The Times of India has the story Chavez: Venezuela is no threat, Obama is a ‘good guy’.

There was a window to improve ties between Caracas and Washington after Obama took office in 2009 and promised more engagement with foes. Chavez toned down his tirades against the “Yankee empire” and shook hands with Obama at a summit.

But within months, Chavez said the U.S. leader was disillusioning the world by following his predecessor George W. Bush’s foreign policies, and he cranked up his rhetoric again.

On Friday, Chavez said Obama’s troubles began with that handshake. “They fell on him: saying he’s a socialist, a communist. … The personal war against Obama started, including looking for a way to get him out of office by any means.”

In my previous post Romney Wants A War With Hugo Chavez, I quoted an “expert” who was downplaying the threat posed by Chavez.

Experts in the region, though, called Obama’s comments reasonable. Chavez is “certifiable,” with a tremendous ego fueled by the power that comes from sitting on vast oil reserves – but he’s not as dangerous as the leaders of other less friendly regimes, said Riordan Roett, the director of Latin American Studies Program at the School of Advanced International Studies at The John Hopkins University.

In response to that statement, I noted:

Even the experts go overboard when they try to seem reasonable in comparison to the Republicans.  Unless this expert means that Chavez is certifiably correct in his assessment of the United States.

In the story noted in this blog post we have Chavez being more honest and candid about U.S. politics than Mitt Romney.  You have to wonder who is actually “certifiable”, or what the meaning of “certifiable” really is.

As for Chavez’s remark that Obama was “was disillusioning the world by following his predecessor George W. Bush’s foreign policies”, at the time he made those remarks he was exactly correct as far as identifying my disillusionment.

Here is a little light entertainment for your weekend.

While I am at it, I suppose I might as well include this cartoon sent to me by RichardH.

There is a lengthy description and praise for the book in the article America Beyond Capitalism: An “Evolutionary Reconstruction” of the System Is Necessary and Possible .

This is the first chapter in an exclusive Truthout series from political economist and author Gar Alperovitz. We will be publishing weekly installments of the new edition of “America Beyond Capitalism,” a visionary book, first published in 2005, whose time has come.

I guess it should not have come as a surprise that this article should praise the book’s foresight so much.  This article is written by the book’s author.  Nevertheless, it does offer insights into some tantalizing ideas for an “Evolutionary Reconstruction.”

Just keep in mind that no human enterprise is without problems.  As this new structure evolves, issues will arise and solutions will need to be found.  The lessons we learned from monocropping should teach us that we always need to have several alternative methods in operation so that we can adapt to changing circumstances.

The Real News has the story Gar Alperovitz: When it comes to banking and other critical sectors, public ownership is the only solution.

According to Gar Alperovitz, there was a time when even the most conservative economists in the Chicago School (where Milton Friedman later rose to infamy) advocated this approach.

The Elizabeth Warren campaign is holding an Ice Cream Social on Sunday, July 15.

Central MA Ice Cream Social

Date and Time:

Jul 15 2012, 2:30 to 4:30 pm

Location:

Teamsters Local 170 Hall
330 Southwest Cutoff, Route 20,
Worcester, MA 01604

Contact:

508-202-5276 centralmass@elizabethwarren.com

Click here to RSVP

However, do not believe the map or the address on the above web page.

Here is where Google thinks the actual address is. We just drove by it today and it is on the left side going east on Route 20.  That is because Google has the even and odd sides reversed.  It also has the location a little misplaced.

View Teamsters Union Local 170 in a larger map

If you trick Google by giving it the address 361 SW Cutoff, then it will put the pin in the correct place and on the correct side of the road. If you zoom in, where Google tells you United Rentals is, that is where the Teamsters Hall really is. The Teamsters Hall is actually across the street from United Rentals. If you look at the street view and find United Rentals, then swing the view to the other side of the street, you will see the driveway entrance to the Teamsters Local Hall.

View Larger Map

Here is the picture of the driveway entrance. In the background, the brick building is the Teamsters Hall.

The CBS web site has video and transcript for Obama: Romney not necessarily qualified to think about “economy as a whole”.

I feel like I could have written President Obama’s script. This is exactly the point I have been wanting him to make. Knowing how to run even a very large business is quite different from knowing how to run a country with an economy as large as the U.S. economy. Not only are the goals different as the President points out, but the feedback effects that national economic policies (as opposed to corporate policies) have on the economy itself are orders of magnitude larger than anything Romney has even thought about.

The Romney’s and the Republicans’ thirst for war seems never ending as evidenced in the article Romney, GOP howl over Obama’s remark about Hugo Chavez.

Republicans, led by Mitt Romney and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, pounced on President Barack Obama on Wednesday after he told a Miami TV anchor that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez does not pose a “serious” national security threat to the United States.
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Experts in the region, though, called Obama’s comments reasonable. Chavez is “certifiable,” with a tremendous ego fueled by the power that comes from sitting on vast oil reserves – but he’s not as dangerous as the leaders of other less friendly regimes, said Riordan Roett, the director of Latin American Studies Program at the School of Advanced International Studies at The John Hopkins University.

Even the experts go overboard when they try to seem reasonable in comparison to the Republicans.  Unless this expert means that Chavez is certifiably correct in his assessment of the United States.

We tried to assassinate the guy and yet he still sent discounted heating oil to help out our citizens that we can’t even take care of ourselves.  What is he trying to do, kill us with kindness?  How dare he!

It used to be that the party out of power did not conduct their own foreign policy during a Presidential campaign.  They recognized that such interference might damage sensitive diplomatic efforts.  I guess this all ended when Ronald Reagan negotiated with the Iranians for them to hold onto our hostages until Jimmy Carter had transferred the Presidency to Reagan.  By any definition, these negotiations of the Reagan camp should be called treason.  Then again, Democrats don’t want to make a scene.

In a pure coincidence, after writing the above, I stumbled across the article Shamir’s October Surprise Admission.

But Shamir had a startling assessment of the larger October Surprise issue. “I know about all the efforts of the Carter administration,” he said. “And, well, I read this interesting book of Gary Sick’s,” a reference to the 1991 book, October Surprise, in which former National Security Council aide Gary Sick made the case for believing the Republicans had disrupted the hostage negotiations before the 1980 election.

With the topic raised, one interviewer asked, “What do you think? Was there an October Surprise?”

“Of course, it was,” Shamir responded without hesitation. “It was.”

Admittedly, I may be suffering from confirmation bias.  There is an interesting discussion in the comment section of the article.

Truth Out has the article Can a Financial Transactions Tax Work in America? An FTT FAQ.

A financial transactions tax is a small tax on financial transactions. One long-standing form of an FTT is the local real estate transfer tax that most Americans pay when buying or selling a house.
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Most concrete proposals for an FTT include an FTT on stocks and bonds of 0.5 percent or less of the amount traded and an FTT on foreign currencies and derivatives of 0.1 percent or less of the amount traded.
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A well-designed FTT would discourage speculation and computer-driven high frequency trading in financial instruments. That would reduce market volatility and increase access to capital markets for ordinary borrowers and investors. Even if an FTT raised no money, it would still improve the economy.

This sounds like such a good idea that you know it doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in summer.

The talk about how the tax works in London does not seem to acknowledge what I have heard.  One of Great Britain’s strongest issues with European Common Market proposals is the argument over an FTT.  They claim that such a proposal is an attack on the London financial center.  I’ll have to look into this.

The UK Guardian has the article Scientists attribute extreme weather to man-made climate change.

Last year’s record warm November in the UK – the second hottest since records began in 1659 – was at least 60 times more likely to happen because of climate change than owing to natural variations in the earth’s weather systems, according to the peer-reviewed studies by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in the US, and the Met Office in the UK. The devastating heatwave that blighted farmers in Texas in the US last year, destroying crop yields in another record “extreme weather event”, was about 20 times more likely to have happened owing to climate change than to natural variation.

I don’t purport to have the expertise to pass judgment on this story.  I am sure the story will raise controversy from the miniscule number of “authorities” who are climate change deniers.  The deniers may even be right, but I wouldn’t bet the farm on it.

Well, to be perfectly honest, I’d be hesitant to bet the farm on the validity of the human caused global warming claims either.  However, it would make sense to take reasonable steps to diminish human caused global warming.

July 11, 2012

The Boston Globe gave this story the headline, Not all weather woes are tied to climate change. Who says you can’t squeeze your political views into the headline of a news story?

Truth Out has Bill Moyers’ video and transcript, Bill Moyers: The Cowardly Lions of Free Speech.

Speech is already rationed in America. On your playing field, those who have no money have no speech. And just who do you think is doing this “speaking”? Hello, poor people, are you there? It’s your election, too. All 50 million of you; Hello, we can’t hear you. Better get a Super Pac and speak up!

Poor people haven’t lost their voice. They can’t afford a voice. And every day working people: universal laryngitis, the chronic absence of money. As for children – children who have a big stake in our elections but no vote – for them to be heard they would need piggy banks the size of Wal-Mart heirs. Or the Koch brothers for uncles.