Bill Moyers Journal 4-23-2010 (2-30m videos and script)

In case you missed it, this Bill Moyers program, the second to his last regular PBS program, features two outstanding guests: 1) Bill Black, whom I also posted yesterday in another interview, in which he again explains his view that the recent financial collapse was mostly brought about by sheer fraud on the part of the large financial institutions, particularly Merrill Lynch and Goldman Sachs; 2) and Michael J. Copps, FCC Commissioner, who warns about corporate threats to the internet. 

These are both excellent interviews which offer some real and rare insights on their respective, and critically important subjects.

Cochabamba's New Direction

from Yes! Magazine.

When the social movements met, what came through loud and clear was that people all over the world think that climate change should be solved by having those who pollute too much cut their emissions. The communities and movements don’t want fancy trading schemes, and they don’t want their land, their labor, or their bodies to become a commodity to be sold in someone’s market....

`Capitalism is the main enemy of the Earth', Evo Morales tells people's climate conference (7:08m video)

from Democracy Now. 

Morales, speaking at the April 20 conference inauguration, started his speech with a slogan, "Planet or death, we shall overcome". He said that harmony with nature could not exist while 1 per cent of the world's population concentrates more than 50 per cent of the world's riches. Capitalism is the main enemy of the Earth, only looking for profits, to the detriment of nature, and capitalism is a bridge for social  inequality.

A Radical Climate Solution Goes Mainstream

from The Washington Independent. The ruling classes are so arrogant and desperate to save the goose (the capitalist system) that lays their golden eggs that they are getting serious about tinkering with the earth's climate system. It appears to me that they are beginning to realize that their beloved system is wrecking havoc on the planet.

Time out

Washington is "Totally and Completely Corrupt" (1:14m video)

Chris Hayes from U-Tube. Listen to a very succinct and accurate description of the US Congress.

Chris Hayes, columnist for the Nation magazine, while appearing on MSNBC's 'Countdown' program, blasted Congress as being "totally corrupt." He argued that America is "ruled by a financial oligarchy" that has bought off the politicians on Capitol Hill. He was referring specifically to how quickly Republicans and Democrats came together to pass a bill regulating financial institutions. Especially given the acrimony exhibited during the health care reform debates.

$33 Billion for War, How Could I Spend Thee on Local Jobs?

from Huffington Post. 

Sometime between now and Memorial Day, the House is expected to consider $33 billion more for war in Afghanistan. ...Of course, by itself the number $33 billion is totally meaningless. To make it meaningful, we need to compare it to something - what else could we do with $33 billion? 

On the other hand, $33 billion is good for the stockholders of Haliburton, KBR, General Dynamics, Northrop Grumman Corp (drones), Boeing, etc.

The Exceptional Nature of Cuban Urban Agriculture

from Civil Eats. Excellent comparison of the different economic systems in the US and Cuba as they impact on food production. In the US the private ownership of land and market imperatives are major impediments to local organic farming initiatives.

Interview with Bill Black: The Great Global Bank Robbery, Parts 1&2

from New Deal 2.0.  I haven't had a change to read all of both parts, but Black appears to drop some real bombshells in this interview.

We face recurrent, intensifying economic crises (and economic stagnation for the working and middle class in the developed West) because our financial elites are unworthy. They are too often outright criminals - control frauds. They have no sense of accountability, no sense of duty to the nation (or community or world). ...Their anti-regulatory, pro-greed ideology triumphed and produced a global Great Recession. But for government intervention and bailouts they would have caused a second Great Depression worse than the original. And what do our elites do? They blame the least powerful citizens for the crisis the elites designed, implemented, and grew rich on.

Read also Part 2

Can US dollar remain world's currency? Pts.2-4

from The Real News Network. This insightful interview continues with Jane D'Arista who is a research associate with the Political Economy Research Institute.

Part 3 and Part 4

State budget crisis about to become a "catastrophe"

from The Economic Populist. The author reports on the many devastating effects that the current economic collapse is having on states in the US. And, of course, the hardest hit are educational and social programs.

Economist James Galbraith: Economists Should Move into the Background, and "Criminologists to the Forefront"

from Washington's Blog. The author assembles the views of many critics that the economic collapse was caused by fraud. Hence the perpetrators are criminals and should be treated as such. In my view, it is the system itself which inevitably leads morally weak people into criminal behavior.

Obama Reassures Wall Street on Bank Regulation Bill

by Barry Grey from Global Research. 

With complete cynicism, Obama and congressional Democrats, with the assistance of the media, are presenting their regulatory proposals as a sweeping reform comparable to the banking measures implemented by the Roosevelt administration in the Great Depression.

In reality, the Senate measure, like the bill passed last December by the House of Representatives, proposes certain marginal changes in the way government agencies monitor financial firms, but does nothing to reverse the deregulation of banking carried out over the past three decades, which dismantled the restrictions imposed during the 1930s. It introduces no structural reforms to limit, let alone ban, the speculative practices that have become central to the accumulation of profit and personal wealth by the American ruling class.

Obama's Cooper Union Speech: President Urges Wall Street Support For Reform

from Huffington Post. The author contrasts Obama's recent speech to that of FDR in the 1930's when the latter said,

"We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace -- business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering. ...They had begun to consider the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob. Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today.

"They are unanimous in their hate for me -- and I welcome their hatred."

Now, I am no fan of FDR. He was a brilliant member of the capitalist ruling class and feared various threats to his beloved system: the ruling class at that time was laced with pro-fascists, the planned economy of the Soviet Union was making vast strides at industrializing with no unemployment which appealed to many working people, and the economic system was in full collapse and there were no safety nets for working people. 

He saved the system by cleverly steering a middle course by providing a few crumbs to calm the discontent of working people in the form of Workers Compensation, Social Security, more favorable labor laws, Federally sponsored employment programs, etc. And as the above quote illustrates, he used anti-banking rhetoric to pose as a friend of working people.

World War II brought the US out of the depression and the ruling class immediately went on the offensive to roll back many of the gains made for, and by working people by attacking militant labor leaders and left wing intellectuals (McCarthy period), co-opting others, passing restrictions on labor organizing, a massive media campaign against labor and left wing ideas, etc.

Greek public sector workers strike to oppose austerity measures

from World Socialist Web Site. The Greek people are fighting back against the capitalist elites.

Tens of thousands of civil servants took part in a strike over austerity measures in Greece on Thursday. Government officials, hospital workers, teachers, university professors, dockworkers and customs and tax officials participated. Museums and archaeological sites were also closed.

Time out

George Papendreou and the Greek people

Chimpanzees Prefer Fair Play To Reaping An Unjust Reward

from The Primate Diaries. This article presents research which suggests to me that chimpanzees may be smarter than humans after all.

...chimpanzees in this study went beyond the basic tenets of the social contract and demonstrated what could be considered the foundation of social solidarity. ...Even those who benefited from inequality recognized that the situation was unfair and they refused to enjoy their own reward if it meant someone else had to suffer.

Why I hate Earth Day II: the road to hell in baby steps

by Sharon Astyk from Casaubon's Book. She makes some very good points about the distortion of news and commentary re the issues of environmental devastation, climate change, and peak oil from mainstream media and that the problems are more hidden in Western societies because capitalist enterprises have outsourced most of their polluting industries to the other countries. 

Unfortunately, she fails to make the fundamental connection to the source of the problems--the capitalist system which cannot deal with the problems. Until we, the people, make this connection and change the system, nothing of consequence will change with regard to halting the slide toward catastrophe.

The central message of most Earth Day celebrations is that if we all do a little, we'll make the world a better place. But the fact is that that's not true, and as much as we like to hear such a friendly, fuzzy message, we can't make it factual just by wanting it to be true. The blunt reality is that unless we all do an awful lot, very fast, we're facing disaster. We use the word "sustainable" casually, to mean "well, we can probably do a little more of this if we cut back a little now." But we are facing a sustainability crisis in the deepest sense - if we don't make massive changes and quite rapidly, our children's future is in question - and the children of billions of people around the world.

'Major Oil Spill' Feared As Rig Sinks Off US Coast

from Common Dreams, source from Agence France-Presse. 

Officials said the current spill had the potential to be the worst seen in the United States since the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil tanker spill, considered one of the worst man-made environmental disasters.

Iceland volcano gives warming world chance to debunk climate sceptic myths

from the Guardian. 

But one opportunity the volcano has gifted us in particular is the chance to put to bed once and for all that barrel-aged climate sceptic canard which maintains that volcanoes emit far more carbon dioxide than anthropogenic sources.