• A commitment to democracy by all major parties. Without that, every election becomes a gamble that an authoritarian party will seize power. That’s where we’re at now, because the GOP has gone all-in on authoritarian lies and devotion to a cult-like autocratic figure. 
• Shared belief in electoral legitimacy. American vote tabulation is extremely accurate, but Republicans have lied about US elections on Trump’s instructions, which now means the very engine of democracy is not accepted by a large chunk of Americans. Is that sustainable? 
• Politicians being punished if they don’t solve problems. Again, no longer true. Republican voters are largely rewarding meme trolls and “owning the libs” with meaningless stunts of increasing extremism. There’s some of this for Democrats too, but it’s not nearly so extreme. 
• Fear of losing general elections. Most Congressional elections are uncompetitive due to gerrymandering and demographic sorting. Most members of Congress need only care about their primary, which means they have strong incentives for ratcheting extremism. 
• Punishment for politicians who are deranged extremist authoritarians. And yet, the third ranking House Republican just called Democrats “pedo grifters.” What used to be punished is now a way to breakout as a GOP star. It’s therefore going to get worse because voters reward it. 

Sadly, this is self-perpetuating, because the worse Republicans behave, the more the GOP base voters are willing to excuse as they get used to it. The only punishments are reserved for those who cross Trump or accept the 2020 election as actual reality (see: Cheney, Liz). 

We’re left with a GOP ecosystem that punishes people who focus on policy, compromise, and fight for democracy. It rewards people who stand out most as authoritarian extremists, which creates a ratcheting effect—which is why it keeps getting crazier. And there’s no brake! 

There are solutions/reforms that would work. But sadly, all of them are realistically dead on arrival in Congress because of the current power balance (especially in the Senate). To summarize the obvious: American democracy is in serious trouble with no obvious end in sight.

Brian Klaas is an American political scientist and columnist at The Washington Post and associate professor in global politics at University College London.

https://twitter.com/brianklaas/status/1525503581801136130