It's nice to see they can agree on something. :/
I remember a few years ago anthropologist Ian Morris released an influential book arguing that, while the "West" had ruled for the past few centuries, now that balance of power was shifting to the "East". It is a common narrative/fear but he produced a wealth of historical socioeconomic data to support this idea of a pendulum swing between west/east power with the 21st century marking another swing back towards the east. I think this narrative is wrong. It's clear that power is not shifting from the west to the east but from the west to a mutating global corporate parasite. Obama keeps saying that the TPP will be great for American trade. In reality what the TPP does is elevate corporate entities to the level of sovereign governments. They will be able to privately decide public policies, overpower national courts, and sue any country that weakens profit in favour of social or ecological issues. I don't believe in the illuminati, I don't think we need to believe in that. The formation of a global corporate elite is not something being hidden in the shadows of strange billionaire occult ritual ceremonies, it is being formally orchestrated within the epicentre of governments all around the world.
Plutocracy is the default government: money is power. Our democratic and labour governments of the last three hundred years are unnatural (natural ≠ good). The 21ˢᵗ century corporatocracy is a return to that natural state. I think preventing that return will always be an uphill battle. Bears repeating.a mutating global corporate parasite.
what the TPP does is elevate corporate entities to the level of sovereign governments. They will be able to privately decide public policies, overpower national courts, and sue any country that weakens profit
Tyranny?Many prominent Democrats have come out against one of the biggest priorities of their president.
This terrifies me. As of right now, according to various leaked sections, the TPP--which is being fast-tracked--will do the following: - Force web hosts to remove content accused of violating copyright, without a court order, SOPA-style - Punish internet users who share copyrighted material with "sentences of imprisonment as well as monetary fines sufficiently high to provide a deterrent to future acts of infringement." - Impose criminal penalties for journalists and whistleblowers who share information with "commercial value" - Allow foreign corporations to sue the US government over actions which they claim reduce profits. This opens the door for challenges to all manner of legislation; in order to justify such a challenge, a corporation would need only claim that a given law hurts their profits.
The NYTimes was generous enough to briefly mention hints of dissent towards the end of this article. This piece was probably the most they could do to bring public attention to the bill without catching flak from higher up.
WHAT ON EARTH ARE YOU DOING MY DEAR FRIEND GALEN, YOU OUGHT TO BE KEEPING CLOSE TRACK OF THE AMOUNT OF WORDS THAT YOU USE IN EACH AND EVERY COMMENT THAT YOU MAKE. YOU CAN DO THIS VIA THE WORD COUNT MECHANISM SHOWN AT THE TOP RIGHT OF EACH COMMENT BOX. AFTER ALL, THIS IS HUBSKI -THE THOUGHTFUL WEB THAT WE ARE TALKING ABOUT. SO PLEASE, FOR THE SAKE OF YOURSELF AND THOSE AROUND YOU, ATTEMPT TO BE THOUGHTFUL TWENTY FOUR SEVEN.
FOR UNLAWFUL CARNAL KNOWELDGE! I HAVE FIXED THAT FOR YOU
It's pretty amazing how much this comment annoyed the shit out of me today. It's not the correction of the grammar, but the use of the word "dear." Pretty patronizing, I'm not a fan. Good luck with the cough though.
It's considered most correct to use 'amount' for non-countable nouns, like 'soup'. Just as 'how much' is used rather than 'how many'. You are given a certain amount of soup and use a certain number of words. Likewise: How much soup did you eat? How many words did you write?
Muted! I shall wear it as a badge of honor. Quatrarius
Yeah, hopefully you got that the original comment from me was to point out how arbitrary word counts are. A single word reply can have just as much impact as a longer one. I don't know about you, but I have not once looked at that word count
I don't even realize it's there. No need to toggle it off, it's just non-existant in my use of the site.