Feb10

End The Bankster War on Students

by paulie on February 10, 2014 at 7:51 pm
Posted In: Government, Politicians

Sen. Elizabeth Warren Demands Student Loan Rate Cut to 0.75%

 

To the seniors of the class of 2013

Give yourself a real graduation present: cut the interest on your student loans to 0.75%!

Make sure your commencement ceremony helps to pass S.897, Senator Elizabeth Warren’s Bank On Students Loan Fairness Act!

Sen WarrenAs every college student knows, the crushing burden of student loan debt poses the single greatest obstacle to anyone seeking a good education. An undergraduate degree frequently means $30,000-$50,000 and up in debt. An advanced degree starts at twice that, and medical and law degrees can saddle the student with six-figure loans. For the nation as a whole, student loan debt is a social crisis set to exceed $1 trillion. Interest rates vary, but they are always far too high for young people starting out in life. And things are scheduled to get worse, with the interest rate on one key type of student loan set to double from 3.4% to 6.8% on July 1. A whole generation of young people is being forced to put their lives on hold, prevented by high interest debt from continuing their schooling, from renting or buyinga home, from getting married and having children. This is simply intolerable.

At the same time, Wall Street banks can borrow from the Federal Reserve Discount Window for a mere 0.75%. That’s right – just three quarters of 1%. Why should students be crushed when the bankers who caused the present economic crisis with their wild and irresponsible derivatives speculation get a sweetheart deal?

Fortunately, Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren has now offered a bill – S.897, the Bank on Students Loan Fairness Act – which would force the Federal Reserve to fund federal Stafford loans through the US Department of Education at an annual interest rate of just 0.75%; the discount rate the Fed offers banks. Do the arithmetic and you can easily figure out how much interest this bill will save you every year. But this bill faces an uphill battle to become law, since it is likely to be opposed by Wall Street lobbyists, the congressional leadership of both parties, and by the Obama White House. The only hope for the Warren bill lies in a massive outpouring of support, starting with the graduation ceremonies of the classof 2013. That means a big part of your economic destiny is now in your hands.

Graduation ceremonies are often marked by boring platitudes from overpaid and cynical celebrities. But now you can use your graduation day as a springboard to cutting your monthly loan payment.

Make sure in advance that your commencement speaker is going to deliver a stirring call to make Senator Warren’s bill into law right now, before July 1. If your current speaker won’t actively support the bill, fire them and find a speaker who will. Your college or university president knows better than anybody what a huge problem student loan indebtedness represents for individual borrowers and for the country. They need to actively organize to support the Warren bill. If they refuse, then something is very wrong. The same goes for the rich fat cats who often sit on boards of trustees. If they can’t support Senator Warren, they are not interested in higher education. Influential professors should be encouraged to come forward as public spokespersons for Senator Warren’s approach. Use your college radio and newspapers to alert the entire student body. And don’t forget to mobilize debt-ridden recent alumni coming back for reunions.

Plan to have your commencement ceremony pass a strong resolution demanding the immediate passage of the Warren bill. Make sure this resolution goes to the relevant congressmen and senators, along with the demand that they co-sponsor Senator Warren’s measure and get more votes for it. If they drag their feet, assure them that they will soon be voted out of office. On more militant campuses, it may be appropriate to demonstrate or to occupy a building and stay there until the Warren bill is signed into law by Obama. Make sure you tell the local media in advance. The general public will be with you on this one.

Senator Warren would also benefit from feedback. All of her arguments in favor of a Fed-assisted 0.75% interest rate on Stafford loans apply to all other categories of student loans as well. Everyone without exception should be able to refinance at 0.75%, including holders out of Perkins loans, Federal Direct Student Loans, and Plus Loans taken out by parents. The Department of Education must be given the means to re- finance all private student loans at the new lower rate.

This may be your only chance to help Senator Warren cut the interest rates you will be paying for a long time. The end of the semester is coming soon. If you let this chance slip by, you will have only yourself to blame.

To read more on this and other austerity related subjects go to: www.againstausterity.org

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Jan26

The Fukushima Secrecy Syndrome – From Japan to America

by paulie on January 26, 2014 at 4:33 pm
Posted In: Government, Police State

The New Japanese State Secrecy Law

By Ralph Nader

From http://nader.org

Ralph Nader

Ralph Nader

Last month, the ruling Japanese coalition parties quickly rammed through Parliament a state secrets law. We Americans better take notice.

Under its provisions the government alone decides what are state secrets and any civil servants who divulge any “secrets” can be jailed for up to 10 years. Journalists caught in the web of this vaguely defined law can be jailed for up to 5 years.

Government officials have been upset at the constant disclosures of their laxity by regulatory officials before and after the Fukushima nuclear power disaster in 2011, operated by Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO).

Week after week, reports appear in the press revealing the seriousness of the contaminated water flow, the inaccessible radioactive material deep inside these reactors and the need to stop these leaking sites from further poisoning the land, food and ocean. Officials now estimate that it could take up to 40 years to clean up and decommission the reactors.

Militarism On The Rise

Other factors are also feeding this sure sign of a democratic setback. Militarism is raising its democracy-menacing head, prompted by friction with China over the South China Sea. Dismayingly, U.S. militarists are pushing for a larger Japanese military budget. China is the latest national security justification for our “pivot to East Asia” provoked in part by our military-industrial complex.

Draconian secrecy in government and fast-tracking bills through legislative bodies are bad omens for freedom of the Japanese press and freedom to dissent by the Japanese people. Freedom of information and robust debate (the latter cut off sharply by Japan’s parliament in December 5, 2013) are the currencies of democracy.

American Atomic Reactor Dangers

There is good reason why the New York Times continues to cover the deteriorating conditions in the desolate, evacuated Fukushima area. Our country has licensed many reactors here with the same designs and many of the same inadequate safety and inspection standards. Some reactors here are near earthquake faults with surrounding populations which cannot be safely evacuated in case of serious damage to the electric plant. The two Indian Point aging reactors that are 30 miles north of New York City are a case in point.

The less we are able to know about the past and present conditions of Fukushima, the less we will learn about atomic reactors in our own country.

Fortunately many of Japan’s most famous scientists, including Nobel laureates, Toshihide Maskawa and Hideki Shirakawa, have led the opposition against this new state secrecy legislation with 3,000 academics signing a public letter of protest. These scientists and academics declared the government’s secrecy law a threat to “the pacifist principles and fundamental human rights established by the constitution and should be rejected immediately.”

Following this statement, the Japan Scientists’ Association, Japan’s mass media companies, citizens associations, lawyers’ organizations and some regional legislatures opposed the legislation. Polls show the public also opposes this attack on democracy. The present ruling parties remain adamant. They cite as reasons for state secrecy “national security and fighting terrorism.” Sound familiar?

History is always present in the minds of many Japanese people. They know what happened in Japan when the unchallenged slide toward militarization of Japanese society led to the intimidating tyranny that drove the invasion of China, Korea and Southeast Asia before and after Pearl Harbor. By 1945, Japan was in ruins, ending with Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The American people have to be alert to our government’s needless military and political provocations of China, which is worried about encirclement by surrounding U.S.-allied nations and U.S. air and sea power. Washington might better turn immediate attention to U.S. trade policies that have facilitated U.S. companies shipping American jobs and whole industries to China.

The Obama administration must become more alert to authoritarian trends in Japan that its policies have been either encouraging or knowingly ignoring – often behind the curtains of our own chronic secrecy.

The lessons of history beckon.

 

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Jan24

Walmart May Spell Doom for Altadena Small Business

by paulie on January 24, 2014 at 8:46 am
Posted In: Corporations, Los Angeles

New Report Says Walmart’s Guatemalan Sub-contractor Cheated Workers

From ABC News

Guatemalan factory workers making blazers and suits for dozens of well-known American retailers, including Wal-Mart, JCPenney, and Kohl’s, were allegedly deprived of more than $6 million in wages and benefits when their employer abruptly shut down the business last year, according to a report published today.

“These workers got robbed, completely,” said Charles Kernaghan, director of the Institute for Global Labour and Human Rights, which produced the 50-page report on the Alianza factory. “Violations take place in other factories – but in this case the workers were able to document what they were legally owed. That’s unprecedented.”

Read more – click here

Walmart

Check Out Singer Duane Thorin’s Great Song

On The Walmart “Invasion” of Altadena,

California

 

or click here to go to youtube

 

Walmartization of LA

Wealth of the Walton Family

 

“The Walton family, which owns Wal-Mart, controls a fortune equal to the wealth of the bottom 42 percent of Americans combined.”

According to Forbes, as of May 2013 the international retailer had $469 billion in sales and 2.2 million employees, including 1.3 million in the United States. The corporation has been criticized for low wages; and in December 2012, PolitiFact National rated as Mostly True a claim that more Walmart employees are on Medicaid and food stamps than other companies.

Click here to read more on the Walmart family.

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Jan15

Justice Be Damned

by paulie on January 15, 2014 at 6:06 pm
Posted In: Police State

Just Shake Your Head and Cry:

In Orange County it’s not Justice that is blind,

it’s the Jury. And a D.A. Who Blew the Case.

Rant by Dennis Davis

Kelly Thomas

Kelly Thomas

I had a strong suspicion that the verdict would be not guilty based on the inherent conflict of interest of Prosecutors prosecuting police. But I also had a much stronger hope that justice would prevail and my faith in the justice system would be restored. After Rodney King, George Zimmerman and so many other cases too numerable to mention, I have become disillusioned and highly skeptical that our system of jurisprudence is capable of serving and protecting the people. Yet again in this case of Kelly Thomas my hopes were dashed and my suspicions upheld. The Kelly Thomas case is particularly close to my heart because it involves a mentally ill and chronically homeless man. I come across this type of men and women through our foundation while performing outreach to the homeless and mentally ill with my partner Robin. This horrific, brutal beating and murder of Kelly Thomas, a vulnerable, mentally ill homeless man, was committed under the color of authority by up to six police officers of which only two were charged. The subsequent not guilty verdict of the two defendant peace officers is the most egregious miscarriage of justice case that anyone who listens to and views the videotape can imagine.

Kelly Thomas Just Before Death in Hospital

Kelly Thomas Just Before Death in Hospital

A mentally ill homeless man was sitting on the curb. He was calm, compliant and had no weapons. Within thirty minutes he was lying in a pool of blood and later died at the hospital. During that thirty minutes 4 police officers were all over Kelly and the video and audio taped evidence shows the brutal and deadly actions of officer Ramos and the rage of officer Sicinelli who pummels Kelly’s face into a bloody pulp, fracturing bones and destroying Kelly’s left eye. Coincidentally Officer Sicinelli lost his left eye while working for the LAPD but was released from duty and came to Fullerton PD where he was allowed to serve. All the while during this encounter we hear Kelly crying out “I’m sorry, I’m sorry”, “I can’t breathe” and “Dad” until his voice falls silent.

What is done is done. But who is at fault for this miscarriage of justice? Well, we could say that the jury was “insane” and “how could they possibly?” But the blame lies squarely in the face of the Orange County District Attorney, Tony Rackauckus. He did not meet the burden of proof. It was his job to convince the jury of 12 of the guilt of the 2 police officers charged. A prosecutor has to work 12X as hard as the defense to convince a jury. Mr. Rackauckus, you did not work 12X as hard as the defense. You slacked off and failed at the job and now 2 psychopathic policemen are on the streets and the message you sent to other cops will be deadly.

The Cops

The Cops

I watched you labor clumsily through disjointed opening and closing arguments to the jury, leaving defense arguments unchallenged. Mr. Rackauckus you never brought into evidence the mental illness of Kelly Thomas as part of the case. Why? This opened the door for the defense team to paint the victim Kelly in the worst possible light. You did little to refute the character assassination of Kelly by the defense and allowed the jury to buy the argument that these two cops armed with batons, tasers, a hobble and handcuffs were in fear for their lives by one skinny schizophrenic man bleeding and pleading for his life. Bottom line Mr. Rackauckus, is that you failed miserably in connecting with the jury. You never convinced them that your case was just. From your website you say that “I am committed to seeing that justice is realized by providing the highest standard of legal representation for the public and for crime victims.” I think you fell short on that standard in this case.”

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Jan12

Drones

by paulie on January 12, 2014 at 8:35 pm
Posted In: Police State

Drones

by J. Webster 

predator-firing-missile4Drones kill them, drones kill us.

What’s the worry, what’s the fuss

Drones kill you, drones kill me.

We’re all not free, till no drones can you see.

 

Children look at bombs from the sky

Oops! They’re dead, oh me, oh my….

Is it worth it…to get bad guys?

I’d say not, when you see the children’s eyes.

 

Afraid to look, at the crack of dawn.

A town was once here, but now it’s gone.

So much destruction from afar

Half of a house, the remains of a car.

 

Why are they killing us? What do they care

About our daily life. How can they dare…

To know what we think, what we feel in our hearts.

Presuming we’re bad, are they lacking in smarts.

 

Stupid, uncaring, fearful and mean

Or perhaps they’ve been sheltered

And just haven’t seen.

 

Or they listen to Fox, instead of real news.

No consciousness at all, no sign of the blues.

In schools they don’t learn what’s wrong from what’s right.

We allow our kids to play war games and fight.

 

It’s strange…yes…insane…

that we don’t feel their pain.

We kill them for greed and for our own gain.

 

But suppose we’re the victims, bombs dropping on us?

What would we do when they turn us to dust?

Would we be strong, would we play fair?

How would WE hide from drones in OUR air?

 

But wait I forgot….WE don’t really care!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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