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Today I turn to the studio audience once again for another question.
On a desire utilitarian theory, can't a good person ever relax and watch some mindless television? Does he have to
spend every waking moment doing good?
I am paraphrasing what I take to be the heart of an issue that Cameron raised to my posting, "Berlinerblau on Living Large vs Living Right": ,
Cameron points out (correctly) that I have said that we have neither reason to promote nor reason to condemn 'neutral' desires – desires that neither fulfill nor thwart other desires. Cameron argues instead that we have reason to condemn neutral desires because the person who is fulfilling neutral desires is not doing any good. He is sitting in front of the television guzzling a beer while he watches American Idol when he could be doing something productive. At the very least, he could be sitting in front of the television guzzling beer watching the Science Channel.
Now if I, as a moral person, truly want the world to be a better place than it otherwise would be, it seems to me that these so-called "morally neutral" desires, ones that don't directly help or hinder the desires of others, should be the subject of condemnation. Since many of these "neutral" desires have to do with personal well being (relaxation, health, etc), there's some flexibility. As a moral society, should we not direct that flexibility towards everyone's benefit? For example, if both watching TV and planting trees are relaxing, should we not condemn those that choose to watch TV when they could be out planting trees?
By the way, 'flexibility' (or what I call 'malleability') is important here because we are talking about desires that can be modified through social forces. It makes no sense to use social forces to alter a desire that cannot be altered.
However, let us look at our agent with a desire to relax. Let us assume that both watching television and planting trees are equally relaxing. Under these assumptions, why is this person watching television instead of planting trees?
A person acts so as to fulfill the more and stronger of his desires, given his beliefs. If this agent had a desire to relax (that both activities fulfilled equally), and even a smidgen of a desire to provide society with any of the benefits that come from planting trees, then he would be planting trees. The fact that he is not planting trees suggests either that (1) he lacks a desire to provide the community with any of the benefits of planting trees, or (2) planting trees does not fulfill the desire to relax as well as watching television.
The first option leaves the agent open to condemnation. Desire utilitarianism holds that a person can be condemned, not only for the bad desires that he has, but for the good desires he does not have. This is the key difference between desire utilitarianism and motive-based theories of the past.
Previous motive-based moral theories held that an act inherent its moral value from the quality of the motives from which it sprang. These theories could not account for the moral crime of negligence (which does not spring from any desire to do harm; but merely exhibits no particular interest in preventing harm). Desire utilitarianism condemns a person for the absence of good desires. This, it condemns those who negligent for lacking a proper level of concern for the consequences that his actions may have on others.
However, the second possibility – that the desire for relaxation itself motivates people to sit in front of the television all day and watch reruns of Gilligan's Island or Seinfeld when they could be doing something productive with their lives – still exists. Is this not reason enough to condemn the desire for relaxation.
"Get off your fat, lazy ass and do something with your life."
Not only do we have reason to condemn those who desire things that do not help others, we actually do condemn them. We do not condemn them enough, as far as I can see. Americans spend far too much time watching television and, when they are watching television, they are watching mind-numbing television with no socially redeeming qualities whatsoever. Americans alone spend over $300 billion per year on sports products. Over the past 20 years, they could have built 60 space stations with the money that they spent on sports.
Does this not contradict my claim that we have no reason to promote or inhibit neutral desires?
To answer this, please note that I express the distinction between a neutral desire and a bad desire using the concept of 'harmony'. Two desires are in harmony to the degree that both desires can be fulfilled at the same time. For example, a desire to eat and a desire for the company of good friends can both be fulfilled by going out to eat with good friends. To desires are in conflict if an agent must choose between the fulfillment of one desire or the fulfillment of the other. A desire to smoke and a desire to enjoy a long and healthy life are in conflict since smoking thwarts the desire for a long life (and many of the desires that a long life would otherwise help to fulfill).
The so-called 'neutral' desire that pulls resources away from activities that would otherwise tend to fulfill other desires is not a neutral desire at all. It is a bad desire. It contributes to the thwarting of other desires by pulling resources away from acts that would fulfill other desires.
Those are desires that we have reason to condemn.
In addition, I would like to note that the question of condemnation also faces a cost-benefit tradeoff. It is not worthwhile to go after limited transgression in the face of more serious transgressions. This, too, would be an example of wasting scarce resources on projects other than where they do the most good. Somebody who does good can be allowed a little time to relax and enjoy himself; he is still better than the person who does nothing.
Let us look at the example of sitting down and watching television. To somebody who generally spends a fair amount of their time doing things to help others, I see no objection against allowing him a little bit of free time. Military planners in particular know the value of a little rest and relaxation from time to time – pulling units off of the front line so that they can fight more effectively when they return to the front line. This leisure is not contemptible unless it becomes excessive. The person who cares about nothing but catching the next episode of his favorite television show is a pathetic (and morally repugnant) individual.
Cameron provides other examples:
Since both eating vegetarian, and eating meat can provide nutrition requirements, should we not condemn those that eat meat (due to the massive additional inputs required to produce it) instead of vegetables?
This is a more potent argument in a region where people were starving due to lack of food. The problem of starvation in many parts of the world is not a lack of food (indeed, governments – including the United States – still pay farmers NOT to grow food. However, if it were the case that the person eating beef caused was taking food out of the mouths of those who were starving, then the person eating beef could be condemned. This would not be a neutral desire – it would be a desire that tends to thwart the desires of others.
Since both donating to church and donating to a local homeless shelter ostensibly fulfill a desire for charity, should we not condemn those that choose to donate to church instead of the homeless?
One of the complications that this brings up is the issue of what it takes to fulfill a desire. A desire that 'P' (e.g., a desire that I serve God) can only be fulfilled in a state of affairs in which P is true. Many of the desires that motivate a person to donate to a church rather than a homeless shelter are NOT desires that can be fulfilled. There is, at least, 'reason for action' to correct this error to the degree that want the homeless to acquire real-world benefits.
If we go further and discover that the agent does not care about the truth of his beliefs, then we have reason to condemn him for his lack of interest in producing real-world benefits.
So, we have a case of laziness where the desire is not neutral because it tends to thwart other desires. We have a case of where the behavior in question does not thwart desires and would condemn the person if it did. We have a case in which desires cannot be fulfilled because of false beliefs and, potentially, room for criticism for the person who does not care about whether he has false belief or whether he produces real-world benefits.
We do not have examples of a neutral desire itself worthy of condemnation.
We will not have such an example, though the reason for this may be considered 'cheating' in a sense. The instant a desire tends to thwart other desires – the instant we have reason to condemn it – at that instant it ceases to be neutral.


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subset: commoncrawl


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Can't resist… The Masters and Augusta National posts are on the way…
Someone at Golf Digest apparently didn't get the Masters tickets they requested. Join the club. Augusta National will be dropping from No. 2 of "America's 100 Greatest Golf Courses" to No. 3. The new No. 2 is Shinnecock Hills. Pine Valley is the perennial and uncontested No. 1. Anybody want to get me a round at Pine Valley so I can confirm how good it is?
When asked about the Augusta ranking Tiger Woods said "Maybe they can't draw the ball."
Golf Digest's top 10:
Pine Valley
Shinnecock Hills
Augusta National
Cypress Point
Pebble Beach
Winged Foot
Seminole and Crystal Downs
Augusta only cracks top 10
Augusta National only came in at No. 10 on their list of "Top 100 classic courses" built before 1960. #10?


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Posts Tagged Review
Silent Hill 5: Homecoming
Posted by Daniel in Reviews, Video Games on October 20, 2008
Silent Hill 5: Homecoming in the 6th installment of, what I believe to be, one of the best survival horror video game franchises currently available commercially. Unfortunately, it doesn't live up to its predecessors. Now before I have to put on a flame proof suit, let me immediately say something. It isn't that I didn't like Silent Hill 5. It's a good game. It just isn't a Silent Hill game. A quick warning to those that read on, this article may contain some spoilers. Anyway, let's move on.
Here is a bit of back story on this games development. Silent Hill 5 was not developed by Team Silent, who where responsible for developing the previous five iterations of the franchise. Silent Hill 5 was instead developed by the western (read: American) development house: Double Helix. Being a long time fan of Silent Hill and Japanese horror, when I originally heard of this departure I was a bit concerned.
Later in the development cycle it was announced that Silent Hill 5 would be the first installment of Silent Hill that would feature a main character who has combat training: a soldier Again, my eyebrow was risen. Silent Hill games have been renowned for the feeling of desperation and overwhelming doom. Could a soldier impart that same emotional desperation? Still, I was hopeful that Double Helix would remain true to the art that is Silent Hill and not give us a run of the mill action game with the Silent Hill intellectual property painted over it. Unfortunate, it was not to be.
Right off the bat I need at least give credit where credit is due. The game looks amazing. It is well rendered, runs with a steady frame rate, has fantastic textures, etc. The sound and music is once again brought to us by Akira Yamaoka, and as usual he does an immaculate job. There, now that the technical praise has been given, lets dive into the game itself.
Within moments of starting the game you are greeted to a wonderful opening sequence that is crawling with imagery that is reminiscent of the movie Jacob's Ladder, and this is a good thing. To be honest, aside from thrusting you right into game play, the entire opening sequence and Hospital level is great. You are also quickly introduced to the fact that Double Helix heavily relied on the Silent Hill movie for visual inspiration. This isn't a bad thing, the otherworld transitions look amazing and the nurses are very creepy.
That is, until you notice a few iconic Silent Hill features are missing. First and foremost we need to discuss the camera. Oh lord the camera. Silent Hill 5 features a free motion third person over-the-shoulder (OTS) camera. This type of camera is fairly standard in third person action games, think Resident Evil 4.
Now I understand why they made this choice, and I will get to that, but let me first impart to you why this really disappointed me. Silent Hill, itself, is similar to a piece of art. That isn't to say that they are masterpieces, but the analogy is in reference to the fact that the developers have always taken time to really make sure the emotional energy was conveyed. The sound is always fabulous, the visuals are always wonderfully grotesque, and the camera frequently is placed in cinematic positions to really show off some great directing. Those shots really set the mood in any scenes. The lack of those cinematic shots really took away from the overall atmosphere in my opinion.
Now, like I said I understand the reasoning behind the camera changes. As mentioned previously, your character has combat training. He can perform melee combos, smash walls, and shoot like a marksman. Having static camera shots would make switching between normal and combat stances/views a bit cumbersome. Still, I feel like proper camera could have found a work around. Perhaps using static shots in rooms that where not inhabited by enemies and where just there to evoke an emotional response?
And while we are on the topic of combat, let me mention that my earlier concerns of a combat trained soldier diluting the feeling of hopelessness where not unfounded. Having a character in your control that can decimate demonic legions with knife combos does make the situation seem much less dire. The endless barrage of enemies feels like more of an obstacle course, an annoying one at times.
And that brings me to my next point. The enemies. Now, as mentioned previously, Silent Hill has always been somewhat artistic in its approach. This includes enemy designs. They are evocative and perverse, and beautiful in the grotesquery. More importantly, they are usually symbolic. Now, you can say that the enemies in the original Silent Hill weren't symbolic, but I disagree as they existed in the fragmented mind of an abused child. I digress. The enemies in Silent Hill 5, while rendered beautifully, mean nothing. Now, I suppose you can use some psychology and infer that the Siam represents the male figure dominating the female (Alex's mother and father), but I the story wasn't even developed enough in that respect to make that assumption. The Smogs might be representative of the mining accident in Silent Hill, but again, that wasn't mentioned either. Additionally, the addition of the "order" members as enemies from the Silent Hill movies really deterred from the Silent Hill feel. Fighting humans really seemed out of place. Honestly, as soon as the order members where introduced, the game took a turn for the worst, or at least, turned away from Silent Hill completely. But I'll let you experience that for yourself.
Now, this last area is where I really felt cheated. This game is VIOLENT. It is gratuitous and overly violent. It isn't subtle in the least. There are people literally being torn in half. Now don't get me wrong, I love that stuff. It's just that in a psychological horror game it doesn't work. It isn't scary, at all. It's just the shock value that gets you. There is no underlying tension, and that is where fear comes from. The current version was rejected for rating by the USK, and as of the time of this posting is banned for sale in Australia. The violence is unnecessary. Silent Hill has always been grotesque, but never blatantly violent. This is one the key differences between Japanese and American horror mind you. Japanese horror is usually psychological, American horror relies on shock value. Well, Silent Hill 5 is as American as it gets in this respect. By the end, you will feel as if you are literally playing Hostel the video game.
I could go on and on about most of the above ad nauseam, but I won't. This whole article basically reads like hate mail at this point anyway. I assure you, it isn't. The game is good. It would have stood fine on its own. It's just that, to me, it is not a Silent Hill game at all. It is less Silent Hill than the movie was, just bloodier and more violent. I really hope that Team Silent picks up the next iteration, but if they do not, I hope that Double Helix brings on someone who has a bit more artistic vision.


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Jane Welsh Carlyle
Scottish writer
Jane Welsh Carlyle (January 14 1801 – April 21 1866) was a Scottish writer. She did not publish any work in her lifetime, but she was widely seen as an extraordinary letter writer. Virginia Woolf called her one of the "great letter writers", and Elizabeth Hardwick described her work as a "private writing career". She was the wife of Thomas Carlyle .
edit- I am not at all the sort of person you and I took me for.
- Letter to Thomas Carlyle (7 May 1822).
- If they had said that the sun or the moon had gone out of the heavens, it could not have struck me with the idea of a more awful and dreary blank in creation than the words: "Byron is dead!"
- Letter to Thomas Carlyle (20 May 1824]).
- A positive engagement to marry a certain person at a certain time, at all haps and hazards, I have always considered the most ridiculous thing on earth.
- Letter to Thomas Carlyle (January 1825).
- In spite of the honestest efforts to annihilate my I-ity, or merge it in what the world doubtless considers my better half, I still find myself a self-subsisting, and, alas! self-seeking me.
- Letter to John Sterling (15 June 1835).
- Oh Lord! If you but knew what a brimstone of a creature I am behind all this beautiful amiability!
- Letter to Eliza Stodart (29 February 1836).
- Instead of boiling up individuals into the species, I would draw a chalk circle round every individuality, and preach to it to keep within that, and preserve and cultivate its identity.
- Letter to John Sterling (5 August 1845).
- I can see that the Lady has a genius for ruling, whilst I have a genius for not being ruled.
- Letter to Thomas Carlyle (28 September 1845).
- The surest way to get a thing in this life is to be prepared for doing without it, to the exclusion even of hope.
- Journal entry (August 1849).
- When one has been threatened with a great injustice, one accepts a smaller as a favour.
- Journal entry (25 November 1855).
- Not a hundredth part of the thoughts in my head have ever been or ever will be spoken or written — as long as I keep my senses, at least.
- Journal entry (16 July 1858).
- The triumphal-procession-air which, in our manners and customs, is given to marriage at the outset — that singing of Te Deum before the battle has begun.
- Letter to Miss Barnes (24 August 1859).
Quotes about Carlyle
edit- Jenny kissed me when we met,
Jumping from the chair she sat in;
Time, you thief, who love to get
Sweets into your list, put that in.
Say I'm weary, say I'm sad,
Say that health and wealth have missed me;
Say I'm growing old, but add
Jenny kissed me.- Leigh Hunt, in "Jenny Kissed Me", in The Monthly Chronicle (November 1838).


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Updated November 30, 2022 at 11:31 AM ET
Former Chinese leader and general secretary of the country's ruling Communist Party Jiang Zemin died at the age of 96, state news agency Xinhua announced Wednesday. The cause of death was leukemia and multiple organ failure.
Jiang was a divisive and colorful figure at the forefront of political life for 15 years. Even after retirement, analysts say, he exercised influence — and in his last years, served as a counterweight to China's current leader, Xi Jinping.
The announcement came at a highly sensitive time in China as the authorities grapple with a rash of street protests expressing deep unhappiness with President Xi Jinping's signature "zero COVID" policy as well as other issues.
In China, mourning can turn political. The death in April 1989 of purged reformist party boss Hu Yaobang triggered weeks of protests centered on Tiananmen Square. The army was eventually called in to crush the demonstrations, killing hundreds if not thousands of people.
That year, Jiang got his break to be party leader in the aftermath of the chaos of the student-led protests centered on Tiananmen Square.
China was a pariah. Jiang was tasked with restoring stability within a divided Communist Party — and rehabilitating the image of a government that had ordered the military to fire on its own citizens.
In a 2000 interview, CBS journalist Mike Wallace called Jiang "a dictator, an authoritarian." And Jiang objected.
"Very frankly speaking, I don't agree with your point," the Chinese leader said in English. "Your way of describing what things are like in China is as absurd as what the Arabian Nights may sound like."
The "Shanghai gang"
At first, Jiang was thought to be a weak and transitional figure — a surprise choice for the next party leader — but few other officials were trusted and other, more liberal officials had been purged.
By 1993, he was also named head of state, in addition to party leader, and only relinquished his last title in 2004, all the while increasing his influence.
"He managed to steer China from great difficulties to great promise," says Jia Qingguo, the former dean of Peking University's School of International Studies. "China became — under his leadership — more open to the outside world, more liberal and China's economy became more dynamic."
Born on Aug. 17, 1926, in southern Jiangsu province to a prosperous family, Jiang joined an underground Communist cell in 1946. After the Communist Party won control of China, he was assigned to build relations with the Soviet Union and worked in the Stalin Automobile Factory in Moscow, where he learned to speak Russian.
An engineer by training, he rose through the ranks as a technocrat, eventually heading the Ministry of Electronics Industry in the 1980s.
But he remains most closely associated with the cosmopolitan city of Shanghai, where he was mayor before being plucked away to become overall head of the Communist Party. In Shanghai, he championed foreign investment and built up a network of proteges and associates he later helped promote up the ranks of party leadership — a power base analysts of Chinese elite politics termed "the Shanghai gang." Those connections later let Jiang retain significant influence long after he had officially left the top echelons of power.
The "Three Represents"
Jiang's main ideological innovation was a broad theory called the "Three Represents," officially enshrined into Communist Party orthodoxy in 2002. He wanted to allow entrepreneurs and capitalists to join the party, and his theory underpinned the ideological somersaults necessary to permit it.
"This has been instrumental in ensuring that the party remains relevant. But of course the nature of the party has changed tremendously," says Willy Lam, a senior fellow at U.S. think tank the Jamestown Foundation and one of the first people to write a biography of Jiang.
The move was controversial, but it ultimately ensured the party's continued grip on power by co-opting a rising class of self-made entrepreneurs and China's middle class. "It is no longer the party of the workers and peasants," Lam says. "What we have seen is a new aristocracy has risen up the ranks. It is now the party of the rich and powerful."
Jiang's ideological flexibility cemented his legacy of combining growing economic freedoms with the absence of meaningful political liberalization, though his term was marked by the relaxation of political controls on press and free expression.
"We were not afraid of any kind of punishment then for covering stories," said Alfred Wu, a political science professor at National University Singapore who was then a Chinese state media reporter. "The only advice from my senior editors was not to criticize Jiang himself."
An economic liberal, but not a political liberal
Yet despite his ties to policies known as "reform and opening" in the 1980s, Jiang was no political liberal himself. When student protests roared through the country in 1989, he sacked a well-known newspaper editor and supported the execution of three student demonstrators. A decade later, he ordered the mass arrests of adherents of Falun Gong, a spiritual sect.
His political longevity meant he presided over China during other pivotal historical moments whose implications are still felt today.
In 1997, Jiang oversaw the return of Hong Kong from British to Chinese control. Standing on the same stage as the then-Prince Charles of Britain, Jiang assured nervous residents that "Hong Kong residents shall enjoy various rights and freedoms according to law," under Chinese rule — an assurance critics say was eviscerated in 2020, when Beijing imposed a controversial national security law on the territory.
Later, Jiang fought to speed up China's entry into the World Trade Organization in 2001 – bringing China in line with international legal norms, and forced it to open up hitherto-closed sectors of the economy.
His mark continues to be felt in China's military, which under his watch began an ambitious modernization effort to upgrade its weapons technology and management, an effort analysts credit with shaping it into a globally competitive fighting force now seen as a serious challenger to the American military dominance in Asia and feared by many to be threatening the democratic island of Taiwan.
In 2002, Jiang peacefully relinquished the title of party general secretary to his successor, Hu Jintao — the first and only orderly transition of power in Chinese Communist history. But he retained his position as chairman of the country's powerful Central Military Commission — the de facto commander in chief — until 2004.
A larger-than-life personality
In person, Jiang was known for his larger-than-life personality, often displaying a theatrical streak that entertained world leaders and frustrated his dour Communist colleagues.
"Back then, we all found him very annoying. Jiang had many flaws. He was attention-seeking, and liked performing," Zhang Ming, a retired political science professor in Beijing, told NPR several years ago.
Jiang delighted in quoting the Gettysburg Address in English and singing in public. During various state functions over the years, he danced cha-cha with then-Philippine President Fidel Ramos while delivering a rendition of Elvis Presley's Love Me Tender, picked a Hawaiian guitar while festooned with a flower lei, and waltzed to an accordion with the wife of French President Jacques Chirac.
With a wide grin, khaki pants hiked way above the waist and his trademark coke-bottle glasses, Jiang also became an unlikely pop culture icon among young Chinese born long after his party chairmanship ended. His resemblance to a cartoon amphibian spawned a generation of popular memes dubbed "toad worship" on Chinese social media platforms such as WeChat.
"Too simple, sometimes naïve," he chastised a Hong Kong reporter in 2000 — now a popular internet quip.
Jiang's rule "feels more and more in the past"
As cloistered leader, Jiang was never a man of the people, but Zhang, the retired professor, believes Jiang will be remembered fondly.
"In retrospect, we feel his era was alright. We miss it," Zhang said. "That is the tragedy of China. The country hasn't changed for the better, so we miss the past."
Increasingly, Jiang's rule feels more and more in the past as the market-oriented, internationally minded China he presided over crumbles under current party leader Xi Jinping, who has rebuilt absolute party control over Chinese society.
Images of Jiang impatiently checking his watch and snoozing as Xi Jinping laid out his vision for a "new era" of China during the 19th Party Congress, a national gathering of party representative, went viral in 2017.
China analysts say Jiang's political influence and health waned in his old age. In recent years, Xi purged Jiang's loyalists, especially in the military, once one of Jiang's political strongholds, through his controversial anti-corruption campaign.
Jiang was not present at the last party congress in October, where Xi secured a landmark third term in power. Rumors of Jiang's death have circled for years, but each time he would reappear in public days later.
This time, however, the rumors were true.
John Ruwitch contributed to this story.
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.


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This image has format transparent PNG with resolution 550x550.
You can download this image in best resolution from this page and use it for design and web design.
Almonds transparent image PNG with transparent background you can download for free, just click on download button.
The almond (Prunus dulcis, syn. Prunus amygdalus) is a species of tree native to Mediterranean climate regions of the Middle East, from Syria and Turkey to India and Pakistan, although it has been introduced elsewhere.
Almond is also the name of the edible and widely cultivated seed of this tree. Within the genus Prunus, it is classified with the peach in the subgenus Amygdalus, distinguished from the other subgenera by corrugations on the shell (endocarp) surrounding the seed.
The fruit of the almond is a drupe, consisting of an outer hull and a hard shell with the seed, which is not a true nut, inside. Shelling almonds refers to removing the shell to reveal the seed. Almonds are sold shelled or unshelled. Blanched almonds are shelled almonds that have been treated with hot water to soften the seedcoat, which is then removed to reveal the white embryo.
The almond is a deciduous tree, growing 4–10 m (13–33 ft) in height, with a trunk of up to 30 cm (12 in) in diameter. The young twigs are green at first, becoming purplish where exposed to sunlight, then grey in their second year. The leaves are 8–13 cm (3–5 in) long, with a serrated margin and a 2.5 cm (1 in) petiole. The flowers are white to pale pink, 3–5 cm (1–2 in) diameter with five petals, produced singly or in pairs and appearing before the leaves in early spring. Almond grows best in Mediterranean climates with warm, dry summers and mild, wet winters. The optimal temperature for their growth is between 15 and 30 °C (59 and 86 °F) and the tree buds have a chilling requirement of 300 to 600 hours below 7.2 °C (45.0 °F) to break dormancy.
Almonds begin bearing an economic crop in the third year after planting. Trees reach full bearing five to six years after planting. The fruit matures in the autumn, 7–8 months after flowering.
In this page you can download free nuts PNG gallery: Almond PNG images free download


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IMAGE: CNS photo/Carlo Di Renzo, EPA
By Cindy Wooden
VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Pope Francis formally recognized the
martyrdom of an Italian Consolata sister murdered in Somalia in 2006 and the martyrdom
of a 25-year-old priest in Hungary in 1957.
The Vatican announced the pope's decisions Nov. 9, along
with news that he had declared Pope John Paul I "venerable" and had
advanced five other sainthood causes.
In the case of the two martyrs, the pope's recognition
clears the way for their beatification, the step before canonization.
Consolata Sister Leonella Sgorbati and her bodyguard were gunned down as they left the children's hospital where she worked in Mogadishu.
Their deaths in September 2006 came amid rising tensions in the Muslim world
over a speech then-Pope Benedict XVI had given in Regensburg, Germany, quoting
a Christian emperor's criticism of Islam.
Most Islamic leaders in Somalia condemned the killing,
emphasizing that Sister Sgorbati was dedicating her efforts to the Somali
people. She was 65 at the time, had worked in Africa for 35 years and
had been in Somalia since 2001.
The Hungarian priest whose martyrdom was recognized by Pope
Francis was Father Janos Brenner, who was born in Szombathely in 1931. He had
been a Cistercian novice, but when the communist government banned religious
orders in 1950, he entered a diocesan seminary. He was ordained to the
priesthood in 1955.
Although the diocesan priesthood was not banned, the
communist authorities did not like his ministry, especially with young people.
In December 1957, just two weeks before his 26th birthday, he received a
late-night call to visit a sick person. On the path outside the village, he
was stabbed 32 times and died before a doctor could arrive. Although it was
never proven, it was believed that communist officials were ultimately
responsible for his death.
Another decree signed by the pope recognized the heroic
virtues of Bernard of Baden, a 15th-century German nobleman. Although he often
is referred to as "Blessed Bernard," his cause for sainthood had not
previously followed all the formal procedures.
The other decrees signed by the pope recognized the heroic
virtues of:
— Franciscan Father Gregorio Fioravanti, the Italian
founder of the Franciscan Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart. He died in
— Venezuela-born Jesuit Father Tomas Morales Perez, who
founded the Cruzadas de Santa Maria secular institute and the Militantes de
Santa Maria movement for young people. He died in Spain in 1994.
— Italian Capuchin Brother Marcellino da Capradosso, a
friar who died in 1909.
— U.S.-born Teresa Fardella De Blasi, an Italian mother and
widow, who founded the Poor Daughters of the Crowned Virgin and who was able to
realize her dream of becoming a nun only shortly before her death in 1957.
– – –
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Number of Pages (Cards) to Show
This parameter is only used in Flash Card type lessons. The default value is zero which means that all the Pages/Cards are shown in a lesson. Setting this parameter to a non-zero value shows that number of pages. After that number of Page/Cards have been shown the end of lesson is reached and the student is shown their grade.
If this parameter is set to a number greater than the number of pages in the lesson then the end of the lesson is reached when all the pages have been shown.


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Will there also be a 'Super President'?
"I wish it were possible to obtain a single amendment to our Constitution — taking from the federal government their power of borrowing."
– Thomas Jefferson
– 'Super Congress': Debt Ceiling Negotiators Aim To Create New Legislative Body (Huffington Post, Updated: July 24, 2011):
WASHINGTON — Debt ceiling negotiators think they've hit on a solution to address the debt ceiling impasse and the public's unwillingness to let go of benefits such as Medicare and Social Security that have been earned over a lifetime of work: Create a new Congress.
This "Super Congress," composed of members of both chambers and both parties, isn't mentioned anywhere in the Constitution, but would be granted extraordinary new powers. Under a plan put forth by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and his counterpart Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), legislation to lift the debt ceiling would be accompanied by the creation of a 12-member panel made up of 12 lawmakers — six from each chamber and six from each party.
Legislation approved by the Super Congress — which some on Capitol Hill are calling the "super committee" — would then be fast-tracked through both chambers, where it couldn't be amended by simple, regular lawmakers, who'd have the ability only to cast an up or down vote. With the weight of both leaderships behind it, a product originated by the Super Congress would have a strong chance of moving through the little Congress and quickly becoming law. A Super Congress would be less accountable than the system that exists today, and would find it easier to strip the public of popular benefits. Negotiators are currently considering cutting the mortgage deduction and tax credits for retirement savings, for instance, extremely popular policies that would be difficult to slice up using the traditional legislative process.
House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) has made a Super Congress a central part of his last-minute proposal, multiple news reports and people familiar with his plan say. A picture of Boehner's proposal began to come into focus Saturday evening: The debt ceiling would be raised for a short-term period and coupled with an equal dollar figure of cuts, somewhere in the vicinity of a trillion dollars over ten years. A second increase in the debt ceiling would be tied to the creation of a Super Congress that would be required to find a minimum amount of spending cuts. Because the elevated panel would need at least one Democratic vote, its plan would presumably include at least some revenue, though if it's anything like the deals on the table today, it would likely be heavily slanted toward spending cuts. Or, as Obama said of the deal he was offering Republicans before Boehner walked out, "If it was unbalanced, it was unbalanced in the direction of not enough revenue."
Republicans, however, are looking to force a second debt ceiling fight as part of the package, despite the Democratic rejection of the plan. Under the Republican plan, lawmakers would need to weigh in on the debt ceiling during the heat of the presidential election, a proposal Democrats reject as risky to the nation's credit rating. "We expressed openness to two stages of cuts, but not to a short-term debt limit extension," a Democratic aide close to the negotiations said. "Republicans only want the debt ceiling extended as far as the cuts in each tranch. That means we'll be right back where we are today a few months down the road. We are not a Banana Republic. You don't run America like that."
The aide said that Democrats are open to a series of cuts as well as a Super Congress, but only if the debt ceiling is raised sufficiently so that it pushes past the election. "Our proposal tonight was, do two tranches of cuts, but raise the debt ceiling through 2012 right now, though the McConnell process would be one way," said the aide, leaving open the possibility that Boehner could craft a new process and distinguish it from McConnell's, which the Tea Party despises as a dereliction of duty. "Do that now with a package of cuts, and have the joint committee" — the Super Congress — "report out a package that would be the second tranch. Republicans rejected that, and continued to push a short-term despite the fact that Reid, Pelosi and Obama all could not have been clearer that they will not support a short-term increase. A short term risks some of the same consequences as outright failure to raise the ceiling — downgraded credit rating, stocks plunge, interest rates spike, etc. It is unclear why Republicans have made this their sticking point."
Boehner spokesman Michael Steel argued that the inability to come to a larger deal so far left a short-term extension as an "inevitable" option. "For months, we have laid out our principles to pass a bill that fulfills the president's request to increase the debt limit beyond the next election. We have passed a debt limit increase with the reforms the American people demand, the 'Cut, Cap, and Balance' bill. The Democrats who run Washington have refused to offer a plan," he said in a statement. "Now, as a result, a two-step process is inevitable. Like the president and the entire bipartisan, bicameral congressional leadership, we continue to believe that defaulting on the full faith and credit of the United States is not an option."
Obama has shown himself to be a fan of the commission approach to cutting social programs and entitlements. Shortly after taking office, Obama held a major conference on deficit reduction and subsequently created, by executive order, The National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform. The White House made two telling appointments to chair the commission: The first was former Sen. Alan Simpson (R-Wyo.), a well-known critic of Social Security who earned notoriety by suggesting, among other things, that the American government had become "a milk cow with 310 million tits!" Yet Obama's Democratic appointment was even more indicative of whose interests took priority: former Clinton White House Chief of Staff Erskine Bowles. Bowles is a member of Morgan Stanley's board of directors; an adviser to Carousel Capital, a private equity firm; and a director of Cousins Properties Incorporated, a firm with significant investments in commercial and mixed-use real estate.
Simpson and Bowles, perhaps unsurprisingly, produced a report recommending corporate and high-end tax cuts, along with cuts to Social Security, Medicare, veterans' benefits and a host of other social programs.
The commission needed 14 of 18 members to approve the plan in order for it to advance to Congress for a vote. The commission fell short, but did win a majority.
Proponents of slashing spending won't make the same mistake with a new Super Congress. Only a simple majority will be necessary.


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The river was high, the current fast.
Maureen Bussier Pruitt looked around at the other endurance riders as they fell off, one by one, almost comically. Legs and arms akimbo, seasoned riders popping out of their saddles in various inelegant positions, and landing inescapably in the drink. That was the scene in Dawsonville, Ga. last month, as small Arabian horses tried in vain to leap the fast-moving current.
Pruitt's Thoroughbred Tour Miyuki had never seen anything quite like this river either.
Unsure about the situation, he tried first to enter it sideways, reconsidered, and finally plunged forward like "the tank that he is," Pruitt says.
"The water was up to his neck, and he's a good 16.3 hands," she says. "We were warned that it had been Tour Miyuki
Barn name: Toukie
Sire: Tour d'Or
Dam: Royal Roberto
Foal date: Feb. 20, 2003raining heavily, and that the river was up and it was running. So we were advised that once we got in to keep moving and try to stay up. It was crazy!"
But the thing that wasn't crazy on that 25-mile endurance ride was her ex-racehorse Thoroughbred, whom she introduced to the endurance-ride discipline in 2011, and who has blossomed in the sport ever since.
"He really took to it. Everything is so routine to him now that he self loads onto the trailer, and he has seen just about everything out on the trails— deer have jumped in front of him, wild pigs have blocked our path, and he has navigated 45-degree climbs," she says. "This horse amazes me."
Pruitt, a former exercise rider at Suffolk Downs in Boston, Mass., purchased Toukie in 2010 after settling down in Florida.
After switching gears in her own life—she traded her track job for a career as a firefighter paramedic— Pruitt married and bought a small farm where she could house a couple off-track Thoroughbreds of her own. "I never thought of having anything else other than Thoroughbreds," she notes.
Immediately after putting the finishing touches on the barn, she met Toukie's owner, a woman who loved the horse so well that she insisted Pruitt promise never to race the horse again. "He was 7 at this point, and I told her I had no desire to run him."
When her new horse arrived in 2010, she hit the trails near her farm, getting to know her new partner, and teaching him to trust her. And together, they learned to believe in each other when the challenge of endurance riding first presented itself.
A friend suggested Pruitt try the sport, and always game for a challenge, she started Toukie in 2011.
"There's really no way you can prepare ahead of time for something like this," she says. "Endurance riding is the most amazing thing. After being on a flat racetrack, all of a sudden, you're out in the middle of nowhere, and you're riding, and we have to become so brave," she says. "We've had miles and miles and miles together, and we've got this bond now. He knows me and he trusts me. He has become an amazing horse."
They've done many endurance rides, traveling great distances from their farm in Ft. Myers, Fla. to Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee and South Carolina.
Each trip is filled with surprises; challenges demanding horse and rider really puzzle out their approach. "For example, we went up to North Carolina to ride in the mountains. It was incredible. Climbing down 45-degree hills, horses have to learn to put their hind ends under them" to get to more even terrain.
"It's all about the horse with endurance riding," she adds. "After you've completed a 10-to 20-mile loop, the horse has to undergo a vet check to make sure they're physically OK. I keep a heart monitor on Toukie, and we approach the training the way a marathon runner would. We start off slow and long, and right now, he's so fit it's not even funny."
Fit and fabulous!
Crossing the river last month was a real highlight for Pruitt.
"He'd been through ponds before, but he'd never crossed a swiftly running river. I never doubted he could do it though; I know him," she says. "In endurance riding, the sport is dominated by Arabians. I think it's great that Toukie and I can show people hat Thoroughbreds can do anything.
"There's nothing that I have asked him to do that he wouldn't do. He's gotten, I don't want to say fearless, but he takes so much in stride now. I'm confident in him, and I think he feels that."
Toukie, just another Off-Track Thoroughbred who will do anything for a loving owner.


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Revolution #145, October 19, 2008
Financial Hurricane Batters World Capitalism:
System Failure and the Need for Revolution
The most serious financial crisis since the Great Depression shows no sign of letting up. The financial edifice of U.S. imperialism is in danger of crumbling. The U.S. ruling class is confronting what Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke describes as a crisis of "historic proportions"—and is hurriedly cobbling together desperate measures to prevent wholesale collapse. Three of the largest independent investment banks on Wall Street have ceased to exist since April. The government had to assume a major stake in the American International Group (AIG), the world's largest insurer, to prevent it from collapsing. Now the U.S. Treasury is considering taking ownership positions in major U.S. banks.
This crisis is amplifying internationally. Western Europe is facing large bank failures and governments are engineering their own bailouts. The Russian stock market has intermittently suspended operations. Financial markets in Asia have nose-dived. Mexico's economy is wobbling, as its exports shrink.
Two things stand out about this crisis. First, there is the ferocity of its global shocks and the speed with which it has spread. Second, unlike the debt and financial crises of the last 30 years, which were largely centered in the Third World, this crisis initially exploded in the U.S., the world's leading capitalist economy, and is focused in the financial centers of world capitalism.
U.S.-led finance, which plays a dominant and shaping role in the global capitalist order, has taken a huge body blow. This will have enormous repercussions, not just for the stability of the world capitalist system but for power shifts and rivalries within it.
Many progressive commentators have put the blame for this crisis on fraud and greed, or on lax regulation. All of which are certainly in play. But these explanations do not get to the essence of what is happening, to the cause of the problem. This crisis is the outcome of the fundamental workings of the capitalist system.
The analysis that follows is framed by these core points:
- There is an essential relationship between the vast enlargement of the financial sector in the U.S., and the general phenomenon of financialization, and the deepening globalization of capitalist production of the last 15 years. And central to this dynamic has been the relationship between U.S. imperialism and China.
- Through the course of this growth and expansion, severe imbalances have built up between the financial system—and its expectation of future profits—and the accumulation of capital, that is, the structures and actual production and reinvestment of profit based on the exploitation of wage-labor.
- A "dirty little secret" of this crisis is the enormous weight of militarization of the U.S. economy.
- This crisis is a concentrated expression of the anarchy of capitalist production—the fact that production is not carried out according to any conscious, rational plan at the society-wide level, much less at the international level.
Background to Crisis
In the early 2000s, in the aftermath of the collapse of high-tech stocks, the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank sought to stimulate lending and growth. It lowered interest rates and pumped funds into the banking system. Banks had access to cheap and plentiful credit. And through deceit and aggressive marketing, they pushed mortgages on people. The Federal Reserve continued to inject low-cost funds into the banking system—helping to prop up loans and to fuel a long-term speculative housing bubble.
Banks sold these mortgages to investment banks. The investment banks in turn bundled these loans together with other loans, created complex financial products, and sold them to large investors—in the U.S. and in other parts of the world, especially Western Europe. These mortgage-backed securities, as they are called, circulated in financial markets and became the basis for other loans. The ultimate collateral for this chain of borrowing and lending was the original mortgage loans. So when housing prices fell, and as growing numbers of mortgage holders found themselves unable to pay back housing loans, much of this original collateral became nearly worthless.
This whole process is an obscene example of how under this capitalist system something as basic as human shelter becomes a financial instrument and object of speculation. This has led to a situation today where 1 in 6 U.S. homeowners owe more on a mortgage than their home is worth; where 1 in every 65 households in California is in some phase of foreclosure; and where a disproportionate number of Black and Latino families who have been victimized by predatory lending have experienced incredible losses of what little wealth they had.1
AIG had made enormous profits internationally by selling insurance to investors who held many of these mortgage-backed securities. These investors would be repaid by AIG, in the event that the loans that were bundled into these financial packages they had purchased were defaulted on—could not be paid back. But by mid-September, AIG could neither cover massive loan damage nor borrow sufficient funds on the financial markets to keep itself afloat. AIG was so interconnected with other major financial players that if the company went under, it would likely have taken others down.
In the face of mounting financial crisis, the imperialist state intervened. It acted as the representative of capital and as the guardian of the interests of capital. The U.S. ruling class was faced with a two-fold danger: mounting losses and bankruptcies in the financial sector; and the choking up of lending channels, which could send the economy into a rapid downward spiral.
The government basically took over AIG. And on September 19, the Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson announced a $700 billion bailout. The essence of the rescue package was that the government would buy the troubled mortgage-backed securities sloshing about in the financial system and through this get lending going again. But the announced bailout did not unblock credit markets or calm stock markets. Nor has it restored international confidence in the U.S. economy.
Taking a Step Back
This crisis broke out in the banking system. Its more immediate trigger was the popping of a speculative real estate bubble, cascading losses in the financial sector, and the inability of stricken financial institutions to raise capital and the unwillingness of others to lend capital.
At a deeper level, this crisis is the outcome of a particular trajectory of world capitalist growth.
There has been a massive new wave of globalization. One of the most significant features of world growth and expansion of the last 15 years has been the deepening integration of the world capitalist economy. This is happening both on the level of production and trade—like the parts that go into a computer being manufactured in different parts of the world; and in the case of an iPod being totally manufactured in China. And it is happening on the level of finance—where banks operate globally and are more tightly interlinked with one another through chains of borrowing and lending and even, as in the case of AIG, insuring risks of lending.
This new wave of globalization has involved direct productive and financial investments abroad. It has involved the expansion of outsourcing and subcontracting. And central to all of this has been the fuller integration of export producing countries of the Third World into the world capitalist market—and the forging of a globally-integrated, cheap-labor manufacturing economy.2
40 percent of the imports coming into the U.S. are accounted for by U.S. transnational corporations—and this does not even include the subcontracting done by companies like Walmart. 30 percent of U.S. corporate profits are generated overseas. China, which has evolved into the high-profit workshop/sweatshop for international capitalism, has been at the epicenter of this recent surge of globalization.3
From the standpoint of the needs of profitable globalization, various elements of deregulation—for instance, the lifting of barriers to rapid shifts and transfers of capital—were functional. This is why both Republicans and Democrats have promoted deregulation. Indeed, the Clinton administration in the 1990s played a decisive deregulating role. It negotiated so-called free-trade agreements with Third World countries and helped to loosen strictures on U.S. banking and telecommunications.
The trajectory of capitalist growth of the last 15 years has also involved heightened financialization. On this platform of more globalized production and exploitation, the financial services sector in the advanced capitalist countries mushroomed.
On a turbo-charged global playing field of ever-more mobile and massive flows of investment capital—where the stakes of winning and losing are enormous—capital requires all kinds of risk management. Investment banks and other financial institutions provide such financial services to "hedge" against interest rate variations, currency fluctuations, and other sources of volatility and loss. At the same time, financial activities became a greater source of short-term and speculative profits. In an intensely competitive atmosphere for financial market share, investment banks were creating ever-more complex and exotic financial products. Global financial assets increased from $12 trillion in 1980 to nearly $200 trillion in 2007, far outstripping the growth of world output or the expansion of trade.4
Growth in the advanced capitalist countries over the last 15 years became increasingly finance-led and credit-driven. The U.S. has been at the epicenter of this process of heightened financialization. By 2005, the manufacturing sector of the U.S. economy had fallen to 12 percent of the U.S. gross domestic product (the production of goods and services), while the financial services sector made up of finance, insurance, and real estate had grown to 20 percent. In 1982, the financial sector's share of total corporate profits was just over 5 percent; in 2007, the financial share of corporate profits had skyrocketed to 40 percent!5
Contradictions of Development
These interrelated processes of globalization and financialization ultimately led to unsustainable imbalances and instabilities. The dynamics that fueled growth have generated new barriers to profitable accumulation of capital. Strengths have turned into vulnerabilities.
These include:
- Bloating of the financial sector relative to the productive base.
- Huge run-up of debt and U.S. trade and government deficits in the U.S. necessitating massive and uninterrupted inflows of capital from around the world, with the central banks of Japan and increasingly China holding huge amounts of U.S. Treasury debt.
- Billions upon billions of dollars of paper assets that cannot be transformed into real, productive and material, assets.
- U.S. consumption and borrowing stimulating China's growth but China's breakneck manufacturing growth further fueling U.S. trade deficits and intensifying competitive pressures throughout the world economy.
- The expansion of credit spurring growth but heightening global financial fragility.
We are seeing things turn into their opposites. Financial institutions attempted to reduce risk and to profit from risk by dispersing more varied financial instruments over a wider field of investors internationally. But this process has drawn investors, these very institutions, and now governments into a vortex of vulnerability and crisis. The heightened globalization of production and markets, the closer intertwining of economies, has created conditions for faster and even more extensive ripple effects of crisis throughout the world.
A Knot of Contradictions
A strategic concern of the U.S. ruling class is the international strength of the dollar. The dollar is the world's leading currency for settling transactions, clearing debts, and holding foreign exchange reserves (trade and investment earnings that become part of the reserves of foreign central banks). The dollar has been a linchpin of U.S. global supremacy and of the whole current global economic order.
The dollar is also an investible commodity—major currencies are bought and sold and traded on international currency markets. The value of the dollar rises and falls in relation to other currencies, and in response to international political and economic trends and developments. If foreign central banks and investors were to significantly shift away from dollar holdings, this could set off a global monetary crisis and/or strengthen the position of rival currencies (like the euro) and rival powers.
These are uncharted waters for U.S. policymakers: in the scale and complexity of the crisis…in the magnitude of the rescue operations required to prevent financial breakdown…and in the rapidity with which this crisis is unfolding. A Harvard research economist put it this way: "like the sorcerer's apprentice, we have created things we do not understand and cannot easily control."6
U.S. imperialism has limited maneuvering room. The U.S. is already the largest debtor country in the world. It is waging costly wars for greater empire in Iraq and Afghanistan. And both John McCain and Barack Obama are committed to America's global "war on terror"—the umbrella under which the U.S. is waging these wars for empire.
U.S. imperialism has attempted to parlay its superior military strength into a new world order and to lock in its global supremacy for decades to come. Defense and defense-related spending totaled more than $1 trillion in fiscal 2008.7 And military-related production and research have long been deeply embedded in the U.S. economy. The whole imperialist system rests on the domination of vast swaths of the globe through savage force, with the U.S. military colossus playing a special role. The costs of forcibly preserving and extending the U.S. empire is one of the dirty little secrets of the dynamics of this crisis that scarcely gets talked about.
Here an important dialectic comes into play. "U.S. military dominance," writes Kenneth Rogoff, former chief economist for the International Monetary Fund, "has been one of the linchpins of the dollar."8 But this military dominance and the wars the U.S. is waging have increasingly come to depend on the steady inflow of foreign capital into the U.S. (to the tune of $3 billion a day). For this to continue requires that the U.S. economy and dollar remain stable. This is a major contradiction for U.S. imperialism.
U.S. imperialism is facing new competitive challenges and the emergence of potential rival constellations of imperial and big powers—vying for market shares, control over energy resources, and geopolitical position.
Emergency Capitalism
People are losing their homes. Retirement savings plans since the middle of 2007 have lost 20 percent of their value with the stock market sinking. Funding for vitally needed social programs and services at state and local levels is being pinched by the financial crisis and economic slowdown. In much of the Third World, food prices soared over the last year, this is partly related to financial speculation, and hunger has spread.9
While the futures of millions are in jeopardy, what is the paramount concern of those at the top of the pyramid of economic and political power? It is the protection of a financial system that sits atop a global system of exploitation; it is the rescue of the owners and investor beneficiaries of that system.
This is not "socialism for the rich" or a bailout for the people. It's emergency capitalism for the capitalist class: injections of funds and guarantees, government takeovers, cost-cutting, selective liquidations, restructuring of regulations; and it's more brutal capitalism for everyone else: austerity, more intense international exploitation, and more misery for people throughout the world.
The official story line is that this crisis issues from particular flaws and malpractices that can be corrected: "excessive greed," "Wall Street irresponsibility," "outdated" or " unenforced regulations."
The truth is that this crisis has deep structural causes in the very nature of the system—in the quest for profit, not the satisfaction of human need, and in the anarchic workings of world capitalism.
We are seeing how the means through which capitalism expands and "innovates" have led to new barriers and to gales of "creative destruction"—with trillions of dollars of asset values destroyed in the market turmoil. Through these convulsions, the imperialists seek to wrench new freedom, promoting further consolidation and monopolization. Bank of America absorbs the giant investment bank Merrill Lynch. Lehman Brothers is forced into liquidation.
Whoever wins the presidential election will be inheriting a battered financial system and huge government deficits. This will not be an era of expanded social spending, but one of more direct government intervention in financial markets and cutbacks in social spending.
A Status Report
This rolling and intensifying financial crisis serves as a profile and status report on capitalism in the 21st century:
A once-thriving subprime mortgage market…had been linked to the ability of U.S. financial institutions to market securities to European banks and of the U.S. Treasury to draw in export earnings from China…earnings generated in sweatshops…tied into subcontracting networks of Western corporations….
Real estate markets tank…. The "smart money" looks for "safe places" to shift its capital…. Some of it heads for commodity futures like rice…. So food prices spiral upward in response to the investment stratagems of people who know and care nothing about food needs and food production…. In countries like Haiti, women who can no longer afford basic staples are feeding their children mud-cakes….
A French bank, with its assets plunging in value, and the chain of global capitalist finance snapping all over, now finds itself with "non-performing loans"…. It must "improve its balance sheet" and faces pressures to reduce or eliminate trade credits to a country in Africa that depends on imports for food, and where people already spend 50 percent of their incomes for food.
Despite staggering advances in technology and human knowledge, despite the fact that the development of human society has brought humanity to a historic threshold where it is now possible not only to overcome scarcity and exploitation but also to forge social arrangements where human beings can truly flourish—despite all of this potential, social and economic life are under painful duress and the ecosystems of the planet gravely threatened. It is not for lack of resources or knowledge.
All of what has been described in this article is the result of the relations and domination of capital, the result of the workings of a system driven by vicious competition and the blind accumulation of profit based on exploitation—and backed by massive military force.
In the heartland of capitalism, there is financial meltdown. In the Third World, millions are already suffering the ravages of a global food crisis. This system is a horror and a failure. Is it necessary for humanity to live this way?
The October 10 edition of The Washington Post carried an article with the title and question "The End to American Capitalism?" In forums and in the media, leading bourgeois policymakers and analysts have discussed whether this crisis, careening beyond control and threatening greater economic calamity, suggests that there is something fundamentally amiss about capitalism. And the emphatic answer given is the same: "the system may not be working optimally, but there is no alternative, only gradations and variations of capitalism."
But there is another way. It is possible to take hold of the productive resources of society and to develop and deploy them in a rational, planned, and society-wide way to meet human need and to safeguard the planet. It is possible to establish a radically different kind of state power and to create a society and institutions that unleash people's creativity and that promote initiative and diversity in an atmosphere that brings out human community.
The question of socialism, of communism, of revolution could not be more relevant…and more urgent.
To be clear, revolution is not a catchword for lots of new things or lots of change. Revolution has very specific meaning: the people getting rid of the system; depriving the old ruling class of their political-economic-military power; and creating a new power with new aims and objectives and the means to enforce those aims and objectives.
As serious as this crisis is, with all the havoc it is wreaking, the system will not automatically collapse of its own weight and disorder. Absent revolution, capitalism will put itself back together—in its own image and at unimaginable social cost.
And for all the agony that crisis inflicts, this will not automatically and spontaneously translate into progressive, radical, and revolutionary sentiment and consciousness. Other forces are in the field doing ideological and political work: reactionary populists like Lou Dobbs ("blame the foreigners and illegal immigrants") and Sarah Palin whipping up a social base for religio-fascism. The Obama candidacy is channeling disenchantment and the thirst for change right back into the political system's suffocating embrace ("change we can believe in" is nothing other than change acceptable to the powers that be).
This is a highly fraught situation. Things can change very quickly. The system is revealing much about its basic nature. Bigger jolts may come and outrage may suddenly grow and give rise to resistance from all kinds of quarters. We have to grasp the potential of the situation. We have to be out there bringing forward understanding and bringing forward a vision of a liberatory world. We have to rise to new political and ideological challenges in the belly of the beast.
1. Data from James R. Hagerty and Ruth Simon, "Housing Pain Gauge: Nearly 1 in 6 Owners 'Under Water,'" Wall Street Journal, October 8, 2008; RealtyTrac, "Foreclosure Activity Up 14 Percent in Second Quarter," Realtytrac.com, July 25, 2008. A study published earlier this year estimates the total loss of wealth suffered by Black, Latino, and other minority households on account of bank subprime-lending of the last eight years to be the greatest loss of wealth for people of color in modern U.S. history (United for a Fair Economy, Foreclosed: State of the Dream 2008). [back]
2. Among informative studies of the origins and development of a globally integrated cheap labor manufacturing economy, see Michel Chossudovsky, The Globalization of Poverty and the New World Order (Quebec: Center for Research on Globalization, 2003); and on globalized manufacturing in relation to financialization, see William Millberg, "Shifting Sources and Uses of Profits: Sustaining US Financialization with Global Value Chains," Economy and Society, Vol. 37, No. 3 (August 2008), pp. 420-451. [back]
3. Data from Milberg, "Shifting Value Chains…" [back]
4. Jeffrey Garten, "We Need a New Global Monetary Authority," Financial Times, September 25, 2008. On financialization as a means also to contain financial disorder and to impose profit maximizing discipline on capital, see Christopher Rude, "The Role of Financial Discipline in Imperial Strategy," in Leo Panitch and Colin Leys, eds., Socialist Register 2005: The Empire Reloaded, London: Merlin Press, 2004. [back]
5. Kevin Phillips, Bad Money (New York: Viking, 2008), p. 5; Robert Wade, "The First-World Debt Crisis of 2007-2010 in Global Perspective," Challenge: The Magazine of Economic Affairs, July-August 2008, p. 33. [back]
6. David Dapice, "Bad Spell on Wall Street," Policyinnovations.org, January 24, 2008. [back]
7. Leaving out the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, defense spending has doubled since the mid-1990s. See Chalmers Johnson, "Why the US has really gone broke," mondediplo.com (English edition), February 5, 2008. [back]
8. Kenneth Rogoff, "America Will Need a $1,000bn Bail-Out," Financial Times, September 17, 2008. [back]
9. On the global food crisis, see "The Global Food Crisis and the Ravenous System of Capitalism," Revolution #128, May 1, 2008. [back]
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As regular readers know, I like explainers and well informed opinion writing that distills complex issues down to something that average people (and i) can easily grasp and process, taking away the most important aspects of the story. This has been a major fail in most of our globally overrated 21st century digital media. which so often seems to be writing for the sophistication and attention spans of mid-20th century readers. That has to change.
Here's another good example of the kind of opinion piece that I think every news source should try to find and make available for any complex story. Without overt partisan slant or agenda mongering, Fulbright Fellow, Farooq Mitha cleanly sums up the challenges for Obama and the American empire, as Mubarak's Egypt, the first big Middle East domino is poised to fall any minute:
For decades we have allied ourselves with autocrats in the Middle East and looked the other way as they crack down on political expression, free speech and human rights out of fear of the unknown and the desire for stability in the region. We support these regimes because of the uncertainty of who may come into power if we press for democracy. But, we need to question whether this is good long-term policy
The United States should be viewed as a supporter for the right of the Arab people to determine their form of government. Most leaders and policymakers in the U.S. support democracy and the protection of freedoms in the Middle East, but fear extremists coming to power. For this reason it is important that our policies push for a smooth transition so that a power vacuum is not created such as there was in Iraq after Saddam Hussein's regime.
See also: @Karoli's timeline of unrest in Egypt, '90s to now.
@Karoli's timeline of unrest in Egypt, '90s to now.
It's not radical Islam that worries the US – it's independence — by Noam Chomsky
Shoq's Twitter list on Egypt: http://twitter.com/#!/shoq/egypt


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Two Girls Treasure
Custom Painted Highchair Blue with Roses
Custom Painted Highchair Blue with Roses
Measures approximately 38" H x 18" L x 21 1/2" W
Most home furnishings can be purchased in person at Two Girls Treasure in Florence South Carolina. If you're not local, that perfect addition to your space you love may be eligible for shipping through our network of professional furniture movers and freight/furniture shipping experts. Keep in mind, we are a small, "best-priced, American-family owned and operated, vintage hunters paradise!" We thank you for your business!
Call us at the store at 843-407-4505 any time Tuesday through Saturday from 10am est til 6pm est. We'll arrange some shipping quotes for you if you need us to.
Local pick-up and shipping options available for you in and around Florence South Carolina, too!
Care information
Care information
Custom Colors
Take 2 or even 3 of your favorite RTJ colors and create your very own using our Mixing Cups. Need recipes? We have them. Made a special recipe? Be sure to share.
Use our Mixing Cups to make and save your special custom colors!
** color shown is a 50/50 mix of Blue Bird and Peacock Feather


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Intel recently announced a new Atom-series Z2420 processor aimed at low-cost smartphones. The new System on a Chip will complement the existing Medfield and Clover Trail+ line – which are for higher-performance devices – by being aimed at the low cost phones in developing markets. The Atom Z2420 combines a CPU, L2 cache, GPU, memory controller, cryptography engine, image signal processor, and fixed function hardware used for video encoding and decoding. The chip is designed to be low power and is manufactured on Intel's 32nm High-k metal gate process technology. According to Intel, the Co-PoP package measures 12 mm x 12 mm making it suitable for the intended smartphone form factor.
Specifications include a single core processor with 512KB of L2 cache running at 1.2 GHz that supports Intel's HyperThreading, Burst, and low power C6 state technologies. With HyperThreading, it can utilize two threads and with Burst, the processor can dynamically scale frequency to balance power usage and CPU load. The Intel GMA GPU uses PowerVR SGX540 graphics cores clocked at 400 Mhz. It is compatible with OpenGL ES 2.0 and OpenVG 1.1. The GPU is rated at 40 MTS peak polygons and a 2000 MPPS peak fill rate. Additionally, the SoC features hardware that can hardware encode/decode 30 FPS 1080p video in H.264, H.263, and MP4. Further, the hardware can hardware accelerate decoding of VC1, WMV9 but it cannot hardware accelerate encoding of those two additional formats. The Atom Z2420 SoC supports dual channel LPDDR2 memory clocked at 400 MHz. The Image Signal Processor (ISP) can support a 1.2MP and 8MP front and rear cameras. The SoC can support 15 FPS burst capture, video image stabilization, and HD video recording.
Intel has positioned the Atom Z2420 SoC at the Android operating system, and has even built a reference smartphone with the new processor. Acer, Lava, and Safaricom are among the companies lined up to produce future budget smartphones with the new SoC. Unfortunately, Atom Z2420-powered smartphones are not headed to the United States. Intel is sticking to developing markets suchs as India, Latin America, and Africa. Here's hoping next year Intel (finally) feels its mobile (smartphone) hardware is ready to compete with the ARM giants and that it pushes for Atom-powered smartphones in additional countries (including the US). Until then, you can find more information on the current generation Z2420 in the press release (PDF).
PC Perspective's CES 2013 coverage is sponsored by AMD.
Follow all of our coverage of the show at https://pcper.com/ces!


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Who Wants To Grow Their Business In 2016?
It's clear that some business owners still don't think they need a website. In fact, according to a 2016 report in the US produced by Clutch, 46% of small business owners don't have a website. They surveyed 350 small business owners and managers, most of whom own or work for an enterprise with 1 to 10 employees with an annual turnover of less than $1 million. These website figures mirror the statistics in Australia.
Why don't business owners feel they need a website? The main reason cited was they didn't think it was relevant to their industry. Another 30% said the cost was a barrier and 12% said they have a social media profile instead of a website. The truth is, every business looking to grow needs a website. Now I'm not talking about a website that simply lists the what, where and who of the business because these 'electronic billboards' attract no traffic, leads or new customers. They are just a billboard in the desert.
Some business owners don't think they need a website because all their business comes from referrals. Think again. A study produced by Hinge Marketing (Referral Marketing for Professional Services Firms) examined data from 523 firms and found that 29.6% of people who were referred to a firm ruled them out because they had an unimpressive website, 23.5% ruled out the referral because of poor quality content on the website and 43.6% of people ruled out a referral because they didn't understand how the firm could help them. Ironically, these businesses who rely on referrals for their growth didn't even know they got a referral from a friend or colleague because the person never contacted them.
Of course, having a website is one thing but getting traffic to your site is another challenge. If you're a plumber, florist, beautician or solicitor what happens if you Google your industry in your suburb? (e.g. plumber Richmond). Do you appear on the first page of the search engine page results?
Research from online ad network Chitika suggests that the top listing in Google's organic search results receives 32.5 percent of the traffic, compared to 17.6 percent for the second position and 11.4 percent for third position on page one. That means 61 percent of visitors don't go past the third listing on page one and 75% of users never scroll past the first page of search results. You have to be on page one of the search results and increasingly, you need to be number one on page one.
If you have an iPhone I'm sure you're familiar with Siri. Basically you ask her a question and she responds with a single answer. If you want more visitors to your website then your business needs to be the answer and rank number one. Of course, if getting to the number one position on search engine page rankings was easy then we would all be doing it! Be wary of people who guarantee you listings on page one because search engine optimization is a science and Google carefully guards its formulas and algorithms. We know as part of their process they look at just about every aspect of your website including the age, domain name, response time, social sharing, inbound links and freshness of content. The list of criteria is long and confusing but one thing we do know, remarkable content remains king.
My advice is simple, focus on building the 'RITE' content for your website - Relevant, Interesting, Timely and Entertaining. It needs to be original and think about the questions your prospects are asking online and make sure you answer them with fresh content including blog posts and videos.
In May last year Google reported that more searches take place on mobile devices than on desktop computers in 10 countries around the world including the US and Japan. The growth of mobile has been phenomenal and if your website is not 'responsive' to mobile devices then unfortunately Google has blocked your website from the search results on mobile devices. As such, you're invisible and not in the game.
The Clutch survey suggests only 68% of websites are responsive which means the layout of the website changes based on the device used to view the website. For example, mobile phones and tablets will see a different version of the website compared to visitors viewing it on a PC. It will adapt to the screen size to improve readability and make the website more user-friendly for visitors. If your website isn't responsive you need to urgently fix the design.
In summary, your website is your marketing hub and to build a lead generation site you need to have a clear strategy. It takes time and planning. It has to be responsive to mobile devices and to rank highly with Google you need quality and relevant content that answers your prospect's questions.
Click HERE to download the full edition of The Business Accelerator Magazine for March 2016
Other articles in this edition:
- 4 Ways to Grow a Business
- Negative Gearing - Negative or Positive?
- Splitting Assets From a SMSF
- Before You Hit the Business Start-Up Button
- With All the Will in the World
IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER:This newsletter is issued as a guide to clients and for their private information. This newsletter does not constitute advice. Clients should not act solely on the basis of the material contained in this newsletter. Items herein are general comments only and do not convey advice per se. Also changes in legislation may occur quickly. We therefore recommend that our formal advice be sought before acting in any of these areas.


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