Author Archives: oshun55
Obama’s Inequality Problem……..Illusory Wealth
Despite elected officials promises to restore the American middle class, we’ve increasing become a country with just two classes economically – the class of people who work for money and the class of people whose money works for them.
Millions of people will enjoy watching Leonardo DiCaprio and Jonah Hill as demoniacal deceptive traders in the Wolf of Wall Street. At some point after they stop laughing, they’ll think about the description of ‘The Market’ as a giant Ponzi scheme and wonder just how much of the wealth of the top 1% is based on creating tangible goods and services and how much of it is ‘wealth on paper’ generated by making successful bets with other people’s money? Continue reading
Gating the Debate about Race……………
I’ve got a new term to add to the American colloquial lexicon: Gating – to close off discussion of a sensitive cultural or political issue (e.g. race, torture, abortion) by declaring an incident a “teachable moment” sitting down for a … Continue reading
Michael Jackson: Battling God and Demons………..
de·mon (dē’mən) n. An evil supernatural being; a devil. A persistently tormenting person, force, or passion: the demon of drug addiction. One who is extremely zealous, skillful, or diligent: worked away like a demon; a real demon at math. Variant … Continue reading
Cognitive Dissonance
There is a basic disconnect in the attitude of Americans between what they believe to be true and what they are willing to tolerate in the name of ‘public safety’. Some examples:
1. The majority of Americans believe the “harsh interrogation techniques” used on prisoners at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib constituted torture under both the Geneva Conventions and U.S. law, yet they are willing to allow people to be subjected to such treatment, if they believe it is necessary to protect ‘national security’ – e.g. avoid an imminent terrorist attack.
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A Tale of Two Cities
Two months ago I traveled to Poland for an international harm reduction conference http://www.harmreduction2007.org. While there I visited the Jewish ghettos in Warsaw and Krakow and was struck again by the number of Poles who lived during that time and … Continue reading
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