More trial-sized, out-of-wrapper offerings, not necessarily left-over from All Hallow’s Eve. Judge the flavor for youself:
>>I’ve been watching quite a bit of Current TV over the last few months, especially now that Keith Olbermann signed on. I miss the viewer-created video “pods” that were the mainstay of the network for years, but I’m also taking a liking to the Vanguard series. You probably won’t find better investigative journalism anywhere on TV, and these guys literally put their necks on the line for the stories they tell. Their recent visits to Juarez, Mexico to cover the ongoing saga of the dominance of the Mexican drug cartels, and the wreckage they leave behind in terms of young lives destroyed, are prime examples of this hell-for-leather mentality. They know the price they might have to pay to get these stories, as well - just ask Laura Ling.
>>I've also been paying whatever attention I can to the Occupy movements (which I wholeheartedly support), and those people putting themselves on the line for something better than the bleak future staring us in the face now. The lesson to be drawn from this, at least from the perspective of the 1 percenters, should be: The most dangerous person in the world is a person with nothing to lose.
This axiom is the biggest reason for the passage of the New Deal and the Great Society programs - people who are housed, fed, and clothed, and have their basic needs met, have a much less propensity to protest than those that have little, or none, of the above. Our economic system, and thus American society, was relatively stable from that period up until now (save for the 1960s, perhaps - people don't like to be lied to about the reason for going off to die in a war which had little, if anything, to do with us. BTW - "domino theory" = bullshit). I suggest another visit to Naomi Klein's tome The Shock Doctrine, for a reminder or two as to what happens to populations when their wealth is taken from them and handed over to oligarchs, all in the name of "free markets." John Perkins tells a similar tale in his classic Confessions of an Economic Hitman. I also suggest taking a closer look at the last thirty-plus years of history of violence in the Middle East. Honestly - if the chief export of Iraq, Iran, and Saudi Arabia were rutabagas, would we have troops there, not to mention military bases the size of the Vatican? Oil is why where there and why the plan is to stay there - we know it, and the citizens of those countries, sure as hell, know it. It's yet another example of a country's natural resources confiscated by a country with superior firepower and the fruits of those resources being reaped by oligarchs. This same, sad, freaking story has been told before, in episodes going back hundreds of years before Naomi Klein's book - ask our First Nations people on this continent, and the Aboriginal populations in Australia and elsewhere.
>>As for Move Your Money day - I've been banking at credit unions for about sixteen years now, for the very reasons that many in the Occupy movement give for doing so. Plus, the interest rates on loans are generally better, free checking and minimal fees, and your money is protected, just like at a bank. Check 'em out - you'll be glad you did.
More later, I'm sure. Hell, you might even see me holding up a sign and marching in the near future if this bullshit keeps up. There's no indication that it won't.
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