Bob Lord

Posted by Bob Lord

A week from today, history may be made. In Switzerland.

The Swiss, you see, will vote next Sunday on the "1:12" initiative. Effectively, this sets a maximum wage, something that's never been done before in a developed country. Under 1:12, no Swiss company may pay an executive more than twelve times the pay of its lowest paid worker. 

As Sam Pizzigati of Institute for Policy Studies reports, the Swiss plutocracy is apoplectic. The initiative movement was started by young activists in Switzerland's Social Democratic Party, who sensed public outrage at CEO pay, which is the highest in Europe, but a bit less than in the US. Ballot initiatives require 100,000 signatures in Switzerland, a requirement that was satisfied last spring.

Since then, Corporate Switzerland has been working feverishly to defeat the initiative. Reportedly, it has outspent the initiatives proponents by 50 to 1, but the race is tight. 

Posted by Bob Lord Okay, this one is really late, but I've been traveling a bit.  I thought the results in both the CD8 and CD4 races were exactly right.  In CD8, it was important that Kate Gallego win in a blowout, as she did. As I wrote previously, the attacks on Kate were vicious … Read more

Posted by Bob Lord

Patrick Smith has a wonderfully instructive piece up at Salon, Chomsky's Right: New York Times' Latest Big Lie, showing, at the micro level, how the American public's misperceptions originate. 

Do you know why the recent talks with Iran broke down? You wouldn't if you'd relied on the NY Times' reporting.

On this one, it's all in the Times' use of quotation marks. First, some background, which Smith provides:

As all know, a deal with Iran over its nuclear program is the biggest game going these days — an historic opportunity, as previously asserted in this space. Fumble this, and the Obama administration will go down as hopelessly moronic on the foreign-relations side.

You may know, too, that a round of talks between six world powers and the Iranians just hit a pothole. It is essential to understand why.

The paradox is apparent, not real. Knowing why reveals what a nation with imperial ambitions looks like when it is nearing exhaustion and would rather decline than shape up, re-imagine itself, and take a new and constructive place in the global community. Not knowing why encourages Americans to preserve their righteous self-image even as the moths of history chew holes in it.

Best, in Washington’s view, that we do not know why talks in Geneva last weekend failed.

So, how does our supposedly progressive beacon of mainstream media handle this one?

Posted by Bob Lord

I've said repeatedly that we're living through a grand experiment: How much wealth and how much income can we jam into the top one percent before the bottom 90% explodes? I've written a good bit about both the top one percent and the bottom 90%.

But what about the other nine percent? The ones in the middle.

In The 21st Century Silver Spoon, Elizabeth Currid-Haldett sheds some light on the other nine percent. She refers to them as the "aspirational class," for their desire to join the top one percent. They're our status seekers:

Posted by Bob Lord

Patrick Smith at Salon as perhaps the best piece I've read on the Edward Snowden / NSA saga: Middling Logic, Middling Newspaper: New York Times Bows to Government, Again, on NSA. Smith's focus is on how in the tank the Times is, but his piece provokes other thoughts.

First, he makes this point:

Ever since Edward Snowden made his daring leap into the kingdom of his own conscience last spring, I have tried and tried but can’t find a single American–even among Snowden’s most uncomprehending critics–who can mention one thing he has told us that we wish we did not know.

Yet we've acquiesced in the Government treating Snowden as a fugitive all these months and allowed insane, corrupt politicians like Dianne Feinstein label him treasonous, while justifying the NSA spying on citizens program because "people might become terrorists in the future." Her only problem with the program is that she herself was kept out of the loop. Words could not describe the level of arrogance there.

The intended (and brilliant) takeaway from Smith's piece as to the complicity of the Times (and the rest of the mainstream media):