Avatar

In The Common Interest

@commoninterest / commoninterest.tumblr.com

Avatar
reblogged

Coke Talk of the Day

Occupy Wall Street was a fucking mouse fart compared to the damage our generation could do to the system if every last one of us suddenly decided to stop making payments on our student loans.

I doubt it would take all that many conscientious defaulters to reach a tipping point — maybe a few hundred thousand — and the student debt bubble would burst. Credit scores would be meaningless. Ivory towers would crumble. The entire fucking economy would implode.

I dunno, it might be worth doing.

Avatar
reblogged
Avatar
azspot
Progressives tend to believe that democracy is based on citizens caring for their fellow citizens through what the government provides for all citizens — public infrastructure, public safety, public education, public health, publicly-sponsored research, public forms of recreation and culture, publicly-guaranteed safety nets for those who need them, and so on. In short, progressives believe that the private depends on the public, that without those public provisions Americans cannot be free to live reasonable lives and to thrive in private business. They believe that those who make more from public provisions should pay more to maintain them. Ultra-conservatives don’t believe this. They believe that Democracy gives them the liberty to seek their own self-interests by exercising personal responsibility, without having responsibility for anyone else or anyone else having responsibility for them. They take this as a matter of morality. They see the social responsibility to provide for the common good as an immoral imposition on their liberty.
Avatar
reblogged
Avatar
azspot
If the president can order the killing of 
American citizens abroad should he decide they are involved with Al Qaeda, can he assassinate suspected Al Qaeda–connected US citizens in London or Berlin? What about a suspect’s teenage son, a junior in a Canadian boarding school? If he can drop hellfire missiles on a house in northwestern Pakistan because he believes a terrorist cell is meeting inside, could he blow up a motel in Florida where supposed terrorists are staying and chalk up any dead vacationers as “collateral damage”? Of course not. Pakistan is completely different. Anwar al-Awlaki may have been a US citizen, but he was in Yemen, which is different too. As for his 16-year-old son, killed in Yemen in a drone attack some weeks later along with several other people, former White House press secretary Robert Gibbs put it well, if ungrammatically: “I would suggest that you should have a far more responsible father if they are truly concerned about the well-being of their children.” Unlike in the United States, in Yemen kids choose their parents.
Avatar

So, the DOJ White Paper purporting to establish a "legal framework" for killing American citizens abroad has leaked. First read: reasoning is deeply flawed and thinly sourced. Cites more speeches, remarks and dubious law review articles than anything else. No in-depth discussion of case-law (aside from Hamdi, where it jumps from "risk of erroneous deprivation of life" to permission to assassinate) or statutes. Does nothing to change my opinion that this may be currently the gravest threat to our constitutional rights, not gun control. It's dismissals of the 4th Amendment and of the possibility of judicial oversight, are particularly chilling.

Avatar
reblogged
Avatar
latimes

Prohibition ended 79 years ago today (Dec. 5, 1933) with the ratification of the 21st Amendment. This article, published in The Times the following day, noted, “It appeared that the crowds took the death of prohibition as a matter of course and drank in the usual way.” 

But, I thought prohibition of substances used for recreation is the only thing keeping people from binging to death on them!

Avatar
reblogged
In the grossly unequal United States, our most typical — or median — adult now holds just $38,786 worth of wealth. Half of American adults have more than this $38,786, half have less.
Japan’s most typical adults have a net worth of $141,410. In France, a nation with wealth much more equally distributed than in the United States but not as equally distributed as Japan, that typical adult holds $81,274 in wealth.
In other words, a typical Japanese household today sports more than triple the wealth of a typical U.S. household, and typical French households have twice as much wealth as their American counterparts.
Average Japanese and average French don’t work any harder than average people in the United States. They just live in societies that do a much better job of sharing the wealth that work creates.
Avatar
reblogged
So let’s be brutally honest here. The Romney-Ryan position on health care is that many millions of Americans must be denied health insurance, and millions more deprived of the security Medicare now provides, in order to save money. At the same time, of course, Mr. Romney and Mr. Ryan are proposing trillions of dollars in tax cuts for the wealthy. So a literal description of their plan is that they want to expose many Americans to financial insecurity, and let some of them die, so that a handful of already wealthy people can have a higher after-tax income.
Avatar
reblogged
It’s important for the public to understand why this much money is being spent by the [Chamber of Commerce] to defeat Brown. On virtually every issue area, he has upset the corporations that fund the Chamber, and those corporations now want to get rid of him. We’ve prepared this mini-report to explain how specific donors to the Chamber may have been angered by Brown decided to stand with his constituents and the taxpayers instead of corporate donors…

Brown has the banking, health insurance, and pharmaceutical industries after him, along with several multibillion-dollar companies that want to outsource American jobs. Make a donation to Brown here.

Avatar

The answer is revealed in your very question, sir. Let’s break it down: “health”, “care”, and “mandate”. Let’s start with the most complex word: mandate. It means requirement. It means something is required. It’s not a choice, it isn’t up for debate, it’s something we must do. Health and care are…

mandate means means mandatory. i despise anything mandatory. i dont have the money for health care - and i dont fucking need it. the government wants me to  make me pay for something i dont want? fuck that. FUCK. THAT.

The government makes you pay for everything, my friend. Wars. Oil subsidies. Drones in the sky. Keeping pot illegal. And you choose to bitch about helping sick people? Come on.

Avatar

Underground New York Public Library is an awesome new Tumblr featuring photos of people reading while they wait for the subway. The arresting photos speak for themselves.

Long train commutes make New York one of the most literary cities in the U.S. And because New York as one of the fashion capitals of the world,  you have all the ingredients you need for one very stylish documentary project.

Avatar
jessbennett

Welcome!

Love this.

Avatar
reblogged
Avatar
azspot
Iraq, despite the brutality of Saddam Hussein, was a prosperous country with a highly educated middle class before the war. Its infrastructure was modern and efficient. Iraqis enjoyed a high standard of living. The country did not lack modern conveniences. Things worked. And being in Iraq, as I often was when I covered the Middle East for The New York Times, while unnerving because of state repression, was never a hardship. Since our occupation the country has tumbled into dysfunction. Factories, hospitals, power plants, phone service, sewage systems and electrical grids do not work. Iraqis, if they are lucky, get three hours of electricity a day. Try this in 110-degree heat. Poverty is endemic. More than a million Iraqi civilians have been killed. Nearly 5 million have been displaced from their homes or are refugees. The Mercer Quality of Living survey last year ranked Baghdad last among cities-the least livable on the planet. Iraq, which once controlled its own oil, has been forced to turn its oil concessions over to foreign corporations. That is what we have bequeathed to Iraq-violence, misery and theft.

"I don't believe this" is not an adequate response after reading this.

Avatar
reblogged
Avatar
inothernews
Republicans have created this completely fictional President: his name is Barack X, and he’s an Islamo-socialist revolutionary who’s coming for your guns, raising your taxes, slashing the military, apologizing to other countries, and taking his cues from Europe — or worse yet, Saul Alinsky! And this is how politics has changed: you used to have to run against an actual candidate. But now, you just recreate him inside the bubble and run against your new fictional candidate. That’s how Bush won in 2004 — by running against John Kerry, a French war criminal. And speaking of Bush, I know conservatives are saying ‘Oh Bill, come on — Democrats did the same thing to him.’ No. Say what you will about the left’s hating of Bush, (but) at least we were hating on the real guy. We didn’t invent a boogeyman who tanked the economy, took us to war on false pretenses, and tortured prisoners — that was the actual guy. But run down the list of complaints about ‘Fantasy Obama’. He ‘wants to raise your taxes,’ even though he’s lowered them; ‘confiscate your guns,’ even though he’s never mentioned it; and ‘read terrorists their rights’ — yeah, like he did Tuesday in Somalia. …You see, the difference is the Republicans’ hatred of Obama is based on a paranoid feeling on what he might do; what he’s thinking; what he secretly wants to change. Anger with Bush was based on what he actually did. What Bush was thinking didn’t matter — because he wasn’t.

BILL MAHER, Real Time (via inothernews)

Avatar
reblogged
Avatar
pri

Economist Jeffrey Sachs says raise taxes to save civilization.

Economics, Sachs says, has been wrong on taxes and government for the last 30 years. Relying on the theories of free-marketers like Frederich Hayek and Milton Friedman, most economists approved lowering taxes on top earners and deregulation of industry as a way of fostering economic growth.

The result, says Sachs, has been a disaster — “the U.S. is unilaterally ceding its global leadership in education, science, and infrastructure.” Sachs is critical of both parties, saying of President Obama, “His entire economic program rests on a fiscal fallacy,” because the President promises continued low taxes even as he talks about investing in America’s future.

Sachs says America’s economic problems cannot be solved by tinkering with monetary policy at the Federal Reserve. He says it will take significantly higher taxes and a more active government to restore America’s economy and culture.

Has he told Poland yet?

Avatar

“En el cabaret de la globalización, el Estado realiza un strip-tease y al final de la función sólo le queda lo mínimo: el poder de la represión. Destruida su base material, anuladas su soberanía e independencia, borrada la clase política, el Estado nacional se convierte en un mero servicio de seguridad de las megaempresas… Los nuevos amos del mundo no necesitan gobernar en forma directa. Los gobiernos nacionales están encargados de administrar los asuntos en su nombre.” Subcomandante Marcos

Avatar
I found out three weeks ago I have cancer. I’m 49 years old, have been married for almost 20 years and have two kids. […] We’re good people, and we work hard. But we haven’t been able to afford health insurance for more than two years. And now I have third-stage breast cancer and am facing months of expensive treatment. […] Fortunately for me, I’ve been saved by the federal government’s Pre-existing Condition Insurance Plan, something I had never heard of before needing it. […] It’s not perfect, of course, and it still leaves many people in need out in the cold. But it’s a start, and for me it’s been a lifesaver — perhaps literally. Which brings me to my apology. I was pretty mad at Obama before I learned about this new insurance plan. I had changed my registration from Democrat to Independent, and I had blacked out the top of the “h” on my Obama bumper sticker, so that it read, “Got nope” instead of “got hope.” I felt like he had let down the struggling middle class. My son and I had campaigned for him, but since he took office, we felt he had let us down. So this is my public apology. I’m sorry I didn’t do enough of my own research to find out what promises the president has made good on. I’m sorry I didn’t realize that he really has stood up for me and my family, and for so many others like us. I’m getting a new bumper sticker to cover the one that says “Got nope.” It will say “ObamaCares.”

Spike Dolomite Ward, Los Angeles Times (via thedorseyshawexperience)

You are using an unsupported browser and things might not work as intended. Please make sure you're using the latest version of Chrome, Firefox, Safari, or Edge.