Once again another multi national corporation puts the screws into the community they are supposedly supporting. News headlines in Vermont broadcasted that IBM is to lay off workers in some of their facilities throughout the country. Vermont’s Essex location is to bear their share with ninety employees forced out and onto the unemployment lines. What is so ironic is that Vermont politicians have been coddling IBM in order to prevent such measures. While IBM (International Business Machines) further exports American jobs to China and other countries, politicos like our own Governor Jim Douglass, Republican and “conservative” Democrats grovel over how to concede to them.

Just recently, a claim from opponents of the Global Warming Bill had used IBM as a reason why they could not support a tax on Vermont Yankee as it would send a wrong message to the business community. Well there goes that message; instead IBM has just sent its employees and the community a message that it just does not give a hoot about Vermont. Ironically, the potential savings from the Global Warming bill could have provided IBM would have offset any cost measures and would have virtually let them retain employees. Extra revenue offsets are as well about to come from reassessment of their facilities in Essex, and it seems that while every residential property’s values have gone up, big business’s assessments have gone down, thus lower taxes for an extremely profitable corporation.

Additionally, while our governor was out gallivanting around China to search out lucrative trade opportunities for Vermont companies, IBM seemed to have other intentions. It appears that IBM’s plans are just to process computer chips in Vermont and then ship them around the globe to be installed in one of their other facilities. I guess that is what is mean by exporting. A lot of talk has been made by the Governor of the opportunities for trade; however a simple fact that IBM is responsible for eighty percent of Vermont’s foreign trade is a scary statistic since that it is an unfinished product that quite possibly could be completed here in Vermont; however the greener pastures of lower wages and less environmental regulations have tempted IBM to displace Vermont and American jobs.

While, American and Vermont workers struggle to pay their bills, pay for healthcare or educate their children America’s glorious corporations bypass America for their needs of enriching their executives and stock holders. Neither America nor Vermont should cow toe to these mammoth international conglomerations because it is quite evident that the community they do business in is just another tool for them to exploit. And for that matter the politicians who advocate the corporate line, have to go…

Peace

Robb Kidd

“You name the large multinational corporation, many of which make substantial campaign contributions to both political parties, and they're on the Export-Import welfare line. Needless to say, many of these same companies receiving taxpayer support pay exorbitant salaries and benefits to their CEOs. IBM, for example, gave their former CEO Lou Gerstner over $260 million in stock options while they were lining up for their Export-Import handouts.” Senator Bernard Sanders while a Congressman. 

I was tempted to post something about this when I first read about it, but I didn't. Now, however, I just watched a diavlog about it and it makes me want to get back to the issue.
The issue is the burqini. Never heard of it? It's a bathing suit that covers a woman's entire body, except for the face, hands, and feet, designed for Muslim women to wear to the beach.
So in this diavlog Jackie Shire is talking about the ambivalence she feels in reading about these things, and the conflict she feels between the idea that feminism means wearing and doing what you want, and her concern that women should not be made to feel that their bodies are something to be ashamed of, or that they need to cover up.
I say she shouldn't feel any ambivalence. The issue here isn't whether women are going to be allowed to wear what they want. The burqini, like the burqa, is about one thing: oppression of women. It is entirely of a piece with Islamic laws that say women can't drive cars, or be outside of their father's home without a male relative. As Americans we should all be feminists: we all agree, or should agree, in the equality of the sexes, and the issue here is not the outward expression of religion in public, but in whether we will support Muslim men's structure designed and operated to oppress women.
And this is just the tip of the iceberg. We aren't likely to see too many women wearing these things, but we will see more and more women wearing burqas, hijabs, and other concealing, restricting, cultish clothing.
And we should think very hard about what it means.