This week, it was revealed that retail giant Walmart and H&M took capitalist greed to a new level by slashing and burning what they could not sell. For these pillars of capitalism, instead of taking unsold items to sample sales or donating them to people in need (and there are many, especially in these very tough economic times where one-third of New York City’s population is poor), H&M and Wal-Mart have been throwing them out in giant trash bags. For good measure and to ensure that people who stumble on these bags of unsold items do not try to keep or re-sell them, these companies have gone ahead and slashed up garments, cut off the sleeves of coats, and sliced holes in shoes so they are unwearable. Hundreds of Wal-Mart tagged items with holes made in them have been found dumped: “gloves with the fingers cut off, warm socks, cute patent leather Mary Jane school shoes, maybe for fourth graders, with the instep cut up with a scissor, men’s jackets, slashed across the body and the arms. The puffy fiber fill was coming out in big white cotton balls.”
Civil Society
Fifth Columninsts: Republican Opposition and National Security
For all intent and purpose, it is safe to say that as long as Obama is president, he can rule out any contributions from most of the leadership of the Republican Party. I will actually go further and say it right now, that the Republican Party and its supporters are Fifth Columnist who are willing to engage in espionage or sabotage within our national borders with the intent of undermining the government from within and bringing down the Obama administration. In the course of this “Obama must fail” campaign, the right-wing master puppeteers of the Republican Party are blind to the national security implications of their opposition to anything the current administration wants to do.
Save Their Families, Destroy Yours
Did you hear about the American soldier who got thrown in jail because she missed her deployment plane to go save families and people in other countries? Yes, she got jailed because she could not find someone to take care of her ten-month old son and missed the plane! While she was being asked...
Read more »
The Party of “NO”?
It's just over a year since President Barack Obama won the U.S. presidential elections. A full year, you would assume, for the Republican Party to lick its wounds, put country first and help the new president get the country up and running as it tries to recover from...the worst recession in many decades.
Read more »
Foreign Aid and The Mirage Of Poverty Eradication
The reality of aid… is that it
continues to fail to promote human
development for the eradication of poverty
based on the core values of human rights,
democracy, gender equality and
environmental sustainability. This is despite
the appearance of progress in the form of
high-profile debt cancellations, new aid
pledges, and the signing of the Paris
Declaration on aid effectiveness – Caterina Amicucci
Read more »
Guantanamo and the New Imperialism
So the United States wants to close down the “tainted” gulag called Guantanamo Bay Prisons but the ruling elite represented by the American congress does not want any of the prisoners “on our soil”. Let’s get the difficult question out of the way: if the U.S., who snatched these individuals from various corners of...
Read more »
What does Dick Chenney want?
For eight long years, ... (Dick Chenney) devised the most egregious form of abuse of the U.S. constitution in the history of the country.
Read more »
The Spectacle called Lindsey Graham
Some people have absolutely no shame. Take the senator from South Carolina, Lindsey Graham, for example. I could not help but double up in raucus laughter the other day when I saw him on television yelling “look at this bill!, look at this bill!” while brandishing what I suppose was the current stimulus package that is going through the senate at the moment. Do these folks ever stop to think about the reaction of the public to their silly showmanship for a minute? Was this the same senator Graham who supported every bill George W. sent to the senate and even went on national television to support some of the most odious ones? Where was his outrage when billions of dollars were being wasted on a useless war? Where was he when billions of dollars were dolled out to billionaire farmers while many Americans were losing their jobs? Was he in this country when millions of dollars were allocated to stupid projects like the so-called bridge to nowhere? Oh, I know, a Republican president was in the White House then, so stupid and wasteful bills for stupid and wasteful expenditures were okay.
A Nation of Cynics
Just two weeks into the Obama administration, naysayers are already pronouncing the man and his administration a failure! And the reason, his promise to institute ethics reform and the revelation that some of his nominees had lapsed tax payments. That’s right. The same group who sat idly by, and in most cases were accomplices...
Read more »
Obama’s Holiday Greetings
President-Elect today sent the following greetings to Americans:
Good morning. This week, Americans are gathering with family and friends across the country to celebrate the blessings of Christmas and the holiday season.
As we celebrate this joyous time of year, our thoughts turn to the brave men and women who serve our country far from home....
Read more »