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battleangel · 1 year ago

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Black Mirror, Pigrape & WW3

There is one thing that causes poverty, inequality, food insecurity, houselessness, starvation, unequal medical care & inhumane living conditions more than anything else --

Wealth is passed down generationally to heirs.

Literally, thats it.

Children usually inherit their parents estate.

So, wealth is naturally concentrated amongst the global elite 1%.

Virtually all of the laws in the world allow parents to confer their wealth to the next generation -- their direct heirs -- upon their death.

So, the cycle of the worlds wealth being in the hands of the 1% is never going to change.

You will never get the Waltons (Walmart), the Hiltons, etc. to not keep their money concentrated within their respective bloodlines.

These millionaires and billionaires also give money to politicians that allow their families, companies, corporations and enterprises to continue their profiteering, corporatism, exploitation, non-stop lobbying, union busting and their CEOs making thousands more than the people actually working for these companies.

This will never change.

The politicians want the funding from these millionaires and billionaires to keep flowing to them from the owners, founders & CEOs of these corporations and the families that found these corporations and their CEOs want to keep the money strictly within their respective bloodlines.

This also applies to any real estate, land and assets owned by the parents upon their deaths, per virtually all of the laws in the world, all of this wealth gets passed down to their heirs, usually their children, upon death.

As long as the parents had wills and living testaments and they all do (global elites), the above situation is going to play out every time keeping the elite 1% in control of over 99% of the earth's money.

There are movements for this wealth to be confiscated by the government, etc.

Its theater.

Its Obamas lip service to undocumented folks while throwing more children in cages than Trump.

The policies and laws never actually change because the politicians dont want them to as they are paid off by and funded by these same global elites.

Its why Cruz as a conservative voted for TPP.

Its why Biden as a Democrat is a total Zionist and war hawk.

There are cosmetic differences between the two parties, the duopoly - Democrat "vs" Republican, but the true power brokers behind the scenes and behind the curtain hand pick the people who get to ascend to the US Presidential throne.

All 200+ Presidents are part of the same royal lineage that dates back hundreds of years to the royal family in the United Kingdom.

Please look it up.

Every single one, including Obama.

Figure out who the Reptilians are.

They are the Kingmakers.

They decide all US presidential elections.

All of these things are written decades in advance.

They already know when China is going to demand the US to pay back the debt it owes them.

Our biggest "enemy" is the country who has purchased the most of our debt -- ask yourself what sense that makes if this isnt by design.

The moment China demands that we pay back the debt we owe them (look into how many trillions in US bonds China has bought), the US dollar will instantly crash.

Right now, the US dollar is used essentially as the worlds currency but you can google how weak it currently is.

Geopolitically, militarily and economically (GDP), the US is number 1.

However, we are trillions of dollars in debt to China.

Trillions of government programs are currently unfunded right now due to how massive the government debt is ($17 trillion).

The moment China demands that we pay up the debt we owe them that they have purchased, the US dollar will crash and we will go bankrupt as a nation.

Medicare is an unfunded government program and liability.

So is Medicaid.

So is Social Security.

Military, highways, hospitals, schools.

The US dollar crashing will crash the worlds economy since the US dollar is still used as the standard despite how weak it is due to all of our national debt.

China, with their Yen, will then be in the strongest position.

The Yen will take over as the worlds currency standard.

China will bankrupt the US.

Chinas economy and military will then be #1.

They will attack our extremely vulnerable and purposely antiquated electrical grid and cause nationwide blackouts that last for months via highly sophisticated & coordinated EMP attacks.

There will be Chinese terrorist attacks aided by Iran and Russia.

China, Iran & Russia will also attack London (UK).

They will attack the White House, Washington Monument and the Pentagon.

Watch ID4 and get a clue.

All our symbols of national power will be attacked, eviscerated and incinerated.

They will blow up Mount Rushmore.

They will detonate a nuclear weapon in the mid-west and threaten to detonate additional nuclear weapons in New York City, Los Angeles and other major metropolitan US cities (Chicago, Miami, etc.) unless we surrender.

They will also have a nuclear weapon aimed at the White House but the President will be in a bunker with his family and the Secret Service.

Watch Black Mirror and get a clue.

It will be kabuki theater.

The President, First Lady and their children as well as the VP, spouse and their children will be murdered on a live social media feed if the US doesnt surrender and the above named US cities will be incinerated like Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Unconditional surrender or millions will die instantaneously from the nuclear weapons but then look up the horrific after effects of the radiation poisioning on the surrounding "surviving" populations of Hiroshima & Nagasaki.

The FBI & CIA elite know of these threats now.

The US President & family and VP & family will actually be safe in a bunker but the bunker will have a recreated Oval Office.

Its just kabuki theater.

It will be streamed live on every US TV channel, Netlix, Hulu, Disney+, Facebook, IG, TikTok, Twitter, LinkedIn, Youtube & Twitch.

The US will surrender to save the President (nothing but a figurehead exactly like how the monarchy functions -- "God Save the Queen!") and the "millions of lives in the US cities targeted by the nuclear weapons".

The fake explanation will be, "We could fire back with our own nukes but by then the President, First Lady & VP would be murdered and 'untold millions' will have been wiped out in every major US city."

The President ("Commander In Chief") , Secretary of Defense and Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff will negotiate the US' surrender to "save millions of lives" as China will literally have its raised finger above the red button of the nuclear weapon.

And it will all be fucking fake as fuck.

It wont be a real detonation button or a real nuclear weapon.

The President, First Lady, VP and their families are all actually in a secure bunker that just has the Oval Office recreated in it.

There will be a surrender streamed live to China (and Russia and Iran).

This will happen a year or two into World War 3 between US & Israel & London (UK) vs China, Russia & Iran.

I predict WW3 will start next summer (2024).

This dovetails nicely with the US Presidential election November 2024 and also with the fact that student loans just went into repayment this Fall.

I want YOU to give your life for a worthless fucking college degree!

We will be winning until China does the above.

All planned in advance and fake as fucking fuck.

They're nothing but WWE and soap opera storylines, all written in advance, and behind the scenes all the wrestlers hating each others guts and the soap actors bitch slapping each other around all get along really well.

Its nothing but theater for the audience.

Noone is a face, everyones a heel.

Noone is a soap opera villain.

Theyre all on the same side just working the audience up with fake ass rivalries.

All those 18 to 21 year old boys on ALL sides murdered for absolutely fucking nothing.

Hamas' propaganda videos are no different than the US militarys and IDF's (Israel Defense Force) propaganda.

There will be hostages raped and executed live during the social media stream.

Its the pig being fucked in the ass on Black Mirror.

Nothing but kabuki theater.

Its viscera and terror to subdue, sublimate & control the masses.

Its Hunger Games:

President Snow : She's become a beacon of hope for the rebellion, and she has to be eliminated.

Plutarch Heavensbee : I agree she should die, but in the right way, at the right time. It's moves and counter-moves, and it's all we gotta look at. Katniss Everdeen is a symbol. Their Mockingjay. They think she's one of them. We need to show that she's one of us. We don't need to destroy her, just the image, then we let the people do the rest.

Plutarch Heavensbee : Shut down the black markets, take away what little they have, then double the amount of floggings and executions. Put them on TV, broadcast them live, sow fear, more fear...

President Snow : It won't work. Fear does not work as long as they have hope, and Katniss Everdeen is giving them hope.

Plutarch Heavensbee : She's engaged. Make everything about that. What kind of dress is she gonna wear? - floggings. What's the cake gonna look like? - executions. Whose gonna be there? - fear. Blanket coverage. Shove it in their faces. Show them that she's one of us now.

Plutarch Heavensbee : They're gonna hate her so much they just might kill her for ya.

President Snow : Brilliant.

Its to traumatize on a mass scale and induce terror to make the populace sheep that submit and obey.

This is why the fear of death is so critical and why they encourage it at all times.

The fear will be visceral and palpable as death is laughably presented in society as the "worst thing ever to be avoided at all costs" when in fact it is nothing but a beautiful transformation and evolution to your eternal energetic state and a final ascension from the human 3D realm ("real life" aka the simulated virtual reality) back to the eternal limitless 10D dreamscape that we all originated from as the limitless eternal energetic beings that we all are.

We are all gods, small g.

We have all existed for eternity in the dreamscape.

We do not have a beginning or an end.

We are as limitless as our minds and imaginations because we ARE our minds and imaginations.

Its what we literally are.

Our 3D limited physical human bodies are nothing but vessels.

Our souls and our hearts and our minds inside of the physical husk and vessel is what we are truly made of.

We are energy and we are literally nature.

Its why nature is what heals us.

Reiki heals us.

We can heal ourselves.

But we do have a natural end to our lives as physically manifested humans because this is an extremely temporary state that we currently inhabit so to prolong life with endless interventions, harmful medical treatments, surgeries, medications, radiation, hormones, chemotherapy, prescriptions literally makes no fucking sense.

Accept your temporary manifestation as a physical human being.

Heal yourself through self healing practices.

medicinal plants & herbs

marijuana

psychedlics

nature -- rivers, streams, natural sunlight NOT artificial lighting, oceans, beaches, mountains, forests, moon and the stars, the sky, fresh air, trees

shamanic healing

witch doctors

indigineous medicinal practices

market limpia

deep REM restorative sleep = temporary shift in consciousness back to the dreamscape which is why its so restorative

water = temporary human vessel is 80% water it is energy and sustains life - drink 64+ oz a day and minimize juice soda coffee & alcohol

sound bath healing

weightless floating in water

listening to mhz frequencies

meditation

expressive movement of the body -- hula hooping, pole dancing, dance, aerialism, fire breathing, magic tricks, martial arts, trapeze, etc.

expressive art -- poetry, slam poetry, stand up comedy, acting, writing, painting, drawing, clay, pottery, theater, improv, etc.

self reiki

shadow work

somatic work

journalling

sabbatical

solo trip

excursion

inducing your own ego death and killing your human ego

self actualization & self ascension

opening your third eye

kundalini awakening

aligning & activating all seven chakras

eliminate all toxic energy vampires -- malignant narcissists, dark empaths, abusers, sociopaths -- from your energy orbit & aura including and especially spouse, significant others, adult children, parents, mother, father, siblings, brothers, sisters, grandparents, grandmother, grandfather, aunts, uncles, supervisors, managers, co-workers, mentors, coaches, teachers, professors, priests, deacons, deaconnesses, pastors, ministers, nuns, best friends, friends, etc. -- no matter how difficult or controversial or how much you are judged, go low/limited/no contact with all toxic energy vampires -- even the matriarch and patriach of your entire family -- and remove them from your obit and aura so they can stop energetically attacking you and draining your energy and depleting your aura and psychically attacking your psyche which can result in an eventual psychotic break where your literal psyche is broken-- these attacks lead to all kinds of physical and mental maladies, disorders, conditions, diseases, illnesses, compulsions, addictions, etc. that are actually being caused by constant and insidious energetic & psychic assaults and auric attacks

leave any job that has toxic energy vampires -- and this is actually every job as capitalism is based off of the exploitation of the worker via constant and sustained energetic and psychic attacks and auric assaults on your aura -- this includes a passive aggressive supervisor, co-workers, stakeholders, clients, cross-functional collaborators, your +1, your HR generalist or HR business partner, work mentors, work sponsors, executive leadership, officers of the company, CEO, vendors, prospects, etc. -- psychic & energetic attacks at work include constant emails & IMs, unreasonable & unrealistic demands, forced & mandatory unpaid overtime as a salaried employee, golden handcuffs as an executive where you exchanged a fancy title for having a life outside of your big important job, working 70 to 90+ hours a week and essentially living at your job to flex on the gram & LinkedIn at the big 4/financial services/big tech, a cultish environment like Amazon ("peculiar ways", "Leadership Principles", "Every day is Day 1", etc."), humiliations/condescencions/interruptions/belittlements/beratements/insults/being talked down to/talked over at meetings, projects & ideas stolen, microaggressions/racism/misogyny/homophobia/transphobia/misogynoir/unconscious bias/hostile work environments, verbal and mental abuse, being purposely overworked, underpaid & never appreciated, training your own replacement, being laid off when your employer made billions in record profits, being used when someone else takes credit for your work and gets a promotion and you dont, work becoming your identity and central form of validation

leave the 9 to 5 capitalist structure as well as any job in capitalism with a supervisor and mandated schedules including corporate, academia, non profit, retail, food service, medical industry, military, K-12 schools, colleges & universities, libraries, museums, etc.

become a freelancer (delivery driver, rideshare driver, content writer, virtual assistant, cold calling, data entry, etc.)

Get ready for the pigfucking.

Get ready for WW3.

Get ready for the Black Mirror & the Black Parade.

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northcarolinaprelawland-blog · 5 years ago

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Defund the Police:’ What Does This Actually Mean And How Would It Work?

By Patrick Duan, Duke University Class of 2023

June 16, 2020

The shocking death of George Floyd during a malicious encounter with Minneapolis police officers has ignited a cross-country blaze of passion and infuriation. The pent-up frustration from repeated incidents of police brutality has erupted into widespread protests from coast to coast, flooding urban streets and engulfing social-media feeds. As the unquenchable flames of reinvigorated disgruntlement against law enforcement rage on, the controversy and discontentment around the police sector have arguably reached unprecedented heights in the 21st century. And at the core of this revolutionary fire is a phrase that has lately become ubiquitous through dominating news headlines and protester signs: “Defund the Police.”With this popular motto growing in support by the hour, one typically asks the question—what does this slogan exactly entail and how might such a proposal be implemented? More specifically, what are the legal and institutional changes being demanded and what would such a drastic policy change look like, in practical terms?

The phrase“defund the police”refers to a variable concept that spans a spectrum of meaning,but all interpretations focus on reimagining public safety and law enforcement.The most radical explanation of this slogan demands that all police departments be completely dismantled and replaced with a social services-based plan.[i] But while some proponents seek to entirely devoid the police of all funds and departments, it appears that most argue for reallocating a portion of the police’s current endowment from a city’s budget toward investment in the very communities they patrol. The core of this philosophy is centered around the belief that the nation must “shift financing away from surveillance and punishment” and toward fostering safer communities.[ii]Georgetown professor Christy Lopez, in a Washington Post op-ed clarifies the movement’s intent:

“Defunding the police” is not as scary (or even as radical) as it sounds . . . Defunding and abolition probably mean something different from what you are thinking. For most proponents, “defunding the police” does not mean zeroing out budgets for public safety, and police abolition does not mean that police will disappear overnight — or perhaps ever.[iii]

Context & Background

Initially, the extensive demonstrations were a direct response to Mr. Floyd’s death and the “legacy of police abuse against black people;” but more recently, activists and protesters have begun pushing for policy changes, with “defunding the police” at the forefront of those demands.[iv]Although many may assume that this movement is simply a reaction to police brutality, its origins can be traced to activists and academics who have argued for such a policy for decades—an idea primarily founded upon the premise that the U.S. spends too much on security and not enough on social welfare.[v]The government’s traditional devoting of “an extreme budget commitment” to “prisons, guns, … detention facilities, courts, jails, … and patrols”[vi] has become increasingly salient in the minds of discontented Americans, particularly in the wake of this movement.

Moreover, this glaringly disproportional dedication to law enforcement becomes much more conspicuous when examining the lack of funding toward “food support, aid for teenage parents, help for the homeless, childcare for working families, safe housing, and so on.”[vii]The government, at all levels, spends about twice as much on prisons, courts, and police than what it invests in welfare, food stamps, and income supplements; individual cities maintain such skewed endowments as well.[viii]

To take on a global perspective, the U.S. spends more on domestic public-safety programs than nearly all other first-world nations and has a significantly higher incarceration rate than that of other NATO nations.[ix] Massachusetts, the state with the lowest incarceration rate, imprisons more people than the entire country of Turkmenistan, and more than all but nine other countries in the world.[x] Investment toward legal enforcement intends to increase safety and decrease crime, but the U.S’s murder rate remains eerily high—it is approximately four times the rate of Canada’s.[xi]Most notably, Americans experience significantly higher rates of violence from police officers: For instance, there were more deadly police shootings in the first 24 days of 2015 in the U.S. than there were in England and Wales, combined, over 24 years.[xii]

Rationale & Proposal

Thus, since the public increasingly believes that police officers will continue to assault the civilians they are paid to protect, especially within marginalized neighborhoods, many are proposing that the police sector should be largely “defunded” to instead divert the resources toward absolving communities’ dangerous conditions that are the root cause for initial police involvement. Such a movement entails the demands of “ending mass incarceration, cash bail, fines-and-fees policing, the war on drugs, and police militarization,” while re-investing the former police endowment toward “funding housing-first programs, creating subsidized jobs for the formerly incarcerated, and expanding initiatives to have mental-health professionals and social workers respond to emergency calls,” instead.[xiii] Many believe that the police have too many interactions with the public while being heavily-armed, from answering drug-overdose emergency calls to responding to mental-health emergencies, which may increase the potential for violent escalation. Many argue that cutting police funding and transferring such responsibilities to social workers, mental health professionals, and other specialists would create better outcomes for communities.[xiv] Essentially, “defund the police” calls for the shrinking of the scope of police responsibilities and shifting the government’s safety protocols to organizations that may be better equipped to meet such needs.[xv]

Case Studies&Counterarguments

To advise judgment and hypothesize predictions of what a “defunding” of the police may look like, many have pointed to the example of Camden, New Jersey. The city of 74,000, once overrun with crime, disbanded its police department and formed a new one in 2013. Camden had a colossal murder count along with millions of dollars in policing debt “amid widespread corruption” of the police when the city decided to dissolve its department to create a new, “community-oriented,” non-union version centered around an “anti-force stance.”[xvi] The results were astonishing: the city saw its violent-crime rate drop 42 percent, with killings falling from 67 in 2012 to just 25 last year.[xvii] Additionally, complaints against the police for excessive force have plummeted 95 percent since 2014.[xviii]

Butnot all are convinced by this example: Dan Mclaughlin of the National Review insists that Camden did not truly “defund the police,” but rather simply performed the typical union-busting practice of disbanding the department before hiring the same officers “back at lower salaries and benefits.”[xix]

Furthermore, statistics from the Wall Street Journal regarding crime rates in relation to loosening policing and releasing incarcerated prisoners do not appear to strengthen the “defund the police” movement. In Minneapolis, property crime increased by 33% and violent crime rose 29% through mid-March of this year when a county jail reduced its imprisoned population by 40%.[xx]Moreover, the doubling of violent crime rates in Minneapolis’s third precinct has been directly correlated with the easing of police patrol, since 2018.[xxi]

However, simply pointing to rising crime rates, even when correlated with lowering police influence and increasing prison releases, does not exactly refute the argument and proposal of the “defund the police” coalition. Their view is that much of the present crime can be patiently absolved through funding community-improving programs rather than hastily quenched through financing forceful disciplinary action. The latter and current approach, supporters claim, not only prolongs but also exacerbates the very crime-prone conditions that attract the potentially-malevolent police forces in the first place.

Policy Response &Conclusion

Nevertheless, the cries are being heard. On June 7, the Minneapolis city council announced that they would disband the Minneapolis Police Department completely to begin anew with a community-directed public safety system.[xxii] Although the mayor reaffirmed that he would not support the dissolution of the force, the council confirmed a veto-proof majority.[xxiii] Lawmakers in at least 16 other American cities have pledged or proposed that they would “divest some resources from the police.”[xxiv] In Los Angeles, following peaceful protests on the streets and in front of Mayor Eric Garcetti’s house, the city decided to enact “true police defunding” with plans to cut $100 to $150 million from the LAPD.[xxv]In New York City, Mayor Bill de Blasio agreed to propose a budget for July that cuts the current $6 billion police budget, in addition to increased investment in youth and social services.[xxvi] In San Francisco, Supervisor Shamann Walton announced plans to redirect funding from the police to black communities, even gaining the support of Mayor London Breed, who has previously worked to increase police presence in the California city.[xxvii]

Although it is still uncertain if “defunding the police” will prove to be a successful strategy, it has become clear that our country now stands at a pivotal point in its notorious history of law enforcement. The herculean reaction of the public and the avant-garde responses of city councils in the past few days have shocked the world, giving hope of change to the weary and dismayed while raising concerns among the doubtful. What will unfold in the upcoming weeks is unforeseeable but is almost certain to redefine the concept of American policing and its relationship with the civilian public. Whether one perceives the recent developments as a noble experiment or a radical revolution, a drastically novel image of criminal regulation appears to be momentously inked into the next chapter of our nation’s ever-incalculable story.

________________________________________________________________

[i]Brewster, Jack. “The 'Defund The Police' Movement Is Sweeping The Country-Here's What It Really Means.” Forbes. Forbes Magazine, June 10, 2020. https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackbrewster/2020/06/09/the-defund-the-police-movement-is-sweeping-the-country-heres-what-it-really-means/#f17f1fb4d9be.

[ii]Lowrey, Annie. “Defund the Police.” The Atlantic. Atlantic Media Company, June 7, 2020. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/06/defund-police/612682/.

[iii]Lopez, Christy E. “Opinion | Defund the Police? Here's What That Really Means.” The Washington Post. WP Company, June 7, 2020. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/06/07/defund-police-heres-what-that-really-means/#click=https://t.co/cI7Z2mWTTN.

[iv]Collins, Eliza. “Calls to Cut Funding for Police Grow in Wake of Protests.” The Wall Street Journal. Dow Jones & Company, June 9, 2020. https://www.wsj.com/articles/calls-for-defunding-police-grow-in-wake-of-protests-11591663621.

[v]Brewster, Jack. “The 'Defund The Police' Movement Is Sweeping The Country-Here's What It Really Means.” Forbes. Forbes Magazine, June 10, 2020. https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackbrewster/2020/06/09/the-defund-the-police-movement-is-sweeping-the-country-heres-what-it-really-means/#f17f1fb4d9be.

[vi] Ibid.

[vii] Ibid.

[viii]“Freedom to Thrive: Reimagining Safety & Security in Our Communities.” The Center for Popular Democracy, June 10, 2020. https://populardemocracy.org/news/publications/freedom-thrive-reimagining-safety-security-our-communities.

[ix]“States of Incarceration: The Global Context 2018.” Prison Policy Initiative. https://www.prisonpolicy.org/global/2018.html.

[x] Ibid.

[xi]“Safety.” OECD Better Life Index. http://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/topics/safety/.

[xii]Lartey, Jamiles. “By the Numbers: US Police Kill More in Days than Other Countries Do in Years.” The Guardian. Guardian News and Media, June 9, 2015. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jun/09/the-counted-police-killings-us-vs-other-countries.

[xiii]Lowrey, Annie. “Defund the Police.” The Atlantic. Atlantic Media Company, June 7, 2020. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/06/defund-police/612682/.

[xiv]Collins, Eliza. “Calls to Cut Funding for Police Grow in Wake of Protests.” The Wall Street Journal. Dow Jones & Company, June 9, 2020. https://www.wsj.com/articles/calls-for-defunding-police-grow-in-wake-of-protests-11591663621.

[xv]Miller, Ryan W. “What Does 'Defund the Police' Mean and Why Some Say 'Reform' Is Not Enough.” USA Today. Gannett Satellite Information Network, June 8, 2020. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/06/08/what-does-defund-police-mean-george-floyd-black-lives-matter/5317240002/.

[xvi]Sheehy, Kate. “What Happened after Camden, NJ Disbanded Its Police Department.” New York Post. New York Post, June 9, 2020. https://nypost.com/2020/06/09/what-happened-after-camden-nj-disbanded-its-police-department/.

[xvii]Holder, Sarah. “The City That Remade Its Police Department.” Bloomberg.com. Bloomberg. Accessed June 11, 2020. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-06-04/how-camden-new-jersey-reformed-its-police-department.

[xviii]Sheehy, Kate. “What Happened after Camden, NJ Disbanded Its Police Department.” New York Post. New York Post, June 9, 2020. https://nypost.com/2020/06/09/what-happened-after-camden-nj-disbanded-its-police-department/.

[xix]McLaughlin, Dan. “The Media Urge to Explain Away 'Defund the Police'.” National Review. National Review, June 10, 2020. https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/the-media-urge-to-explain-away-defund-the-police/.

[xx]Editorial Board. “Defund Police, Watch Crime Return.” The Wall Street Journal. Dow Jones & Company, June 8, 2020. https://www.wsj.com/articles/defund-police-watch-crime-return-11591658454.

[xxi] Ibid.

[xxii]“Minneapolis City Council Members Say They Plan to Vote to Disband City's Police Department.” CBS News. CBS Interactive, June 9, 2020. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/minneapolis-city-council-intent-disband-police-department/.

[xxiii]Milman, Oliver. “Minneapolis Pledges to Dismantle Its Police Department – How Will It Work?” The Guardian. Guardian News and Media, June 8, 2020. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jun/08/minneapolis-city-council-police-department-dismantle.

[xxiv]Holder, Sarah. “The Cities Taking Up Calls to Defund the Police.” CityLab, June 10, 2020. https://www.citylab.com/equity/2020/06/defund-police-city-council-budget-divest-public-resources/612694/.

[xxv]Ibid.

[xxvi]Rubinstein, Dana. “De Blasio Vows for First Time to Cut Funding for the N.Y.P.D.” The New York Times. The New York Times, June 7, 2020. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/07/nyregion/deblasio-nypd-funding.html.

[xxvii]Holder, Sarah. “The Cities Taking Up Calls to Defund the Police.” CityLab, June 10, 2020. https://www.citylab.com/equity/2020/06/defund-police-city-council-budget-divest-public-resources/612694/.

Photo Credit: Taymaz Valley

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invisiblewealthproject · 5 years ago

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JIM WALTON’S estimated wealth is $44.6 billion. He was the chairman of Walmart company until 2016 and is the youngest son of Walmart’s founder Sam Walton. Walmart is an American retail company that was founded in 1962 and has 11,000 stores internationally. Walmart is the largest private employer in America, employing more than 2 million people. Jim Walton has two siblings Rob and Alice Walton. Both of who are some of the world’s wealthiest people. Their combined wealth is roughly $140 billion.

Walmart has been criticised for decades for many of their business practices such as paying low wages, racial discrimination, environmental waste, union busting and spying on it’s employees and critics. Walmart has had numerous legal battles involving issues of low wages, poor working conditions and healthcare. Walmart has been accused by a former store manager John Lehman of having a full time surveillance team of 12 people who monitor employees internal calls and emails for signs of union organizing and criticism of the company.

In 1988 Sam Walton established the Walton Family Foundation a charitable trust that donates money to three areas: education, the environment and the family’s home state of Arkansas. In 2014 it was revealed that The Walton’s had donated $0 to their own charitable trust, though it is one of the most wealthy charities worth $2 billion. The Foundation uses complex financing and some critics suspect it is a tax avoidance scheme used by the Walton’s. Billionaires like Bill Gates and Warren Buffett have given 36% and 27% of their wealth to charities of their choice, where as the Walton’s have given 0.04% of their wealth to charity. In 2018 Walmart increased it’s minimum wage from $9 per hour to $11 per hour, after a massive corporation tax cut. It’s estimated that Walmart avoids $1 billion in taxes each year and that is only expected to increase. #invisiblewealth #taxthewealthy

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marcjampole · 8 years ago

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Want to improve your children’s chance of academic success? Research says send them to public schools

I’m not sure whether it was the author or the headline writer, but someone in the New York Times produced a headline that certainly constitutes false news: “Dismal Results from Vouchers Surprise Researchers.” The problem with it is that those researchers who have been paying attention already know that public policy driving families to put their children into private schools will achieve dismal results. Objective researchers in the pursuit of knowledge aren’t, or shouldn’t be surprised that kids using vouchers to attend private schools experience declines in academic performance. Perhaps Kevin Carey, who wrote the article, or the unknown specialist who composed the headline, meant to say that it surprised right-wing policy wonks and political pundits, who for the better part of a quarter of a century have been pushing vouchers, charter and private schools as a means to destroy teachers’ unions and produce new income streams for businesses.

Certainly Carey, who directs the education policy program for the ostensibly non-partisan think tank New America, must have read The Public School Advantage: Why Public Schools Outperform Private Schools, a 2013 study by Sarah Theule Lubienski and Christopher A. Lubienski that demonstrates without a doubt that public schools outperform private schools when we correct raw data to account for wealth, per student spending, disabilities and other factors. I wouldn’t expect the Times headline writer to know of this important book, as a Google search at the time it came but revealed just one review in the mainstream media. The media doesn’t like to review books that disprove the current political nonsense, whatever it is.

Using two recently generated large-scale national databases, the Lubienskis show that demographic factors such as wealth and disabilities explain any advantage seen in private school performance in the 21st century. Private schools have higher scores not because they are better at educating children but because their students come mostly from wealthy backgrounds. After correcting for demographics, the Lubienskis demonstrate conclusively that gains in student achievement at public schools are great and greater than those made at private ones. The Lubienskis take on the critics of real educational reform, the politicians and other factotums of the rich who don’t want to do anything that requires greater spending on students, such as teacher certification programs and curriculum and instruction advances. The Lubienskis show that these reforms do work.

The latest research reported by Carey in his Times article concerns the results on standardized tests of students who have used voucher programs to enroll in private schools. Vouchers, which right-wingers and Republicans have been pushing for years, give money earmarked for public education to families, which they pay to private schools to educate their children. The never-proved principle underlying vouchers, first proposed by right-wing economic mountebank Milton Friedman, is that giving parents choice will improve public education by forcing it to compete with other schools.

Over the past few years, Republican legislatures have implemented widespread voucher programs in a number of states such as Indiana, Louisiana and Ohio. As Carey reports, vouchers have largely failed to improve school performance, and in fact, have harmed the performance of many children:

· Indiana children who transferred to private schools using vouchers “experienced significant losses in achievement” in math and saw no improvement in reading.

· Children, primarily poor and black, who used vouchers to switch to private schools in Louisiana, achieved negative results in both reading and math; elementary school children who started at the 50th percentile in math and then transferred via voucher to a private school dropped to 26th percentile in one year.

· A study financed by the right-wing, anti-union Walton family and conducted by a conservative think tank found that Ohio students using vouchers to attend private schools fared much worse when compared to their peers in public school, especially in math.

· It turns out that the best charter schools, another variation on school choice liked by the right wing, are those that are nonprofit public schools open to everyone and accountable to public authorities. The more “private” a charter school, the worse its student perform.

There could be many explanations for the lousy performance voucher students in private schools achieved compared to public schools, but I think it comes down to the simple fact that the teachers tend to be more experienced, more educated and more professional in public schools. Why is that? Because they are better paid.

In the real world, the best get paid the most. The best lawyers tend to make the most money. The best accountants tend to make the most money. The best writers—business and entertainment—tend to make the most money. The best musicians tend to make the most money. Forget the obscene fact that Beyoncé makes about 200 times what the concertmaster for the New York Philharmonic and the masterful jazz pianist Orrin Evans do. They both do quite well when compared to the average piano teacher who gives lessons at the Jewish Community Center or YMCA.

Public school teachers make more money than private school teachers. Doesn’t it make sense that they would therefore do a better job and that public schools would therefore do better in quantitative comparisons? I know that there are some very competent and dedicated private school teachers, but in general, how could the aggregate of private school teachers keep up with public school teachers, who make so much more money?

The reason that public school teachers make more money is one of the primary reasons right-wingers want to dismantle public schools: unions. Right-wingers hate unions because they force employers to pay better wages to employees, leaving less profit for the company’s owners and operators. In unionized workplaces, employees make a far larger share of the pie than in nonunionized ones. Thus by leaving public schools and going into private ones, children leave an environment in which their teachers are highly paid but administrators make less than they would in the private sector for an environment in which teachers are paid less and administrators more, and if the school is for-profit, money is siphoned off as profit for investors. By definition, less money is spent on education in private schools. That is, unless the tuition is so high that the voucher covers only a small part of it, in which case the voucher is merely a subsidy to the wealthy, who likely would have sent their children to the chichi expensive private school no matter what.

The reason companies bust unions is greed. Greed also plays a major role in the insistence against all facts and reasoning that school choice will solve every educational challenge. Choice is the preferred answer because it doesn’t involve spending more money and raising taxes. In fact, over time, vouchers can be used to cut educational budgets if the stipulated voucher amounts do not keep up with inflation.

Despite the fact that taxes on the wealthy are still at an historic low for a western industrial democracy, rich folk and their political and policy factotums do not want to raise the taxes needed to create an educational system that works for everyone. Here are some of the things that we could do with added tax revenues earmarked to public education:

· Smaller classroom sizes for elementary and middle school children.

· Computers for every student in every class.

· A return to the days of art, music and other enrichment programs.

· New textbooks that reflect the latest findings in science and social science.

· More special programs for both the disabled and the gifted and talented.

· True school choice, which involves vocational programs in the technology, hospitality and healthcare industries for high school students.

Keeping their taxes low and busting unions are not the only reasons well-heeled ultra conservatives advocate for vouchers. Some, like our current Secretary of Education, hope to profit by investing in for-profit schools. Others, and again Secretary DeVos is among them, want to use public funds to finance the teaching of religion in private religious schools. Perhaps not ironically, moral education of the masses and suppression of unions seem always to go hand-in-hand since the industrial revolution of the 19th century. In this sense, religion is a form of social control and a social solvent that dissolves the perception of class differences.

Thus, when you hear Trumpty-Dumpty, DeVos and other supporters of voucher programs for education spout their pious homilies, remember that they have absolutely no interest in providing our children with a high-quality education that prepares for a meaningful life and rewarding career. Nor are they dedicated to a higher principle they call freedom that trumps all other concerns in a free society. Remember, there are all kinds of freedoms, such as freedom from hunger, from ignorance, from illness, from pain. Be it education or healthcare, when they cry freedom, they only mean freedom of choice or freedom to make money unencumbered by social concerns.

No, it’s neither an interest in America’s children nor dedication to principle that motivates the rich folk behind the school choice movement. It’s simple greed.

#education vouchers publiceducation Trump DeVos

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deniscollins · 5 years ago

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Walmart’s Strategy When Wading Into Culture Wars: Offend Few

On the environment, Walmart has been viewed as an industry leader by reducing carbon emissions in its trucking fleet and supplier network, and cutting back on plastic packaging for thousands of food and household items it sells in its stores. But Walmart continues to use plastic bags in its checkout lines, while big competitors like Kroger are phasing them out. Some executives have expressed concerns that switching entirely out of plastic could delay moving customers through the checkout as quickly as possible and turn off shoppers who prefer the convenience of plastic, according to two people briefed on the discussions. If you were a Walmart executive, would you phase out the use of plastic bags in checkout lines: (1) Yes, (2) No? Why? What are the ethics underlying your decision?

Walmart is getting out of the vaping business, but still sells cigarettes. It is working to reduce plastic packaging for the products on its shelves, but continues to use plastic grocery bags in its checkout lines. After a gunman killed 22 people at a Walmart in El Paso this summer, the retailer said it would no longer offer certain types of ammunition, but stopped short of barring customers from carrying their guns into stores.

When navigating the nation’s culture wars, Walmart follows a strategy it has honed for years: Alienate as few customers as possible, and do no harm to its core business. In many cases, it appears to be working. Walmart’s stance on guns, for example, drew a lot of attention but had “no discernible impact” on overall sales, according to a top executive, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal matters.

Once viewed in many parts of the country as a union-busting killer of Main Street businesses, Walmart and its chief executive, Doug McMillon, have received plaudits of late for taking stands not just on guns but on issues like carbon emissions and Confederate flags. “When did Walmart grow a conscience?” read a headline in The Boston Globe.

Interviews with more than a dozen Walmart executives, former executives, company advisers and regulators show that the retailer’s approach to public policy issues is more nuanced than a desire to simply do the right thing.

When Walmart said it would remove e-cigarettes from its shelves in September, vaping critics praised the move as validation of their health concerns. But Walmart’s decision was partly driven by concerns that the retailer would be stuck with excess inventory if more regulators began to outlaw vaping, executives say.

Over all, Walmart remains committed to tobacco. In fact, when CVS announced it was ending cigarette sales five years ago, Walmart considered making a similar move. But executives concluded that cigarette sales were in keeping with the retailer’s brand as serving the mass market, according to two people briefed on the decision-making who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. Some executives also thought that Walmart might gain market share after the pharmacy chain’s exit from the market, one of the people said.

But internal company discussions about plastic grocery bags show the tension between Walmart’s environmental concerns and its sales goals.

Walmart continues to use plastic bags in its checkout lines, while big competitors like Kroger are phasing them out. The company offers reusable bags at some registers, but some executives have expressed concerns that switching entirely out of plastic could delay moving customers through the checkout as quickly as possible and turn off shoppers who prefer the convenience of plastic, according to two people briefed on the discussions.

“My impression is that this is a company that does seem to care beyond the bottom line,” said Arun Sundararajan, a professor at New York University’s Stern School of Business. “But you also have to keep in mind it is still a highly efficient competitor.”

In the company’s last earnings report, for its fiscal second quarter, its revenue climbed 3 percent, lifted by a 37 percent jump in e-commerce sales. Its profit for the quarter was $5.6 billion, and its stock is up 26 percent since the start of the year.

It is perhaps no coincidence that Walmart’s public relations victories come as its rival Amazon is being battered by antitrust concerns and criticism about onerous working conditions, issues that the original big-box retailer has spent years trying to defuse, with some success.

Many credit Mr. McMillon with positioning Walmart as a socially responsible company, while also finding ways to increase sales in the United States for 20 consecutive quarters. Through a spokesman, Mr. McMillon declined to be interviewed for this article.

Publicly, he has said he wants to stay above the political fray. But when Walmart takes a stand, Mr. McMillon has tried to convey the company’s position without “spiking the football” and inflaming the other side, one executive said.

“Politics moves around,” Mr. McMillon said during an interview in 2017 in his wood-paneled, first-floor office in a converted, largely windowless warehouse in Bentonville, Ark., where the company’s top officials work. The company’s founder, Sam Walton, used to occupy the same office, and kept a rifle by the front door because he sometimes hunted after work.

“We are on our 11th administration, since Walmart was born,” Mr. McMillon added. “There will be a 12th. There will be a 13th.”

Mr. McMillon, 53, grew up in a small city in northeast Arkansas, but later moved to the northwest part of the state to Bentonville. His father was a dentist, and his mother stayed home taking care of the children. Mr. McMillon started working at Walmart in high school and went to the University of Arkansas. He worked his way up the company ladder running Sam’s Club and then the international division. Mr. McMillon was the favorite of Mr. Walton’s heirs, who own a large amount of Walmart’s stock and sit on the board.

Mr. McMillon voices Mr. Walton’s paternalistic view of Walmart as a benevolent employer and economic actor, whose size and scale can force change across the world.

“The world is a better place with Walmart in it,” Mr. McMillon told thousands of cheering employees at last year’s shareholder meeting. “The next generation needs this company.”

Mr. McMillon shared a similar lofty assessment of Walmart with the Obama administration, where some officials had a skeptical view of the big retailer.

Not long after taking over in 2014, Mr. McMillon spoke to Labor Secretary Tom Perez to say he supported stronger overtime rules that favored workers. The chief executive explained how improving the fortunes of low-wage workers would help Walmart’s bottom line by increasing the quality of service in its stores.

Many in the administration, which was also pushing for a higher federal minimum wage, appreciated Mr. McMillon’s support on the overtime rule. But some of the officials did not overlook that Walmart, which employs about 1.5 million people in the United States, remained resistant to unionizing its American stores.

The same year Walmart raised its starting wage, the company also eliminated health care coverage for tens of thousands of part-time employees. The company says it provides health insurance to 1.1 million workers and their families.

“Their strategy is to give a little here and there, but not provide the thing that is most valuable to workers, which is collective bargaining,” said Sharon Block, who ran the policy office at the Labor Department during the Obama administration and now teaches at Harvard Law School. “That is the only way Walmart workers are going to make any real gains.”

Helping shape Walmart’s public affairs strategy is Dan Bartlett, the head of communications for President George W. Bush. Mr. Bartlett is known for his pragmatism, his ability to work with both parties and his understanding of the Deep South, according to a former Walmart colleague. One of Mr. Bartlett’s top deputies was a speechwriter for Hillary Clinton during her 2008 presidential campaign.

Mr. McMillon, who earned about $23 million last year, has seen his profile grow nationally. In September, he was named the next chairman of the Business Roundtable, a lobbying group for large corporations that recently expressed the need for companies to benefit not just shareholders but also their employees and the environment.

It was the needs of Walmart employees, Mr. McMillon said, that prompted him to speak out after the racist-fueled violence in Charlottesville, Va., in August 2017. Walmart is considered the nation’s largest single private employer of Hispanics, and just as many African-American women shop at the retailer as rural white men.

Mr. McMillon, who was serving on a White House advisory board on manufacturing, publicly criticized President Trump for not condemning the white supremacists at the rally. Other executives on the advisory board stepped down, although Mr. McMillon stayed on until Mr. Trump disbanded the group amid the controversy.

“When something like that happens, we have to look at our own associates as leaders and feel good about how we are representing the company,” Mr. McMillon said in the 2017 interview.

This year, Mr. McMillon is again advising the Trump administration. In March, he and several other chief executives of large companies joined the White House’s American Workforce Policy Advisory Board, which is discussing issues around workers whose jobs are being displaced by technology.

Walmart did not issue a release about Mr. McMillon’s appointment to the board.

#Walmart

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