h/t: Truthdig.com
CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY: “Escape Artists” / Mr Fish
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Category Archives: Supply-side Economics
ECONOMIC INEQUALITY: “Wealth Inequality in the United States” / politizane (MUST WATCH VIDEO)
h/t: Planet Atheism
h/t: PZ Myers
Related articles
- Income Inequality Goes Viral (billmoyers.com)
- This Viral Video Will Change How You Think About Wealth Distribution in the U.S. (fastcoexist.com)
- How wealth inequality crowds out America’s success (timpanogos.wordpress.com)
- Wealth inequality in America infinitely worse than you think it is (coolrevolution.net)
ECONOMIC INEQUALITY: “Richard Wolff on Fighting for Economic Justice and Fair Wages” / Bill Moyers
h/t: Bill Moyers.com
POLITICS: Amitai Etzioni / “The Conservative ‘Party’ Dominates”
There is a very widely shared myth about “Washington.” Accordingly, there are two camps, the right-wing GOP and the left-leaning Democrats, who are more or less matched. Each control one house of Congress, and command about half of the electorate. Hence, the gridlock.
Actually, much of American politics over the last four years or longer should be understood as a contest between the conservative “party” (most of the GOP and good part of the Democrats) and a liberal minority party. . . .
Gridlock exists when one party pulls east and the other party pulls west and, hence, nothing budges. This is not the case in Washington. Here, most times, one party wants to move east and the other wants to stay put. Thus, what appears as gridlock is actually one conservative blocking victory after another. The fact that the last Congress passed only half as many bills as most previous ones does not trouble the conservatives one bit.
INCOME INEQUALITY: Nick Hanauer / “TED Talk On Income Inequality Deemed Too ‘Political’ For Site”
[…]
Hanauer, one of the first nonfamily investors in Amazon.com, shared this argument as part of a talk he gave at the TED University conference. Now, the organizers of TED — a movement aimed at bringing attention to “ideas worth spreading” — is refusing to share Hanauer’s talk on the internet, calling it too “political,” according to the National Journal.
Chris Anderson, the curator of TED, wrote in a post on his website responding to the allegations that the organization is inundated with requests to post talks on its homepage and only features those that are “truly special.” Anderson also claimed that once Hanauer found out the site would’t be posting his talk, he hired a public relations firm to promote the talk to progressive organizations like MoveOn.org. Anderson also released a video of Hanauer’s talk, providing a link to it in his post.
This post is dedicated to our true unsung heroines and heros, Librarians.
Mitt Romney’s “The 47 Percent” / George Carlin’s “The American Dream” / Priceless!
POLITICAL SATIRE: Mr Fish / “The Asshole Monologues”
h/t: truthdig.com
PARODY: Jimmy Fallon / “Romney & Bain”
TEA PARTY: The Newsroom / “Tea Party is the American Taliban” / “The Tea Party and Koch”
TEA PARTY: The Newsroom / “The Tea Party and Koch”
REASON: Bill Maher / “My New Rule for Todd Akin and the Republican Party”
. . . Here’s the only thing you need to know about Todd Akin and human anatomy: he’s an asshole. What I want to talk about is how it’s not a coincidence that the party of fundamentalism is also the party of fantasy. When I say religion is a mental illness, this is what I mean: it corrodes your mental faculties to the point where you can believe in tiny ninja warriors who hide in vaginas and lie in wait for bad people’s sperm.
Evangelicals might like to pretend that the magical thinking that they indulge in at home doesn’t affect what they do at the office, but it absolutely does. The brain that believes in angels and miracles and Jesus riding a dinosaur is trained to see the world not as it is, but as you want it to be.
[…]
. . . [B]ecause we’re already such a religious country, our minds are primed for magical, fantasy thinking. The gullibility comes factory-installed. They’ve learned that you appeal not to an American’s head, but to his gut — it’s a much bigger target. But here’s the problem: life is complicated. I mean, I know we know some things for sure, like why Jesus put us here on Earth: to watchHere Comes Honey Boo Boo on a 50-inch TV screen. But what about the Chinese slaves who made the TV? What about carbon from the coal that generated the electricity? What about the Walmart where we bought it, where the workers don’t have health insurance? What about racism, or the oceans turning into nail polish remover? The grown-up answer is: identify problems scientifically, prioritize and solve. The Republican answer is: there isn’t a problem. And anyone who tells you different is a liar who hates America. We don’t have to make hard choices. We just have to ignore the science and the math — that’s why God gave us values.
Always Question Authority 