We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Friday, April 6, 2012

Jobs Act 2012 a Recipe for Fraud

Click here to access article and script from The Real News.

Paul Jay of The Real News interviews Professor Bill Black, who is clearly no anti-capitalist, as he explains the JOBS Act which is really about weakening existing regulations and providing more opportunities for the One Percent to engage in more fraudulent business practices that have already created so much havoc with the economy.

This bill was diabolically packaged  in an acronym for "Jumpstart Our Business Startups" Act in order to fool ordinary Americans into believing that their government and Obama really are concerned about promoting jobs. And, of course, the One Percent's mainstream media coverage of the bill is compliantly playing along with this ruse by supplying superficial and mostly postive reports of the passage of the bill and Obama's signing. Most TV coverage I've seen just portrays Obama's celebratory remarks as he signs the bill. (See this from CNN.) A survey of other media outlets reveals mostly very positive reports with occasionally very brief mention of some some concerns about the bill. See this, this, and this.
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