Dave Johnson - Bill Clinton's Unreality -- Tinkering With Unpassable Ideas, when Transformation is What We Need

By Dave Johnson, AlterNet

Posted on November 27, 2011, Printed on November 28, 2011
http://www.alternet.org/story/153191/bill_clinton%27s_unreality%3A_tinkering_with_unpassable_ideas%2C_when_transformation_is_what_we_need

Former President Bill Clinton’s new book, Back to Work: Why We Need Smart Government for a Strong Economy, is a book for policy wonks and politics junkies. Progressives will love his defense of government. They will be outraged by his buying in to conservative/Wall Street arguments about Social Security. We will roll our eyes at the long, detailed, brilliant arguments for and against a wide range of policy ideas. We will hate his support of trade agreements without mentioning what they have done to manufacturing jobs. And we will be sad that this book didn’t come out just a month later, so you could see if the Occupy movement changes the way he sees things. 

This book is timely and full of good ideas for helping grow the economy and create jobs. But its timeliness is also disappointing, because our political system is so dysfunctional that none of these ideas will be implemented. And while the ideas are good, they are also incremental just when we are coming to see the need for transformation. 

Right Time, Wrong Time 

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Andrew Bosworth - The Road towards a Police State in America

Defense Authorization bill allows for military detentions of American citizens in the US.

By Dr. Andrew Bosworth 

Global Research, November 28, 2011

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=27907

Preparing for the Final Takedown?

There is a shocking piece of legislation working its way through Congress. A Defense Authorization bill for 2012 allows for military detentions of American citizens on American soil. These can be indefinite detentions, with no trial.

The American Civil Liberties Union statement (more of an alert) on November 23, 2011 deserves special attention:

“The U.S. Senate is considering the unthinkable: changing detention laws to imprison people — including Americans living in the United States itself — indefinitely and without charge.”

“The Defense Authorization bill — a “must-pass” piece of legislation — is headed to the Senate floor with troubling provisions that would give the President — and all future presidents — the authority to indefinitely imprison people, without charge or trial, both abroad and inside the United States.”

“If enacted, sections 1031 and 1032 of the NDAA would:

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Washington's Blog - Congress to Vote on EXPLICITLY Creating a Police State

By Washington's Blog

November 27, 2011

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=27886

If You Thought Police Brutality Was Bad … Wait Until You See What Congress Wants to Do Next Week The police brutality against peaceful protesters in Berkeley, Davis, Oakland and elsewhere is bad enough. But next week, Congress will vote on explicitly creating a police state. The ACLU’s Washington legislative office explains: The Senate is gearing up for a vote on Monday or Tuesday that goes to the very heart of who we are as Americans. The Senate will be voting on a bill that will direct American military resources not at an enemy shooting at our military in a war zone, but at American citizens and other civilians far from any battlefield — even people in the United States itself. *** The Senate is going to vote on whether Congress will give this president—and every future president — the power to order the military to pick up and imprison without charge or trial civilians anywhere in the world.

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Nicholas Confessore - Policy-Making Billionaires Privatizing Public Policy

 http://www.truth-out.org/policy-making-billionaires-privatizing-public-policy/1322410134

Saturday 26 November 2011

by: Nicholas Confessore, The New York Times News Service

Over the past 30 years, as the gap between wealthy and poor grew ever wider, total philanthropic giving almost tripled, according to annual estimates published by the Giving USA Foundation and the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University. In an age of widening partisanship and plummeting trust in government, this outpouring of philanthropy has produced a distinct breed of philanthropist: The policy-making billionaire.

Bill Gates, the Microsoft co-founder, has invested more than $13 billion in public health initiatives around the world through his foundation. William E. Conway Jr., a founder of the Carlyle Group investment company, is planning to give away $1 billion of his personal fortune, and is said to be considering how his money can aid in financing major infrastructure projects.

“What’s going on at a broader level is a sense of, ‘Hey, we can be much more effective and efficient than government in doing things,’ ” said Leslie Lenkowsky, a professor of philanthropic studies and public affairs at Indiana. “And it’s become more pervasive in recent years.”

In keeping with the anti-government spirit of the times, the new philanthropists — some with roots in the loosely libertarian milieu of Silicon Valley or Wall Street — share a disdain for established politics and an impatience with the slow churn of old-fashioned policy making. Last month, the Starbucks executive Howard Schultz, whose net worth approaches $750 million, proposed using Starbucks’ corporate foundation and customer donations to create an economic development and job training program for the unemployed, one that he hopes can generate tens of millions of dollars in loans to small business.

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