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Posts published by “Christine Hall”

Christine Hall began her journalism career in 1972 writing for the "underground" newspaper the Los Angeles Free Press. From 1988 until 2005 she covered politics for various newspapers in the Greensboro, North Carolina area.

Click ‘Like’ If You Can Remember The Middle Class

I found this YouTube video the other day that I’d like to share with you, as it does a great job of explaining the amount of financial inequality we have in the U.S. right now. It’s probably worse than you realize.

httpv://youtu.be/QPKKQnijnsM

This is based on a study of 5,000 Americans by a Harvard business professor and economist. He looked at their perceptions of income inequality in the U.S. and then asked them what adjustments they thought necessary to make the system fair and just. The study shows that most of us are very aware of the fact that too much money is flowing to the top of the financial food chain and that something needs to be done. However, as this video illustrates, it’s worse than we think–much worse.

Facebook Bans Historical Hippie Artifact

Zuck the suck has a lot to learn about being cool and hip.

This week Mr. Social proved that neither he nor his little Facebook site have an inkling of hippness away from the Starbuck’s universe, when they decided a historical photograph from counter cultural Toronto, taken in the late 60s or early 70s, was nothing but unacceptable nudity, or worse, porno.

Then again, I could be wrong. This could merely be a case of a computer algorithm with penis envy.

Used To Be Only Sovereign Nations Were Too Big To Fail & Then Not Always

It becomes more and more obvious with each passing month that our government is mainly concerned with protecting financial interests, even when those interests work against the will and welfare of its citizens. Our government is acting like a business that’s in partnership with Wall Street and the banks. It also appears as if our government has granted these financial institutions some sort of special first class citizen status. Meanwhile, we the real citizens of this country are governed primarily with rules designed to make sure that we serve and not obstruct the big corporations.

httpv://youtu.be/7cKTBy7_S_I

How many billions of dollars of blood money does a bank have to launder for drug lords and how many sanctions does a bank have to violate before someone will consider shutting it down?

Thievery Corporation’s Eric Hilton on “Illegal Downloading”

One of the hallmarks of the ’60s’ and early ’70s’ revolution was summed up by The Who’s finale on the 1971 Who’s Next album, “Won’t Get Fooled Again,” which ends with the all too prophetic words, “Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss.”

httpv://youtu.be/9fHFM9UhsKI

Recently, when being interviewed by Max Keiser on the RT network’s Keiser Report TV show, Eric Hilton of the Washington, D.C. based band Thievery Corporation used the words to describe the current situation musicians face, now that the music biz jungle has moved from a shrink wrapped buy-it-in-a-store product to the more abstract and ephemeral digital download.

Demand Progress Video On Implications Of Kirtsaeng Case

Editor’s note: This article was originally published on FOSS Force. Reprinted with permission.

The internet activist group Demand Progress has released a short 2 1/2 minute video on YouTube that explains the implications of the legal wranglings between student Supap Kirtsaeng and textbook publisher John Wiley & Sons in a case that’s already gone before the U.S. Supreme Court and is now awaiting a ruling.

At issue is the reselling of new textbooks purchased cheaply abroad in the United States. Kirtsaeng, a Thai graduate student in the U.S., sold textbooks published by John Wiley & Sons on eBay that had been purchased by relatives in Thailand. The publisher is claiming copyright infringement, and so far has won all rulings in the Federal courts.

Monsanto: Maker of the Rules

Percy Schmeiser
Percy Schmeiser

Many of you already have a pretty good idea to what ends Monsanto will go to spread their poisonous genetically modified crops. The company is playing hardball and they plan to win at any cost. Unless we bring them down soon, they’ll pose a larger threat to human life than global warming, world overpopulation and all forms of pollution combined. What Monsanto wants is nothing short of complete control of agribusiness on a global scale, through their patented genetically modified seeds combined with their chemical herbicides and pesticides.

Exactly how far will they go? Ask Percy Schmeiser, he’ll tell you.

There’s a video that’s been making the rounds, David Versus Monsanto, that tells the story of Schmeiser, a 70 year old farmer growing canola, or rapeseed, in Saskatchewan in the Canadian Midwest. In 1997, he found that some of the canola growing on his farm, from seeds he’d been developing for decades, had taken on the properties of Monsanto’s patented Roundup resistant variety of canola due to cross pollination from nearby farms.

Is There Radioactive Silverware In Your Future?

People in the government are now telling us we’ll be perfectly safe taking our meals using radioactive silverware.

You think I’m joking, right? Wish that I were, but I’m not. The folks who think we have no right to choose whether our food’s been genetically modified, are now trying to sneak a move behind our back that will end up unleashing tons of radioactive metal into the scrap market. Over the years the government has accumulated thousands of tons of the stuff that was used in various types of nuclear tests and even in warfare. Now the Department of Energy (DOE) would like to lift legal restrictions on the recycling of nuclear contaminated scrap, so the stuff can be melted down into consumer goods.

Will a radioactive spoon heat our soup for us? Or will a glowing radioactive zipper mean fewer awkward moments getting undressed in the dark after things get hot an heavy?

Monsanto: Yet Another Lie

We’re being lied to all the time and have been for at least all my life. Most of these lies are harmful to us. The fact that we accept them, knowing them to be lies, hurts us even more.

This morning I ran across another of those graphics that makes a political statement on Facebook. This one contained a quote by Ronnie Cummins with the Organic Consumers Association that said:

“GMOs aren’t meant to feed the world… they’re designed to sell Monsanto’s herbicide Roundup.”

The Moneylenders In The Temple of Applebee’s


In case you’re one of the two or three people who hasn’t heard the story yet, it goes like this…

A few days ago Alois Bell, a pastor at Truth in the World Deliverance Ministries Church, was part of a group of twenty who dined at an Applebee’s in St. Louis. All in all, they spent over $200, and when it was time to go they evidently asked for separate checks. Ms. Bell’s check came to $34.93. Because there were over eight people in the party an 18% tip was added automatically in keeping with Applebee’s policy–an additional $6.29.

Ms. Bell, however, remembered that when Jesus admonished his flock to “render unto Uncle Sam what is Uncle Sam’s,” he didn’t say anything about giving a little to the poor, hard working young woman who just bent over backwards trying to make sure the experience of dining at Applebee’s was as wonderful as it could be given the fact that it was, after all, Applebee’s. So, in the spirit of Christian charity, Preacher Bell struck out the $6.29 that the computer had nicely computed and printed on her check and wrote in a big fat zero.

For How Long Is Jim Crow Dead?

In a hopeful and uplifting video explaining the voter rights brouhaha that swept our nation during the last couple of elections, President William Barber of the North Carolina Conference of the NAACP, observes, “Poor people can’t compete with the rich lobbyist, so they have to have access to the ballot in order to shape the balance of power.”

httpv://youtu.be/YmtVVmessCo

Amen to that.

Certainly that’s not unknown to most, if not all, of those who sit in our state legislatures, even outside of Dixie, and attempt to turn back the pages to the days of Jim Crow.

If This Be Treason is an AlternativeApproaches Media website.