The 1%, slavery, and today (Part 2)

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http://mobile.bloomberg.com/news/2012-01-24/how-slavery-led-to-modern-capitalism-echoes.html

Excerpt 1:

When the New York City banker James Brown tallied his wealth in 1842, he had to look far below Wall Street to trace its origins. His investments in the American South exceeded $1.5 million, a quarter of which was directly bound up in the ownership of slave plantations.

Brown was among the world’s most powerful dealers in raw cotton, and his family’s firm, Brown Brothers & Co., served as one of the most important sources of capital and foreign exchange to the U.S. economy. Still, no small amount of his time was devoted to managing slaves from the study of his Leonard Street brownstone in Lower Manhattan.

Excerpt 2:

This recognizably modern capitalist economy was no less reliant on slavery than the mercantilist economy of the preceding century. Rather, it offered a wider range of opportunities to profit from the remote labor of slaves, especially as cotton emerged as the indispensable commodity of the age of industry.

Comment:

See that part there in bold from excerpt 2?  Apple just disclosed record blowout earnings and reported they have $97 billion in cash.  They have those Chinese factories going 24 hours a day, and the owner of the company that assembles Apple products had a management seminar where he called his employees animals.

How different in its economic repercussions is this remote exploitable labor than black American slavery?

The main difference that I can see is that it’s very far away and easy to folks from when you put a shiny iPad in their hands.

Have we seen one geek stand up to censorship? No.

Posted on by thecrosspollinator
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Yesterday, Twitter announced that it will censor in various countries according to the laws in that country.  They cited the example of German and French law banning Nazi content, but that’s a minority example.  Most of this censoring will be the stifling of political dissent such as we saw last year during the Arab Spring.

My advice is not to trust the geeks with your privacy or your rights.  They have shown repeatedly they don’t give a shit, they will not stand up for you, they are not a principled crowd and they just want to do business.

Of course they will take credit for any positive social change that occurs that they play a role in, but when the going gets tough they will throw you under the bus.

We live in days where people admire and love and respect the geeks, but I think that respect is sorely misplaced.

You can support my blog ravings by buying some music from my label:

Wow, the creeping authoritarian military state

Posted on by thecrosspollinator
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http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2012/01/25/lapd-and-special-forces-conduct-military-maneuvers-in-the-skies-above-downtown-la/

LOS ANGELES (CBS) — The Los Angeles Police Department teamed with military special operation forces Wednesday evening to conduct multi-agency tactical exercises in the skies above downtown LA.

Many questioned what was going on Wednesday night as a Black Hawk helicopter and four OH-6 choppers – or “Little Birds” – flew over the city, at one point hovering just above the US Bank building downtown and later flying low over the Staples Center as the Lakers played inside.

Comments:

I guess folks are into this as it’s just like the movies.  After that, if you’re disturbed by the mixing of the police and the military, you must be a Communist or have something to hide.

Either way, they’re gonna get you.

The 1% was built on the back of slaves

Posted on by thecrosspollinator
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http://mobile.bloomberg.com/news/2012-01-24/how-slavery-led-to-modern-capitalism-echoes.html

Excerpt 1:

Yet to understand slavery’s centrality to the rise of American capitalism, just consider the history of an antebellum Alabama dry-goods outfit called Lehman Brothers or a Rhode Island textile manufacturer that would become the antecedent firm of Berkshire Hathaway Inc.

Excerpt 2:

America’s “take-off” in the 19th century wasn’t in spite of slavery; it was largely thanks to it. And recent research in economic history goes further: It highlights the role that commodified human beings played in the emergence of modern capitalism itself.

Comment:

Read it and weep.  Literally.

The indestructable nature of narcissism

Posted on by thecrosspollinator
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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/25/jamie-dimon-discrimination_n_1232323.html

Jamie Dimon, the head of JPMorgan Chase, would like to make it clear that he is not that kind of banker.

“I’ve disagreed right from the beginning of this blanket blame of all banks,” Dimon said in an interview with Charlie Gasparino of the Fox Business Network Tuesday. “I don’t like that. I think that’s just a form of discrimination that should be stopped.”

Comments:

1.  JP Morgan foreclosed on 1,000 active duty military families.
2.  JP Morgan is most definitely part of the robo-signing schedule.
3.  JP Morgan was most definitely bailed out when the federal government begged them to buy Bear Stearns.
4.  Jamie Dimon is definitely the kind of banker that he doesn’t think he is.

The idea that beating up on bankers is somehow equivalent to black folks not being allowed on the front of the bus, or denying homosexuals housing because of who they are is more than a bit dramatic.

I think this guy is so narcissistic he can’t possible believe/acknowledge that he is a part of a corrupt/predatory banking system and I think this sort of playing the victim is a form of class warfare.

Hey, all you people who have been screwed over, I’m the real victim here.  Wha?

A lying, anti-Muslim NYPD commish is fine, right?

Posted on by thecrosspollinator
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http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/25/nyregion/police-commissioner-kelly-helped-with-anti-islam-film-and-regrets-it.html?_r=1&hpw

The New York City police commissioner, Raymond W. Kelly, through a top aide, acknowledged for the first time on Tuesday that he personally cooperated with the filmmakers of “The Third Jihad” — a decision the commissioner now describes as a mistake.

The film, which says the goal of “much of Muslim leadership here in America” is to “infiltrate and dominate” the United States, was screened for more than 1,400 officers during training in 2010.

Deputy Commissioner Paul J. Browne told The New York Times on Monday that the filmmakers had relied on old interview clips and had never spoken with the commissioner.

On Tuesday, the film’s producer, Raphael Shore, e-mailed The Times and provided a date and time for their 90-minute interview with the commissioner at Police Headquarters on March 19, 2007. Told of this e-mail, Mr. Browne revised his account.

“He’s right,” Mr. Browne said Tuesday of the producer. “In fact, I recommended in February 2007 that Commissioner Kelly be interviewed.”

The $64,000 question:

Clearly the straight shooting super professional NYPD chief Ray Kelly has been caught in a lie, but more importantly:

What else has the dude been lying about?

Stop and frisk?
Crime statistics?
Surveillance of NYC residents?

That’s a reasonable question, right?