PassionatePuppy

How to Survive the Crash and Save the Earth
by Ran Prieur
December 19, 2004

How to Survive the Crash and Save the Earth
by Ran Prieur
December 19, 2004

Sunday, March 8, 2009
Are we Going to Prison? (Are we Already There?)
By Michael Goodspeed

From the page: "Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky once observed, "The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons." More and more U.S. citizens are assessing the exactitude of Dostoevsky's ascertainment first hand. We have by far the largest prison population in the world - 2.3 million and growing, a staggering 25 PERCENT of the world's prisoners -- and by far the highest rate of incarceration -- counting only adults, one in 100 Americans is imprisoned."

GEO Group, Inc.: Despite a Crashing Economy, Private Prison Firm Turns a Handsome Profit
by Erin Rosa, Special to CorpWatch
March 1st, 2009
From the page: "GEO reported impressive quarterly earnings of $20 million on February 12, 2009, along with an annual income of $61 million for 2008 - up from $38 million the year before. But the company's share value is not the only thing that's growing. Behind the financial success and expansion of the for-profit prison firm, there are increasing charges of negligence, civil rights violations, abuse and even death"

"Food stamp enrollment jumps to record 31.8 million
Thu Mar 5, 2009 3:34pm EST

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A record 31.8 million Americans received food stamps at the latest count, an increase of 700,000 people in one month with the United States in recession, government figures showed on Thursday.

Food stamps, which help poor people buy groceries, are the major U.S. anti-hunger program, forecast to cost at least $51 billion in this fiscal year ending September 30, up $10 billion from fiscal 2008.

"A weakened economy means that many more individuals are turning to SNAP/food stamps," said the Food Research and Action Center. Last summer food stamps were renamed the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP.

The average food stamp benefit is $115 a month for individuals and $255 a month per household.

Enrollment for food stamps in December was up 2.2 percent from the previous month with increases in all but three states. Ohio had the largest increase among large states, up 3.4 percent, to 1.26 million people. Texas had the largest enrollment, 3.05 million, up 1.8 percent.

The previous record for food stamp enrollment was 31.6 million last September, which included "disaster" stamps for states hit by hurricanes and floods.

In April, food stamp benefits will increase temporarily by 13 percent under provisions of the recently enacted economic stimulus law. Ellen Vollenger of the Food Research and Action Center said some families will see increases of $80 a month.

(Reporting by Charles Abbott; Editing by Chris Wilson)"

Published on Wednesday, March 4, 2009 by TimesOnline/UK
10 Things We Didn't Know About Food
How the authors of the new Rough Guide to Food lost their appetites for the food industry.

by George Miller and Katharine Reeve

Socialism is not a Four-Letter Word
Capitalism | Economic Policy | Socialism
by Michael Fox | February 4, 2009 - 12:53pm Share
article tools: email | print | read more Michael Fox

Blame it on fifty years of fierce misinformation campaigns perpetrated by both the government and business interests that have supported it. First, let's set this straight once and for all, for those who seem to have allowed the prevailing meme to sink in: Socialism is not Communism (for the rest of us, "Duh.").

Strangely, due to a decades-long and highly simplistic rhetorical merger, that simple fact is not understood by most Americans. For years, socialism was such a popular concept that the word was co-opted by the ultra right (as National Socialism) and left (Soviet Socialism). However, when applied responsibly, Democratic Socialism is the only way to achieve some measure of equality in society. In fact, democratic socialism is entirely compatible with capitalism, though, unfortunately, those who have the most to lose - that is to say, the vastly overpaid - are and always have been in the position to persuade those with the most to gain - that they should oppose it (without understanding it).

In the most glaringly disingenuous argument against socialism, how many times have you heard the following argument against national healthcare reform? "I don't want some government bureaucrat making medical decisions for me!"

That argument always makes me reflexively burst into laughter, because it can only come from someone who accepts some health insurance company bureaucrat's interpretation of the increasingly narrow guidelines and formularies of their private, for-profit insurance company. Those who make that argument are, in fact supporting an ideology that will, most certainly, one day not support them.

The truth is that the two largest government managed healthcare providers, Medicare and the Veteran's Administration (the latter being a truly socialized system), provide quality healthcare with a 3% administrative cost, whereas private health insurance does so with 30% of revenue going to administrative costs (see: bureaucracy) and profit: Lots and lots and lots of profit. Yet, until about twenty years ago, many of these same private health insurance companies were incorporated as non-profits.

So the socialist health model, while never perfect (nothing human is), is far less imperfect than the present profit-driven system. Furthermore, it is the right approach, the compassionate approach, the liberal approach. And in case you the dissenter hadn't noticed, the free-market greed-is-good system has failed completely. It is time to take back the word Socialism, just as we have the word Liberal. These are not four letter words.

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