Titanic Post

YES! Magazine

We’re entering a new year at a time unlike any other in recent memory. Here are 10 reasons I’m filled with hope as I look ahead at 2009—and three reasons I’m terrified.

1. Young people are stepping up. They know that they formed the backbone of Barack Obama’s presidential campaign and that their work infused the country with the “Yes, we can” spirit. Now that these young people know what success feels like, many will be in it for the long haul [1].
2. Election protection is working. Grassroots vigilance, successful lawsuits, and media exposure are making voter suppression efforts [2]less successful. More remains to be done, but the trends are in the right direction. (One terrifying note, though, is the death in a December 19 plane crash of GOP IT expert Michael Connell [3], who many believe was poised to reveal secrets related to vote stealing.)
3. There is now overwhelming support for universal health care [4]. This grassroots commitment coupled with Obama’s leadership could make this the year when we finally overcome the roadblocks big insurance and drug corporations have placed in the way of progress. A majority of Americans favor a tax-supported single-payer system [5] like Canada’s. The Obama plan, [6] while it’s not single-payer, is nonetheless a good plan—as long as it retains the option for all Americans to join a public health insurance plan [6]. (more…)

by Paul B. Farrell

Global Research, November 7, 2008

ARROYO GRANDE, Calif. (MarketWatch) — Yes, we’re dummies. You. Me. All 300 million of us. Clueless. We should be ashamed. We’re obsessed about the slogans and rituals of “democracy,” distracted by the campaign, polls, debates, rhetoric, half-truths and outright lies. McCain? Obama? Sorry to pop your bubble folks, but it no longer matters who’s president.

Why? The real “game changer” already happened. Democracy has been replaced by Wall Street’s new “disaster capitalism.” That’s the big game-changer historians will remember about 2008, masterminded by Wall Street’s ultimate “Trojan Horse,” Hank Paulson. Imagine: Greed, arrogance and incompetence create a massive bubble, cost trillions, and still Wall Street comes out smelling like roses, richer and more powerful!

Yes, we’re idiots: While distracted by the “illusion of democracy” in the endless campaign, Congress surrendered the powers we entrusted to it with very little fight. Congress simply handed over voting power and the keys to trillions in the Treasury to Wall Street’s new “Disaster Capitalists” who now control “democracy.”Why did this happen? We’re in denial, clueless wimps, that’s why. We let it happen. In one generation America has been transformed from a democracy into a strange new form of government, “Disaster Capitalism.” Here’s how it happened: (more…)

It amazes me to hear what I assume to be working class people working hard for their money calling other working class people “whiners” when they speak up in outrage over getting the shaft from giant corporations who can’t cover their losses for high-rate loans they made to low income people caught up in our tanking economy.

Fanny May and Freddie Mac are sub-prime lenders of money to high-risk people who would not otherwise be able to qualify for a loan to buy a house. They were originally funded by the government so that they could cover eventual losses due to the fluctuating market and to the risk involved. This is called “welfare,” corporate welfare. I also think it was a good idea to give poor families the opportunity to buy a home and to start accumulating wealth.

Now Fanny May and Freddie Mac are whining to the government to bail them out, because they were too shortsighted to put enough money aside, even with the high interest rates they charged their customers. Instead they pocketed the profits and underfunded their coverage.

If the government is brash enough to bail them out, as they invariably do with bank and oil companies that are in trouble, the profits are privatized by the rich corporations and the losses are socialized and handed down to the taxpayer.

Instead of complaining about poor people who are rightly complaining about their crappy situation, you should all be outraged at our government for screwing us all to the benefit of the rich. Karl Rove is an evil man and a criminal who should be imprisoned.

Nicholson

While the U.S. oil industry wants access to more federal lands to help reduce reliance on foreign suppliers, U.S.-based companies are shipping record amounts of gasoline and diesel fuel to other countries.

A record 1.6 million barrels a day in U.S. refined petroleum products were exported during the first four months of this year, up 33 percent from 1.2 million barrels a day over the same period in 2007. Shipments this February topped 1.8 million barrels a day for the first time during any month, according to final numbers from the Energy Department.

The surge in exports appears to contradict the pleas from the U.S. oil industry and the Bush administration for Congress to open more offshore waters and Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling. (more…)