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Channeling Suze Orman

I was near the deadline for a column when I glanced at a TV screen. “The Suze Orman Show,” airing on CNBC at prime time, exerted a powerful force in my hotel room. And the fate of this column was sealed.

     Orman made a big splash many years ago on public television -- the incubating environment for her as a national phenom. With articulate calls for intelligent self-determination of one’s own financial future, she is a master of the long form. Humor and dramatic cadences punch up the impacts of her performances.

     Seeing her the other night, within a matter of seconds, I realized that the jig was up. How could a mere underachieving syndicated columnist hope to withstand the blandishments and certainties of Suze Orman, bestselling author and revered eminence from the erudite bastions of PBS to the hard-boiled financial realms of General Electric’s CNBC?

Hate us for our WHAT?

Of course we've long since established that they do not hate us for the reasons they say they hate us. For example, our military bases in their countries have nothing to do with it. When I mention to people in the U.S. that Italians or Czechs or Germans or Koreans are protesting new U.S. bases, the response is usually along the lines of:

"What are we building a base in Italy for? Are we at war with Italy now?"

Therefore the bases we have already built all over Italy and in 80 percent of the nations on earth, most of which nations we are not at war with, do not exist. Mention them, and the billions of dollars U.S. taxpayers spend on them, and the response is usually:

"Oh, really? That's terrible. Hey, are you going to watch the game tonight?"

Therefore, the reason they hate us must be something else. But it is obviously not the financial or trade policies we impose on other countries making it harder for people to earn a living. We know this because when people flee these policies and come here to try to earn a living we can tell by looking at them that it's entirely their own fault.

King

http://mattbors.com

Thai voters defy coup leaders

BANGKOK, Thailand -- Rebellious voters defied Thailand's 15-month-old military coup, and cast their ballots overwhelmingly for a politician who supports ousted Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, despite the junta's tribunals which indicted Mr. Thaksin for alleged massive corruption.

By opposing the coup, this Buddhist-majority, U.S. ally in Southeast Asia has returned to the stark confrontational days of 2006 when Mr. Thaksin's impoverished, rural supporters challenged an authoritarian, urban elite and its military protectors.

Sunday's (Dec. 23) vote proved that the coup leaders failed in their impromptu, menacing effort to destroy Mr. Thaksin and his brand of tricky, monopolistic, usurping politics.

Mr. Thaksin's victorious, self-described "nominee" candidate, Samak Sundaravej, captured at least 228 seats in Sunday's (Dec. 23) nationwide election for parliament's 480 positions.

Mr. Samak spent Monday (Dec. 24) luring smaller parties to join his new People Power Party (PPP), amid hopes they could form a majority coalition with Mr. Samak as Thailand's new prime minister.

Lies, injustice and the capitalist way: we're on the highway to hell -- don’t stop us!

"We are riding alongside Angus and Malcolm Young on the 'Highway to Hell.'"

We "Free World" capitalistic Westerners are a loathsome lot—or to put it more crudely, we suck. When one considers how degenerate we are from a collective standpoint, it is difficult to suppress intense feelings of disgust and contempt. There are many layers to our repugnant, depraved, and "beloved" capitalism, a socioeconomic system which ultimately furnishes the members of its upper echelon with de facto licenses to exploit, plunder, and murder with impunity. Problem is that as one peels back each successive layer hoping to find some purity, one finds a more profound rot.

We have fouled our own environment to the point that recovery and renewal may be impossible; we eradicate non-human animals at an estimated rate of 100 species per day; we slaughter millions upon millions of human beings in wars of imperial aggression driven by capitalism's insatiable demand for resources and market expansion; we torture and slaughter billions of non-human animals to please our palates; and we insist upon imposing a system of infinite demand upon an all too finite planet.

A "landmark" energy bill

http://mattbors.com

Nation’s largest retailers accused of organic fraud

Class action suits seek damages from Wal-Mart, Target, others

SEATTLE, WA/ DENVER, CO/MINNEAPOLIS, MN – In a scandal now ensnaring some of the nations leading retailers, a series of lawsuits have been filed accusing Wal-Mart, Costco, Target, Safeway, and Wild Oats of consumer fraud for marketing suspect organic milk.

The legal filings in federal courts in Seattle, Denver, and in Minneapolis, against the retailers, come on the heels of class action lawsuits against Aurora Dairy Corporation, based in Boulder, Colorado. The suits against Aurora and the grocery chains allege consumer fraud, negligence, and unjust enrichment concerning the sale of organic milk. This past April, Aurora officials received a notice from the USDA detailing multiple and “willful” violations of federal organic law that were found by federal investigators.

Nonviolent resisters put Senator Clinton on notice

Sen. Hillary Clinton
4420 North Fairfax Drive
Arlington, VA 22203

Re: Seasons of Discontent; a Presidential Occupation Project

Dear Senator Clinton:

I am writing to announce a new initiative of Voices for Creative Nonviolence and several peace and justice groups in the earliest races of the presidential campaign, SODaPOP, or "Seasons of Discontent; a Presidential Occupation Project." We at the Washington Peace Center are joining VCNV in this campaign, and are inviting activists to come to Iowa and New Hampshire from around the nation "to bring nonviolent civil resistance and civil disobedience to the campaign offices and headquarters of Presidential candidates, both Republican and Democrat, who do not publicly declare that they will take the necessary concrete steps to end the Iraq war, to rebuild Iraq, to forswear military attacks on other countries such as Iran, and to fully fund the Common Good in the U.S."

Who I give to

Over the years, people have often asked me what social change groups I support financially. I've pulled together an informal list and thought it just might be helpful to you and others who get my regular articles. The end of the year is often a time when people often figure out donations (though most of the groups I support are too politically engaged to be tax-deductible), so this seemed a good time to send it. Plus if you haven't finished your holiday shopping, it's fun to give people a donation in their name to a good cause, rather than one more object they may or may not need.

Announcing the P.U.-litzer Prizes for 2007

Many journalists qualified for the sixteenth annual P.U.-litzer Prizes, but only a few were able to win recognition for turning in one of the truly stinkiest media performances of the year. As the judges for this un-coveted award, we have done our best to confer this honor on the most deserving.

     And now, the winners of the P.U.-litzers for 2007:

SPINNING FOR ANOTHER WAR AWARD -- Michael Gordon of The New York Times

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