Thursday, April 14, 2011
How 12 Multinational Corporations Avoid Paying Taxes
April 13, 2011 |
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A new report out today illustrates that at least 11 other multinational, billion-dollar corporations managed to get a free pass from the IRS – and not only that, but while average Americans scraped their piggy banks to pay hefty taxes on paltry paychecks, many of these companies actually got a refund. Want to know how they pulled that off? By the fatcat’s swindle: lobbying, campaign contributions, and other legal gladhanding that helps them exploit corporate loopholes and keeps their pockets flush while the rest of us struggle to get by.
The campaign reform group Public Campaign has released a report called "Artful Dodgers," identifying 12 corporations – including GE – that used these tactics to avoid paying any taxes while reaping huge benefits. More disturbingly, the report notes they collectively spent over a billion dollars influencing politicians to make Washington more corporate-friendly. As the report points out, the money invested to sway groups such as the House Ways and Means Committee and the Senate Finance Committee has been wildly successful. Legislation from both parties has created these tax loopholes, while providing incentives that effectively destroy the American workforce. Public Campaign:
According to the non-partisan Government Accountability Office (GAO), eighty-three of the 100 largest publicly traded U.S. corporations utilize such tax havens to reduce their U.S. tax liability. Ironically, these accounting tricks aren’t available for companies that only do business in the United States, so Congress in effect is providing tax incentives to ship jobs overseas and dismantle the middle class.Public Campaign (PC) researched "the lobbying expenses and political contributions of 12 large, well-known corporations, their political action committees (PACs), and their executives," and broke them down into four categories: Oil, Banks, Transportation, and Telecommunication and Technology.
Let’s use an example from the latter category first, since GE falls into it. While the general brouhaha surrounding the company involved its tax-free 2010, PC notes that it has in fact not paid any taxes since 2006, despite raking in $26 billion since then. Since 2006, it has collected tax refunds of $4.1 billion. Further, despite being "one of the worst polluters in the world," GE has gained these benefits from aggressively lobbying for green tax breaks for using wind turbines. Its zealousness in political contributions has probably helped; in 10 years, GE, employees and PACs have given more than $13 million in federal contributions, along with a whopping $205 million on lobbying.
GE's partner in the telecommunications category, Verizon, is no less absurd. PC reminds us that last year the company caused an outrage when it "exploited a tax loophole to sell 4.8 million rural phone lines at a profit while avoiding $600 million in taxes." The shocking amount it ponied up in federal taxes? Zilch. And like GE, Verizon’s quite generous when it comes to contributions to committees that control taxation and regulation: in 10 years, it's dropped $12 million in campaign contributions, and another $131 million on lobbying. That’s a lot, but still less than it would have had to pay in taxes if it was held to the same standards as the rest of us.
So who else made the hotlist? Aside from the lucrative oil industry – ExxonMobil, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Valero – there were a few surprises on the transportation list – Boeing, sure, but also FedEx and Carnival Cruise Lines? But perhaps the most infuriating corporations included are big-time recipients of corporate welfare – Bank of America, Citi, and Goldman Sachs, which helped decimate the housing market, were all rescued by the taxpayer-supported bailout but managed to pay little to no taxes in 2010. Last year, Bank of America made $4.4 billion...and received a refund of $1.9 billion.
Clearly, the moral of this story is that these corporations are not sneaking around the government, slithering through back alleys in order to avoid paying taxes. They are essentially lobbying our government – individuals we elected – into submission, tipping the tax brackets in their favor on the backs of average, everyday Americans. Congress wants to make huge budget cuts in social programs that help us in myriad ways, and yet many of the same politicians would rather punish the poor than make corporations pay their fair share. As PC points out:
Elected officials across the political spectrum are talking about the need for shared sacrifice to reduce our deficit. Both Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) and President Obama have talked about getting rid of special interest tax loopholes. But, talk doesn’t equal action. And it’s not going to happen as long as well-heeled companies like G.E. or Chevron are able to use millions in lobbying and campaign contributions to advocate for the creation of loopholes and tax breaks, and against their closure. Reforming our tax code won’t happen when every line in it has a special interest that will push back against any increase.
Is American Idol Having Its Most Racist, Sexist Season Yet?
April 8, 2011 |
American Idol attraction at Hollywood Studios.
Photo Credit: BestWDW at Flickr
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American Idol has a racism problem. American Idol also has a sexism problem. That's true generally—four of its nine winners have been female; three of its nine winners have been people of color (two women, one man). But it's especially true this season.
The season started out with 13 finalists: Six men, seven women. So far this season, only one man has been voted off—and the judges used their one and only "save" to rescue him from elimination. At this point in the season, we are down to eight contestants—six men, and two women.
[Spoiler warning for image below the fold and related discussion that reveals who was eliminated last night.]
From left to right: African-American contestant Ashthon Jones, Puerto Rican-American contestant Karen Rodriguez, African-American contestant Naima Adedapo, Filipina-American contestant Thia Megia, and Italian-American contestant Pia Toscano.
Above are the contestants who have been eliminated so far this season. All—all—of the women of color were voted off first. (With the exception of the white male contestant who was voted off and saved; the next week, two women of color were sent home.) When only three white women were left, the most "ethnic"-looking of the three women, who was widely regarded as one of the best singers in the competition, was eliminated.
A woman of color hasn't won since Season 6 (Jordin Sparks); seasons 7, 8, and 9 were all won by white men (David Cook, Kris Allen, and Lee DeWyze, respectively). All but one (Jacob Lusk, who was in the bottom three last night) of the remaining male contestants this season are white (or present as white*), so odds are that a white man will win American Idol again this year.
There is an argument to be made that this isn't American Idol's fault, but America's. The show has a geographical bias that favors southern contestants—six of the nine winners have been from southern states, and the three exceptions were Jordin Sparks who was from the southwest (Arizona), David Cook who was from the upland south (Missouri), and Lee DeWyze who was from Illinois but living in Oklahoma when he auditioned for the show. Four of the five female contestants voted off have been from New York, California, or Wisconsin. Only Ashthon Jones was from Georgia.
And then there's the argument that the US is itself a deeply sexist and racist place, so it ought to be no surprise when the voting reflects those values. Of the top 10 best-selling music artists in the US, only Barbra Streisand is not a white male.
Except.
If you start looking at best-selling lists of recent decades, things start looking different. Best-sellers are not a sea of white male faces, anymore.
(And there's a separate issue about, for example, Motown music being covered over and over, instead of originals considered untouchable canon, which affects all-time best-sellers lists, and which is a whole other post I will write someday, but suffice it to say all-time US best-sellers lists are deceptively white, anyway.)
Yes, American Idol votes skew based on the same prejudices that affect all parts of US culture and the same clan-championing that goes on in US politics. But the show treats female and male contestants fundamentally differently, encouraging creativity among the boys and conformity among the girls. (Gee, where have I heard that before?)
And, beyond the creative-compliant disparity, there is the routinely reinforced narrative that (straight) male voters should support male contestants because they're cool, and (straight) female voters should support male contestants because they're hot. There were no staged scenes of teenybopper boys running onstage to throw themselves at Pia's feet (like Scotty McCreery got, with teenybopper girls)—or staged scenes of young girls running up to ask for her autograph. The only reason to vote for a female contestant, it seems, it because she's a good singer. "This is ultimately a singing competition," the judges like to say, so that ought to be enough.
But it's not enough, because calling American Idol just a singing competition is dishonest. And all the little staged extras, and the opportunities to show "personality," and all the other "showbiz spectacle" detritus that increases exponentially every year, favors the boys.
Which would just be exasperating, and nothing more than a reason to change the channel, were it not for the millions of little girls vested in the show—and internalizing the lessons it's teaching about how "America" treats men and women, especially women of color.
[Note: All of the female finalists this year were also thin.]
-------------------------------------
* Earlier in the season, the country contestant, Scotty McCreery, told Lopez his grandmother wanted him to tell her that he is one-quarter Puerto Rican. McCreery, however, trades on a cowpoke image inextricably associated, if wrongly so, with whiteness, and his family history did not come up again until this week, when he awkwardly attributed his dance moves this week to "the Puerto Rican blood." Shut Up!
Boehner: When we say 'privatize' Medicare, we don't mean 'privatize'
This is encouraging: "privatization" is still a dirty word, when it comes to Medicare. At least, if you can judge by Speaker John Boehner, who says that the Republican plan to replace Medicare with vouchers that can by used to purchase private insurance is not privatization.
"There's no privatizing of Medicare," Boehner said. "We're transforming Medicare so that it'll be there for the future." A reporter asked Boehner whether his members support the GOP budget, which includes a plan to give seniors vouchers to buy insurance in a private marketplace. He offered less than a full-throated defense.The less-than-enthusiastic endorsement of the privatization plan from Boehner might have a little something to do with this:
"I think it's an option worth considering," Boehner said. "I think our members are in full support of us continuing to march forward with our budget."
The most popular position in the GOP’s coalition isn’t that Medicare needs a complete overhaul, as Ryan thinks. It isn’t that it needs major changes, or even that it needs minor changes. It’s that we shouldn’t try and control costs at all. That’s not true for the Democrats’ coalition, where both “minor changes” and “major changes” beat “no cost control,” and it’s not true for the independent coalition, where “minor changes” at least tie cost control.While Republican politicians and members of Congress might not need Medicare, or know anyone personally who needs it, plenty of regular-people-type Republicans do. And even they don't want to see the program changed.
The Racist Anti-Abortion Group That Criminalizes Black Motherhood
The Racist Anti-Abortion Group That Criminalizes Black Motherhood
April 12, 2011 |
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"Every 21 minutes," the billboard read, "our next possible leader is aborted." Next to that text runs the very recognizable profile of our commander-in-chief. Get their message? It's not subtle: black women, they have no shame in saying, are destroying black communities. By choosing abortion, they're decimating our future (never mind that Obama's mother was white). Black women cannot be trusted, these ads clearly imply -- not with their children and families, and certainly not with decisions about their own bodies. Do not trust black women, Life Always implores you. Do not trust them.
It's a message anti-abortion advocates are getting very good at spreading -- and I for one have had enough of it. As a black mother, I take these ads personally -- and you know what, Life Always? I am offended. I am enraged. I am disgusted that it seems to you, and to all these folks who are willing to sell you ad space, just fine to call black women dangerous, incompetent and downright dumb, out in the open air.
To expose these children that you claim to care so much about to messages that come a hair's breath away from criminalizing their mothers. To assume we don't have the good common sense to make reasonable decisions about the limits of our bodies, and our families. To treat us so definitively like what we want and need and believe to be best just doesn't matter.
Do I imagine that the folks behind this ad much care about how angry and depressed these ads make me feel? Do I think they mind that seeing a billboard declaring "the most dangerous place for an African American is in the womb" – in my own hometown-- made me want to tear my hair out with shame and grief? Not really.
Because despite their use of the first person possessive to describe their relationship to the black community, what's agonizingly clear is that groups like Life Always don't really give a fig about black people – not about how they make us feel with their racist rhetoric, nor about what happens to black babies after they are born.
If they did care, they would support policies and programs that prevent pregnancies before they happen (and by that I mean policies and programs that are actually proven to work, as opposed to abstinence-only education). They'd stop cutting the guts out of programs that provide subsidized child-care and early education to low-income families, and stop trying to roll back provisions of health-care reform that provide a greater pool of families and children with the medical resources they need.
They'd be leading investigations into why black women die so much more often in childbirth than women of other ethnicities do, and why black babies are also more likely to suffer the same fate, within the first year of their lives.
But they do none of that. Instead, their goal is to undermine the credibility of humanity of people of color, with an eye to the election season that will quickly be upon us. Don't be fooled: as much as it is about anything else, this campaign is about convincing white Americans (who drive past these billboards, too) of the purported continued "pathology" of the black community – and now, in Chicago, they're tying the president directly to that insidious message, as a means of delegitimizing him, too.
That should be enough to make anyone who believes in equality and justice furious – regardless of how you feel about the very complex issue of abortion.
As for me, I'm tired of being insulted. I'm tired of waking up every morning to a new affront to my existence and intelligence. But I know that this only ends when we make it end. The moral arc of the universe may be long, and it may bend towards justice, but it does not bend without our help. So sign a petition to put an end to these menacing campaigns. Stand with an organization working to stop the insanity. Do something now -- before they come to take more than just our wombs.
Elizabeth G. Hines is a writer and co-author of 'Black Titan: A.G. Gaston and the Making of a Black American Millionaire.'
Friday, April 8, 2011
Planned Parenthood Fight Holding Up Budget Deal
Planned Parenthood Fight Holding Up Budget Deal
GOP guys don't want to subsidize Pap smears
By Mary Papenfuss, Newser Staff
Posted Apr 8, 2011 2:02 AM CDT
COMMENTS (6) Do you like this story?
(Newser) – A battle over Planned Parenthood funding has emerged as one of the major sticking points in stalled federal budget talks that could shut down the government, reports the Huffington Post. Specifically, Republicans are refusing to approve money to subsidize Pap smears, which help detect cervical cancer, according to sources. Ironically, all of the principal negotiators in the talks over the issue are men. House Speaker John Boehner said late last night that the party would not approve a budget if any money went to Planned Parenthood through Title X.
The issue is one of the numerous budget riders restricting federal spending that are hanging up talks. Others involve environmental issues like mountaintop mining.The fights are viewed as "culture war" battles between the two parties hidden in the guise of saving money. "The riders that have nothing to do with deficit reduction have sort of taken over Boehner and the Republican Party," said New York Sen. Charles Schumer. "Unless they back off those riders, it's going to be impossible pretty much to avoid a shutdown."
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Televangelist Priest Confesses Affair With Cousin
Televangelist Priest Confesses Affair With Cousin
Manning and KotowskiPhoto: Trinity Network
Thursday, April 7, 2011
THE DISENFRANCHISED FATHER SYNDROME
D.F.S.
THE DISENFRANCHISED FATHER SYNDROME
Gerald L. Rowles, Ph.D.
December 2, 2002
| PREFACE: For a divorced dad, that's a stress value of 221 points (plus the loss of the children) out of the starting gate. Over time, those events may be compounded and reiterated with each court trip and/or visitation sabotage. All too frequently, we must also factor in the devastating effect of false allegations of abuse. A little over 3 decades ago, Holmes and Rahe published the Social Readjustment Rating Scale which ranked life events as to their stress factor on a scale of 1-100. The number 1 rank was "death of a spouse" (death of a child might be presumed as very nearly equivalent) at 100, followed in 2nd place by Divorce (73) 3rd place, Marital Separation (65) then; Changes in financial state (38) Change in Living Conditions (25) Change in residence (20). Compare these event ratings with: Christmas (12); Minor violations of law (11). Other research findings from the Holmes and Rahe scale: This is the key variable - "uncontrollable". To the degree that a dad is involved in an adversarial divorce, the number and frequency of the accompanying stressful life-events and the impact of the repeated experience of helplessness is virtually inestimable in terms of describing what may be an exponential experience of distress. That some men are virtually or partially immobilized by emotional pain that is bound up in a closed system, comes as no foreign notion to me, both as a function of my research experience and of that experience outlined in the comments that follow. But there is more to the Divorced Dads issue than emotional distress, as Maggie Gallagher has so aptly articulated in the linked column. I would point particularly to the stats that indicate that an average of 56% of white males, whether divorced or single, make less than $18,000 per year - or about $8.00 per hour. The post-divorce schedule posted elsewhere on the DA*DI pages demonstrates how vulnerable these men are to the potential for becoming "deadbeat dads" when the court follows the "standard" award for child support. DISENFRANCHISED FATHERS: In my experience working with more than 8000 divorced Fathers, and in some cases their second families, through the DA*DI network, I originally outlined what I then called the Defeated Father Syndrome. In listening to their personal experiences and emotional responses to the experience of divorce and the attendant loss of their child or children, these Fathers almost universally shared a symptom cluster that bridged those symptoms associated with both Depression and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Their depression derived from loss of positive reinforcers, a sense of helplessness, and a growing negative world view. Their PTSD derived from the battleground of the adversarial family court system in which they repeatedly found themselves on the losing end of a losing proposition - attempting to maintain their roles as Fathers. It is not hyperbole to associate this experience with the battleground. A 1995 headline in the Detroit News blared: "Declaring War on America's Deadbeat Dads". The war is real, as are its casualties - children and fathers, but the "deadbeat dad" is largely fictional. Recently, Dr. Sanford Braver published the results of his exhaustive 8-year study of divorce. And in that account, he not only "shatters" the many myths surrounding America's divorced dads, but he also explores the notion of the disenfranchised dad. In a glaring refutation of cultural perception, Dr. Braver found that "men have more trouble recovering emotionally" from divorce. He notes that "most often the man - feels utterly powerless because he can do nothing to prevent the breakup of the marriage." This is entirely consistent with my experience in dealing with the DA*DI dads. Hence, I attached the label Defeated. But this is an outcome-based label. It fails to encompass the whole of the divorced, battle weary father experience and what precipitates that sense of defeat. Dr. Braver more adequately captures the precipitating event in using the label Disenfranchised. He reports, "Fathers are often obsessed with what they perceive as the profound bias against them displayed by the courts and the legal system." And the fact is that such a bias does exist, including the presumption that all divorced dads are or will become deadbeat dads. Expanding on Dr. Braver's findings, Parke and Brott in Throwaway Dads takes us another step closer to understanding the degree to which the contemporary myth of the unfeeling, macho, uninvolved, "deadbeat", if not "dangerous" dad belies the frequent, tragic-reality of the post-divorce, disenfranchised, "visiting father." To their credit, Parke and Brott take note of the fact that "hammering men over the head" with their "wildly exaggerated ... shortcomings only fills them with feelings of shame that serve to drive them further from their families" ... and developing a sense of "being worthless and powerless." The definition of disenfranchised is "to deprive of political rights", "to enslave", "to deprive of a franchise, of a legal right, or of some privilege or immunity". Such is the process of becoming a divorced dad - a disenfranchised parent. These definitions are becoming even more relevant as the Child Support Enforcement statutes become more egregious - e.g., depriving Fathers of their licenses to drive or practice their professions. The following stressors are common in Fathers who have been exposed to divorce and the deeply painful loss of marital attachment and daily involvement in their child(ren)'s life: Most Fathers who become non-custodial parents struggle on valiantly for several years after the epoch event, attempting to maintain some kind of normalcy in their relationship with their offspring. But they gradually, and realistically, come to realize that what is lost is greater than what is preserved. They increasingly feel helpless to have a prominent influence in their child(ren)'s lives. Consequently, in many cases the motivation for career success is significantly diminished. To the degree that the non-custodial Father was involved in his child(ren)'s daily activities, and played an active and nurturant parenting role, the levels of stress will be concommitantly exacerbated. Almost immediately, however, the stressors listed above begin to form symptom clusters that are most often associated with the following clinical syndromes. Because of the singular and shared association with the trauma of divorce and the loss of the Fatherhood role, as well as the frequency of occurrence, a separate diagnostic entity is warranted - the Disenfranchised Father Syndrome:
How do we defend Fathers against the relentless societal juggernaut that drives them into becoming portrayed as psuedo-felons and fictitious-deadbeats? We must first accept the fact that the historic male caricature of the strong, unfeeling and impervious patriarch is a myth in today's society. Many divorced Fathers are the battle-weary casualties of a culture that no longer finds value in Fatherhood, and a court system that is engaged in the self-fulfilling prophecy that they will become deadbeats. We must acknowledge that men can be weakened, and that they frequently become disabled by the same emotional bonds that they have been enculturated to develop with their children - before becoming divorced and disenfranchised. Mental Illness, such as PTSD and/or Depression is disabling, displaying a continuum of severity that substantially limits one or more of a Disenfranchised Father's major life activities. CONCLUSION: As the nationally syndicated columnist Kathleen Parker has so aptly surmised, "The solution to deadbeat dads isn't criminalizing fathers, but allowing them to be part of their children's lives. Tonight, in a nation where fatherlessness is recognized as one of our most serious social problems, 42 percent of all children will sleep in a house where their biological father does NOT live. ... The wonder isn't that we have deadbeat dads, but that we don't have more."It is likely that today's Disenfranchised Father is in many, if not most cases, exhibiting an emotional disability deriving from the divorce experience that substantially limits one or more of his major life activities. Direct evidence of that disability, other than psychological tests for disordered mood, often comes from a sketchy work history, and/or the inability to function at optimal employment capacity. It is highly likely that Fathers who have been imprisoned for failure to meet egregious support provisions, are in fact being imprisoned for emotional disability - the Disenfranchised Father Syndrome - a self-fulfilling by-product of a profoundly biased legal system. Where is the Americans With Disabilities Act then? In the medical and psychiatric professions, when the administered treatment inadvertently produces a negative impact on the patient's well-being, it is known as an iatrogenic illness. In the case of Divorced Dads, I don't believe that there is anything inadvertent about this sometimes profoundly disabling iatrogenic outcome. Rather, it is a deliberate and biased, jackbooted application of the full power of the State. We must continue the struggle to restore equity, and the Fatherhood franchise - for the health of our Dads, for the health of our Kids, and for the future health of our Culture. But we must also be ready to recognize the symptoms of DFS in our brotherhood, and reach out to those deliberately damaged Dads that desperately need our support. Finally, it is important to remember that a man's grief, unlike a woman's, is more likely to be expressed as rage than tears. And all too often, that rage is turned against themselves, in the form of suicide. Even then, in the irrational reaction of guilt and the uncontrollable reaction of grief, they are ironically engaged in protecting others from their fear of their own rage. EPILOGUE: Inspirational quotes from English poet and playwright, John Dryden 1631-1700 Deserted, at his utmost need, By those his former bounty fed; On the bare earth exposed he lies, With not a friend to close his eyes. - Alexander's Feast (st. 4) Whom Fortune wishes to destroy she first makes mad. - Maxim 911. A man is to be cheated into passion, but to be reasoned into truth. - unsourced but attributed to Dryden The gates of Hell are open night and day; Smooth the descent, and easy is the way: But, to return, and view the cheerful skies; In this, the task and mighty labour lies. - Spoken to Aeneas, in his quest to find his father. - Aeneid, bk. 6, l. 126-9, trans. by John Dryden. Forgiveness to the injured does belong; But they ne’er pardon who have done the wrong. - The Conquest of Granada. Part ii. Act i. Sc. 2. Either be wholly slaves or wholly free. - The Hind and the Panther, pt. 2, l. 285 (1687) Happy the man, and happy he alone, He who can call to-day his own; He who, secure within, can say, To-morrow, do thy worst, for I have liv’d to-day. - Imitation of Horace. Book iii. Ode 29, Line 65. The brave man seeks not popular applause, Nor, overpower'd with arms, deserts his cause; Unsham'd, though foil'd, he does the best he can, Force is of brutes, but honor is of man. - Palamon and Arcite (bk. III, l. 2015) Self-defence is Nature’s eldest law. - Absalom and Achitophel, pt. 1, l. 458 (1681). Must I at length the sword of justice draw? Oh curst effects of necessary law! How ill my fear they by my mercy scan, Beware the fury of a patient man. - Absalom and Achitophel (pt. I, l. 1005) (DFS: reprised from the original, 6/21/2000) Back to DA*DI's Home Page |
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Cinematic Art - Throwing Pearls to Swine
April 4, 2011
Critics call it "dull," a "chore to watch"; "artificial," "turgid," "self conscious." In fact, this is a delightful movie for people whose sensibilities haven't been destroyed by a steady diet of sex, violence and special effects.
by Henry Makow Ph.D.
"The City of Your Final Destination," James Ivory's latest and probably last movie is a gem, but you're unlikely to hear about it, let alone see it.
The 83-year-old director of such classics as "A Room with a View," "Howard's End" and "The Remains of the Day," couldn't find a distributor for his last movie. Dim witted critics panned it, giving it 37% approval on Rotten Tomatoes.
The movie bombed at the box office. It cost something like $8,000,000 and only grossed $500,000. Anthony Hopkins is suing for his $750,000 fee.
The movie is about intelligent, articulate, attractive, honest, civilized people trying to improve their lives. It is set in beautiful surroundings and is a great escape from the sordid, hypocritical, materialistic world in which we live.
The premise doesn't seem promising at first. Graduate student Omar Razaghi (Omar Metwally) has a grant to write a biography of Latin American writer Jules Gund but needs the cooperation of his estate controlled by his widow, Christine (played by Laura Linney); brother Adam (Anthony Hopkins) and mistress, Arlen (Charlotte Gainsbourgh) with whom he had a child.
They say no and Omar is about to give up. However his plucky girlfriend Deirdre (Alexandra Maria Lara) convinces him to travel to Uruguay to convince them to change their minds.
He shows up unannounced at their estate, called Ochos Rios. The film is about how civilized people try to get what they want from other civilized people. It is about how they interact. Omar's career depends on getting permission for the biography. Caroline, the widow, doesn't want to cooperate. Deidre is pushing Omar to succeed.
It is a study in character. Omar and Arlen are gentle, unassertive people, who seem to want each other. Christine and Deirdre are very strong and determined people who want success and culture. Anthony Hopkins puts in a magnificent performance as Gund's gay brother who wants to provide for Pete, his life partner.
This is Ivory's first film after the death of his producing and life partner Ishmael Merchant. It was written by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, who is a German Jew, who was married to an Indian. Jhabvala has done the screenplays for most of their movies, which are hit-or-miss affairs.
After this movie, my favorites are "The Bostonians," about a man who deprograms a feminist in the nineteenth century; "Soldier's Daughter Don't Cry" and "Le Divorce."
I rummage through the video store in vain looking for well written movies about intelligent, urbane, attractive people. There aren't many. And when someone like James Ivory makes one, it is like throwing pearls to swine. The world no longer cares about civilized behavior.
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The Trailer
The Hoax of Female Empowerment (Reprise)
March 30, 2011
"Commander in Chief" was canceled after its first 2005-2006 season but it has been replaced by numerous shows featuring female role models that disparage men and seek fulfillment in careers rather than family. After yesterday's article, a reader wrote, "There is so much anti-male bias throughout our western culture today that I can't see how any woman could view any male in a positive light. I am afraid any man in America who marries an American woman is doomed to disappoint her. Marriage today for men is a very risky business." I am reprising this article because it is as true today as it was five-and-a-half years ago. Although they think they're being liberated, young women are being sabotaged by the Illuminati.By Henry Makow Ph.D.
In "Commander in Chief," a new TV-series, President "Mackenzie Allen" (Geena Davis) juggles her responsibilities as Leader of the Free World and mother of teenage twins and a six-year-old-daughter. Her husband has a supporting role, her Chief-of-Staff.
This show prepared the public for Hillary Clinton's 2008 Presidential bid. It also contributed to the false sense of entitlement young women have today, making it harder for them to form successful families.
The success of this behavior modification campaign in the media and education is confirmed by recent British statistics (below) showing the rapid disintegration of the nuclear family. It is also confirmed by unprecedented sexual depravity exhibited by young women today, expressing their total confusion and despair. (I will elaborate below.)
The White House Project, a lobby dedicated to putting a woman in the White House, sponsored an advance screening of "Commander in Chief" in New York with the lead writer Stephen Cohen and prominent women journalists in attendance. The President of this organization, located at 110 Wall Street, Marie Wilson, is also co-founder of "Take Your Daughter to Work" organization.
Nearby at 120 Wall Street, you'll find "Girls Inc." an organization with chapters all over the US dedicated to making girls "strong, smart and bold." It encourages young girls to be self absorbed and ambitious and to make marriage and family their second priority.
Search "Girl Power" in Google and you'll get an assortment of these elite-sponsored projects. Type "Boy Power" and you'll find, "Lawn Boy Recalls Power Mower" and "Lazy Boy Introduces Power Recliner."
Only a nation subverted by the agents of an international financial cartel empowers its young females at the expense of its males. International finance is dedicated to destabilizing society by destroying the family and submerging the US in a world dictatorship. As I will show later, this has been the Illuminati banker goal for 200 years. But first I will explain why "empowering" females leads to a breakdown of heterosexual marriage and family.
THE HETEROSEXUAL DYNAMIC
I do not believe that all young women must marry and have children. However this is the healthy and natural instinct of the vast majority, and is necessary for the perpetuation of society. To encourage them to pursue high-powered careers before they establish strong families is doing them and society a deliberate injustice.
Henry Kissinger once said, "Power is the greatest aphrodisiac." Women are attracted to powerful men. Powerful women repulse men.
Heterosexual marriage is based on a woman surrendering worldly power to a man who is dedicated to her and their children's welfare. Trust and surrender is the way a woman empowers and loves a man. Men want power. Women want love. This exchange -- power for love -- is the essence of heterosexual marriage.The man earns this trust through a patient process of courtship. The woman must consider her choice carefully.
When women challenge and usurp male leadership, marriages fall apart. Masculinity is defined by power. Give women power in an intimate relationship and you have "phallic" women and emasculated men. The glue is dissolved.
Femininity is defined by love and nurturing. To a degree, a woman sacrifices worldly ambition for her husband and children. Women get love by making this sacrifice. Men get love by accomplishments.
Young women no longer know how to sacrifice. By "empowering females" young women are conditioned to behave as males.
Everyone suffers as a consequence but women suffer most. Their lifespan averages 80 years yet their peak years of fertility (and sexual attraction) end around age 32. In other words, they have approximately 12 years to marry and start a family or they may be alone for almost 50 years. Men whose sexual attraction increases with age and confidence have more time.
A British actuarial study reported that marriage is in terminal decline. In the period from 2003 until 2031, the proportion of those never married by age 45 is expected to rise from 14 to 40 per cent for males and nine to 35 per cent for females.
The statistics for children born-out-of-wedlock are devastating. "More than 42 of every 100 babies were born outside marriage last year...in 1994 the figure was 32 per cent and in the early 1970s it was less than 10 per cent."
According to the report, children brought up by married parents fare better than those raised by cohabiting or single parents. Yet the Illuminati UK government has abolished the married couples allowance and its tax credit system favors single parents.
FEMALE SEXUAL DESPAIR
"Girls Gone Raunch" a thoughtful article in Canada's Macleans magazine confirms that young women today equate female empowerment with sexual depravity. Encouraged to compete with men, and spurred by examples like Paris Hilton and Britney Spears, they have adopted a promiscuity more common to single males.
"I was pretty stunned by what I saw in high school students," said Ariel Levy, the author of a study. What she observed was girls everywhere, even at the most progressive schools, doing their best to look the "skankiest," trying to "look as slutty, willing and wanton" as they could. Snapping their thongs and baring their cleavages, these girls had astoundingly gone any sexist male one step better: they were treating themselves and each other like pieces of meat.
When Levy asked one high school student why she was dressed like that and told her that in her own day, "you would have been embarrassed, ostracized to look like that," she looked at me like I was absolutely from Mars and said, 'How did you get the guy? Charm?' "
If anything, admits Levy, women caught up in the "liberating" aspects of raunch "think of men as superior. Over and over again these women are telling me they want to be like a guy. It's really fascinating. It's fetishizing masculinity in the sense that maleness in this equation means smart, funny, capable, brave, sexually adventurous, all of that."
Levy is mystified that feminism which ostensibly aimed to give young women self-respect has resulted in their selling themselves like meat.
She shouldn't be surprised. Feminism was always about rejecting femininity and usurping the masculine role. Femininity is based on women's consecration of her sexuality to a future husband and family. Feminism taught them to behave like men and have sex without love or commitment.
THE ILLUMINATI PROGRAM
"Free love" and the abolition of the family are main tenets of the Communist Manifesto(1848). The success of the Communist subversion of America is shown by our inability to comprehend that this has already taken place. Communism is a front for a scheme to assume control of the world by an ancient satanic cult backed by international bankers. They sponsor most of what ails the world today, including female empowerment.
The Rothschilds formed the modern form of this cult, the Illuminati, in 1776. Shortly afterward, defectors revealed the secret plans to subvert Western (Christian) civilization. On the subject of women, one Illuminati document explained:
"There is no way of influencing men so powerfully as by means of the women. These should therefore be our chief study; we should insinuate ourselves into their good opinion, give them hints of emancipation...of standing up for themselves...it will cause them to work for us with zeal, without knowing that they do so; for they will only be indulging their own desire for personal admiration." (James Wardner, Unholy Alliances 1996, p.35)
Another Illuminati document, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion (1905) talks about eliminating the family and using democracy to manipulate and control the masses. "By cultivating in all a sense of self-importance, we shall destroy among the goyim the importance of the family and its educational value...In this way we shall create a blind mighty force which will never be in a position to move in any direction without the guidance of our agents..." (Protocol 10-5)
CONCLUSION
Obviously many people will do whatever they are told and imitate whatever is presented as "cool." They have not yet learned to distrust the media, government and education.
Female empowerment is a cruel hoax. It flatters and lures young women with money and recognition and paints marriage and family as oppression. Thus many women are deprived of a lifetime of love from husband and children.
The Illuminati-Communists advance their plan by a policy of divide-and-
rule: world war, class war, race war and now gender war. Crime, corruption, dysfunction and decadence are other weapons in their secret war waged on humanity.
The purpose of female empowerment is to dissolve the family and to increase our dependence on the media and government, which are both owned and controlled by agents of Illuminati bankers.
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Related- "Elite Admit Social Engineering"
See also my "American Communism and the Making of Women's Liberation"
and section How Heterosexuality Works C-1 (scroll down)
Most of my writing on feminism is collected in my book, "Cruel Hoax: Feminism & the NWO"
The Genocide You Never Hear Of
March 25, 2011
The massacre of about two million people, the Russian Christian elite, by Bolshevik (i.e. Illuminati) Jews between 1917-1919 represented the genocide of Russian Christian civilization.(An estimated eight million died during the period 1917-1924.) The following description comes from Vicomte Leon de Poncins, "The Secret Powers Behind Revolution" pp. 147-152. Parts are so horrific that they could not be reproduced here. There is only one explanation for why this genocide is repressed, and why no holocaust museums have been erected in its memory. The spiritual descendants of these satanist Bolsheviks run the world today. Anti-Illuminati anti-Communist Jews must take a stand or be blamed for these, present and future Illuminati atrocities.
"The Commission of Inquiry of Deniken on Bolshevist proceedings during the period 1918-1919, in an account of the Red Terror, computed 1.7 million victims.
Professor Sarolea gives in The Scotsman of 7th November 1923 the following official figures published everywhere: 28 Bishops, 1219 priests, 6000 professors and teachers, 9000 doctors, 54,000 officers, 260,000 soldiers, 70,000 policemen, 12,950 property owners, 535,250 members of the intellectual and liberal professions, 193,290 workmen, 618,000 peasants.
Better than any dry statistics, the following description by a witness will give an idea of the scale upon which these butcheries are made. When the Rohrberg Commission of Enquiry entered Kief, after the taking of that town by the Volunteer Army in August 1919, it found the execution hall of the Cheka in the following state:
"All the cement floor of the great garage (the execution hall of the departmental Cheka of Kief) was flooded with blood. This blood was no longer flowing; it formed a layer of several inches; it was a horrible mixture of blood, brains, of pieces of skull,of tufts of hair and other human remains. All the walls riddled by thousands of bullets were bespattered with blood; pieces of brains and of scalps were sticking to them....
We found in the corner of the garden another grave which was older and contained about 80 bodies. Here we discovered on the bodies traces of cruelty and mutilations the most varied and unimaginable.
Some bodies were disemboweled, others had limbs chopped off, some were literally hacked to pieces. Some had their eyes put out and the head, face, neck and truck covered with deep wounds. Further on we found a corpse with a wedge driven into the chest. Some had no tongues. In a corner of the grave, we found a certain quantity of arms and legs..."
Juri Lina Youtube - The Truth About Communism
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Related- http://thy-weapon-of-war.blogspot.com/2010_10_01_archive.html
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