Sep 18 2008
“Novus Ordo Seclorum” is Latin for “New Order of the Ages”
Richard Fuld, CEO, Lehman Brothers. John Thain, CEO, Merrill Lynch.
Stan O’Neal, former CEO, Merrill Lynch. James Cayne, CEO , Bear Stearns.
A video essay from ANP’s Nick Penniman and Eric Fritz, about the CEOs who got very rich while their firms crumbled, putting names and faces to the men operating these firms and making the disastrous executive decisions that are now affecting and destroying the lives of so many people.
Sep 18 2008
The Election Committee of the American Psychological Association announced today that the referendum of APA members, in regards to prohibiting psychologist participation in settings where human rights violations take place, has passed with almost 60% of the vote. The total vote, which took place by mail ballot and closed officially on September 15, exceeded the total number of votes cast in the 2005 and 2007 APA presidential elections, and recent by-law votes. The vote turnout clearly indicates a great deal of interest in the interrogations issue by the membership.
The vote for the referendum represents an important victory for anti-torture, civil liberties forces, both inside and outside the APA. Dan Aalbers, one of the authors of the referendum text, and who along with psychologists Ruth Fallenbaum, Brad Olson, and Ghislaine Boulanger, was one of the members of Psychologists for an Ethical APA who worked hard to secure the measure’s passage, in a phone interview called the vote “a decisive victory…. Now we have to work to ensure that APA bows to the will of its members.”
Sep 18 2008
From Burning the Midnight Oil for a Green Keynesian Revolution (Midnight Thought First Draft posted on Agent Orange)
The thing about the New Deal … it provided a lot of “relief”(1) to a lot of people in desperate shape. But what cured the Great Depression was not the shock absorber of job guarantee programs like the two public works administrations and the Civilian Conservation Corps.
What cured the Great Depression was the massive Keynesian stimulus of World War II. Even before the US got into the war, armaments industries ramped up production in response to domestic re-armament and orders from overseas … including the gimmick of Lend-Lease to make sure that the UK had the money to buy the product of US arms factories.
We can do the exact same thing with the economic disruption that is coming, and if we learn the lessons of the Great Depression, we can do it again … with something far more useful than fighting another World War.
Sep 18 2008
If you’re like me, you grew up watching the classics in reruns on television. Things like this:
Consider this my tribute to the forgotten (and misunderestimated) classic genre. Please feel free to add your own favorites in the comments section of this post.
nota bene: YouTube says they will be doing some maintenance work about an hour after this is set to post. (grumble, grunt, [many expletives deleted]) That probably means these YouTube videos won’t run. [more expletives deleted] I’m very sorry. Here’s hoping that Bugs and Wile E. Coyote et alii can overcome bad juju from the software geeks.
NOTE: This is an Open Thread. Please do not wRECk the Pony Party!
Sep 18 2008
Constitutional Doublecross ©2008 Emily Duffy Photo by Sibila Savage
Dimensions: 58.75″ x 41.25″ x 4.50″.
Description: Paper cross mounted on maroon velvet in gold wood frame.
Materials: Wood, shredded of reproductions the U.S. Constitution and relevant newspaper clippings (woven together), velvet, gold paint, GOP logo, glass beads.
Sep 18 2008
Original article, an exceprt from Lance Selfa’s new book The Democrats: A Critical History via socialistworker.org:
After eight long years of George W. Bush, millions of people are counting the days to the inauguration of a Democratic president. But would a Democrat in the White House and a Democratic Congress deliver on the promise of change that so many people want to see?
Lance Selfa is a SocialistWorker.org columnist and editorial board member of the International Socialist Review. His new book, The Democrats: A Critical History, documents how, time after time, the party that claims to represent ordinary people has betrayed their aspirations of ordinary people while pursuing an agenda favorable to big business.
In this excerpt from the book, Lance examines the era when Franklin Roosevelt’s Democratic Party cemented its alliance with organized labor–with unions as the junior partner.
Sep 18 2008
Today is Constitution Day.
Once upon a time, Superman — arguably America’s most famous and popular superhero — fought “a never-ending battle for truth, justice and the American way”. Back in the 1940s and ’50s, truth and justice were seen as quintessential American values as American as mom, baseball, and apple pie.
But today, the belief that truth and justice is something America values is fading and along with it the United States Supreme Court’s global influence is waning too, reports Adam Liptak of The New York Times.
Since the Second World War, Superman has been fighting for “truth, justice and the American way” and since that end of the war, judges worldwide have been seeking out Supreme Court decisions “for guidance, citing and often following them in hundreds of their own rulings.”
But no more. Fewer foreign courts “seem to pay attention” to the opinions coming from the U.S. Supreme Court.
“One of our great exports used to be constitutional law,” said Anne-Marie Slaughter, the dean of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton. “We are losing one of the greatest bully pulpits we have ever had.”
Why has this happened? The answer largely comes down to conservatism and George W. Bush.