California Free Press

Finding a Job in California

With employers expecting to hire 4 percent more graduates from the Class of 2018 than in the previous year, the personal-finance website WalletHub today released its report on 2018’s Best & Worst States for Jobs. To ease the process of finding employment for job seekers, WalletHub compared the 50 states across 29 key indicators of job-market strength, opportunity and economic vitality. The data set ranges from employment growth to median annual income to average commute time.   Finding a Job in California (1=Best; 25=Avg.)  40th – Job Opportunities 16th – Employment Growth 42nd – Monthly Average Starting Salary 38th – Unemployment Rate 46th – Median Annual Income (Adjusted for Cost of Living) 7th – Avg. Length of Work Week (in Hours) 45th – Avg. Commute Time (in Minutes) 12th – Job Satisfaction For the full report, please visit: https://wallethub.com/edu/best-states-for-jobs/35641/

 

Homeless School Kids in California

May 30, 2018 Last year, California public schools identified 268,699 schoolchildren as lacking “a fixed, regular, and adequate nighttime residence." The population of homeless school kids in the Golden State is exploding, especially in large cities where rents have become prohibitively high. The Los Angeles Unified School District has more homeless students than many school districts have in total enrollment. As part of Capital & Main's new series, Living Homeless in California: Daily Needs, Lasting Scars, reporter Bill Raden explores the reasons behind child homelessness, the impact of homelessness on their development and academic success, and possible solutions to the problem. Check out the story here, and find the latest stories from the series below.

 

VOTER TURNOUT IS EVERYTHING

by Robert Reich

Wednesday, May 30, 2018

The largest political party in America isn’t the Democratic Party or the Republican Party. It’s the Party of Non-Voters.

94 million Americans who were eligible to vote in the 2016 election didn’t vote. That’s a bigger number than the number who voted either for Trump or for Clinton.

All of which means that voter turnout will determine who wins control of Congress next November, and who becomes president in 2020. Turnout is everything.

This is why it’s so important for you to vote – and urge everyone you know to vote, too.

Life is Great but Sometimes it Hurts

Dear friends,

   Old joke:   Two elderly ladies at a mountain hotel in upstate New York. One says to the other “the food here is just terrible!”   “I know, replies her friend, “but at least the portions are big.”

     It’s all in how you look at it. Isn’t that something we observe again and again? Two people viewing the same event with two very different experiences of it.   At any point in our own life, we can either see things as stuck, or we can see movement where there appears to be none. We can see health where they seems to be sickness or we can see sickness as the only reality. Any situation is always about more than one outcome. What we choose to see dictates the quality or shall we say, the flavor of our experience. It can be rich in meaning and depth even when it is a bit challenging.

     Joseph Campbell, the wise mythologist, said “Life is great, only it hurts!” There are moments of sadness and loneliness and there are moments of great joy in each life. The closer we are to the center of our own being, the more we can be present for all of it. This is to be in the world but not of it. We can feel the sadness of a loss but we do not lose ourselves in it. We marvel at the miracle of a newborn but we also know he/she is bound to leave us eventually. We take in the beauty and the ugliness with the same perception.

   We are eternally revealing our highest ideas but we are never bound by the what we have revealed. There is no ceiling on what we can achieve. Everything is on the move and susceptible to our new perception. Look at what is ailing you and call it nothing but an old idea. Replace it with one that generates enthusiasm and be glad for the size of your portion!

Stay tuned in,

Carol Carnes www.mvcsl.org

www.californiafreepress.net

Off the Top of My Head

Kim: We'll Give Up One Nuke for One McDonald's

by John Lawrence

It's hamburger diplomacy with North Korea. Kim Jong Un has hinted he might give up a nuke in return for a hamburger enfranchisement in North Korea. As Marie Antoinette might have said, "Let them eat hamburger!" Trump better study up on his Korean before he goes. The translation of "I want to buy a hamburger" into Korean is "Naneun haembeogeoleul sago sipda". I remember Inspector Clouseau struggling with that phrase when he had to leave France and come to the United States to follow up on a lead.

If Kim wants to win Trump over and get him to sell the ranch, all he has to do is to import a cheeseburger and treat Trump to that feast at their first meeting. Trump will agree to peace without Kim having to give up anything. A gesture of good will though would be to bring an executive from McDonald's who could get all starry eyed about the first McDonald's in Pyongyang. Bolton would be furious. He wants Kim to give up all his nukes before he would let Trump even talk to him. But Trump wouldn't hesitate to deal in a little hamburger diplomacy. You give up one nuke for a MacDonald's, two nukes and you get yourself a McDonald's and a Starbucks. Three nukes and we'll throw in a Kentucky Fried Chicken.

Pretty soon there will be more than one fat North Korean. When Trump gets done dealing fast food chains for nukes, the Koreans will start dying off from all the diseases Americans are dying from. Probably all kinds of cancer from the glyphosate infused fast foods. Of course Kim will have to let Monsanto into North Korea, and before long all kinds of exotic cancers will be showing up that they never had before. Kim better think twice before he allows these addictive fast foods into North Korea. What's next: Pyongyang schoolchildren singing "I'd like to buy the world a coke and bring peace to the world. It's the real thing."

I think Kim has already surrendered to the US Empire if he lets American fast food chains into North Korea whether or not he trades them for nukes. After all he likes Dennis Rodman a lot. Perhaps Rodman should get some credit for the Americanizing of the Korean peninsula. Kim Jong Un is a secret American basketball fan, but I guess he's also enamored of American fast food.

Balance the Inner with the Outer

Dear friends,

     Recently I added two flowering plants to my porch. It is quite hot here so I was diligent with the watering. One of the plants is thriving, the other is drooping and clearly unhappy. Talking to a friend who knows more than I do about plants, I learned I had actually over-watered the poor thing. I was killing it with kindness. It’s roots were saturated and distressed. Who knew? The soil needed to dry out before it needed water.

     This whole thing made me think about balance in spiritual practice. Unless we are monks in an ashram or a monastery, we can over water our senses with too much inner work. Without the counter balance of action we can become self-absorbed.   That is not a path for humans to thrive. We need the world and we need to withdraw from it, but we definitely need both. Our creative nature demands interaction with the outer, while our soul pulls us inward for sustenance.

     Without an outlet for our higher awareness, we can drown in our own potential, as it were. We become frustrated and perhaps depressed if we do not give our gifts and express our knowledge. This is why so many retirees sink into too much time as if it were the enemy. They often feel useless and out of sync with the world. There are remedies, of course, such as mentoring and volunteering.   However, it is important for all of us, retired or not, to assess the balance of the inner and the outer in our own life. Too much outer is just as debilitating to the soul as too much inner is to the ego.

Stay tuned in,

Carol Carnes www.mvcs.org

www.californiafreepress.net

Hundreds Arrested Nationwide as Poor People's Campaign Demands 'End to the War Economy'

Published on Tuesday, May 29, 2018 by Common Dreams

"We have a long history of wars against other people, mostly people of color, around the world. It's time we stopped calling it the Defense Department and started calling it what it is: the Department of War."

by Jake Johnson, staff writer

 41 Comments

In its demands unveiled last month, the Poor People's Campaign called for "a reallocation of resources from the military budget to education, healthcare, jobs, and green infrastructure needs, and strengthening a Veterans Administration system that must remain public." (Photo: Poor People's Campaign/Twitter)

Inspired by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s warning that "a nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom," the Poor People's Campaign launched its third week of action in cities nationwide on Tuesday with the aim of confronting the American war economy, which pours resources that could be used to provide healthcare and food to the poor at home into the killing of innocents abroad.

Hoisting signs that read "The War Economy Is Immoral" and "Ban Killer Drones," demonstrators gathered at the capitol buildings of New York, North Carolina, Tennessee, and several other states to denounce a militaristic system that profits "every time a bomb is dropped on innocent people."

As of this writing, hundreds have been arrested and many more are facing arrest as they gather outside of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's (R-Ky.) office in Washington, D.C.

 

#PoorPeoplesCampaign lining up outside McConnell’s DC office. Today’s theme: “challenge the war economy.” They’ll be facing arrest. pic.twitter.com/EcblF33ZOV

— Alejandro Alvarez (@aletweetsnews) May 29, 2018

[VIDEO] The Rev. William Barber and his Poor People’s campaign hold a nonviolent protest at North Carolina statehouse. READ MORE: https://t.co/raxokUTH9D pic.twitter.com/rLGCDFBGMo

— AP South U.S. Region (@APSouthRegion) May 29, 2018

HAPPENING NOW: Dozens of Missourians have shut down the state capitol with the #PoorPeoplesCampaign for the 3rd time to call for an end to the war economy. We're fighting for our lives. And we all have a right to live. #FightFor15 pic.twitter.com/nKLSZFhAJf

— Stand Up KC (@standup_kc) May 29, 2018

“If you want to thank me for my service, work for peace!” #PoorPeoplesCampaign pic.twitter.com/ImoBMmE2CM

— Union Seminary (@UnionSeminary) May 29, 2018

“We have a long history of wars against other people, mostly people of color, around the world...it’s time we stopped calling it the defense department and started calling it what it is: the department of war.” -John Braxton, Vietnam War draft resister #PoorPeoplesCampaign pic.twitter.com/nVrjcRMlDk

— PA Poor People's Campaign (@PennsylvaniaPPC) May 29, 2018

As Common Dreams reported, the Poor People's Campaign unveiled a detailed series of demands last month ahead of the launch of its 40 days of action in more than 30 states across the country.

"We demand a stop to the privatization of the military budget and any increase in military spending," the agenda reads. "We demand a reallocation of resources from the military budget to education, healthcare, jobs, and green infrastructure needs, and strengthening a Veterans Administration system that must remain public."

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License

Off the Top of My Head

Democrats Should Adopt Bernie Sanders' Program, Lock, Stock and Barrel

by John Lawrence, May 30, 2018

The Democrats should adopt the party's progressive wing program and completely dismiss the conservative wing started by the Clintons. They should stand for an economic program which benefits the middle class which is what Trump did more or less. People voted for Trump because they said 'what the hell let's give this guy a try and see what happens'. The old working class wanted their jobs back. Trump was all about giving them to them. Instead of old jobs back, Bernie's wing stands for demilitarizing the Federal budget and spending money on economic programs like free college, universal health care, creating jobs by rebuilding infrastructure - bread basket issues. Affordable housing should top the list and resolving the homeless issue. America is ready for a dose of socialism.

As opposed to the Clintons, the party should be anti-Wall Street. In the Bible it says, "Man cannot serve two masters." Hillary tried to have it both ways. Take money from Wall Street and be a populist at the same time. She was serving two masters. The reason why Bernie was so popular is that he said it like it is. Trump just basically talked about his pet peeves which resonated with the disenfranchised middle class workers. Demilitarizing and putting the money to use and the workers to work building infrastructure would appeal to the same workers and downtrodden middle class. Millennials are attracted by Bernie's desire to get rid of student loan debt and establish free tuition and training programs.

The nation has to be demilitarized and the rich need to pay their fair share of taxes. The US is spending trillions on war and is on the wrong side in its military alliances as long as it's against Iran and Russia and for Saudi Arabia. The US is creating a crisis in Yemen with its support of the Saudi's brutal campaign there. Saudi Arabia is the major support system for ISIS so why are we in bed with the Saudis? Trump said he was against wasting money on military adventures abroad. Putting America first was supposed to mean repatriating the money spent on military adventures abroad and building infrastructure at home. That would be putting America first. Trump is not doing it. Perhaps the Democratic Party should co-opt that slogan and really put America first by using the money spent on the War Department to fund American jobs here at home.

Election of Donald Trump Was a 'Revolt Against Meritocracy'

Steven Brill on his new book “Tailspin,” and how American meritocracy actually produced an era of oligarchy

 

By Chauncey DeVega / Salon, May 29, 2018

 

Photo Credit: Michael F. Hiatt/Shutterstock

Extreme wealth and income inequality are a threat to democracy.

The Citizens United decision by the U.S. Supreme Court declared that unlimited political spending is a type of protected free speech. By this logic corporations are now people and can use their near-limitless resources to undermine democracy by subverting the will of the American people. Gangster capitalists such as the Koch Brothers -- who also do not believe in basic principles of democracy -- are enforcing a true tyranny of the minority through their donations to candidates, their funding interest groups and lobbyists and their endowment of entire university departments and professors to produce "scholarship" that support their agenda.

Beyond public policy, wealth and income inequality is impacting the American people in other immediate and personal ways as well. By one recent report, 43 percent of Americans cannot afford basic necessities. Wages are stagnant and declining when adjusted for inflation. An entire generation of young people is not saving for future retirement because they anticipate working forever and also do not have any disposable income.

What led to these outcomes and what can be done to remedy them? Could these systemic failings have other cause as well? I recently spoke about these topics and others with Steven Brill, the bestselling author of such books as "America's Bitter Pill: Money, Politics, Backroom Deals, and the Fight to Fix Our Broken Healthcare System" and "Class Warfare: Inside the Fight to Fix America’s Schools."

In his provocative new book "Tailspin: The People and Forces Behind America’s Fifty-Year Fall – and Those Fighting to Reverse It," Brill argues that the post-World War II expansion of American meritocracy actually created a new type of oligarchy, one whose members are better equipped to protect the gains and power of their own group to the disadvantage of others not in their class.

In this conversation Brill and I discuss this boomerang effect, the structural factors which created the political conditions necessary for a right-wing authoritarian such as Donald Trump to win the White House and how America's political leaders should embrace a politics that serves the interests of all people, not just affluent elites who have separated themselves from the day-to-day struggles and needs of most Americans. This conversation has been edited for clarity and length.

Donald Trump's victory and this current political crisis were decades in the making. This moment is a reflection of serious institutional and structural problems in American society. How do you make sense of it all?

During the 1960s I was part of a generation that benefited from the expansion of American meritocracy. I was one of the first group of students to be admitted to Yale when it was opened up to Jews, admissions was made need-blind, people started getting financial aid and Yale transformed from being just the old boys' network to something a bit more meritocratic and open. The beneficiaries of that in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990’s would become the lawyers who created and engineered corporate takeovers and ways to fight unions in the South, as well as how to lobby so that regulations would not be passed. That generation also became the bankers who created casino capitalism.

The election of Trump is a kind of revolt against the meritocracy. Consider this: Hillary Clinton is the epitome of the meritocracy. She’s first-generation money. She went to Wellesley and Yale Law School. She’s always prepared. She never shoots from the hip, she seems cool and calculating but always does her homework. Now compare her to Trump. He is a guy who was born with money, went bankrupt six times, always shoots from the hip, takes pride in never, ever being prepared, and is the ultimate freeloader and not a product of the meritocracy.

But the people who were fed up with what this new meritocracy produced said, “What the hell -- let Trump have a shot.”

Trump won every single category of white voters. It wasn’t some cartoon caricature of the "white working class" that the mainstream media likes to paint about the rubes out there in the hinterlands. That narrative about white "economic anxiety" is easier to report on and write about than it is to dig into the real systemic and structural problems in American society.

Anyone running on a Republican ballot is going to have locked in a certain percentage of white upper-class votes. What I think really gets lost in the narrative is that the people who’ve been screwed in this country are the middle class and the poor. But Trump, like George Wallace, was able to turn the middle class against the poor. For example, by saying, "All the problems you’re having are the result of these poor people" -- in his case, immigrants -- "who are getting advantages that you don’t get." But in reality the middle class and others who are not rich have been screwed over too.

Off the Top of My Head

The Social Contract and Discourse on Inequality

by John Lawrence

Jean-Jacques Rousseau wrote the Social Contract in 1762 in which he advocated for direct democracy. This is a democracy in which the people do not elect representatives, but vote directly. The US has a representative democracy which has opened the door for lobbying. Corporations lobby the representatives for all kinds of favors, the main one being tax breaks. These favors to corporations come into play because the US does not have a direct democracy which Rousseau advocates. Rousseau also wrote his Discourse on Inequality in 1754. In it he philosophises that private property is the origin and source of inequality.

There are two types of inequality according to Rousseau: natural inequality and moral inequality. Natural inequality we can do nothing about. People are born with various talents, abilities, personalities, good looks or the lack thereof. Nature has given each individual a different hand to play as in a card game. Then it is up to that individual to make the most of that hand. Moral inequality, on the other hand, is inequality that civil society can do something about either to redress or to make worse. According to the social contract, those having a stronger hand to play or having achieved a greater degree of success in the acquisition of private property or wealth have a duty to help the weaker members of society attain at least a decent level of existence. That is the social contract in a healthy society.

However, when those who have been successful in society, either by dint of birth or even hard work, use that success only to further feather their own nests, society breaks down, the social contract has been breached, and the illness of that society splashes out in all directions. In that case society has reached the kind of society that Hobbes envisioned, a society in which life is "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short." Hobbes philosophised that it was the purpose of society to ameliorate this natural condition, but, instead, we find that many societies, including present day ones, have exacerbated this natural state of affairs.

In order for a society to maintain its health, indeed even a state of democracy, there needs to be a social contract between the better off and the worse off. This kind of social contact is absent in the US today in which the better off think that they have no responsibility for the worse off. They only have the responsibility to further their own careers by any means necessary. The meritocracy has formed an elite in which all the prerogatives and perquisites of life accrue to them in portions far exceeding what any normal person can even comprehend, consume or digest while the majority of people represent the other side of the economic divide which is opening up wider and wider.

Thus representative democracy as opposed to direct democracy has opened the door for the corporatocracy - government by corporations and the wealthy. The US is no longer governed by the people, as it says in the Constitution but by wealthy meritocrats.

America’s Megalomaniac

by Robert Reich

Monday, May 28, 2018

I spent last week at a conference in South Korea, during which time Trump went from seeking a meeting with Kim Jong Un to cancelling it, then suggesting it might be back on. 

“What does Trump want?” South Korean officials at the conference kept asking me. Notably, no one asked what the United States wants. They knew it was all about Trump. 

Trump’s goal has nothing to do with peace on the Korean peninsula, or even with making America great again. It’s all about making Trump feel great.

“They are respecting us again,” Trump exulted to graduating cadets at the Naval Academy last Friday. “Winning is such a great feeling, isn’t it? Nothing like winning. You got to win.”

In truth, the United States hasn’t won anything, in Korea or anywhere else. After fifteen months of Trump at the helm, America is far less respected around the world than it was before.

The only thing that’s happened is Trump is now making foreign policy on his own – without America’s allies, without Congress, even without the State Department. Trump may consider this a personal win but it hardly makes America safer.

Some earnest foreign policy experts are seeking to discover some bargaining strategy behind Trump’s moves on North Korea. Hint: There’s no strategy. Only a thin-skinned narcissist needing flattery and fearing ridicule.

Trump got excited about a summit with Kim when he thought it might win him praise, even possibly a Nobel Peace Prize. He got cold feet when he feared Kim might be setting Trump up for humiliating failure. Now he’s back to dreaming about the Prize.

The delicate balance in Trump’s brain between glorification and mortification can tip either way at any moment, depending on his hunches. All international relations become contests of personal dominance.  

He rejected the 2015 Iran treaty for no apparent reason other than Obama had entered into it. Trump couldn’t care less that by doing so he has harmed relations with our traditional allies, who pleaded with him to stay in. And he’s undermined America’s future credibility. Why would any nation (including North Korea) enter into a treaty with the United States if it can break it on the whim of a president who wants to one-up his predecessor?

Ditto with the Paris climate accord. Obama got credit for it, so Trump wants credit for unilaterally sinking it.

Trump has demanded that America’s nuclear arsenal be upgraded. Why? Since 1970, the United States has been committed to nuclear nonproliferation. What changed? Trump. A more powerful arsenal makes him feel more powerful – “respected again.”

It’s not about American interests in the world. It’s about Trump’s interests.

Wonder why Trump promised to lift trade sanctions on ZTE, China’s giant telecom company? ZTE has been trading with North Korea and Iran, in violation of American policy. Everyone around Trump advised against lifting the sanctions.  

Look no further than Trump’s personal needs. ZTE is important to China, and China recently pledged a half-billion-dollar loan to a project connected with Trump’s family business.

While we’re on the subject of high tech, why has Trump pushed the Postal Service to double the shipping rate it charges Amazon? I mean, isn’t Amazon important to America’s high-tech race with the rest of the world?

The most likely explanation is that the CEO of Amazon is Jeff Bezos, who’s also far richer than Trump. Bezos also owns The Washington Post, and the Post has been critical of Trump.

As you may have noticed, the man doesn’t like to be criticized. As Trump explained to Leslie Stahl of “60 Minutes” during his campaign, his aim is “to discredit you all and demean you all so when you write negative stories about me no one will believe you.”

Any halfway responsible president of the United States would be worried about Russian meddling in U.S. elections. Protecting American democracy is just about the most important thing a president does.

But Trump has turned the inquiry about the Russians into a “dark state” conspiracy against him. And he’s demanded that the Justice Department investigate the people who are investigating him. 

With Trump, there’s no longer American foreign policy. There’s only Trump’s ego.

If peace is truly advanced on the Korean peninsula, the Prize shouldn’t go to Trump. It should go to South Korean president Moon Jae-in, who has tirelessly courted the world’s two most dangerous megalomaniacs.

A Relaxed Mind is Always the Most Creative

Dear friends,

     Today is what we have, where we are, what matters most. It is not so much what is happening today but what we are imagining today. Imagination has been referred to by mystics as, the “kingdom of God within.” The master teacher said “the kingdom is already given.” It is here, now, today, this moment. Let’s say we are stuck in traffic and have an appointment. We immediately begin to imagine the outcome. “I will be late. They will be upset. I might blow the opportunity. “ Or, we could imagine “all is well, time is mine to manage, I relax and allow the universal Intelligence to arrange my day.”

     I had such an experience once on the way to the airport. I made myself relax and know that I would arrive on time and be on that plane at the right time. When I got to the airport 30 minutes after we were due to take off, I learned the flight had been delayed for two hours. Trying to figure out the sequence of cause and effect is impossible. I just accept that in some way, a relaxed mind is always the most creative. I am always in the flow of emergent Good.

     How often have we heard ourselves say, in response to a limitation, “I knew this would happen!” Yes, we probably did. If we are very mindful of our inner thought processes, we will identify the culprit.   It is fear, loss of faith in Natural Law, or plain old habitual thinking. Perhaps we were taught that expecting the worst was some kind of protection against disappointment. Not many of us knew early on that all thoughts are creative. The ones that come true are those with big energy attached to them. Fear is energy. Love is energy. Certainty is energy. Belief is energy. Anger is energy.   It’s all energy. The ones we work with tend to be out-pictured in our personal reality. Mastering our own imagination in the moment is a high practice.   Let’s give it a try today

.

Stay tuned in,

Carol Carnes www.mvcsl.org

www.californiafreepress.net

Off the Top of My Head

Trump's Quest for the Nobel Prize

by John Lawrence, May 28, 2018

President Trump said that "everyone" thinks he deserves the Nobel Peace prize based on his on again-off again summit meeting with Kim Jong Il. Everyone, perhaps, except the Nobel committee, itself. I'm sure Trump will be invited when they do announce who has won the Nobel. I can hear it now. "Ladies and Gentlemen. The Nobel Prize Committee has left no stone unturned in deciding to whom to award the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize. We have considered many factors including the candidate's unswerving faithfulness to the cause of peace and the awardee's general character. The person we have chosen exemplifies the highest degree of both exemplary character and dedication to the cause of peace. It is for these reasons that we forthwith announce today that the Nobel Peace Prize for 2018 will be shared by two individuals: President Moon of South Korea and His Honor Kim Jong Un of North Korea. Together they have successfully solved a stalemate that has plagued the world for more than 70 years. It is because of them that we can now look forward to peace on the Korean peninsula.

Of course President Trump's supporters will boo the decision. After all they were chanting "Nobel.Nobel. Nobel" at some of his rallies. But it will be just sour grapes from Trump who will retreat to the White House with his tail tucked in between his legs, an alpha dog no more.

The Truth Shall Set You Free

Dear friends,

     What happens when long held beliefs are shattered by a higher truth? Contrary to what we might expect, (great joy), we might feel betrayed by our own mind or by those who filled us with lies or misconceptions. When a child is raised in a fundamentalist religion and later discovers a whole other way of viewing life, he/she might “throw out the baby with the bath water.”   Then he must navigate this life with, what? What is our guiding principle? His Holiness the Dalai Lama has famously said “kindness is my religion.” Yes, he is a Tibetan Buddhist, practicing deep meditation, chanting and study. But it all seems to be preparation for being kindness itself.

     In the end, it is how we are in the world that reflects our deepest beliefs; not slogans or bumper stickers or building a new sanctuary. It is just us and our purest intentions. Church is an institution, rigid and protective of the past. But life is a transitional, moving, ever becoming possibility. To be in it and not of it is the great secret. To be as true to our real self as we can is the real religion. To be mindful of our interdependence with Nature and to care for her, is real worship. To take responsibility for our own choices is power.

     New Thought spirituality is a teaching, not a preaching. It gives us new information about our personal capacity for love and joy, for peace and self- determination, for prosperity and vitality. It shows us a way of living that can awaken us to the freedom that comes from authentic self-expression. It is the esoteric core of religion; the golden nugget that is buried within the vault of dogma. It is what the ancients knew and what was suppressed. It is what can make this a world that works for everyone. It is the truth that sets us free.

Stay tuned in,

Carol Carnes

www.mvcsl.org        

www.califroniafreepress.net

Peace in Korea Is Still Possible — Just Without America

Published on Friday, May 25, 2018 by The Week

If some or all of these nations even make hesitant moves toward such a thing, it will demonstrate how Trump's flailing, herky-jerky incompetence is dissolving America's entire post-WWII foreign policy framework.

by Ryan Cooper

 

8 Comments

"On the North Korean side, they can get some relief from devastating sanctions, a partial return to ordinary nation status, and perhaps most importantly, get to appear magnanimous and statesmanlike." (Photo: Richard Engel/Twitter)

President Trump has abruptly canceled his much-hyped June 12 summit with North Korea in a baffling letter to Kim Jong Un in which he cited the latter's supposed "tremendous anger and open hostility." Given Trump's record of pervasive dishonesty and addle-brained rambling, it's anybody's guess what his actual thinking was.

Our allies seemed to have been caught off guard by Trump's missive. ("We are attempting to make sense of what, precisely, President Trump means," said South Korean government spokesman Kim Eui-kyeom.) But once they've had a chance to gather themselves, there's no reason why South Korea, North Korea, and China shouldn't go ahead with their own diplomatic agreement to officially end the Korean War and sketch out some kind of live-and-let-live agreement in the region. Indeed, under the Trump administration, the United States is a hindrance to peace, or indeed any sort of functioning diplomacy at all. If Trump had gone ahead with this North Korea summit, it's a virtual certainty that either he or his team would have botched it somehow. Cut America out of the loop, and you might actually get something done.

All parties can still benefit powerfully. On the South Korean side, they can resolve the terrifying decades-long standoff with their northern neighbor, restore a semblance of diplomatic relations, and reduce the military threat aimed at their nation. A total dismantlement of North Korea's nuclear weapons program is likely out of the question (and probably always was), but ballistic missile limitations and taking down the artillery emplacements aimed at Seoul is a reasonable ask.

On the North Korean side, they can get some relief from devastating sanctions, a partial return to ordinary nation status, and perhaps most importantly, get to appear magnanimous and statesmanlike. For an international pariah like Kim — and watching his performance at a recent visit to China — that latter possibility is surely an appealing one.

China (which would surely need to be involved as it is has by far the most leverage over North Korea) would get to resolve an obnoxious and destabilizing thorn in its side, gain prestige as the regional powerbroker while making the U.S. look foolish and incompetent, and even the juicy possibility of peeling off a close U.S. ally that is probably furious beyond words at Trump's betrayal. South Korean President Moon Jae-In has wagered enormous political capital on the possibility of some kind of rapprochement with North Korea, and is probably wondering just what the point of the American alliance is if he is going to be jerked around like this on his number one security priority.

Heck, Japan might want to get involved as well. They are only somewhat less threatened by North Korean saber-rattling, and may be figuring it's time to move towards a more neutral posture.

Obviously there is a lot of guesswork (and perhaps excessive optimism) involved in this argument, and even the leaders of these countries probably aren't sure themselves what they want to do yet. And after all, China and North Korea are ruthless dictatorships, and may not view peace as such a positive goal.

But even so, the logic is clear enough. And if some or all of these nations even make hesitant moves toward such a thing, it will demonstrate how Trump's flailing, herky-jerky incompetence is dissolving America's entire post-WWII foreign policy framework. As nations realize the United States cannot be trusted, a new day in international relations will dawn.

© 2018 The Week

Off the Top of My Head

The Cuckoo Foreign Policy

by John Lawrence, May 25, 2018

First you say you will. Then you won't. First you say you do. Then you don't. You're undecided now so what are ya gonna do?  Maybe it'll happen. Maybe it won't. We'll see what happens. The bromance between Donald Trump and Kim Jong Il started off with a bang, Trump calling him Little Rocket Man and Kim calling Trump a dotard. Then they decided to get together and have a summit meeting. Then Trump called it off fearing that Kim might do it first. That's it. If you think your lover might end it, then you end it first so you don't have to suffer the humiliation.

Seriously, is this any way to conduct foreign policy? In short, heck no. These are serious matters with millions of human lives at stake and billions of dollars at stake. It's no way to conduct a relationship between two people let alone a relationship that affects the whole world. If Kim is smart, he'll form a bond with President Moon and President Xi and leave Trump out of the deal. Just humor him a little. Let him think he'll get the Nobel Prize. He's like Chief Inspector Dreyfuss lusting after the Medal of Honor, but his bungling of foreign policy is reminiscent of Gendarmes Third Class Closeau. Oh President Trump, you deserve the Nobel. You're so wonderful.

CNN reported:

With the summit now off, US allies and other stakeholders in the region were left scrambling to figure out their next steps. South Korean President Moon Jae-in, who acted as a middleman between Trump and Kim, called an emergency meeting in the middle of the night after the White House went public with the cancellation.
Moon's Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha spoke with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo early Friday about President Trump's sudden decision and the next steps for Washington and Seoul, two longtime allies. According to a South Korean statement, they said both sides should "devote effort to save the dialogue opportunity."

China has always been key to that strategy, as it accounts for nearly 90% of North Korea's imports, at least on the record. China's Foreign Ministry said Friday it hoped the United States and North Korea would "maintain patience, release good will and move in the same direction" to push the denuclearization process forward. "The Chinese government's position on this issue is consistent and clear. We think, as the two directly involved parties, North Korea and the US holding a summit plays a key role in promoting denuclearization on the peninsula," said ministry spokesman Lu Kang.

He said China was playing a "positive and constructive role" regarding the resolution of the nuclear issue. "We don't have any ulterior motives," he added.
Some experts say that China may be less willing to enforce tough measures if it believes that Washington isn't committed to pursuing diplomacy alongside sanctions.

No ulterior motives? China must be laughing up their sleeve at the dotard in the White House and his political dummy beside him. Cuckoo. Cuckoo!

 

Warning Against 'Return to Rhetoric of Nuclear Annihilation,' Koreans and Anti-War Voices Demand Trump Resume Peace Talks

Published on Friday, May 25, 2018 by Common Dreams

"You can't imagine rooting for peace for so long and then see it being taken away."

by Jake Johnson, staff writer

 

1 Comments

"The people of both North and South Korea, and especially women, have worked too long and have come too close to reaching the first steps towards the signing of a Peace treaty to see the talks collapse," Christine Ahn, Korea expert and founder of Women Cross DMZ, said in a statement." (Photo: OhMyNews)

Refusing to let a chance to achieve lasting peace on the Korean Peninsula slip away and warning against "return to a rhetoric of nuclear annihilation," a group of peace activists, foreign policy experts, and ordinary Koreans gathered outside the U.S. Embassy in Seoul on Friday to call on President Donald Trump to reverse his cancellation of the June summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and immediately return to the negotiating table.

"I do worry that Mr. Trump has made things more dangerous for us in Korea and I just hope that no-one pushes the button."
—Anonymous North Korean woman

 

"The people of both North and South Korea, and especially women, have worked too long and have come too close to reaching the first steps towards the signing of a Peace treaty to see the talks collapse," Christine Ahn, Korea expert and founder of Women Cross DMZ, said in a statement on Thursday. "We know that a diplomacy can be difficult. However, peace in the Korean Peninsula cannot have any more setbacks. It's been too long. It has been overdue more than 70 years."

Trump's announcement that the scheduled summit will not take place was met with dismay by both North and South Koreans.

"You can't imagine rooting for peace for so long and then see it being taken away," a woman who fled North Korea in 2006 said in an interview with the BBC on Friday.

Another North Korean, whose name was not revealed to protect her identity, told the BBC "we can't give up on the idea of peace in Korea yet."

"I do worry that Mr. Trump has made things more dangerous for us in Korea and I just hope that no-one pushes the button," she added.

Responding to Trump's abrupt decision cancel to the planned meeting with Kim on Thursday—which many experts blamed on the White House national security adviser and top warmonger John Bolton—North Korean officials signaled once again a willingness to negotiate with the U.S. and said their "commitment to doing our best for the sake of peace and stability for the world and the Korean Peninsula remains unchanged."

In an appearance on Democracy Now! on Friday, Ahn of Women Cross DMZ said "80 million hearts are broken across the Korean Peninsula" after Trump scrapped the planned summit. As Ahn spoke, Koreans gathered for a candlelight vigil to mourn the faltering peace talks and urge both the U.S. and North Korea to resume diplomatic discussions.

At candlelight vigil in Seoul, #koreans express anger at @realDonaldTrump for cancelling summit and destroying momentum for peace @WomenCrossDMZ @NobelWomen #WomenPeaceKorea pic.twitter.com/bbaiN7QxNM

— Medea Benjamin (@medeabenjamin) May 25, 2018

"I say to President Trump and Chairman Kim: be courageous and sit down and work for peace and reunification for Korean families and the Korean peninsula," said peace activist and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Mairead Maguire in a statement on Thursday. "Every day you hesitate, someone dies and will not get a chance to be reunited and to see their families."

Watch the peace rally that took place outside the U.S. Embassy in South Korea on Friday:

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Let There Be Peace in the World. Let It Begin With Me.

Dear friends,

     Black Elk wisely noted: “there can never be peace between nations until there is peace in the soul of men.” What is that peace he speaks of if not a sense of oneness with the Source of everything and its immediacy? What else could possibly produce it? Not things. No matter how rich we are, all can be lost at any moment by many means; weather, disasters, economic collapse, trickery etc. Friends leave us, people get sick, children drift away. Yes, there are countless acts of kindness and compassion but what happens when we encounter evil? Is our perception compromised?

   If it is based on anything but an inner realization, peace is fleeting and dependent on circumstances. The thing that inhibits our discovery of it, is the illusion that it is attainable only by spiritual adepts, yogis and saints. But that is untrue. That which lies within us is accessible right now. It begins in stillness. It can also rise in a new thought, such as; life is for me and never against me.

     Know for yourself:

There is one something being all. It is forever resonating within every heart and every mind. It is the impulse to love, to give, to create. This is the only Life there is and it is my life now. I am always supplied with everything I require in the moment to be fully expressive of my innate gifts. Joy is my constant companion. I know the One Life is the Power that makes all things new. It is active in me right now.   I am vitally alive, happy, supplied and free of all self-imposed constraints. I am grateful. And so it is.

Stay tuned in,

Carol Carnes

www.mvcsl.org

www.californiafreepress.net

Off the Top of My Head

The US Doesn't Know How to Make Peace. Only War

by John Lawrence

Trump had an impulse off the top of his head to get together with Kim Jong Un and talk peace. But then cooler heads and Trump's baser instincts prevailed. Instead of establishing a friendly rapport first, it became all about making Kim kowtow to the US and give them everything they wanted first and then maybe they would talk about peace. This is exactly what a bully does: extract concessions first and then maybe he will be your friend. And besides that, how will the US justify spending all that money on 35,000 troops it has stationed in South Korea. If peace broke out on the Korean peninsula, it would be a financial and economic shipwreck for the US.

The US is an empire, a war machine. It does not want peace in the world. It wants other nations to remain subservient to it. The whole US economy is dependent on war. Trump wants to take it a step further and make himself as US President the richest man in the world. That's what Ayn Rand's solipsistic philosophy suggests. Why do anything, including being US President, unless it profits you financially? That's what Trump's Russia ties are all about, the perquisites of Empire. Except Democrats are trying to tie him up in a knot over his Russian contretemps. However, Trump will probably get his Trump Tower in Moscow after everything is said and done.

The Koreans, both South and North, were under the illusion that the US would actually like to create peace in the Korean peninsula. No, they want a perpetual state of war. If they wanted peace, they would have laid the groundwork of friendship first and then worked out the details of denuclearization later. Now it's China's turn to step forward and broker a peace deal between North and South Korea. After Trump's embarrassment of the South's President Moon, the two Koreas should forget about the US and come to terms with China as the guarantor and with full backing from the United Nations. Then a united Korea could ask the US politely to leave. They wouldn't need the US' military umbrella protecting them any longer as if it ever was. Whether or not US troops stay in South Korea should be up to South Korea. Otherwise, it constitutes an occupation.

As Trump and his henchmen are making clear, the US wants the rest of the world to bow down to them as the world's reigning empire. The US is not interested in creating peace in the world. It's only interest, as Trump has made clear, is putting the USA first based upon its overwhelming military and its control of the world's banking industry with the US dollar as the world's reserve currency. Now it's time for the rest of the world, which does seem to be interested in creating peace and prosperity for all people, to find ways to work around US control and militarism.

Trump Cancels North Korea Summit, Citing 'Open Hostility'

Published on Thursday, May 24, 2018 by Common Dreams

"You talk about your nuclear capabilities, but ours are so massive and powerful that I pray to God they will never have to be used."

by Jake Johnson, staff writer

 

11 Comments

U.S. President Donald Trump canceled the planned summit with North Korea on Thursday, citing "open hostility." (Photo: Jonathan Ernst/Reuters)

This is a developing story... check back for updates...

Citing what he calls the "tremendous anger" and "open hostility" in Pyongyang's most recent public statement, President Donald Trump on Thursday cancelled the planned summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un that was set to take place next month.

"You talk about your nuclear capabilities, but ours are so massive and powerful that I pray to God they will never have to be used," Trump wrote in a letter to Kim.

Read the full letter:

 Reacting to Trump's letter on Twitter, independent journalist and Korea expert Tim Shorrock noted that the statement on Thursday by North Korea vice-minister of foreign affairs Choe Son Hui—in which she referred to Vice President Mike Pence as a "political dummy"—appears to be "what set Trump off."

But, Shorrock added, Trump has no grounds to complain about "open hostility" given "the hatred and military threats spewing from his vice president and national security adviser" John Bolton.

Trump complains about North Korea's "open hostility." Does he even listen to the hatred and military threats spewing from his vice president and national security adviser? Did he know the Pentagon was deploying B-52s in US-SK air drills? All this happened BEFORE NK's outbursts.

— Tim Shorrock (@TimothyS) May 24, 2018

"North Korea always said the US must end its hostile policy for it to negotiate on nukes," Shorrock notes. "But there's no sign of that."

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The Road Less Traveled

Dear friends,

   The great poet of ancient times, Rumi, sang of visiting temples and mosques and churches and sacred sites in search of God.   In none of them did he find evidence of God being there. But after that long trip with no results, he turned within and there he found what he sought, right inside himself.

     People today are still trying to find God, or love, everywhere but where they are.   It cannot reveal itself except by means of you and me. There is no other path for the “divine” to traverse into time/space reality. It must come through the very Being it is being!   We are the way in for all that we desire. This is the hardest lesson for humans to accept simply because we live in the realm of “the other, not this, not that.” We are in the puzzle that we are trying to solve!

     The necessity of seeing “other” cannot be denied if we are to actually experience this dimension. However, at the same time, we have the mental capacity to perceive what is unseen, yet behind all of this “reality.” We are meant to perceive the absolute one-ness of all life, to live both inner and outer lives simultaneously.  When we get the synergy between the two, we are in heaven. It is a serious spiritual path; the road less traveled, but so worth the effort to stay on it.

Stay tuned in,

Carol Carnes

www.mvcsl.org

www.californiafreepress.net

Off the Top of My Head

Should Billionaires Help to House the Homeless?

by John Lawrence

Wouldn't it be nice if capitalism were modified so that those who are super successful would have their earnings capped at, say, $100 million, and whatever exceeded that went to build affordable housing for the homeless? Is any invention worth a billion dollars? Can anyone spend more than a hundred million? The capitalist system is set up in such a way that successful entrepreneurs attract huge amounts of capital from investors. Are they rich because people buy their products? No, they are rich because rich people buy their stock.

A person's riches should be capped and the excess should be spent on society in general. Society is getting the short end of the stick while rich entrepreneurs get more money than they could possibly spend. A wealth tax would accomplish the same goal. The system as it exists today sucks because it is set up in such a way that the rich get richer, and the poor lose their jobs and their housing. Most of the successful companies today use the internet and automation to eliminate jobs. The more jobs they eliminate, the more Wall Street likes them and bids up their stock.

Then besides this, Trump and the Republicans give them huge tax breaks. The tax burden is borne by the middle class and the poor while the rich corporations buy back their own stock making them even richer.

Bloomberg reports:

Why are people like Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg so incredibly rich? Sure, they’re great businesspeople, and they had the right ideas at the right time. But most importantly, when their businesses succeeded, they owned a large portion of the equity.

Equity, or stock, is the riskiest type of asset ownership. It’s the most volatile, and it’s the first to get wiped out when a company goes bankrupt. But it also has unlimited upside -- the gains can, in theory, be infinite. It’s the entire upper tail. So of course the largest fortunes that we see -- the richest individuals -- were made through equity ownership.

But the big payouts to other stockholders are also responsible for much of the vast increase in wealth inequality. In 1980, the richest 5 percent of Americans owned half of the country’s wealth. In 2012, it was almost two-thirds.

Stock represents nothing more than rich people, who have access to cheap interest free money spewed out by the Federal Reserve, spending that money to buy stock which bids up the price. Then they cash in and pay off the loan. Riches are generated not by a company selling goods and services to the general population, but by financial manipulation of stock values. Any sane society would limit these types of activities since they do not further the interests of society in general. The net result is money creation that goes immediately into the hands of the rich making them even richer and in a position to control the political system, setting up the laws so that they favor the rich even more.

All-Time Highs for Stock Buybacks and Bank Profits as Workers Languish in Trump's America

Published on Tuesday, May 22, 2018 by Common Dreams

"We've got to repeal the outrageous corporate welfare of this tax plan and pass real tax reform that actually helps working families—not the one percent," said Sen. Bernie Sanders

by Jake Johnson, staff writer

 

8 Comments

For years, armies of bank lobbyists and executives have groaned about how financial rules are hurting them. But there's a big problem with their story—banks are making record profits," Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) concluded in a tweet on Tuesday. (Photo: Alex Proimos/Flickr/cc)

As America's largest corporations continue their unprecedented stock buyback spree in the wake of President Donald Trump's $1.5 trillion tax cut, new government data published on Tuesday showed that U.S. banks are also smashing records thanks to the GOP tax law, raking in $56 billion in net profits during the first quarter of 2018—an all-time high.

"The Trump/Republican tax plan has been nothing but a giant gift to corporations so that executives and shareholders can get richer."
—Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.)

 

The new data, released by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), comes as the House of Representatives is gearing up to pass a bipartisan deregulatory measure that would reward massive Wall Street banks like JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup while dramatically increasing the risk of another financial crisis.

As Common Dreams reported, the Senate easily passed the bill in March with the help of 16 Democrats.

The banking industry's record-shattering profits fit with an entirely predictable pattern that has emerged following the passage of the GOP tax bill last December: America's most profitable corporations are posting obscene profits and using that cash to reward wealthy shareholders through stock buybacks while investing little to nothing in workers, despite their lofty promises.

"For years, armies of bank lobbyists and executives have groaned about how financial rules are hurting them. But there's a big problem with their story—banks are making record profits."
—Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.)

 

According to a CNN analysis published on Sunday, "S&P 500 companies showered Wall Street with at least $178 billion of stock buybacks during the first three months of 2018." As Common Dreams reported earlier this month, major corporations are on track to send $1 trillion to rich investors through buybacks and dividend increases by the end of the year.

Most Americans, meanwhile, have said they are seeing very few noticeable benefits from the massive tax cuts and—according to a new study by United Way—nearly half of the U.S. population is still struggling to afford basic necessities like food, housing, and healthcare.

"The Trump/Republican tax plan has been nothing but a giant gift to corporations so that executives and shareholders can get richer," Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) wrote in a Facebook post on Tuesday. "We've got to repeal the outrageous corporate welfare of this tax plan and pass real tax reform that actually helps working families—not the one percent."

How corporations are spending their tax breaks:

✅ Stock buybacks for their wealthy investors

❌ Long-term investments in their workershttps://t.co/sR1x3OYzoq

— Tax March (@taxmarch) May 22, 2018

Instead of addressing the deep-seated financial struggles much of the American public is facing even as the stock market continues to soar and as Trump boasts of an economic boom, Congress is preparing to provide an even greater windfall to wealthy bankers on Tuesday by gutting crucial post-crisis regulations and putting taxpayers on the hook for yet another bailout.

This morning, it was announced that America’s banking sector hit a new record high of $56 billion in net income in the first quarter of 2018.

This afternoon, the House is set to pass the #BankLobbyistAct to supposedly "provide relief" to the banking sector. What a shameful day. pic.twitter.com/OYNUc7FQf6

— Public Citizen (@Public_Citizen) May 22, 2018

"For years, armies of bank lobbyists and executives have groaned about how financial rules are hurting them. But there's a big problem with their story—banks are making record profits," Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) concluded in a tweet on Tuesday. "Congress has done enough favors for big banks—the House should reject the Bank Lobbyist Act."

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Life is a Spiritual Experience if We Look at it with Awe and Wonder

Dear friends,

     The simple realization that this world exists is a human experience. Other species are in it but are not aware of that fact. They go about their instinctual lives, supported by Life itself without ever knowing the reality of it. That is, the miracle of it! Carl Jung wrote about a spiritual conversion he experienced while in Africa. He saw wild herds grazing on the vast savanna, moving silently as they had for eons.   The sky and the mountains and the flowing rivers suddenly became intensely real to him. He was changed by the shocking experience of its actual existence.

     When I was seven years old I woke very early one summer morning. It was barely light out. I stood at the screen door in my grandmothers kitchen, looking out at the misty backyard. There was a stray cat perched upright on the bow of my uncles old rowboat that he had pulled up under the apple tree. In that moment I had a profound experience of Reality. I was alive! It was as if I knew how perfect the universe is, how one with it I am. Of course I couldn’t articulate it at that age, but looking back I know what happened to me.

     We go about our daily lives hardly aware that we are living in perfection. We rarely, if ever, have the personal experience of being one with it. We seem to be observers of life passing before us, rather than participants in the immediacy of it. We become problem solvers dealing with the creation of humans rather than the created realm of Spirit.   This world is the Garden of Eden spoken about in scripture. We are in paradise. Anything unlike that is made by man, not by God. Life is a spiritual experience if we stop and look with awe and wonder.

Stay tuned in,

Carol Carnes

www.mvcsl.org

www.californiafreepress.net

Off the Top of My Head

The Road to Serfdom

by John Lawrence

The Road to Serfdom is a book written by conservative Austrian economist Friedrich Hayek in which he contends that socialist type governments will lead everyone down the road to becoming serfs. Well just the opposite is occurring nowadays. The very success of free market capitalism has led us down the road to fantastic economic gains for some and serfdom for the masses. No one is arguing that the Bill Gates', Jeff Bezos' and Mark Zuckerberg's of the world haven't worked hard and made tremendous contributions to economic development. The problem is that the economic gains that people like these are responsible for have not been widely dispersed, but have been concentrated in the hands of a few people leading to an economic divide far greater than that of the Gilded Age and the robber barons.

Imagine if one man invented a robot that did all the work of the world. He would probably be very successful and make a lot of money. But this would also have the consequence that he would have eliminated workers from the face of the world. Therefore, those redundant workers would have no work and no income. Something like this is happening today. The automation of society and the very success of some has concentrated economic gains in the hands of a few people while the former workers have effectively become serfs scraping a few crumbs off the floor.

Economic inequality is accelerating exponentially, and capitalism, not socialism, is paving the Road to Serfdom. The jobs that haven't been automated are low paying service type jobs: retail in the eroding retail industry, baristas for Starbucks, caregivers, teachers, health care workers. While major industries concentrate their power by mergers and acquisitions and stock buybacks, the rest of us get by on menial jobs.

The net effect is that housing and rents get bid up in desirable areas by those on the wealthy side of the economic divide and more and more people are forced into homelessness. The only solution to this lack of affordable housing is for the government to build affordable housing. The free market won't do it. But that's socialism, n'est pas?. What, you think that the free market can't solve every problem? Well, you're right. It can't solve this one. Socialist type government solutions must come into play just in order that the haves can enjoy a downtown area not populated by people pissing and shitting all over the streets and leaving needles for tourists to step on.

Capitalists never fear, however. Mixed economies work the best as evidenced by the Nordic countries which combine entrepreneurialism with a safety net so that no one can fall too far down the ladder. In the US though you can fall as far as gravity will carry you. There is no bottom. So we have a growing homeless class which would have been unimaginable in the days of Lyndon Johnson and his War on Poverty. Those poverty stricken that he was concerned about at least had roofs over their heads.

THINKING BEYOND TRUMP: WHY WE NEED A FEDERAL JOBS GUARANTEE

 by Robert Reich

Tuesday, May 22, 2018

We must not forget the economic frustrations that helped fuel Trump’s election.  For too long, too many Americans have faced lousy jobs or no jobs. One answer: A guaranteed job at a living wage.

The Republican answer won’t work

Republicans continue to push for work requirements for recipients of Medicaid, food stamps, and public housing benefits.  But the real problem is there aren’t enough adequately-paying jobs to go around.

Even today, with a low official unemployment rate, millions who work part-time jobs want full-time work. Millions more are too discouraged to look for work, having endured the brutalities of job discrimination for far too long, or unable to move to where the jobs are.

And a large and growing number of jobs don’t pay enough to get people out of poverty.

A federal jobs guarantee would work

At the same time, a lot of work needs to be done – “greening” our nation’s infrastructure, caring for the elderly, teaching in our public schools, adequately staffing national parks, you name it.

So why shouldn’t the federal government create jobs and connect them directly to people who can’t otherwise find one, with decent, predictable hours and at a living wage?

An added plus: The availability of such jobs would give more bargaining power to many low-wage workers to get better hours and wages – because if they don’t get them from their employer, they’d have the option of a public job. In this way, a federal job guarantee would raise the floor for job quality nationwide.

And a job guarantee would act as a giant economic stabilizer during downturns, when the first to lose their jobs are usually the most economically marginalized.

We can afford it

Can we afford a job guarantee today? Yes. It’s estimated to cost around $670 billion in its first year – $30 billion less than the defense budget.

But that tab would quickly shrink. With more people working at better wages, Americans would have more purchasing power to buy goods and services. This would lead to more hiring by the private sector, and eventually, less need for the federal job guarantee.

More people working would also generate more tax revenue, partially offsetting the direct cost of the job guarantee.

Additional savings would come from fewer people needing public assistance. The Center for Labor Research and Education at Berkeley estimates that the federal government now spends over $150 billion a year because workers aren’t earning enough to get out of poverty. Doesn’t it make more sense to use this money to create guaranteed jobs at a living wage?

So, let’s think beyond Trump – to what Americans need. Few things are more important than a decent job. Full employment through a federal job guarantee makes sense – for workers, for the economy, for America.

A Divine Shrug of the Shoulders is an Appropriate Response

Dear friends,

 Every so often I receive a catalogue of various “spiritual” techniques for, well, anything you can think up. If we adopted all of them we would not have time to live our lives! Do this, do that, wear this, don’t wear that. Avoid certain foods, stock up on others. “Handed down from ancient times”, etc. Not to say there isn’t some benefit to some of them, but none of them solve the ultimate problem.

 The greatest minds in the annals of human life have one thing in common. With all of their profound wisdom and teachings, their methodologies for breathing, eating, chanting, dancing, singing, writing, speaking, thinking…no matter what they taught, they all arrived at the same place. They died. We cannot not keep these bodies no matter how well we treat them.

     Of course, the intention is to live a better, healthier and more conscious life while we are here. If that is the goal then a few simple guidelines are all we need. Love yourself, love your neighbor. Laugh a lot, smile on purpose, give money to those in need, share your good. Be kind and try to understand why people do what they do. Forgive and move on. Make art or music, write, tend a garden. Support and vote for equality and justice. Be happy for no reason. See through the appearance and call it what it is; a temporary manifestation of old ideas. Get some new ones.

     What you add is your choice, but whatever it is, you and I will all arrive at the same place. We will lay down this body and lift ourselves out into….well, no one knows for sure. But what difference does it make if we are happy anyway? A divine shrug of the shoulders is an appropriate response. “Fine if it is, fine if it isn’t.” All is well.

Stay tuned in,

Carol Carnes    

www.mvcsl.org

www.californiafreepress.net

Off the Top of My Head

US Expects EU to Sacrifice Economic Interests in Order to Impose Sanctions

by John Lawrence, May 22, 2018

Trump's unilateral withdrawal from the Iran nuclear agreement sets the stage for reimposing sanctions on Iran. However, European countries have billions of euros in trade deals with Iran that would go by the wayside if they followed through and reimposed sanctions. They didn't want out of the nuclear deal in the first place, and they don't want to let go of those trade deals.

Take Italy for example. Their economy is struggling, and they have billions of euros in trade deals signed with Iran that could help their economy. They are blocking the EU from participating in Trump's sanctions. If one country in the EU blocks the sanctions, the EU cannot reimpose sanctions. Trump's capriciousness in backing out of the deal would cost other countries billions of euros if they go along with Trump whom they disagree with vehemently in the first place. Let Trump fuss and fume and tweet all he wants. Finally, the EU as well as other countries are standing up to him and will find ways to circumvent the American dollar.

The US is screwing around with major European economies all because of Trump's volatility and arbitrariness. His is a government by pet peeves and irrationality. He knows nothing about government or world affairs. Instead he has a layman's angst over perceived threats to his self-interest. His impetuousness leads to the US shooting itself in the foot and offending our allies. Case in point: Secretary of State Mike Pompeo threatens to impose the “strongest sanctions in history” on Iran. The French economy minister proposes that Europe fight the U.S. sanctions by compensating European businesses hurt by the sanctions.

The pipeline between Russia and Europe is a major investment that Europe will not give up no matter how much Trump tries to bully them. The Nord Stream II pipeline connects Russia to Germany through the Baltic Sea. Germany gets a third of its natural gas from Russia.

Forbes reports:

France's Engie is involved. Germany's Uniper and Wintershall are stakeholders. So is Royal Dutch Shell of the U.K., meaning all three signatories to the Iran deal are also getting punished for doing business with Gazprom.

Gazprom was sanctioned by Obama in July 2014, but not by Europe. Europe relies on Gazprom as its chief foreign source of natural gas. This is particularly true in Germany, where Russian gas accounts for nearly a third of supply.

In August 2017, Nord Stream II was placed under discretionary sanctions, which is sort of like sanctions-light. It means a company can proceed, but faces the risk that Treasury may decide to go after them someday.

The Trump Administration later added Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller to its sanctions list in February. Worth noting, Exxon was fined a couple million dollars last year just for signing a legal document with Igor Sechin, the sanctioned CEO of oil firm Rosneft. Exxon is disputing the fine.

Gazprom and Miller are the latest persona non grata in Washington. But Europe is not giving up on them. Not the French. Not the Germans. Not the Brits, either.

Despite the sanctions against Nord Stream II, the threat has not put a stop to its construction.

With the Iran deal being canceled, European leaders impacted by it are likely to be in "enough is enough" mode when it comes to Washington. These extraterritorial sanctions are not in their interests.

OK. Europeans disagree with Trump's withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal which was working great as far as they were concerned. They developed economic ties and interests with Iran which are, after all peace time activities designed to further understanding and peaceful development. Now Trump wants to punish our allies and cause them economic hardship because of his capriciousness. What's wrong with this picture?

Young Voters Likely to Continue Post-Parkland Mobilization in Voting Booth, Registration Records Show

Published on Sunday, May 20, 2018 by Common Dreams

Young people represented a significantly large share of newly-registered voters in several key states in the weeks following the Parkland shooting

by Julia Conley, staff writer

 

17 Comments

High school students in St. Paul, Minn. filling out voter registration forms at a National Student Walkout event in April. (Photo: Fibonacci Blue/Flickr/cc)

According to voter registration records in states that will be closely watched in the November midterm elections, young Americans are planning to exercise their right to vote in greater numbers than usual.

A look at how political activism around school shootings may shape elections in states like Arizona & Florida. One eye opening data point: Voter registration spiked for young people in South Florida during the week of the March for Our Lives demonstrations https://t.co/rEzlZLDanR pic.twitter.com/nlznu8naJ3

— Hamza Shaban (@hshaban) May 20, 2018

"We know that young people don't vote as often as they should," Aleigha Cavalier of billionaire Democratic donor Tom Steyer's voter mobilization group, NextGen America, told the New York Times. "This year we are seeing energy because they have a feeling of voting for or voting against, whether it's Donald Trump or issues that they care about, and on issues like gun safety, because we are seeing things happen in real time, like Parkland, that weren't happening before."

Following the February 14 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., records of young people who signed up to vote in March and April rose significantly in states including Florida, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania.

The surge took place as survivors of the shooting were organizing a nationwide movement to demand sensible gun control reforms that have failed to pass in Congress in recent years despite widespread public support—and threatening to vote lawmakers out of office if they accept money from the powerful pro-gun lobbying group, the National Rifle Association (NRA).

In Florida, voters under the age of 26 made up nearly 30 percent of new registrants in March and April, up from less than 20 percent in the first two months of the year. About 40 percent of new voters in North Carolina were under 25 in the weeks following the Parkland shooting, and in Pennsylvania more than half of those who registered were young voters.

According to the Times, in Florida, a third of the new registrants signed up as Democrats, 21 percent as Republicans, and 46 percent as unaffiliated or with another party.

Florida will be closely watched in November as Republican Gov. Rick Scott challenges  Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson, while Sen. Bob Casey (D-Penn.) is running for re-election.

"What I have seen is what I am calling a once in a generation attitudinal shift about the efficacy of participating in the political process," John Della Volpe, director of the Harvard Kennedy School’s Institute of Politics, told the Times. "I am optimistic that the increasing interest we have tracked in politics will likely lead to increased participation in the midterms."

Following the Parkland shooting, students were joined by Broward County, Fla. Sheriff Scott Israel, who memorably said  at a vigil for the 17 people killed, "If you're an elected official, and you want to keep things the way they are―if you want to keep gun laws as they are now―you will not get re-elected in Broward County."

On Sunday, Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo issued a similar statement on CBS News' "Face the Nation," calling on Americans to vote out politicians who offer only "thoughts and prayers" after shootings like the ones in Parkland and Santa, Fe, Texas, where 10 people were killed at a high school on Friday.

"We need to start using the ballot box and ballot initiatives, to take the matters out of the hands of people that are doing nothing, that are elected, into the hands of the people—to see that the will of the people in this country is actually carried out," he said.

.@ArtAcevedo, Houston Chief of Police, says vast majority of Americans - and gun owners - support “gun sense;” calls on lawmakers to listen to constituents and law enforcement. pic.twitter.com/H7h15bNdb4

— Shannon Watts (@shannonrwatts) May 20, 2018

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Be the Instrument Through Which the Music is Played

Dear friends,

     When I was in kindergarten, our class had a garden. We grew carrots and lettuce. We played music every day. I was particularly drawn to the triangle and the clave. We raised chickens and made butter out of whole milk, which we spread on soda crackers and enjoyed as a snack. I remember painting a picture that the teacher praised. On May 1^st we danced around the Maypole while our parents beamed with pride. Our education began with nature, art and music. Learning to read in that relaxed setting was easy.

     Our creativity was encouraged, not suppressed. I believe it is the reason I think of myself as a creative person and why New Thought spirituality felt so right to me the first time I heard it articulated. It is about being one with the Creative Intelligence that I had contact with in Kindergarten. It grew the carrots and birthed the chickens. It was the music we played and the science behind color. It was present in our world. We were co-creators as little children. That imprint never diminishes.

     Today I am ready to paint a new picture of my life. It is still forming in my mind. I have let Creative Intelligence take the lead and I am following via my intuition.  My role, and yours, is to spread the word of our wholeness and the immediate accessibility of Creative Mind. We can do more than make butter out of whole milk, but the source is the same, the process is similar and the results as fulfilling. It is about trust, interaction with an unseen power, and a willingness to be the instrument through which the music is played.

Stay tuned in,

Carol Carnes

(my website is under construction)

www.mvcsl.org

www.californiafreepress.net

Off the Top of My Head

We Need an Anti-Gun Lobby to Rival the NRA

by John Lawrence, May 21, 2018

We need a millionaire or billionaire to step up and create an anti-gun lobbying group similar to the NRA. Right now the anti-gun people can't compete with the pro-gun NRA because they don't have the money and lobbying power behind them. It's like bringing a fly swatter to a gun fight. Congressmen don't care that 80% of the population wants more stringent anti-gun laws. They care about campaign contributions and getting themselves elected. The NRA lobbies them continually and provides campaign contributions. What does the anti-gun movement have - signs and posters? Forget it. We need to compete on the same playing field as the NRA.

Once an anti-gun lobbying group is created - let's call it the National Anti-Gun Association or NAGA - it can function to collect donations from its members just the way the NRA does. People that want more stringent gun laws can step up and donate. The initial group should have a couple of administrators and at least two lobbyists. It should be capable of and have the financial resources to make campaign contributions and run ads for and against certain Congressmen. It's time for people to put up or shut up. Demonstrations, heartfelt aspirations, appearing on TV - all that will get anti-gun people nowhere. Where is the Bill Gates of Warren Buffett or Irwin Jacobs to provide the seed money for a NAGA? Put your money where your mouth is, people. Put up or shut up.

Politicians don't care about polls that show that people want more gun laws. They care about the money that the NRA gives them. OK, there is a group - the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence or CSGV. This is from their website:

At CSGV, we work every day to combat the National Rifle Association (NRA), Donald Trump, and their shared dangerous philosophy.

CSGV has been a thought leader on insurrectionism — violent revolt against one’s government — for years. In 2009, Executive Director Josh Horwitz co-authored Guns, Democracy, and the Insurrectionist Idea, an analysis of how the gun lobby’s insurrectionist ideology threatens democratic institutions and individual liberty. CSGV’s insurrectionism timeline tracks insurrectionist statements dating back to the 2008 D.C. v. Heller Supreme Court ruling.

As a leader in this field, CSGV stands up to the insurrectionist ideals of the NRA and Donald Trump through aggressive social media campaigns, earned media, policy development, and advocacy.

Well, social media campaigns, earned media (whatever that is), policy development and advocacy is not LOBBYING AND CAMPAIGN DONATIONS. They are not doing what the NRA does. The only thing politicians understand is money - not advocacy, not polls, and certainly not morals or ethics. Anti-gun advocates need to compete on the same playing field as the NRA. I can't say it often enough. Anything else is pointless. After a school mass murder, they just bide their time until the initial wave of anti-gun hysteria dies down and then, guess what? Nothing changes. People are killed at school and nothing changes. And then there is a next time and a next time.  Why? Because the NRA puts their money where it counts - bribing politicians with lobbying and campaign donations.

EU and Iran Will Attempt to Salvage Nuclear Deal Following Trump's Breach of Agreement

Published on Saturday, May 19, 2018 by Common Dreams

"America's actions...show that it is not a trustworthy country in international dealings."

by Julia Conley, staff writer

 

24 Comments

Miguel Arias Canete, the EU's top energy official, announced Saturday that the EU will attempt to salvage the Iran nuclear deal without the U.S.(Photo: Union Europea en Peru/Flickr/cc)

The European Union and Iran signaled on Saturday that they would not permit President Donald Trump's deeply unpopular decision to exit the Iran nuclear deal to deteriorate their own involvement in the agreement.

"We have sent a message to our Iranian friends that as long as they are sticking to the agreement the Europeans will...fulfill their commitment. And they said the same thing on the other side," Manuel Arias Canete, the EU's top energy official, told reporters in Tehran.

Trump announced  on May 8 that the U.S. would reimpose sanctions that had been lifted under the agreement reached in 2015 by the Obama administration, in exchange for Iran's curbing of its nuclear program.

The president breached the agreement despite multiple reports from international investigators since the deal was reached that Iran was fully complying with the agreement, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

The EU will aim to continue trade with Iran, Arias told reporters. The EU's announcement came a day after the European Commission declared it would introduce a law to ban companies on the continent from complying with Trump's sanctions—further isolating the Trump administration in its stance against Iran. 

Should the EU's attempts to salvage the deal with Iran fall through in the wake of Trump's decision, said Iranian nuclear chief Ali Akbar Salehi, the country could resume their enrichment of 20 percent uranium. The JCPOA successfully kept Iran's supply of low enriched uranium at about one percent of its level before the deal was reached.

"We hope [Europe's] efforts materialize," Salehi said at a news conference on Saturday. "America's actions...show that it is not a trustworthy country in international dealings."

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Off the Top of My Head

REPEAL THE SECOND AMENDMENT

by John Lawrence, May 20, 2018

Nobody should have a right to own a gun. Those who want a gun for hunting purposes, which is the only reason I would allow them to have one, should go through a lengthy application process and be over the age of 25. That being said, if I ruled the world which I don't, the Texas school shooter and others like him would be taken out and shot immediately if they didn't die at the scene. Instead, unbelievably, he's getting a court appointed lawyer, at taxpayer expense, to defend him in a court of law, to work up a defense for the poor guy that somehow explains that he deserves to live despite being caught in the act of killing innocent children.

I'm tired of the "be-ins" that seem to come about when everyone commiserates with each other when these things happen and the President sends thoughts and prayers. The only people in these situations who I respect are those who would get before the camera and say that guns should be taken away except for law enforcement, hunters and those who have gone through a lengthy application process and that the NRA should be outlawed. The same thing holds for climate change. If they get before the camera after a natural disaster and demand that the US do more to fight climate change, they have my respect. Instead, most of them say, "Gee whiz, I never saw anything like this in my whole life." But maybe those who didn't have these sentiments both about guns and climate change would never be given permission to step in front of a national media camera.

The US is already becoming a laughing stock among nations for its antiquated laws regarding guns and climate change. It is incapable of any enlightened response to either situation. The Texas shooter "wants his story told." Bullshit. He doesn't deserve to have his story told. Any person who hasn't done this is more deserving of having their story told. No, he should be unceremoniously taken out and shot. Oh, but he's white so taxpayers will pay for his court defense while they hug each other in an orgy of commiseration over what happened. In my opinion he's an arch criminal having committed the worst possible crime and having been caught at it red handed. Jesus said anyone who harms a child should have a millstone tied around his neck and be dropped in the deepest part of the ocean. And he was the Prince of Peace!

Even the mafia has more to commend it than do these copy cat school shooters. When asked if he ever whacked anyone, a mafia enforcer said, "No one that didn't deserve it." Most criminals have more of a sense of ethics than school shooters who do what they do by dint of the fact that others have done it and it has been normalized as a media event. In effect the media has normalized crime and criminal activity. Their excuse is that they're just reporting the facts. Especially rap music which glorifies violence is just telling it how it is in the 'hood. Shooting and killing on TV, in movies and video games is normalized. War has been normalized as a perquisite of empire, an empire which used to have moral leadership and now is considered a fool by the world community.

HOW TO END PARTISAN GERRYMANDERING

 by Robert Reich

Friday, May 18, 2018

One of the biggest challenges to our democracy occurs when states draw congressional district lines with the principal goal of helping one political party and hurting the other. It’s called “partisan gerrymandering.” Unlike racial gerrymandering – drawing districts to reduce the political power of racial minorities, which the Supreme Court has found to violate the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment – partisan gerrymandering would seem to violate the First Amendment because it punishes some voters for their political views.

In North Carolina in 2016, for example, Republicans won 10 of the state’s 13 House seats with just 53 percent of the popular vote.

In the 2018 elections, because of partisan gerrymandering, Democrats will need to win the national popular vote by nearly 11 points to win a majority in the House of Representatives. No party has won this margin in decades.

So what can be done? 

The Supreme Court will soon decide on the constitutionality of partisan gerrymandering. Hopefully, the Court will rule against it. But regardless of its decision, here are two other ways to abolish it:

First, state courts could rule against partisan gerrymandering under their state constitutions, as happened this year in Pennsylvania – where the state court invalidated a Republican congressional map that gave Republicans 13 out of 18 congressional seats even though the state is about evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans. The state court implemented its own map for the 2018 election, creating districts that are less biased in favor of Republicans.

Second, states can delegate the power to design districts to independent or bipartisan groups. Some states, like California, have already done this.

But if you want your state to end gerrymandering, you’re going to have to get actively involved, and demand it. 

After all, this is our democracy. It’s up to us to make it work.

'Call It Like It Is': After Texas School Shooting, Progressives Say Refusal to Take on NRA Leading to 'Slaughter After Slaughter'

Published on

Friday, May 18, 2018

by

Common Dreams

"We should all be outraged by the lack of action from too many lawmakers who do nothing to stop this school shootings crisis."

 

 

by

Jake Johnson, staff writer

 

 64 Comments

"Again, we see another community devastated by this national epidemic of gun violence. Congress’s inaction in the face of this horrific, constant violence is a betrayal of our kids," Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) wrote on Friday. (Photo: Michael Ciaglo/Houston Chronicle via AP)

"Let's call it like it is," declared Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) on Friday in response to the mass shooting at Santa Fe High School in Texas that left at least nine students and one teacher dead. "The horrifying inaction of Congress, slaughter after slaughter, has become a green light to would-be shooters, who pervert silence into endorsement."

"Congress and Trump must finally have the courage to stand up to the NRA and do what the American people want." 
—Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.)

 

In placing blame for the gun violence crisis that continues to inflict communities nationwide on inaction at the highest levels of the U.S. government—where the National Rifle Association (NRA) holds tremendous sway, particularly over President Donald Trump and the Republican Congress—Murphy echoed the reaction of many students, activists, human rights groups, and progressive lawmakers to Friday's massacre, which was the 22nd school shooting of 2018.

America's gun crisis has become so severe that Santa Fe High School student Paige Curry told an interviewer on Friday that she has "always felt" a mass shooting "would eventually happen here too."

Interviewer: “Was there a part of you that was like, ‘This could not happen at my school?’”

Santa Fe High School student: “No. It’s been happening everywhere. I’ve always felt it would eventually happen here, too.”pic.twitter.com/MPxVScd3QE

— Shannon Watts (@shannonrwatts) May 18, 2018

"This says it all," Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) wrote in response to Curry's interview, which quickly went viral as students from Parkland, Florida—where another high school shooting took place in February—shared the clip and expressed solidarity.

"Those with the power to stop these shootings have let our children down," Jayapal added.

"We should all be outraged by the lack of action from too many lawmakers who do nothing to stop this school shootings crisis." 
—Shannon Watts, Moms Demand Action

 

The Parkland shooting, which left 17 people dead at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, sparked a national movement of students demanding that Congress and the president confront the NRA head-on and pass strict gun control measures.

Trump ultimately bowed to the NRA and made little to no effort to alter the nation's gun laws, except to repeatedly propose arming teachers.

There has been some action at the state level, but the changes have been a far-cry from the kinds of sweeping transformations necessary to address a crisis that takes up to 96 lives every day.

Friday's massacre—allegedly carried out by 17-year-old student Dimitrios Pagourtzis, who was reportedly armed with a shotgun and a pistol—sparked another upsurge of calls for lawmakers to directly take on the NRA or be replaced.

"Enough is enough!" wrote Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) following Friday's shooting. "There's little left to be said about the horrific school shooting tragedies that we've seen over and over—today in Texas. These are very sick acts. Congress and Trump must finally have the courage to stand up to the NRA and do what the American people want."

Other progressive members of Congress also slammed their fellow lawmakers' refusal to act in the face of America's "national epidemic of gun violence":

My heart breaks for the students at Santa Fe High School and their loved ones.

Again, we see another community devastated by this national epidemic of gun violence. Congress’s inaction in the face of this horrific, constant violence is a betrayal of our kids. #DoSomething https://t.co/8sAUEtQJJn

— Rep. Barbara Lee (@RepBarbaraLee) May 18, 2018

It’s never “too soon” to talk about the continued inaction of Congress to pass gun safety measures. A failed generation of political leadership continues putting Americans at risk and young people need to take the reins.

— Ro Khanna (@RoKhanna) May 18, 2018

Describing the U.S. as a "nation that allows its gun laws to be written by gun lobbyists," Shannon Watts, founder of the gun control advocacy group Moms Demand Action, concluded on Friday: "We should all be outraged by the lack of action from too many lawmakers who do nothing to stop this school shootings crisis."

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Off the Top of My Head

Peace is Not the Absence of War

by John Lawrence, May `19, 2018

Peace is the active construction of a better world. Sort of like what China is doing with its Belt and Road initiative. The rest of the world is just waiting for the US Empire to finally collapse. The signs of an empire in decline are everywhere. From electing a clown and fool as President to sending children to school in an unsafe environment where any day they could be killed to a sick movie, TV and video game gun culture to a solipsistic, me first economic system which produces a growing class of homeless people.

The EU is seeking to do an end run around the American dollar so as to avoid being in the position of having to obey Trump's bullying commands about sanctions. US influence is waning, it's moral and ethical leadership a thing of the past. France is plotting to finance exports to Iran, and aims to sidestep U.S. sanctions.

Reuters reported:

France will start offering euro-denominated credits to Iranian buyers of its goods later this year, a move to bolster trade while keeping it outside the reach of U.S. sanctions, the head of state-owned investment bank Bpifrance said

France and other European countries have been looking to increase trade with Iran since Paris, Washington and other world powers agreed in 2015 to lift many economic sanctions in exchange for controls on Iran’s nuclear program.

The plan is to offer dedicated, euro-denominated export guarantees to Iranian buyers of French goods and services. By structuring the financing through vehicles without any U.S. link, whether to the currency or otherwise, the aim is to avoid the extraterritorial reach of U.S. legislation.

The move could anger U.S. President Donald Trump, who has threatened to pull out of the Iran nuclear agreement reached by his predecessor Barack Obama. Washington has maintained some financial restrictions, leaving private banks - even those based outside the United States - wary of financing deals.

“We put a lot of preparation into this in 2017 and we keep on working, every single day, on the conditions of our entrance into Iran,” Bpifrance’s chief executive Nicolas Dufourcq said on Wednesday, referring to the new loans.

“This is a completely separate flow (of money),” he added. “There is no (U.S.) dollar in this scheme... no one holding a U.S. passport.”

There is a pipeline of about 1.5 billion euros in potential contracts from interested French exporters, Dufourcq told lawmakers on Wednesday.

France, which has had close business ties with Iran since before the fall of the Shah in 1979 and still operates several large factories there including Renault and PSA plants, is not alone in Europe in seeking to deepen trade ties.

A French banking source said Italy, Germany, Austria and Belgium were also working on mechanisms that would shield their companies from the risk of U.S. sanctions. It was not immediately clear how closely coordinated the efforts are.

The dollar became the world's reserve currency because of oil when the Saudis agreed to trade oil only for dollars. But the days of oil being the world's primary commodity are over. Solar and wind energy are cheaper, and their price is going down each and every day. Now oil is becoming the world's most expensive form of energy. So oil's days are numbered. Besides oil can now be traded using the Chinese yuan. So US sanctions will soon be moot, and Trump can fuss and fume all he wants. The rest of the world wants to conduct peaceful business and not be subject to US bullying.

America is destroying itself with its insane gun culture. Guns are ubiquitous on TV, in the movies, in video games. Criminal activity becomes America's form of enjoyment. The thrill of killing becomes America's entertainment whether vicariously or for some in actuality. School shootings are becoming an everyday occurrence. Americans are so bored with life that violence is the only way to perk themselves up. That and drugs. Drugs have become a way of life. They are prescribed in TV commercials, and there is a drug just right for you from cradle to grave.

There is no peace as long as the US surrounds the world with 1000 military bases. The American economy is predicated on war. Major US corporations would go bankrupt unless they could produce Tomahawk missiles and drones. War has been automated to resemble a video game. It's conducted remotely. Kids brought up on violent video games can go right into the military having acquired the necessary set of skills.

While the US sinks deeper into a morass of violence, war and gun culture, the rest of the world is disentangling itself and disengaging from the bankrupt US leadership and the US dollar.

Try Meditation and Watch What Happens

Dear friends,

     Carl Jung compared the soul to the Atom. He referred to the breaking of the Atom, that came from deep research into its inner workings, and the incredible energy that was then released. He wondered if the soul might also be holding tremendous energy that could be accessed as well. If that is the case, it would seem that the opening has to come from our own interior visits to the land of the soul. It is no longer a secret that deep meditation that seems to awaken something in us that we were not previously aware we possessed.

     Meditators report increased intuition, psychic abilities, knowledge previously unknown, synchronicities and happy feelings not directed at anything in particular. Also, a greater capacity for love and compassion. There seems to be a direct correlation between silence and access to the soul, or what might be called our true potential.

     As a metaphor, I imagine a sleek and beautifully designed sports car. It has tremendous potential for speed, but it goes nowhere without regular stops at the fueling station. Humanity is kind of sitting still in the garage right now. We need to access the rest of us if we are to leap out of our current state of ignorance. Some great minds are, of course, already making the leap. In many cases these brilliant people practice meditation.   It is practical, mystical and scientific all in one simple act. Try it twice a day for a week and watch what happens.

Stay tuned in,

Carol Carnes  

(my website is currently under construction) www.mvcsl.org

www.californiafreepress.net

America Spends $1 Trillion on its Military Every Year - and Has No Way to Pay for It

"Indeed, so long as Imperial Washington is stretched about the planet in its sundry self-appointed missions of stabilization, "peacekeeping", punishment, attack and occupation, there is zero chance that America’s collapsing fiscal accounts can be salvaged."

by David Stockman Thu, May 17, 2018 | from Russia Insider

Like the case of Rome before it, the Empire is bankrupting America. The true fiscal cost is upwards of $1.0 trillion per year (counting $200 billion for veterans and debt service for wars), but there is no way to pay for it.

 

David Stockman was President Ronald Reagan's Director of the Office of Management and Budget, Republican Congressman from Michigan and author of the following books:

 

The Reagan Economic Plan, 1981
The Triumph of Politics: Why the Reagan Revolution Failed, Harper & Row, 1986
The Great Deformation: The Corruption of Capitalism in America, PublicAffairs, 2013
Trumped!: A Nation on the Brink of Ruin, and How to Bring it Back, 2016

 

The original headline of this article was:  'Why the Empire Never Sleeps: The Indispensable Nation Folly, Part 1'.  Stay tuned for Part 2.

---

 

David Stockman, America's financial conscience and scold

 

That’s because the 78-million strong Baby Boom is in the driver’s seat of American politics. It plainly will not permit the $3 trillion per year retirement and health care entitlements-driven Welfare State to be curtailed.

The Trumpite/GOP has already sealed that deal by refusing to reform Social Security and Medicare and by proving to be utterly incapable of laying a glove politically on Obamacare/Medicaid. At the same time, boomers keep voting for the GOP’s anti-tax allergy, thereby refusing to tax themselves to close Washington’s yawning deficits.

More importantly, the generation which marched on the Pentagon in 1968 against the insanity and barbarism of LBJ’s Vietnam War has long since abandoned the cause of peace. So doing, boomers have acquiesced in the final ascendancy of the Warfare State, which grew like topsy once the US became the world’s sole superpower after the Soviet Union slithered off the pages of history in 1991.

Yet there is a reason why the end of the 77-year world war which incepted with the "guns of August" in 1914 did not enable the world to resume the status quo ante of relative peace and prosperous global capitalism.

To wit, the hoary ideology of American exceptionalism and the Indispensable Nation was also, ironically, liberated from the shackles of cold war realism when the iron curtain came tumbling down.

Consequently, it burst into a quest for unadulterated global hegemony. In short order (under Bush the Elder and the Clintons) Washington morphed into the Imperial City, and became a beehive not only of militarism, but of an endless complex of think-tanks, NGOs, advisories and consultancies, "law firms", lobbies and racketeers.

The unspeakable prosperity of Washington flows from that Imperial beehive. And it is the Indispensable Nation meme that provides the political adhesive that binds the Imperial City to the work of Empire and to provisioning the massive fiscal appetites of the Warfare State.

Needless to say, Empire is a terrible thing because it is the health of the state and the profound enemy of capitalist prosperity and constitutional liberty.

It thrives and metastasizes by abandoning the republican verities of nonintervention abroad and peaceful commerce with all the nations of the world in favor of the self-appointed role of global policeman. Rather than homeland defense, the policy of Empire is that of international busybody, military hegemon and brutal enforcer of Washington’s writs, sanctions, red lines and outlawed regimes.

There is nothing more emblematic of that betrayal of republican non-interventionism than the sundry hot spots which dog the Empire today. These include the Ukraine/Crimea confrontation with Russia, the regime change fiasco in Syria, the US sponsored genocide in Yemen, the failed, bloody 17-year occupation of Afghanistan, the meddling of the US Seventh Fleet in the South China Sea, and, most especially, the swiftly intensifying contretemps in Iran.

 

Off the Top of My Head

Beating Swords into Plowshares

by John Lawrence, May 18, 2018

And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. — Isaiah 2:4.

It's about time. The US has over 50,000 troops stationed in Germany. What the hell for? Listen, Trump, you wanted to save the US money and have other countries take on the responsibility for their own defense? So get those troops out of our ally's country. What do you think Nazism will rise again just like the Confederacy?

I'm sure Lockheed Martin would be just as happy getting huge government contracts for activities in the peace-industrial complex as they are working for the military-industrial complex. Nothing has to change money wise. The economy and the number of jobs can remain just the same. Just convert soldiers to Peace Corps and AmeriCorps workers and the big defense contractors to Peace contractors. Like the Chinese, America should have a Belt and Road initiative. The Chinese are actively investing in peace related activities in other countries. This is also called infrastructure building and investment. Get it: building infrastructure instead of destroying it?

The US used to be considered the world's policeman. Now the US is starting to be considered the world's bully, ordering other countries, even our purported allies, around. Trump threatens US allies with sanctions if they don't do as they are told. The net result is a more multipolar world, one without the US being the dominant nation, one where US hubris has spent its course, one where the US will probably come cup in hand to other nations for a bailout like it did in 2008. Only next time those nations won't be so cooperative.

So get those troops out of Germany. Assign them to the Peace Corps or disaster relief. With climate change there is a need for a full time brigade just assigned to cleaning up after a disaster. And get the Army Corps of Engineers to engineer some more levee construction. Get the Army Corps of Engineers to start building high speed rail. That might be something Lockheed Martin might be interested in. Anything high tech is sure to interest a bunch of engineers who might not be interested in converting from high tech weaponry to building tractors. High tech pruninghooks?

New Study Raises Alarm About Exposure to Glyphosate Pesticides at Levels the EPA Claims Are "Safe"

Published on Wednesday, May 16, 2018 by Common Dreams

"These early warnings must be further investigated," said one researcher, espeically "given the planet-wide use of the glyphosate-based herbicides."

by Jessica Corbett, staff writer

 

10 Comments

Roundup's active ingredient, glyphosate, is the most heavily-used agricultural chemical in history. (Photo: Mike Mozart/Flickr/cc)

A new study on glyphosate, the active ingredient in Monsanto's Roundup—one of the world's most widely used weedkillers—is fueling persistent concerns about the pesticide's impact on sexual development, genotoxicity, and intestinal bacteria, even when exposure is limited to a level currently considered "safe" by U.S. regulators.

"What your average consumer needs to know is that there's absolutely no scientific evidence backing up the EPA's claims of 'safe levels.'"
—Katherine Paul, Organic Consumers Association/span>

While the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), a branch of the World Health Organization (WHO), and California have classified glyphosate as a probable human carcinogen, U.S. and European regulators have continued to authorize farmers to use it, and Republicans in Congress have even threatened to cut off funding to the WHO over the issue.

Researchers at the Ramazzini Institute in Italy collaborated with experts from the U.S. and Europe to conduct the new crowdfunded pilot study, which will be detailed in three peer-reviewed papers set to be published in the journal Environmental Health later this month. They exposed rats to glyphosate-based herbicides (GBHs) in drinking water at the "safe" level set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) over a three-month period, "starting from prenatal life until 13 weeks after weaning."

"The results show that GBHs—even at doses deemed safe and over a relatively short exposure time (which in human-equivalent terms correspond from embryo life to 18 years of age)—are able to alter certain important biological parameters, markers chiefly relating to sexual development, genotoxicity, and alteration of the intestinal microbiome...especially in females," according to the study's website.

Daniele Mandrioli, associate director of the institute's cancer research center, explained to the Guardian that this "shouldn't be happening," and noted that in humans, "disruption of the microbiome has been associated with a number of negative health outcomes, such as obsesity, diabetes, and immunological problems."

Philip J. Landrigan, a member of the study's research team and a professor at New York's Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, expressed worries that glyphosate may pose a long-term cancer risk "that might affect a huge number of people, given the planet-wide use of the glyphosate-based herbicides."

Acknowledging that "by its very nature and purpose, the pilot study does not resolve the uncertainties puzzling the various agencies," Landrigan concluded that "these early warnings must be further investigated in a comprehensive long-term study."

Consumer advocates in the U.S. also responded with calls for further studies, pointing out that "there have been no long-term, peer-reviewed studies of the potential health impact of glyphosate exposure at levels lower than the EPA's guidelines."

"This new pilot study confirms what many responsible scientists have been saying all along: There is no such thing as 'safe' levels when it comes to glyphosate, especially when it comes to children," remarked Ronnie Cummins, international director of the U.S.-based Organic Consumers Association (OCA), which supports the testing food products—including Ben & Jerry's ice cream—for levels of glyphosate.

"What your average consumer needs to know is that there's absolutely no scientific evidence backing up the EPA's claims of 'safe levels,'" OCA U.S. director Katherine Paul told Common Dreams. "So when Ben & Jerry's says it doesn't matter that there's glyphosate in their ice cream—because the levels are beneath EPA guidelines—that's total bunk."

Meanwhile, Monsanto—which has tried to influence scientific health reports about Roundup—maintains that "there is no link between glyphosate and cancer," and accused the Ramazzini Institute of being "an activist organization with an agenda." The institute has supported the study of cancer for more than two decades and, according to its website, its top priorities are conducting scientific research, performing early diagnosis, and spreading information about "environmental toxic and carcinogenic risks."

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Shift Your Mental Gears to Think in a More Cheerfully Expectant Manner

Dear friends,

     So many things in life seem frustrating and hard to deal with until we know how they work. The first time I sat in front of a computer many years ago, I did not even know how to turn it on. I learned to drive on a stick shift and it was almost magical when I stopped leap-frogging and killing the engine at intersections. That moment when it all become a naturally integrated movement of hands and feet was wonderful. People move from being a good cook to a chef after they learn how various elements affect each other; why dough rises etc. It is the inner workings of anything that we need to know if we want to fully utilize the power of it. Yes, we can drive a car without knowing how the engine runs, but we will never be a mechanic.

     In a similar way, we can use the power of positive thinking to feel a little more in charge of our immediate experience, but until we understand why it works we will be busy getting parking places in crowded lots and not much more. It is the moment we get the astonishing truth that our mind is somehow linked to the universal creative process, all the time, that we begin to feel the ever present flow of Intelligence shaping itself into our best ideas, that we truly become conscious of how much we have to do with what we experience.

     Religion used to be all about faith in an unseen power. Modern spirituality is about co-creating with an inherent power, the power of Mind, awareness, consciousness, perception. So much of it is about shifting mental gears so that we are thinking in a more cheerfully expectant manner. That has everything to do with how we see ourselves, how we think of God and what is possible. There are classes offered to learn more about how this all works. Check with www.csl.org to find a Center for spiritual Living near you. You will never regret it!

Stay tuned in,

Carol Carnes

www.carolcarns.com

www.mvcsl.org

www.californiafreeprss.net

Off the Top of My Head

Why the Trump Kim Jong Un Meeting Will Never Take Place

by John Lawrence, May 17, 2018

As originally conceived, the Trump-Kim meeting was just a chance to get together and perhaps strike up a mutually respectful relationship that could then lead to more fruitful discussions down the line. But once Trump's men got ahold of it, they turned it into something far different. Basically, they made sure that it would be Trump talking down to Kim and making him kowtow in return. Thus the US is incapable of making friends first and then conducting business later. They want to set up the relationship first putting Kim in a subservient position because after all we are the United States and he's, well, he's just some two bit dictator albeit one with nuclear weapons.

The US has become the world's bully and the Trump-Kim meeting was to be no exception despite Trump's initial willingness to just have at it with no preconditions. His national security advisor, John Bolton, was having none of it. So Kim, knowing this, will probably not go along with the meeting because, after all, he is not going to take any shit from the President of the United States or anybody else. Peace between North and South Korea does not require US approval. What is the US going to do - sanction South Korea if they make peace? No, President Moon, you can't make peace without out approval!

What if North and South Korea made peace forming one country. It's like Barack Obama said, to paraphrase, "There is not one North Korea and one South Korea, there is only the UNITED State of Korea." What would or could the US do if they were left totally out of the peace process? Nothing. The US could be told to take their soldiers and get the heck unceremoniously out of Korea period. And Kim would keep his friggin' nuclear weapons or give them to China adding to China's nuclear stockpile, in return for China taking Korea under its umbrella. It could happen.

The US fighting communism by stopping the communist Chinese at the 38th parallel has become a joke, an anachronism. Who even believes that any more? It's like the European war that was fought over a pail of water and then many years later they couldn't even remember what they were fighting about. Anyway as Nietsche famously said, "A good war halloweth any cause." I'm sure Hitler agreed with those sentiments.

Seriously, what if Kim came out and said, "Forget the US. I want to make peace with President Moon, and we will take up the nuclear issue at a later date. We want China, not the US, to broker the deal." The US is not all up in arms about China's nuclear weapons so why doesn't Kim give his to China while still maintaining some control over them. I'm sure the situation is finessable, and the Korean situation is normalizable.  Trump already envisioned being able to reduce costs by getting the US military out of Korea. He could reduce them a lot more by getting the roughly 1000 US military bases out of other parts of the world as well.

 

Big Primary Wins for Socialists and Progressives Who Ran on 'Popular Demands That Were Deemed Impossible'

Published on Wednesday, May 16, 2018 by Common Dreams

"Welcome to the political revolution."

by Jake Johnson, staff writer

 

8 Comments

Running on a platform including Medicare for All and free public education, democratic socialist Summer Lee defeated her Democratic establishment-backed opponent Paul Costa in Pennsylvania's 34th State House District. (Photo: Nathan Shaulis/Summer for PA)

"This is what happens when you run grassroots campaigns."

"We're just getting started."

"Welcome to the political revolution."

Defying national and state-level Democratic establishment forces that have worked to crowd out left-wing candidates and demonstrating that there is a deep hunger among the American electorate for a bold progressive agenda, candidates running on platforms of Medicare for All, free college, and a living wage emerged victorious in several state primaries on Tuesday and tore through the boundaries of what is conventionally considered politically feasible.

"They said it wasn't possible without institutional support. That we couldn't talk about Medicare for All, a living wage, about ending corruption in Harrisburg. And you know what we did instead? We built something."
—Sara Innamorato, Pennsylvania State House candidate

 

"It feels like a monumental shift," Arielle Cohen, co-chair of Pittsburgh Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), told the Huffington Post after four DSA-backed candidates defeated establishment Democrats in Pennsylvania. "We won on popular demands that were deemed impossible. We won on healthcare for all; we won on free education."

Running in Pennsylvania's State House Districts 34 and 21 respectively, Summer Lee and Sara Innamorato—both running on platforms consisting of Medicare for All, strong environmental protection, and campaign finance reform—toppled what local news outlets described as a "political dynasty" by trouncing Democratic cousins Paul Costa and Dom Costa by a wide margin.

"They said it wasn't possible without institutional support. That we couldn't talk about Medicare for All, a living wage, about ending corruption in Harrisburg," Innamorato said during her victory party Tuesday night. "And you know what we did instead? We built something."

"The story is that the Costa cousins lost, but who they lost to, just as signifigant.

both of the challengers they faced were endorsed by @DemSocialists" #socialistscanwin pic.twitter.com/SHFV8Rsqrs

— People For Bernie (@People4Bernie) May 16, 2018

"The establishment's scared," Pittsburgh DSA wrote on Twitter in response to the upset victories, which also included wins by Elizabeth Fiedler and Kristin Seale over their establishment counterparts. "When we fight, we win."

Signs of the grassroots progressive wave that some predicted will ultimately sweep across the country could also be seen in Idaho on Tuesday, where progressive Paulette Jordan handily defeated her establishment-backed Democratic opponent A.J. Balukoff in a bid to become the nation's first Native American governor.

If she wins in November, Jordan—who ran on protecting public land from corporate plunder and criminal justice reform—would be Idaho's first Democratic governor in over 20 years.

"Today's elections prove movement politics candidates, who rely on people power, can win, and win powerfully," Ryan Greenwood, director of Movement Politics for People's Action, said in a statement on Wednesday. "Candidates for public office who commit to a racial and gender justice agenda that puts people and our planet before profits are winning."

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In Times of Trouble Mother Mary Comes to Me

Speaking Words of Wisdom "Let it be"

Dear friends,

     On the theme of the crucial need for the rise of the Divine Feminine, poet Adrienne Rich said “we live in an un-mothered world.” This so vividly depicts our current state. Recalling the words of an old hymn; “sometimes I feel like a motherless child.” Isn’t that easy to feel?   The bereft quality of human experience, the sense of missing something vital; the feeling of being adrift from our moorings, blundering through life like the proverbial bull in the china shop.   I am speaking of humanity in general terms. This may not be our personal experience, unless we are willing to look closely at our deeper feelings. Then we may uncover the longing for the Mother.

     We each play a large part in this essential shift, and we can begin today with how we treat ourselves, and by extension, our family and neighbors. Be good to yourself. Prepare a nourishing meal; wander in a garden, sit by some moving water, meditate for no reason.   In your own way, honor the Mother within and allow her to nurture you.   Notice how relaxed and cared-for you feel. In the office or the classroom or on the highway, the Mother is always there “whispering words of wisdom…. Let it Be.”

Stay tuned in,

Carol Carnes

www.carolcrnes.com   

www.mvcsl.org

www.californiafreepress.net

Off the Top of My Head

The Rich Do Not Want to Pay More Taxes to Build Affordable Housing for Homeless

by John Lawrence, May 16, 2018

Let them rot on the streets is what the rich are effectively saying to those who can't afford skyrocketing rents. The Seattle town council has proposed a new tax that would be used to build addordable housing for the homeless. Seattle has one of the worst homeless crises in the country. This tax would only be imposed on the biggest of businesses and would be a relatively minute sum compared to profits. But Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon and world's richest man, is having none of it. He will just pick up his marbles and go home, and home is wherever they are slobbering all over themselves to give him tax breaks.

Amazon, like a lot of other high  tech companies, could locate their facilities anywhere. They don't have to be near a river or a coal mine or a train depot. Their work is mainly online. You'd think the world's richest man would assume some responsibility for solving the social ills which his very success helped to create. Amazon has a few highly paid employees which bid up the price of housing in areas where they operate just like it's been bid up in San Francisco and Silicon Valley. Pretty soon a family of modest income can no longer afford to live there, they get evicted and end up on the streets.

Huffington Post reported:

Seattle’s city council on Monday [May 14] approved a new tax for the city’s biggest companies, including Amazon.com Inc., to combat a housing crisis attributed in part to a local economic boom that has driven up real estate costs at the expense of the working class.

Amazon, the city’s largest employer, said after the vote that it would go ahead with planning for a major downtown office building that it earlier had put on hold over its objections to a much stiffer tax plan originally proposed.

As passed on a 9-0 vote after a boisterous public hearing, the measure would apply to most companies grossing at least $20 million a year, levying a tax of roughly 14 cents per employee per hour worked within the city - about $275 annually for each worker.

Amazon's success has contributed to the economic divide in two ways. First, it has swooped up a lot of business from brick and mortar stores so a lot of them are going out of business. It has concentrated its profits, that formerly were spread out over a number of businesses and locales, in one man's pocket. Wal-Mart has done the same thing. Profits are concentrated for a few people and not dispersed on a widely distributed basis. Automation eliminates many of the working class type jobs. The result is that there are fewer jobs available for the majority of people while money is concentrated in the hands of a few. Is there any wonder that an economic divide exists between the 1% and the 99%?

Amazon’s vice president, Drew Herdener, said, “We remain very apprehensive about the future created by the council’s hostile approach and rhetoric toward larger businesses, which forces us to question our growth here.” So Amazon as a corporation, like most American corporations, assumes no responsibility to the social environment in which they operate, even to addressing problems that they partially have caused. They have always gotten away with externalities, costs imposed on the environment that are then picked up by the public. Only now the externality is driving up the cost of housing.

American corporations express no responsibility to anything or anyone other than making as much money as they can possibly make and keeping it all for themselves. Before the high tech era at least, profits were more widely dispersed over a number of corporations that employed many more people. Anti-trust legislation saw to that. Now a few people can do the jobs that required many more before. Automation and robotization have taken over most manual labor and even middle class desk jobs. The tax is expected to be borne by about 500 companies, including Starbucks, Apple, Google and Facebook, accounting for 3 percent of the city’s private sector. Healthcare companies are exempt, as are non-profits.

Huff Post continued:

Sponsors of the tax said Seattle’s biggest-earning businesses should bear some burden for easing a shortage in low-cost housing that they helped create by driving up real estate prices to the point where the working poor and many middle-class families can no longer afford to live in the city.

Supporters cite data showing Seattle’s median home prices have soared to $820,000, and more than 41 percent of renters in the city ranked as “rent-burdened,” meaning they pay at least 30 percent of their income on housing.

The Seattle metropolitan area also is home to the third-largest concentrations of homeless people, nearly 12,000 counted in a January U.S. government survey, and almost half of them were living on the streets or otherwise unsheltered.

Mayor Jenny Durkan, who expressed concern that the original proposal would lead to an economic backlash, said she would sign the new tax ordinance into law.

This should be the model for all cities to adopt. They should not compete to give tax giveaways to major corporations in order to get them to build facilities in their cities. That is a beggar thy neighbor policy. Cities need to step up and use their power to do the right thing and get the rich to pay their fair share to solve the homeless crisis.

Trump’s Drug Pricing Scam

by Robert Reich

Friday, May 11, 2018

Trump promised to rein in drug prices. It was his only sensible campaign promise.

But the plan he announced Friday does little but add another battering ram to his ongoing economic war against America’s allies.

He calls it “American patients first,” and takes aim at what he calls “foreign freeloading.” The plan will pressure foreign countries to relax their drug price controls.

America’s trading partners “need to pay more because they’re using socialist price controls, market access controls, to get unfair pricing,” said Alex Azar, Trump’s Secretary of Health and Human Services, who, perhaps not incidentally, was a former top executive at the drug maker Eli Lilly and Company.

By this tortured logic, if other nations allow drug companies to charge whatever they want, U.S. drug companies will then lower prices in the United States.

This is nonsensical. It would just mean more profits for U.S. drug companies. (Revealingly, the stock prices of U.S. pharmaceutical companies rose after Trump announced his plan.) 

While it’s true that Americans spend far more on medications per person than do citizens in any other rich country – even though Americans are no healthier – that’s not because other nations freeload on American drug companies’ research.

Big Pharma in America spends more on advertising and marketing than it does on research – often tens of millions to promote a single drug.

The U.S. government supplies much of the research Big Pharma relies on through the National Institutes of Health. This is a form of corporate welfare that no other industry receives. 

American drug companies also spend hundreds of millions lobbying the government. Last year alone, their lobbying tab came to $171.5 million, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

That’s more than oil and gas, insurance, or any other American industry. It’s more than the formidable lobbying expenditures of America’s military contractors. Big Pharma spends tens of millions more on campaign expenditures.

They spend so much on politics in order to avoid price controls, as exist in most other nations, and other government attempts to constrain their formidable profits.

For example, in 2003, Big Pharma got a U.S. law prohibiting the government from using its considerable bargaining clout under Medicare and Medicaid to negotiate lower drug prices. Other nations with big healthcare plans routinely negotiate lower drug prices.

During his campaign Trump promised to reverse this law. But the plan he revealed Friday doesn’t touch it. Trump’s plan seeks only to make it easier for private health insurers to negotiate better deals for Medicare beneficiaries.  

In reality, private health insurers don’t have anywhere near the clout of Medicare and Medicaid – which was the whole point of Big Pharma’s getting Congress to ban such negotiations in the first place.

In the last few years, U.S. drug companies have also blocked Americans from getting low-cost prescription drug from Canada, using the absurd argument that Americans can’t rely on the safety of drugs coming from our northern neighbor – whose standards are at least as high as ours.

Trump’s new plan doesn’t change this, either.  

To put all this another way, when Americans buy drugs in the United States, they really buy a package of advertising, marketing, and political influence-peddling. Consumers in other nations don’t pay these costs. Which explains a big part of why drug prices are lower abroad. Trump’s so-called plan to lower drug prices disregards this reality.

Trump’s plan nibbles at the monopoly power of U.S. pharmaceutical companies, but doesn’t deal with the central fact that their patents are supposed to run only twenty years but they’ve developed a host of strategies to keep patents going beyond then.

One is to make often insignificant changes in their patented drugs that are enough to trigger new patents and thereby prevent pharmacists from substituting cheaper generic versions.

Before its patent expired on Namenda, its widely used drug to treat Alzheimer’s, Forest Labs announced it would stop selling the existing tablet form of in favor of new extended-release capsules called Namenda XR. Even though Namenda XR was just a reformulated version of the tablet, the introduction prevented generic versions from being introduced.  

Other nations don’t allow drug patents to be extended on such flimsy grounds. Trump’s plan doesn’t touch this ploy.

Another tactic used by U.S. drug companies has been to sue generics to prevent them from selling their cheaper versions, then settle the cases by paying the generics to delay introducing those cheaper versions.

Such “pay-for-delay” agreements are illegal in other nations, but antitrust enforcement hasn’t laid a finger on them in America – and Trump doesn’t mention them although they cost Americans an estimated $3.5 billion a year.

Even after their patents have expired, U.S. drug companies continue to aggressively advertise their brands so patients will ask their doctors for them instead of the generic versions. Many doctors comply.

Other nations don’t allow direct advertising of prescription drugs – another reason why prices are lower there and higher here. Trump’s plan is silent on this, too. (Trump suggests drug advertisers should be required to post the prices of their drugs, which they’re already expert at obscuring.)

If Trump were serious about lowering drug prices he’d have to take on the U.S. drug manufacturers.

But Trump doesn’t want to take on Big Pharma. As has been typical for him, rather than confronting the moneyed interests in America he chooses mainly to blame foreigners.

The Light of Truth Pushes the Darkness Out into the Light of Day

Dear friends,

     Many of us have become aware of the dangers of a literal interpretation of ancient writings which were metaphorical in nature. Likewise, we miss the importance of what is occurring now if we see it merely as news and chaos. For example:   women accusing many men of the misuse of power; marginalized groups demanding equality; the growing awareness of the intelligence and emotional life of animals; the so-called climate change and the enormous drug addiction problem in our culture, to name but a few.

     Those are the facts, but what is the Truth underneath them? What is the Cause? What is going on, for heaven’s sake? We are seeing the dissolution of long held beliefs that are proving to be untrue.   Structures that protected the few to the detriment of the many are falling apart. We are also seeing the effects of the misuse of power by pharmaceutical companies and other corporations. Old patriarchal religion has little appeal to youth. Churches are emptying out in a rush away from dogma and superstition.

     We have to see everything as an indication of our collective awakening. The light of Truth (our true nature) is pushing the Darkness (our collective ego) up and out into visibility so that we can make the changes necessary. It is one thing to name the problem, but we cannot stop there.   We must see it as “revealed to be healed.” We must see that the chaos is the precursor to a new order. We must play our part in it with our voices, our votes and our support of what is emergent in our midst. The old saying “It’s all Good” has never been more true.

Stay tuned in,

Carol Carnes

www.carolcarnes.com

www.mvcs.org

www.californiafreepress.net

Off the Top of My Head

The Next Democratic President Can Undo Everything Trump Has Done

by John Lawrence, May 15, 2018

The next election for President of the US is only two years away, folks. Just like Trump has endeavored to undo everything Obama did, If a Democrat is elected in 2020, he or she can undo everything Trump has done. This would include rejoining the Paris climate change accords and rejoining the Iran nuclear deal if the other signatories can hold that deal together until 2020.  So he or she can restore the Obama era changes and make them operative again. Of course the next Republican President can undo all that and go back to Trumpism. Is this any way to run a government? Of course not.

Trump's war on the environment can be changed. Also his war on the poor can be changed. His tax giveaways to the rich can be changed. However, is this back and forth see sawing action by the US a desirable state of affairs? I don't think so. Somewhere along the line the US has to go back to consistency again. Otherwise, you've got two warring factions within one country and no consensus about anything. It's the civil war all over again except without the actual fighting. If the Congress ever became functional again, some of these Presidential maneuvers could be cast in cement, I suppose. Then it would take an act of Congress to reverse them.

Business Insider reports:

President Trump has signed a number of executive actions since he took the oath of office on January 20th. The orders and memoranda range from freezing all pending regulations until his administration approved them, to a controversial immigration order barring citizens and refugees from six Muslim-majority nations from entering the US.

What is an executive order?

An executive order is a "directive by the president to the officers and officials of the executive branch," Columbia law professor and former Associate Counsel to President Jimmy Carter, Philip Bobbitt told Business Insider.

While the president can't order private citizens to specifically do something, they are still affected by executive orders insofar as their interactions with executive officials. "They do have the effect of law," Bobbitt explained.

Can an executive order be reversed?

Both the legislative and judicial branches have the power to reverse an executive order.

If the president issues an executive order in accordance with a law passed by the legislative branch and Congress disagrees, they can pass a bill clarifying the law. However, the president has the power of the veto, in which case Congress would have to override the veto with a two-thirds majority in both the House of Representatives and the Senate.

If, however, an executive order pertains to the president's independent constitutional responsibilities, then only the courts can reverse it. Bobbitt uses the example of Emancipation Proclamation, an executive order issued by Abraham Lincoln in accordance with his power as commander-in-chief. While Congress did not have the power to override that order, the courts could have declared it unconstitutional.

More recently, the courts blocked President Obama's 2014 executive action to shield millions of undocumented immigrants from deportation and allow them to work legally in the US. The 2016 Supreme Court decision was deadlocked (only eight justices voted as there was a seat left vacant by Justice Scalia's death earlier that year). The tie meant that a lower court's decision that Obama likely exceeded his executive authority stopped the plan from being implemented.

So Trumpism isn't the end of the world as we've known it. It's just important that the ignorant know nothings that elected Trump not be allowed to run the country and vote their preferences into office at every election. We need more progressive people in office, and the only way to get them there is for more progressive people to vot.

Sanders Rips Bolton and Other Washington Hawks Who Push 'War and Militarism' as 'Answer to Everything'

Published on Sunday, May 13, 2018 by Common Dreams

"Maybe, just maybe, we might want to be investing in the American people rather than inflated military budgets and more and more wars."

by Jake Johnson, staff writer

 

38 Comments

"This is a man who was a key adviser to President Bush, George W. Bush, in urging him to get involved to invade Iraq because supposedly Iraq had weapons of mass destruction," Sanders said of Bolton. (Photo: CNN/Screengrab)

Appearing on CNN early Sunday just moments after President Donald Trump's national security adviser John Bolton urged European nations to join the U.S. in violating the Iran nuclear accord, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) denounced Bolton as part of an influential faction of Washington ultra-hawks who push war as "the answer to everything."

"This is a man who was a key adviser to President Bush, George W. Bush, in urging him to...invade Iraq because supposedly Iraq had weapons of mass destruction," Sanders said of Bolton, who Trump selected to be his top foreign policy adviser in March. "As I think most Americans now know, that effort in Iraq was the worst foreign policy disaster in the modern history of this country."

The Vermont senator continued:

I think you have some people unfortunately in Washington—Bolton being one of them—who believe that war, and militarism, is the answer to everything. We have spent over $2 trillion in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and yet today our infrastructure here in the United States is crumbling, we have millions of people who can't afford to go to college or are leaving college deeply in debt. Maybe, just maybe, we might want to be investing in the American people rather than inflated military budgets and more and more wars.

Sanders' comments on Bolton—who in a separate interview on Sunday attempted to downplay and obscure his past support for regime change—come just days after the senator denounced the Trump administration's decision to violate the Iran nuclear accord, a move Bolton has pushed for since the agreement was finalized in 2015.

In a live-streamed response immediately following Trump's withdrawal announcement last Tuesday, Sanders called the president's decision "reckless" and said it moves the U.S. closer to yet another military conflict in the Middle East.

"By reimposing nuclear sanctions on Iran and withdrawing from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, otherwise known as the Iran nuclear agreement, President Trump has put our nation on a dangerous path," Sanders added.

Monday evening, Sanders is set to elaborate his critique of Trump's violation of the nuclear agreement and discuss what comes next in a town hall hosted by The Intercept, The Guardian, NowThis, and other outlets.

We are partnering with @SenSanders to livestream a town hall addressing the consequences of President Trump pulling the U.S. from the Iran nuclear deal. Tune in Monday at 7 p.m. ET: https://t.co/Usve7rFqEy pic.twitter.com/gTQmyxGpGC

— The Intercept (@theintercept) May 10, 2018

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Off the Top of My Head

US May Bully World to Enforce Sanctions on Iran

by John Lawrence, May 14, 2018

The other signatories to the Iran nuclear deal don't want to pull out of it. Only Trump wants to reneg. He has pulled the US out, but the other countries want to stay in and want Iran to continue complying with the terms of the deal. In order for the US to reapply sanctions to Iran which are financial and economic prohibitions that will make Iran's economy even worse than it now is, the other nations such as France, Germany, Britain, Russia and China have to cooperate with the US in not doing business with Iran, but, since they want to do business with Iran and now the US is an outlier, they may continue doing business with Iran, defying the US. Then the US would be put in the position of applying sanctions to them including US allies Britain, France and Germany.

National Security Adviser, John Bolton, has threatened US allies with sanctions if they don't go along with the US. In effect the US has become the world's bully even toward Europe, our erstwhile ally. "I think the Europeans will see that it's in their interest ultimately to go along with us," Bolton said. It's in nobody's interests to abrogate the Iran deal which will not only cause hardship in Iran but yo the US allies which trade with Iran. Europe, for example, depends on Russian gas. Europeans have billions of dollars in business with Iran at stake. If they are forced by the US to stop doing business with Iran, it's not only Iran that will suffer.

The Guardian reported:

US sanctions on Iran reimposed following Trump’s withdrawal not only block American firms from doing business in the country, but also bar foreign firms that do business there from accessing the entire US banking and financial system.

Mike Pompeo, Trump’s secretary of state, said on Sunday wealth created in Iran under the terms of the nuclear deal “drove Iranian malign activity” in the region. He declined to rule out sanctions against European firms.

“The sanctions regime that is in place now is very clear on what the requirements are,” Pompeo said on Fox News Sunday.

Trump’s decision to scrap the nuclear deal was sharply criticized by European leaders, who have pledged to uphold their side of the agreement.

Alarm has been particularly high in France, whose energy giant Total last year signed a $5bn deal to extract Iranian natural gas. Airbus, the French-based plane manufacturer, has already begun delivering jets to Iran Air under a multibillion-dollar contract.

Volkswagen, the German automaker, has resumed exporting cars to Iran. Richard Grenell, the new US ambassador to Berlin, warned this week in a tweet: “German companies doing business in Iran should wind down operations immediately.”

Some European leaders have called for measures to nullify the US sanctions. Bruno Le Maire, the French finance minister, said last week: “We have to work among ourselves in Europe to defend our European economic sovereignty.”

Iran has said it will stay in the deal if the other five countries that signed the deal remain in it. That would expose those five countries to US sanctions. This amounts to a game of chicken and we'll see who backs down first - the US, US allies or Russia and China? Even if the European allies eventually buckle and give in to Trump, Russia and China might defy him. Trump is making the US the bully of the world. Will the rest of the world stand up to the US bully? As Trump says, we'll see.