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NOAM CHOMSKY - Secrets, Lies and Democracy
"People can disrupt, make suggestions, but the same is true of a slave society. People who aren’t owners and investors have nothing much to say about it. They can choose to rent their labor to the corporation, or to purchase the commodities or services that it produces, or to find a place in the chain of command, but that’s it. That’s the totality of their control over the corporation."
Rep. Jim McGovern (MA-02) speaks on the current farm bill and the proposed cuts to food stamps, Washington, D.C., May 21, 2013. Call Congress and tell your r...
“The idea that some lives matter less is the root of all that is wrong with the world.” ― Paul Farmer
I love this quote. It is brilliant.
By Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers , Truthout
What can local and federal governments do to resolve the foreclosure crisis for real?
MORE:http://truth-out.org/news/item/16631-housing-crisis-continues-government-favors-banks-over-people#.UaYP9PTCU6M.scoopit
Pope Francis has hit out at unbridled capitalism and the "cult of money", calling for ethical reform of the financial system to create a more humane society. In an impassioned appeal, the Argentinian pontiff said politicians needed to be bold in tackling the root causes of the economic crisis, which he said lay in an acceptance of money's "power over ourselves and our society". "We have created new idols," he said in a speech in the Vatican. "The worship of the golden calf of old has found a new and heartless image in the cult of money and the dictatorship of an economy which is faceless and lacking any truly humane goal."
It makes sense. If you improve the quantity – as well as the quality of care-centered communications, it is likely that patients will feel staff is more responsive, and better communication specifically about pain management and medications would increase those scores. However, care-centered conversations can often lose out to administrative and transactional dialog leaving little time to build relationships, emphathize, and engage in other more affective communications with encouragement and coaching. Another survey last week on communication, this one by Ponemon, found that outdated communications devices can make it harder to deliver effective patient care. AComputerWorld article notes: “Clinicians in the survey estimated that only 45% of each workday is spent with patients; the remaining 55% is spent communicating and collaborating with other clinicians and using EMRs and other clinical IT systems.” An infographic on the survey shows other highlights: - Clinicians waste an average of 46 minutes each day due to the use of outdated technologies. The primary reason is the inefficiency of pagers (as cited by 52%).
- It takes 102 minutes to be discharged. About 37 minutes is spent waiting for doctors, specialists or others to respond with information necessary for a patient’s release.
- A lengthy discharge process costs the U.S. hospital industry more than $3.189 billion a year in lost revenue.
MORE:http://epatientexperience.com/are-care-centered-conversations-the-key-to-success/?goback=%2Egde_2280818_member_241599108
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On Thursday, entrepreneur and self-described one percenter Nick Hanauer warned Congress that rich people like him aren’t the engines of the economy.
Photo by Gary Cope There are four hot summer budget battles ahead.
By Jeannette Wicks-Lim, Dollars & Sense | News Analysis
The 2011 official poverty rate is 15.1%. The new poverty measure presented—and missed by a wide margin—the opportunity to bring into public view how widespread the problem of poverty is for American families. If what we mean by poverty is the inability to meet one’s basic needs a more reasonable poverty line would tell us that 34% of Americans—more than one in three—are poor.
The US has a new, but only marginally improved, poverty measure.
MORE: http://truth-out.org/news/item/16895-undercounting-the-poor
Gar Alperovitz recently took time from his busy schedule to discuss the arguments in his new book and explore the ramifications of social and economic change in an era of pending systemic collapse.
..."Like reform, evolutionary reconstruction involves step-by-step nonviolent change. But like revolution, evolutionary reconstruction changes the basic institutions of ownership of the economy, so that the broad public (rather than “the one percent”) increasingly comes to own more and more of the nation’s productive assets. As the old system decays, an evolutionary reconstruction would see the foundations of a new system gradually rising and replacing failing elements of the old. Though the press doesn’t much cover this, such processes are already observable in many parts of the current American system. Some numbers: There are now ten thousand worker-owned companies of one kind or another in the country. And they are expanding over time, and they’re becoming more democratic rather than less. There are 130 million people who are members of one or another form of cooperative. A quarter of American electricity is produced by either municipal ownership or cooperatives. Twenty-five percent of American electricity is, in other words, “socialized.” There are neighborhood corporations, land trusts, and other municipal and state strategies. One can observe such a dynamic developing in the central neighborhoods of some of the nation’s larger cities, places that have consistently suffered high levels of unemployment and poverty. In such neighborhoods, democratizing development has gone forward, paradoxically, precisely because traditional policies have been politically impossible. "...
MORE:http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/16847-the-next-american-revolution-has-already-begun-gar-smith-interviews-gar-alperovitz#.UbT621QExBs.scoopit
Economist Richard Wolff talks about battling rampant capitalism and fighting for economic justice.
The United States ranks toward the bottom among developed countries when it comes to work-life balance, according to the updated Better Life Index from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
Best-selling investigative journalist Barbara Ehrenreich and the Institute for Policy Studies have launched an Economic Hardship Reporting Project to force this country’s crisis of poverty and economic insecurity to the center of the national conversation. Unemployed, underemployed, and anxiously employed Americans need to know that they are not alone, that the current economic crisis is not their fault and that they are not always getting the information they need to find solutions.
A decent provision for the poor is the true test of civilization." —Samuel Johnson
What does that say about us?
"This great song by Patti Smith suits perfect with these days... Sometimes, we must look behind the bright lights..."
Via Michael Charney
Our Budget, Our Stories The federal budget is our budget. It affects our lives every day, from the roads we drive on to the health care we receive. It is personal and local – our taxes fund it, and our communities receive support through it in the form of grants and services. The Faces of the Budget project tells the story of the federal budget through ordinary folks’ personal experience. We’re illustrating all the ways the federal budget touches people’s lives – and what they think about budget decisions being made in Washington D.C.
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