Of course the idea of any of us having the money to afford going out
to dinner, attending a movie or even sending our children to our
neighborhood Corporate School, is doubtful.
Grimm's Fairy Tales were never so scary as the Fake News Tales being
read to us by Uncle Donald. And speaking of Fake News, what about
this crazy myth that more billions for Defense will keep our borders
safe from Terrorists. It's an old story of misdirection. Pick out
one group or another, Japanese during WW II, Commies during the
McCarthy reign of terror, Mexicans sneaking across our borders in
order to grab all those posh jobs from "Normal White Americans", and
through it all we look with suspicion at those Jews who seem to be
everywhere and stealing our money. Now we have those new Terrorists,
them evil Muslims. Add to them all the other illegals sneaking into
our wonderful nation, wanting nothing more than to blow us all to
Kingdom Come. Those jealous Bastards!
But Praise be to Jesus, we have the Trumpster riding across the
mountain pass to defend us from Slavery by Terrorists.
Forget the crumbling highways and the bridges and the public buildings
and decrepit public education, and the decline of the elderly into
poverty. The Trumpster has the answer. Ten percent increase to our
military budget. That figure of close to sixty billion dollars is as
great as the entire military budget of Great Briton. It will bring
the War Machine to nearly six hundred and sixty billion dollars. But
estimates do not include all the military costs beyond the Pentagon.
All of the special agencies, the FBI, CIA, Homeland Security, Border
Patrol, Secret Service, all and more who are involved in "protecting"
America. That could bring our total annual cost of "Protecting"
America to around nine hundred billion dollars.
And how will our Great White Father pay for all of this? Well first,
The Trumpster, like any good Corporate Capitalist, will not pay for
this with any of His money. Always spend the other fellows money, is
one of the Cardinal Rules of Capitalism. So The Trumpster will take
the money from the People. Not all of the People, however, since he
plans to cut the taxes for the wealthy Americans, thus placing the
heavy financial load squarely on the backs of...the rest of us.
When all the dust settles, and all the BS has been spread, we
Americans will find that we are not protecting our borders after all.
The fact is that the Terrorists are already among us. Well
entrenched. In fact, they already own over 41% of our total wealth,
and have every intention of owning it all...in the next four years, if
possible. And when we finally come to our Working Class Senses, and
throw the bums out, we will be left with a broken, broke nation. And
the Terrorists who plundered us? Well, the gentle breezes of the
South Pacific Isles will find many of them, basking in the sun
strolling along their pure white sandy beaches, dreaming of one day
returning to once again sweet talk their way into a place where they
can begin the raping of the new wealth gathered by the hard labor of
the Working Class.
Carl Jarvis
On 3/1/17, >
From: PopularResistance.org
[mailto:info=popularresistance.org@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of
PopularResistance.org
Sent: Sunday, February 26, 2017 10:04 AM
Newsletter - Privatizers versus People
A snapshot of the future: You drive your kids to school, go to work, the
hospital or a movie and you are charged for every mile of road you use
through an EZ Pass.
This newsletter is also available
on the web
<http://popularresistance.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=33602bebba8fb7dd6e71fb413&id=5810eca612&e=e5b1868e14>
here.
Image removed by sender.
A snapshot from the future: You drive your kids to school, go to work, the
hospital or a movie and you are charged for every mile of road you use
through an EZ Pass. The road has been developed and maintained by a bond
funded by wealthy investors at very high interest rates. The investors are
the first on the list to be paid, since the city needs to keep a strong bond
rating in order to borrow more from investors.
<http://popularresistance.us2.list-manage2.com/track/click?u=33602bebba8fb7dd6e71fb413&id=05c0f0ae2c&e=e5b1868e14>
<http://popularresistance.us2.list-manage2.com/track/click?u=33602bebba8fb7dd6e71fb413&id=05c0f0ae2c&e=e5b1868e14>
Image removed by sender. EZ Pass Only
<http://popularresistance.us2.list-manage2.com/track/click?u=33602bebba8fb7dd6e71fb413&id=05c0f0ae2c&e=e5b1868e14>
Bruce Dixon, editor of
<http://popularresistance.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=33602bebba8fb7dd6e71fb413&id=af098c5bca&e=e5b1868e14>
Black Agenda Report, writes, in “
<http://popularresistance.us2.list-manage2.com/track/click?u=33602bebba8fb7dd6e71fb413&id=8848b7f1c6&e=e5b1868e14>
EZ Pass — Tip Of The Road Privatization Vacuum Cleaner,” that trade
associations and lobby groups are working toward ‘pay-to-use’ roads in the
near future. Roads will be privatized or become public-private partnerships.
If we are unable to pay, we cannot use the roads or may even lose our
license. Dixon points out that under the Obama administration toll lanes
were allowed on more existing highways to advance toward privatized roads.
This is the essence of privatization today: turn a public good into a profit
center for Wall Street. US economic policy has created a wealth class that
is grotesquely wealthy and under-taxed so it has the money that the
government needs to provide public services. This forces the government to
borrow money from or sell a public service to the privateers or to create a
public-private partnership (disguised corporate welfare and crony
capitalism) in order to provide essential services.
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Image removed by sender. Health Over Profit for Everyone
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This model was applied during the Obama years on a mega-level to health
care. Rather than treating universal health care as
<http://popularresistance.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=33602bebba8fb7dd6e71fb413&id=68ff5cd02f&e=e5b1868e14>
a public service and expanding and improving Medicare to cover everyone,
Obama worked with corrupt healthcare profiteers – the insurance and
pharmaceutical industries and health care investors – for a law that
benefited them. We described Obamacare as “
<http://popularresistance.us2.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=33602bebba8fb7dd6e71fb413&id=dc52b25d49&e=e5b1868e14>
the biggest insurance scam in history” in 2013, predicting it would lead to
increased premiums, out-of-pocket costs and deductibles and decreased
coverage while making the medical industry wealthy – this is exactly what
happened.
The Market Rules While Public Services Are Cut
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Image removed by sender. Stop TPP, TiSA and TTIP protest Earth Rising
<http://popularresistance.us2.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=33602bebba8fb7dd6e71fb413&id=eece35bf4c&e=e5b1868e14>
Under Obama and previous presidents, the market was king while public
services were diminished or disappeared. Obama is infamous for his triad of
trade agreements: the
<http://popularresistance.us2.list-manage2.com/track/click?u=33602bebba8fb7dd6e71fb413&id=78a790604b&e=e5b1868e14>
Trans-Pacific Partnership, the
<http://popularresistance.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=33602bebba8fb7dd6e71fb413&id=c0c5a1fb31&e=e5b1868e14>
Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership and the
<http://popularresistance.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=33602bebba8fb7dd6e71fb413&id=cec82a9cd8&e=e5b1868e14>
Trade in Services Agreement. The common theme of all three was privatization
by granting greater power to corporations, making it impossible to regulate
them, and turning public services into profit centers for big business.
The TPP and TTIP both seem to be dead. It is unclear what the fate of TiSA
will be under President Trump, but
<http://popularresistance.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=33602bebba8fb7dd6e71fb413&id=fe58a3fcb7&e=e5b1868e14>
we must not allow it to be completed. Last week Trump said he wants no more
multi-country trade deals and will pursue one-on-one negotiations where the
US can demand terms from a smaller country and easily walk away if the
country refuses.
<http://popularresistance.us2.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=33602bebba8fb7dd6e71fb413&id=a104796c5f&e=e5b1868e14>
<http://popularresistance.us2.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=33602bebba8fb7dd6e71fb413&id=a104796c5f&e=e5b1868e14>
Image removed by sender. by Annette Dubois
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<http://popularresistance.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=33602bebba8fb7dd6e71fb413&id=c4c85dc2e0&e=e5b1868e14>
TiSA is a grave danger. It is an agreement of 52 nations (including all of
Europe) and from
<http://popularresistance.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=33602bebba8fb7dd6e71fb413&id=dac8258048&e=e5b1868e14>
numerous
<http://popularresistance.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=33602bebba8fb7dd6e71fb413&id=b8e33c8747&e=e5b1868e14>
leaks we
<http://popularresistance.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=33602bebba8fb7dd6e71fb413&id=69b479aacc&e=e5b1868e14>
know the thrust of TiSA is privatization of all services. Services are 80
percent of the US economy and include the postal service, education, health
care, etc. TiSA creates a one-way street to privatization with incentives to
push public services to be privatized. Once this is done,they cannot return
to the public sphere. Recent leaks show that
<http://popularresistance.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=33602bebba8fb7dd6e71fb413&id=f1b644a77b&e=e5b1868e14>
TiSA negotiators are having problems, but if they make compromises, TiSA may
still survive.
A major area in the US where we have seen privatization destroying a
critical public service under the last four presidents is education. The
damage is expected to increase under the
<http://popularresistance.us2.list-manage2.com/track/click?u=33602bebba8fb7dd6e71fb413&id=b71085fbcf&e=e5b1868e14>
extremist policies of Secretary
<http://popularresistance.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=33602bebba8fb7dd6e71fb413&id=ad3a463205&e=e5b1868e14>
DeVos, although
<http://popularresistance.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=33602bebba8fb7dd6e71fb413&id=53a89523e0&e=e5b1868e14>
she is igniting protest (see
<http://popularresistance.us2.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=33602bebba8fb7dd6e71fb413&id=fb7cdf4db4&e=e5b1868e14>
here and
<http://popularresistance.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=33602bebba8fb7dd6e71fb413&id=b7c6f180aa&e=e5b1868e14>
here).
Education activist, Morna McDermott, writes about the path to privatize
education in “
<http://popularresistance.us2.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=33602bebba8fb7dd6e71fb413&id=5c0a7f4ae9&e=e5b1868e14>
The Long Game: Where Art Thou Public Education?”. She points to the
extremist “Choices in Education Act,” which would open the flood gates of
privatization schemes like vouchers and charters, but she also points out
that the Democrat’s answer to No Child Left Behind, The Every Student
Succeeds Act (
<http://popularresistance.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=33602bebba8fb7dd6e71fb413&id=ad5f64dcdb&e=e5b1868e14>
ESSA), does the same.
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<http://popularresistance.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=33602bebba8fb7dd6e71fb413&id=53c612e02f&e=e5b1868e14>
Image removed by sender. Government of the lesser of two evils
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Education
<http://popularresistance.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=33602bebba8fb7dd6e71fb413&id=3751782ac0&e=e5b1868e14>
‘deform’ is rooted in the lesser-evilism of the two-party problem of the
United States. While both parties clothe their deforms in nice-sounding
labels, the reality is that both parties are privatizing education so big
profits can be made off of school budgets while students suffer from a
deteriorating education system. The privatizers can afford the best Madison
Avenue propagandists available, but in reality words like ‘
<http://popularresistance.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=33602bebba8fb7dd6e71fb413&id=097998172c&e=e5b1868e14>
education choice’ have never served the disadvantaged but play on people’s
desperation and have
<http://popularresistance.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=33602bebba8fb7dd6e71fb413&id=14d28de8ac&e=e5b1868e14>
racist roots.
In Baltimore, we may be seeing the end of public education through the
starvation of public schools. The
<http://popularresistance.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=33602bebba8fb7dd6e71fb413&id=b55b0f9085&e=e5b1868e14>
public schools currently have a $130 million shortfall, which is likely to
mean firing 1,000 educators. Not only will this devastate Baltimore schools,
it will undermine the Baltimore economy. When you starve a public budget,
people get desperate, including parents, teachers, students and residents;
desperation is an opportunity for privatizers to come in and “save the day,”
a disguise for the privatization, profiteering and destruction of public
education. Adding to the concerns is that Baltimore “School Choice” advocate
Jason Botel is now the second in command under DeVos. Will Baltimore be an
experiment for full privatization of public schools?
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<http://popularresistance.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=33602bebba8fb7dd6e71fb413&id=587f28f096&e=e5b1868e14>
Image removed by sender. Immigrant rights activists protested the Gates
Foundation for their support of notorious private prison company GEO Group.
(Photo: Alex Garland via Presente.org)
<http://popularresistance.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=33602bebba8fb7dd6e71fb413&id=587f28f096&e=e5b1868e14>
This week the
<http://popularresistance.us2.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=33602bebba8fb7dd6e71fb413&id=fa5619c472&e=e5b1868e14>
Trump administration moved backward on the issue of private prisons. Obama
had taken initial steps to stop the use of private prisons, but Attorney
General Sessions withdrew his order. Private prisons treat inmates poorly,
whether it is the quality of food or health care, and require high levels of
occupancy, which encourages more prison sentences.
Another problem with privatization is lack of accountability. Corporations
often skirt regulations because they know that there aren’t enough
regulators to enforce the rules and that even if they are caught, they only
have to pay a fine. Their lobbyists work to weaken or stop regulations to
protect the environment, workers or consumers because they interfere with
their profits. Trump’s cabinet consists of
<http://popularresistance.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=33602bebba8fb7dd6e71fb413&id=7f3d08ae41&e=e5b1868e14>
people appointed to federal agencies that they have been critical of or want
to see destroyed. And regulations are being repealed, which will lead to
expensive environmental and other types of damage.
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<http://popularresistance.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=33602bebba8fb7dd6e71fb413&id=6bea735841&e=e5b1868e14>
Image removed by sender. No DAPL Protect the Water
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The Trump administration has moved forward on the Dakota Access Pipeline and
the Keystone Pipeline without environmental reviews. If one pipeline
explodes or has a significant leak, the cost in damage to water, land and
air will be massive. Cutting corners for profit will almost assuredly cost
the government more money in the future.
The bottom line on privatization is well described in
<http://popularresistance.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=33602bebba8fb7dd6e71fb413&id=eb0087320b&e=e5b1868e14>
an article on public-private partnerships by Pete Dolack. He points out we
can expect to see a lot more public-private partnerships under Trump,
especially for his infrastructure plans. This is just another form of crony
capitalism which will result in public money going to the wealthiest
investors. Trump will cut taxes on the wealthiest and build infrastructure
with private dollars, meaning profit as well as tax credits go to investors,
not the public. Dolack writes:
“The contractor, of course, expects a profit from the arrangement. The
government doesn’t — and thus corporate expectation of profits requires that
revenues be increased and expenses must be cut. Less services and fewer
employees means more profit for the contractor, and because the contractor
is a private enterprise there’s no longer public accountability.
“Public-private partnerships are nothing more than a variation on
straightforward schemes to sell off public assets below cost, with working
people having to pay more for reduced quality of service.”
What Is the Alternative?
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<http://popularresistance.us2.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=33602bebba8fb7dd6e71fb413&id=ba7a95068b&e=e5b1868e14>
Image removed by sender. Privatization-Equals-Corruption1
<http://popularresistance.us2.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=33602bebba8fb7dd6e71fb413&id=ba7a95068b&e=e5b1868e14>
There are alternatives to privatization, de-regulation and other policies
that funnel tax dollars and profits to the wealthy. Author
<http://popularresistance.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=33602bebba8fb7dd6e71fb413&id=a78ac6e3a7&e=e5b1868e14>
John Boik urges us to look at how we create “an economy of meaning,” which
begins with a rarely asked question: What economic system designs, out of
all conceivable ones, might be among the best at helping us meet real needs?
This question expands our thinking and creativity about the economy. It is
not limited to a capitalism vs. socialism. It is not just about creating
jobs, but about creating jobs people want to do. By making well-being
central to the economy, new approaches will be tried and, if they work,
expanded. The current economy does not work for most people. As we re-think
the economy, the centrality of well-being is a good foundation.
<http://popularresistance.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=33602bebba8fb7dd6e71fb413&id=f8cf77659d&e=e5b1868e14>
<http://popularresistance.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=33602bebba8fb7dd6e71fb413&id=f8cf77659d&e=e5b1868e14>
Image removed by sender. Privatization of water protest
<http://popularresistance.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=33602bebba8fb7dd6e71fb413&id=f8cf77659d&e=e5b1868e14>
In a chapter for the book “
<http://popularresistance.us2.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=33602bebba8fb7dd6e71fb413&id=a580498d26&e=e5b1868e14>
Moving Beyond Capitalism“,
<http://popularresistance.us2.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=33602bebba8fb7dd6e71fb413&id=37e01cfffe&e=e5b1868e14>
we suggested the commons as the antidote to predatory capitalism.
Concentrated wealth is derived by taking from the commons for personal gain
in an undemocratic way. Public goods, lands and services are part of the
commons that we should be sharing. Doing so would reverse the wealth divide
and build our mutual prosperity, e.g. all should have equity in healthcare,
access to the Internet and high quality education. Further, organizing and
governing the commons requires group decision-making, which will help to
reinvent democracy.
<http://popularresistance.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=33602bebba8fb7dd6e71fb413&id=827445aa90&e=e5b1868e14>
<http://popularresistance.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=33602bebba8fb7dd6e71fb413&id=827445aa90&e=e5b1868e14>
Image removed by sender. Commons not Capitalism
<http://popularresistance.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=33602bebba8fb7dd6e71fb413&id=827445aa90&e=e5b1868e14>
These are times of radical change. We are in the midst of an evolution. The
old world is one of concentrated economic power that creates inequality and
corrupt, hierarchical governance to serve concentrated wealth through
exploitation of people and planet. There is another way. We’ve reached a
tipping point, as evidenced by the worldwide revolt through Occupy, the Arab
Spring, the Indignados and other movements.
We can reverse the trend toward privatization and inequality by claiming the
commons for our mutual prosperity. We can build a more just, sustainable
and democratic world, a world based on the common good, in which people work
together to solve common problems and create an equitable economy that
betters the lives for all.
NOTE: Popular Resistance is able to provide movement news and resources
because of the support of our readers. If you are able, please donate so
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