BevW

Dedicated local activism, thought-provoking talks and great new benefits! FDL Membership – A Journey I’ve Been A Part Of….. I started reading FDL in 2006, first just reading the posts, getting my news-fix for the day, news I could trust. A website that gave me the facts so that I could discuss the issues with [...]

I look upon Tom Frank as a political behaviorist with a healthy sense of the humor and an even healthier sense of the absurd, the latter of which works with the former the way an afterburner works on a fighter jet. His great gift is to look at us first, before getting around to looking at how we come to order ourselves in our society and govern ourselves in our politics, if it can even be said that we govern ourselves in our politics any more, which I would contend is a matter of some debate.

Anyway, to me, Tom’s great gift always has been to look at the influences behind millions of individual decisions that add up to the collective experience of at least the appearance of political self-government. Reading Tom’s work, and reading his assessment of the political malpractice we sometimes inflict on ourselves, I am reminded of an entry in the voluminous diary of Ignatius Donnelly, great American crank, former Minnesota congressman, virtual inventor of modern pseudo-science, creator of everything we think we know about Atlantis, and intellectual amanuensis of my own book, Idiot America. Once, while defending his own work, he wrote in his journal — “I believe I am right. Or, if not right, at least plausible.”

I found this cartoon (1948) predicting the future from over 60 years ago. Amazing insights at to what we are facing now in this political cycle. Enjoy! What’s on your mind tonight?

Kenny Burrell – “All Blues”, with Bob Magnusson on bass and Sherman Ferguson on drums.

Suz asked me to stop by and be here with you tonight. Awaiting word on Suz’s surgery, thought this music would lighten our thoughts. I know she will enjoy it in the morning when she checks in.

Good thoughts and healing vibes going to Suz tonight.

What’s on your mind?

Citizen’s United is not merely a mistake easily corrected, nor is the case simply about campaign finance or money in politics. Citizen’s United is a corporate power case masquerading as a free speech case. In many ways, the decision was less a break from the recent past than a proclamation about the sad reality of corporate power in America.

Palast takes us on a fast paced, kick ass narrative that globe trots from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil blowout in the Gulf of Mexico, to the coast of Alaska, to New Orleans, to Liberia, to Azerbaijan, to Fukushima, Japan. It’s the real-deal investigative reporting of corporate irresponsibility. As Greg Palast said himself in an interview,” This book is a story of the 1%. It’s why we occupy.”

Everything changed on September 11, 2001. It’s become an American truism. And for many, it’s also absolutely true. It certainly was the case for Tom Engelhardt. He was roughly seven miles north of the World Trade Center that morning and that’s about the furthest he’s been from it since.

Perhaps we should begin with an offering from Goldman Sachs he covered closely, the Abacus deal, for which Goldman was fined. Mr. Cohan, please explain whether you believe Goldman was guilty of unethical or illegal activity in the sale of Abacus. Ultimately, I hope we get your views on why there have been no convictions, and why.

What could possibly make a human being torture another human being?

That’s a question that, as a young boy, I recall asking my grandparents—Holocaust survivors—after they described to me in vivid detail the torture they and other members of my extended family were subjected to by the Nazis during World War II.

It’s a question I returned to earlier this year when I had the opportunity to interview a veteran of the US Army Reserves who was torn up about the torture he says he witnessed and participated in against some “war on terror” detainees while serving as a guard at the Guantanamo Bay prison facility. [That guard, Pfc. Albert Melise, has since been barred from reenlistment for speaking to me.]

Just last week, the 34-nation Organization for Economic Cooperation Development (OECD) released the results of its most recent study of the health care systems in the 40 counties considered to be “developed.” It came as no surprise to see that the U.S. health care system—if we can even call it a system—is still by far the most expensive on the planet.

We spend two-and-a-half times more on health care per person than the OECD average.

After reading Dr. John Geyman’s latest book, Breaking Point—How the Primary Care Crisis Endangers the Lives of Americans, I now understand why and how we have sunk so low.