Return of the Golden Calf

By Robert C. Koehler
COTO Report

’Tis the season to feel rage and heartache about the economy.

I feel hope as well, praise the Lord, thanks to Pope Francis and the alley behind my house, where nothing of value goes to waste.

I’m the kind of person who can’t throw anything away, but sometimes I have to anyway — an old microwave, a sewing machine that hasn’t been used in 20 years, a threadbare easy chair, tangled computer wires and other excruciating miscellany — and when I do, it’s usually gone within a day, if not an hour. When I can no longer find value in what I possess, others see it as a gift from the universe.

WE’RE #1, WE’RE #1! Charting American Exceptionalism

By Joe Weisenthal
Business Insider

Is America the exceptional, #1 country in the world? Of course it is!

David Morris of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance has published the truth about American exceptionalism. It turns out, the US is #1 in all sorts of ways.

Are We Witnessing the Start of a Global Revolution?

North Africa and the Global Political Awakening, Pt 1

By Andrew Gavin Marshall
Global Research

It seems as if the world is entering the beginnings of a new revolutionary era: the era of the ‘Global Political Awakening’ perceived as a threat by globalists, writes Andrew Gavin Marshall.

“For the first time in human history almost all of humanity is politically activated, politically conscious and politically interactive… The resulting global political activism is generating a surge in the quest for personal dignity, cultural respect and economic opportunity in a world painfully scarred by memories of centuries-long alien colonial or imperial domination… The worldwide yearning for human dignity is the central challenge inherent in the phenomenon of global political awakening… That awakening is socially massive and politically radicalizing… The nearly universal access to radio, television and increasingly the Internet is creating a community of shared perceptions and envy that can be galvanized and channeled by demagogic political or religious passions. These energies transcend sovereign borders and pose a challenge both to existing states as well as to the existing global hierarchy, on top of which America still perches…

Income Gap More Like an Abyss

News from around the web:

Income gap widens: “The top-earning 20 percent of Americans – those making more than $100,000 each year – received 49.4 percent of all income generated in the U.S., compared with the 3.4 percent earned by those below the poverty line, according to newly released census figures. That ratio of 14.5-to-1 was an increase from 13.6 in 2008 and nearly double a low of 7.69 in 1968.”

The American Workplace – Sweatshop USA

By Vi Ransel
Global Research

Are there no prisons?  Are there no workhouses?” – Ebenezer Scrooge. “A Christmas Carol,” Charles Dickens
 
“Labor is prior to, and independent of capital.  Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed.  Labor is superior to capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.”  – Abraham Lincoln 
 
“I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a revolution of values.  We must rapidly begin to shift from a ‘thing-oriented’ society to a ‘person-oriented’ society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism and militarism are incapable of being conquered.” – Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Read Part One and Part Two
 
While Constitutional architect James Madison spoke of the rights of minorities in general, his writings make it clear that he had a particular minority in mind.  Madison believed that government’s primary responsibility is “to protect the opulent against the majority.” 

The Real Top 10 News Stories of the Past Decade

By Robert Freeman

The media are awash with talking heads bloviating about the top stories of the last decade. The wired-in society. The growth of organic food. The new frugality. This is the ritual that reveals their true function in the culture: pacification. It’s their way of signaling the masses that Bigger Thinkers are looking after things, so go back to your Wii or Survivor or Facebook reveries.

The amazing thing is how little is ever mentioned about the stories that really mattered, those that affected the very nature of our society, its institutions, and the relation of the people to their state and society. Those stories paint a picture of danger, of a people who have lost control of their government and the corporations that own it. But you’ll hear nary a word about such difficult truths from any storyteller in the conventional media.

So here, in no particular order, are my Top Ten Stories of the Naughties, the ones that really matter.

Breaking the Australian Silence

In a speech at the Sydney Opera House to mark his award of Australia’s human rights prize, the Sydney Peace Prize, John Pilger describes the “unique features” of a political silence in Australia: how it affects the national life of his homeland and the way Australians see the world and are manipulated by great power “which speaks through an invisible government of propaganda that subdues and limits our political imagination and ensures we are always at war — against our own first people and those seeking refuge, or in someone else’s country”.

By John Pilger

Global Survey: 74% Critical of Neoliberal Capitalism

Sao Paolo, Brazil wealth vs poverty

By Ernesto Carmona 

A global survey commissioned by the BBC revealed that 74% of 29,000 respondents in 27 countries are critical of neoliberal capitalism. This is a reversal from a 2005 survey by the same firm, GlobeScan, which found 63% in favor of a free market. The only Latin American nations surveyed all hold free trade agreements with the US, and all reject neoliberalism by vast majorities. France and Germany believe strong regulation can cure problems with capitalism.

Extinctions, Over-Population and the Profit Paradigm

The six great extinction spasms, with projection thru 2100. From http://bit.ly/7Eaq5Q

By Rady Ananda

Human activities are blamed for what may be Earth’s greatest extinction spasm. Of the five categories of these activities, the world’s wealthy focus on over-population, ignoring their own environmentally destructive actions from which they wrought their wealth. 

“Why do you see the speck in your brother’s eye, but fail to notice the beam in your own eye?” Mathew 7:3