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billpolonsky
billpolonsky's Journal
billpolonsky's Journal
December 3, 2019
'So If You're Poor, You're Dead'?
"Britons in a video released Tuesday expressed incredulity and shock at the high cost of healthcare in the United States and thanked the United Kingdom's publicly-funded and administered National Health Service for sparing the country's people such exorbitant prices.
"So if you're poor, you're dead," one young woman tells the interviewer from Joe Politics after hearing an asthma inhaler in the for-profit U.S. system costs between $250 and $300.
Two different men appear shocked when told Americans can be charged $2,500 for an ambulance ride.
"For real?" one asks. "Why?" asks another."
[link:https://twitter.com/i/status/1201826927520161792|
[link:https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/12/03/so-if-youre-poor-youre-dead-watch-these-brits-gasp-when-they-find-out-cost?fbclid=IwAR2hj6c8qF5sPDb2n1YbHxkbxyOf48y1gxy2hlvWgCvxprKF-JNKIgHWl78#|
November 1, 2019
"“He has absolutely infuriated the liberal establishment by committing a major crime,” Chomsky said, explaining that the Democratic elite is not opposed to Sanders just because they don’t like his policies, but because he has managed to build a powerful movement of activists willing to participate in the political process.
“His crime was to organize an ongoing political movement that doesn’t just show up at the polls every four years and push a button, but keeps working. That’s no good. The rabble is supposed to stay home.”
"... But, according to Chomsky, the term (socialist) has been rendered meaningless. In the United States, he said, it is understood as New Deal liberalism promoted by Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
Sanders is neither a socialist nor a democratic socialist, Chomsky argued, but a progressive, New Deal Democrat, whose policies would not be considered out of the ordinary in the 1950s, not even by Republicans such as Dwight D. Eisenhower.
“To be quite frank, his major policies would not have surprised President Eisenhower very much,” the political commentator noted, explaining that Sanders’ proposals are considered radical by the political mainstream because both parties have “shifted so far to the right.”
Read more: ]
Original source [link:https://theintercept.com/2019/10/31/deconstructed-special-the-noam-chomsky-interview/|
Noam Chomsky: Bernie Sanders 'Has Absolutely Infuriated The Liberal Establishment'
"“He has absolutely infuriated the liberal establishment by committing a major crime,” Chomsky said, explaining that the Democratic elite is not opposed to Sanders just because they don’t like his policies, but because he has managed to build a powerful movement of activists willing to participate in the political process.
“His crime was to organize an ongoing political movement that doesn’t just show up at the polls every four years and push a button, but keeps working. That’s no good. The rabble is supposed to stay home.”
"... But, according to Chomsky, the term (socialist) has been rendered meaningless. In the United States, he said, it is understood as New Deal liberalism promoted by Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
Sanders is neither a socialist nor a democratic socialist, Chomsky argued, but a progressive, New Deal Democrat, whose policies would not be considered out of the ordinary in the 1950s, not even by Republicans such as Dwight D. Eisenhower.
“To be quite frank, his major policies would not have surprised President Eisenhower very much,” the political commentator noted, explaining that Sanders’ proposals are considered radical by the political mainstream because both parties have “shifted so far to the right.”
Read more: ]
Original source [link:https://theintercept.com/2019/10/31/deconstructed-special-the-noam-chomsky-interview/|
October 29, 2019
[link:https://www.salon.com/2019/10/26/the-conservatism-of-bernie-sanders-elizabeth-warren-and-alexandria-ocasio-cortez/?fbclid=IwAR077P6lIvrbwFQjQmZ5R_-qnlq1O_OkGbq0rBjzawb7Uekz0-WXQtXxE2Y|
Putting the politics of Sanders, Warren and Ocasio-Cortez in an historical perspective
"Lazy journalists, milquetoast Democratic strategists, and citizens of curiosity and conscience should take note that the illuminative story of domestic politics is not how the prominence of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, or the popularity of Warren and Sanders, is proof that the Democratic Party has drifted off the edge of the “far left,” but that the far right has so thoroughly succeeded in moving the country’s political culture away from the center that the moderate policies of the 1970s now apparently resemble Fidel Castro’s revolutionary agenda."
[link:https://www.salon.com/2019/10/26/the-conservatism-of-bernie-sanders-elizabeth-warren-and-alexandria-ocasio-cortez/?fbclid=IwAR077P6lIvrbwFQjQmZ5R_-qnlq1O_OkGbq0rBjzawb7Uekz0-WXQtXxE2Y|
July 1, 2019
Wes Tyrell’s statement on Michael de Adder being let go by J.D. Irving, Limited
Cartoonist Michael de Adder was let go from his job drawing editorial cartoons for all the major New Brunswick newspapers 24 hours after his Donald Trump cartoon went viral on social media, a job he held for 17 years. Although he has stated there was no reason given for his firing, the timing was no coincidence.
Michael told me once that not only were the J.D. Irving owned New Brunswick newspapers challenging to work for, but there were a series of taboo subjects he could not touch. One of these taboo subjects was Donald Trump. Michael deAdder has drawn many well-documented cartoons on Trump, they have however, systematically never been seen in the NB papers.
The Irvings have considerable corporate interests in the United States, but why would they care about cartoons potentially offending the American president? (As if Trump would be interested in reading news about Moncton, Saint John or even Restigouche.)
Even more puzzling, why would the Irvings care enough about a single Trump cartoon that they fire their award winning cartoonist? A cartoon that didn’t even appear in their newspaper.
It’s simple really, J.D. Irving, Limited is not only a privately owned conglomerate headquartered in New Brunswick, its also an international behemoth with global reach. Trade has been an issue since Trump took office, trade that affects the Irvings directly, not to mention a host of other issues. And the President himself is an unknown quantity who punishes those who appear to oppose him.
Not long ago Rob Rogers lost his job at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette for drawing cartoons about Trump, but he’s an American at an American newspaper. The Telegraph Journal and other newspapers in the chain are based in New Brunswick, and de Adder is a New Brunswicker. Why is this happening in Canada?
de Adder’s Trump cartoons didn’t appear in the newspaper but they were viewed all across social media, something that probably went unnoticed most days by Irving. But his cartoon of June 26 couldn’t be ignored. The trope of political figures golfing and showing disdain for issues has been seen before, but deAdder’s take hit a nerve. It went viral and social media stars like George Takei even shared it.
For a brief period de Adder was the poster boy for the Anti-Trump movement. A good place to be if you’re a cartoonist, but a bad place to be if you work for a foreign oil company with business ties to the United States.
Whether the powers that be in America would make the connection between de Adder’s cartoon and Brunswick News Inc doesn’t matter. It seems that the Irving’s don’t want to take that chance. So they cut all ties.
A solid reason why an oil company has no business owning newspapers.
Wes Tyrell
President – Association of Canadian Cartoonists
[link:http://sequentialpulp.ca/wes-tyrells-statement-on-michael-de-adder-being-let-go-by-j-d-irving-limited/?fbclid=IwAR3M0fdmuq06y_676Bk9yWM399y2AZrzmNfoy_gqSIkEncneDIFu6ez7eos|
President of the Association of Canadian Cartoonists statement.
Wes Tyrell’s statement on Michael de Adder being let go by J.D. Irving, Limited
Cartoonist Michael de Adder was let go from his job drawing editorial cartoons for all the major New Brunswick newspapers 24 hours after his Donald Trump cartoon went viral on social media, a job he held for 17 years. Although he has stated there was no reason given for his firing, the timing was no coincidence.
Michael told me once that not only were the J.D. Irving owned New Brunswick newspapers challenging to work for, but there were a series of taboo subjects he could not touch. One of these taboo subjects was Donald Trump. Michael deAdder has drawn many well-documented cartoons on Trump, they have however, systematically never been seen in the NB papers.
The Irvings have considerable corporate interests in the United States, but why would they care about cartoons potentially offending the American president? (As if Trump would be interested in reading news about Moncton, Saint John or even Restigouche.)
Even more puzzling, why would the Irvings care enough about a single Trump cartoon that they fire their award winning cartoonist? A cartoon that didn’t even appear in their newspaper.
It’s simple really, J.D. Irving, Limited is not only a privately owned conglomerate headquartered in New Brunswick, its also an international behemoth with global reach. Trade has been an issue since Trump took office, trade that affects the Irvings directly, not to mention a host of other issues. And the President himself is an unknown quantity who punishes those who appear to oppose him.
Not long ago Rob Rogers lost his job at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette for drawing cartoons about Trump, but he’s an American at an American newspaper. The Telegraph Journal and other newspapers in the chain are based in New Brunswick, and de Adder is a New Brunswicker. Why is this happening in Canada?
de Adder’s Trump cartoons didn’t appear in the newspaper but they were viewed all across social media, something that probably went unnoticed most days by Irving. But his cartoon of June 26 couldn’t be ignored. The trope of political figures golfing and showing disdain for issues has been seen before, but deAdder’s take hit a nerve. It went viral and social media stars like George Takei even shared it.
For a brief period de Adder was the poster boy for the Anti-Trump movement. A good place to be if you’re a cartoonist, but a bad place to be if you work for a foreign oil company with business ties to the United States.
Whether the powers that be in America would make the connection between de Adder’s cartoon and Brunswick News Inc doesn’t matter. It seems that the Irving’s don’t want to take that chance. So they cut all ties.
A solid reason why an oil company has no business owning newspapers.
Wes Tyrell
President – Association of Canadian Cartoonists
[link:http://sequentialpulp.ca/wes-tyrells-statement-on-michael-de-adder-being-let-go-by-j-d-irving-limited/?fbclid=IwAR3M0fdmuq06y_676Bk9yWM399y2AZrzmNfoy_gqSIkEncneDIFu6ez7eos|
April 23, 2019
"Bernie Sanders is unquestionably in the top tier of candidates for the Democratic nomination, and it would be an epic act of self-destruction for Democrats to plunge into an internecine conflict over his candidacy at a time when they need to marshal every asset to defeat Trump and his GOP cronies. I am calling on Democrats, progressives, and leftists to hit the pause button, to table our disagreements, no matter how intense, as we fight to preserve the rule of law and the last semblance of our democracy. We owe it to ourselves and our country."
[link:https://www.thenation.com/article/peter-daou-bernie-sanders-critic-2016/|
Interesting article from Peter Daou
"Bernie Sanders is unquestionably in the top tier of candidates for the Democratic nomination, and it would be an epic act of self-destruction for Democrats to plunge into an internecine conflict over his candidacy at a time when they need to marshal every asset to defeat Trump and his GOP cronies. I am calling on Democrats, progressives, and leftists to hit the pause button, to table our disagreements, no matter how intense, as we fight to preserve the rule of law and the last semblance of our democracy. We owe it to ourselves and our country."
[link:https://www.thenation.com/article/peter-daou-bernie-sanders-critic-2016/|
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Member since: Sun Sep 7, 2014, 12:38 PMNumber of posts: 270
