Friday, March 19, 2010
"When you do a competent, aggressive job, it's something government can't tolerate."
Herb Denenberg, 80, longtime consumer advocate
Herbert S. Denenberg, 80, who transformed an obscure state office into a high-profile platform for consumer-advocacy and went on to become a local media legend, died Thursday at his home in Wayne.
Mr. Denenberg had not been ill and apparently suffered a heart attack, said his wife of almost 52 years, Naomi.
As Pennsylvania insurance commissioner in the early 1970s under the late former Gov. Milton J. Shapp, Denenberg helped revolutionize the auto-insurance industry by championing the "no fault" concept.
Mr. Denenberg became a household name for his firebrand approach and his various "shoppers' guides" - plain-English explanations of complicated insurance concepts.
With his signature oversize glasses on a face that always seemed too big for his diminutive body, Mr. Denenberg later became a fixture on local television. His acidic, animated reports and critiques skewered a wide variety of products and public issues. He was rewarded by winning 40 local Emmies.
"He wasn't afraid of taking on anybody, any politician, any company, any multinational," said Gov. Rendell. "He didn't care. If he thought things had to be changed he went after it with a vengeance."
Said activist Ralph Nader, a friend for over 40 years, "He was a great consumer advocate."
Nader said that he first came in contact with him in the late 1960s after reading an academic paper on insurance that Denenberg had written while a professor at the University of Pennsylvania in the late 1960s. Nader said Denenberg clearly knew his subject and that he had ambitions beyond the academic press.
"He decided he wasn't just going to write for 100 specialists," he said. "He became a real hell-raiser. His was a hell-raising language, but his mind was a steel-trap academic mind. You rarely get a combination of the two.
"He helped expand the definition of what the public should expect from an insurance commissioner," said Nader.
Denenberg later was appointed to the Public Utilities Commission but left state government in 1975 after the legislature failed to confirm him as a permanent member of the commission. "I think I'm permanently disqualified for government service," Denenberg said at the time. "When you do a competent, aggressive job, it's something government can't tolerate."
"Here was a guy who was the system, protesting so effectively against it," recalled Inquirer reporter Howard S. Shapiro, author of a 1974 biography on Denenberg, How to Keep Them Honest. "That was remarkable."
After leaving Harrisburg, Denenberg began a new career as gadfly in 1975. For more than two decades he was a consumer reporter and commentator on Channel 10, covering subjects as varied as asbestos in schools to the questionable sanitary qualities of pretzels sold by street vendors.
"He really, really was one of a kind," said Ed Dress, his producer for 17 years. "When you were sick and tied of something, he was just getting started."
In 1984, the trade journal Adweek wrote, "If there were an award for best consumer reporter in the Northeast, WCAU's Herb Denenberg would take it in a walk."
After departing Channel 10 in 1998, Mr. Denenberg continued to write consumer columns for several newspapers, including the new version of the Philadelphia Bulletin.
Mr. Denenberg was born, fittingly, in the insurance capital of Omaha, Neb., in 1929. His Russian-born father and Romanian-born mother raised eight children. His father died when he was 12, said Naomi Denenberg, and young Herb helped take care of his siblings.
He once related that he had a life-changing experience while working at a meatpacking house in Omaha. "I was appalled at the filthy working conditions," he said. "You'd go into the company cafeteria and it was just unbelievable. ... The spoons were nicked all over and incredibly filthy. You'd go in there, there'd be slop on the floor and it was never cleaned up." He complained to his employers, who did nothing.
"The meatpacking house had a very profound impact on me. I remember saying to myself, 'I've really got to excel, I have to succeed. I have to be number one. I just can't run the risk of spending the rest of my life in a place like this meatpacking house.'"
After graduating from Omaha Central High, he attended the Universities of Nebraska and Chicago, received law degrees from Creighton and Harvard University and a PhD. from Penn.
While serving in the Army, his widow recalled, Denenberg also studied biology at Johns Hopkins University, where he had another life-changing experience.
One day the class was dissecting frogs, something for which the woman sitting across from him had no stomach. Herb Denenberg said he would do it for her.
That woman, Noami Glushakow, became Mrs. Herb Denenberg.
In addition to his wife, Mr. Denenberg is survived by two brothers, Dr. Michael and Norman, and a sister, Anne Feinberg.
He is predeceased by four brothers, Marshall, Warren Dr. Daniel, and Bernard.
Services will be private.
Thursday, March 18, 2010
Here’s a little nugget for you. The great inventor Thomas Edison visited the home of Mark Twain in 1909, and captured footage of “the father of American literature” (says Faulkner) walking around his estate and playing cards with his daughters, Clara and Jean. The film is silent and deteriorated. But it’s apparently the only known footage of the author who gave us
Huckleberry Finn and
Tom Sawyer. Twain would die the next year. Quite the find by
@ebertchicago
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Posted By topeditor On March 16, 2010 Siv
O'Neall
Capitalism is indeed dying in
our midst, but, regrettably, political systems do not leave the stage of
history (and power) without struggle. They have to be pushed off the
centerstage. And that’s the task for the planet’s revolutionists. To
act as the midwife for a new, far more just and rational global
paradigm.
By Siv O’Neall || Dateline: March 16,
2010
The curtain is going down on the lone-superpower world we know
and it is now a most urgent question if and when and how forces for true
democracy, human rights, peace and civilization can come out and
dissipate the cloud that has spread over what was once an almost decent
way of life.
The
long-time descent into totalitarian capitalism and neglect for anything
but corporate profit has just about finished its course. The party is
over. Bankruptcy is next. What we don’t know yet is how far-reaching
this economic freefall is going to be.
Predecessors
such as the German Reich are brought to mind, but the similarities are
far from parallel. The inhumanity is on the same scale but the hypocrisy
is even worse than in the worst fascist regime. Hypocrisy rules the
world. No slogans the rulers of the United States or the rest of
the Western world pronounce as their ideologies and goals can be taken
for their face value. Lies are the only things that come out of the
mouths of our so-called leaders and that is the way they have set up the
sordid game to their own advantage.
We the
people are not supposed to be aware of how we are being treated like
dregs to be discarded. The powers that be imagine that, as long as we
are not told the truth about how we are being cheated out of our birth
rights, we will lie down like whipped dogs and lick the feet of our
torturers.
How far
we have come from the somewhat civilized society that the Founding
Fathers had in mind for the people of the thirteen states can only be
measured if we consider the abysmal lack of basic needs and basic rights
that is now the norm in the United States. In fact, there are no areas
left in the year 2010 that have been spared from the general decline,
cultural, economic or humane. Human rights are in tatters, the standard
of living for the vast majority of American families can go nowhere but
further downhill, the voices of the people are left unheard, the
standard of cultural institutions, quality education and all the
privileges that are linked to it are being starved out of existence.
The
prostitutes of the mainstream media [with their right-wing confreres
leading the way] are making the utmost possible din so as to effectively
drown the voices of reason. The general
sluggishness of people is being enhanced by the non-stop propaganda fed
them through the mass media, the fake view of the world as a place where
satisfaction can only be had from over-consumption and from
participating in the violence that is constantly displayed to us as a
model of life via these mass media, the artificial uppers and downers
that are offered to us by the entertainment industry to fill in the void
of our souls.
The
environment is being plundered savagely with no concern whatsoever for
the survival of mankind, the survival of the planet and all its millions
of different species. Biodiversity is a forgotten concept, except for
the rare rebels who go against the stream and try to make their
life-saving voices heard over the din of the machines of the killer
corporations.
Those predators are clearly only out to maximize their
profits without the slightest concern for the catastrophic effects on
the environment.
The
majority of people never see what the real world is all about. How can
they? The distorted “values’ that money can buy are the only ones that
are real to them.
A
sunrise over the ocean, a maple leaf swirling in clear spring water, the
little hand touching your cheek, the beauty of words coming from a
writer’s soul what happened to the marvels of life? What happened to the
real world?
So
how did this Ersatz world come about?
The
question must be asked: WHO gave this fascist megalomaniac his media
platform?
Capitalism, the way it is playing
out today, is incompatible with true democracy.
This insanity, this absurd form of capitalism is altogether negating a
humane system of running the world with any consideration at all for the
people on the planet.
Free
Market capitalism, the Chicago School of Economics professor, Milton
Friedman’s brainchild[1], globalization, the catchword for the Empire’s
total domination over the rest of the world, Washington’s New World
Order, enriching the very few and strangling the masses call it what you
like but it’s a fantasy that is now finally crumbling. It all amounts
to “screw the people’ and “greed is the power that makes the world go
round’. The religion in the U.S.A. is greed and it’s the only true
religion there is.
However,
the giant is crumbling. A fast-spreading gangrene is eating away at the
interior of the nation, its elite-oriented and half-starved educational
system, its sad excuse for a working healthcare system, its decaying
infrastructure. The very souls of the people are withering away, as
their jobs are lost, their homes are foreclosed, their constitutional
freedoms no longer respected, civil rights being increasingly downplayed
by the police and federal authorities.
All
this is adding to and interacting with the economic meltdown and the
destruction of the environment, which at this point doesn’t even
guarantee a livable future for the coming generations.
A
multi-lateral world can not be stopped, as the giant is playing out its
last trumps in case it has any left. Emerging countries are becoming
emerged countries. There have not been many signs of awareness of this
evolution of the geopolitical reality from President Obama, but rather a
continuation of the Neocon imperialism, which will, if allowed a free
rein, lead the planet to disaster. It will render the environment
unlivable and thus destroy the way of life of the billions of people all
over the world. With the environment in ruins, there is just no way
back. The corporations whose greed is responsible for the current
situation do not seem to realize or care about the direction in which
they are steering our planet.
Hagiographic
portrait of Milton Friedman, Free Market missionary, and one of the most
toxic intellectuals of the 20th century, an unrepentant apologist for
murderers and mass exploiters of all kinds till the bitter end.
The Free Market
was set up with unilateral power for the giant in the West and unheard
of wealth for the very few as its unique goal. The tools would be the
International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, which were working
on the single track of stealing the national resources of the greatest
number of countries possible and squeezing money out of financially
strapped nations by lending their governments money at a high interest
rate.
The ultimate condition for the nations in dire economic straits,
was always the cutting back on social services, devaluing the national
currency and increasing taxes on the already half-strangled people, thus
starving the beast. Such is the ever-present major strategy of these
Washington henchmen; the super-tools for U.S. world domination. And, of
course, along came the accumulation of further wealth to add to the
already astronomic wealth of the corporations. Madness! To what end?
Countries
which had previously enjoyed a fairly good standard of living, but had
gotten squeezed by the Free Market economy, free trade agreements, such
as NAFTA, CAFTA, FTAA [2] and bilateral agreements, saw their relatively
comfortable lives wither away, such as many Asian nations in the
nineties during the Asian financial crisis [3]. Poor 3rdWorld
nations were suddenly rendered more impoverished than ever before,
having their national resources taken over by the multinational hydras.
Wherever the heavy boots of the IMF and the World Bank get a foothold in
a financially troubled nation, they manage to suck the blood out of the
nation’s resources and their financial independence.
Free-market
capitalism can not possibly go along with true democracy. The concepts
represent opposite poles in the running of the economic systems of the
world. The most outstanding mark of run-away capitalism is its denial of
any civic and human rights to the working people. Privatization, which
is the principal gospel of this decadent world order will eventually
make us pay for the air we breathe and the polluted water we drink.
If
national elections are allowed to survive in order to make for a
semblance of democracy, it is only because they have no real meaning the
way they are run today. They constitute no real danger to the system
that is running the world since they are strictly controlled by
corporations that are hand in glove with the imperialists. They are part
of the system.
And
yet, a majority of U.S. citizens are under the impression that their
votes count for something in the running of internal and external
politics. They seem to be slowly waking up, however, to the fact that
their opposition to the ongoing wars and the tax cuts for the wealthy
count for nothing.
The
creation of the lone superpower
At the end of World War II, with
Europe exhausted and virtually powerless as a commercial partner, the
U.S government saw clearly that they would have to shore up the
war-damaged European countries in order to create a market place for
their newfound wealth. The Great Depression was over at last thanks to
the boost to the economy that the war had brought to the nation. Now the
U.S. needed commercial partners. So the Marshall Plan was born. Later
on came the Hollywood Superman Ronald Reagan and as his megalomaniac and
expansionist plans for the country were set in motion, the kernel of
the Neoconservative movement was simultaneously taking shape.
During
all this time a handy bogeyman was created in the Communist fiend. From
the McCarthy era in the fifties to the Kennedy fiasco of the Bay of Pigs
attempt to invade Southern Cuba in 1961, to the horror of the Vietnam
war, to the criminal meddling in various Central American and Latin
American countries, it was always the Communist threat that served as a
pretext for invasions of countries that stood in the way for U.S. power
and expansionism. Those countries that could not be bought up or
propagandized into cooperating with the Empire were simply invaded and
taken over. A blaring exception was of course the great embarrassment of
the Vietnam War, when no country was ever taken over. But that didn’t
even teach the imperialists a lesson. The people, yes, but the psychotic
neocons, no. If anything, the lesson drawn by the neocons from that
insane war was on the contrary that the U.S. had to show the world that
it was still the Lord of the planet, including outer space.
Invade,
crush, kill and take over national resources was the trademark of U.S.
foreign policies. Until the Soviet Union imploded and the vastly
overblown propaganda about the giant in the east that was threatening to
end the supremacy of the number one superpower finally became open for
all to see. Ever since the end of World War II, with a powerful boost
given to it by the Kennedy brothers, the Communist scare has been
hovering over the Western world, based on a minimum of reality but above
all hysterical propaganda. It was the octopus that was spreading its
tentacles all over the world. If the Soviet military power was in fact
impressive, it was because they put all their rubles into the arms
industry and neglected the well-being of their people.
Fear
and eternal war are the capitalist tools
When
the Soviet Union disintegrated, the U.S. suddenly found itself bereft of
a handy target to blame the evils of the world on. A new enemy had to
be created and we all know how the “War on Terror’ came about, based on
the absurd theory, touted hysterically, that the Muslims were now all
set to take over the Western world. Al Qaeda may well have been a
creation by Washington but, as could be expected, it then became a
reality [4].
Continuous war is of the essence to a superpower to sustain
the fear that is necessary to keep the people in blinders. Hysteria and
ignorance are the sine qua non for an eternal war. Non-stop propaganda
is also a major tool without which the slogan “Pax Americana’ would have
been a laughing stock from its very creation. And of course the mass
media played the game since they were being paid to do so.
Fear
was the tool that was needed in order to fool the people of the world
and draw a veil of emotional blindness over their minds. What made the
creation of this visceral fear and anger at all possible was of course
the attack on the World Trade Center and the following 9/11 hysteria.
Without this enormous propaganda tool, the major wars that have
followed, the total contempt for U.S. citizens’ constitutional rights
and the U.S. Constitution in general would have been just wishful
thinking by the neocon thugs.
Of
course we can’t know how much longer the “lone superpower’ is still
going to be breathing. It is now on life support and we can only vaguely
guess what the world is going to be like after the colossus stops
breathing. No words of reconciliation to the rest of the world by
President Obama will save the shipwreck that is the United States of
America.
What
arrogance, what hubris, to believe that the United States would be able
to create the millenary Reich where all other nations would be willing
allies, due to the propagandized “cultural, moral and military
superiority’ of the Master behemoth. If not allies, they would become
subdued and subservient because they would have lost their internal
strength, as was the intention with Iraq, Afghanistan and probably now
also with Pakistan. The Empire was going to appear so unbeatable that no
other nation would ever be able to go against their formidable power.
They were to be God on earth and everybody who looked into the shining
light of their claim to divine power was going to see that resistance
would be useless.
Wait a
minute haven’t we seen this before? It seems to be a lesson never
learned that even an Empire is bound for a swift fall when the winds
turn and the scales fall from the eyes of the people in the rest of the
world. And, as is perfectly obvious, the hubris was not born with the
Neocons plotting in the underground during the Reagan presidency. It
goes all the way back to the cruel near wiping-out of the native
American population. Nobody can stand against the superpower. It is the
bearer of God-given authority to rule the continent, to rule over
war-torn Europe, to rule over the Americas, to rule over the
resource-rich countries, to rule the world.
The
psychopaths who created this absurd fantasy should by all rights be the
first victims of the downfall of the Empire. In the long row of
history’s empires, has there ever been one that so misjudged the power
of national pride and the firm decision by the invaded people to go on
running their own nation, running their own lives on territories that
had been theirs for millennia?
Asia
is coming together
The
world is changing however. We will find out one day if it is already too
late or if there is still a chance that people and the environment
might be saved.
Asia is
organizing to become increasingly independent of the West. They are
creating their own economic cooperation organizations, such as AFTA [5] (ASEAN
[1] Free Trade Area), born out of ASEAN, the “Association of
Southeast Asian Nations’, a”geo-politicaland economic organization of
ten countries located in Southeast Asia, which was formed on 8 August
1967 by Indonesia, Malaysia, thePhilippines, SingaporeandThailand”. This
organization now includes ten countries located in Southeast Asia.[6]
The
AFTA project was launched in 1993 with the objective of creating a Free
Trade Area in eastern Asia. It undertook some bold measures during the
Asian financial crisis in the nineties, which clearly showed up the need
for mutual economic interdependence between Southeast and Northeast
Asia.
In
November 2001 an ambitious plan was submitted to create a regional bloc.
It recommended that East Asia would move from a region of nations to a
cohesive regional community where collective efforts would be made for
peace, prosperity, and progress. They identified the following sectors
for cooperation: economic, financial, security, environmental, social
and cultural. [7]
China,
the next superpower?
China’s
economy is the third-largest in the world and it is the biggest holder
of U.S. Treasury bonds. It is the top owner of U.S. government debt and
it is also one of the “emerging nations’ that can be said to have
already emerged. It is now in a full-fledged position to become a
superpower. The day the United States of America declares bankruptcy,
China will probably be ready to take over in conjunction with other
developed nations.
Right
now, China is giving Obama the cold shoulder. It is a fact that trade
with the U.S. has recently picked up, but basically China is
economically so much ahead of the former superpower that they can well
shrug their shoulders at the hypocritical demands that Washington puts
forth. Who is to urge China to respect civil rights and to diminish
pollution to save the environment? Or to convince China that there
should be more equality of living conditions? Washington’s hypocrisy
knows no limits.
Obviously
we can not be looking forward to a world where one inhuman superpower
would be replaced by another one. We are not blind to the kind of life
we would be living under Chinese rule. But such a thought seems so far
from realistic that the solution we have to look forward to as a new
World Order would rather be a multi-lateral organization where no one
power would have too much influence over the rest of the world.
As for
the other emerging nations, such as India and Brazil, they still have a
way to go. A low quality of education, an average low standard of
living, faulty healthcare, a sadly insufficient fight against pollution
and contempt for human rights are among the major problems for these
countries, as well as for China. However, the United States could well
be pointed to as equally lacking in every one of these areas. There is
also a horrifying lack of equality in all these countries, but then
again, the richest country of them all, the U.S. of A. shares the guilt
of these only relatively wealthy countries.
Latin
America Is Gathering Strength
In
another part of the world, there is Latin America that is currently
fighting for its independence from the Empire. The birth of Mercosur
[2], the Common Market of the South, took place on March 26,
1991. Since its creation including Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and
Paraguay, Venezuela also joined on 17 June 2006. Bolivia, Chile,
Colombia, Ecuador and Peru currently have associate member status.
Panama
and Mexico have also announced their intention to join Mercosur.
On the
other hand, Venezuela has also initiated ALBA (a symbolic acronym since
alba means dawn), Venezueal’s answer to imperialist free trade
agreements (”Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas’ or “Alianza
Bolivariana para los Pueblos de Nuestra América’), which, to begin with,
comprised Venezuela and Cuba. Later, Bolivia, Ecuador and Nicaragua
have joined the alliance. Some islands in the Caribbean are also
members. Honduras became a member in August 2008, but, interestingly
enough, after the coup in June 2009 to overthrow President Manuel
Zelaya, its membership was withdrawn.
“On December 16, 2009, the Honduran congress met to withdraw
the country from theALBA [3], claiming a “lack of respect”
from Venezuela since the country’s joining in 2008, citing in
particular Hugo Chavez’ remarks about a potential invasion of Honduras
to restore Manuel Zelaya to office, after he was removed on 28 June 2009
in the2009 Honduran coup d’état. Withdrawal from ALBA was ratified by
the Honduran Congresson January 13, 2010. Economic relations with
Venezuela continue, including viaPetrocaribe.
Mercosur
and ALBA are the Latin American answer to NAFTA, CAFTA and FTAA, the
U.S.- sponsored so-called free trade agreements, which are for anything
but free trade, constantly raising trade barriers against foreign
nations for the profit of the United States.
Conclusion
The
United States, the lone superpower is no more. The sooner the leaders
realize this, the softer will be the fall when the giant finally breaks
down. Barack Obama gave Europeans and many others some kind of hope for a
change of path by the callous behemoth. But no such thing has happened
and no such thing will happen. Only the downfall of the Empire can now
save the world. Unless it is already too late.
Are we
seeing the emergence of another kind of New World Order, one of less
arrogance, one of multi-lateral cooperation? The world is crying out for
a new order where life-and-death issues will be handled by all the
world’s nations and not trampled on by one greedy colossus that imagines
it is the monarch of the planet.
••••
[1] “Friedman
[4]’s political philosophy, which he considered classically
liberal and libertarian, emphasized the advantages of free market
economics and the disadvantages of government intervention and
regulation, strongly influencing the opinions of American conservatives
and libertarians.” His influential bookCapitalism and Freedom was published in 1962.
[2]
La Riva/Puryear: Abolish NAFTA, CAFTA, FTAA, WTO, IMF, World
Bank. Also see NAFTA/FTAA/CAFTA [5]page
[3]Asia’s
financial crisis – There is no basis for the claim that the Asian
financial crisis was due to a lack of sound economic fundamentals. The
currencies of the affected countries were forcibly devalued and their
financial systems were brought to ruin by the activities of speculators.
The crisis has, however, revealed one glaring weakness: the absence of a
lender of last resort for the region. (by Chandra Hardy)
[4] The
name “is now just a loose label for a movement that seems to ta rget the
west”, says Marc Sageman[7], a psychiatrist who
has long studied terrorism networks. “There is no umbrella organisation.
We like to create a mythical entity called [al-Qaeda] in our minds but
that is not the reality we are dealing with.” (The Financial Times)
[5]
“From the inception of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN
[1]) in 1967 to 1991 economic cooperation among its members
was virtually non-existent. However, in January 1992 the leaders of the
member states agreed to work towards an ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA).
Following an uncertain initial phase the leaders rededicated themselves
in 1995 to an accelerated implementation of the AFTA agreement.”
[6] More
about this geo-political and economic organization at Wikipedia
[8]
[7] More
information about ASEAN and AFTA at What Is Integration
Author’s Bio:
Siv O’Neall was born and raised in
Sweden where she graduated from Lund University. She has lived in
Paris, France and New Rochelle, N.Y. and traveled extensively throughout
Europe, the U.S. and other continents, mainly several trips to India.
Siv retired after many years of teaching French in Westchester, N.Y. and
English in the Grandes Ecoles (Institutes of Technology) in France. In
addition to her own writing, Siv has also provided Axis of Logic with
translation services. She has been living in France, first Paris, then
Lyon, for 30 years. In addition to her political activism and writing,
her life is filled with family, music, animals, reading, traveling and
she also feels that ‘A thing of beauty is a joy for ever’.
Monday, March 15, 2010
Posted By topeditor On March 9, 2010
Chavez
to Sheehan: “We are not anti-American, we are anti-Imperialism”
Cindy
Sheehan: My request to interview President Hugo Chavez Frias of
Venezuela was finally granted March 2 while we were down in Montevideo,
Uruguay with President Chavez for the inauguration of the new left-ish
President and freedom fighter, Jose Mujica.
Bylined to: Cindy
Sheehan Published: Sunday, March 07, 2010
THE REASONS I WENT DOWN TO VENEZUELA with my team of two
cameramen were two-fold:
First
of all, I just got tired of all the misinformation that is spread in
the US about President Chavez and the people’s Bolivarian Revolution. In
only one example, the National Endowment for Democracy (another
Orwellian named agency that receives federal money to supplant
democracy) spends millions of dollars every year in Venezuela trying to
destabilize Chavez’s democratically elected government.
The
other reason we went to Venezuela was to be inspired and energized by
the revolution and try to inspire and energize others in the states to
rise up against the oppressive ruling class here and take power back
into our own hands.
Empowerment of the poorest or least educated citizens
of Venezuela is the goal of the Bolivarian Revolution. President Chavez
said in the interview that “Power has five principles” and the first
one is Education and he calls Venezuela a “big school.” Indeed since the
revolution began 11 years ago, Venezuela’s literacy rate has risen
significantly to where now 99% of the population is now literate.
In that sense alone, Venezuela has already been totally transformed, to
the chagrin of conservatives.
People
Power is another principle of power and we witnessed this in a very
dramatic fashion in the barrio of San Agustin in Caracas. San Agustin is
a shantytown built on the sides of some very steep and tall hills — the
only way the citizens could get to and from their homes was to climb up
and down some very steep and treacherous stairs. Well, two years ago,
the neighborhood formed a committee and proposed that the government
build a tram through the hills and on January 20, the dreams of the
citizens of San Agustin became a reality and the Metro Cable was
christened. Not only did the residents get a new tram, but many of the
shacks were torn down and new apartments were built. Residents had
priority for low, or no, interest loans to buy the apartments.
Even
though I am very afraid of heights, I rode the Metro Cable to the top of
the hill and we were awarded with amazing views of Caracas and the
distant mountains. All the red, gleaming tramcars are given names of
places in Venezuela or revolutionary slogans. But our “treat” was still
ahead of us when we made our way down the side of the hill by those
steep and treacherous stairs. In combination with the stairs and the
heat, by the time we were at the bottom, my legs were shaking like Jello
and my heart was thumping. I could not even imagine walking up those
stairs! Young children, pregnant women, pregnant women with young
children, old people, etc, had to go up and down the stairs to get to an
from their homes! With the installation of the tram, the lives of the
people of San Agustin were improved immeasurably and it is all due to
the education and sense of empowerment that comes from organizing and
ultimate victory.
The
Metro Cable serves about 12,000 people per day at a cost of ten cents
per round trip ticket — and all of the employees come from the barrio.
After
the trip up the hill and steep climb down, we met with the community
organizers after a traditional Venezuelan lunch of beans, rice, fried
plantains and a little bit of meat for the meat eaters. Note: the
“traditional” Venezuelan lunch is identical to the traditional
Venezuelan breakfast and is very yummy.
About
98% of the organizers were women who spoke very articulately and
passionately about how their lives have improved since Chavez arose to
power from the people’s revolution and how they would defend Chavez and
the revolution with their very lives.
Knowledge
is power and perhaps that’s why before the Revolution, only primary
school was free and fees were charged for secondary education. Now in
Venezuela, school is free all the way through doctoral studies. We see
how the ruling class in our own country is gutting education and are
tying to make it as difficult as possible to get a University education.
A smart and thinking public is a dangerous public.
There
is so much to write about our trip and about the Bolivarian Revolution
that this will have to be a series of articles by necessity. We learned
so much! Also, my complete interview with President Chavez will be
available soon in audio and video and then a full-length documentary
entitled: TODOS SOMOS AMERICANOS (We are all Americans) will hopefully
be available and premiere by June 1.
There
is a very touching scene at the end of my interview with President
Chavez when President Evo Morales of Bolivia comes in the room.
President Morales was also in Montevideo for Mujica’s inauguration.
I
asked both the Presidents if they had any words of inspiration for the
people of the US. They both emphasized the need for grassroots unity,
but they especially wanted to stress their affection for the people of
the US.
With
President Morales standing by his side and nodding vigorously, President
Chavez said: “We are NOT anti-American, we ARE anti-Imperialism.”
Yo
tambien, mis hermanos.
Sunday, March 14, 2010
It's shaping up to be a banner year for Peter Gabriel. The
progressive-rock icon just turned 60. Genesis, the band he founded, will
be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Gabriel is also
kicking off New Blood, a limited concert tour with full orchestra. And
he's just released his first solo album in eight years.
Scratch
My Back features Gabriel performing a dozen cover songs by younger
artists such as Bon Iver and Regina Spektor, as well as more familiar
faces like Talking Heads and David Bowie. Gabriel set a single creative
restriction for this project: "No drums and no guitars." In the coming
months, some of these artists will release covers of Gabriel's songs, as
well.
In an interview with Weekend Edition Sunday guest host Audie
Cornish, Gabriel talks about the role of lyrics in deciding which songs
he wanted to interpret.
"There are so many more things that I
love the music of than the lyrics," Gabriel says. "The lyrics was often
the reason I didn't do a lot of songs that I like. 'Cause when you
actually sort of strip them naked, it's not always that they're going to
stand up. You know, some rock lyrics work well in one environment, but
don't hold up if you separate them from their roots. And I think all of
these lyrics are great lyrics regardless of the music."
Gabriel and his team drastically re-orchestrated many of the songs on
Scratch My Back, stripping them down and scoring them anew.
"For
me, it's quite a grown-up record," he says. "It's not easy listening.
And I love stuff like that: that you don't necessarily like at all at
first, but grows on you. And I think some of these songs are like that,
or particularly these arrangements.
"And I think it's a record
that we see as a journey," Gabriel adds. "I know records are being seen
very much as a selection of songs right now. And this is obviously, in
its origin, a selection of songs. But I think the way we put it
together, it's an old-fashioned album in the sense that you start at one
point and end up at another."
Gabriel also talks about recording
songs by The Magnetic Fields, Regina Spektor and Paul Simon. He calls
Simon's "The Boy in the Bubble," from the album Graceland, "one
of the great pop lyrics of the last century."
"We sort of sucked
out all the African elements, and you're left with the skeleton, which
is an extraordinary thing in itself," he says. "And I think a lot of
people, myself included, heard the lyrics in a different way, in a new
context."
Saturday, March 13, 2010
Really...It Is...
Reading Is Sexy t-shirts and gifts
Friday, March 12, 2010
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Rachel Corrie, a twenty-three-year-old student from Evergreen College in Olympia, Washington, was crushed to death by an Israeli army bulldozer in Gaza seven years ago as she stood before a Palestinian home facing demolition. Today, a trial opens in Israel in a lawsuit brought by Corrie’s family against the Israeli government. The eyewitness testimony is expected to challenge Israel’s version of events with evidence that she was clearly visible to the soldiers, standing before the bulldozer in her florescent orange jacket. We spend the hour with Rachel Corrie’s family: her father Craig, her mother Cindy, and her sister Sarah.
MP3 of the segment
Tuesday, March 09, 2010
Reverend Billy
March 8, 2010
Aung San Sun Kyi, Nelson Mandella, Chief Joseph, Harvey Milk — teach us!
Revolution aint what it used to be.
Emma Goldman, Cesar Chavez, Leonard Peltier, Sojourner Truth –teach us! The President used the word “change” to stop it. The change we seek couldn’t be clearer, but it is mimicked by Presidents and corporate marketing. By the time we shout “Justice” we’re in a commercial selling underwear, perfume, votes…
Revolution aint got the same song. Paul Robeson, Woody Guthrie, Joan Baez, Public Enemy, Joe Strummer — please pull our songs into a new valley, a new union hall. The songs we thought would change everything become Muzak before they get to the elevator speakers. And the words. If we read the words in a library our reading room is privatized before turn we the page. We look down and logos cover our feet like leeches in the 18th century.
Che, Subcommandante Insurgente Marcos, Mumia Abu-Jamal, Judi Bari from Earth First — teach us! The change we seek is clear to the reactionaries too, and they discovered the disguise of scale. On the one hand they remove mountaintops and change the climate. So our citizenship is a slow state of shock. Then they go tiny, too. The corporations search for the DNA that makes us shop. They want to throw that switch. They look forward to the deletion of any mental dissent.
Walt Whitman, Mahatma Gandhi, Dr. Martin Luther King — please prepare us for the strangeness, the mystification of entrenched power. The killers hide in the air that we breathe and lurk in the dreams of our children. Where is the dirty coal executive? Where is the banker? Who do we push against? We swat at the pixels that buzz at our eyes like flies on the eyes of corpses. No, not corpses – consumers!
Could we be as brave as the heroes from revolutions past? We are facing a different foe. The powers-that-be are shape-shifting constantly. Consumerism and Militarism are so ambient, so plastic, so media-become-real. Resistance itself must be re-invented, in the sense that each of these heroes we’ve prayed to – each was a creator. Angela Davis‘ strategy for change was different than that of Bernadette Devlin, or the students in Tiananmen Square, or Toussaint L’ouverture.
Isn’t another name in revolution’s hall of fame — the Earth? We can pathologize all of these recent natural disasters as feverish seizures of a delirious planet. Then sometimes the earth seems coolly intelligent, as media-savvy as any video-taped underground movement – in its response to the poisoning from its human species.
Life on Earth — teach us! After all the heroes and martyrs and risings-up of the people, we sometimes feel as if we’ve gotten nowhere. The power of the corporations grows every hour and we don’t seem to have a response. You, the Earth where we live, you are responding. We sense that you are making your move, feverishly rising, interrupting, killing some of us and saving us all.
Amen.
Tuesday, March 09, 2010
By Tim Grant, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Women of all races bring home less income and own fewer assets, on
average, than men of the same race, but for single black women the
disparities are so overwhelmingly great that even in their prime working
years their median wealth amounts to only $5.
In a groundbreaking report released Monday by a leading economic
research group, social scientists turned a spotlight on the grave
financial challenges facing an often overlooked group of women, many of
whom could not take an unpaid sick day or repair a major appliance
without going into debt.
"It's rather shocking," said Meizhu Lui, director of the Closing the
Gap Initiative based in Oakland, Calif., who contributed to the report
"Lifting as We Climb: Women of Color, Wealth and America's Future."
PDF
Among the most startling revelations in the wealth data is that while
single white women in the prime of their working years (ages 36 to 49)
have a median wealth of $42,600 (still only 61 percent of their single
white male counterparts), the median wealth for single black women is
only $5.
"Even for those of us who have been looking at the wealth gap for a
while, we were shocked and amazed at how little women of color have,"
Ms. Lui said.
Researchers at the Insight Center for Community Economic Development,
based in Oakland, Calif., analyzed data from the 2007 Survey of
Consumer Finances, a voluminous report the Federal Reserve Board issues
every three years that examines household finances in this country.
Wealth, or net worth, measures the total of one's assets -- cash in
the bank, stocks, bonds and real estate; minus debts -- home mortgages,
auto loans, credit cards and student loans. The most recent financial
data was collected before the economic downturn, so the current numbers
likely are worse now than at the time of the study.
Black women, in general, were more likely to have participated in the
subprime loan crisis with upper-income black women being five times
more likely to have received a high-cost mortgage than upper-income
white men.
"The popular image is they spend too much, which is the reason they
are running up credit card and consumer debt, but the cost of living has
risen faster than income, and they need to go into debt for basic daily
necessities," Ms. Lui said. "It's compounded because unemployment is
twice as high in the black community than it is in the white community."
For all working-age black women 18 to 64, the financial picture is
bleak. Their median household wealth is only $100. Hispanic women in
that age group have a median wealth of $120.
"That means half of [black women] have a net worth of more than $100
and half have a net worth of less than $100," Ms. Lui said. "So that
gives you an idea of how far in debt some women of color are."
Married or cohabitating white women have a median wealth of $167,500.
Married or cohabitating black women have a median net worth of $31,500.
The reasons behind the daunting financial challenges black women face
are numerous and complex.
"There are excuses and circumstances that have evolved in society,
which put black women where they are," said Esther Bush, executive
director of the Urban League of Greater Pittsburgh, who said in
Pittsburgh more than 70 percent of African-American families are headed
by single women.
The recession has hit single mothers especially hard.
According to a recent report by the Institute for Women's Policy
Research and the Women and Girls Foundation of Southwest Pennsylvania,
more than four out of 10 families headed by single mothers in Pittsburgh
and more than one in three in Pennsylvania, live in poverty.
In Pittsburgh and across the country, the financial burdens of single
parenthood fall mostly on women, but black women are more likely to
endure the work and responsibility of raising children on their own.
They are more likely to be the backbone of their families and
communities, with greater responsibilities to support struggling friends
and families.
In a 2008 study of black women and their money, the ING Foundation
found that black women -- who frequently manage the assets of their
households -- financially support friends, family and their houses of
worship to a much greater degree than the general population.
They also are more likely to be employed in jobs and industries --
such as service occupations -- with lower pay and less access to health
insurance. And when their working days are done, they rely most heavily
on Social Security because they are less likely to have personal
savings, retirement accounts or company pensions. Their Social Security
benefits are likely to be lower, too, because of their low earnings.
Rather than strictly comparing income, researchers in the Insight
study looked at the wealth gap. The current economic crisis has shown
that a person's wealth affects not only retirement security, but also a
person's ability to handle financial setbacks such as a job loss or a
health emergency.
High unemployment and high incarceration rates for black men also
lower the likelihood of single black women finding a partner to help
build a more secure financial future.
Ms. Lui said the Insight report would be used to encourage the
government to close the wealth gap and improve the outlook for women of
color, just as it did for Americans who received land through the
Homestead Act, and education through the GI bill.
"If wealth was based on hard work, African-Americans would be the
wealthiest people in our nation," she said. "It's not about behavior.
It's about government policies. Who does the government help and who is
it not helping?
"Our government knows how to build wealth for people. They've done it
for others and they can do it for all of us. They need to focus some
attention on women of color. Look at the situation and see what we
need."
Tim Grant:
tgrant@post-gazette.com or
412-263-1591.
Monday, March 08, 2010
From: http://yenupeace.blogspot.com
All Women lets Unite!
We must never give up to fight for equal rights, only us women can ourselves can create a change.
The roots of International Women's Day are in the struggles of working women and their socialist/communist supporters.
History say that the mass protest by women garment and textile workers in New York City in 1857 occurred on March 8 & 2 years later also in march the same women won a drive to unionize. They were fighting against brutal working conditions, low wages, and the 12-hour day.
1908
On March 8, 1908, socialist women organized a demonstration of 15,000 in New York. Their demands were pay raises, shorter hours, the vote, and an end to child labor. After that, the Socialist Party of America decided with a declaration to celebrate a National Women’s Day in the U.S, so the NWD was held in February 28 1909
Women continued to celebrate NWD on the last Sunday of February until 1913.
1910 a second International Socialist Congress of Working Women was held in Copenhagen, Denmark. The attendees represented socialist parties, working women’s clubs, and unions, and included the first three women elected to the Finnish parliament, at a time when few women had the right to vote.
U.S. delegates went intending to propose an international women’s day, but a feminist Clara Zetkin (Leader of the 'Women's Office' for the Social Party in Germany) did it first. 100 Women from 17 countries, representing unions, socialist parties & the first three women elected to the Finnish parliament, voted yes to Zetkin's suggestion & International Women's Day was created.
1911 on March 25, the 'Triangle Fire' in New York City shirtwaist factory, caused the deaths of 146 workers, mostly women, This disastrous scandal "helped" build the International Ladies Garment Workers Union, one of the first primarily female unions and became one of the largest unions in the U.S.
1913-1914
1913 many big IWD demostrations for peace took place in Europe & Russian women observed their first IWD, on the last Sunday in February 1913. IWD was transferred to 8 March and this day has remained the global date for International Women's Day ever since.
World War I began in August 1914. But for many years IWD was suppressed by capitalist governments and a few socialist parties, that had betrayed international working-class solidarity by backing their own nations in the war.
1917 But the most memorably IWD so far was in Russia on March 8. Leon Trotskij’s "History of the Russian Revolution", describes it perfectly, (its a wonderful book) The last Sunday in February, Russian Women started a huge revolution"strike" for Bread & peace. 4 days later they overthrew the all-powerful Tsar's, who was forced to abdicate and the provisional Government granted women the right to vote. This then led to Lenin's Bolshevik Party's revolution, eight months later, October 1917.
The only successful proletarian revolution in history, understood that Soviet women would never achieve political and social equality unless they were allowed out of the stultifying isolation of the home and into the workplace. Even in the midst of a civil war and foreign invasion, the early Soviet government did what it could to socialize ‘‘women’s work’’ while instituting, for the first time in history, full legal and political equality for women. Free abortion was available on demand; dining halls, laundries and day-care centers were established, and the new regime sought to ensure equality of economic opportunity in the civil service, in industry, in the party and in the armed forces.
Since those early years, International Women's Day has assumed a new global dimension for women in developed and developing countries alike. The growing international women's movement, which has been strengthened by four global United Nations women's conferences, has helped make the commemoration a rallying point for coordinated efforts to demand women's rights and participation in the political and economic process. Increasingly, International Women's Day is a time to reflect on progress made, to call for change and to celebrate acts of courage and determination by ordinary women who have played an extraordinary role in the history of women's rights.
All my Love & Blessings goes out to every women in this world that are every day are abused in anyway.
For all women that do not have the chance to be a voice & whose efforts are not valued every day, for all women that are raising our new generation in this world.
We must fight for all these women in the world, fight for Dignity Justice & Equality.
International Women’s Day Marked Around the World
Thousands of events are being held around the world to celebrate International Women’s Day, an idea that was launched 100 years ago when a group of women from seventeen countries gathered in Copenhagen, Denmark to champion the rights of women. Activists across the globe are drawing attention to a variety of concerns, including discriminatory laws, the high rate of pregnancy-related deaths in many parts of the world, the skewed sex ratio in China and India, the disproportionately high number of women who are killed and victimized by wars, the comparatively heavier burden of poverty on women, and the continuing disparity between men and women in terms of the quality of available employment and wages received.
Guest:
Kavita Ramdas, President and CEO of the
Global Fund for Women. She is following discussions at the United Nations as the
Commission on the Status of Women meets to review the implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action that came out of the Fourth World Conference on Women in 1995.
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