Author: chasdarwin

Active in Americans United, Center For Inquiry, and ACLU

Hypocrisy, Fear, and Ignorance

chasdarwinLeave a comment
By Russell King, Russ’ Filtered News
Posted on March 31, 2010, Printed on March 31, 2010
http://www.alternet.org/story/146237/

A Republican’s message to fellow  R’s:

“Dear Conservative Americans,

The years have not been kind to you. I grew up in a profoundly Republican home so I can remember when you wore a very different face than the one we see now.  You’ve lost me and you’ve lost most of America.  Because I believe having responsible choices is important to democracy, I’d like to give you some advice and an invitation.

First, the invitation: Come back to us.

Now the advice.  You’re going to have to come up with a platform that isn’t built on a foundation of cowardice: fear of people with colors, religions, cultures and sex lives that differ from yours; fear of reform in banking, health care, energy; fantasy fears of America being transformed into an Islamic nation, into social/commun/fasc-ism, into a disarmed populace put in internment camps; and more.  But you have work to do even before you take on that task.

Your party — the GOP — and the conservative end of the American political spectrum has become irresponsible and irrational.  Worse, it’s tolerating, promoting and celebrating prejudice and hatred.  Let me provide some examples – by no means an exhaustive list — of where the Right as gotten itself stuck in a swamp of hypocrisy, hyperbole, historical inaccuracy and hatred.

If you’re going to regain your stature as a party of rational, responsible people, you’ll have to start by draining this swamp:

Hypocrisy

You can’t flip out — and threaten impeachment – when Dems use a parliamentary procedure (deem and pass) that you used repeatedly (more than 35 times in just one session and more than 100 times in all!), that’s centuries old and which the courts have supported. Especially when your leaders admit it all.

You can’t vote and scream against the stimulus package and then take credit for the good it’s done in your own district (happily handing out enormous checks representing money that you voted against is especially ugly) —  114 of you (at last count) did just that — and it’s even worse when you secretly beg for more.

You can’t fight against your own ideas just because the Dem president endorses your proposal.

You can’t call for a pay-as-you-go policy, and then vote against your own ideas.

Are they “unlawful enemy combatants” or are they “prisoners of war” at Gitmo? You can’t have it both ways.

You can’t carry on about the evils of government spending when your family has accepted more than a quarter-million dollars in government handouts.

You can’t refuse to go to a scheduled meeting, to which you were invited, and then blame the Dems because they didn’t meet with you.

You can’t rail against using teleprompters while using teleprompters. Repeatedly.

You can’t rail against the bank bailouts when you supported them as they were happening.

You can’t be for immigration reform, then against it .

You can’t enjoy socialized medicine while condemning it.

You can’t flip out when the black president puts his feet on the presidential desk when you were silent when the white presidents did the same.  Bush.  Ford.

You can’t complain that the president hasn’t closed Gitmo yet when you’ve campaigned to keep Gitmo open.

You can’t flip out when the black president bows to foreign dignitaries, as appropriate for their culture, when you were silent when the white presidents did the same. Bush.  Nixon. Ike. You didn’t even make a peep when Bush held hands and kissed leaders of a country that’s not on “kissing terms” with the US.

You can’t complain that the undies bomber was read his Miranda rights under Obama when the shoe bomber was read his Miranda rights under Bush and you remained silent.  (And, no, Newt — the shoe bomber was not a US citizen either, so there is no difference.)

You can’t attack the Dem president for not personally* publicly condemning a terrorist event for 72 hours when you said nothing about the Rep president waiting 6 days in an eerily similar incident (and, even then, he didn’t issue any condemnation).  *The Obama administration did the day of the event.

You can’t throw a hissy fit, sound alarms and cry that Obama freed Gitmo prisoners who later helped plan the Christmas Day undie bombing, when — in fact — only one former Gitmo detainee, released by Dick Cheney and George W. Bush, helped to plan the failed attack.

You can’t condemn blaming the Republican president for an attempted terror attack on his watch, then blame the Dem president for an attempted terror attack on his.

You can’t mount a boycott against singers who say they’re ashamed of the president for starting a war, but remain silent when another singer says he’s ashamed of the president and falsely calls him a Maoist who makes him want to throw up and says he ought to be in jail.

You can’t cry that the health care bill is too long, then cry that it’s too short.

You can’t support the individual mandate for health insurance, then call it unconstitutional when Dems propose it and campaign against your own ideas.

You can’t demand television coverage, then whine about it when you get it.  Repeatedly.

You can’t praise criminal trials in US courts for terror suspects under a Rep president, then call it “treasonous” under a Dem president.

You can’t propose ideas to create jobs, and then work against them when the Dems put your ideas in a bill.

You can’t be both pro-choice and anti-choice.

You can’t damn someone for failing to pay $900 in taxes when you’ve paid nearly $20,000 in IRS fines.

You can’t condemn criticizing the president when US troops are in harm’s way, then attack the president when US troops are in harm’s way , the only difference being the president’s party affiliation (and, by the way, armed conflict does NOT remove our right and our duty as Americans to speak up).

You can’t be both for cap-and-trade policy and against it.

You can’t vote to block debate on a bill, then bemoan the lack of  ‘open debate’.

If you push anti-gay legislation and make anti-gay speeches, you should probably take a pass on having gay sex, regardless of whether it’s 2004 or 2010.  This is true, too, if you’re taking GOP money and giving anti-gay rants on CNN.  Taking right-wing money and GOP favors to write anti-gay stories for news sites while working as a gay prostitute, doubles down on both the hypocrisy and the prostitution.  This is especially true if you claim your anti-gay stand is God’s stand, too.

When you chair the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children, you can’t send sexy emails to 16-year-old boys (illegal anyway, but you made it hypocritical as well).

You can’t criticize Dems for not doing something you didn’t do while you held power over the past 16 years, especially when the Dems have done more in one year than you did in 16.

You can’t decry “name calling” when you’ve been the most consistent and outrageous at it. And the most vile.

You can’t spend more than 40 years hating, cutting and trying to kill Medicare, and then pretend to be the defenders of Medicare

You can’t praise the Congressional Budget Office when its analysis produces numbers that fit your political agenda, then claim it’s unreliable when it comes up with numbers that don’t.

You can’t vote for X under a Republican president, then vote against X under a Democratic president.  Either you support X or you don’t. And it makes it worse when you change your position merely for the sake obstructionism.

You can’t call a reconciliation out of bounds when you used it repeatedly.

You can’t spend tax-payer money on ads against spending tax-payer money.

You can’t condemn individual health insurance mandates in a Dem bill, when the mandates were your idea.

You can’t demand everyone listen to the generals when they say what fits your agenda, and then ignore them when they don’t.

You can’t whine that it’s unfair when people accuse you of exploiting racism for political gain, when your party’s former leader admits you’ve been doing it for decades.

You can’t portray yourself as fighting terrorists when you openly and passionately support terrorists.

You can’t complain about a lack of bipartisanship when you’ve routinely obstructed for the sake of political gain — threatening to filibuster at least 100 pieces of legislation in one session, far more than any other since the procedural tactic was invented — and admitted it.  Some admissions are unintentional, others are made proudly. This is especially true when the bill is the result of decades of compromise between the two parties and is filled with your own ideas.

You can’t question the loyalty of Department of Justice lawyers when you didn’t object when your own Republican president appointed them.

You can’t preach and try to legislate “Family Values” when you: take nude hot tub dips with teenagers (and pay them hush money); cheat on your wife with a secret lover and lie about it to the world; cheat with a staffer’s wife (and pay them off with a new job); pay hookers for sex while wearing a diaper and cheating on your wife; or just enjoying an old fashioned non-kinky cheating on your wife; try to have gay sex in a public toilet; authorize the rape of children in Iraqi prisons to coerce their parents into providing information; seek, look at or have sex with children; replace a guy who cheats on his wife with a guy who cheats on his pregnant wife with his wife’s mother;

Hyperbole

You really need to disassociate with those among you who:

History

If you’re going to use words like socialism, communism and fascism, you must have at least a basic understanding of what those words mean (hint: they’re NOT synonymous!)

You can’t cut a leading Founding Father out the history books because you’ve decided you don’t like his ideas.

You cant repeatedly assert that the president refuses to say the word “terrorism” or say we’re at war with terror when we have an awful lot of videotape showing him repeatedly assailing terrorism and using those exact words.

If you’re going to invoke the names of historical figures, it does not serve you well to whitewash them. Especially this one.

You can’t just pretend historical events didn’t happen in an effort to make a political opponent look dishonest or to make your side look better. Especially these events. (And, no, repeating it doesn’t make it less of a lie.)

You can’t say things that are simply and demonstrably false: health care reform will not push people out of their private insurance and into a government-run program; health care reform (which contains a good many of your ideas and very few from the Left) is a long way from “socialist utopia”; is not “reparations”; and does not create “death panels”.

Hatred

You have to condemn those among you who:

Oh, and I’m not alone:  One of your most respected and decorated leaders agrees with me.

So, dear conservatives, get to work.  Drain the swamp of the conspiracy nuts, the bald-faced liars undeterred by demonstrable facts, the overt hypocrisy and the hatred.  Then offer us a calm, responsible, grownup agenda based on your values and your vision for America.  We may or may not agree with your values and vision, but we’ll certainly welcome you back to the American mainstream with open arms.  We need you.

Read more of Russell King’s work at Russ’ Filtered News.

© 2010 Russ’ Filtered News All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/146237/

V I C T O R Y !

chasdarwinLeave a comment

“This Was A Big Win

By Tom Hayden

Progressives For Obama March 24, 2010

This is not the time for progressives to mourn the defeat of single-payer or the public option, it is the time to cheer the health care victory as an important victory and prepare to stop the right-wing in their tracks and discredit their religion of market

fundamentalism. It’s the time to push further against that same fundamentalism by demanding such reforms as regulation of Wall Street and a rollback of the Supreme Court decision on campaign finance – all before the November election.

We did not achieve what was politically-impossible, Medicare for All. Insurance companies and Big Pharma will benefit from the health care legislation, but the Machiavellians always get their pound of flesh in exchange for conceding reform. We added new health protections for millions of Americans, opened possibilities for further health reforms, and avoided the beginning of the end of the Obama era, which frankly is what the unified right-wing is still trying to bring about.

It is the nature of social movements to fragment and decline when they achieve victories which fall short of their hopes and dreams. It is the nature of counter-movements to become more dangerous and unified when they feel threatened with decline.

There is plenty of analysis of how the public came out ahead in this final package despite all its flaws and chicanery. Let me add one fundamental point no one has mentioned:

Passage of a trillion-dollar health care package means a trillion dollars not available to the Pentagon for their long war.

In his book making the case for the US as a modern Goliath, the conservative political philosopher Michael Mandelbaum wrote of his fear that Sixties social programs will undermine the appetite and resources for empire, which he described as an American “world government.” [MM, The Case for Goliath: How America Acts as the World’s Government for the 21st Century, Public Affairs, 2005]”Democracy [will] favor butter over guns”, Mandelbaum worried. As programs like health care expand and social security cutbacks are fought, “it will become increasingly difficult for the foreign policy elite to persuade the wider public to support the kinds of policies that, collectively, make up the American role as the world’s government. Foreign policy will be relegated to the back burner”, he groused.  We have no moral right or even competence to be “the world’s government”, of course. The more we invest in our domestic needs – health care, schools and universities, environmental restoration, green jobs – the more unsustainable become trillion-dollar wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and beyond. The seeds of an alternative foreign policy lie in building an alternative domestic one. #

[Tom Hayden, a former California state senator, is the author, most recently, of The Long Sixties: From 1960 to Barack Obama (Paradigm).

Senator Tom Hayden, the Nation Institute’s Carey McWilliams Fellow, has played an active role in American politics and history for over three decades, beginning with the student, civil rights and antiwar movements of the 1960s.  Hayden was elected to the California State Legislature in 1982, where he served for ten years in the Assembly before being elected to the State Senate in 1992, where he served eight years.]

see: http://progressivesforobama.blogspot.com/

emphasis mine

Transforming the political landscape

chasdarwinLeave a comment

Author RobertCreamernotes: (Monday Mar 22): “We wake up this morning surrounded by a new political world.

The House vote approving health care reform was without doubt the most significant congressional vote in the last four decades. That’s because it completely transformed the American political landscape. It certainly changed America’s health care system. But it altered the balance of political power in America as well.

  • Fundamental Reform. The House vote, together with the work the Senate will finish this week, will provide health insurance to 32 million Americans, rein in the power of the private insurance industry and end the terror that if you lose your job and get a serious illness you will no longer be able to get insurance. It will ultimately help stop tens of thousands of preventable deaths each year that are caused by the condition known as “no insurance.”
  • It brought us into the company of every other industrial nation by establishing that from this day forward in America – health care is no longer a privilege or a commodity but a right.
  • In the two-century-long battle between progressive and conservative values in our country, last night’s victory was momentous. Progressive values now define the fundamental frame of reference for a massive new sector of our economy: health care. After President Bush’s victory in 2004, the forces advocating conservative, social Darwinist values tried to take back the territory they had lost in the 1930’s by attempting to privatize Social Security. Progressives defeated their efforts – and began to push them back.

Barack Obama’s victory in 2008 was like the Normandy invasion – the beginning of a forceful progressive counter-offensive. Today we have secured a whole new massive chunk of real estate.

I do not mean “government control” – far from it. I mean that the terms defining the distribution of health care in America will no longer be exclusively based on the interests of huge private insurance companies. Instead they will be defined by the fundamental understanding that health care is a human right.

As the late Senator Kennedy wrote to President Obama before he died, what was at stake in the health care battle was not “the details of policy, but the character of our country.”

The exact structures of the health care reform bill may be modified – and I hope expanded — to include a robust public option. But the progressive value premise has been established and I do not believe it can be rolled back.

Before the Republicans execute their plan to run this fall on a “repeal the bill” platform, they should take a look at the fate of Alf Landon and the Republicans who, in 1936, ran on the platform of repealing Social Security. They lost big. In fact by the time the Republicans finally retook the White House (16 years later) with Dwight Eisenhower no Republican candidate uttered a word about “repealing” a program that had long sense become massively popular.

This victory has validated President Obama’s commitment to making serious change. He came into office promising real, transformative change and he has delivered it. He proved that he – and America – can make big change – address truly fundamental issues.

Many pundits had argued that he bit off more than he could chew. They had said that he should be satisfied with “small change” – shouldn’t tackle so many things at once – shouldn’t challenge the interests of so many powerful sectors of the American economy. Suddenly his Administration, and the forces that surround it, look a lot smarter than it did two days ago, when the dominant media chatter was about who was to blame for allowing the Obama Presidency to be stuck in the mud. Obama accomplished something that had eluded Presidents for a century – not bad.

With this victory the entire narrative of the Obama presidency has changed. Health care reform has repeatedly been declared moribund – completely dead after the Scott Brown election in Massachusetts. Obama has brought health care back – like a phoenix — from the dead. He did it through absolute persistence and clear, unflappable leadership – the same kind of leadership he and his organization exhibited when they were repeatedly counted out during the Presidential race.

He also demonstrated nerves of steel. He bet the political ranch on health care reform and won.

  • Last night’s vote demonstrated to the American voters that government can work. It has been a central Republican goal for years to show that government doesn’t work. Of course the incompetence of the Bush Administration helped validate their premise. But since the election of a Democrat to the White House they have had one key goal: gridlock. The lock has been broken.
  • Our victory demonstrated that a special interest as wealthy as the private insurance industry can in fact be defeated. The insurance companies and Chamber of Commerce have spent hundreds of millions of dollars to stop health care reform cold. They lied, they distorted the facts, they threatened. They have failed. That will embolden Democrats – and average Americans – to challenge the power of Wall Street and the Oil Companies, to challenge the power of every other special interest that seeks to promote their private interest at the expense of the public interest.
  • The House vote shows that hope can defeat fear. The entire campaign of the health insurance industry and the Right has been built on a foundation of fear – from death panels, to “government takeover,” to “socialized medicine,” to bogus “cuts” in Medicare. Hope won. That has enormous implications for issues like immigration reform.
  • The health care victory was a tribute to political courage – the courage of Barack Obama who bet his Presidency on the outcome – and the courage of many House Democrats who took, what they feared would be an unpopular vote.

In fact, I would argue, that by Election Day, there will be very few districts where a vote for health care reform is unpopular. But I would also argue, that this fall we will see clear evidence that courage itself is very popular….Willingness to stand up for what you believe – and unwillingness to be swayed by political winds – is good politics. People love candidates who are not what they conceive as “typical politicians” that always have their fingers in the air or decide what they believe based on the latest poll….Last night’s victory shows that great organizing works.

And ultimately victory also depended entirely on a tough, eloquent President to provide the leadership necessary to win.

The end game was particularly masterful. One commentator noted that the President had the Republicans for lunch when he spoke at their own retreat – and he had a seven hour banquet at the “bi-partisan” summit. He used the power of the Presidency to enormous effect to place the Republicans on the defense.

The rallies, the self confidence, and the sense of inevitability that he and Speaker Pelosi brought to the last several weeks – coupled with brilliant one-on-one work with Members of Congress and co-ordination with Administration allies sealed the deal….Perhaps the biggest political winner of last night’s victory was House Speaker Nancy Pelosi….

Finally, this victory will invigorate the base of the Democratic Party and greatly improve the chances of victory for all Democrats this fall. Let’s remember that Democrats lost control of the House in 1994 because Democrats didn’t come out and vote after the failure of health care reform earlier that year. Last night’s victory will have precisely the opposite effect.

Not only that, but voters like to support winners. Last night the Democrats in Congress, President Obama and the progressive forces in America won big. The Progressive band wagon has been freed from the mud and is moving once again. It will attract more and more followers as we get closer to the Election Day.

There was another big loser last night — the “chattering class” of pundits. Turned out that health care, the Obama presidency, and the progressive movement weren’t so dead after all.
Robert Creamer is a long-time political organizer and strategist, and author of the recent book: Stand Up Straight: How Progressives Can Win, available on Amazon.com.

see:http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-creamer/house-health-care-vote-tr_b_507971.html

Emphasis mine

Whose Waterloo?

Conservatives and Republicans [on Sunday] suffered their most crushing legislative defeat since the 1960s.

chasdarwinLeave a comment

Is the successful passage of Health Care Insurance reform a major GOP defeat?

Conservative columnist David Frum says the Democrats’ passage of health-care reform is the greatest legislative defeat for the GOP in decades.

“After an epic political battle, House Democrats on Sunday won final approval of a historic overhaul of the health-care system without a single Republican vote. David Frum argues in FrumForum.com that by trying everything in their power to block the legislation, instead of making a deal and sharing in the victory, Republicans set themselves up for an “abject and irreversible defeat.” Here’s an excerpt:

“Conservatives and Republicans [on Sunday] suffered their most crushing legislative defeat since the 1960s.

It’s hard to exaggerate the magnitude of the disaster. Conservatives may cheer themselves that they’ll compensate for [Sunday’s] vote with a big win in the November 2010 elections. But:

(1) It’s a good bet that conservatives are over-optimistic about November — by then the economy will have improved and the immediate goodies in the health-care bill will be reaching key voting blocs.

(2) So what? Legislative majorities come and go. This health-care bill is forever. A win in November is very poor compensation for this debacle now.

So far, I think a lot of conservatives will agree with me. Now comes the hard lesson:

A huge part of the blame for [Sunday’s] disaster attaches to conservatives and Republicans ourselves.

At the beginning of this process we made a strategic decision: unlike, say, Democrats in 2001 when President Bush proposed his first tax cut, we would make no deal with the administration. No negotiations, no compromise, nothing. We were going for all the marbles. This would be Obama’s Waterloo – just as healthcare was Clinton’s in 1994.

Only, the hardliners overlooked a few key facts: Obama was elected with 53% of the vote, not Clinton’s 42%. The liberal block within the Democratic congressional caucus is bigger and stronger than it was in 1993-94. And of course the Democrats also remember their history, and also remember the consequences of their 1994 failure.

This time, when we went for all the marbles, we ended with none.

Could a deal have been reached? Who knows? But we do know that the gap between this plan and traditional Republican ideas is not very big. The Obama plan has a broad family resemblance to Mitt Romney’s Massachusetts plan. It builds on ideas developed at the Heritage Foundation in the early 1990s that formed the basis for Republican counter-proposals to Clintoncare in 1993-1994.

Barack Obama badly wanted Republican votes for his plan. Could we have leveraged his desire to align the plan more closely with conservative views? To finance it without redistributive taxes on productive enterprise – without weighing so heavily on small business – without expanding Medicaid? Too late now. They are all the law.

No illusions please: This bill will not be repealed. Even if Republicans scored a 1994 style landslide in November, how many votes could we muster to re-open the “doughnut hole” and charge seniors more for prescription drugs? How many votes to re-allow insurers to rescind policies when they discover a pre-existing condition? How many votes to banish 25 year olds from their parents’ insurance coverage? And even if the votes were there – would President Obama sign such a repeal?

We followed the most radical voices in the party and the movement, and they led us to abject and irreversible defeat.

There were leaders who knew better, who would have liked to deal. But they were trapped. Conservative talkers on Fox and talk radio had whipped the Republican voting base into such a frenzy that deal-making was rendered impossible. How do you negotiate with somebody who wants to murder your grandmother? Or – more exactly – with somebody whom your voters have been persuaded to believe wants to murder their grandmother?

I’ve been on a soapbox for months now about the harm that our overheated talk is doing to us. Yes it mobilizes supporters – but by mobilizing them with hysterical accusations and pseudo-information, overheated talk has made it impossible for representatives to represent and elected leaders to lead. The real leaders are on TV and radio, and they have very different imperatives from people in government. Talk radio thrives on confrontation and recrimination. When Rush Limbaugh said that he wanted President Obama to fail, he was intelligently explaining his own interests. What he omitted to say – but what is equally true – is that he also wants Republicans to fail. If Republicans succeed – if they govern successfully in office and negotiate attractive compromises out of office – Rush’s listeners get less angry. And if they are less angry, they listen to the radio less, and hear fewer ads for Sleepnumber beds.

So today’s defeat for free-market economics and Republican values is a huge win for the conservative entertainment industry. Their listeners and viewers will now be even more enraged, even more frustrated, even more disappointed in everybody except the responsibility-free talkers on television and radio. For them, it’s mission accomplished. For the cause they purport to represent, it’s Waterloo all right: ours.”

see: http://theweek.com/article/index/201046/Is_health_care_the_GOPs_Waterloo

Emphasis mine

RootsCamp 2010 ( That’s Twentyten)

chasdarwin1 Comment

The 2010 Ohio Rootscamp – a grassroots convention – was  attended by about 160 people at the OCSEA Union Hall on Saturday 6 March 2010.

Erin Upchurch, Social Worker at Columbus AIDS Task Force. provided the welcome, and then introduced Ohio Treasurer Kevin Boyce .

Mr. Boyce reviewed his life and its motivation for getting into politics: he was raised in a housing project, and his Dad – a Vietnam Vet –  was murdered. He was the first in his family to attend college , went on to a career in public service, and observed that being a good politician requires being a good person . Success, he learned, is a product of much hard work, and it also brings responsibility.

An outstanding Candidate.

Doug Kelly of the ODP then talked about “The Knockout in 2010 ”, and motivated us that we must elect Democrats to keep the Apportionment Board.

Lauren Wargo , also of the ODP, told us: the GOP is organized and energized , but the ODP is strong, where we have been, and where we need to go, and that we need to hold OH in 2010 .

We then had our first breakout session.

N.B.: a breakout session is what happens to an adolescent on the day of the big dance.

In the first breakout session I attended we discussed Niccolo Machiavelli and his influence on politics.

Of his two works – “The Prince “ and “Discourses” – the former is better known. It is from it that most of what we term “ Machiavellian” originates, while the latter was a more general political treatise which introduced terms such as “checks and balances”, anticipating some of the political philosophy of the 17th and 18th centuries. From Bertrand Russell: “The doctrine of the Prince makes no attempt at giving pious advice on how to be a virtuous ruler. He recognizes that there are evil practices which are conducive to the acquisition of political power. Machiavellian takes on a sinister and derogatory meaning. He did not advocate villainy – his field of enquiry lies outside of good and evil. He should not be attacked for documenting practices common at the time in Italy.”

One cannot understand modern politics while remaining ignorant of Machiavelli.

We then had a union provided lunch, and heard a keynote from Gov. Ted Strickland .

Ted has an honest, upbeat handle on what is happening. His perception of where we are:

o In Jan 09, when the Obama administration took office:

– that month we had lost 700,000 jobs

– auto industry in dire straights

– we were on the verge of a great depression

o Now

– new leaders at GM said 3rd shift 1200 jobs in lordstown and 59mill $ in Defiance, Oh

– will pay back loans and $700 Mil interest (e.g. ‘bailout’)

– the stimulus has pulled us out of free fall

+  it has provided $2 billion in OH used to provide essential services to people in need &

+ 1/3 more in infrastructure in OH than any time in history

– we must focus on jobs

o funding from feds at same level as 2003

o positives:

– steel seeing increases in orders

– US Steel investing 400mil in Leipzig and 250 in Lorain

– wind component company from Germany may locate in Toledo

– Solar companies in Toledo

o we need a manufacturing policy

– on our way

– need to remember those in need

o DNC,DCCC,ODP size rank -the ODP is third

o we can win again in 2012 with OH

o other side is energized

o our base is not as energized

o Grassroots org is our trump card

o John Kasich

– Lehman Bros

– Fox news

– eliminate estate tax (80% goes to local gov)

– eliminate SIT TS says most irresponsible policy ever

o take this across the state

o From John Lewis (D-GA): we should never give up, never give out, and never give in

o we must be prepared for the toughest campaign in our memory.

Ted shared with us that in the 2008 campaign, he would tell supporters that at about 11:30 on election night of 2008, Bill O’Reilly of Fox would – tears streaming down his face – announce that Barack Obama had been elected President of the United States.  I was wrong, he admitted: It was 9:45.

N.B.: in “Sleep Walking Through History”, author Hayes Johnson notes that when he wishes to know what is happening, he listens to the Governors.

Breakout session on Republican crimes: Cliff Arnebeck (Atty)

o first victim of Republican crime was John McCain

o committed treason against US in 2000: Rove & Blackwell & Tom Donahue

o prongs of Conspiracy: steal states and us courts

o Blackwell didn’t say: he brought into state office gov tech, smart tech, triad

o same team that was involved in election theft of FL 2000

o Iraq war: election theft cover & reelection prop

o made war go on to secure election

o we must issue new emancipation proclamation.

Brian Rothenberg

o organize online to off line, and you may use

o twitter and facebook

tea party

o Who are they?

o should we worry?

o where will there supporters come from: D’s or R’s?

o Thus far, their election success has been almost nil

Brian Rothenberg spoke on closing, and introduced David Pepper – an excellent candidate for auditor of state .

Solving Global Climate Change can Help Ensure American’s Security

chasdarwinLeave a comment

Solving Global Climate Change can Help Ensure American’s Security

At the Ohio AeroSpace Institute, 3 March 2010

Participants:     Senator John Warner
Retired Vice Admiral Dennis McGinn
Dr. Mike Heil, President and CEO of the Ohio AeroSpace Institute
Dr. George Schmidt Dept. Dir. of Research and Technology at NASA Glenn
Ms. Rebecca Bagley CEO of Nor Tech
Phyllis Cuttino PEW    Charitable Trust

The theme of this Conference concerned the intersection of security, energy and climate, and how they are linked and interrelated.

John Warner covered the connections between Climate Change, energy dependence,  military security., and economic growth through green jobs and green industries.

Dennis McGinn reviewed some of our current and future world’s problems: conflict over scarce resources: water, food, and energy.  These create desperation etc, which produces fanaticism and terrorism.  There are many threat multipliers, such as environmentally  caused refugees.  Conclusion: Energy Dependence constitutes a serious and urgent threat on our military, and the DoD can contribute as an early adapter.

Mike Heil, CEO of OAI, covered some achievements and current projects of the organization.

George Schmidt reviewed the past and present of energy at NASA, including photovoltaic (solar) cells, improved batteries, fuel cells,and nuclear power.  The space program created demand for photovoltaic power, and fuel cells.  There are many current projects on Stirling cycle, nuclear power and flywheels (for energy storage).  NASA can make a difference

Rebecca Bagley CEO of Nortech spoke on what her company has and can do for NE Ohio and the world.

In summary, all of the panel – which is traveling around the country, commented on how good an event this had been.

Ms. Cuttino: “A Chinese shared with her that ‘we missed the Industrial revolution, and were late to the IT revolution, but we will own the green revolution”.

There were several questions/observations of interest.  One person stated that: “In 1909 global warming was proven false.”  I have at least two issues with that statement: ‘1909’, and ‘proven’.  Lots of data since 1909, and the word ‘prove’ does not belong in the realm of physical science.

Another (me) covered the origin of the space race in which we succeeded in part because both science and science education became respected and trusted – a trust which was vindicated when Armstrong stepped on the Moon. Today, that trust is no longer there, and we are paying the price in pollution, cost, inefficiency, and vulnerability, as well as the potential premature extinction of our and many other species: how can we regain it?  Do we need another Sputnik Moment?  Ms. Cuttino said we had had a Sputnik Moment, but I shared with her that “.. if a tree falls in a forest…”

Sustainability Conference at BW College 01 Mar 2010

Climate change should be part of our government policy, and science should be part of government policy in general

chasdarwinLeave a comment

Sherrod Brown spoke at Baldwin College College today 1 March 2010 at a conference on sustainability.
He described many projects currently active in the state, including:

o Wind turbines on Lake Erie

o Wind turbine blades mfg in Mt. Vernon.

o Solar cell (photo-voltaic) manufacturing in the state.

In Q, S, & A (Questions, Soliloquies, and answers):
.
o Ohio Issue 1: Vote Yes

o The DOE did nothing to help sustainable energy for 28 yrs: 1981-2009

o His ‘Impact’ bill is part of the same bill that includes Cap and Trade
Climate change should be part of our government policy, and science should be part of government policy in general

After the Summit: Progressives 1, Reactionaries nil

Here is a basic fact: If the House Democrats voted tomorrow to approve the Senate bill, health care reform would become the law of the land.

chasdarwinLeave a comment

From the 26 Feb 2010 NY Times editorial: ” The main lesson to draw from Thursday’s health care forum is that differences between Democrats and Republicans are too profound to be bridged. That means that it is up to the Democrats to fix the country’s dysfunctional and hugely costly health care system.  At the meeting, President Obama laid out his case for sweeping reform that would provide coverage to 30 million uninsured Americans and begin to wrestle down the rising cost of medical care and future deficits. The Republicans insisted that the country cannot afford that — and doesn’t need it. The House Republican leader, John Boehner, trotted out the old chestnut that the United States has the “best health care system in the world.”  N.B.: This is because we have poorly framed the issue as health care reform, rather than health care insurance reform, or improved access to health care.  “…Republicans stuck to their script and argued for small solutions, such as letting people buy insurance in other states that might allow skimpier — and thus cheaper — coverage. That is a formula for helping healthy people cut costs while driving up premiums for sick people unable to get similar coverage.

Republicans balked at any big expansion of Medicaid or any big subsidies to help middle-class Americans buy insurance on new exchanges. As a result, their plans would cover only three million uninsured over the next decade, a tenth of what the Democrats are proposing. That is not enough.

Mr. Obama should jettison any illusions that he can win Republican support by making a few more changes in bills that already include many Republican ideas. Republican speakers made clear that the only thing they would accept is starting over from scratch. That would be the end of sweeping reform.

The Republicans tried to wring a pledge from Mr. Obama that he would not resort to “budget reconciliation,” a parliamentary maneuver to sidestep a filibuster in the Senate and pass legislation by a simple majority. Reconciliation is a last resort. But Republicans and Democrats have both used it for major bills in the past. The president wisely refused to tie his hands.

Here is a basic fact: If the House Democrats voted tomorrow to approve the Senate bill, health care reform would become the law of the land.”

see: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/26/opinion/26fri1.html?hp

More: from Alternet, by Lindsay Beyerstein (see:http://www.alternet.org/story/145821/obama%27s_health_care_summit%3A_dems_find_common_ground%3B_republicans_not_on_board)

“President Obama presided over a six-hour televised summit on health care reform yesterday with Republican and Democratic members of Congress. The marathon meeting was billed as a last-ditch effort to get Republican input on the health-care reform package before Congress. But, arguably, the real purpose of the summit was to captivate the attention of the media while House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., figured out how to push ahead with health care reform through budget reconciliation — a parliamentary procedure that would sidestep the filibuster and the 60-vote supermajority required to overcome it, allowing Democrats to pass Senate legislation by a simple majority of 51 votes.

Republican leaders made it clear from the outset that their members had no interest in modifying the bill that has already passed the Senate, but instead wanted to scrap the bill altogether. House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, stated repeatedly in the days before the summit that the GOP would accept nothing less than a do-over.”

More, Kristoff, 26 Feb, NY Times:” If we’re lucky, Thursday’s summit will turn out to have been the last act in the great health reform debate, the prologue to passage of an imperfect but nonetheless history-making bill. If so, the debate will have ended as it began: with Democrats offering moderate plans that draw heavily on past Republican ideas, and Republicans responding with slander and misdirection. Nobody really expected anything different. But what was nonetheless revealing about the meeting was the fact that Republicans — who had weeks to prepare for this particular event, and have been campaigning against reform for a year — didn’t bother making a case that could withstand even minimal fact-checking….

It was obvious how things would go as soon as the first Republican speaker, Senator Lamar Alexander, delivered his remarks. He was presumably chosen because he’s folksy and likable and could make his party’s position sound reasonable. But right off the bat he delivered a whopper, asserting that under the Democratic plan, “for millions of Americans, premiums will go up.”

Wow. I guess you could say that he wasn’t technically lying, since the Congressional Budget Office analysis of the Senate Democrats’ plan does say that average payments for insurance would go up. But it also makes it clear that this would happen only because people would buy more and better coverage. The “price of a given amount of insurance coverage” would fall, not rise — and the actual cost to many Americans would fall sharply thanks to federal aid.

His fib on premiums was quickly followed by a fib on process. Democrats, having already passed a health bill with 60 votes in the Senate, now plan to use a simple majority vote to modify some of the numbers, a process known as reconciliation. Mr. Alexander declared that reconciliation has “never been used for something like this.” Well, I don’t know what “like this” means, but reconciliation has, in fact, been used for previous health reforms — and was used to push through both of the Bush tax cuts at a budget cost of $1.8 trillion, twice the bill for health reform.

What really struck me about the meeting, however, was the inability of Republicans to explain how they propose dealing with the issue that, rightly, is at the emotional center of much health care debate: the plight of Americans who suffer from pre-existing medical conditions. In other advanced countries, everyone gets essential care whatever their medical history. But in America, a bout of cancer, an inherited genetic disorder, or even, in some states, having been a victim of domestic violence can make you uninsurable, and thus make adequate health care unaffordable.

One of the great virtues of the Democratic plan is that it would finally put an end to this unacceptable case of American exceptionalism. But what’s the Republican answer? Mr. Alexander was strangely inarticulate on the matter, saying only that “House Republicans have some ideas about how my friend in Tullahoma can continue to afford insurance for his wife who has had breast cancer.” He offered no clue about what those ideas might be.

In reality, House Republicans don’t have anything to offer to Americans with troubled medical histories. On the contrary, their big idea — allowing unrestricted competition across state lines — would lead to a race to the bottom. The states with the weakest regulations — for example, those that allow insurance companies to deny coverage to victims of domestic violence — would set the standards for the nation as a whole. The result would be to afflict the afflicted, to make the lives of Americans with pre-existing conditions even harder.

Don’t take my word for it. Look at the Congressional Budget Office analysis of the House G.O.P. plan. That analysis is discreetly worded, with the budget office declaring somewhat obscurely that while the number of uninsured Americans wouldn’t change much, “the pool of people without health insurance would end up being less healthy, on average, than under current law.” But here’s the translation: While some people would gain insurance, the people losing insurance would be those who need it most. Under the Republican plan, the American health care system would become even more brutal than it is now.

So what did we learn from the summit? What I took away was the arrogance that the success of things like the death-panel smear has obviously engendered in Republican politicians. At this point they obviously believe that they can blandly make utterly misleading assertions, saying things that can be easily refuted, and pay no price. And they may well be right.

But Democrats can have the last laugh. All they have to do — and they have the power to do it — is finish the job, and enact health reform.

see: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/26/opinion/26krugman.html

More, Brooks, 26 Feb NY Times: “Most of the credit goes to President Obama. The man really knows how to lead a discussion. He stuck to specifics and tried to rein in people who were flying off into generalities. He picked out the core point in any comment. He tried to keep things going in a coherent direction.

Moreover, he seemed to be trying to get a result. Republicans had their substantive criticism of the Democratic bills, but Obama kept pressing them for areas of agreement.”

see: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/26/opinion/26brooks.html

More:Eddie Reeves: “This wasn’t a draw, and anyone who thinks so missed the brilliant strategy.

It’s been a fait accompli for months now that if health care is to pass, it will do so solely with Democratic support. So the whole game for the administration is to shore up those nervous swing Midwestern and Southern Democrats whose votes are crucial but in jeopardy. Solidifying the support of these two dozen or so Members was the true aim of the summit.

In one fell swoop, the President altered the trajectory of the health care debate. First, merely by announcing this summit, he calmed the tsunami of negative press coverage that deluged him and his party after the GOP Senate victory in Massachusetts.

Next, the announcement took the spotlight off Democratic congressional leaders and put it on the President himself. That was smart, since, despite his travails of the last several months, the President’s personal popularity still rates highly among the American people, while that of Reid, Pelosi et al. comes in just north of dirty gym socks.

The gambles that Barack Obama took with this summit were three-fold:

Gamble #1 – Could he strike the right rhetorical balance between big-picture statesman and deal-seeking negotiator?

Gamble #2 – Could he use the summit in effect to replace Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi as the leader of the health reform legislative push?

Gamble #3 – Could he count on the Republicans to continue to be the party of obstinacy and obstruction?

There is no question that the President won all three rolls of the dice.

see: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eddie-reeves/healthcare-summit-another_b_477820.html

Emphasis mine

Income Disparity on the Rise; Services in decline…

socialism in reverse.

chasdarwinLeave a comment

From Common Dreams:

A Progressive Tax: It’s Not Socialism, It’s Correctionism

by Paul Buchheit

“People don’t want to talk about taxes. Most of us are afraid that a tax increase will impact ALL of us. The media shies away from such a controversial topic. Certainly the rich don’t want to talk about it. And even lower-income people seem to have this sense that they will be wealthy someday, and government shouldn’t interfere with their plans.

So on we go with the cutbacks in train and bus service, and the loss of teachers, the cancellation of after-school programs in low-income areas, reductions in library hours and park services. Plus, of course, increases in state income taxes, sales taxes, property taxes, gas taxes, cigarette taxes, utility costs, license fees, parking meter rates.

The public rarely hears about one of the major causes of this assault on the middle class.

From 1980 to 2006 the richest 1% of America TRIPLED their after-tax percentage of our nation’s total income, while the bottom 90% have seen their share drop over 20%.

That’s a TRILLION dollars a year, one-seventh of America’s total income, that went to the richest 1% while 90% of us went backwards.

But, many people ask, don’t the very rich pay most of the taxes? Just federal income tax. And they pay less than 23% of their incomes in federal income tax. If state and local taxes, social security tax, and excise taxes are included, the lowest-earning half of America pays 24% of their incomes in taxes.

But isn’t taxing the rich a form of socialism? Since 1980, if the average working family had received compensation based on its relative contribution to America’s prosperity, it would be making an average of $45,000 a year instead of $35,000. Through 30 years of deregulation and financial maneuvering, the richest 1% have taken $10,000 a year from every American family. That’s socialism in reverse….

More significantly, our economy allows a tiny percentage of us to take an inordinate amount of money from society, at an increasing rate. Some people may have dropped out of this elite group, but those who have moved in are making even more! The result is a system in which one man (hedge fund manager John Paulson in 2007) can make more money than the total of the salaries of every police officer, firefighter, and public school teacher in Chicago, while another man stands hungry in the cold. And any attempt to fix the system is called socialism.

So what’s the solution? Several states have implemented more progressive tax systems. And they have apparently not caused wealthy people to transfer their fortunes out-of-state. A 2008 study by Princeton University determined that “the ‘half-millionaire tax,’ at least in New Jersey, appears to be an effective and efficient revenue-generation mechanism, having little impact on migration patterns among half-millionaire households.” [1] Similarly, little adverse effect of higher taxes was found in Maryland or Oregon. [2] A study by the California Budget Project revealed that the number of high-income households actually grew during periods of higher income tax rates for top earners. [3] Oregon recently passed Measures 66 and 67, which impose modest income tax increases on the wealthiest residents and raise the corporate minimum tax for the first time in 80 years.

President Obama is right to seek a progressive federal tax structure in which the very rich will return some of the money derived from years of deregulation and shrewd financial strategies. We need Congress and the media to support this way of thinking.”

Paul Buchheit is a faculty member in the School for New Learning at DePaul University.

Note: All the facts cited herein are from the Internal Revenue Service, the U.S. Congressional Budget Office, and the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy.

1. Tax Foundation. Summary of Latest Federal Individual Income Tax Data. July 18, 2008 <http://www.taxfoundation.org/news/show/250.html>.

2. Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, “Who Pays?” (January, 2003) <http://www.itepnet.org/wp2000/text.pdf>; see also Citizens for Tax Justice <http://www.ctj.org/itep/ilquestions.htm>: Citizen’s Guide to the Illinois State Tax System: What Every Concerned Illinoisan Should Know (Illinoisans who make less than $15,000 per year pay 13 percent of its income in state taxes. Middle class families pay 10 percent of their income in taxes. Wealthy Illinoisans, with an average income of $1.2 million pay only 6 percent of their income in state taxes.

3. U.S. Congressional Budget Office. “Historical Effective Federal Tax Rates: 1979 to 2005,” December, 2007. <http://cbo.gov/ftpdocs/88xx/doc8885/EffectiveTaxRates.shtml>. (Note: the corporate income tax, which derives from capital ownership, are not considered in this analysis; the responsibility for these taxes is subject to dispute; see William C. Randolph, “International Burdens of the Corporate Income Tax,” Congressional Budget Office, August 2006 <http://cbo.gov/ftpdocs/75xx/doc7503/2006-09.pdf>: “..domestic labor bears slightly more than 70 percent of the burden of the corporate income tax”; see also Andrew Chamberlain, “Who Really Pays the Corporate Income Tax?” The Tax Foundation, May 4, 2006 <http://www.taxfoundation.org/blog/show/1467.html>; Bob Williams, “Who Really Pays the Corporate Income Tax?” Tax Policy Center, August 2008; Scott A. Hodge and Gerald Prante, “Personalizing the Corporate Income Tax,” The Tax Foundation, October 25, 2007 <http://www.taxfoundation.org/research/show/22694.html>.)

see: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/02/04-7

The ‘Haves’ have Engineered an Extraordinary Coup, Threatening the Middle Class

chasdarwinLeave a comment

David Degrew, alternet:  ” We all have very strong differences of opinion on many issues. However, like our founding fathers before us, we must put aside our differences and unite to fight a common enemy.  t has now become evident to a critical mass that the Republican and Democratic parties, along with all three branches of our government, have been bought off by a well-organized Economic Elite who are tactically destroying our way of life. The harsh truth is that 99 percent of the U.S. population no longer has political representation. The U.S. economy, government and tax system is now blatantly rigged against us.

Current statistical societal indicators clearly demonstrate that a strategic attack has been launched and an analysis of current governmental policies prove that conditions for 99 percent of Americans will continue to deteriorate. The Economic Elite have engineered a financial coup and have brought war to our doorstep…and make no mistake, they have launched a war to eliminate the U.S. middle class….

Before exposing exactly who the Economic Elite are, and discussing common sense ways in which we can defeat them, let’s take a look at how much damage they have already caused.

Buy the Book: The Economic Elite Vs. The People of the United States of America

Casualties of Economic Terrorism, Surveying the Damages



America is the richest nation in history, yet we now have the highest poverty rate in the industrialized world with an unprecedented amount of Americans living in dire straights and over 50 million citizens already living in poverty.

The government has come up with clever ways to downplay all of these numbers, but we have over 50 million people who need to use food stamps to eat, and a stunning 50 percent of U.S. children will use food stamps to eat at some point in their childhoods. Approximately 20,000 people are added to this total every day. In 2009, one out of five U.S. households didn’t have enough money to buy food. In households with children, this number rose to 24 percent, as the hunger rate among U.S. citizens has now reached an all-time high.  We also currently have over 50 million U.S. citizens without health care. 1.4 million Americans filed for bankruptcy in 2009, a 32 percent increase from 2008. As bankruptcies continue to skyrocket, medical bankruptcies are responsible for over 60 percent of them, and over 75 percent of the medical bankruptcies filed are from people who have health care insurance. We have the most expensive health care system in the world, we are forced to pay twice as much as other countries and the overall care we get in return ranks 37th in the world.

In total, Americans have lost $5 trillion from their pensions and savings since the economic crisis began and $13 trillion in the value of their homes. During the first full year of the crisis, workers between the age of 55 – 60, who have worked for 20 – 29 years, have lost an average of 25 percent off their 401k. “Personal debt has risen from 65 percent of income in 1980 to 125 percent today.” Over five million U.S. families have already lost their homes, in total 13 million U.S. families are expected to lose their home by 2014, with 25 percent of current mortgages underwater. Deutsche Bank has an even grimmer prediction: “The percentage of ‘underwater’ loans may rise to 48 percent, or 25 million homes.” Every day 10,000 U.S. homes enter foreclosure. Statistics show that an increasing number of these people are not finding shelter elsewhere, there are now over 3 million homeless Americans, the fastest-growing segment of the homeless population is single parents with children.

One place more and more Americans are finding a home is in prison. With a prison population of 2.3 million people, we now have more people incarcerated than any other nation in the world — the per capita statistics are 700 per 100,000 citizens. In comparison, China has 110 per 100,000, France has 80 per 100,000, Saudi Arabia has 45 per 100,000. The prison industry is thriving and expecting major growth over the next few years. A recent report from the Hartford Advocate titled “Incarceration Nation” revealed that “a new prison opens every week somewhere in America.”

Mass Unemployment

The government unemployment rate is deceptive on several levels. It doesn’t count people who are “involuntary part-time workers,” meaning workers who are working part-time but want to find full-time work. It also doesn’t count “discouraged workers,” meaning long-term unemployed people who have lost hope and don’t consistently look for work. As time goes by, more and more people stop consistently looking for work and are discounted from the unemployment figure. For instance, in January, 1.1 million workers were eliminated from the unemployment total because they were “officially” labeled discouraged workers. So instead of the number rising, we will hear deceptive reports about unemployment leveling off.

On top of this, the Bureau of Labor Statistics recently discovered that 824,000 job losses were never accounted for due to a “modeling error” in their data. Even in their initial January data there appears to be a huge understating, with the newest report saying the economy lost 20,000 jobs. TrimTabs employment analysis, which has consistently provided more accurate data, “estimated that the U.S. economy shed 104,000 jobs in January.”

When you factor in all these uncounted workers — “involuntary part-time” and “discouraged workers” — the unemployment rate rises from 9.7 percent to over 20 percent. In total, we now have over 30 million U.S. citizens who are unemployed or underemployed. The rarely cited “employment-participation” rate, which reveals the percentage of the population that is currently in the workforce, has now fallen to 64 percent.

Even based on the “official” unemployment rate, just to get back to the unemployment level of 4.6 percent that we had in 2007, we need to create over 10 million new jobs, and most every serious economist will tell you that these jobs are not coming back. In fact, we are still consistently shedding jobs, on just one day, January 27, several companies announced new cuts of more than 60,000 jobs.

Due to the length of this crisis already, millions of Americans are reaching a point where the unemployment benefits they have been living on are coming to an end. More workers have already been out of work longer than at any point since statistics have been recorded, with over six million now unemployed for over six months. A record 20 million Americans qualified for unemployment insurance benefits last year, causing 27 states to run out of funds, with seven more also expected to go into the red within the next few months. In total, 40 state programs are expected to go broke.

Most economists believe the unemployment rate will remain high for the foreseeable future. What will happen when we have millions of laid-off workers without any unemployment benefits to save them?

Working More for Less

The millions struggling to find work are just part of the story. Due to the fact that we now have a record high six people for every one job opening, companies have been able to further increase the workload on their remaining employees. They have been able to increase the amount of hours Americans are working, reduce wages and drastically cut back on benefits. Even though Americans were already the most productive workers in the world before the economic crisis, in the third quarter of 2009, average worker productivity increased by an annualized rate of 9.5 percent, at the same time unit labor cost decreased by 5.2 percent. This has led to record profits for many companies. Of the 220 companies in the S&P 500 who have reported fourth-quarter results thus far, 78 percent of them had “better-than-expected profits” with earnings 17 percent above expectations, “the highest for any quarter since Thomson Reuters began tracking data.”

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the national median wage was only $32,390 per year in 2008, and median household income fell by 3.6 percent while the unemployment rate was 5.8 percent. With the unemployment rate now at 10 percent, median income has been falling at a 5 percent rate and is expected to continue its decline. Not surprisingly, Americans’ job satisfaction level is now at an all-time low.

There are also a growing number of employed people who, despite having a job, are still living in poverty. There are at least 15 million workers who now fall into this rapidly growing category. $32,390 a year is not going to get you far in today’s economy, and half of the country is making less than that. This is why many Americans are now forced to work two jobs to provide for their family to hopefully make ends meet.

A Crime Against Humanity

The mainstream news media will numb us to this horrifying reality by endlessly talking about the latest numbers, but they never piece them together to show you the whole devastating picture, and they rarely show you all the immense individual suffering behind them. This is how they “normalize the unthinkable” and make us become passive in the face of such a high causality count.

Behind each of these numbers, is a tremendous amount of misery; the physical toll is only outdone by the severe psychological toll. Anyone who has had to put off medical care, or who couldn’t get medical care for one of their family members due to financial circumstances, can tell you about the psychological toll that is on top of the physical suffering. Anyone who has felt the stress of wondering how they were going to get their child’s next meal or their own, or the stress of not knowing how they are going to pay the mortgage, rent, electricity or heat bill, let alone the car payment, gas, phone, cable or Internet bill.

There are now well over 150 million Americans who feel stress over these things on a consistent basis. Over 60 percent of Americans now live paycheck to paycheck.

These are all basic things every person should be able to easily afford in a technologically advanced society such as ours. The reason we struggle with these things is because the Economic Elite have robbed us all. This amount of suffering in the United States of America is literally a crime against humanity.

“The war against working people should be understood to be a real war…. Specifically in the U.S., which happens to have a highly class-conscious business class…. And they have long seen themselves as fighting a bitter class war, except they don’t want anybody else to know about it.” — Noam Chomsky

As a record amount of U.S. citizens are struggling to get by, many of the largest corporations are experiencing record-breaking profits, and CEOs are receiving record-breaking bonuses. How could this be happening, how did we get to this point?

The Economic Elite have escalated their attack on U.S. workers over the past few years; however, this attack began to build intensity in the 1970s. In 1970, CEOs made $25 for every $1 the average worker made. Due to technological advancements, production and profit levels exploded from 1970 – 2000. With the lion’s share of increased profits going to the CEO’s, this pay ratio dramatically rose to $90 for CEOs to $1 for the average worker.

see: http://www.alternet.org/economy/145667/, and

http://www.alternet.org/story/145705/the_richest_1%25_have_captured_america%27s_wealth_–_what%27s_it_going_to_take_to_get_it_back