The Movie ELA

With 50 million Mexicans Americans in the US; I want to produce a movie about the way it was in East Los Angeles in the 1960s. The football games Roosevelt vs. Garfield. Bring back the oldies, the cruising, the Imperials Car Club, and other car clubs from that time. The storyline will be the tragic auto accident of Alex and Lil Mike in August 1968 on Pacific Coast Hwy. The Beach Party was held by the Imperial’s Car Club in Huntington Beach. Alex was a Lincoln High Student leaving the beach party with his girlfriend Cathy. Lil Mike was coming to the beach party with his girl friend Vivian who was a Roosevelt High student; Both Alex and Vivian died as result of the accident. Cathy suffered brain damage, and Lil Mike spent 4 months in the accident. They were both just 17 years old.

PS. I need financing for this project; can you give me some suggestions. Or call me at: 760-540-8864

Thank You,

Armando Olmos

What Is Europe’s Problem?

February 9, 2012 in Uncategorized by Anarchadia

‎” It starts with “thou shall not kill”, then it is “thou shall not kill your neighbor”, then  ”thou shall not kill if that person has lots of money and resources to corrupt you”… and it finishes with, “God is with us, we can go and invade Iraq!”
– Christophe Alévêque

Many of us are too busy putting up with new false ideologies, Mass Media Disinformation, as well as our own lives, to be able to discern real information from that which is false. There is also the National versus Global “problem” (Countries don’t necessarily share the same News, even though they all belong to the same companies, through advertising and financing), which technically censors non-corporate mass communication and still divides the World, between Mass Monetarism and Non-Monetarism (I assure you, it even divides China). It’s all much more subtle now, because obviously the criminals of today, have had a lot of homework to study up on… and so do we!

Europe is being divided just as America, Russia, China, and mostly every other Developed Country in the World; except in America we are one of the least educated Countries in the World, so truth easily wears thin, and debilitates public opinion to the point of supporting the most phony crooks this World has ever set eyes on. Some say Fascism regained its power when Allen Dulles (a Nazi Supporter) assassinated Kennedy, after getting fired by Kennedy. Dulles surprisingly got his job back after Kennedy was killed, was on the Commission which investigated Kennedy, and helped start the career of George W. Bush. Others will argue that Fascism never left America, since the early days of Henry Ford (a nazi supporter). I personally think that Fascism is just a tool of all Oligarchs, whether they be Monarchs or the very rich hiding behind their Corporations, Trademarks, and Monetary Opportunists. Monarchies and Corporations function the same way… they are trademarks, backed by Capital Interest. When the English people speak about their Monarchy, they glorify it as an “amazing” trademark, which is good for stability… give me a break! They are just as amazing as Nike, who exploited enslaved children for 0.30 cents a pair of shoes, to then tell the World how much money they were making. “Amazing”!

The British Monarchy as well as the Austrian Monarchy were Fascist at some point, and some of them fully supported the Nazis. Edward VIII had to abdicated because he was a strong public supporter of Hitler. But nothing was said about George VI, and his personal ideologies. We can give them the benefit of believing in their personalized stochastic versions of History, or we can maybe imagine that the U.K Monarchy had to turn against Fascism. Fascism was unpopular in the U.K as well as the U.S (maybe because the money making War Profit Machine had already started). Hitler never bombed the British Monarchy, he said it was just to scare the Monarchs, but Fascism would have been advantageous to the already rottingly corrupt Monarchy, its Aristocracy and Bourgeoisie (remember Charles Dickens?).

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Maybe this sudden change in Monarchs, had more to do with the “Business plan” in America which failed in 1933, and gave force to the War Loving FDR. The U.K knew that if America ever went to War against UK Monarchist Fascism (as was the Spanish Monarchy, backed by the Vatican, and Italian Government), the Monarchy would be obliterated by historical American sentiment against the U.K Crown. Strong feelings die hard. MI6 and the CIA might state a different story, but we all know who MI6 works for, as well as the CIA: Corporate Interest (not for the little guys and girls).

So in all this there is a trend, and even if we cannot prove it through judicial paper work (since America invented the paper shredder), maybe we can at least admit that the wealthy have been systemically greedy, as some public schools used to teach our kids (with Buddha, Robin Hood and Charles Dickens… the big movie studios are even going to capitalize on Dickens again, as did Sir. Charles for this year’s Charles Dickens anniversary).

Just keep in mind that Fascism resurfaced right after WWII, with the CIA backing Right-Wing Movements, while discrediting those on the Left (Hitler had done the exact same thing, when he won the elections of 1933). Here specialists will iterate the Communist Threat, except that Hitler was just as much against Communism as America was before/after World War II. What is the primordial difference between Fascism and Communism? None. Both were populist fronts used to sell weapons and make War. These Governments might have supported a few good ideas we can learn from, but they were just as murderous and opportunistic when it came to money as the Fascists were. In principle, Socialism/Christianity was for equality, and against monetary inequality, while Fascism is very much like Anarcho-Capitalism aspires to be today (the rich do as they please, which has been the case of Socialist Governments as well as Christian Institutions, the same can be said about Islam or any other Religion; they were all corrupted at some point or another by Capitalism).

Propaganda Due which existed from 1945-1976 helped Italy’s Right Wing pulverize the Left from 1976 to 1981, Propaganda Due implicates three international celebrities: Berlusconi, Sarcozy (who was his Lawyer), and Putin, who just like George Bush, must have been CIA assets, or at least on the same side (that of Fascism ever since Dulles, and maybe even before). The CIA also backed Right-Wing Coups with the Hollywood style Italian Elections of 1948.

Anyway let us skip forward to today. What do Merkel, Sarcozy, Berlusconi, Obama, George Bush, Margaret Thatcher, Reagan, etc… all share in common? They support the Right Wing, and are simply Centrist Populist Opportunists, who work for the Corporations, who in turn, work for the very rich (who puppeteer us all, it is the case of saying it, just look how old the British Monarchy’s Family Lineage is, these folks had to lie out of their asses ). Never forget that the Austrian Monarchy taught the U.K Monarchy not to go too far in the age of popular votes. The U.K Fascists had learned from their Ancestors mistakes, and were in full throttle to export it to America.

Angela Merkel and Sarcozy have been floating around together these last few months, on televisions saying the same thing: “More Austerity, cut public sector jobs”. They state that they are even ready to kick out Greece and Portugal from the E.U because of their own Fascism. And if anyone criticizes them, they say they are being affronted by the threats of Nationalist/Fascists. Maybe on TV those repeated lies work, but not near any critical-thinking minority (not all people have the time to identify when they are being lead into Fascism, no matter how rich and innocent they are, because Fascists talked about the poor all of the time, only to tax them more like they want to do on us today), enslave them, kill, ex-propriate and famish others. You know the drill! Its a natural recurrence in man, its Fascism!

Therefore when these Countries talk about Greece and Portugal’s debt (behind their backs on Mainstream Corporate Networks), the Fascists want to kick out Countries who refuse to remove more of their Public Sector. They always have wanted to replace Public Services with privatization and Big Chain Hotels, which will impoverish them. America used those policies these past 40 years and look at use we are the most indebted Countri in the World). While the E.U is ready to allow Countries like Croatia (which is an expensive tourist trap compared to Greece), into its Fascist Union. The European Bank is Centralized just like the FED, and even if these Unions broke up, it would actually make prices cheaper, while expanding the Black and Grey Market profits for those who can invest in them. It is common knowledge that those who invest in War get very rich.

And to conclude this rather long debacle I would like to speak of my opinion about France, since many Countries in Europe, Eurasia, South America, and Africa are facing the same threat:

The only reason Sarcozy is even credited as a good candidate, is because his only “real” competition is the Fascist Party itself. Same in Russia against Putin, America with Rand Paul/Ron Paul (currently Obama but he doesn’t have the popular support anymore), and et cetera. Anarchists all over the World are censored, even for what they have to say. Simply because true Anarchism in not for profit, it is a revolutionary evolution within the psyche of man, and has been around for thousands of years… which is a very different image from what most History books state. Anarchists are simply minorities who speak out not behind an ideology, but against oppression they themselves felt. Most Anarchists are pacifists, and are much more patient and peaceful than any of your Government Leaders or their Bankers. Truth is not that difficult to find, unless you have Julius Caesar types who think they can redominate this World, with “divide and conquer”. Divide and conquer works, but it needs War to kill competition, or else it is quickly attacked as a deceitful lie. And people in this World are sick and tired of seeing people dying and hungry, just so that a few assholes can take the credit for everything their billions of slaves have made.

‎” Religion is like any elite. You have the pope, who declares something. The Apostles listen and go out repeating the declaration of the pope, which they memorized. Then you have what is called the people of the church, who interpret what the Apostles told them, but still it is always memorized. Finally you have the “believers” (who ironically believe not what they have to say, but what they themselves memorized, courtesy of the church), who go out and indoctrinate people who have no means to think, like most of us (only because we are worked so much we are stupid and lower class, and must have nothing better to do). So then these stupid people are convinced that it is wise to repeat what they heard from “believers”. Those same “believers”, who had memorized what the Apostles said, who in turn had to memorize what the Pope declared. ”
– Christophe Alévêque

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What Is Europe’s Problem?.

(1) New High-Speed Rail Plan Runs Over Prop. 1A Mandates | Digg Politics

April 2, 2012 By Katy Grimes As California politicians show more desperation to build any part of the California High-Speed Rail system in order to get their hands on $3.5 billion in federal stimulus money, the plan is looking more like a whack-a-mole game. But every hole that is plugged, every detail that is softened or tweaked, and every cost estimate that is changed causes a bigger problem. The cover-up is worse than the original crime. It is important to remember that high-speed rail is not really about achieving sexy world-class transportation for the purpose of serious people moving. It’s just a pipeline project for grabbing big money. Because of the illegitimacy of the project’s intent, the mole could be permanently whacked, and leave California taxpayers holding the bill. The most recent miracle cure was yesterday’s announcement of the newest revised business plan, in which the cost  of the project will be reduced to $68 billion from $98.6 billion by expanding the 130-mile line from Fresno to Bakersfield, to Merced to San Fernando Valley, for a 300-mile segment. But there is quiet talk about electrifying only some of the track, and using pre-existing Amtrack rails. “Instead of building costly new raised viaducts and underground tunnels, the high-speed trains would run where possible on existing lines, such as Caltrain’s Peninsula infrastructure,” the San Francisco Examiner reported. But existing track cannot accommodate the 200 mph. The new business plan makes this just a train, not high-speed rail as was required by Proposition 1A, the 2008 ballot initiative authorizing the train. Houston, we have a mandate With politicians and High-Speed Rail Authority officials working all last year to smooth over the complex and conflicting details of the bulging $98 billion High-Speed Rail plan, oddly enough, they’ve created an even larger problem than the growing dissent by the voters. They are now violating important mandates in the 2008 law. Proposition 1A, $9 billion in bonds for high-speed rail, included numerous mandates, none of which can be legally bypassed on the way to building the massive train system. Top on the list is that the rail system must be high-speed. “Electric trains that are capable of sustained maximum revenue operating speeds of no less than 200 miles per hour,” the law states. However, much of the first segment between Fresno and Bakersfield is not high-speed; nor will high-speed be attainable in dense cities. Rail Authority Chairman Dan Richard recently said at a legislative hearing that the Rail Authority “never intended, our business plan does not contemplate, that we would operate a high-speed rail system only in the Central Valley.” Mandates But his statement runs counter to Proposition 1A: * Prop. 1A stipulates 11 requirements that must be met before funds can be released for the construction of a “corridor” or “usable segment.”  Specifically, some of these requirements include actual high-speed train service, ridership, revenue projections and planned passenger service. * “The high-speed train system shall be planned and constructed in a manner that minimizes urban sprawl and impacts on the natural environment,” the law states. But the impact of the rail system may actually create suburban communities around train stations within reasonable distances from urban areas and higher employment areas. The train system will also dissect both urban and rural communities which will be problematic, as well as a serious violation of the “natural environment.” The trains will travel through densely populated cities, but also through sensitive agricultural and natural areas in the state. * The success of any legitimate transportation system must be based on connectivity. “For each corridor described in subdivision (b), passengers shall have the capability of traveling from any station on that corridor to any other station on that corridor without being required to change trains,” the law states. “Stations shall be located in areas with good access to local mass transit or other modes of transportation.”  This means that unless there are extensive connecting rail systems already in place in the high-speed rail destinations, cab companies, limo services and car rental companies should be lining up to rent space in the train stations. Commuters will not have the necessary train and bus systems to transfer to with the existing plan. * The California High-Speed Rail Authority must have all of the the funding ahead of time, before any construction starts on a new segment. * The high-speed train system must operate on its own entirely, and in the black. That means operating profitably, and includes caveats of no government subsidy. The plan relies heavily on a projection of 100 million users by 2030, a notion that was created with manipulated data, and is absurd. Assemblywoman Diane Harkey, R-Dana Point, has railed consistently against the implementation of the plan. Even though voters were deceived by the ballot summary and language, Harkey has said that the entire project is lacking in private, public and debt funding to complete even the most minor operating segment. In addition, Harkey has said the mandatory Environmental Impact Report for the system is not complete. Yet the law calls for certified EIR’s for each segment of the system. California already is running endemic budget deficits. Yet Gov. Jerry Brown is pushing for additional and higher taxes. State officials have been ignoring the state’s infrastructure needs and massive maintenance and repair. Fortunately, voters are now suspicious about the rail system they approved in 2008. With all of this information available, who or what keeps pushing for the already bankrupt rail system to begin construction? Follow the money  One need not look any further than the utility bills that come in the mail. Pacific Gas &Electric and Southern California Edison will be providing the electricity for high-speed rail, with estimates of additional demands for electricity already coming in at 1 percent to 5 percent of the state’s total energy usage, according to a Capitol staffer who asked to remain anonymous. “Even Cal ISO doesn’t have any estimates for the cost,” the staffer said. “High-speed rail has got to consume a great deal of power. Where will the power come from?” Surprisingly, the California Independent System Operator  has no estimates for energy usage about high-speed rail on its website, as would be expected given the size and scope of the project. But according to a July 2011 energy usage analysis prepared for the California High-Speed Rail Program Management Team, total electricity usage for the proposed rail system would be “8.32 million kilowatt-hours (kWh) per day,” and more than 3 billion kWh per year. The average three-person household in California is about 6,000 kWh per year, or a little more than 2,000 KWh per person. According to the California Public Utilities Commission, electricity customers in the state paid an average rate of about 15.2 cents per kWh. At 15.2 cents per kWh, the total utility bill for high-speed rail would be nearly $1.26 million per day, and more than $460 million per year. And that’s probably a very conservative estimate. Show me the money Along with every imaginable labor union in the state, a report from “Follow the Money” shows that PG&E spent $20,000 in support of Prop. 1A in 2008. Both PG&E and SCE also have given large campaign contributions to Gov. Jerry Brown, who actively campaigned on the high-speed rail issue when he ran for governor in 2010. Brown received $31,580 from PG&E during his gubernatorial campaign, and $25,000 from SCE. While those investments seem relatively small for a $460 million per year payout, how many clients of PG&E and SCE currently use up to 5 percent of the state’s total electricity? And who could forget the other big PG&E connection? Brown recently appointed High-Speed Rail Authority Chairman Dan Richard, a former senior vice president of public policy and governmental relations at PG&E. Where will the power come from? With California’s climate-change mantra of “no dirty coal,” “no natural gas,” no hydroelectricity” and “no nuclear power,” many wonder if the high-speed trains will be powered by windmills, solar panels and algae. Remember that California passed the climate change law, AB 32, in 2006, and the Renewable Portfolio Standards mandate in 2011. Both greatly restrict energy usage, and force energy producers to get 33 percent of their electricity from renewable resources. There isn’t enough wind, sun or algae in the Western Hemisphere to power a 200mph train up and down the state. With the state taking the Klamath hydroelectric dam offline, cutting coal reliance, refusing to reinvest in nuclear power and essentially creating an energy shortage, when California has another inevitable blackout, what will be powered — our homes, or the high-speed train? Hospitals, or the high-speed train? Schools, or the high-speed train? Businesses, or the high-speed train? The Legislature is creating a massive energy problem in California, and refusing to do anything about it. But maybe, just maybe, the law will rescue the voters this time. Tags: AB 32, budget deficit, California, California budget, California Legislature, Democrats, global warming, government, high-speed rail, High-Speed Rail Authority, Jerry Brown, jobs, Katy Grimes, pensions, President Obama, Prop. 23, Public Employee Unions, regulations, Republicans, Sacramento, tax increases, Taxes, unemployment, unions, waste Support CalWatchdog with a donation Comments(5) Back to Investigation

Investigation Archive Archive By Categories Budget and Finance Education Infrastructure Inside Government Politics and Elections Regulations Rights and Liberties Waste, Fraud and Abuse Archives by Month April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009

 

 

 

(1) New High-Speed Rail Plan Runs Over Prop. 1A Mandates | Digg Politics.

How to Fix Health Care Without the Mandate: Put Single-Payer On the Table by Sarah van Gelder

What happens if the Supreme Court strikes down the “individual mandate” in the health care reform law?

Commentators ranging from former Labor Secretary Robert Reich to Forbes Magazine columnist Rick Ungar agree: Such a decision could open the door to single-payer health care—perhaps even make it inevitable.

We don’t need to assume that our health care policy must be designed to maintain the health-industrial complex.

This may be the best news about health care in years. Because ever since Republicans convinced the Obama administration to drop the “public option” in the Affordable Care Act, health reform has been in trouble. True, most Americans favor many of the provisions of Affordable Care Act. But the overall plan rests on forcing you and me to buy insurance from the same companies that have been driving up the costs of health care all along—the same companies that have been finding creative ways to avoid covering needed care, shifting costs on to patients, and endlessly increasing premiums and out-of-pocket expenses for all of us.

Forcing all Americans into a failed system is bad policy, and it’s not just President Obama’s opponents who say so.

What the Doctors Ordered

When the Supreme Court agreed to hear a challenge to the Affordable Care Act brought by 26 state attorneys general, one of the supporting briefs came from an unexpected source—a group of 50 doctors who believe that single-payer health care is the way to cover everyone and contain costs. As a model for a revamped health care system, they point to Medicare, which covers millions of seniors while devoting just 2 percent of expenditures to overhead (compared to as much as 16 percent for private insurers).

In spite of all the fear about government involvement in health care, Medicare is enormously popular; in a recent poll, two-thirds of Americans oppose changing Medicare to something more like private insurance. In the Medicare model, as in Canada’s single-payer system, health care providers are in private practice, but the government acts as insurer, covering everyone. The money for the program comes from payroll taxes.

This model is just one of a variety of ways that industrialized countries provide universal coverage; only the United States does not yet offer universal coverage at all, and the impact of our fragmented, privatized approach ripples throughout the economy and into the lives of families that face bankruptcy and exclusion from needed treatment.

While we in the United States spend far more on health care, per person, than any other nation, we’re way behind other wealthy countries when it comes to our actual health. The residents of 25 other countries—all of which spend less on health care than we do—can expect to live longer, on average, than U.S. residents. In a recent study of 19 industrialized countries, the United States came in last when it came to averting preventable death. Researchers say that amounts to more than a 100,000 avoidable deaths each year.

We devote 15 percent of our economy (by GDP) to paying for health care (or $6,402 per person each year), and still leave millions without coverage. In contrast, the French spend 11 percent of GDP on health care (or $3,374 per person) and cover everyone; the French live two years longer, on average, than Americans, and have better health by all key measures.

Follow the Money

If we’re spending so much for poor results, where is all the extra money going? Private, for-profit health insurance companies spend big on overhead: covering the paperwork and arguments about who will cover what, finding ways to avoid covering people who might require costly services, disputing charges from health care providers. They spend money on marketing and on lobbying Congress, federal regulators, and state lawmakers. They pay dividends to shareholders and they pay executives six- or seven-figure compensation packages. No wonder premiums keep rising.

None of these costs are incurred by Medicare or other national insurance programs.

Asking each of us to choose among competing plans is like playing against the house in a casino—it might seem as though you’re getting choices among slot machines, but really, the odds are stacked against you.

Some argue that patients are better off with competing insurance companies because that gives them a choice. Perhaps this is true of a patient who spends many hours required to read the small print in competing insurance plans, producing spreadsheets to track the multiple variables, guessing what sort of coverage they and their family will need in years to come, and hoping that they made the right choice when an unexpected accident or illness means their life depends on the bet they made. On the other side, insurance companies have battalions of lawyers and adjusters making bets about coverage, co-pays, and deductibles—coming up with ways to cover less.

Asking each of us to choose among competing plans is like playing against the house in a casino—it might seem as though you’re getting choices among slot machines, but really, the odds are stacked against you whatever choice you make.

Where choice really matters to most people is in choosing health care providers. In France, where public financing of health care is the rule, patients actually have more choices among doctors than do Americans, who must choose among health care providers preferred by their insurance company.

So the doctors who are calling on the Supreme Court to strike down the individual mandate are on to something. Instead of locking us in even more tightly to an inefficient private insurance system, which has built-in incentives to take more of our money and do less for us, they argue we should switch gears. We’re spending $200 billion more per year than we would need to under a single-payer system, they say. We pay more out-of-pocket than other countries, and the Obama Affordable Care Act wouldn’t fix that.

What do Americans Want?

In poll after poll, a majority of Americans have expressed support for single-payer health care or national health insurance. This is true in spite of the near media blackout on this topic, and the failure of most national politicians to even consider single-payer as an option (the Obama administration and Democratic leadership in Congress excluded single-payer advocates from the key summits and hearings leading up to the passage of the health care bill).

In Massachusetts, which has had time to try out policies very similar to those in the Affordable Care Act, over 5 percent of the population remains uninsured. And, according to the doctors’ brief, local initiatives calling for single-payer health care passed by wide majorities in all the Massachusetts districts where they were on the ballot.

Vermont has adopted a single-payer health care plan, and the California Assembly twice passed single-payer, only to have it vetoed by the governor.

Single-payer health care, in short, is far more popular than the political establishment likes to admit—while requiring individuals to purchase health coverage from private insurance companies is wildly unpopular across the political spectrum. According to a recent poll, only a third of Americans favor the individual mandate, but 70 percent favor expanding the existing Medicaid program to cover more low-income, uninsured adults.

Here’s something to ask yourself: If you’re on Medicare now, would you give it up to move to a private insurance plan? If you’re not now covered and you could sign up for Medicare today, would you?

Medicare for All

That contrast offers a good starting point. We don’t need to assume that our health care policy must be designed to maintain the health-industrial complex and their lobbyists in the manner to which they have become accustomed. Instead, we can expand Medicare to cover more and more age groups, until everyone is covered. We could all then have access to a program that keeps overhead low, is wildly popular among its clients, and is similar to programs in Europe, Canada, Japan, and elsewhere that have excellent records of cost containment, universal coverage, and great health outcomes.

So what happens if the Supreme Court overturns the individual mandate or—as now seems possible—rejects the entire package? Such a move could turn out to be a great boon to those who doubt the wisdom of relying on private, profit-focused insurance companies to cover us when we get sick. It could offer us the opportunity to get the sort of proven universal coverage we can count on.

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Sarah van Gelder wrote this article for YES! Magazine, a national, nonproifit media organization that fuses powerful ideas with practical actions. Sarah is co-founder and executive editor of YES!.

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Reader Comments

Universal Health Care

Posted by Dilys Collier at Apr 06, 2012 08:14 PM

We Canadians love it even if it isn’t perfect. USA Republicans seem to consider Canadians “socialists.” We aren’t; our country is still run on a capitalist economic system (unfortunately). Socialism is an entirely different economic system. That’s not us. Our geographical circumstances determine our culture. During our extreme Canadian temperatures, we literally can live or die depending on whether we co-operate with one another. We don’t believe in leaving an injured Samaritan on the side of the road and passing by on the other side. Instead, we believe in offering assistance to everyone (regardless of colour, gender, or religion) by ensuring basic available health care to all.

 

 

 

 

How to Fix Health Care Without the Mandate: Put Single-Payer On the Table by Sarah van Gelder.

3 Corporate Myths that Threaten the Wealth of the Nation | | Digg Mynews

April 5, 2012  |

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Corporations are not working for the 99%. But this wasn’t always the case. In a special 5-part AlterNet series, William Lazonick, professor at UMass, president of the Academic-Industry Research Network, and one of the leading expert on the American corporation, along with journalist Ken Jacobson and AlterNet’s Lynn Parramore, will examine the foundations, history, and purpose of the corporation to answer this vital question: How can the public take control of the business corporation and make it work for the real economy?

The wealth of the American nation depends on the productive power of our major business corporations. In 2008 there were 981 companies in the United States with 10,000 or more employees. Although they were less than two percent of all U.S. firms, they employed 27 percent of the labor force and accounted for 31 percent of all payrolls. Literally millions of smaller businesses depend, directly or indirectly, on the productivity of these big businesses and the disposable incomes of their employees.

When the executives who control big-business investment decisions place a high priority on innovation and job creation, then we all have a chance for a prosperous tomorrow. Unfortunately, over the past few decades, the top executives of our major corporations have turned the productive power of the people into massive and concentrated financial wealth for themselves. Indeed the very emergence of “the 1%” is largely the result of this usurpation of corporate power. And executives’ use of this power to benefit themselves often undermines investment in innovation and job creation.

These corporations do not belong to them. They belong to us. We need to confront some powerful myths of corporate governance as part of a movement to make corporations work for the 99%. To start, we have to recognize these corporations for what they are not.

• They are not “private enterprise.”

• They should not be run to “maximize shareholder value.”

• The mega-millions in remuneration paid to top corporate executives are not determined by the “market forces” of supply and demand.

Let’s take a closer look at each of these myths.

1. Public corporations are not private enterprise.

Here’s something you’ll rarely hear stated by today’s politicians and pundits: Publicly listed and traded corporations are not private enterprise. As documented by the pre-eminent business historian Alfred D. Chandler, Jr., in a book aptly called The Visible Hand, about 100 years ago the managerial revolution in American business placed salaried managers in charge of running the nation’s largest and most productive business corporations.

This was a peaceful revolution in which a generation of owner-entrepreneurs who had founded these companies some decades earlier used initial public offerings on the New York Stock Exchange to sell their ownership stakes to the public, leaving decision-making power in the hands of salaried managers. In effect, these corporate employees, and the boards of directors whom they selected, became trustees of the immense productive power that these corporations had accumulated.

Even when founders of companies that evolve into major public corporations become their CEOs, they generally occupy the top positions as corporate employees, not owners. For example, when the late Steve Jobs returned to Apple Computer in 1997, 11 years after being denied the CEO position of the company he had founded, his ascent to the top position was as a manager, not on owner. When a company founder like Larry Page of Google gives up private ownership by publicly selling shares, he may become CEO of the new corporation, but he is occupying this position as a hired hand, not as a private entrepreneur.

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Newsweek/Daily Beast Poll Finds Majorities of Americans Think Country Divided by Race – The Daily Beast

Majorities of both whites (72%) and blacks (89%) believe the country is divided by race, the poll finds. But twice as many blacks (40%) as whites (20%) say it is very divided. And just 19 percent of whites say that racism is a big problem in America, vs. 60 percent of blacks.

Meanwhile, the killing of 17-year old Trayvon Martin has further polarized America along racial lines, the Newsweek/Daily Beast Poll finds. In the survey, whites are divided over whether they think Martin’s death was racially motivated. Thirty-five percent of whites say Martin’s death was racially motivated, while 30 percent say Zimmerman acted in self-defense and 35 percent are not sure. African-Americans, however, are convinced it was racially motivated (80% vs. 2%).

Whites also are divided on the question of whether Martin was targeted because he was a young black man–41 percent say yes, while 34 percent say no and 21 percent are not sure. Blacks are convinced he was targeted because he was a young black man (85% vs. 4%).

There also is a significant split over President Obama’s handling of the Trayvon Martin controversy—with a majority (52%) of whites saying they disapprove of the way he has handled the shooting while only 38 percent approve.

Blacks say the opposite—with near unanimous (87% vs. 5%) approval for the president’s handling of the shooting.

Nearly four years after the election of the nation’s first African-American president, majorities of both whites and African Americans surveyed say that race relations in the country have either stayed the same or gotten worse. Sixty-three percent of whites and 58 percent of African-Americans say race relations have either stayed the same or worsened—while only 28 percent of whites and 38 percent of African-Americans say they have gotten better.

Similarly, on the question of how Obama has handled race relations since he became president, whites disapprove (47% vs. 41%) while blacks are overwhelmingly positive (84% vs. 8%).

And when asked whether or not Obama has been helpful or not in bridging the racial divide in the country, whites say not helpful (51%) while blacks say helpful (69%).

The Newsweek/Daily Beast Poll found that both whites and blacks agree that racial stereotyping still occurs in American society today and majorities of both whites (72%) and blacks (89%) say America is divided on the basis of race.

But blacks and whites have fundamentally different perspectives when it comes to frequency, severity, and longevity of racial discrimination blacks face.

Whites and blacks disagree–and disagree fundamentally when it comes to when—blacks will achieve racial equality with whites. While a clear majority of whites (65%) say that blacks have achieved or will soon achieve racial equality, blacks are much less optimistic about the state of black progress. Only 16 percent of blacks say they have already achieved racial equality and nearly half of blacks (47%) say that they will not achieve racial equality in their lifetime or will never achieve racial equality.

African Americans were particularly sensitive to the economic downturn and were much more likely than whites to say that the prolonged recession contributed significantly to more discrimination in employment and housing.  Sixty-five percent of African-Americans surveyed said that the current economic situation today has played a role in promotion racial discrimination, compared to just 42% of whites.

And while 70 percent of whites think that blacks in America have the same chance as whites to get housing they can afford, only 35 percent of blacks agree.

Similarly, 70 percent of whites think blacks in America today have as good a chance as whites to get a job for which they’re qualified—a view shared by only a quarter of blacks.

And while virtually all whites (92%) and blacks (95%) agree that racial profiling occurs at least some of the time, the two groups diverge over whether profiling happens all of the time—a solid 63 percent of blacks say yes while less than one-quarter of whites agree.

Both whites and blacks agree that it is the responsibility of the federal government to make sure that the courts and the police treat minorities and whites equally. But the two groups disagree fundamentally over whether it is ever justified for police to take factors such as race ethnicity and overall appearance into consideration when making an arrest. A majority (56%) of whites say that it is at least sometimes justified for police to use factors such as race, ethnicity, and overall appearance–a view shared by only 28% of blacks.

Nearly six times as many African-Americans as whites (29% vs. 5%) say they have been unfairly stopped by the police because of their race or ethnicity all or some of the time.

When asked whether the police and courts treat blacks the same as they treat whites in America today, 82 percent of whites say that police treat blacks the same as whites all or some of the time, and 86 percent say the same of the courts.  A majority of blacks however, say that blacks are rarely or never treated equally by the police (53%) or the courts (52%).

The Newsweek/Daily Beast Poll was conducted by telephone between March 30 and April 1 from a random sample of 600 registered voters and a separate oversample of 400 registered African-American voters. The margin of error for the first group is plus or minus 4 percent while the margin of error for the second group is plus or minus 4.9 percent.

 

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Douglas Schoen is a political strategist and coauthor of the book Mad as Hell: How the Tea Party Movement is Fundamentally Remaking Our Two-Party System. Schoen has worked on numerous campaigns, including those of Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Michael Bloomberg, Evan Bayh, Tony Blair, and Ed Koch.

For inquiries, please contact The Daily Beast at editorial@thedailybeast.com.

 

 

 

 

Newsweek/Daily Beast Poll Finds Majorities of Americans Think Country Divided by Race – The Daily Beast.

Video Shows No Blood, Bruises on Zimmerman – No apparent physical signs to back up his beating story

(Newser) – Despite reporting that he was viciously attacked by Trayvon Martin, George Zimmerman showed no apparent signs of abrasions, bleeding, or bruising when he was brought in for questioning by police the night he shot the teen. The handcuffed shooter appears untouched on a surveillance video—… More »

No blood, abrasions or bruises are apparent as George Zimmerman is led into the police station the night he killed Trayvon Martin.
(john832thetruth)

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COMMENTS

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Showing 3 of 237 comments

jenalyn_kurat

Mar 31, 2012 2:11 AM CDT

my neighbor’s step-mother brought home $14618 a week ago. she is making cash on the laptop and bought a $447900 house. All she did was get fortunate and make use of the advice reported on this link ………..MakeCash10.com

flameforjustice

Mar 29, 2012 9:56 PM CDT

Doesn’t matter if they fought or not,Zimmerman was the murdering aggressor and pursuer of an innocent young male.

JackNelsonSteward

Mar 29, 2012 7:36 PM CDT

“The Ed Show” is offering a timeline of the evening of the shooting, starting with Trayvon being on the phone with his girlfriend at 7:12 and the police arriving on the scene of the shooting  FIVE MINUTES LATER.  This video of Zimmerman arriving at the Sanford police station is from 7:51. This is the man who says he was in a fight in the rain, on his  back in the grass, who supposedly suffered bleeding wounds to the back of his head and a broken nose, whom the police said they had found bleeding from the head and nose THIRTY FOUR MINUTES earlier.

Video Shows No Blood, Bruises on Zimmerman – No apparent physical signs to back up his beating story.