[citation needed]

I would start with the excellent site by Yves Smith, Naked Capitalism. The writers there are not wild-eyed ideologues, but people who have spent careers in the financial industry, working at pretty high levels. They've been all over this story since the Wikileaks documents broke. Remember, it was Wikileaks that published the secret TPP documents as well, which put the efforts to push that treaty through the tunnel on its heels, at least temporarily. Sunshine can be a great disinfectant.

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com...

And in case you need a citation regarding sunlight being a disinfectant, I would give you none other than the great Louis Brandeis:
http://sunlightfoundation.com/...

I would say 30 years, but it is arguable. Though I would say the era from just before Theodore Roosevelt through JFK was a period of trustbusting and Glass-Steagall, which together led to a period of real prosperity and greater, more equal, freedom for working people and along with that, minorities and women.

But there's no question that starting in 1980 with the executive orders gutting financial regulation, the fascism has been in full bloom.

The part that's dangerous to us is that it is another brick in the wall of corporate sovereignty.

The TISA is classified so investment groups wouldn't take advantage of it before it went into effect, thus screwing you and I over.

For five years after it becomes law?

Also, it's been in negotiation for 2 fucking decade, so not really 'Obama'.

Exactly right. This treaty, which creates corporate sovereignty, is being negotiated in secret...from us. Do you really believe for a moment that it's also secret from the companies that will benefit, like Goldman Sachs?

Every president for the past 30 years has been playing for the same team. And the team does not include us.

If corporations must do what is "legal" and people must do what is "moral", then how can anyone make the argument that corporations are people, my friend?

But, we are constantly being told that our nation is founded on "Judeo-Christian principles", which they say are the foundation for "man's law".

So how can corporations be people if they do not adhere to "man's law"?

Correct

You talk as if there was some difference between the corporations and the US government.

http://www.defenseone.com/tech...

It's interesting that right at this moment, the Obama Adminstration is pushing an international treaty that will make it so that corporations do not have to comply with a country's laws. It's called "TISA" and it's so bad that it was supposed to be secret for five years after it's ratified and put into action. We only know about it because Wikileaks released a leaked portion of it.

Secret laws being adjudicated in secret courts. All at the behest of corporations who then want (like Microsoft) to not have to comply. It's a pretty ugly type of fascism.

The best the US administration can hope for here is to shatter the US software industry into a thousand small associated companies with strict data sharing agreements to handle overseas data.

That might not be so bad. The notion that the internet is some wild frontier where no laws apply, because technology is a pretty weak one.

Tax evasion is illegal. Tax avoidance, which is what these companies are practicing, is not.

I've heard this argument from neoliberals on CNBC. It reminds me of a teenager whose parents catch him high as a kite: "You said I shouldn't smoke pot. You didn't say anything about cooking it in brownies and eating it."

It's a reminder about why corporations are regulated. They will do their best to circumvent laws using lawyers, unless they can be sufficiently frightened into behaving. Human beings are capable of discerning right and wrong and society holds them accountable. Corporations' charters specifically require that they not discern between right and wrong and then avoid accountability by saying, "But I didn't pinky swear!".

"Terrorism" is a word that only the winners are allowed to use, apparently.

I mean who cares that a backwards-ass country like Palestine ...

Thank you for acknowledging that they are a country. Maybe you can convince the government of Israel to do the same.

but the problem is that their offer used words like "truce" instead of "peace" to describe what they would be signing up for.

Given what happened to Fatah for using words like "peace", I'm not sure why any other words should be used with Israel.

That is true, but does it really matter for any purpose other than assigning blame

I'm just afraid that "assigning blame" is something only Israel is allowed to do.

I wouldn't want to be the person tasked with solving this problem. It's way hard. But I do believe that pressure should be applied to the combatants a little more evenly. As you say, Hamas may not be a party that can be negotiated with, but it's pretty clear that Netanyahu most certainly cannot be negotiated with. He has said so both with words and actions. There is a right wing in Israel that is holding the whole region hostage, and the current administration does not appear willing to put them in their place, because they are the "base".

The goal of Hamas, on the other hand, is the complete destruction of the State of Israel and Jews as pe

Or so we are told by Israel.

The only thing is, the very existence of Hamas and their stance on recognizing Israel is a product of Israel's double-dealing with Fatah, and before that the PLO.

I'm convinced that the government of Israel wants this conflict to continue, because it guarantees them political power, support from the US and each time there is a flareup, there are more Palestinian houses bulldozed to make way for settlements. It's a classic expansionist/eliminationist game plan.

My entire view of the situation has changed over the past 10 years from absolute support of Israel in their struggle against their hostile neighbors to questions about Israel's unorthodox way to seek peace through expansion to horror over the Israeli concentration camps where Palestinians are held and the cage they have made of Gaza to my current inability to believe anything that comes from the Israeli government or the Zionist press. It has not been a willing or comfortable transition. I had to undergo the conversion from hasbara tourist (as a non-Jew) to someone who has seen the horror in Gaza with his own two eyes.