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Showing posts from September, 2018

You Don’t Know Brett: Ten Lessons from the Kavanaugh Hearings

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The Brett Kavanaugh hearings proved to be yet another shameless foray into political theatre - not much more than a spectacle of the utmost proportions. Surrounding one highly credible and candid witness (Blasey Ford), we saw self-serving members of Congress jockeying for future positions with their sometimes ridiculous, sometimes laughable, and sometimes overwrought rhetoric. We saw a very typical entitled rich white man acting as if he had worked hard his whole life and deserved every great fortune he has received. He seemingly had no regrets or mistakes in his past (or present, or future, presumably). It’s fairly obvious that Kavanaugh cannot be trusted. He has already perjured himself in the past . We didn’t need to hear the Republicans spew their litany of erroneous, misogynist, religious-tinged nonsense. We didn’t need to hear the Democrats attempt to be heroes, however disingenuous they may be. (Ahem – does Juanita Broaddrick ring a bell?) What I think we need to hea

Selling Out is Not Sacrifice

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The evils of capitalism are as real as the evils of militarism and evils of racism.  -- Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. You show me a capitalist; I’ll show you a bloodsucker. -- Malcolm X Has enough time elapsed that we can finally speak frankly about all of the hoopla over a cynical sneaker endorsement? OK. Then I have to ask: Have we all lost our minds?? Am I to understand that our civilization has “progressed” to the point where supposed social change is aided by the manipulative marketing of overpriced, sweatshop-produced apparel? Remember sweatshops? Or are they just a faddish social cause from the 90s? Charles Kernaghan of the Institute for Global Labour and Human Rights calls the conditions created by multinational corporations like Nike, and faced by workers in their factories, "the science of exploitation."   Those who endorse the likes of such corporations stand complicit in their evildoings. Courtesy: Oxfam Austrailia Just because the hei