ANONYMOUS - OUR VOICE

New Glasses Could Trick Facial Recognition Technology And Protect Your Identity

<p><a href="http://cdn10.trueactivist.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/privacy-glasses.png"><img alt="privacy glasses" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-37723" height="266" src="http://cdn11.trueactivist.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/privacy-glasses-400x266.png" width="400" /></a>Researchers have recently developed a visor that can actually block <a href="http://www.trueactivist.com/new-big-brother-facial-recognition-system-scans-36-million-faces-per-second/" target="_blank">facial recognition technology.</a> The new glasses called “Privacy Visor,” can trick facial recognition technology, and prevent cameras from tracing your identity.</p>
<p>The development took place at Japan’s National Institute of Informatics where researchers placed infrared LED’s inside of glasses so they would trick facial recognition cameras.</p>
<p><em>“The Privacy Visor is the world’s first product with this technology. We are often told not to unveil our personal information to others, but our faces are also a type of an ID. There should be a way to protect that</em>,” <a href="http://motherboard.vice.com/read/glasses-that-confuse-facial-recognition-systems-are-coming-to-japan" target="_blank">Professor Isao Echizen, one of the lead researchers told The Wall Street Journal.</a></p>
<p>The idea of the device came about as  Echizen discovered that Google <a href="http://www.trueactivist.com/guess-who-japanese-scientists-launch-face-recognition-blocking-glasses/" target="_blank">face recognition</a> technology was able to recognize individuals wearing five different types of sunglasses from various angles.</p>
<p>Face recognition technology is extensively used by law enforcement services, internet search engines and social networks. The technology also has been adopted by shops to collect statistical data about their customers for better marketing.</p>
<p>The Privacy Visor will be on sale in japan next summer for roughly $240.</p>
<div readability="13.135135135135"> This is just one of many creative ideas to avoid facial recognition technology. <a href="http://www.trueactivist.com/will-future-surveillance-technology-inspire-cyber-punk-fashion-trends/" target="_blank">As we reported earlier this year</a>, artist and activist Adam Harvey has intensively studied facial recognition software with the hopes of understanding how it can be undermined.  In his research, Harvey has discovered that people can trick facial recognition technology by adapting certain types of fashion trends that make their face asymmetrical and by covering certain key areas of the face that these programs are designed to detect.</div>
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<p><a href="https://www.facebook.com/jgvibes" target="_blank">John Vibes</a> writes for True Activist and is an author, researcher and investigative journalist who takes a special interest in the counter culture and the drug war.</p>
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activism knowledge news New Glasses Could Trick Facial Recognition Technology And Protect Your Identity

Researchers have recently developed a visor that can actually block facial recognition technology. The new glasses called “Privacy Visor,” ...

If Everyone Did This, There’d Be Enough Food On The Planet For All

activism knowledge news If Everyone Did This, There’d Be Enough Food On The Planet For All

So Who Has Hillary’s TOP SECRET Leaks And How Serious Is Hillary Clinton’s Emailgate?

anonymous armageddon isis islam war So Who Has Hillary’s TOP SECRET Leaks And How Serious Is Hillary Clinton’s Emailgate?

A Fireball Exploded In This Man’s Face, and Now He’s Suing The Fracking Operation

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<h2>A Fireball Exploded In This Man’s Face, and Now He’s Suing The Fracking Operation</h2>
<span>A Fireball Exploded In This Man’s Face, and Now He’s Suing The Fracking Operation</span> <a href="http://www.occupy.com/sites/default/files/field/image/blog_picture_1.jpg?itok=ptDrA1hJ" rel="nofollow"><img src="http://www.occupy.com/sites/default/files/styles/slide_narrow/public/field/image/blog_picture_1.jpg?itok=ptDrA1hJ" /></a>
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<p>A Texas man is suing a group of fracking companies after burns from a methane explosion near his house allegedly hospitalized him for a week, burned his family, and caused permanent damage.</p>
<p>Cody Murray, 38, and his father, wife, and four-year-old daughter were all burned by a “fireball” after methane built up in his pump house and exploded when Murray entered the shed to check on a water issue. The lawsuit, <a href="http://www.courthousenews.com/2015/08/10/fracked-water-explodes-burning-family.htm" rel="nofollow">filed last week</a> against EOG Resources, Fairway Resources LLC, and three subsidiaries of Fairway, alleges the methane was from the defendants’ fracking wells just 1,000 feet from Murray’s house, which sits 35 miles outside Fort Worth.</p>
<p>“At the flip of the switch, Cody heard a ‘whooshing’ sound, which he instantly recognized from his work in the oil and gas industry, and instinctively picked his father up and physically threw him back and away from the entryway to the pump house,” the complaint states. “In that instant, a giant fireball erupted from the pump house, burning Cody and [his father], who were at the entrance to the pump house, as well as Ashley and A.M., who were approximately twenty feet away.”</p>
<p>Murray, who was closest to the blast, was burned on his arms, back, neck, and face and spent a week in intensive care after the accident last August. He is still unable to drive due to damage to his hands, the lawsuit states, and subsequently lost his job, which required several hours of driving each day. His father, wife, and daughter were also hospitalized, according to the lawsuit.</p>
<p>“It’s a very sad case. It’s terrible,” said trial lawyer Christopher Hamilton, who filed the suit in Dallas. Hamilton told ThinkProgress there are two issues that have historically prevented successful cases being brought against fracking companies. First, it’s difficult to determine that the methane (or other contamination) was directly caused by fracking.</p>
<p>Methane, a flammable greenhouse gas, is a major component of natural gas, but it also occurs naturally in the ground — a fact that has protected companies from lawsuits. Images of <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/fracking-wells-tainting-drinking-water-texas-and-pennsylvania-study-finds-270735" rel="nofollow">flammable tap water</a> in Pennsylvania and Texas have raised alarm for years, but plaintiffs affected by the contamination were unsuccessful in establishing cause. <a href="http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2014-09/du-cwi091014.php" rel="nofollow">New methods</a>, though, have enabled scientists to track isotopes and determine where in the ground methane came from, Hamilton said, making it easier to establish causation.</p>
<p>“Rigorous scientific testing, including isotope testing, has conclusively demonstrated that the high-level methane contamination of the Murrays’ water well resulted from natural gas drilling and extraction activities. The high levels of methane in the Murrays’ well were not ‘naturally occurring,'” the complaint states.</p>
<p>The second issue in fracking cases is that it’s often difficult to directly connect physical damages to contamination, such as in the case of long-term exposure. For instance, <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/08/18/3472379/cerny-texas-fracking-lawsuit-dismissed/" rel="nofollow">another case in Texas</a> that alleged fracking had caused nosebleeds and asthma was thrown out last summer. In Oklahoma, it took a state Supreme Court decision to uphold citizens’ <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/07/01/3676046/oklahoma-supreme-court-fracking-earthquakes/" rel="nofollow">rights to sue fracking companies</a> over earthquakes.</p>
<p>In this case, though, there are “serious, catastrophic and likely permanent injuries that indisputably occurred due to methane,” Hamilton said.</p>
<p>The isotope-tracking science could open up a new avenue for litigation against fracking. Proponents of fracking claim that the extraction method — wherein thousands of gallons of chemical-laced water is pumped at high pressure into shale underground, loosening deposits of oil and gas — is perfectly safe. And in Texas, where Murray lives, fracking has experienced a huge, state-supported boom. Texas even <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/04/01/3641554/texas-ban-on-fracking-bans/" rel="nofollow">passed legislation last year</a> preventing towns and cities from banning fracking.</p>
<p>“This is a potentially landmark case,” Hamilton said. “I think this needs to set off an alarm for industry that they need to be casing these wells properly — in the way that scientists have been telling them for decades.”</p>
<p>In fact, methane leaks have been repeatedly linked to fracking operations. Satellite observations have shown that methane is leaking around fracking hotspots <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/10/22/3582904/methane-leaks-climate-benefit-fracking/" rel="nofollow">at such a high rate</a> that there is no climate benefit in switching from coal to natural gas power, despite the fact that natural gas burns cleanly.</p>
<p>And methane leaks aren’t the only danger posed by fracking operations. Researchers from the <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/06/19/3671819/fracking-contaminants-in-texas-drinking-water/" rel="nofollow">University of Texas, Arlington</a> tested water samples collected over the past three years from wells near fracking operations and found elevated levels of heavy metals such as arsenic. Their findings, released this summer, show elevated levels of 19 different chemicals including the so-called BTEX (benzene, toluene, ethyl benzene and xylenes) compounds. Heavy metals are toxic to humans, and BTEX compounds are considered carcinogenic.</p>
<p>A spokesperson for EOG Resources declined to comment on the case, citing company policy.</p>
<p><a href="http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/08/12/3690730/texas-lawsuit-methane-explosion-fracking/" rel="nofollow">Originally published by ThinkProgress</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.occupy.com/sites/default/files/medialibrary/20140805_091013-816x459.jpg" rel="nofollow"><img alt="" src="http://www.occupy.com/sites/default/files/medialibrary/20140805_091013-816x459.jpg" /></a></p>
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<p>By far the greatest beneficiary of fossil fuel donations has been Ted Cruz</p>
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<p>This is Kenneth Langone, the founder of Home Depot and a longtime GOP donor. His biggest fear? Income inequality.</p>
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<p>Recently, Britain's less politically vocal under-25s, whose penchant to not vote has long been the bane of politicians, are gathering political momentum and emerging as a potent voice of opposition to the government.</p>
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<p>America has experienced "gush-up" rather than "trickle-down" – now the shame is on the adherents of unregulated free-market capitalism who have assaulted us with winner-take-all wealth over the common good.</p>
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<div><span><em>6 days 7 hours</em> ago</span></div>
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<p>The middle class is doing just fine, they say...</p>
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<div><span><em>6 days 7 hours</em> ago</span></div>
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<p>"I never would have thought I lived in a country where I could theoretically be under surveillance and I could go to jail for my work."</p>
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<div><span><em>6 days 7 hours</em> ago</span></div>
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<p>The faith community, tattooed young folk, retirees and other people from all walks of life agree: business as usual is inconsistent with survival, and we’re prepared to give it our all to stop it.</p>
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<div><span><em>3 days 4 hours</em> ago</span></div>
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<p>The filing before an Oregon federal judge represents the most direct acknowledgement to date that people aren't allowed to fly because of what the government believes they might do, and not what they've already done.</p>
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<div><span><em>2 days 3 hours</em> ago</span></div>
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<p>The American Psychological Association voted overwhelmingly on Friday to prohibit members from participating in interrogations conducted by U.S. agencies at locations deemed illegal under international law.</p>
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<p>"It is important that we send a message that if you want to do business with local and state governments, you need to play by the rules."</p>
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<p>"I never would have thought I lived in a country where I could theoretically be under surveillance and I could go to jail for my work."</p>
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armageddon news revolution A Fireball Exploded In This Man’s Face, and Now He’s Suing The Fracking Operation

A Fireball Exploded In This Man’s Face, and Now He’s Suing The Fracking Operation A Fireball Exploded In This Man’s Face, and Now He’...

Republican Candidates Take In $62 Million from Donors Tied To Fossil Fuels

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<h2>Republican Candidates Take In $62 Million from Donors Tied To Fossil Fuels</h2>
<span>Republican Candidates Take In $62 Million from Donors Tied To Fossil Fuels</span> <a href="http://www.occupy.com/sites/default/files/field/image/cruz008_111314.jpg?itok=j8lmDMCe" rel="nofollow"><img src="http://www.occupy.com/sites/default/files/styles/slide_narrow/public/field/image/cruz008_111314.jpg?itok=j8lmDMCe" /></a>
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<p>Republican presidential candidates have banked millions of dollars in donations from a small number of mega-rich individuals and corporations with close ties to the fossil fuel industries that stand to lose the most from the fight against climate change.</p>
<p>Eight out of the 17 GOP figures currently jostling for their party’s presidential nomination have between them attracted a bonanza of at least $62 million so far this year from sources either directly involved in polluting industries or with close financial ties to them. Three Republican contenders stand out as recipients of this fossil fuel largesse: the Republican climate change denier-in-chief, Ted Cruz; the party establishment favorite Jeb Bush; and the former governor of Texas, Rick Perry.</p>
<p>The funds have come from just 17 billionaires or businesses that have pumped enormous sums – in one case $15 million for a single candidate – into the support groups or Super Pacs that work alongside the official campaigns yet are free to attract unlimited contributions. The $62 million forms a substantial chunk of almost $400 million that has been given to presidential contenders from both main parties in 2015, raising questions about the leverage that fossil fuel interests might seek to exert over the next occupant of the White House at a critical time for the battle against climate change.</p>
<p>The super-wealthy donors all have connections with oil and gas operations, fracking companies, drilling firms and other activities associated with emissions of industrial carbon dioxide, the main global warming gas. Their money has gone entirely to Republican candidates, signaling a strong preference among fossil fuel billionaires for the GOP.</p>
<p>According to a study of donations based on filings to the Federal Election Commission carried out by Greenpeace and the Center for Media and Democracy in collaboration with the Guardian, by far the greatest beneficiary of what might be labelled fossil fuel donations has been Ted Cruz. The sitting U.S. senator from Texas, who is among the most prominent and blatant climate change deniers in the U.S., has been showered with a staggering $36.5 million from just four wealthy sources with links to fossil fuels interests.</p>
<p>Those donors include members of the Wilks family from Texas who have collectively given $15 million to Cruz-supporting Super Pacs. The Wilks fortune was amassed primarily from making equipment used in fracking, a controversial technique for extracting natural gas, via a company called Frac Tech, which the family sold in 2011.</p>
<p>Robert Mercer, a hedge-fund manager based in Long Island, has given a whopping $11 million to Cruz Super Pacs. Mercer’s fund, Renaissance Technologies, has major financial interests in big oil companies such as ExxonMobil, Chevron, Callon Petroleum and China Petroleum & Chemical Corp.</p>
<p>Another huge wad of cash has been pushed in Cruz’s direction by Toby Neugebauer, a private equity financier. He holds partnerships in several fossil fuel concerns including Quantum Energy Partners, an active investor in the Barnett Shale onshore natural gas field in Texas.</p>
<p>Cruz has made several outspoken comments disputing the overwhelming scientific consensus that man-made climate change is a serious and growing threat. In February 2014, he told CNN that data did not exist to support the “so-called scientific theory” of global warming.</p>
<p>In March he told the Texas Tribune that “satellite data demonstrate that there has been no significant warming whatsoever for 17 years.” Last week, at a forum organized by the energy tycoons the Koch brothers in California, Cruz made a statement described by some as “full out denial” in which he repeated his claim that “the data and facts don’t support” the phenomenon of climate change.</p>
<p>The Guardian invited the Cruz presidential campaign to comment on the large sums of money flowing into his coffers from fossil fuel interests, but there was no immediate response.</p>
<p>Such large-scale investments in the presidential race by those with links to polluting industries come at a time of mounting tension between them and U.S. federal regulators. Last week Barack Obama announced an ambitious plan to slash carbon emissions by 2030 that could have serious ramifications for coal-powered power plants, oil extractors and natural gas producers. The Democratic frontrunner for 2016, Hillary Clinton, recently put forward her plan for a huge boost to solar power.</p>
<p>Connor Gibson, the Greenpeace researcher who oversaw the Greenpeace/Center for Media and Democracy study, said that fossil fuel industries were pouring money into the 2016 election cycle in unprecedented quantities. “To see so much money flowing into the war chests of viable Republican candidates so early in the race from people linked to climate change pollution is very concerning.”</p>
<p>Gibson said it was reasonable to ask what favors might be expected down the line as quid pro quo. “Will these candidates be expected to roll back federal oversight and regulation of fracking and methane leaks? Will they be more likely to allow drilling in the Arctic at a time when scientists are warning that fossil fuels must be kept in the ground?”</p>
<p>But David Keating, president of the Center for Competitive Politics, which calls for all restrictions on political donations to be lifted, said that “way too much was read into numbers like these. Most people at this stage of the election cycle are giving because they believe in what the candidate stands for and their policies, rather than because they are trying to influence those policies.”</p>
<p>The American Petroleum Institute, a national trade association for the oil and natural gas industry, said it was only to be expected that money was being donated to presidential candidates by people in all walks of life, not just the energy sector. “Candidates running for president receive campaign contributions from all industries, including the wealthy environmental community, as part of our constitutional right. For API, our candidate is energy and its importance to jobs, revenue to the government and our national security,” said Sabrina Fang, an institute spokeswoman.</p>
<p>The second-largest recipient of major donations from sources linked to polluting industries is Jeb Bush, the former governor of Florida who has positioned himself as the leading moderate in the GOP field. Super Pacs supporting his bid for the White House have banked a total of $13.3 million from nine separate donors.</p>
<p>Those donors include Rooney Holdings, which gave $2 million to Bush. The company’s chief executive, Francis Rooney, a former United States ambassador to the Vatican, serves on the board of the independent oil and gas exploration firm Laredo Petroleum as well as on the board of Helmerich & Payne Inc, one of the world’s main offshore platform drilling contractors.</p>
<p>Other Bush backers are Richard Kinder, co-founder of Kinder Morgan, an energy infrastructure company that owns 84,000 miles of pipeline; the oil magnate Trevor Rees-Jones; and Dallas oil billionaire Ray Hunt.</p>
<p>Bush has been more measured in his comments on global warming than Cruz, and has publicly stated that the climate is changing. But he has injected a note of doubt into the debate around the science of global warming and what should be done about it.</p>
<p>On his very first day of official campaigning in June, he criticized Pope Francis for his outspoken call for drastic change to avert the “unprecedented destruction of the ecosystem,” telling the pope to keep out of global affairs. In May, Bush called the science on climate change “convoluted,” lambasting the vast majority of scientists who say it is now beyond doubt as “really arrogant”.</p>
<p>He added: “I don’t think the science is clear what percentage is man-made and what percentage is natural.”</p>
<p>The third big recipient of cash from donors linked to polluting industries is the former governor of Texas, Rick Perry. His Super Pac, Opportunity and Freedom, has been given $6 million by Kelcy Warren, owner of the Texas oil and natural gas pipeline company Energy Transfer Partners. In addition to vast sums, Warren is also donating his time – he is working for the Perry campaign as its finance chairman.</p>
<p>Perry has frequently denied that climate change is a scientific given. Last June, for instance, he said: “I don’t believe that we have the settled science by any sense of the imagination.”</p>
<p>He added: “Calling CO2 a pollutant is doing a disservice the country, and, I believe, a disservice to the world.”</p>
<p>Five other Republican presidential candidates have received smaller amounts from those linked to fossil fuels: Carly Fiorina ($.2 million), Lindsey Graham ($1 million), Bobby Jindal ($1.2 million), Donald Trump ($1.8 million) and Scott Walker ($1.8 million).</p>
<p>True to form, Trump stands in a class all his own. He is not only one of the GOP recipients of largesse from a donor with links to polluting industries – he also happens to be that donor.</p>
<p>He contributed $1.8 million to support his own campaign. As the Greenpeace/Center for Media and Democracy study pointed out, Trump has substantial shareholdings in several non-renewable energy companies including ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil and Occidental Petroleum.</p>
<p>According to financial disclosure records, he also has $250,000 worth of stock in TransCanada Pipelines Ltd. In 2011, he was reported as saying that it is “an outrage our president isn’t approving the Keystone pipeline,” the oil pipeline that runs from Canada to the U.S. that has become a focal point of environmental agitation over combating climate change.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/aug/12/republican-candidates-fossil-fuels-donors-super-pacs" rel="nofollow">Originally published by The Guardian</a></p>
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<p>By far the greatest beneficiary of fossil fuel donations has been Ted Cruz</p>
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<p>This is Kenneth Langone, the founder of Home Depot and a longtime GOP donor. His biggest fear? Income inequality.</p>
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<p>Recently, Britain's less politically vocal under-25s, whose penchant to not vote has long been the bane of politicians, are gathering political momentum and emerging as a potent voice of opposition to the government.</p>
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<p>America has experienced "gush-up" rather than "trickle-down" – now the shame is on the adherents of unregulated free-market capitalism who have assaulted us with winner-take-all wealth over the common good.</p>
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<div><span><em>6 days 7 hours</em> ago</span></div>
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<p>The middle class is doing just fine, they say...</p>
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<div><span><em>6 days 7 hours</em> ago</span></div>
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<p>"I never would have thought I lived in a country where I could theoretically be under surveillance and I could go to jail for my work."</p>
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<div><span><em>6 days 7 hours</em> ago</span></div>
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<p>The faith community, tattooed young folk, retirees and other people from all walks of life agree: business as usual is inconsistent with survival, and we’re prepared to give it our all to stop it.</p>
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<div><span><em>3 days 3 hours</em> ago</span></div>
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<p>The filing before an Oregon federal judge represents the most direct acknowledgement to date that people aren't allowed to fly because of what the government believes they might do, and not what they've already done.</p>
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<div><span><em>2 days 3 hours</em> ago</span></div>
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<p>"The public is really hungry for a politics of integrity – and that’s what we’ve got and they don't."</p>
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<p>The American Psychological Association voted overwhelmingly on Friday to prohibit members from participating in interrogations conducted by U.S. agencies at locations deemed illegal under international law.</p>
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<p>The filing before an Oregon federal judge represents the most direct acknowledgement to date that people aren't allowed to fly because of what the government believes they might do, and not what they've already done.</p>
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<div><img src="http://www.occupy.com/article/republican-candidates-take-62-million-donors-tied-fossil-fuels" /></div>
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armageddon news revolution Republican Candidates Take In $62 Million from Donors Tied To Fossil Fuels

Republican Candidates Take In $62 Million from Donors Tied To Fossil Fuels Republican Candidates Take In $62 Million from Donors Tied...

Why Conservative Billionaires Have Started Talking Like Bernie Sanders

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<h2>Why Conservative Billionaires Have Started Talking Like Bernie Sanders</h2>
<span>Why Conservative Billionaires Have Started Talking Like Bernie Sanders</span>
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<div>This article originally appeared on <span><a href="http://www.salon.com/" rel="nofollow">Salon</a></span></div>
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<a href="http://www.occupy.com/sites/default/files/field/image/bernie.jpg?itok=3sIdVoaP" rel="nofollow"><img src="http://www.occupy.com/sites/default/files/styles/slide_narrow/public/field/image/bernie.jpg?itok=3sIdVoaP" /></a>
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<p><a href="http://www.salon.com/2015/06/16/we_are_destroying_the_middle_classes_why_one_of_the_worlds_richest_men_is_starting_to_sound_awfully_like_bernie_sanders/" rel="nofollow">I’ve written previously</a> about the growing fear among elites that they’ve pushed economic inequality too far. That fear is proliferating, according to a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/09/opinion/sunday/capitalists-arise-we-need-to-deal-with-income-inequality.html" rel="nofollow">New York Times Op-Ed</a> this weekend by former marketing conglomerate CEO Peter Georgescu. Joined by his friend Ken Langone, founder of Home Depot, Georgescu warns his fellow 1 percenters that “[w]e are creating a caste system from which it’s almost impossible to escape.” The column raises the specter of “major social unrest” if inequality is not addressed.</p>
<p>Georgescu writes:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I’m scared. The billionaire hedge funder Paul Tudor Jones is scared. My friend Ken Langone, a founder of the Home Depot, is scared. So are many other chief executives. Not of Al Qaeda, or the vicious Islamic State or some other evolving radical group from the Middle East, Africa or Asia. We are afraid where income inequality will lead.</p>
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<p>In June, Cartier chief Johann Rupert — worth an estimated $7.5 billion — delivered the same message to his wealthy colleagues, <a href="http://www.salon.com/2015/06/16/we_are_destroying_the_middle_classes_why_one_of_the_worlds_richest_men_is_starting_to_sound_awfully_like_bernie_sanders/" rel="nofollow">telling them</a> that the intensifying inequality and what it portends “keeps me awake at night.” He told his fellow elites that “We are destroying the middle classes at this stage and it will affect us.” Like Georgescu and Langone, Rupert feared unrest and asked, “How is society going to cope with structural unemployment and the envy, hatred and the social warfare?”</p>
<p>But while Rupert only mused about the prospects for continuing to hawk jewelry and the restfulness of his nights amid the tumult, Georgescu and Langone are being proactive. Georgescu writes that he and Langone “have been meeting with chief executives, trying to get action on inequality,” taking advantage of Langone’s tremendous access to business leaders. “You’d be hard-pressed to find a major CEO that wouldn’t take his call,” said <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/03/ken-langone-home-depot-romney-donations" rel="nofollow">a close associate</a> of Rudy Giuliani of Langone in 2012. Georgescu and Langone are telling their patrician peers that if “inequality is not addressed, the income gap will most likely be resolved in one of two ways: by major social unrest or through oppressive taxes.” The word seems to be getting around at the global aristocracy’s water cooler, and Georgescu writes that they “find almost unanimous agreement on the nature of the problem and the urgent need for solutions.”</p>
<p>It is remarkable that Langone is partnered with Georgescu on this crusade for social justice. Langone served on the board of a leading populist philanthropy group called the New York Stock Exchange, and his deep concern for the downtrodden led him to chair that gang of do-gooders. He’s <a href="http://www.northjersey.com/news/christie-s-billionaire-booster-home-depot-founder-langone-s-fundraising-is-powerful-weapon-1.1139731" rel="nofollow">a longtime generous contributor</a> to Republican presidential candidates who have been on the front lines of the battle to institute supply-side and neoliberal economics. “[T]here’s nobody better than him,” <a href="http://www.northjersey.com/news/christie-s-billionaire-booster-home-depot-founder-langone-s-fundraising-is-powerful-weapon-1.1139731" rel="nofollow">Rudy Giuliani said</a> last year about Langone’s prowess as a bundler for GOP politicians. And when he isn’t giving money and raising funds for the political friends of big business, Langone gives the invaluable gift of his careful insight, <a href="http://www.salon.com/2014/03/18/not_again_home_depot_billionaire_ken_langone_compares_liberals_to_hitler/" rel="nofollow">last year comparing</a> progressives’ attention to income inequality to Hitler’s political project in 1933.</p>
<p>The only thing Langone had right was the year: 1933. It was in that year that President Franklin Roosevelt took office at the height of the Great Depression, inequality peaked to record levels, and fears of revolt circulated among that era’s fat-cat elite. Capitalism, unreined during the 1920s, had hit another of its cyclical failures, this time its worst yet. The powerful feared revolution, and the New Deal constituted a sort of bargain made between capitalists and the people: A bit of socialism to save capitalism from itself.</p>
<p>That year, John Maynard Keynes issued <a href="http://newdeal.feri.org/misc/keynes2.htm" rel="nofollow">an open letter</a> to the newly inaugurated Roosevelt in the New York Times, whose two opening sentences of the more than 2,500-word manifesto defined the stakes and posed revolution as the price of failure of severely altering capitalism as it was practiced. Keynes was no radical. He urged the new president to work “within the framework of the existing social system,” that is, to reform capitalism without allowing it to be abandoned or abolished.</p>
<p>It was <a href="https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2206&dat=19540503&id=NtQzAAAAIBAJ&sjid=rOgFAAAAIBAJ&pg=4360,1427721&hl=en" rel="nofollow">later revealed</a> that when in 1938 a year-long recession threatened the gains made against the Depression, as conservative Democratic legislators urged severe cuts in public works and farm aid, Roosevelt feared revolution. “The president remarked that this would mean calling out the troops to preserve order,” wrote a cabinet member in his diary. “It might even mean a revolution, or an attempted revolution.”</p>
<p>Georgescu and Langone’s mission perhaps finds its best Depression-era analog in Joseph Kennedy, the millionaire father of the eventual president John F. Kennedy, <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=5L-EeG9djO4C&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false" rel="nofollow">who said</a> of the Depression that “in those days I felt and said I would be willing to part with half of what I had if I could be sure of keeping, under law and order, the other half.” Kennedy, like many (but hardly all) of his elite colleagues, knew that capitalism had to be bridled if it was to survive. “I knew that big drastic changes had to be made in our economic system,“ he later told Joe McCarthy. “I wanted him in the White House for my own security.”</p>
<p>Langone and Georgescu — like Kennedy, Roosevelt and Keynes — are urging another radical reformation of capitalism so that truly radical change doesn’t come. But they make serious mistakes in their judgment and prescription. They warn of “punitive,” “oppressive” levels of taxation — an 80 percent upper marginal rate with a low upper-bracket threshold — as a potentiality if their upper class doesn’t self-correct. But those levels of taxation wouldn’t be levied to punish or oppress; it would be to redistribute their collected wealth to the rest of us. Sharing isn’t being punished.</p>
<p>Second, they propose that the change has to come from the capitalists themselves, that some sort of agreement would be reached to willfully raise wages significantly in the absence of governmental mandate. This seems to ignore fundamental laws of competition. Even if some degree of consensus was reached, any dissenters would gain a fantastic advantage over their competitors in the form of profit levels far exceeding those of their rivals. It would be asking corporations to enter the ring with one arm tied behind their back and face off against unrestrained competitors.</p>
<p>They seem to know this and concede that “the most obvious choice is our government” to guide and enforce the change. Every major gain against the greed that animates capitalism has been implemented by mandate: the minimum wage, the right to collectively bargain, the 40-hour work week, the weekend, and a host of other rules of the road that marked the post-war economic and civil peace.</p>
<p>“But the current Congress has been paralyzed,” they acknowledge.</p>
<p>And why is it paralyzed? Has President Obama not faced resistance to his efforts to restore a modicum of equality by politicians bought by the very class to whom Georgescu and Langone make their appeal? They might try not shoveling hundreds of millions of dollars into the coffers of “pro-business” politicians who dutifully defy virtually any tax increase, regulation, and pro-union effort. Bernie Sanders forbids big-dollar donations of the sort sent to pro-business politicians of both parties, but they might consider, as <a href="http://www.salon.com/2015/06/16/we_are_destroying_the_middle_classes_why_one_of_the_worlds_richest_men_is_starting_to_sound_awfully_like_bernie_sanders/" rel="nofollow">I argued previously</a>, working to elect him as a bulwark against the upheaval they fear. Sanders is merely proposing that we return to the bargain achieved in the 1930s and post-war years. I’m sure they’d scoff at the idea, but it’s not crazy. What’s crazy is to believe that capitalism can be saved by the capitalists themselves, like all lions agreeing to hunt without claws.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.salon.com/2015/08/11/why_conservatives_billionaires_have_started_talking_like_bernie_sanders_we_are_creating_a_caste_system_from_which_its_almost_impossible_to_escape/" rel="nofollow">Originally published by Salon</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.occupy.com/sites/default/files/medialibrary/kenneth-langone-1-web.jpg" rel="nofollow"><img alt="Bernie Sanders, Kenneth Langone, Peter Georgescu, income inequality, Home Depot" src="http://www.occupy.com/sites/default/files/medialibrary/kenneth-langone-1-web.jpg" title="Bernie Sanders, Kenneth Langone, Peter Georgescu, income inequality, Home Depot" /></a></p>
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<p>Cody Murray, his father, wife, and four-year-old daughter were all burned by a fireball after methane built up in his pump house and exploded.</p>
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<p>Recently, Britain's less politically vocal under-25s, whose penchant to not vote has long been the bane of politicians, are gathering political momentum and emerging as a potent voice of opposition to the government.</p>
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<p>America has experienced "gush-up" rather than "trickle-down" – now the shame is on the adherents of unregulated free-market capitalism who have assaulted us with winner-take-all wealth over the common good.</p>
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<div><span><em>6 days 7 hours</em> ago</span></div>
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<p>The middle class is doing just fine, they say...</p>
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<p>"I never would have thought I lived in a country where I could theoretically be under surveillance and I could go to jail for my work."</p>
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<p>The faith community, tattooed young folk, retirees and other people from all walks of life agree: business as usual is inconsistent with survival, and we’re prepared to give it our all to stop it.</p>
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<p>The filing before an Oregon federal judge represents the most direct acknowledgement to date that people aren't allowed to fly because of what the government believes they might do, and not what they've already done.</p>
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<p>"We all understood the shift, we could feel the wind changing, and that included myself – if there hadn't been a Thomas Drake, there couldn't have been an Edward Snowden."</p>
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<p>"It is important that we send a message that if you want to do business with local and state governments, you need to play by the rules."</p>
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<p>The American Psychological Association voted overwhelmingly on Friday to prohibit members from participating in interrogations conducted by U.S. agencies at locations deemed illegal under international law.</p>
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<div><img src="http://www.occupy.com/article/why-conservative-billionaires-have-started-talking-bernie-sanders" /></div>
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<p><sub><i>-- Delivered by <a href="http://feed43.com/">Feed43</a> service</i></sub></p>

armageddon news revolution Why Conservative Billionaires Have Started Talking Like Bernie Sanders

Why Conservative Billionaires Have Started Talking Like Bernie Sanders Why Conservative Billionaires Have Started Talking Like Bernie...