Politics – Page 5 – AmericanDelusions

Naomi Wolf’s The End of America – the movie

May 27, 2011

The End of America – a film by Annie Sundberg and Ricki Stern Here is a summary of the ten steps discussed and illustrated by Ms. Wolf in the movie. 10 STEPS THAT CLOSE AN OPEN SOCIETY 1. invoke an internal and external threat People who are afraid are willing --->> read more -->>

Let’s Talk About The Defense Budget – a letter to the editor

April 2, 2011

(This was submitted to the Letters to the Editor section of the Register Star here in Hudson. Not clear at the moment whether it will be published.) Discussions of the Federal budget almost never mention the defense department. Both political parties continue in the thrall of what President Eisenhower called the “military-industrial complex”. --->> read more -->>

Corporations as Persons – Freedom of Speech, now Right to Privacy – Bring on Three Strikes!

January 20, 2011

The case of the Federal Communications Commission v. AT&T now being heard before the US Supreme Court raises anew the craziness of the thinking that has position corporations to be “persons” in the first place. Noun vs Adjective! First we have several of the justices focusing argument around the difference --->> read more -->>

Bush, Anger and Dispair Over Our Situation

January 17, 2011

New Thoughts as of 1/18/11: This month’s Atlantic Monthly has a two page piece, “The Last Stand of Ricardo Sanchez” about General Ricardo Sanchez, the first commander of US forces during the now 8 year old Bush war, Iraqi Freedom. This reports on Sanchez’s quest to bering the Bush regime to --->> read more -->>

Education – Miseducation – Human Creativity – TED Talk by Ken Robinson

November 5, 2010

We all have had, some now enduring, experiences in the educational system. Excepting the academic super stars for whom the educational system was designed, most have at best mixed feelings about it. Here is a TED Talk given in 2006 by Ken Robinson: “Ken Robinson says schools kill creativity” It --->> read more -->>

The Mortgage Debacle – Redux

October 10, 2010

The current tsunami of revelations of misbehavior, if not outright criminality, by the banking industry in their pursuit of mortgages gone bad, is further evidence of how fundamentally corrupt and cynical this industry continues to be. On the front end of this global economic disaster the financial system engaged in misleading sales --->> read more -->>

9/11 and the Uses of American Amnesia (or Self Delusion)

September 20, 2010

As another anniversary of the events of September 11, 2001 passes, the endless reflexive bleating in the press and our politics about 9/11 reminds that Americans continue to be enormously ignorant and callous about our place in the world. The destruction on September 11, 2001 of a few buildings and --->> read more -->>

Krugman Asleep at the Wheel of History ….. the elite has not been interested for forty years…

August 2, 2010

The August 1st New York Times carries the latest Paul Krugman opinion piece, “Defining Prosperity Down“. He is depressed because it is dawning on him that the elite is in the process of redefining the level of structural unemployment that is normal to adjust to the significant likelihood that we --->> read more -->>

Do We Need Wall St. and all the other gamblers in the financial services world?

April 20, 2010

What Is the Function of Wall St.? The global financial meltdown of 2008 – 2009 with its ongoing sequelae seems not to have definitively demonstrated the dangers of our continuing belief in the religion of “free markets” nor shaken, especially it seems in the Obama administration, our thrall with Wall --->> read more -->>

Tea Party Nation – banned me for asking a few questions

March 8, 2010

Who and What Is Tea Party Nation? I generally don’t have that much interested in fringe weirdo politics. But, with the continuing eruptions on the right wing of the right wing Republican party, I thought that I might investigate. So, I became a member of the TeaPartyNation.com website. I spent --->> read more -->>

Controlling Gambling by Wall St. and the Big Banks – Bad for Business?

January 22, 2010

Anti-Wall St Does Not Mean Anti-Business President Obama’s proposals to break up the “too large to fail” mega banks and otherwise reapply the Glass Steagall Act to the financial sector has predictably brought loud complaints that this is populist and anti-business. Even the rhetoric of the reporters and expert talking --->> read more -->>

Remarks on President Obama’s Speech on Accepting The Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo 12/10/2009

December 21, 2009

President Obama’s speech on accepting the Nobel Peace Prize on December 10, 2009 has generally been reviewed in the US with much glow about its rhetorical heights and appreciation of its depth of thought. I did not watch Obama give this speech. Instead, I turned to the text which I --->> read more -->>

More Blather about Healthcare from “Experts”

June 16, 2009

Acknowledge the basic facts about how the healthcare system is working today. Yesterday in a radio interview, “How to conquer health care challenges”, with Professor Glenn Melnick from the Rand Corporation and USC, we were again offered up “expert” opinion that does not even acknowledge the basic facts about how the healthcare --->> read more -->>

A New Thought on Terrorism

December 6, 2008

An article in today’s NYTimes about cyber crime, malware, etc. suggests to me that another line of attack may be through the Internet against our utilities, telecoms, or financial institutions. There have already been massive attacks against whole countries with successful breakdowns that lasted for hours and days. Ukraine, Lithuania, --->> read more -->>

Mumbai, Boston and Terrorism

December 3, 2008

The arrival by small boat of the Mumbai terrorists reminds me of a persistent fear here. A small freighter or a large one loaded with containers will pull into Conley Terminal in South Boston and shortly thereafter a dirty bomb will go off. This will spread a small cloud of --->> read more -->>

Politics

Obama

November 5, 2008

I will not add to the comments that have flooded around the world last night and this morning. However this significant moment had to be greeted with more than silence.

Bush – the worst modern President

November 1, 2008

Since my entry this morning I have been thinking more about the Presidency and Bush. My knowledge of 19th century Presidents is a bit spotty. Certainly the names Buchanan, Pierce, Johnson and Grant pop to mind as less than top of the heap. But, for the modern era, post WW2, --->> read more -->>

Pondering at the Food Coop – the empire

November 1, 2008

November 1, 2008 So, here I am having coffee and my favorite lunch, a toasted bagel with peanut butter thinking about the approaching election. Finally this will conclude what has been an overly long campaign, but one with enormous pleasures. Assuming that Obama is not just a curiosity to all --->> read more -->>

Pondering at the Food Coop

November 1, 2008

North Korea – a visit to the “Axis of Evil”

June 21, 2007

Recently, in the context of some discussion of the Bush regime, my step-son Jonathan pointed me towards several books on Korea. He said that Bruce Cumings is simply the best author writing in English on Korea. So, a quick trip to the local library and I had this compact little --->> read more -->>

Economy

Enron, Trust and Malfeasance

January 29, 2002

January 23, 2002 (revised 1/29/02) The collapse of energy giant Enron over the last six months has produced a surprising level of outrage especially for a cynic like me. As this drama continues to unfold, I have been trying to understand how Enron structured their business and made money. Until --->> read more -->>

Whose Opinion (Advice) Is This?

January 1, 2002

Whose Opinion (Advice) Is This? The Problem At a time when we are quite aware of the need for and value of transparency in the reporting of the activities of corporations (thanks most recently to the Enron affair), we could quite usefully extend this transparency metaphor to other parts of --->> read more -->>