Noam Chomsky is an institute professor emeritus at MIT and political activistcritic. Although shunned by the main-stream media, Chomsky has continued to be a echoing voice of reason for the past 50 years.

Noam recently appeared on The Real News Network for a 4 part interview on the economy and democracy. During the 3rd part, Chomsky broke down the root of the problem with the US heath care system. Here is the video of the excerpt, as well as the transcript.

Watch the full 4 part interview

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Deregulation is at the heart of the current economic crisis. Unfortunately, we learned this lesson too late, due to the fact that our willingness to listen to the voices of reason has been nearly non existent since the 1980′s.

Thomas Geoghegan is a Chicago based lawyer and has recently written a article for Harper’s Magazine titled “Infinite Debt: How Unlimited Interest Rates Destroyed the Economy.” In his article Geoghegan explains the fine details of how our economy went from being based off of real interest on labor, to unreasonable interest on debt.

Thomas also recently did a interview on Democracynow.org where he explains more of his article and what he hopes the new Obama administration will do to help alleviate our current crisis. I highly recommend this video if you are interested in learning more about the types of deregulation that have plagued our economy since the 1960′s.

Voices of reasons are what we need, not politics and greed.

Watch Thomas Geoghegan’s interview on Democracynow.org

Technorati Tags: democracynow.org, Thomas Geoghegan, Unlimited Interest Rates, economic crisis, how economic crisis, caused economic crisis, real interest on labor, unreasonable interest on debt, interest rates, debt, economic crisis 2008 2009

These are some of the funniest videos on the web and that’s not just limited to the best pro-freedom videos on the web. I guarantee you these videos are so funny, even Francisco Franco would love em’.

CAUTION: Some of these videos are quite mind expanding and may require some assembly.

Know a good anti-fascist joke?

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This is the second session of a epic discussion on the way public opinion is shaped in America today.

There You Go Again: Orwell Comes to America invites historians, linguists, cognitive experts, journalists, government officials, and political consultants to assess the current state of public discourse — and journalism’s response to it. The panels explore the past, present, and future of deceptive political speech, and assess what can be done to bring more realism and honesty into the conduct of America’s public affairs. – http://www.mapdigital.com/orwell/

Part II. DECEIVING IMAGES: THE SCIENCE OF MANIPULATION

Speakers include

George Lakoff, Co-Founder and Senior Fellow, Rockridge Institute and the Goldman Distinguished Professor of Cognitive Science and Linguistics, UC Berkeley ·

Frank Luntz, political pollster and consultant; author of Words That Work: It’s Not What You Say, It’s What People Hear·

Drew Westen, professor of psychology/psychiatry and behavioral sciences, Emory University; author of The Political Brain: The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation.

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What is Congress up to? What kinds of bills are trying to be pushed through, how long have they been active, and what are the fine lines in the bills? These are all great questions of the active citizen out to inform him or herself. The news, the slogans, and the politicians may not speak verbatim truth about certain bills. And in order to gather the most accurate information in what one finds important, here is another resource that is unbiased. It may not be entertaining as the news channels offer, or as teeming with pathos in a politician’s speech, but it is definitely valuable as a resource. That is, if you really want to get into the real grounds of policy. Politics is not supposed to be entertainment anyway.

http://www.govtrack.us/, is actually run by an independent, non-profit organization, and my kudos go out to these citizens who are making this public information more accessible!

You can search by subject, keywords, and even by the bill title and number. So if you search up “immigration” you will find a whole variety of bills that were introduced to congress that relate to the immigration subject from social security cards, to building a wall between Mexico and the US, to the creation of a “circulatory migration”, and many more.

The vulnerability of public opinion is that the majority trusts and relies on a few sources to TELL them what to think, or what is going on in the world. As observers, we also need to go out and look for ourselves too – a balance of power so to speak. Find the facts, create your own ideology.

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This is a short clip from a excellent speech by Noam Chomsky. This clip focus’s on Obama’s picks for his White House staff and some insight on to Obama’s plans with the country. You can view the rest of the video at Democracynow.org.

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Alan Greenspan, in an interview on Democracy Now, discusses the current issues of the Iraq war, Social Security, tax cuts, and his work as economic adviser under the Clinton, Bush, and GW Bush administrations. To view the complete interview, go to democracynow.org

Somewhere towards the middle of the interview, Noami Klein brought up that Bush administration tax cuts coincided conveniently with Greenspan’s advocacy for privatization of Social Security, Klein suggested that these policies must conjunct into some sort of ideology. In response, Alan Greenspan said:

Well, first of all, ideology is not what I hold. I try to learn what are the facts, and I let my opinions, judged on the facts, not by some preconception, which I regret is what ideology as a notion means.

So assuming that he doesn’t work from the “big picture” and that tax cuts along with privatizing Social Security were two different objectives, they certainly do generate an ideology whether or not Greenspan doesn’t want to be labeled… He is essentially calling for the scaling back of government within the economy and leaning towards the privatized sector rather than taxes. But let’s look at more that has built this case…

He has also worked as the head of the Federal Reserve during the Reagan administration, and during his time there, we saw the income inequality rise. The ratio between CEO pay and their workers rose 43 percent. Amy Goodman asked if Greenspan shared some of the responsibility through his policies of deregulation, privatization, and free trade.

Greenspan responds by saying the large factor of income inequality sprouts from a poor educational system in a economic time where demand for skilled labor increases the pay between skilled an unskilled laborers. He said in addition, that he wants to open American borders to bring in workers from foreign countries and hence, drive down the wages in order to lessen the gap.

Ok, the average left-winger would notice right away that CEO pay is not the same category as “skilled workers’ pay”. Skilled worker would be upper-middle class to upper-class range, meaning somewhere between 60K – 250K a year. CEO is the range of over 1 million dollars a year. So to say that us laborers will have to compete with foreign countries to lessen the gap of wages will only mean wage suppression without change in CEO pay. In fact, it would increase the gap between CEO pay and worker’s pay, no?

The second thing is that Greenspan doesn’t even talk about improving the educational system. Although personally, I think if everyone did receive a college education, it doesn’t mean everyone will start making more… the nature of capitalism doesn’t permit everyone to make the same amount. Greenspan blames poor education and prescribes opening the borders for wage competition.. doesn’t sound like public interest to me.

Noami Klein goes on to mention the IMF and its policies towards third world countries. She points out that the policies that Greenspan advocates are similar, and it has failed to lift the poverty in those countries. So his policies would not improve the conditions of the average worker in the US either. Populism was systematically removed by the CIA, and Greenspan cannot rest his argument to blame populism for the failures of the IMF’s policies.

According to Greenspan, the problem is in short-term gains that cause damage in the long run.

Greenspan, towards the end, asked if Naomi Klein was implying socialism or populism in the interview, and then finally asked, “…what are you changing in favor of?” Sounds like he does think rather ideologically himself.

Ideology can go two ways – it can sprout out of facts, experience, and idealism (in other words, the way it is now, and the way it could/should be); it can be a perspective that makes someone not surprised at some news stories. Or, it could be a doctrine that one adopts and filters everything through. Y’know… believing is seeing, right?

Klein is obviously the former definition, for she has a lot of facts in her research. In an interview where she asks Greenspan the questions, it is only the process to narrow down the questions to find out what he thinks on certain facts. He started getting defensive towards the end – a nightmare on his conscious resembling true public opinion?

The facts revealed by Greenspan himself… find out more details on the War on Iraq, his ideological policies, his book, and his actual accomplishments at work. He lowered interest rates before the sub-prime crisis, continues to advocate the sub-prime market, he sells contracts to private firms.. and more! In particular, see why! Go look it up on DemocracyNow.org, and think for yourself!

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This is a video from DemocracyNow with Ralph Nader speaking about what he thinks of Obama’s win and Obama’s selection of Rahm Emanuel as his chief of staff.

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Ralph who? If you find yourself asking this question, the reason why you haven’t heard much about Ralph Nader is because the news barred him from the political debates on television. The fact is, six GLOBAL corporations own about half the media that we consume, not to mention the large companies at home. Whether they view Nader as a threat to their interests or whether they have chosen their presidential candidates for us, we have a threat to our democracy simply because media control skews our votes by controlling our information.

Would you like to hear more about Nader? I hope so. Because his is a radically different point of view.

The Middle East
Between Obama and McCain, they both agree that the goals in Iraq need to be accomplished. They say they’re fighting for peace. The former wants a time-phase withdrawal that will take several years, the other speaks of staying in until ‘mission accomplished’. Ralph Nader has a goal for immediate withdrawal within six months, making Obama’s timid measures appear like he wants to win a war. Ralph Nader is a proponent of peace, acknowledging the death toll of Iraqi civilians (that Obama and McCain fail to even mention), add also the fact that the Middle East wants peace (and so they’d be willing to negotiate). Other things that Nader acknowledges that Obama and McCain fail to mention are the public opinion polls, the peace groups forming all over the Middle East, Israel’s military occupation of the Gaza (controversial to Fox news), the cost (in real numbers) of a failing war, and the Tibetan rights and dignity.

The Market
The political debates have not even began to mention anything about Fair Trade. And Fair Trade is more than consuming responsibly when you’re choosing your coffee beans at Trader Joe’s. Fair Trade has to do with reversing the problems caused by our policies – namely, what the World Trade Organization does, and the North Atlantic Free Trade Agreement. These agreements are made to benefit American corporate interests so that poor countries can “develop” by having American companies come in and take their resources without regard to environmental, labor, or political costs. Isn’t this like the more sophisticated form of imperialism? Nader wants to make international standards – and this is important in a globalizing economy.

Environmental Policy
Nader’s environmental policy has a larger scope than Obama and McCain’s. Obama goes one step further than McCain – a Cap-and-Trade system (which I am not opposed to at all), while Ralph Nader in addition plans to take action to defend the environment itself. There are more issues out there beyond the scope of the news media. To read more, go visit http://www.votenader.org/issues/environment/environment/

The Military Budget
Did you know that the US spends more than the REST OF THE WORLD COMBINED on the military? Add also, the militarization of space – out of the global expenditures, 95% belongs to the US. Between Obama and McCain, they both have not talked about diverting superfluous tax expenditures to something like healthcare… or jobs… or education. How these things will be funded for in the Obama plan is unknown. He claims that he will decrease taxes; however, McCain supporters feel he’s going to increase taxes despite what he says. Not to mention, both Republicans and Democrats alike both want to increase the $600 Billion military budget. Why? They fail to ask why on the news.

Minimum Wage
Obama says the problem is that the government hasn’t increased minimum wage. He hopes to raise it to 9 an hour by 2011. The problem with that proposal though is two things – is it a livable wage? And is it going to matter according to the cost of living and inflation rates by 2011? Ralph Nader wants a livable wage for people, as well as a “Bill of Rights” for workers – accident protection, retirement, the right to organize into unions, anti-Wal Mart contracts, etc. Nader also acknowledges the distribution of wealth and how the gap is widening between the CEO and bottom employee 300:1. On average a CEO in a large company takes home over $150,000 A WEEK. Need I mention the minimum wage to you? $5.25 an hour.

Alternative Energy
Ralph Nader once said something along the lines of ‘the reason why energy companies hasn’t invested in solar energy is because they cannot own the sun’. Frederick Bastiat made a joke once saying something similar, ‘the lamp makers are arguing against the sun, telling people to close their windows for the sake of free trade’. Wait, how was the economy supposed to work for us again? Almost anyone can manufacture solar power cells (in fact, I have a book that teaches me how to make one!) – this will decentralize the energy monopoly, and with something like the sun, it will be truly the people’s asset. I am not against this. Nader’s plan is predominately invested in solar energy. Obama? He wants to take cap-and-trade revenue to fund research in all forms. McCain? He wants to expand oil production and natural gas.. somehow. *Edit: McCain also has plans for a cap-and-trade system, alternative energy, as well as acknowledgment of speculative oil pricing. His alternative energy plan is largely invested in Hydrogen.

Conclusion
I’m sorry to cut this short, especially if you’ve found use to this article. All I want to say really is that McCain is FAR TO THE RIGHT of public opinion (he doesn’t want much to change), Obama is still hanging on the right of public opinion (he proposes incremental changes), and Nader is more in tune with it. In fact, he has statistics with public opinions on his website. Nader is a candidate that reflects the public. Why he doesn’t get any airtime is another reason why our democracy is failing. It is sad that some people have also told me (after I informed them that there was a third person running), “a vote for Nader is a wasted vote for Obama”, when the two aren’t even the same at all! And even though my hero Noam Chomsky said “there’s nothing wrong with voting for the lesser of two evils”, I beg to differ. Who wants to participate in an authoritative election where which ever way we choose, it will still pertain more to corporate interests?

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I was reading an article in the Seattle Times by Danny Westneat, “S-word is Suddenly Hot Subject”. Obama is now being called a socialist by many of the McCain supporters as well as those who are slightly to the left of him. However, despite his lefty appeal to the democrats, let’s look at a few of his policies as delineated on his website and see how well he fits under socialist ideas.

Immigration
Obama supports a more secure Mexican-American border. He supports the arrests, deportations, fines, more technology and personnel. Socialists are supportive of open borders, no deportations, and a comprehensive transition for illegal immigrants (and their families) who have lived and worked here to become citizens.

Iraq War
Obama wants a responsible time phase withdrawal and hopes that Iraq will use its oil revenue for their reconstruction. Socialists think this war was for the oil in the first place, so if Iraq was to use its oil revenue for reconstructing their war torn city, wouldn’t they be in a more economically desperate situation? Oil would be more readily available for big oil companies’ distribution.

Poverty
Obama is going to raise the minimum wage to 9.50 by 2011 and pour $1 billion towards getting low income workers to higher paying jobs. Socialists would support minimum wage increase… but to a level that is a livable wage. Moving people from low to higher income jobs doesn’t change the fact that there are still low income jobs. Socialists have a more radical proposal – to have state control over the top 500 US companies.

Taxes
Obama plans on making tax cuts… which one would call “progressive”, but according to the socialists, it would do little to redistribute the wealth in this country.

Homeland Security
Obama wants to fight terrorism worldwide and prevent nuclear proliferation. Socialists would remain skeptical as to whether or not he will use this as an excuse to propagate American corporate interests worldwide. Afterall, he has received the largest amount of contributions from corporations in American history.

So why does McCain call Obama a “redistribution-in-chief”? I’ve talked to a few McCain supporters, and they all seem to be afraid of “socialist Obama”. I’m not sure where they’re getting this from in terms of policy. They think having somebody young (or ‘socialist’) is something to be afraid of. Funny thing, is on the supporting side, they have more imagery to go with too.

I’ve watched a little bit of campaigning on television, and as a college student working as a nanny, the amount of name calling and imagery that dominates political discussion reminds me of a battle between Angelina Jolie and Jennifer Aniston for Brad Pitt. Then you have all those tabloids picking a side.

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