|
|
LinkBack | Thread Tools |
07-04-2008, 06:27 AM | #1 (permalink) | ||||||||
Banned
|
Happy 232nd Birthday, America! But, isn't it again time to work for Independence?
On this 232nd anniversary of our declaration of independence from British rule, I think it is fitting to begin a general discussion on the idea of corporate "reform" in the US, here at TFP, a non-commercial, discussion forum. Even without yet adding some of the evidence of the influence that the defense industry in the US and in the world plays in deliberate efforts to maintain a perception of tension between nations, because it is "good for the bottomlines" of armament producting corporations, I think the small amount of information I am including in this OP, outlines the size and scope of "the problem".
A drive for US independence from corporate dominance, or a defense of corporations and their influence on our lives? What is your opinion? I think it is time to say "no more" to these "takings", time to assert ourselves to insist on reform of corporate practice and influence: Quote:
http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthr...LD#post2447974 http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthr...34#post2447734 (See post #9) http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthr...34#post2447734 (See post #30) ,,,,and, there is this assault to our sensibilities, our environment, to "justice", to our future as a nation: Could it be that a political "hack" appointee, Collister W Johnson Jr., is arguing that it is better to risk the complete environmental destruction of the great lakes to avoid incurring $55 million in annual shipping costs increases, and avoid renegotiating a treaty with Canada, versus ending the risks of additional damage by banning foreign sea going freighters from the St. Lawrence Seaway? That is supposed to pass as the argument that "balances" the best interests of Americans, vs. corporate shipping interests? Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Last edited by host; 07-04-2008 at 07:40 AM.. |
||||||||
07-04-2008, 10:43 AM | #2 (permalink) |
░
Location: ❤
|
I have difficulty expressing exactly what I am thinking,
partially due to my lack of formal education. What first comes to mind when I read your post.... is Kudzu...then cholera introduced by explorers (interlopers?) tree-sparrows...starlings and vegetative plants that are considered 'foreign', here in the US. The rabbit deal in Australia. I don't know what else we can expect really... The rapid rise in population and technology in just the past hundred years is going to play out somehow. How do we propose to stem this tide? Should we? Last edited by ring; 07-04-2008 at 10:52 AM.. |
07-04-2008, 11:29 AM | #3 (permalink) |
Deliberately unfocused
Location: Amazon.com and CDBaby
|
The sea lampreys should have been enough of a wake up call that we are not being suitable stewards of the Great Lakes. When the zebra mussels were discovered in Lake Erie, that should have been the last straw.
For decades, developers have been required to make environmental impact studies before erecting shopping malls, housing subdivisions or routing new roads. It's way past time to take action to halt, and hopefully reverse the unfolding tragedy in the Lakes. It's time to shut out the ocean-going freighters. Agreement with Canadian authorities should not be hard to negotiate. The US rail system has been underutilized and allowed to fall into disrepair. Investment into upgrading and expanding this segment of our infrastructure could be an economic boon for the nation. An increase in business for railway companies, freight handlers and local independent trucking firms would all spark a round of job growth, new orders for durable goods, and possibly, start a revival in the economies of our struggling "rust belt" states. There would be loud howling from the multinationals, but they should be made to understand that this would be in their own long-term best interest. Healthy economies create more demands for goods and services. If it costs and extra dollar to get their goods to market, they'll make an extra $1.50 once they get there. Getting their stuff there cheaper has no payoff, if the market is stagnant due to rampant unemployment. It's time to be smart, fellas, not merely greedy. ps. Happy Independence Day, Americans! Our founding fathers did a great and noble thing. We need to work harder at building on that legacy!
__________________
"Regret can be a harder pill to swallow than failure .With failure you at least know you gave it a chance..." David Howard Last edited by grumpyolddude; 07-04-2008 at 11:32 AM.. |
07-04-2008, 12:29 PM | #4 (permalink) | |||
Banned
|
I have to confess that I made a mistake in the description of Seaway Admin., Collister Johnson, in my last post, because I confused this experienced maritime industry and politcal hack Mr.Johnson, with his inexperienced political hack son!
Reading the descritpion if this Mr. Johnson's job responsibilities and experience, it becomes clear that, even though he is appointed to administer a federally owned corporation his duties are: Quote:
Bear in mind that this is a corporation owned by our government, and it is led by a man and by policy counter to the best interests of most of us. So you see where I am going with this thread? Oil companies that buy back $15 billion of their own stock, instead of investing in petroleum exploration and increasing refining capacity in the US, while farmers in North Dakota, in close proximity to new crude oil production, must hunt for diesel fuel for their farm equipment during fall harvest time. Quote:
Quote:
You're paying $4.05 per gallon today for fuel for your vehicle, but you don't think government should punish or take over the assets of corporations that are caught doing what Shell Oil was trying to do....close one of only ten California refineries to further tighten fuel supplies and raise prices....would you change your mind if you were paying $8.00 per gallon? Things got this way because corporations spent the money on lobbying, campaign contributions, investing in media ownership and in PR and other advertising....it worked....it convinced many of the idea that "free" markets work best with least regualtion and government "interference". Many bought into the idea that what was good for corporations, was good for them, too. It's looking like a lot of that "thinking" is pro[agandist bullshit. Think about what Shell and Exxon and Chevron have been doing, the next time you're paying for fuel at the pump. An oil company that spends 19 years in court to avoid paying restitution for the damage caused to Alaska fisheries and ecology, after it allows a tanker captain it clearly knew was impaired, to command a single hulled super tanker that ran aground and spilled 10 million gallons of crude oil. ...and shipping companies and a publicly owned Seaway corp., making the decision to destroy the great lakes ecosystem because they do not have the notion of decreasing or ending their shockingly damaging shipping and port operations, in their culture. All of the while that this has been happening, the corporate owned media, teamed with it's corporate allies and the government it so effectively lobbies, extols the "clear" advantages of "free markets" and of regulatory "reforms". Who benefits, and who is exploited? Or is their constant, self promotional message that "eveyone wins", the accurate result? Last edited by host; 07-04-2008 at 01:36 PM.. |
|||
07-04-2008, 03:27 PM | #5 (permalink) | |
Addict
Location: Cottage Grove, Wisconsin
|
Quote:
The idea of having ocean-going vessels transfer their cargo to Lakes-only ships seems pretty simple. They must love the idea in Montreal. |
|
07-04-2008, 04:13 PM | #6 (permalink) |
░
Location: ❤
|
I see decades and centuries of footprints that have trampled
over any and all, in pursuit of the grail at the time. In the past it was called other myriad names, some more romantic to our ears at times...propaganda raised its head even before our ancestors raised the first club. Something in my post must of given the flavor of giving up, not so...I was simply asking host...what can one person do, to help eradicate decades and decades of poisonous greed. The purposely selfish motives cloaked in ever so elegant garb, while they oil their tounges, has taken its toll on the strongest of us. we know the facts. All I was asking is what can I do. |
07-04-2008, 05:07 PM | #7 (permalink) |
Super Moderator
Location: essex ma
|
you know, there's an advantage i suppose to the deep abiding dullness that tiny town can conjure from within itself.
my 4th of july evening was spent watching this: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/twodays/ have a look. it's hard to say how i feel, except that it's more about the reality we are still surrounded by than any number of littletown parades and fireworks displays.
__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite |
07-04-2008, 05:15 PM | #8 (permalink) | |
comfortably numb...
Super Moderator
Location: upstate
|
Quote:
my niece's husband is due back from afghanistan tonight at 10:30...
__________________
"We were wrong, terribly wrong. (We) should not have tried to fight a guerrilla war with conventional military tactics against a foe willing to absorb enormous casualties...in a country lacking the fundamental political stability necessary to conduct effective military and pacification operations. It could not be done and it was not done." - Robert S. McNamara ----------------------------------------- "We will take our napalm and flame throwers out of the land that scarcely knows the use of matches... We will leave you your small joys and smaller troubles." - Eugene McCarthy in "Vietnam Message" ----------------------------------------- never wrestle with a pig. you both get dirty; the pig likes it. |
|
07-04-2008, 05:30 PM | #9 (permalink) |
Super Moderator
Location: essex ma
|
you know, watching this affected me because it made me remember. not that day in october 1967, not any of the events it talks about--i was alive but not anywhere near and have no memory of where i was but i think i was somewhere----what i remembered was the split between the various levels of official narrative and the time-bound world we move through, the degrees of conflict between the two and the violence that can accompany attempts on the part of those who live in the official narrative to erase not just the actions but the entire reality of those who stray outside it along any number of trajectories--and this was what made the program interesting, really, this doubling of trajectories of straying outside the official narratives, that which followed doing what there was no choice but to do and that which followed from trying to protest what was happening both to the people locked into the former situations and because of those situations.
i remembered something of the fear of contamination that follows from investment in a metaphysical notion of purity. the violence that is shaped by the fear of contamination. there has to be a better way to say that---and this is not appropriate for this thread perhaps: contamination becomes metaphor in a thread which is about contaminations in a more literal sense, regard for the effects of this literal contamination are stood on their head in the drift into metaphor. but both are at play i suppose. reversibility is a continual possibility. one choices follows from another. between the last post and this one i stood on the edge of the river again, as i do maybe too much these days, looking out toward the ocean, at fires burning on the backside of cranes beach, at the edges of fireworks exploding off castle hill, off annisquam, over the water, a microscopic world...it is low tide, unusally low it seems----i was standing over the surface of the moon. everything seems upside down. i came back inside to erase the previous post, move it somewhere, turn things right-side up again in the microscopic world inside the microscopic world and here as there as everywhere else, previous choices are not reversible though meanings continually reverse, are reversed, are reversing. i had the impression that the fireworks and such were about the opposite. tonight they seemed more an axis around which the world was spinning. it's all terribly odd. i dont think i should watch television.
__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite Last edited by roachboy; 07-04-2008 at 05:40 PM.. |
07-04-2008, 05:37 PM | #10 (permalink) |
comfortably numb...
Super Moderator
Location: upstate
|
but, ya know, here we are...and there they are...and we're not going anyplace...and they're not going anyplace...and all we can do is speculate on what we think they're going to do to us, or what we think we're going to do to them, and...aren't we wasting a lot of synapse power?
__________________
"We were wrong, terribly wrong. (We) should not have tried to fight a guerrilla war with conventional military tactics against a foe willing to absorb enormous casualties...in a country lacking the fundamental political stability necessary to conduct effective military and pacification operations. It could not be done and it was not done." - Robert S. McNamara ----------------------------------------- "We will take our napalm and flame throwers out of the land that scarcely knows the use of matches... We will leave you your small joys and smaller troubles." - Eugene McCarthy in "Vietnam Message" ----------------------------------------- never wrestle with a pig. you both get dirty; the pig likes it. |
07-04-2008, 06:23 PM | #11 (permalink) | |
Banned
|
Quote:
Needless to say...his mother and I stifled our first reaction, when he showed us the photo, and hugged him and told him how proud of him we are and how relieved we are to have him back home.....for the second time since autumn, 2006..... Last edited by host; 07-04-2008 at 06:31 PM.. |
|
07-06-2008, 10:50 AM | #13 (permalink) | |||||
Banned
|
...and what about Iraq? Is it accurate to say that "corporate influences" and agendas had a significant hand in "bombing Iraq back into the stone age"?
The Firefox 3 download map shows downloads of the new internet browser version are more than 500,000 in Iran, and, in Iraq, with a population a bit more than 1/3 the size of Iran's.... Iraqi downloads of the software are.... just 2000 sessions: http://www.spreadfirefox.com/en-US/worldrecord/ Could these be accurate explanations of what has been going on, since 2002? Quote:
Quote:
There is also this reporting of intentional government policy to "enhance" the bottom lines of military contractors via the use of a retired general who is now serving on the boards of directors of three of these contractors: Quote:
We need to raise public awareness about what is being done, organize peaceful protests against these companies and boycotts of their consumer products, broadcasts, etc. We need to vote for people committed to holding these corporations responsible. The FCC has a strict policy against the broadcasting of "fake news", and it has the power to revoke the broadcast licenses of TV and radio stations owned by these networks! Last edited by host; 07-06-2008 at 11:02 AM.. |
|||||
07-06-2008, 11:01 AM | #14 (permalink) |
Tilted Cat Head
Administrator
Location: Manhattan, NY
|
as I read the OP and all the replies, I don't understand what the "work for Independence" from means.
In my lifetime alone I've seen swings of the winds of change, back and forth, I don't see how we are locked into anything really.
__________________
I don't care if you are black, white, purple, green, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, hippie, cop, bum, admin, user, English, Irish, French, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, indian, cowboy, tall, short, fat, skinny, emo, punk, mod, rocker, straight, gay, lesbian, jock, nerd, geek, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, driver, pedestrian, or bicyclist, either you're an asshole or you're not. |
07-06-2008, 11:32 AM | #15 (permalink) | |||||||||||||
Banned
|
Quote:
This concept hasn't changed since it was studied beginning in 1924: (My reference to "independence" in the thread's title, refers to "independence" from this!) Quote:
Quote:
Just read Michael Gordon's June 20 article, posted near the bottom of the next quote box...... Quote:
If the Times reporting is "too liberal", where do you suppose conservatives are going to get a "truer" view? Could it be to some source so far to the right that it influences the views of conservatives to the point that they are so far right, that they "fall over" the edge? Isn't raising awareness that ALL mainstream news coverage is compromised by the corporate interests who own it, the first step of a new drive for independence of the American people, beginning with more independence in the way that they think? The "independent" news media.... "silent" in 2003, silent for the next five years, silent, all the way to today. Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Nothing will change until the press begins to not act in league with the government agenda, and begins to uncover and report the secrets of the powerful. That is independence. Last edited by host; 07-06-2008 at 12:46 PM.. |
|||||||||||||
Tags |
232nd, america, birthday, but, happy, independence, time, work |
|
|