Who is the LNP fighting for when you aren’t the emitters even causing the planet to burn.
Modern environmental messaging stresses changes in individual behavior. But most CO2 emissions come from the rich
Source: How the 1% tricks you into thinking climate change is your fault | Salon.com
For example, when people are not paying what is legally required of them it means that someone else is not getting help recovering from their drug addictions, so instead they turn to crime. It means that the roads and bridges are not safe. It means that kids do not have access to preschool. Because the rich are not paying the taxes they owe and otherwise hiding income, it means that they are a de facto criminal class. The 1 percent are literally becoming wealthier and more powerful from criminal behavior. They use their influence to change the laws so that they pay fewer taxes, and this includes underfunding the IRS.
Source: Legal scholar Jennifer Taub on Trump as a symptom of America’s massive inequality | Salon.com
Iran’s mullahs are corrupt, but the Trump administration isn’t perhaps the one with the standing to criticize them.
Pompeo complained about Iran’s “aggression.” Iran hasn’t militarily invaded another country for a very long time. The United States, in contrast, overthrew the elected Iranian government in 1953 and aggressively invaded Iraq in 2003 with no casus belli, occupied it for 8.5 years, and left it a smoldering mess to this day. The US goes around overthrowing democratically elected governments the way Switzerland makes watches and chocolates. Moreover, not only has the US been active in invading other countries, but its chief client in the region, Israel, invaded or mounted bombing campaigns against others in 1956, 1967, 1982, 2006, 2009, and 2014. Pompeo is all right with those acts of aggression.
In response the NIAC reply
“It should be abundantly clear that Secretary Pompeo, who called for bombing Iran instead of negotiations, is no friend of the Iranian people.”
—Jamal Abdi, National Iranian American CouncilFar from what its title would suggest, National Iranian American Council (NIAC) vice president for policy Jamal Abdi argued in a statement that Pompeo’s speech is a blatantly cynical effort to “exploit” Iranian-Americans with the goal of advancing the Trump administration’s aggressive regime change push.
“What President Trump and Secretary Pompeo want is to exploit Iranian Americans and co-opt the Iranian people to provide legitimacy for the Trump administration’s Iraq War redux for Iran,” Abdi said. “Just as the Bush administration cultivated a few Iraqi exiles and talked about human rights to provide legitimacy for a disastrous invasion of Iraq, the Trump administration appears intent on using Iranian exiles to advance dangerous policies that will leave the Iranian people as its primary victims.”
“It should be abundantly clear that Secretary Pompeo, who called for bombing Iran instead of negotiations, is no friend of the Iranian people,” Abdi added. “As Americans, we have a vital role to play in ensuring our democratically elected government does not start wars on false pretenses or destroy lives in our names. As Iranian Americans, our voices are particularly vital when it comes to the U.S. government’s efforts regarding our ancestral homeland. We will not be exploited or silenced at this critical moment in history.”
“Hypocritical Clergymen”- How the Trump-Pompeo Slam of Iran Backfires
Would or could ordinary people ever unite for change? (ODT)
The world’s largest economies have grown at a steady pace and unemployment has consistently fallen in the years following the greed-driven global financial crisis of 2008, but income gains during the so-called recovery have been enjoyed almost exclusively by the top one percent while most workers experience “unprecedented wage stagnation.”
via As Global 1% Seize Economy’s Gains, ‘Unprecedented Wage Stagnation’ for Everyone Else
Since 1980, the economy has continued to grow impressively, but most of the benefits have migrated to the top. Why?, asks Bill Moyers
Source: How America became a 1% society | US news | The Guardian
The Jerusalem Detainees’ Parents Committee has reported, Sunday, that as the Palestinians mark the Prisoners Day on April 17, at least 509 Jerusalemite Palestinians are imprisoned by Israel, among them are 10 women, and 18 children.|Report: “Israeli Army Kidnapped And Imprisoned 1.000.000 Palest
“There are many signs that Germany this year will take in not 800,000 refugees, as forecast by the interior ministry, but one million,” he wrote to members of his
Source: Germany ‘may take in 1 million refugees this year’: vice chancellor – Your Middle East
Occupy Wall Street has focused national attention on the vast majority of Americans who have been left behind by the economic growth of the past few decades. But if OWS is the voice of the 99 percent, who exactly are the 1 percent?
A quick look at the numbers reveals that they aren’t all bailed-out Wall Street execs or brokers pulling down fat bonuses. That’s just some of them:
Even though the richest 1 percent of Americans don’t all work on Wall Street, they do control a disproportionate amount of its wealth, including nearly half of all stocks and mutual funds and more than 60 percent of securities.
But you can’t beat this chart for the most dramatic measure of just how wide the gap between the tippy-top and the 99 percent has become. While incomes for the superrich have skyrocketed in the past three decades, most Americans’ have flatlined.
ALSO: Check out our charts on income inequality, overworked America, and six common economic myths.
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