Author: Brian

The circumstances which surround different classes and individuals, and shape their characters, are daily becoming more assimilated….they now read the same things, listen to the same things, see the same things, go to the same places, have their hopes and fears directed to the same objects….

John Stuart Mill feared that abject conformity can occur by a natural social process of complacency and cultural adaptation, not requiring an autocracy or a tyrant to impose it.

Such a ‘soft despotism, he thought, can prove as great a threat to the freedom of the individual as the repressive state.

Mark Thoma, an economist:

I can remember thinking during the Bush administration that, for the first time in my life, I wasn’t sure if the government was operating in a way that put the interests of “we the people” first.

There had been many, many times when I disagreed strongly with what the government was doing, but for the most part I didn’t feel as though the government was operating in bad faith. But the Bush administration changed that, or at least led me to question the motivations behind those in power, and it’s a legacy that does not get enough attention.

At the time I had these thoughts, I wondered if things had always been this way, if age had simply opened my eyes to obvious truths that were there all along.

I think that’s partly true, I feel dumb for not realizing things earlier in my life all the time. But I don’t think it’s the main thing that was going on. The Bush administration did change the perception of government, and not for the better.

Volcker is right that there is a “real rebuilding job” ahead of us, a job that will be made more difficult by those who, guided by their ideological beliefs, helped to bring the present state of government about. This group doesn’t see much of a problem when government does not work.

Q&A with Paul Volcker at the Financial Times:

Well, we’ve got a problem in governing in this country…

Our inability to deal with very large evident problems is apparent.

I spent half of my career worrying about public service and the efficiency and effectiveness error. I must say I’ve gotten a little cynical. I headed two commissions on this subject and I kind of feel what am I here for?

Nothing’s happened. It’s gotten worse; not better.

Somebody quoted … there is a questionnaire – one of these things that they ask the same question every year or every two years for decades and try to get the trend of thinking.

One of the standard questions … said, ‘Do you trust your government to do the right thing most of the time?’ That doesn’t sound like the toughest question in the world, but when I was in government way back in the Kennedy years, the answer to that question would be – I don’t know – 60-70 per cent…

You ask that question now and you’re down in the twenties. Somebody quoted a survey the other day. I don’t know if it’s the same survey. It was some politician that said the latest figure was 17 per cent. Now you’ve got a problem in running a democracy and running a government if the amount of trust in the government in general and trust in individual institutions and trust in the Congress, trust in the administration is not there.

It used to be one of the advantages of the Federal Reserve was I thought that was an institution that was generally considered to be competent, professional, independent and trusted. Not unanimously, but more than 20 per cent. I think some of that’s been lost. It’s a big challenge right now. That’s one of our most important institutions.

So we have a real rebuilding job to do…

Invade A Hospital

The Practice & Power of Authentic Community Engagement :

When a community is authentically engaged in conversations that matter, the conversation engages their assets in the realization of their dreams.

In authentic engagement, the community becomes author of its own future.

The opposite of authentic engagement is lip service…

Journalists and politicians will not use this formula as their headline or sound bite to scare us.

Instead we read that we are living on unsustainable deficits and robbing from our children.

Wrong.

The fact is that none of Obama’s programs are under threat by the extra spending that is needed to stabilise the very poorly performing US economy. They may be under threat politically but that is another question. He can still conduct comprehensive health care reform and reduce the US dependency on foreign oil and start building a renewable energy sector. He always has the fiscal capacity to do that. Whether now is the time is another matter. It has nothing to do with the current size of the deficit.

Whenever a demagogue wants to whip up hysteria about federal budget deficits, he or she invariably begins with an analogy to a household’s budget: “No household can continually spend more than its income, and neither can the federal government”.

Wrong.

The Federal Budget is NOT like a Household Budget – Here’s Why.

A mass-mind high through the Internet?

First step is Mind Hacks’ literary trip for a moment. Then jump to Guardian’s exploration of Literature’s most mind-blowing drugs. Aldous Huxley’s soma. Frank Herbert’s spice. Philip K. Dick’s group hallucinogenic Can-D.

Don Peck:

1. We are living through a slow-motion social catastrophe, one that could stain our culture and weaken our nation for many, many years to come.
2. The worst effects of pervasive joblessness—on family, politics, society—take time to incubate, and they show themselves only slowly. But ultimately, they leave deep marks that endure long after boom times have returned. Some of these marks are just now becoming visible, and even if the economy magically and fully recovers tomorrow, new ones will continue to appear. The longer our economic slump lasts, the deeper they’ll be.
3. We have a civic—and indeed a moral—responsibility to do everything in our power to stop it now, before it gets even worse.

Rewiring Haiti:

1. Haiti, in all its deforested, polluted, cartel-corrupted, disease-riddled impoverishment, is a vision of our planet’s future if we continue to devour natural resources beyond replenishment, downplay the seriousness of climate change, spike efforts at family planning and ignore the integral importance of environmental health. As goes Haiti, so go we all.
2. Haiti has been teetering at brink of breakdown for as long as anyone can remember…
3. Practically every medical problem in Haiti is poverty-related. The never-ending cycle of deforestation lead(s) to more ecological damage, more compromised farming, more poverty and more hunger. It goes on and on and on. We can go on giving health-care forever – It would never really touch even the brim of the problem here.

On 16 January, 2010, Reid Stowe achieved his goal of spending 1000 days at sea without touching land or taking on any supplies. Reid’s voyage has broken 4 records:

1. Longest non-stop voyage – Reid Stowe – 1,000 days (Previous: Jon Sanders – 657 days)
2. Longest non-stop solo – Reid Stowe – 694 days (Previous: Jon Sander – 657 days)
3. Longest non-stop by an American – (Previous: Dodge Morgan, 150 days)
4. Longest non-stop woman – Soanya Ahmad – 306 days (Previous: Kay Cottee – 189 days)

Mick Arran:

If Sarah Palin is a populist, I’m a millionaire.

The Right Wing Noise Machine has spent the past 30 years ceaselessly pounding it into our heads that we should ignore all that screaming and pain coming from offstage because it was just low-lifes complaining about they hate working for a living and lazy bums like that didn’t deserve any better. Of course, they insisted, that would never happen to you. You’re not a lazy bum.

And we, much to our everlasting embarrassment and shame, believed this malarkey.

We might also have been able to put a stop to it before it wrecked the global economy.

Is there a way out of the social and environmental problems which beset us, a new approach to improving the real quality of life, not just for the poor but for everyone?

Almost every problem – ill-health, lack of community life, violence, drugs, obesity, mental illness, long working hours, big prison populations – is more likely to occur in a less equal society.

It is common knowledge that in rich societies the poor have shorter lives and suffer more from almost every social problem, but it’s less well known that unequal societies are bad for almost everyone within them – the well-off as well as the poor.

The assumption is greater equality helps those at the bottom. However, the truth is that the vast majority of the population is harmed by greater inequality; rates of mental illness are five times higher; people are five times as likely to be clinically obese, and murder rates may be many times higher. The more unequal the society, the more people feel threatened, both rich and poor.

Inequality is bad for everyone, including the richest.

James Kwak:

There is no Chicago-school free market solution to an oligopoly.

We like to make fun of government in this country, but really, what are you and a few of your buddies going to do to fight JPMorgan Chase on your own?

The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of a private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is Fascism—ownership of government by an individual, by a group or by any controlling private power. —Franklin Delano Roosevelt

James Wooley:

It is important to remember the primary product of Wall Street: the peddling of debt.

Often one hears of the necessity of Wall Street bankers for providing seed money for industry; but year after year we have observed them dismantling factories and shipping them overseas. We have observed them dismantling production facilities and shipping them overseas. We have observed them dismantling research and development laboratories and shipping them overseas

And year after year we have observed them ship all those jobs and careers overseas along with those facilities.

Dismantle, dismantle, dismantle is what we have observed. They securitize, and promote the privatization and securitization of everything. Then they transfer their private debt, from whence their millions and billions flow into their coffers, to the public, and then it becomes the public debt (or rather the public’s debt!).

Profiteering.

And what is the point? To enrich a few and to impoverish the many. As usual.

Edward Harrison:

Those at the top of the pile tend to stay there.

I would argue that free market ideology has been distorted by elites as a means of justifying kleptocracy.

For any ranked society, whether a chiefdom or a state, one thus has to ask: why do the commoners tolerate the transfers of the fruits of their hard labor to kleptocrats?

Deric Bownds’s Mind Blog: Religion thrives when the majority seek the aid and protection of supernatural powers…

Because they are impoverished as in the third- and second-world countries. Or in the case of the United States, the most religious and creationist first-world country, because the majority of Americans fear losing their middle-class status as a result of limited government support, high levels of social pathology, and intense economic competition and income disparity.

Municipalities have revenue motives:

We find that significantly more tickets are issued in the year following a decline in revenue.

Our results suggest that tickets are used as a revenue?generation tool rather than solely a means to increase public safety.

Born with a density of dopamine:

“We showed that low levels of dopamine receptors were associated with low social status and that high levels of dopamine receptors were associated with higher social status.”

Ponder this nugget from Sarah Palin’s Teabagger speech.

“I think, kind of tougher to, um, put our arms around, but allowing America’s spirit to rise again by not being afraid to kind of go back to some of our roots as a God fearing nation where we’re not afraid to say, especially in times of potential trouble in the future here, where we’re not afraid to say, you know, we don’t have all the answers as fallible men and women so it would be wise of us to start seeking some divine intervention again in this country, so that we can be safe and secure and prosperous again.”

To recall her cause, she got through it using notes scrawled on her hand: Energy, Budget Tax cuts, Lift American spirit.

First of all, let’s be clear that ‘consumption experience’ and ‘hedonic adaptation’ are very odd terms.

Six studies demonstrate that interrupting a consumption experience can make pleasant experiences more enjoyable and unpleasant experiences more irritating, even though consumers avoid breaks in pleasant experiences and choose breaks in unpleasant experiences.

Take a break, or not.

“Clearly you need a decent building code there. It doesn’t exist,” said former U.S. Ambassador, Timothy Carney. “How do you enforce a sensible combination of building code and zoning on a place as free-wheeling, free spirited and unenforceable as Haiti?”

She says all poems are about love.
Carol Ann Duffy, first female poet laureate of Britain: My life is permanently erotic. Everything is, isn’t it?… And I never told my parents because I thought it was my fault.

Copyright runs out 70 years after an author’s death. “Freeing historic books from the shelves has the potential to revolutionize access to the world’s greatest library resources,” said Lynne Brindley, the British Library’s chief executive.