#usa

In Venezuela Chavez has made the co-ops a top political priority, giving them first refusal on government contracts and offering them economic incentives to trade with one another. By 2006, there were roughly 100,000 co-operatives in the country, employing more than 700,000 workers. Many are pieces of state infrastructure – toll booths, highway maintenance, health clinics – handed over to the communities to run. It’s a reverse of the logic of government outsourcing – rather than auctioning off pieces of the state to large corporations and losing democratic control, the people who use the resources are given the power to manage them, creating, at least in theory, both jobs and more responsive public services. Chavez’s many critics have derided these initiatives as handouts and unfair subsidies, of course. Yet in an era when Halliburton treats the U.S. government as its personal ATM for six years, withdraws upward of $20 billion in Iraq contracts alone, refuses to hire local workers either on the Gulf coast or in Iraq, then expresses its gratitude to U.S. taxpayers by moving its corporate headquarters to Dubai (with all the attendant tax and legal benefits), Chavez’s direct subsidies to regular people look significantly less radical. ↗

— Naomi Klein

#leftism #political #subsidies #taxes #usa

All those who prefer peace to power, and happiness to glory should thank the colonized people for their civilizing mission. By liberating themselves, they made Europeans more modest, less racist, and more human. Let us hope that the process continues and that the Americans are obliged to follow the same course. When one’s own cause is unjust, defeat can be liberating. ↗

— Jean Bricmont

#foreign-policy #france #human-rights #iraq #kosovo-wa

No man will ever bring out of that office the reputation which carries him into it. The honeymoon would be as short in that case as in any other, and its moments of ecstasy would be ransomed by years of torment and hatred. ↗

— Thomas Jefferson

#election #presidency #president #us #usa

There is a story which is not being told strongly enough of the Afghan employees of the UN inside the country who are saving hundreds of thousands of lives everyday by their bravery and nobody talks of them. ↗

— Lakhdar Brahimi

#being #body talks #bravery #country #employees

Some mischievous people always there. Last several thousand years, always there. In future, also. ↗

— Dalai Lama

#always #future #last #mischievous #people

At a moderate calculation, among a million of persons inhabiting the metropolis, there are, at least, twenty-five thousand children who attend these schools, and cost their parents as many pounds sterling, per annum. ↗

— Joseph Lancaster

#attend #calculation #children #cost #inhabiting

I'm fighting for small businesses. I'm not fighting for big oil. Don't be confused. And there are thousands of businesses in this state that are at great risk. Meanwhile, the country keeps guzzling the oil, but we're out of work down here. We need to get back to work to build this region, and we intend to do so. ↗

— Mary Landrieu

#big #big oil #build #businesses #confused

Whoever would have guessed that in the land of cheap sausages and mashed potatoes there could be such a change which would actually bring the French from Paris every weekend to invade Britain en masse to eat great food and drink great wine. ↗

— Robin Leach

#bring #britain #change #cheap #could

Well, we've made huge strides since the 1990 World Cup, USA '94, and obviously since '98. Unfortunately, those strides only register with the public once every four years. ↗

— Lamar Hunt

#every #four #huge #made #obviously

There are thousands and thousands of free programs available for people of any income level. ↗

— Matthew Lesko

#available #free #income #level #people