Every seed free, every garden thriving!!

VANDANA SHIVA on SUSTAINABILITY

U.S. No Longer An Actual Democracy- Princeton Study

Princeton Study: U.S. No Longer An Actual Democracy

By Brendan James  April 18, 2014    TPM

A new study from Princeton spells bad news for American democracy—namely, that it no longer exists.

Asking “[w]ho really rules?” researchers Martin Gilens and Benjamin I. Page argue that over the past few decades America’s political system has slowly transformed from a democracy into an oligarchy, where wealthy elites wield most power.

Using data drawn from over 1,800 different policy initiatives from 1981 to 2002, the two conclude that rich, well-connected individuals on the political scene now steer the direction of the country, regardless of or even against the will of the majority of voters.

TPM Interview: Scholar Behind Viral ‘Oligarchy’ Study Tells You What It Means
“The central point that emerges from our research is that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy,” they write, “while mass-based interest groups and average citizens have little or no independent influence.”

As one illustration, Gilens and Page compare the political preferences of Americans at the 50th income percentile to preferences of Americans at the 90th percentile as well as major lobbying or business groups. They find that the government—whether Republican or Democratic—more often follows the preferences of the latter group rather than the first.

The researches note that this is not a new development caused by, say, recent Supreme Court decisions allowing more money in politics, such as Citizens United or this month’s ruling on McCutcheon v. FEC. As the data stretching back to the 1980s suggests, this has been a long term trend, and is therefore harder for most people to perceive, let alone reverse.

“Ordinary citizens,” they write, “might often be observed to ‘win’ (that is, to get their preferred policy outcomes) even if they had no independent effect whatsoever on policy making, if elites (with whom they often agree) actually prevail.”

The American Dream: you have to be asleep to believe it

How the Elite stay in power

and what we can do to change that

 

Tell Congress: no more weapons of war for local police

Sign the petition here to protect Free Speech and De-militarize the Police.

       I suspect even they will appreciate it!

Update:  Police aren’t just using military-issued weapons, they’re LOSING them. Fusion Investigates

Am I Next? America’s Militarized Police Forces

Daily Kos         Demonstrators Aaron Little (R), Gianni Cook (C) and Troy Jones hold signs while protesting against the death of black teenager Michael Brown, outside St Louis County Circuit Clerk building in Clayton, Missouri August 12, 2014.

If the murder in Ferguson, Missouri was an isolated case, it would be tragic enough. But how many Fergusons dot this country of ours? Likely innumerable, and that is an unbearable thought.

One Nation Under SWAT

War Comes Home: The Excessive Militarization of American Policing
11 Eye-Opening Facts About America’s Militarized Police Forces
Police Militarization In Ferguson – Business Insider

Update:  8/17/14

Police Threaten To Shoot, Mace Reporters In Ferguson

Update x2:

Pentagon’s 1033 Program is Preparing for War Against the Civil Population

By Martin Armstrong

This was the design of the military to prepare for civil unrest because the government WILL default on social welfare and social security not to mention confiscating pensions.

 

6 Palestinian youths ‘executed’ in Gaza town- and other atrocities

Israel ‘executed’ 6 Palestinian youths in Gaza town: Witnesses tell Al Jazeera six youths were taken to a bathroom in a house in Khuzaa and were murdered by Israeli forces.

Two Palestinian protesters shot dead in West Bank:  Israeli forces in the West Bank have shot dead two Palestinian men during demonstrations against Israel’s aerial and ground offensive on the Gaza Strip. 

Scientist killed in Israeli shell attack on UN car in Gaza: Dr Bashir al-Hajjar died alongside his younger brother Muneer during the strike in Beer al-Naja in the north of the region. They were travelling in a marked United Nations Relief and Works Agency car when shells landed in front of it and on its bonnet. 

 

Israeli forces ‘open fire at ambulance’ amid clashes near Nablus: –  Israeli forces opened fire at an ambulance as it was bringing injured Palestinians from a site of clashes near Nablus to a nearby hospital, medics told Ma’an. 

 

Gaza – ‘the worst we have ever seen’ says MSF medical adviser:  “There is no safe place inside Gaza right now.”

Gerry Spence: Speaking to Each Other as Slaves

Gerry Spence has been a trial attorney for more than six decades and                         Gerry Spence’s Blog
proudly represents “the little people.” He has fought and won for the family
of Karen Silkwood, defended Randy Weaver at Ruby Ridge, and represented
hundreds of others in some of the most notable trials of our time.

Yes, all of us, the living, are indentured in some form of slavery.  A few slaves are better off than most.  In the slavery of the old South the house slaves lived closest to the master and shared some of his comforts not known to the wretched slaves who labored in the fields.  The field foreman, who were also slaves, wielded whips they laid on the backs of fellow slaves.  But slavery, not poverty, is the universal life-taking force that is suffered by the rich and the poor, by the boss and the CEO  who, as slaves, lay their economic and emotional whips on the backs of the worker slaves.

The master, the corporate power structure, has an insidious, built-in guarantee against reform, one that preserves the master’s perpetual power.  The rich slave exploits the poor slave.  The rich slave often accumulates hundreds, even thousands of times more wealth than the poor slave — usually from the sweat and toil of the poor slave.  To justify his excesses, the rich slave proclaims he has worked harder and is self-made, while the poor slave is said to be irresponsible, lazy or stupid and entitled to what he earns which is often a mere pittance.  By reason of his self interest, the rich slave refuses to recognize and renounce his own slavery and to join the poor slave in a mutual quest for freedom.  Instead, the rich slave will fight for the master, the said corporate power structure, against his poorer brothers and sisters.  But a few rich slaves are beginning to realize that riches do not provide freedom.  Riches create only a different genre of slavery.

You can launch a #whistleblower movement — now

A direct call for whistleblowing is now half a block from the State Department.

“Don’t wait until a new war has started,” says a billboard quoting Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg — “don’t wait until thousands more have died, before you tell the truth with documents that reveal lies or crimes…”

Right now, you can help put that billboard in other key locations, reaching thousands of employees at places like the NSA, Pentagon and CIA every day. To do that, click here.

The Responsibilities of Leadership and Citizenship

 

I posted this on a local community blog- but the community could be yours, anywhere USA. It’s time to stand up, folks!

Claudia Woodward-Rice  May 30, 2014

The issue of leadership has come up on the Harbor again and again lately. While the people struggle to inform themselves about possible impacts from Crude-by-Rail, and a proposed change of GH Community Hospital structure from non-profit to public- we find that elected leaders (and some hoping to be elected) are uninformed and un-informing.

• Why did Port Commissioners rubber-stamp Crude-by-Rail?

• Why didn’t our state senators and representatives bring the hospital issue to our attention two years ago?

We elect people and pay them to do some of the jobs we don’t have time to do ourselves: fully research issues, and report their findings honestly; and engage public awareness about decisions that need to be made in a timely manner so there is no rush to judgment. At least that is what we should be able to expect from our elected officials.

Too often “leaders” don’t do their homework, and wait until issues are full-blown before they choose a position. Or they choose to ride the coattails of Corporate honchos even when this is detrimental to the communities they represent. This go-along-to-get-along attitude is the norm, but Grays Harbor can no longer afford it.

Citizens have responsibilities too. We elect leaders and sometimes we need to ask why more good people don’t run? We need to hold those in office accountable, and consider replacing them with the community-minded who would truly represent us. We need to go to city and county meetings, engage our neighbors and participate. The sacrifices made over the generations so we can be free citizens should not be taken lightly. They need to be paid for with our active participation: It really is Use-it-or-Lose-it.

Complacency and apathy are signs of defeat. But there is a new energy on the Harbor, people are meeting, researching, speaking out. Those who might not normally travel in the same circles are sharing information and finding common ground. We live here: it is up to us to make the decisions that affect our lives and community.

We don’t have to sit and wait for the powers-that-be to decide the conditions of our lives. Let’s take it into our own hands and be Democracy on the Harbor. It’s the path to success and it comes with a spirit of joy that might amaze you.

Claudia Woodward-Rice lives in Central Park outside of Aberdeen, WA.