ONLY HUMAN

This week (Mitt Romney) was attacking Obama about ‘our failing educational system.’ (And) he has a point: I mean, we are graduating millions of people in this country who are so lacking in basic analytical skills, they are considering voting for Mitt Romney.

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—	BILL MAHER, Real Time (via inothernews)

It is astounding how significantly one idea can shape a society and its policies. Consider this one.

If taxes on the rich go up, job creation will go down.

This idea is an article of faith for Republicans and seldom challenged by Democrats and has shaped much of today’s economic landscape.

But sometimes the ideas that we know to be true are dead wrong. For thousands of years people were sure that earth was at the center of the universe. It’s not, and an astronomer who still believed that it was, would do some lousy astronomy.

In the same way, a policy maker who believed that the rich and businesses are “job creators” and therefore should not be taxed, would make equally bad policy.

I have started or helped start, dozens of businesses and initially hired lots of people. But if no one could have afforded to buy what we had to sell, my businesses would all have failed and all those jobs would have evaporated.

That’s why I can say with confidence that rich people don’t create jobs, nor do businesses, large or small. What does lead to more employment is a “circle of life” like feedback loop between customers and businesses. And only consumers can set in motion this virtuous cycle of increasing demand and hiring. In this sense, an ordinary middle-class consumer is far more of a job creator than a capitalist like me.

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—	Nick Hanauer, a venture capitalist whose TED talk about inequality was deemed “too political controversial” to publish. (via theatlantic)

I have a standing argument with my dear neighbor, Fishin’ Jim, about human nature. When I grouse and growl about our loss of civility, the growing abuse of the penal and legal systems, the bald-face lying of the political class, the mis-steps of our educational system, he tells me that it’s always been that way. I disagree. I cite the period after the Big War, fostered by the policies of FDR and furthered by the GI Bill and labor movement that gave us the broadest, most secure middle class we’d ever enjoyed. We came to expect that government provided for the common good, that political checks and balances offered an umbrella of safeguards against fraud and mischief that protected consumers, that the citizens of a strong, young nation were involved in the creation of a democratic social experiment destined to set new standards for the world. If it proved only a brief, bright spot in American history, at least it set a precedent for the generations to come.

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—	Judith Gayle, saying what I always say, and other important observations in this article: http://planetwaves.net/pagetwo/by-judith-gayle-2/the-me-generation-no-the-other-one/

thedailywhat:

Heartwarming Tearjerker of the Day: “It’s not the right thing to do, but I did it. If I were younger, maybe I’d be spending time in the hoosegow.”

So says Hyman Strachman, a 92-year-old, 5-foot-5 World War II vet who has spent the past eight years sending bootlegged copies of first-run movies to American soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq. Known to soldiers as Big Hy, he has copied the movies — more than 300,000 — in his small Long Island apartment, then sent them overseas free of charge, and at a personal cost of about $30,000.

“It was pretty big stuff — it’s reconnecting you to everything you miss,” said Jenna Gordon, a specialist in the Army Reserve. “We’d tell people to take a bunch and pass them on.”

Now, with the wars waning and soldiers returning home, Strachman’s shameless violation of domestic copyright laws is winding down, as his chance of being prosecuted. In fact, Howard Gantman, with the Motion Picture Association of America, hinted that Strachman might never have been on Hollywood’s radar at all: “We are grateful that the entertainment we produce can bring some enjoyment to them while they are away from home.”

[nyt]

thedailywhat:

CISPA Vote of the Day: CISPA — the most unpopular bill on the Internet, no matter what Facebook says — passed late Thursday with a 248-168 vote in the GOP-controlled House.

What you might have missed, helpfully pointed out by Forbes‘ Andy Greenberg:

Even before it passed, the House voted to amend the bill to actually allow even more types of private sector information to be shared with government agencies, not merely in matters of cybersecurity or national security, but in the investigation of vaguely defined cybersecurity “crimes,” “protection of individuals the danger of death or serious bodily harm,” and cases where that involve the protection of minors from exploitation.

The CISPA fight now heads to the Democrat-controlled Senate. If the bill manages to reach his desk, President Obama has threatened a veto.

[death+taxes]

thedailywhat:

This Is Important, You Should Know This of the Day: The Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act now has more than 105 co-sponsors, and some fear the bill could go further than SOPA and PIPA in threatening online privacy. SOPA and PIPA were finally discarded earlier this year after resoundingonline protest changed the debate, but the same doesn’t yet appear to be the case with CISPA.

According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, H.R. 3523 “would let companies spy on users and share private information with the federal government and other companies with near-total immunity from civil and criminal liability. It effectively creates a ‘cybersecurity’ exemption to all existing laws.”

The bill could sneak through Congress quickly once it’s back in session, so be sure totrack its progress.

[digitaljournal]

College Students (and a 4-Year-Old) Pepper Sprayed Protesting Tuition Hike »

Ladies and Gentlemen, SOPA is back. Meet CISPA:

1.) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ya2TmSmbUQI&feature=g-all-u&context=G2ca0619FAAAAAAAAPAA

2.) http://rt.com/usa/news/cispa-bill-sopa-internet-175/

So, what, telling Congress once that this bullshit isn’t going to fly wasn’t enough? I tend to agree with mumblingkraken there on reddit—that these people are just going to keep recycling this same garbage and won’t rest until they’ve succeeded in seeing it through.

Is it too much to ask to have a representative democracy in this country where people can elect citizens to represent their best interests? Where we can realistically elect people from more than just two political parties, because money doesn’t control who has a voice? Can we live in a country where weekly threats to our freedom aren’t discussed in our nation’s capitol as new legislation rather than things to be safeguarded against?

I’d like a government that actually respects the words written on its founding document and follows them. I’d like to live in a country that doesn’t pass laws disguised as preventing piracy or addressing legitimate concerns about child pornography when REALLY what they’re meant to do is silence people who voice their disagreement with what their government is doing and take away their primary tool for information sharing and voicing their dissent.

Disagreement and dissent over weekly rights removal, here in AMERICA—where the Supreme Court just said it’s okay for police to strip search anyone for any offense (even just perceived, nonexistent ones), no matter how small, because it wasn’t enough for private citizens to be groped and manhandled in just airports. Where the police are given large sums of money by corporations to contain people protesting their corruption and their partial responsibility for driving this country into an economic crisis (and that they have yet to be taken to task for it—instead they’re given $16 trillion in secret bailouts by the government) and then those in charge look the other way when the police beat them down, violate their rights, SHOOT them even—peaceful protestors like Scott Olsen, who FOUGHT FOR OUR COUNTRY to protect the rights its government is now taking away. Where police are used by the government and private corporations as tools of oppression rather than as protection. Where the government is ruled by lobbyists and corporations and the few with money make the call for the vast majority, and the decisions they make do not reflect the best interests of the many, but the greed of the few.

This is AMERICA. Why are we even talking about this? What in liberty’s name has this country become? What is this ugly, twisted, looming shadow that calls itself by a name we know and love, but plunges all within its borders into darkness?

On 9/11, terrorists brought a couple of buildings down and murdered thousands of American citizens. But that wasn’t their end goal. What they wanted was what came after—to destroy America’s economy with an ensuing war we couldn’t win, and destroy the very principles this country was founded upon.

And we let them.

This.

Must.

STOP.

Draw the line and hold it. Say no to CISPA just like we said no to SOPA. Let our government know that we will not stand for this.

They will not stop—they will persist, counting on us becoming tired of staving off their offensive legislation over and over again. But we must be just as persistent, or we will fail. And the cost of our failure will be our freedom, in a country that once really did stand for the word and the principles of it. We need to make this that country once again.

We. Us. You.

WE the people. This is our country. Remind them.

[Screenshot via a reddit discussion regarding CISPA: http://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/rs54l/the_latest_attempt_by_congress_to_try_to_regulate/]

Supreme Court ruling means you could get strip searched for an unpaid parking ticket »

wilwheaton:

The Roberts Court is so dangerous, it’s frightening. This Court seems hellbent on turning America into a police state, where the rich and powerful call all the shots and everyone else is too terrified of arrest to do anything about it.

“It’s sad when I have to check that date for headlines to make sure they weren’t April Fools.”

Agreed. What the fuck is happening to this country?

Religious freedom means I get to choose whether or not to be religious and if so, how. It does not mean that I get to impose my religion on others.

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—	Soraya Chemaly (via wilwheaton)