Class « Tikkunista!

3. Economic Inequality & World Politics

Feb-03-2012 | Comments (0)

Bird’s Eye: Other countries have faced the problem of huge income inequality. Some have won the battle against it; some are currently engaged; some are taking up arms. We look at five different countries in three different continents, and how they managed the struggle against plutocracy.

* How Swedes and Norwegians Broke the Power of the ‘1 Percent’ Common Dreams

While many of us are working to ensure that the Occupy movement will have a lasting impact, it’s worthwhile to consider other countries where masses of people succeeded in nonviolently bringing about a high degree of democracy and economic justice. Sweden and Norway, for example, both experienced a major power shift in the 1930s after prolonged nonviolent struggle. They “fired” the top 1 percent of people who set the direction for society and created the basis for something different.

Both countries had a history of horrendous poverty. When the 1 percent was in charge, hundreds of thousands of people emigrated to avoid starvation. Under the leadership of the working class, however, both countries built robust and successful economies that nearly eliminated poverty, expanded free university education, abolished slums, provided excellent health care available to all as a matter of right and created a system of full employment. Unlike the Norwegians, the Swedes didn’t find oil, but that didn’t stop them from building what the latest CIA World Factbook calls “an enviable standard of living.

* Could Ecuador Be The Most Radical And Exciting Place On Earth? Jayati Ghosh The Guardian

Ecuador must be one of the most exciting places on Earth right now, in terms of working towards a new development paradigm. It shows how much can be achieved with political will, even in uncertain economic times. Just 10 years ago, Ecuador was more or less a basket case, a quintessential “banana republic” (it happens to be the world’s largest exporter of bananas), characterised by political instability, inequality, a poorly-performing economy, and the ever-looming impact of the US on its domestic politics.

…A major turning point came with the election of the economist Rafael Correa as president. After taking over in January 2007, his government ushered in a series of changes, based on a new constitution (the country’s 20th, approved in 2008) that was itself mandated by a popular referendum. A hallmark of the changes that have occurred since then is that major policies have first been put through the referendum process. This has given the government the political ability to take on major vested interests and powerful lobbies.

The government is now the most stable in recent times and will soon become the longest serving in Ecuador’s tumultuous history. The president’s approval ratings are well over 70%. All this is due to the reorientation of the government’s approach, made possible by a constitution remarkable for its recognition of human rights and the rights of nature, and its acceptance of plurality and cultural diversity.

*Dilma Rousseff, Luis Inácio Lula da Silva, and Brazil’s Growth The New Yorker (abstract of article only)

Until recently, Brazil has been one of the most uneducated, economically imbalanced countries in the world. Now its economy is growing much more rapidly than that of the U.S. Twenty-eight million Brazilians have moved out of severe poverty in the past decade. The country has a balanced budget, low national debt, nearly full employment, and low inflation. It is, chaotically, democratic, and it has a free press. Brazil operates in ways we have been conditioned to think are incompatible with a successful free society. It isn’t just that Brazil is ruled by unapologetic former revolutionaries, many of whom—including the President—were imprisoned for years for being terrorists. The central government is far more powerful and intrusive than it is in the U.S. It is also far more corrupt. Crime is high, schools are weak, roads are bad, and ports barely function. And yet, among the world’s major economic powers, Brazil has achieved a rare trifecta: high growth, political freedom, and falling inequality.

* “Walking with the Comrades,” by Arundhati Roy The Washington Post

For over a decade now, the writer Arundhati Roy has served as India’s most powerful and articulate dissident, tearing that broad consensus to shreds. Through a slew of acerbic and impassioned essays, speeches and books, Roy has attacked both the country’s religious right wing and the barons of big business, and excoriated the Indian state’s political, economic and military policy. At times, Roy’s uncompromising hostility, penchant for tendentious theses and juxtapositions, and appropriation of multiple causes have earned her as much notoriety as respect.

7. Social Media: Reddit and Quora

Jan-13-2012 | Comments (0)

Bird’s Eye: Social media, or web 2.0… whatever you call it, it’s growing. Reddit’s numbers speak for themselves, (2 billion pageviews in Dec!) but it’s the subreddits in which it lives. If you were diagnosed with a disease, and wanted to talk to others about their experiences with alternative treatments, there’s a subreddit for that specific disease, almost certainly. If you can’t figure out why your printer won’t run under Lion, go to the Mac subreddit. If you’re a Toronto Maple Leafs fan (my deep sympathy, by the way)…. Quora is similar in that it has user created content, but there’s less discussion, and more emphasis on experience from doctors, economists, screenwriters, police officers, and military veterans. There are two sample links, one of particular interest to Canadians.

* 2 Billion & Beyond Reddit

In December 2011, reddit served 2.07 billion pageviews. Crazy. Here are some details: 2,065,237,338 pageviews; 34,879,881 unique visitors; 12.97 pages / visit

And, more importantly, our community stats: 100,000+ subreddits; 8,400+ subreddits with over 100 subscribers

*How reddit works

The most important fact is that reddit is not a single community; it’s an engine for creating communities.

A subreddit is a class of online community, just like mailing lists, forums, and chatrooms are. Each of the thousands of subreddits is a distinct community with its own purpose, standards, and readership. Subreddits are the secret to reddit’s growth. As communities have scaled up, more focused ones have branched off of popular topics and posting practices.

* What is it like to be a drug dealer? Quora

In a single word, being a drug dealer was exhilarating. Immense rewards, more than I realized at the time, but also unbelievable stress, unavoidable paranoia, and most difficult of all, an existence in a world that does not ‘exist’ by traditional standards….

* What Is Life Like As The Scion Of A Head Of Government? Quora

For the first 13 years of my life, my father was the prime minister of Canada. My parents separated when I was seven or eight, and my brothers and I continued to live with our father in the PM’s official residence, 24 Sussex Drive, in Ottawa, although our mother purchased a home a few blocks away and we spent a lot of time with her as well….

6. Outside the Lines

Jan-06-2012 | Comments (0)

Bird’s Eye: After taking Ron Paul seriously, let’s wade further into the swamp of unacceptability to ask a few more uncomfortable questions. Despite at least one unfortunate phrase, Pellissier’s article raises very interesting questions, and the discussion that follows is also fascinating. Like many, I was hugely educated by Peggy McIntosh’s classic article on “White Privilege”, so I’m fascinated at the deconstruction of it in the current CounterPunch. David Lindorff challenges our fear of hitchhiking, and Louis CK challenges the standard way of selling albums, and wins, bigtime.

* Why is the IQ of Ashkenazi Jews so high? Hank Pellissier, Ethical Technology

Ashkenazi Jews, aka Ashkenazim, are the descendants of Jews originally from medieval Germany, and later, from throughout Eastern Europe. Approximately 80% of the Jews in the world today are Ashkenazim…
Their median IQ is calculated at 117 in From Chance to Choice: Genetics and Justice (2000), published by Cambridge University Press. This is 10 points higher than the generally-accepted IQ of their closest rivals—Northeast Asians—and almost 20% higher than the global average. … Here is a brief list of Ashkenazi accomplishments in the last 90 years.

Nobel Prizes: Since 1950, 29% of the awards have gone to Ashkenazim, even though they represent only 0.25% of humanity. Ashkenazi achievement in this arena is 117 times greater than their population.

Hungary in the 1930s: Ashkenazim were 6% of the population, but they comprised 55.7% of physicians, 49.2% of attorneys, 30.4% of engineers, and 59.4% of bank officers; plus, they owned 49.4% of the metallurgy industry, 41.6% of machine manufacturing, 72.8% of clothing manufacturing, and, as housing owners, they received 45.1% of Budapest rental income. Jews were similarly successful in nearby nations, like Poland and Germany.

USA (today): Ashkenazi Jews comprise 2.2% of the USA population, but they represent 30% of faculty at elite colleges, 21% of Ivy League students, 25% of the Turing Award winners, 23% of the wealthiest Americans, and 38% of the Oscar-winning film directors.

The important question is… Why is the IQ of Ashkenazi Jews so high? Is the reason genetic, environmental, cultural, educational? A unique combination of several?

Here are eight theories….

* Complicating “White Privilege” » Paul Gorski Counterpunch

I dove into the white privilege discourse as part of my training as an anti-racism educator in the mid-1990s, just a few years after my white educator peers had started shuffling through their knapsacks. The shuffling often occurred back then, as it does today, in white caucus groups, organized dialogues among white educators. During these dialogues we more or less took turns pouring the contents of our knapsacks onto the floor before encouraging each other to “own” whatever came out, taking responsibility for racism. Rarely did we get around to talking about what it meant to be an anti-racist or for racial justice. Rarely did we use those dialogues to grow ourselves into more powerful change agents. This, I think, persists as a problem in white caucusing and other forms of race dialogues today: too much conversation about how hard it is to be a white person taking responsibility for white privilege; way too much thinking that the dialogue, itself, is the anti-racism rather than what prepares us for the anti-racism.

…Here, then, is the rub: We, in the white privilege brigade, often, and somewhat generically, in my opinion, like to say that racism is about power. That word, power, might be the most often-spoken word in conversations about white privilege. Rarely, though, do we speak to the nature of power beyond the types of privilege so eloquently expounded upon by Peggy. This is where critical race theory, with its frameworks for deconstructing racism, has flown past the white privilege discourse. Critical race theorists centralize the fundamental questions too often left unasked in conversations about white privilege: What, exactly, does power mean in a capitalistic society? Why, in a capitalistic society, do people and institutions exert power and privilege? What are they after?

* America, Land of the Fearful, is No Place to Hitch-Hike Dave Lindorff NationofChange

Yesterday, I hitch-hiked to the gym. If I tell that to any of my friends, they look at me like I’m crazy. Yet if I had said the same thing 40 years ago, it would have been like saying, “I just drove over to the store” or “I just had lunch.” No one would have batted an eye.

….Are things crazier today? No! They are safer. That’s what is so weird about people’s unwillingness to give a hitcher a ride these days. All the crime statistics show that crime is about where it was in the ‘70s (total crime in 2009 was the same as in 1968, with homicides down to the lowest rate since 1964, while violent crime in general has been falling since 1990 and is now at the level it was in 1973). What’s way up is fear. We have a media that live and breathe crime reporting, and always as lurid as possible. The more gruesome the story, the better. And we have a government that is all about generating fear — fear of crime, fear of immigrants, fear of terrorists, fear of poor people, fear of the 99%, fear of hitch-hikers, you name it.

* The Results Of Louis Ck’s Experiment (Who’s Louis CK?)

The experiment was: if I put out a brand new standup special at a drastically low price ($5) and make it as easy as possible to buy, download and enjoy, free of any restrictions, will everyone just go and steal it? Will they pay for it? And how much money can be made by an individual in this manner?

It’s been 4 days. A lot of people are asking me how it’s going. I’ve been hesitant to share the actual figures, because there’s power in exclusive ownership of information. What I didn’t expect when I started this was that people would not only take part in this experiment, they would be invested in it and it would be important to them. It’s been amazing to see people in large numbers advocating this idea. So I think it’s only fair that you get to know the results. Also, it’s just really cool and fun and I’m dying to tell everybody. I told my Mom, I told three friends, and that wasn’t nearly enough. So here it is….

…It’s been about 12 days since the thing started and yesterday we hit the crazy number. One million dollars. That’s a lot of money. Really too much money. I’ve never had a million dollars all of a sudden. and since we’re all sharing this experience and since it’s really your money, I wanted to let you know what I’m doing with it. People are paying attention to what’s going on with this thing. So I guess I want to set an example of what you can do if you all of a sudden have a million dollars that people just gave to you directly because you told jokes.

3. The US: Corruption and Decadence

Jun-10-2011 | Comments (0)

Bird’s Eye: We start with Stephen Walt looking at where the roots of the illness lie. Juan Cole contrasts ‘our news’ with ‘their news’, to dramatic effect. Kristof, in the NY Times, looks at the kind of nation the T-party want the US to become… and finds it’s Pakistan. While in Florida, justice is up for sale. As Alan Price once sang, “We all want justice, but you’ve got to have the money to buy it.”

* When Did America Become Decadent? Stephen M. Walt

Corruption and decadence doesn’t occur all at once; it’s a progressive disease with no clear tipping point. Part of it lies in the rise of the conservative movement post-Goldwater, when wealthy conservatives began to bankroll think tanks and media organs who were more interested in waging political warfare than getting facts right. Part of it is a pop-media culture that lets an ignorant buffoon like Rush Limbaugh or a bizarre whack-job like Glenn Beck become influential voices in our national debate. Part of it is the culture of non-accountability that is pervasive in official Washington, where the frauds that helped produce the financial crisis of 2007 barely get investigated, or where a Deputy Secretary of Defense can play a key role in causing the Iraq debacle and then get rewarded by being named President of the World Bank, screw that up too, and bail out to a safe sinecure at a D.C. think tank. As L’affaire Weiner demonstrates, in today’s America, you’re more likely to derail your career by sending some lewd and idiotic tweets than by sending thousands of your fellow citizens to their deaths (along with tens of thousands of Iraqis) in an unnecessary war.

What else is to blame? A political order that creates enormous incumbency advantages through gerrymandering. A electoral system that depends on an ocean of campaign contributions, thereby empowering special interest groups with deep pockets and focused agendas. A presidential election cycle that lasts for more than one-fourth of a term, thereby forcing candidates to spend too much time running for election and too little time actually governing. A Senate that spends more time preventing the appointment of needed judges and other government officials than it does debating the wisdom of going to war. And I could go on.

* Our News and their News Juan Cole Informed Comment

Americans live in a late capitalist society where the rich have gotten many times richer and the middle class has gotten poorer, where Wall Street bankers have stolen us blind and blamed us for living above our means, where persistent unemployment is worse than in the Great Depression, where most politicians and some judges have been bought by corporations or special interests, where authorities actively conspire to keep people from voting, where the government spies on citizens assiduously without warrant or probable cause, and where the minds of the sheep are kept off their fleecing by substituting celebrity gossip, sex scandals, and half-disguised bigotry for genuine news.

In the Arab world, masses of 20-year-olds have challenged their corrupt politicians and manipulative billionaires in the streets, demanding transparency, an end to arbitrary secret police, and free and fair elections untainted by influence-peddling and plutocracy. I have Arabic satellite t.v. on in the background most of the day, with its dramatic stories of personal risk and human tragedy and bold challenge to a rotten status quo. And I channel surf over to the American cable news and mostly find fluff or de-contextualized reports or, frankly, propaganda. So here is my life, the day’s news given synoptically, our news and their news.

Our news is about Sarah Palin not knowing fifth grade American history about Paul Revere, and her acolytes changing around Wikipedia to make her right….

* Our Fantasy Nation? Nicholas Kristof New York Times

With Tea Party conservatives and many Republicans balking at raising the debt ceiling, let me offer them an example of a nation that lives up to their ideals.

It has among the lowest tax burdens of any major country: fewer than 2 percent of the people pay any taxes. Government is limited, so that burdensome regulations never kill jobs. This society embraces traditional religious values and a conservative sensibility. Nobody minds school prayer, same-sex marriage isn’t imaginable, and criminals are never coddled. The budget priority is a strong military, the nation’s most respected institution. When generals decide on a policy for, say, Afghanistan, politicians defer to them. Citizens are deeply patriotic, and nobody burns flags.

So what is this Republican Eden, this Utopia? Why, it’s Pakistan.

* Editorial: Suburban Brat Gets Rich Man’s Justice Chicago Sun-Times (via Reddit)

Let’s be clear: Prison is for poor people. Prison is not for rich people. Prison is for people who cannot buy their way out.

We can only assume that this is what a judge in Broward County, Fla., Barbara McCarthy, learned back at St. Thomas University Law School in northwest Miami — justice is blind, unless you’ve got money, in which case justice is a cash register.

Maybe you caught the news story over the weekend. An overgrown brat from suburban Barrington Hills, Ryan LeVin, 36, who had run over and killed two men while drag racing his Porsche in South Florida, was sentenced by Judge McCarthy to a mere two years of house arrest — in one of his wealthy parents’ luxury oceanfront condos — after agreeing to write big checks to the victims’ widows.

LeVin could have been sentenced to up to 45 years in prison for killing the two British businessmen and fleeing the police, and in fact nobody in Broward County can recall another time when a person found guilty of such a crime did not serve time in prison….

Cross-posted on rabble.ca, Canada’s voice from the left.

12. Quote of the Week

Jun-10-2011 | Comments (0)

“We did something utterly remarkable then, which no one now appreciates, but it was, it was working-class guys, working-class with no, no training, no politics, facing down their own fear of being called bums and featherbedders and crooks and insisting not merely on the worker’s right to a wage but the worker’s right to a share in the wealth, a right to be alive, a right to control time itself! When we won the Guaranteed Income, we took hold of the logic of time and money that enriches men like them and devours men like us, and we broke its fucking back.” Tony Kushner “The Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide to Capitalism and Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures”

8. Words and Language

Jun-03-2011 | Comments (0)

Bird’s Eye: Language is the tool with which we think, and so the question of who controls language is, as Orwell correctly noted 65 years ago, a vital political question. We start our exploration by looking at the significance of the increasing legitimization of slang, explore a fascinating Scientific American article on comparative cultures and languages, and look back in sorrow on the classic prescriptive writing manual: Strunk and White’s “Elements of Style”.

* English: It’s A Neologism Thang, Innit? Sarah Churchwell The Guardian

You can feel the collective shudder among language purists: “innit”, “grrl” and “thang” have been admitted into the Collins Scrabble Dictionary. Admission into any dictionary is the first step on the road to legitimation, thus raising the question of whether mispronunciation constitutes a genuine neologism. I hate to admit it, but historically speaking the answer to that question is yes.

…We all know that language is mutable, that it must either evolve or wither away: there’s no language so pure as a dead one. Babylonian is untroubled by the intrusion of new slang, as it is untroubled by speakers. The word “slang” is itself illustrative: it was first recorded in 1756, I learn from the OED, which offers a wonderfully sniffy definition: “The special vocabulary used by any set of persons of a low or disreputable character.” Language thus signals not education, but character: not what you know, but who you are. And who you are, linguistically speaking, is all about class, innit?

* How Language Shapes Thought Scientific American (via Reddit)

I am standing next to a five-year old girl in pormpuraaw, a small Aboriginal community on the western edge of Cape York in northern Australia. When I ask her to point north, she points precisely and without hesitation. My compass says she is right. Later, back in a lecture hall at Stanford University, I make the same request of an audience of distinguished scholars—winners of science medals and genius prizes. Some of them have come to this very room to hear lectures for more than 40 years. I ask them to close their eyes (so they don’t cheat) and point north. Many refuse; they do not know the answer. Those who do point take a while to think about it and then aim in all possible directions. I have repeated this exercise at Harvard and Princeton and in Moscow, London and Beijing, always with the same results.

A five-year-old in one culture can do something with ease that eminent scientists in other cultures struggle with. This is a big difference in cognitive ability. What could explain it? The surprising answer, it turns out, may be language.

* Strunk & White Turn Fifty Geoff Pullum

April 16 is the 50th anniversary of the publication of a little book that is loved and admired throughout American academe. Celebrations, readings, and toasts are being held, and a commemorative edition has been released.

I won’t be celebrating. The Elements of Style does not deserve the enormous esteem in which it is held by American college graduates. Its advice ranges from limp platitudes to inconsistent nonsense. Its enormous influence has not improved American students’ grasp of English grammar; it has significantly degraded it.

…. What concerns me is that the bias against the passive is being retailed by a pair of authors so grammatically clueless that they don’t know what is a passive construction and what isn’t. Of the four pairs of examples offered to show readers what to avoid and how to correct it, a staggering three out of the four are mistaken diagnoses…. I have been told several times, by both students and linguistics-faculty members, about writing instructors who think every occurrence of “be” is to be condemned for being “passive.” No wonder, if Elements is their grammar bible. It is typical for college graduates today to be unable to distinguish active from passive clauses. They often equate the grammatical notion of being passive with the semantic one of not specifying the agent of an action. (They think “a bus exploded” is passive because it doesn’t say whether terrorists did it.)

3. US Financial Inequality

Apr-15-2011 | Comments (0)

Bird’s Eye: Surely if there’s any issue on which Obama can defeat the Republicans, it would be over raising taxes on the very rich. Here are a set of explorations of the extent to which American Financial inequality has increased, and an interactive map allowing comparisons of the degree of income inequality in 17 wealthy North American, European, and Asian countries

* Off-The-Charts Income Gains For Super-Rich Zachary Roth Yahoo News (Thanks, Amy)

‘In recent years, we’ve been hit with a barrage of statistics, charts, and even full-length books, documenting how inequality is on the rise in America. ‘But very few of them capture what’s happened over the last 30 years or so as well as this image:

* Of the 1%, by the 1%, For the 1% Vanity Fair

It’s no use pretending that what has obviously happened has not in fact happened. The upper 1 percent of Americans are now taking in nearly a quarter of the nation’s income every year. In terms of wealth rather than income, the top 1 percent control 40 percent. Their lot in life has improved considerably. Twenty-five years ago, the corresponding figures were 12 percent and 33 percent. One response might be to celebrate the ingenuity and drive that brought good fortune to these people, and to contend that a rising tide lifts all boats. That response would be misguided. While the top 1 percent have seen their incomes rise 18 percent over the past decade, those in the middle have actually seen their incomes fall. For men with only high-school degrees, the decline has been precipitous—12 percent in the last quarter-century alone. All the growth in recent decades—and more—has gone to those at the top. In terms of income equality, America lags behind any country in the old, ossified Europe that President George W. Bush used to deride. Among our closest counterparts are Russia with its oligarchs and Iran. While many of the old centers of inequality in Latin America, such as Brazil, have been striving in recent years, rather successfully, to improve the plight of the poor and reduce gaps in income, America has allowed inequality to grow.

The top 1 percent have the best houses, the best educations, the best doctors, and the best lifestyles, but there is one thing that money doesn’t seem to have bought: an understanding that their fate is bound up with how the other 99 percent live. Throughout history, this is something that the top 1 percent eventually do learn. Too late.

* Income Inequality Interactive Map

Income inequality is the extent to which income is distributed unevenly in a country. It is an important indicator of equity in an economy, and has implications for other social outcomes such as crime and social exclusion. Although these 17 peer countries are among the wealthiest in the world, the income per capita figure does not tell us how this income is distributed. Income inequality within countries is often masked by the national average. In the last few years, income inequality has been in the media spotlight. There is widespread concern around the globe that the “rich are getting richer, and the poor are getting poorer.” …Income inequality is higher in Canada than in 11 of the peer countries. Although Canada’s wealth is distributed more equally than in the U.S., Canada’s 12th place ranking suggests it is doing a mediocre job of ensuring income equality. Canada gets a “C” grade on this indicator.

1. Wisconsin: Class Warfare

Mar-11-2011 | Comments (0)

Bird’s Eye: It’s crowded in this nest, but we offer two different parts covering the spreading class conflict. First, some analysis of why both sides see this as critical, and while Walker may have lost the war, even as the battle goes on. Then some media weaponry you may want to see, and use.

* Simple chart of Social Programs at Risk, and Tax Breaks for Wealthy

* Wisconsin: Clear Battle Lines In America’s Hidden Class War Gary Younge The Guardian

You can tell a great deal about a nation’s anxieties and aspirations by the discrepancy between reality and popular perception. Polls last year showed that in the US 61% think the country spends too much on foreign aid. This makes sense once you understand that the average American is under the illusion that 25% of the federal budget goes on foreign aid (the real figure is 1%).

… these are no ordinary times. ..The number of those who don’t believe you can get ahead by working hard has doubled in 10 years. Half the country thinks its best days are behind it….Walker’s case is as predictable as it is weak. Government workers, he claims, have higher pay and better benefits than others in a bloated state that must slim down if it is to keep running. This is hardly true. Accounting for age and education, US local government employees earn 4% less than their private sector counterparts. Yes, the shortfall in pensions is real. But if the political will existed, calamity could be avoided with a fairly modest increase in the budget allocation. Union members do generally enjoy better benefits. That’s the whole point of being in a union: to improve your living standards through collective action. And that is precisely why Republicans like Walker want to crush them.

* 20 lies (and counting) told by Gov. Walker Russ’ Filtered News

We’re used to politicians stretching the truth, but the level of deception and dishonesty Wisconsin’s governor has exhibited in the battle over his union-busting budget repair bill (even the name is a falsehood) sinks to astounding new lows. What follows are the 20 lies I’ve identified in a quick review of the record. Walker: Public employees are more richly compensated than their public sector counterparts.

The truth: According to the Economic Policy Institute, wages and salaries of state and local employees are lower than those for private sector employees with comparable earnings determinants such as education and work experience. State workers typically are under-compensated by 8.2% in Wisconsin.

* Gov. Scott Walker Has Lost The War Rick Ungar Forbes

In what may be the result of one of the great political miscalculations of our time, Scott Walker’s popularity in his home state is fast going down the tubes. A Rasmussen poll out today reveals that almost 60% of likely Wisconsin voters now disapprove of their aggressive governor’s performance, with 48% strongly disapproving….

The damage has already been done. Should Gov. Walker accomplish his goal, he will have stoked a level of union anger that I very much suspect will become a key driver in an Obama victory in 2012. He will also have prompted the nation’s unions to work together for a common objective– a feat that would have seemed impossible just one month ago….The Wisconsin governor’s desire to be at the forefront of his perceived GOP revolution may not only have doomed the anti-union effort, but it may forever label him as the man who gave the democrats the gift that keeps on giving – the return of the union rank and file into the arms of the Democratic Party.

Media Section

* General Strike Poster Eric Drooker

Eric offers posters (In English, Spanish, and Arabic) free for download

* ‘America Is NOT Broke’ Michael Moore Speaks in Madison YouTube

(Excellent speech starting at 5’ mark) “Contrary to what those in power would like you to believe so that you’ll give up your pension, cut your wages, and settle for the life your great-grandparents had, America is not broke. Not by a long shot. The country is awash in wealth and cash. It’s just that it’s not in your hands. It has been transferred, in the greatest heist in history, from the workers and consumers to the banks and the portfolios of the uber-rich.”

* Jon Stewart On The Cushy Lives Of Teachers - Boing Boing

Packed full of humour and truthiness

* Political Action: 50-State Mobilization to Save the American Dream Move-On

We call for emergency rallies in front of every statehouse this Saturday at noon to stand in solidarity with the people of Wisconsin. Demand an end to the attacks on workers’ rights and public services across the country. Demand investment, to create decent jobs for the millions of people who desperately want to work. And demand that the rich and powerful pay their fair share.

5. Life by Numbers

Feb-04-2011 | Comments (0)

Bird’s Eye: At least, it’s better than “Murder by Numbers”. But not by as much as you might think… when we look at the way money is getting divided up between the rich and poor ( the word ‘divided’ is used in the loosest possible sense). We look at literary magazines’ topics and authors, divided by gender. And we look at traffic accidents divided by astrological sign. (New signs, correlated to the actual sky. Veteran asto-people may remain unconvinced. Your mileage may vary. Not responsible, park and lock it.)

* Hennessy’s Index: A Number Is Never Just A Number Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives( Thanks Gabe, Kyla!)

The Hennessy Index is a monthly listing of numbers about Canada and its place in the world.

$6.6 million: The average compensation of Canada’s best-paid 100 CEOs in 2009. (Source)

$42,988: The average wage for Canadians working full-time, year-round.(Source)

155 times: How much the best-paid 100 CEOs earn more than average wage.(Source)

0: The number of women among the best-paid 100 CEOs in Canada in 2009. (Source)

*The Count 2010 « Vida

Please take a look. Scroll slowly. Notice the Red. Your favorite publication might be here. Atlantic? Boston Review? Granta? Harpers? London Review of Books? New Republic? New Yorker? NY Times Book Review? New York Review of Books? Poetry? Times Literary Supplement? And many more…

The truth is, these numbers don’t lie. But that is just the beginning of this story. What, then, are they really telling us? We know women write. We know women read. It’s time to begin asking why the 2010 numbers don’t reflect those facts with any equity

* Allstate: Virgos have most crashes UP

Illinois-based Allstate Insurance said its analysis of car accidents related to astrology found Virgos were the most likely to crash vehicles. The company said its comparison of 2010 claims data against the revised astrological calendar found Virgos were involved in 211,650 collisions last year, 700 percent more than the 26,833 crashes involving Scorpios, the safest drivers on the zodiac calendar.

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12. Quote of the Week

1. Wisconsin: Class Warfare

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