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The real problems with climate change is factory farming and fossil fuel consumption. Blaming it all on India and China seems a tad myopic. - AIW
I hope when they gather in Paris they focus on the real problem with climate change. China and India. Putting solar panels on our houses and driving electric cars here is kind of like swatting at a bug when a bear is biting your leg. If we are going to get serious about climate change lets go where the real problem is and start there.
Same as with occupy, big money (puppet master of the govt and therefore the cops too), will find a way to justify the cops to attack the protesters again.
That is why we must support FSTV. It won't last if they can stop it.
No matter how much picketing, protesting and civil disobedience takes place, the politicians will continue "sitting on the fence," not just here in the USian Imperial Homeland, but everywhere else on this capitalist-ruined planet.
Indeed, that's why capitalism is everywhere racing to attain its final form -- fascism. The One Percenters and their Ruling-Class servants -- the politicians, bureaucrats, military officers and police commanders who are methodically oppressing all the rest of us -- understand the awakening symbolized by the New York City march and the related activities in approximately 156 other nations.
But our masters have already decided (1)-that our planet is doomed; (2)-that they will make their final days as lavishly comfortable as possible; and (3)-that they will savage us to whatever extent they deem necessary to maintain their comforts.
Which is, of course, the point where the resistance to police brutality at Ferguson and the global resistance to capitalist ecocide become the same terminal struggle. The choice is simple: either we abolish capitalism or our species becomes extinct.
There are many things necessary to make changes in the climate. One of them is organization and the march in NYC yesterday was very, very important in many ways. I was in NYC with the march and to know that 400,000 people of all ages, diverse backgrounds, children of all ages, men with men, women/women, people in wheelchairs and with walkers, and everyone in good spirits and not judging. We are happy. And that is a microcosm of what so many people feel. Look at the thousands marching across the globe and those who supported us but unable to participate. That is not just a march; that is a mandate. Second it is a very important statement shouting to the corporations and legislators that we are are no longer going to sit back and take their greed and destructive techniques. This fight is not over - not by a long shot. I am with 350.org and the Sierra Club and we, along with the unions, students, scientists are going to work even harder.
We have many plans and we are motivated by the love of our planet and our children and all of life that Earth supports. We are on the brink of the Sixth Extinction. That means the planet will shrug us off if we do not begin making changes yesterday and every day forward. We. Will. Prevail. If you are not willing to help, get out of the way.
Thanks to the movements of the 1960's, we have integrated schools, we left the Viet Nam War, and public awareness of DDT in the environment and the concept of health food were born.
The greatest reward for me was the day my son said, "I'm so glad I never had to worry about being drafted."
Me too.
What impresses me most about the climate change march in New York is the over-whelming media coverage of the most important event ever! There must have been cameras everywhere! All the media big wheels were right on top of everything. Even Fox "News" was covering the event.
NOT! NOT! NOT! NOT! NOT! NOT! NOT! NOT! NOT! NOT! NOT! NOT! NOT! NOT!
Why not? Because media is in bed with big oil. They would rather see the earth burn to a crisp than to give up one silver (sort of) dime of profit.
Thom, I usually agree with you BUT when you wanted the caller from New Mexico (I believe it was) to offer solutions to the problem, let me offer the following: the first step in problem solving is to define the nature, limits and scope of the problem. Discussion of problems is not usually a wasted effort unless it devolves to shouting pass each other or filibuster. We may question whether we can kill our way out of a war when the enemy depends simply on our spending ourselves into penury. We may question whether arming the "moderate" terrorists in Syria will succeed as we did in Afganistan with Ben Laden. Complaining, however, should be recognized as the bottom of the debate barrel.
like the occupy movement, this action has little effect: the polluters have no capacity for shame or guilt, having long ago made their deal with the devil (putting personal wealth over all citizenly considerations).
protest is vain; power is in the vote, and those who try to circumvent the political sphere kid themselves. stop massing in groups of agreeable people, and go out and convert others, which is harder but may actually have an effect.
we shall overcome?; not by chanting, you won't.
The multiplication method the last caller before the 0:45 break mentioned is not how math is being taught in American schools. It's from a recent video claiming to show how multiplication is taught in China. The examples in the video only use digits as high as three and numbers that are no more than 3 digits long, presumably because the method is impractical with anything higher.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sfnak4iMvjI
#1 Everyone in the world is entitled to own a home and no one can own more than one because then everyone would be entitled own more than one. The Banks cannot own anything.
#2 Everyone in the world is entitled to clean drinking water. All industries/governments that endanger drinking water must be eliminated and held accountable.
#3 Everyone in the world is entitled to eat without suffering from hunger.
#4 Everyone in the world is entitled to good health care.
#5 Everyone in the world is entitled to pursue their dreams and passions, to reach their full potential so long as it is sustainable and does not harm others or the planet.
#6 Everyone in the world is entitled to know the truth and there shall be full transparency in media and the government and the two shall never bed.
How do we accomplish this? Easy, we tell the banks to take a hike.
#1 The house you live in now is yours and you don't owe the bank shit. Interest is criminal
#2 We are not going to finance any more polluting industries and the banks are going to pay for the cleanup/restoration of our water.
#3 All farm debt is erased including debt owed by third world countries. Farmers may grow to feed the world, and money generated will go straight to the farmer and not to the bank for interest. Everyong is entitle to farm their own land and grow as much food as needed as long as it is sustainable.
#4 All medical debt is erased including student loans. Medical college will be affordable to anyone passionate about medicine and taught by those passionate about medicine and will be compensated for their contribution to society.
#5 Do as much or as little as you like as long as you live by the golden rule.
#6 Media will be held to a strict standard of truth and no individual or party will be able to "own" the media. Propoganda will be severely punishable by law.
Interest is imperialism
We have gotten off subject.
Look, if you want to tax those individuals then I will not vote against you, obviously $250,000 is more than enough to live happily. Taxation will never create equality. If 300 years of American history hasn't proven that I don't know what will.
However, Thom is in a position of spreading knowledge and he needs to be responsible with his statements. If he says taxing these individuals will solve the deficit then I want to see the math. This was a bold face lie and it is doing more damage than good.
What we are talking about is a re-distribution of wealth, not taxing to create more corruption.
It is simply disgusting that some own trillions while so many people starve. How can a person have ten houses and watch another human suffer miserably...watch our planet suffer miserably. I don't understand these people, it is like they are not even human. They are disgusting pigs.
So I came up with some demands, I am calling them the ten demandments but I only have seven
Hollyhocks
All those programs that you mentioned are socialists programs, Republicans would rather support the military-industrial complex instead. Seems crazy that is more profitable in killing people and destroying cities and factories than it is to promote the general welfare of Americans, which is mentioned in the Constitution United States of America, crazy isn’t it.
When I originally commented I clicked the -Notify me when new comments are added- checkbox and now each time a comment is added I get four emails with the same comment. Is there any way you can remove me from that service? Thanks! Spycam kaufen
Zenzoe's name is Barbara Bush.
Palindromedary, I see pretty random times on the clock, but I am indeed a Social/Personality Psychologist and an Adjunct Professor. :)
People do indeed say a lot about themselves on the internet. Did I say that I know Zenzoe's real name, then forgot saying it? Yes, it's true, I do know her name as well as that of quite a few other people from this site. Zenzoe told me her name. It's Gloria Steinem. Nope, just kidding, but I do know her name (wouldn't say it here, though). :)
I was chatting with my nephew on Facebook recently, and my wife wanted me to print out the conversation; but when I tried, it printed out the same few lines no matter how I tried. The part it printed out was when he asked me: What is the answer to life? I said "23" because that is my number (my birthday as well as my wife's), plus we have 23 pairs of chromosomes. My nephew said he heard it was 42 in a movie. LOL I guess there was some special significance to that conversation, since it kept printing out. (?) A few days later, my nephew visited here and we gave him some money for his college expenses.
If you think it is a myth that the police don't deter crime then I'd have to disagree with you. We don't have police just to sit and eat donuts and drink coffee all day. Criminals would much rather there were no police that might catch them and put them in jail...or shoot them. You wouldn't like it if we had no police to deter would be criminals. Yes, occasionally, police do go overboard and/or make mistakes. They have a very tough job and their attitudes, and reactions to perceived threats, get formed by the kinds of garbage-people they have to deal with all the time. And when people mouth-off and argue with police and resist lawful orders then they are just asking for it. The law enforcer's lives are often at risk by some twerp who might shoot them in the back. Not a very safe profession to be in.
We know that people coming back from war conditions in the Middle East often suffer from PTSD. The police are often under the same kinds of conditions in the US. We are at war...because the criminals are constantly trying to mug us, steal from us, rape us, etc. But, the entrenched criminality of the ruling elite gets away with the things they do because, on their level, they own the police and the politicians. But on the street level, we'd be living in a real jungle of predatory animals ready and willing to pounce on us all were it not for the police.
thevoice: what I was getting at in #16 is that I believe that most of those people who make $250,000 and above are most likely Republicans...they have a mindset that is in no way liberal or progressive...it is, rather, cutthroat and conniving...much like most Republicans. They vote and they have created the economic quagmire for the 98% (those that make less than $250,000 per year) that is America today. And one cannot really draw the line at $250,000. There are a lot of people that make less than that and who live very comfortably and who may also have a strong desire to be in the top 1% or 2% and have been convinced that what stands in their way is a liberal/progressive government that wants to spread the wealth around to more people rather than allow a few people to live very high on the hog. Perhaps many of those people are business people who have no problem cheating their employees out of a decent wage/salary and benefits in order to increase the employers or his/her stockholders richer.
The "great injustice to our struggle" comes mostly from all of those super-rich wannabees (and to most of us, $250,000...the top 2%... is super rich) who are only earning much less than they think they are entitled. They have enough money to influence elections...and there is far more of them, probably voting in their elite interests, than the many fewer in the top 1%. They have many more votes than the top 1%. They both have lots of money to influence other dummies in the bottom 98% to vote in the interests of the wealthy elite (ie: voting for Republicans or Democrats that suck up to the monied interests). But if that 98% voted for say, the Green Party, or some other party other than the crooked main-stream two-party cabal then it would shake up the system and we could possibly have some real changes for the better. But things will never change for the betterment of the 98% if we keep voting for the same old crooks in the political system in the US.
Maybe a couple of Wichita Billionaires (whose last name rhymes with 'toke') could help out their neighbors. Yeah, right after the habitable planet Vulcan is discovered orbiting our sun opposite of Earth!
Let's change the word Reaganomics to Ebolanomics because it kills 99% of it's victims.
Truth in advertising and all that...
Maybe greed is a pandemic, too!
I don't know what your point is here.
If you are trying to suggest that without police crime would run ramped, I would have to say this notion is a little silly.
This is a common held myth and all one needs to do to see how silly this myth is ask yourself are you going to commit crime just because there is no police? Are you suddenly going to turn violent and start killing? No of course not. It is not in our nature. A vast majority of crime is not violent petty/drug offenses. A vast majority of violent offenders become violent after incarceration, usually for self defense. Thus, Police and the prison system create violence, as opposed to deterring it.
Crime is a function of poverty/the war on drugs which is imposed on us by the imperialists to control us. When people have good jobs, good families, and good communities, crime is not an issue.
I sincerely disagree Palindromedary
If if want to compare someone like Warren Buffet who made an estimated $37 million per day to someone making $250,000 in taxable income per year then that is your prerogative, I believe this does a great injustice to our struggle. Especially when you consider Warren Buffet is not a trillionaire and the true elite could buy Warren Buffet 1000x over.
Natural Lefty: No kidding? What a coincidence! I also frequently see identical triple digits when I glance at a clock. It happens so often it's spooky. I'll wake up in the middle of the night and the clock says 4:44 or 3:33 or 2:22...etc. I keep thinking that I probably should buy a lottery ticket on the days that I experience this. But, I was told that a friend's friend frequently experienced the same thing...she died! I've been told that maybe I should just get rid of my digital clocks and get analog ones. The thing is that people say a lot about themselves on the internet, so there really is no mystery or coincidence about much of anything. But I think you know this...how else would you have been able to figure out ZZ's real name?
Palindromedary, I don't know if you realize this, but in fact I do have a Ph.D. in Social/Personality Psychology, and the title is written just like that, the same way that you wrote it. I did my doctoral work at the University of California, Riverside. Do I analyze peoples' personalities, social proclivities and psychological issues? Yeah, sort of, but I try not to go overboard or jump to conclusions. It's easy to get wrong ideas if you don't know somebody very well. I do find that my knowledge as a Social/Personality Psychologist is helpful in understanding people that I meet online. I have also learned not to mention my education too much, because it brings strange and inappropriate reactions in certain people (such as paranoia that I am obsessively analyzing them, or resentment/jealousy over my education, or antintellectual reactions), although I don't avoid mentioning it altogether. In this case, I just had to mention it after reading your replies.
There are good reasons for staying anonymous that are relevant to many people. However, as I pointed out, in fact, Leigh and I are really not anonymous, and anybody can discover our identities, so that nobody can claim that we are operating in anonymity.
I noticed that there is no edit button on my first reply to this thread, but there is for subsequent replies. Did the first reply pass some sort of cutoff point for editing?