This week brought news that five large global banks had admitted to felonies and agreed to pay $5.6 billion in fines to the U.S. Treasury for colluding to rig global currency markets. The amount of the fines captured headlines but the amounts are actually relatively small.
This is the 2nd in a series. Part 1 is here. Historian Corey Robin and his critics reject “false consciousness” as an explanation for working class support of anti-labor legislators. Nevertheless, it seems clear that it is a thing. False consciousness theory posits that voters may support a politician even after he pursues policies that objectively harm them. A Pew Research poll released this past January on the Trans Pacific Partnership (“TPP”) exemplifies this phenomenon.
I've gotten relatively few responses on the piece linked below. I would have thought people would have been falling all over one another to defend our cultural heritage, but I guess many Black people are not up to fighting for their culture. We only tend to REACT when something goes desperately wrong, instead of being PROACTIVE in an attempt to ensure that life and justice works in our favor. That explains a lot about our position in society, and why our children have to go to Google (if they have access to a computer) or the public library to DIG for self-esteem. We've got to do better than this. If we don't, within a few years Black people will only be a memory in Leimert Park and many other Black communities across this nation. We'll be dispersed, filtered into, and hopefully tolerated, within the communities of others, and without one scintilla of political clout.
I am not a fan of gun battles like the recent biker shootout in Waco, but they may be an inevitable, and possibly legal occurrence in a 'stand your ground' state. The first biker to threaten another biker or his property with harm, if found, may have broken the law.
After that initial disturbance, a chain of 'stand your ground' actions, self-defense actions seem to have occurred. It is legal under Texas law, see below, to use lethal force to protect yourself, other threatened persons, or property. There is no requirement in the law to back down or retreat, anywhere, even a public place.
The Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET) held a conference in Washington D.C. May 5, 2015 that lasted 2 days. INET is a nonprofit think tank that was started with a 50 million dollar funding from it's founder, George Soros, in October 2009. The organization is located in New York City. Robert Johnson is the current President of the organization. It took 2 years to put this conference together and featured women speakers, though it was not about women in finance but about Finance and Society. Normally a conference on finance like this is dominated by men.
For years media has covered and interviewed many from think tanks that are supported by right leaning political activist. Little attention has been given to progressive groups so I was not aware this group, There was a need for new economic thinking after the 2008 financial crisis. Soros got together with others that was willing to support a institution dedicated to new ideas in economics and to nurture young people in the field of economics. The unique thing about this group is it in not about political spin and ideology but a serious look at what is needed to make our economy work for everyone. It also focus on the international economy also because when our banks was in crises, it spread to other countries.
Yes, the thrill is indeed gone. On Thursday, May 14th of this year, not one, but two Blues legends passed into history - the Great B.B. King, and his ever-loyal companion, "Lucille," slipped silently into the night.. Ironically, B.B.'s health seemed to rapidly fade shortly after his longtime friend, and another Lion of the blues, Bobby "Blue" Bland, passed on June 23rd of 2013.
But we've lost more than just two giants in these two great men - with every Black person of their generation that passes, the Black community is also losing part of its collective memory of another way of life; a way of life where Black people understood the importance of sticking together, and working together for a common cause.
Saturday at the 2015 California Democratic Convention held in Anaheim, Sen. Elizabeth Warren was one of the speakers. She deliver a fiery speech "America is ready to stand with us" that brought down the house.
Federal prosecutors convinced a Massachusetts jury to give Dzhokhar Tsarnaev the death penalty. One might assume that would be a tough sell in a highly educated blue state and maybe it was a tough sell that happened to close. Few tears will be shed, even by the staunchest death penalty opponents. Tsarnaev is not a sympathetic person.
Chomsky's theme, as you might expect, is that while the Paris killings were bad, the West does worse, and dash it all, nobody talks about these other crimes.
Chomsky starts out by equating the Charlie Hebdo murders with the Nato air strike on a Serbian television station during the Kosovo War. Both were attacks on journalists.
Both the Senate and House today introduced bills after Frontline on PBS aired a documentary,The Trouble With Chicken, on deadly salmonella outbreaks caused by eating infected chicken. If you have not seen it, you need to watch it because we all eat food. You can see it here.
Fight Flight Freeze sounds like some surreal schoolyard playground game, some weird mix of Red Rover and Simon Says.
Yet is another take on the Fight Flight Response. I think viewing our response to a (potential) threat as Fight Flight Freeze Response is a more accurate and provides some insight, I believe, into what many would call the political apathy in this country.
I think everyone is aware of the notion of Fight or Flight, and that it was a emergent feature of our evolution in an effort to survive and reproduce. One of our distant ancestors crosses a path with a tiger and his or her body goes into a response that among other things increases the heart rate and prepares the muscles. He or she is ready to either fight or flee as fast as his or her feet can manage. Freezing was rarely seen as third option in this response to a survival.
President Obama apparently recognizes that China's rapidly growing economy and military pose significant problems for the US and the rest of the world. In response, he urges swift passage of the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP). "If we don’t write the rules, China will write the rules out in [the Trans-Pacific] region" Obama warned in a Wall Street Journal interview. That outcome would mean: “We will be shut out—American businesses and American agriculture. That will mean a loss of U.S. jobs.” The President's analysis is flawed.
The other day I was walking through downtown Seattle and something that reminded me of one of the reasons I left Portland, Oregon, for Indiana.
This reason was what I perceived as whole lot of people flaunting of wealth, as well as possessing a shallow aesthetic and an extreme conceitedness (The last two could be said of many of the not-so-wealthy hipsters). What I saw in downtown Seattle was a little shop called Vain.
By Michael Maiello on Fri, 05/08/2015 - 10:18pm | Arts & Entertainment
I haven't seen Avengers: Age of Ultron yet, but there's no doubt that will happen. I actually haven't seen the second Captain America either. Parenthood will do that. But I have seen most of the Marvel movies, I watch Agents of Shield and just finished Daredevil on Netflix. I know what all the plans for the Marvel cinematic universe are and I know the term "Marvel cinematic universe."
In 2007, the story goes, Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol and a few GOP movers and shakers went on a cruise to Alaska and met a certain Sarah Palin, then-governor of that great state. It's safe to say she knocked Kristol's socks off (and his head cockeyed, though he didn't know it at the time).
My best friend and I worked at McDonald's when we were barely fifteen. We obviously lied about our age, but the manager didn't care. He was the oldest employee at twenty-two and liked bossing teenagers around - when we weren't all getting high in the break room after hours.
0 dead, 98 injured, 235 arrests. This appears to be the final tally of the Baltimore protests. Despite four centuries of provocation catalyzed by the depraved indifference of six Baltimore cops to the life of a young African-American man who was wrongfully arrested and then killed, black Baltimoreans acted with extraordinary restraint.
Give a man a fish and you will feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and then don't give him a rod, a boat, a bucket, bait, access to well-stocked waters and a place to store, cook and eat his catch, then you must be some sort of sociopath.
By Ramona on Wed, 04/29/2015 - 9:58am | Media, Politics, Social Justice
I know you might hate this, but I'm going to do it anyway. I'm going to write this as a mother, as a grandmother, as a card-carrying citizen of the United States, as a goddamned human being.
I'm white, but if you dare hold that against me you're no better than those who hold color against anyone. We're going to talk about those stupid vandals who rampaged through their own Baltimore neighborhood the night before last, looting, burning, destroying nearly everything in sight. They were black kids and they used the funeral of a young black man as an excuse to raise so much hell we'll be adding Baltimore once again to the list of the worst riots in the U.S.
A Pew Research 
Fight Flight Freeze sounds like some surreal schoolyard playground game, some weird mix of Red Rover and Simon Says.
President Obama apparently recognizes that China's rapidly growing 
The other day I was walking through downtown Seattle and something that reminded me of one of the reasons I left Portland, Oregon, for Indiana.
0 dead, 98 
