Towards an Enlightened & Sustainable World

liberalreader: “Socialism never took root in America because...

Sat, 19 May 2012 15:50:00 -0700

“Socialism never took root in America because the poor there see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.”

- John Steinbeck

One of the greatest cons ever pulled off.

How Hard Is Poverty Hitting Your County? A map of changes in...

Sat, 19 May 2012 15:45:36 -0700

How Hard Is Poverty Hitting Your County?

A map of changes in poverty, county by county.

It’s hardly news that the Great Recession pushed millions of Americans into poverty. In 2010, “poverty” meant having an income of less than $22,113 for a family of four; 15.1 percent of Americans were below that line. As this map shows, some areas of the country fared worse than others between 2007 and 2010. While some counties saw their poverty rates increase only slightly, and some even saw them drop, the number of people under the poverty line in Oregon’s Malheur County doubled to nearly two-fifths of its population. And those “bright spots” that appear as dark blue? Look closer—a full 6-point improvement in South Dakota’s Ziebach County still left more than one-half its residents below the poverty line. And even the poverty rate itself understates the privation in the country.

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Tue, 08 May 2012 14:17:33 -0700

Senate Republicans Block Bill on Student Loan Rates

Tue, 08 May 2012 14:16:54 -0700

Senate Republicans on Tuesday blocked consideration of a Democratic bill to prevent the doubling of some student loan interest rates, leaving the legislation in limbo less than two months before rates on subsidized federal loans are set to shoot upward.

Along party lines, the Senate voted 52 to 45, failing to clear the 60-vote hurdle needed to beat back a filibusterand begin debating the measure. Senator Olympia J. Snowe, the retiring moderate Republican from Maine, voted present.

Republicans said they wanted to extend Democratic legislation passed in 2007 that temporarily reduced interest rates for the low- or middle-income undergraduates who receive subsidized Stafford loans to 3.4 percent from 6.8 percent.

But they oppose the Senate Democrats’ proposal to pay for a one-year extension by changing tax law that currently allows some wealthy taxpayers to avoid paying Social Security and Medicare taxes by classifying their pay as dividends, not cash income.

“They want to raise taxes on people who are creating jobs when we are still recovering from the greatest recession since the Great Depression,” said Senator Lamar Alexander, Republican of Tennessee, who instead wanted to pay for it by eliminating a preventive health care fund in President Obama’s health care law.

The vote marked the 21st successful filibuster of a Democratic bill this Congress. Republicans have blocked consideration of the president’s full jobs proposal, as well as legislation repealing tax breaks for oil companies, helping local governments pay teachers and first responders, and setting a minimum tax rate for households earning more than $1 million a year.

Mr. Obama has been hammering Republicans for weeks on the issue, which has been elevated as a major political showdown, despite its relatively modest impact. American students took out twice the value of student loans in 2011, about $112 billion, as they did a decade before, after adjusting for inflation. Over all, Americans now owe about $1 trillion in student loans, and in 2010 such debt surpassed credit card debt for the first time.

But the bill in limbo addresses only a portion of that burden. Graduate students with Stafford loans pay a higher rate, as do students with unsubsidized Stafford loans. Most undergraduates take out both unsubsidized and subsidized loans.

Before the vote, Senate Democrats arrayed college students to plead for a yes vote, including Clarise McCants, 21, a junior at Howard University who said she had pulled herself out of a troubled neighborhood in North Philadelphia and relies on $13,500 in Stafford loans for her tuition.

“I know I’m not the only one with dreams,” she said. “I’m here to ask Congress, ‘Don’t double my rate.’ ”

Republicans have not always been so averse to closing the loophole the Senate bill addresses. In 2004, when it emerged that John Edwards had classified himself as a “subchapter S corporation” to pay himself dividends rather than income, conservatives blasted him for ducking payroll taxes.

But the Democratic line of attack has been complicated by the House’s actions. Shrugging off a White House veto threat, the House passed an extension of the subsidized rate last month, paid for with the preventive health care fund. Thirteen Democrats voted for the bill, making up for the 30 Republicans who voted no because they opposed federal subsidies for an interest rate they believed should be set by market forces. Those Democratic defections put the House bill over the top and fortified Republican arguments that the Senate Democrats are now to blame for the stalemate.

Representative Steny Hoyer of Maryland, the No. 2 House Democrat, said on Tuesday that those Democratic votes were driven by politics, not substance. “They didn’t want that 30-second ad” attacking them for opposing a rate-subsidy extension, he said. “That was not a demonstration at all for the funding source.”

Republicans made clear they would go on offense, blaming Democrats if interest rates doubled July 1.

“Instead of compounding the problem with more bad policies that raise taxes on small businesses and raid Social Security and Medicare, we must work together to prevent a rate increase on students and make it easier for job creators to hire them when they graduate,” Senator Roy Blunt, Republican of Missouri, said after the vote

Colleges' withholding transcripts of graduates who've fallen behind on loan payments

Mon, 07 May 2012 16:35:40 -0700

Colleges’ withholding of transcripts of graduates who’ve fallen behind on loan payments makes it even less likely that the student can get a job and resume loan payments.

Students traditionally have a soft spot for their alma maters. But as growing numbers of students run up debt in the high five and even six figures to pay for college, that may change. Especially when they discover their old school is actively blocking them from getting a job or going on to a higher degree.

That’s what increasing numbers of students are finding when they try to obtain an official transcript to send to potential employers or graduate admissions offices.

It turns out many colleges and universities refuse to issue these critical documents if students are in default on student loans, or in many cases, even if they just fall one or two months behind.

This is happening at a time when recent grads are finding it particularly hard to find work, not just in their chosen fields, but anywhere. About half of recent college degree-holders were unemployed or underemployed last year, according to an Associated Press study released last week. And the federalConsumer Financial Protection Bureau estimates student loan debt has passed $1 trillion, an amount greater than all outstanding credit card debt. The Department of Education put the default rate at 8.8% of student borrowers as of September 2010.

It’s no accident that colleges are using the withholding of official transcripts to punish students behind in their loan payments. It turns out the federal government encourages the practice. Schools are not required by law to withhold transcripts, but a spokeswoman at the Department of Education confirmed that the department “encourages” them to use the draconian tactic, saying that the policy “has resulted in numerous loan repayments.”

It is a strange position for colleges to take, however, since the schools themselves are not owed any money. Student loan funds come from private banks or the federal government. For federal Perkins loans, schools get a pool of federal money to apply to students’ financial aid, and if students don’t pay, that pool gets smaller. But the creditor is still the government, not the college. And in the case of so-called Stafford loans, schools are not on the hook in any way; they are simply acting as collection agencies, and in fact may get paid for their efforts at collection.

In Southern California, USC’s website makes it clear that unmet loan obligations can prevent students from getting transcripts. As for the University of California, Kate Jeffery, director of student financial support for the system, says transcripts are withheld in the case of delinquent Perkins loans. She concedes it’s a difficult issue but says that “it’s the only tool we have to make them pay.”

Schools don’t keep transcript extortion a secret, but for many students who miss the fine print, it’s a cruel surprise. A music major — and summa cum laude grad — at Philadelphia’s Temple University was making payments on his $62,000 student debt after graduation while working as an adjunct professor for Temple. Laid off after three years, he was unable to find work, fell far behind in his payments and went into default. He decided to try to return to school to earn a doctorate and better his chances of getting teaching work. He was accepted at another university and offered free tuition and a $26,000-a-year stipend for five years. That would allow him to clear his default and defer his loans until graduation. The problem: The grad school program requires an official transcript of his Temple work, and Temple so far has said no.

He asked that his name not be used because he’s afraid it would only make it harder to get help from Temple. “With these policies,” he told me, Temple is “helping to crush” students who will “end up with debt that they can never repay.”

Andrew Ross, an NYU professor who helped spark the Occupy Student Debt movement in November, says of the no-transcript tactic: “It’s worse than indentured servitude. With indentured servitude, you had to pay in order to work, but then at least you got to work. When universities withhold these transcripts, students who have been indentured by loans are being denied even the ability to work or to finish their education so they can repay their indenture.”

The Obama administration, which has made much of trying to ease the student debt burden, could with a simple directive reverse the Education Department’s recommendation that schools withhold transcripts. It’s past time to do just that.

Horror Novelist Stephen King Tells The 1% To Stop Being Selfish Pricks

Wed, 02 May 2012 08:07:33 -0700

Horror Novelist Stephen King Tells The 1% To Stop Being Selfish Pricks:

clockworktardis:

Preach it, Stevie. Tell it like it is, my main man.

Video: Portland Police Action during Occupy Portland May Day Protests

Wed, 02 May 2012 00:58:15 -0700

by Adam Rothstein (I know Adam, so if anyone has any questions, pass them along)

It’s been a long day out at the various May Day events, and we are still processing all of our video and photos from the day. However, two videos have surfaced that are such egregious examples of the Police violence that was unleashed against protesters today, that we wished to publish these videos without delay.

The first shows a woman being thrown to the curb, and her head being slammed into a bicycle. It was taken during the General Strike march, between 12 and 2 PM on May 1. After the police see the camera man filming, they charged him with police horses, to which he reacts, understandably upset at almost being trampled.

The second piece of footage shows police attacking people standing on the sidewalk, throwing them to the group, and then assaulting a young woman, including pulling her hair very forcibly. Then, they drag another person across the Light Rail tracks. Again, in this situation, the camera man was attacked while in the process of documenting the arrests.

It is very troubling that this sort of violence is used to attempt to enforce traffic infractions. Furthermore, the threatening gestures made towards the media, on a day when several members of the media were beaten by police and arrested, is very concerning.

We thank our media people who braved this violence, so that the people can see what their police force is paid to do to the citizens of Portland. The first video is by OPMC’s Mike BH, and the second is by a person whose name I unfortunately forget, but who stopped by the media van, concerned that this video would be seized by the police if he were to be arrested.

(05-01) 19:30 PDT Oakland — Oakland police clashed...

Tue, 01 May 2012 20:10:09 -0700

(05-01) 19:30 PDT Oakland —

Oakland police clashed repeatedly with Occupy activists Tuesday, firing tear gas canisters and flash-bang grenades at several hundred protesters near City Hall in brief but volatile skirmishes that escalated as quickly as they dissipated.

Some protesters shoved against police lines with black shields bearing an “A” for anarchy. Some threw objects at officers, surrounded police cars and pounded on them. In one case, a protester dressed in black threatened an officer with a pole.

But many protesters remained peaceful, throwing flowers at the cops’ feet or marching peacefully with children in the Fruitvale District, vowing to avoid the violence downtown.

The daylong series of events on May Day was held throughout parts of Oakland, San Francisco and the rest of the Bay Area by a wide range of protest groups, including Occupy, to honor International Workers’ Day and denounce economic inequities.

In Oakland in particular, the mood was tense from the beginning, despite the range of events that went from peaceful rallies to confrontations and vandalism.

“The tempo of the crowd was a lot more assertive, a lot more aggressive” than in past demonstrations involving Occupy groups, Oakland Police Chief Howard Jordan said in an afternoon press conference. He said the mood was so volatile that by 9 a.m. he had called for mutual aid from about a half-dozen area law enforcement agencies.

Read the rest…

Occupy May Day Protests Across US

Tue, 01 May 2012 19:52:00 -0700

The Occupy Wall Street movement has attempted to breathe new life into its campaign against inequities in the global financial system with a series of May Day protests around the United States.

Thousands of people turned out in New York for a day of action that culminated in a confident march down Broadway in the evening sunshine towards Wall Street, the crucible of the protest that began last year with an angry backlash against banking excess.

The stated aim of bringing business in the commercial capital of the US to a standstill went unfulfilled, but as rain gave way to a bright spring afternoon, traffic ground to a halt around Lower Manhatttan as theOccupy movement’s most anticipated day of action in months took hold.

There were isolated clashes with police as officers clamped down on perceived violations, but by early evening the mood was broadly good-natured. There were flashpoints, however, at protests elsewhere in the United States.

In Oakland, California, scene of several violent clashes between activists and police in recent months, the situation threatened to boil over again when police fired tear gas, sending hundreds of demonstrators scrambling. Police arrested four people.

Officers also fired “flash-bang” grenades to disperse protesters converging on officers as they tried to make arrests, police said. Four people were taken into custody.

Black-clad protesters in Seattle used sticks to smash some downtown windows and ran through the streets disrupting traffic. The city’s mayor, Mike McGinn, made an emergency declaration allowing police to confiscate any items that could be used as weapons.

In San Francisco the Occupy movement was blamed for a night of violence in which cars and small businesses were vandalised. Protest organizers later attempted to distance themselves from the disruption.

In New York threatening letters containing a white powder that appeared to be corn starch were sent to some institutions in the city. Three letters were received on Tuesday: two at News Corporation headquarters and addressed to the Wall Street Journal and Fox News, and one at Citigroup. The message in the letters said: “Happy May Day.”

Seven letters were received on Monday at various banks. One was sent to the New York mayor, Michael Bloomberg.

But in all Tuesday’s disruptions amounted more or less to a series disparate incidents in a day that was far less violent than some of the scenes witnessed when the movement was at its peak last year.

In New York the day of protest began in morning rain at Bryant Park where demonstraters gathered before setting off on marches around the area.

Outside a branch of Bank of America protesters chanted: “Bank of America, bad for America.” One participant, Jason Ahamdi, said he was ready for a long day of demonstrating. “I’m prepared for the whole day,” Ahmadi told the Guardian, saying that he had been involved in preparations for weeks.

As demonstrators marched past the headquarters of News Corp, the Fox News ticker read: “May Day, May Day, May Day, police set to deal with Occupy crowd that vows to shut down the city”, and “NYPD and big corporations braced for trouble”.

In Bryant Park there were many of the staple elements of Occupy’s original encampment, including a library with works from Thoreau, Alice Walker and F Scott Fitzgerald.

A screenprinting table was set up where participants could “up-cycle” their clothing, taking old their clothes and adding Occupy logos and imagery to them.

“Why buy something new when you can improve something you already have?” said David Yap, who was volunteering at the stand.

Eileen Maxwell arrived in New York on Saturday, motivated by the influence of corporate money on the political process. She dismissed the idea that the protest movement had declined in relevance. “People think we’re invisible. We’re not,” she said.

There were some clashes with police during the day, particularly during attempts to break out of the park on marches that did not have police permits. During one such attempt, at around 1pm, demonstrators, most clad in black and many with their faces covered, faced off against scores of NYPD officers.

Shortly after 1pm the demonstrators attempted to begin their march amid chants of “a-anti, anti-capitalista”. Moments after they stepped off the sidewalk, attempting to cross an intersection, police moved in to stop them. A physical confrontation ensued and one young man was pulled to the ground by his hair. With his face pressed against a sewer grate the man was handcuffed and arrested along with several others. Officers attempted to pull a banner from the demonstrators. One senior officer yelled in the face of the protesters as he pulled: “I fucking got it!”

The march tore through China Town and SoHo, with demonstrators darting down streets and sprinting to stay ahead of police scooters in pursuit.

As he watched the rowdy march pass, Jason Rose cheered in support. “I think they’re doing the right thing,” Rose said. Seth Carter, another bystander, agreed: “I think this is the best thing.”

During the afternoon the focus switched to Union Square. Again protesters took the street. “They were powerful,” said Paul Moore, who said he saw demonstrators push through a “football line” of police officers.

Once gathered in Union Square, Occupy Wall Street supporters converged with thousands of union members and community activists for a free concert. With a police helicopter circling low overhead, Grammy-award winning guitarist Tom Morello opened with his Worldwide Protest Song.

Morello told the Guardian that he “flew 3,000 miles” to aid the movement in its effort to “push a social justice agenda”.

After the concert, which also included performances from Immortal Technique, Das Racist and Dan Deacon, thousands of protesters marched south down Broadway, closed to traffic by the police, to the financial district.

Led by several New York City taxi cabs and scores of union members, the protesters arrived to Manhattan’s southern tip with plans for a long night to come.

“I hope it turns out beautifully,” said one protester, who called herself Anne F, as the remaining demonstrators gathered at a Vietnam Veterans memorial for a popular assembly.

As a police helicopter circled above, Occupy Wall Street organiser Nelini Stamp detailed May Day events around the country and the world to the crowd. “I think the day was a success,” Stamp told the Guardian.

Noting widespread and diverse participation throughout the day, Stamp added: “We showed that we are a force to be reckoned with.”

Occupy Oakland May Day

Tue, 01 May 2012 19:45:00 -0700

Occupy Oakland May Day

I know nothing about the group, so I cannot endorse it, but I...

Fri, 27 Apr 2012 00:42:24 -0700

I know nothing about the group, so I cannot endorse it, but I liked the video nonetheless.

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Fri, 20 Apr 2012 23:44:01 -0700

First Occupy Portland-Related Trial Presents A Unique Challenge...

Wed, 18 Apr 2012 09:07:15 -0700

First Occupy Portland-Related Trial Presents A Unique Challenge For The State

By Adam Rothstein

At 9 a.m. on Tuesday, April 17, Jonathan Zook sat down in the courtroom of Judge Karin Immergut, to witness the selection of a jury of his peers–the first jury for an Occupy-related court case in Portland. Zook is charged with resisting arrest, disorderly conduct in the second degree, interfering with an officer, and assault in the fourth degree, all stemming from his arrest on December 17 during an anti-NDAA march. Like many of the pre-trial motions and hearings that have been part and parcel of the Occupy Portland arrestees’ due process, jury selection was plodding, lasting most of the day. But through this process, much was revealed about the public’s impression of Occupy Portland, and what might take place when Occupiers are finally, at long last, judged by their peers.

Twenty-three prospective jurors were brought into the courtroom, to be whittled down to a final jury of six. From the very beginning it was clear how vital the process of jury selection, or voir dire, is to a trial. It is during this questioning of the potential candidates by the judge and the defense and prosecution lawyers that biases are exposed, and a fair and impartial jury is built, person by person.

The surprise was that, unlike some depictions of Occupy Portland in corporate media, the sympathies of Portland’s citizens were very much with the Occupiers. At the onset of questioning, Judge Immergut asked if anyone thought the subject matter would prevent them from making an impartial decision. Three hands immediately went up, all from candidates who admitted a heavy bias in favor of Occupy Portland. Two individuals said they knew people involved with Occupy Portland, and, regardless of police testimony, they wouldn’t be able to discount what they knew to be true from speaking to their friends and co-workers. Another person was even more vigorous in asserting this position and did not mince words. “All the witnesses for the prosecution are police officers,” she said. “ I’ve seen this too many times. I can’t trust them to be honest.” These three candidates were excused.

The more Machiavellian observer might contemplate the merits of Occupy Portland supporters keeping their partisanship under wraps, to thus sneak a favorable vote onto the jury. But if anything, Occupiers value honesty to a fault. Another candidate–when asked if he could find a defendant guilty of an infraction that he felt, ethically, should not be a crime–replied in no uncertain terms, “absolutely not”. This is, after all, why Occupiers and their supporters Occupy. They see the dark side of the “legal”, the malfunctioning of the government and the economic system, and they know that despite the approval of the ruling class, the system is ethically wrong, and must be stopped. This man also was excused.

Every potential juror was aware of Occupy Portland. There were a few who acted blase, saying that they either avoided reading news about Occupy, or tried to stay away from downtown during the encampment period. None of them claimed to be Occupiers, nor had they taken part in the protests. And yet, the harshest direct criticism heard from jury candidates was that they “saw both sides of the argument equally”. If ever there was a random Portland poll geared toward judging whether Occupy had an overall positive effect in the minds of average citizens, this was it. And the result was a resounding thumbs up.

Perhaps Occupy Portland is lucky to be in Portland, with a history of civil disobedience, and a population that understands its positive effects. Certainly such supportive juror candidates couldn’t be had in every city. When the prosecutor asked, “Do you agree that sometimes it is okay to resist arrest?” a retired college professor asked a question in response that might have come straight from a Movement Building forum at Occupy Portland. “Well, what do you mean by ‘resisting’ arrest?” She went on to say that she thought that going limp, and passively resisting, is a valid form of civil disobedience. The prosecutor, apparently looking to find the means to excuse more sympathetic candidates, asked if anyone else concurred. Seven people unhesitatingly raised their hands. Seeing that he clearly couldn’t excuse a third of the candidates at once, he simply went on to the next question.

Finally, six people from the room were picked to judge if Jonathan is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of what he stands accused of by the District Attorney and the Portland Police Bureau. The jurors spent the rest of the afternoon with their heads bowed, furiously taking notes on the testimony of two police officers, who, from the perspective of this journalist, clearly remembered that Jonathan Zook broke the law, but “couldn’t recall” much else. With the activists of Occupy Portland facing down the massive resources of these persecutory branches of so-called “government”, this journalist has never been sure that our legal system approximated anything close to “justice”. But at least I was reassured that the people of Portland remember what justice is, and, despite the roulette wheel of voir dire, they aren’t afraid to raise their hands and express it.

Study: Why Republicans and Democrats Can’t Feel Each Other’s Pain

Tue, 17 Apr 2012 12:12:00 -0700

Shakespeare asked rhetorically whether Christians and Jews are not “hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, heal’d by the same means, warm’d and cool’d by the same winter and summer?” The same can be said of Republicans and Democrats, but if you ask people on opposite sides of the aisle to try to empathize with one another, they tend to consider their rivals as not equally human.

That’s not a mere observation of election-year political antics, but a finding from scientific research. Led by Ed O’Brien, scientists from the University of Michigan crafted a study on inter-party empathy based on prior data on the emotion, which finds that our ability to empathize is greatly affected not only by whom we’re trying to empathize with, but also by our own physical and emotional states.

Physical states, especially, are difficult to transcend. If you’ve ever packed for a tropical vacation in the dead of winter and had difficulty imagining yourself basking on a warm beach when it’s freezing at home, you’ve experienced the challenge most people face when trying to take the perspective of another — or even of your own future self. When our visceral state is overwhelming, we tend to project the same feeling onto everyone else: if I’m cold, then you must be cold too.

Studies also find that thirsty people perceive others as being equally dehydrated, and those who feel frightened similarly think everyone else must be afraid too. Even exam cheaters project their own willingness to cut corners on fellow test takers.

But this kind of empathy doesn’t always extend to everyone. History is filled with examples of warriors who were brutal to their enemies, but kind to their comrades. Biologically speaking, the hormone most associated with empathy — oxytocin — has been found to increase people’s feelings of warmth and generosity toward their friends and family while simultaneously increasing prejudice against outsiders.

The Michigan study, published in Psychological Science, combined these various threads and sought to determine whether people’s political affiliations and their individual states of thirst or cold would affect their ability to empathize with another person. For the first experiment — conducted in January 2011 in Michigan, when both partisan sentiment and the weather were bitter — 120 students were recruited. Half were approached at a bus stop when the temperature dropped to as low as -14 degrees; the rest were interviewed in a cozy library. They were told they were participating in research on reading comprehension.

All of the participants read a short story about a hiker who was described either as a left-leaning, pro-gay rights Democrat or a right-wing Republican who took the opposite position. Taking a break from a campaign, the hiker had become lost on a mountain without adequate food or water or appropriate clothing for wintry weather. For female participants, the hiker was described as female; for men, the hiker was male.

Participants were asked which feeling — being thirsty, hungry or cold — was most unpleasant for the hiker and which item he or she most regretted not packing. The participants were also asked about their political beliefs and affiliations and whether they felt the hiker was similar to them. Not surprisingly, feelings of similarity were almost exactly correlated with political agreement.

People who were interviewed outside at the bus top were most likely to focus on the hiker being cold — but only if they felt the hiker was similar to them. Ninety-four percent of those at the bus stop who felt similar to the lost hiker said the cold was the worst part of his or her experience; in comparison, only 57% of those who were interviewed indoors said the same. If participants disagreed with the hiker’s politics, however, their own personal physical state had no bearing on their response: people chose the cold in equal numbers, regardless of where they were interviewed.

Similar results were found with regard to regrets: 81% of those at the bus stop whose politics fell in line with the hiker’s said he or she likely regretted not bringing the right clothing most of all, while only 37% of those indoors said this. But again, the participant’s personal state didn’t affect responses when Democrats were considering lost Republican hikers, or vice versa.

MORE: Psychologist Simon Baron-Cohen on Empathy and the Science of Evil

In another experiment, this time related to thirst, the researchers found similar results: 141 students were given eaten salty snacks to eat, half with a glass of water and half without. Among participants who shared the hiker’s party affiliation, 71% of those who were thirsty said that his or her lack of water would matter most, while only 20% of those who got a glass of water focused on thirst. Once again, people’s own thirst had no effect on their consideration for the hiker’s water needs, if the hiker was labeled as a political enemy.

The finding is disheartening because it suggests that our prejudices affect the processing of our emotions on a deep and completely unconscious level. The authors write:

These consequences suggest a surprising limitation in our capacity to empathize with people we disagree with or differ from… Firsthand painful experiences apparently do not translate into appreciating similar pain felt by dissimilar others.

This sad conclusion may help explain, at least in part, why politicians continue to talk past each other and fail to cooperate, even where there are obvious areas of agreement. (The similarities between Mitt Romney’s conservative-think-tank designed health plan and Obama’s health-care plan come to mind.)

There are exercises aimed at increasing empathy: some research suggests, for example, that simply spending time together in neutral or pleasant settings can help increase understanding between groups. Indeed, prior Congresses have actually crossed party lines to socialize. But while it’s doubtful that a non-partisan retreat or more social contact would change politicians’ attitudes today, for the sake of our children, let’s hope they find a way to work together.

MORE: How Not to Raise a Bully: The Early Roots of Empathy

Maia Szalavitz is a health writer at TIME.com. Find her on Twitter at @maiasz. You can also continue the discussion on TIME Healthland’s Facebook page and on Twitter at @TIMEHealthland.

bostonreview: Via Gar Alperovitz

Mon, 16 Apr 2012 09:47:35 -0700

bostonreview:

Via Gar Alperovitz

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Sat, 14 Apr 2012 22:59:29 -0700

Portlanders: The Symbiosis Project

Sat, 14 Apr 2012 22:45:00 -0700

Portlanders: The Symbiosis Project:

The Symbiosis Project is an interactive social art project that asks neighbors to envision the world they want to live in and write something about it on paper made with flower seeds. Their hopes are anonymously exchanged with a stranger’s.

Note from the founder:

I want to share a project I’m working on, in hopes something about it resonates with you folks.

I’ve been making paper infused with flower seeds, and building DIY vending machines that go around telephone poles, that I’m starting to put around the city. Passersby are invited to share a vision they have of the future they dream of and to put it into the box and turn a knob. When they turn the knob, a card that someone else has written falls out. If that stranger’s vision of the future resonates with them, they are invited to take the card home and plant it. When it gets wet, the card will dissolve and flowers will grow in it’s place. When we see these flowers growing, we will know they represent not just a single person’s dream for the future, but a dream that is shared and has been cultivated by a stranger.

I’m assembling all of the hopes and dreams I get into a live word-cloud, where the most common words are largest, so we can see a collective vision of the future begin to emerge. This is the first one that the computer spit out. I’m also allowing people to log onto the website, and share what message they received and are cultivating. I’m hoping to add a map feature soon, so that users can tag a map with what their card said and where they planted it around the city, give a strong sense of place. It would also allow people to check back to see if and where their hope was planted.

I’m a screenprinter, and I’ve been making my own seed paper. I haven’t tried it yet, but I’m pretty sure we could design some badass posters, print them onto seed paper posters, and fix them to phone poles with screen mesh. When it rains, the seeds will germinate but the mesh will hold the pulp in place, and flowers will grow vertically out of the phone pole where the poster used to be. Just one idea. You can also make big sheets of seed paper, each with different color flower seeds, then cut them into designs, arrange them, and soak them with water until they dissolve. In this way, you can create a design/image that is only noticeable when the flowers all bloom. Anyway, in the spirit of occupy, I’m just sharing my reality with you, and if you can think of any way you want to participate, I welcome your support.

Equality, Unity, Solidarity,

Sam

NYTimes: Why I Am Leaving Goldman Sachs

Sat, 14 Apr 2012 14:38:59 -0700

by Greg Smith

Today is my last day at Goldman Sachs. After almost 12 years at the firm — first as a summer intern while at Stanford, then in New York for 10 years, and now in London — I believe I have worked here long enough to understand the trajectory of its culture, its people and its identity. And I can honestly say that the environment now is as toxic and destructive as I have ever seen it.

To put the problem in the simplest terms, the interests of the client continue to be sidelined in the way the firm operates and thinks about making money. Goldman Sachs is one of the world’s largest and most important investment banks and it is too integral to global finance to continue to act this way. The firm has veered so far from the place I joined right out of college that I can no longer in good conscience say that I identify with what it stands for.

It might sound surprising to a skeptical public, but culture was always a vital part of Goldman Sachs’s success. It revolved around teamwork, integrity, a spirit of humility, and always doing right by our clients. The culture was the secret sauce that made this place great and allowed us to earn our clients’ trust for 143 years. It wasn’t just about making money; this alone will not sustain a firm for so long. It had something to do with pride and belief in the organization. I am sad to say that I look around today and see virtually no trace of the culture that made me love working for this firm for many years. I no longer have the pride, or the belief.

But this was not always the case. For more than a decade I recruited and mentored candidates through our grueling interview process. I was selected as one of 10 people (out of a firm of more than 30,000) to appear on our recruiting video, which is played on every college campus we visit around the world. In 2006 I managed the summer intern program in sales and trading in New York for the 80 college students who made the cut, out of the thousands who applied.

I knew it was time to leave when I realized I could no longer look students in the eye and tell them what a great place this was to work.

When the history books are written about Goldman Sachs, they may reflect that the current chief executive officer, Lloyd C. Blankfein, and the president, Gary D. Cohn, lost hold of the firm’s culture on their watch. I truly believe that this decline in the firm’s moral fiber represents the single most serious threat to its long-run survival.

Over the course of my career I have had the privilege of advising two of the largest hedge funds on the planet, five of the largest asset managers in the United States, and three of the most prominent sovereign wealth funds in the Middle East and Asia. My clients have a total asset base of more than a trillion dollars. I have always taken a lot of pride in advising my clients to do what I believe is right for them, even if it means less money for the firm. This view is becoming increasingly unpopular at Goldman Sachs. Another sign that it was time to leave.

How did we get here? The firm changed the way it thought about leadership. Leadership used to be about ideas, setting an example and doing the right thing. Today, if you make enough money for the firm (and are not currently an ax murderer) you will be promoted into a position of influence.

What are three quick ways to become a leader? a) Execute on the firm’s “axes,” which is Goldman-speak for persuading your clients to invest in the stocks or other products that we are trying to get rid of because they are not seen as having a lot of potential profit. b) “Hunt Elephants.” In English: get your clients — some of whom are sophisticated, and some of whom aren’t — to trade whatever will bring the biggest profit to Goldman. Call me old-fashioned, but I don’t like selling my clients a product that is wrong for them. c) Find yourself sitting in a seat where your job is to trade any illiquid, opaque product with a three-letter acronym.

Today, many of these leaders display a Goldman Sachs culture quotient of exactly zero percent. I attend derivatives sales meetings where not one single minute is spent asking questions about how we can help clients. It’s purely about how we can make the most possible money off of them. If you were an alien from Mars and sat in on one of these meetings, you would believe that a client’s success or progress was not part of the thought process at all.

It makes me ill how callously people talk about ripping their clients off. Over the last 12 months I have seen five different managing directors refer to their own clients as “muppets,” sometimes over internal e-mail. Even after the S.E.C., Fabulous Fab, Abacus,God’s work, Carl Levin, Vampire Squids? No humility? I mean, come on. Integrity? It is eroding. I don’t know of any illegal behavior, but will people push the envelope and pitch lucrative and complicated products to clients even if they are not the simplest investments or the ones most directly aligned with the client’s goals? Absolutely. Every day, in fact.

It astounds me how little senior management gets a basic truth: If clients don’t trust you they will eventually stop doing business with you. It doesn’t matter how smart you are.

These days, the most common question I get from junior analysts about derivatives is, “How much money did we make off the client?” It bothers me every time I hear it, because it is a clear reflection of what they are observing from their leaders about the way they should behave. Now project 10 years into the future: You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure out that the junior analyst sitting quietly in the corner of the room hearing about “muppets,” “ripping eyeballs out” and “getting paid” doesn’t exactly turn into a model citizen.

When I was a first-year analyst I didn’t know where the bathroom was, or how to tie my shoelaces. I was taught to be concerned with learning the ropes, finding out what a derivative was, understanding finance, getting to know our clients and what motivated them, learning how they defined success and what we could do to help them get there.

My proudest moments in life — getting a full scholarship to go from South Africa to Stanford University, being selected as a Rhodes Scholar national finalist, winning a bronze medal for table tennis at the Maccabiah Games in Israel, known as the Jewish Olympics — have all come through hard work, with no shortcuts. Goldman Sachs today has become too much about shortcuts and not enough about achievement. It just doesn’t feel right to me anymore.

I hope this can be a wake-up call to the board of directors. Make the client the focal point of your business again. Without clients you will not make money. In fact, you will not exist. Weed out the morally bankrupt people, no matter how much money they make for the firm. And get the culture right again, so people want to work here for the right reasons. People who care only about making money will not sustain this firm — or the trust of its clients — for very much longer.

Greg Smith is resigning today as a Goldman Sachs executive director and head of the firm’s United States equity derivatives business in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

occupyallstreets: Infographic: The Facts About Voter...

Fri, 13 Apr 2012 08:45:25 -0700

occupyallstreets:

Infographic: The Facts About Voter Suppression

The right to vote is under attack. In response to record voter turnout in 2008, we’ve seen an uptick in state legislation aimed to suppress the vote.

Voter suppression measures have been introduced in more than 20 states, and recently passed in critical swing states like Virginia, Pennsylvania and Minnesota. All of these suppression measures — from voter ID laws, restrictions in voter registration and cuts to early voting — make it harder for African-American, low-income, elderly and other minority voters to cast a ballot.

Check out these infographics and learn more about how the attack on the right to vote disproportionately impacts minority voters.

Source

“If only the war on poverty was a real war, then we would...

Thu, 12 Apr 2012 15:39:01 -0700

“If only the war on poverty was a real war, then we would actually be putting money into it.”