Extremists are always the ones that bring down a country – whether they’re religious, communist, socialist, military, or capitalist extremists. Humans aren’t the problem; it’s the capitalist extremists that are using up the Earth’s resources. People have been so indoctrinated to tie capitalism to patriotism that people, particularly Americans are afraid to deduce that even capitalism has its limitations. If we want to solve some of our problems, go after the extremists, and in this set of circumstances, it’s the capitalist extremists.
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Reply to:
Published on Tuesday, May 15, 2012 by Common Dreams
Report: ‘Over-Consumption’ Threatening Earth
If rampant misuse of resources continues, even two planets would not sustain us

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/05/15

Traditional Chinese medicine

http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2012/04/dangers-of-chinese-medicine.html

My Reply:
Chinese people live longer and have better endurance than Westerners so they are doing something right. Great information, but instead of worrying about hundreds of millions of dollars that are spent on TCM, I would rather scientists invest their time on the multi-trillion dollar meat, supplement, and pharmaceutical industries. And instead of lambasting the entire traditional Chinese medicine industry, the scientists should have identified specific brands and companies. I have to wonder whether this is a negative campaign sponsored by people who have a vested interest in the outcome. If they truly wanted to be helpful and informative, scientists would have identified which TCM products were okay and which TCM makers were unsafe.

I agree. This is precisely why this country is falling apart. I am tired of cowards who seem to think that corporations can do whatever they want. American corporations aren’t as American as they pretend to be.

If corporations are doing business in America, and are going to wave the flag and parade the troops like MLB, Americans need to start insisting that these corporations follow our fundamental values which includes free speech whether it is a violation of the First Amendment or not.

Video: The Great American Foreclosure Song. ProPublica. http://bit.ly/Hufaau @propublica

River God by Wilbur Smith

If you like Ancient Egypt and history, I highly recommend River God by Wilbur Smith.

A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. ~ John Stuart Mill

Answering A Comment – Revised Draft on Student Loans

Stupid people are a threat to national security so it is in our best interest to encourage education and make sure that those that want a college education can receive one.

Sallie Mae was supposed to help people get low interest loans for college. The Republican-controlled 104th United States Congress privatized Sallie Mae. Sallie Mae became a corporation, “went rogue,” and started getting into the business of making unfair and deceptive loans to kids and their parents. Banks and loan companies also saw opportunities to easily double and triple their investments so they deviously started marketing student loans as something a “real American” did along with buying a house and leasing a car and apple pie.

Universities, particularly private universities, saw opportunities to enrich themselves and compete with prestigious Ivy League schools so they increased their fees because uninformed kids were getting easy money. Because many Republicans did whatever they could to funnel taxpayer dollars to their corporate buddies who made trillions of dollars in war profits, bad loans, and deceptive financial deals, state schools saw their education budgets diminished which also forced them to increase fees to stay relevant.

I agree that many universities – predominantly private universities – suppressed information, and failed to disclose that some of them were taking out loans that required them to pay $500 or more a month; that many loans triple with interest; that a student cannot wipe out their debt even with a bankruptcy; that payments can be garnished and so on, but again, that goes back to my observations that Republicans intentionally set up a system to enrich corporations and that uneducated people are a threat to our country.

It is a fable to suggest that everyone is getting history and art degrees. The notion that everyone who is unemployed or underemployed has a useless education is just a myth perpetrated by capitalist extremists on behalf of big business and corporations that want to deflect responsibility for our economic problems so it is in their interest to maintain the illusion that students are hopelessly undereducated and that the reason they can’t hire Americans is because workers are unskilled and untrained.

Had Republicans never privatized Sallie Mae and ensured that people had the same bankruptcy protection as other unsecured debt, banks would have considered the risk, tuition would not be as high, and we would not be worried about a trillion dollar student loan debt.