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We the People Lost Again
The tireless Dennis Kucinich told it like it was at a committee hearing on the economy this week. He blasted the bailouts and its inequities for turning Wall Street into "fat city" and the rest of us into its victims.
"Class warfare is over - we lost," he said before the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. "Working people lost. The middle class lost.
The harrowing comments from Kucinich, who is Chairman of the Domestic Policy Subcommittee, come amidst a national unemployment rate of 10 percent, one year and several months after the economic collapse of 2008 has marred the livelihoods of many.
"Don't tell me about class warfare," he continued. "Come to my neighborhoods in Cleveland. I will show you class warfare. I'll show you hollowed out areas. I'll show you businesses that went down because they don't have access to capital. And on Wall Street it is fat city. Don't tell me about class warfare."
Kucinich, a former presidential candidate who is viewed across the nation as a progressive champion on many issues, said that despite the recent uptick in economic figures, many regular Americans continue to struggle.
"All across this country people are starved for capital," Kucinich said. "Small businesses are failing, you have shopping centers that are becoming vacant because people can't afford the rents anymore because the people who own the malls the developers are getting cash calls and credit is tightening."
"The separation between the finance economy and the real economy is real. This is not some fake idea. You can't call that class warfare. That's a fact."
Kucinich, who voted against the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 (also known as the Wall Street bailout), lamented it as a catalyzing force for the rising inequality of income in the United States.
"The wealth of this nation is being accelerated upward," Kucinich said. "That's one of the problems that I had with the bailout."
"You could say that it helped stabilize the American economy, but what I see is the separation between the real economy and Wall Street. Wall Street is stabilizing, markets are a lot better, banks are doing well -- they parked their money at the Fed for a while so they could get higher interest rates."
55 Comments so far
Show AllWe lost another battle; we won't lose the war.
Why is this such a short piece?
Why is there a "Committee on Oversight and Government Reform" when there is little oversight OR reform?
Rather than "stabilizing the American economy", TARP put the economy on a life support machine with no plan to ever take it off. The only possible outcome is an even bigger meltdown further down the road. Obama is scrambling to change the rules so he can approve unlimited bailout funds without Congressional approval, thereby creating unprecedented economic pain for 98% of Americans and unprecedented wealth for 2%.
Yep, but many more rounds to go.
When the rich become poor the people will still be too big to die.
Middle class. What about the poor people?
Focus on helping the poor and the middle class will benefit too.
Great point! Even many of the so-called middle class don't give a turd about the marginalized poor, though now so many are becoming poor themselves that is likely to change.
Exactly.
All this talk about the "middle class" is; laden with classist, even racist code-language. The operative word is "the poor" but politicians don't dare use the word "poor" because of such a successful Reagan-and-later demonization and stereotyping of "the poor" to mean, effectively, "lazy nigger" or the equally anti-black racist, "white trash".
If the middle class is still middle class, they don't need help, at least not yet. If they have fallen into poverty, then they need help, but if this is the case, then the correct term is "the poor".
The Cleveland neighborhoods, Dennis is talking about are populated by poor people, not middle class.
"Middle class" works as a talking point exactly because those politicians who demonize the poor speak glowingly of how they are trying to help "the middle class" and "small business" and "middle America" and "Main Street" when what they really mean is they will be helping the filthy rich own them. It is a small way of pointing out their hypocrisy in their own language.
As stated by others, middle class is a code word. All working people suffer. I was raised in Cleveland, and Dennis is respected there for how he stood up for the people in regards to the energy company.
This is the man that should have been president. Not the corporate whore we have now.
WELL SAID! I hope everyone has learned from the 2008 "THEFT-BY-LYING" election that we must be more bold and push for, support, and ELECT this hero of "We the People".
Yes, I would like to see him "Go Green" also, BUT, it seems to me that the way the cards are falling he may actually have a shot as "Our Insider" next time. No Fear, Progressives! Just push for Dennis with all the back bone you usually state you want from the Dems.
Dennis Kucinich is truly great.
Champion of "We the People". Always has been but him being "disappeared" by the corporate, right wing media hasn't helped. The internet is here. Let's use it to organize behind him...AND any progressive candidate!
A true American and patriot.
The only way that the Democrats could win in the next election (...and represent the majority of Americans!) is to support Dennis Kucinich as their next president. Only if Dennis is the choice of the Democratic Party, will the MSM have no choice but admit that he exists.
From my perspective, the dem o rats will never let it happen. Dennis needs to run on a third party ticket, with a strong conservative,someone like Ron Paul to have any chance of winning in 2012. And then if he wins, he would need a phlanx of body guards as his life would be in constant danger.
I really think that if Dennis ran with Ron Paul (even though they are like night and day on many issues) in 2012, they would stand a very good chance of winning. With all of the discontent in the country today, it would be hard for even the corporate cabal to keep them down. Hey...we can alway hope, eh?
"They are like night and day on many issues". True, but that is why they would be so powerful. I do not agree with Paul on many issues, but to enable change we really can believe in, the way I see it, the choir, left is much too weak politically. Maybe their is someone else better than Paul, on the conservative side, but I sure have not seen it. Some things I do agree on with Ron Paul: 1. He wants the fed eliminated. 2. He wants all the 700 bases around the world eliminated. 3. He wants the troops home from Iraq and Afghanistan 4. He wants to abolish the IRS. I think there is definately a window of opportunity for a viable third party in 2012, but I would argue, that without appealing to a broad base it has no chance in 2012.
The Democratic leadership will do everything it can to undermine Kucinich and other so called fringe candidates in the next election; just as it did in the past election. MSM assists. They start by trying to limit their visibility, eg., through debates. After only a few states out of 50 have held primaries or caucus', pressure is put on by the DLC and MSM for the so called fringe candidates to drop out (not enough money raised, not enough poll support...)
In Texas, the problem with supporting the Kucinich's in the Democratic primaries is that if you vote for a Democrat in the primary, state law doesn't allow you to petition for independents (e.g. Green Party candidates) to get on the Nov ballot. Who makes those rules? Democrats and Republicans in the Texas legislature. So if Kucinich doesn't win the Democratic primary (which is unlikely for reasons above), and you voted for him in the primary, you never had a chance to sign the petition to put an independent on the Nov ballot. In Texas, it is very difficult to get enough signatures to put independents on ballots.
The DNC pretends Kucinich doesn't exist and the media plays along with them.
I think Dennis is confusing a battle with a war. Yes, this battle is lost. The war continues....
You must be one of those WW2 Japanese Army holdouts...tucked away on some deserted South Sea island somewhere.
The Class War goes on but the struggling poor and Non-Entitled American Dreamers will always be bringing up the rear in this Capitalistic Rat Race... Something I always point out to my Victorious Financial Partners, i.e. Debt Collectors who I can only offer my First Born who unfortunately (or fortunately) has not come into this world yet due to my long standing status as a Financially Defunct Entity and Economically Challenged Artisan.
Be very loud and clear to the "democrat" party now:
We will vote Republican if they do not nominate Dennis for President.
We have to keep supporting him as he has supported us with our words of encouragement and money.
Changing parties is not going to get him elected.
He is a Democrat and doing the work on the inside with his influence; he has the respect of everyone on Capitol Hill.
The "democrat" party would rather see Dennis Kucinich as President than a Republican.
yeah...vote Rethuglican...that'll help...
Personally I would rather slit my own throat with a dull credit card.
Continued War, bailouts for the rich, still no health care: you tell me where the difference is between Obama and McCain.
You'd rather vote Republican than vote for an Independent? I suspect voting independent scares Democrats more than voting Republican. As long as both parties can convince the public that they only have a choice between 2 parties, they will keep a sufficient voting base no matter how much they disregard their bases.
Also, you have a lot of faith that the Democratic Party cares about its base's views as it continues to stabs its base in the back, e.g., health care and war policy. If the Democratic Party cared about its base, it wouldn't attempt to influence the primary process to support the candidate that the Party wants to win, rather than let the public decide.
I have a choice between as many parties there are.
I choose the individual: Dennis Kucinich.
Why not vote for someone with a decent take on issues? Would that not make a clearer statement?
After all, a good part of the problem now is that the Dems try to court Republicrat voters and sponsors. Let's make it clear to these folks just who they're losing.
If you vote Republican, they won't know you from another teagabber.
I think after 18 years of being betrayed and disappointed by the DemoRethuglicrat Party, a third party may finally be viable...and Dennis Kucinich should be its leader.
They could call themselves the Lollipop Guild.
In a society that overuses the word "hero" for egotistical athletes and psychopathic soldiers, Dennis Kucinich is a true hero. Sensitive, intelligent, passionate, and with more integrity than you can find in the rest of both houses of Congress.
the issue that progressives must harp on is productivity. we must attack the banksters, for example, because they have undermined american productivity, not because of excessive compensation, etc. if we make productivity the basic question in all other issues, we can create a very broad-based movement. if we do not, the country will go on squabbling and getting into its own road until things are so f*cked that the majority starts begging for a 'strong man.'
hmmm, but productivity depends largely upon industry. Unions ususally support the Democratic ticket, the industrial owners are therefore pushed to the "other" side. In a large number of cases, the owners have moved the 'productivity' centers of industry off shore to lower wage paying areas to avoid unions, health care, environmental laws, OSHA rules, etc.
I usually base my vote upon who I believe to be the most honest candidate. I believe the Democrats would do well to try and take the moral high ground, embrace a police of "fairness and honesty". Tell the public what is possible and what is pie-in-the-sky during the primaries. STOP campaigning on what it perceives the public wishes to hear and stop reacting every second hour to the latest polls. just an opinion
Dennis Kucinich is one of the few congress people who is not BOUGHT. He votes on behalf of ordinary people. The income gap between the top 1% and the rest of us grows year by year (CLASS WARFARE?).
"The harrowing comments from Kucinich, who is Chairman of the Domestic Policy Subcommittee, come amidst a national unemployment rate of 10 percent, one year and several months after the economic collapse of 2008 has marred the livelihoods of many."
Abby: We really need to get the statistics right. We are at 17 - 22% unemployment.....not 10%!
Here's a video you might want to check out to get the real numbers:
http://www.kingworldnews.com/kingworldnews/Broadcast/Entries/2009/12/4_John_Williams.html
I was going to comment on the same thing, however you have it slightly incorret. You didn't quote Abby Zimet. You quoted from the excerpt or quote of the RawStory.com article by Sahil Kapur, who linked the two words, "10 percent", to a CBS News article or report. We see this in the RawStory article and I was hoping he wasn't quoting Dennis Kucinich using this low rate.
Sahil Kapur nevertheless could and should have added that the 10% is only representative of people presently receiving unemp. insurance (UI) benefits and that it presently is far from representative of the total number or rate of unemployed people in the U.S., because there are unemployed people who are no longer receiving UI benefits (UIB, or UI, since "benefits" is inferred, anyway).
Dennis Kucinich is an obvious choice. If we want to build him up, now is the time to start. We will have to be mature enough to take on the inevitable smear campaigns in a convincing way. We will have to try to recruit people to support him, which means explaining policies and positions. We must decisively refuse to engage in squabbling nastiness. That is a sure fire way to drive people away.
Joe
I agree with so many who have posted comments. Dennis Kucinich is an {unsung}hero who should have been president. There are so few in congress who work as hard as Dennis for the people of America. He never gives up. I greatly admire him and wish him success in the future. If he were our leader we would not be lost again. We would be on the path to a better world for our children.
I would rather not "engage in squabbling nastiness". Dennis Kucinich has my vote. The Rethuglicrats do not. Dennis would be a 3rd party candidate as the Democratic sheep will not nominate someone who dares challenge the controlling capitalists. This is why the one party masquerading as two (Rethuglicrats) hate Ralph Nader: he's had their number (666) for a long time, now.
Bravo Kucinich. I think that Kucinich should switch from Democrat to Green this very instant if it's possible that is. He would be an invaluable asset to the Green Party that is trying to recover. A joint Kucinich/Mckinney or Mckinney/Kucinich would be my cup of tea in 2012. 8 years of each of them in the White House repairing decades of sellout and war damages is needed. I don't know what else to say but feel ashamed that the only Democrats in my state who comes close are Congressmen Moran, Scott, and Connolly and Senator Webb but even those 4 are mixed at best and nowhere near as progressive as Kucinich.
if dennis and russ feingold and others like them in both the senate and house
and sustained a voting bloc boy they could really start some shit. 10 hard core
senators and thirty congress persons who stick together ALL the time could force
things that folks don't want to happen happen!
Full points for spirit, Dennis, but some of us out here in the tules ain't got no mind to surrender yet.
Do not get into any small aircraft.
Yes, everybody loves Dennis. But everybody voted for Clinton and Obama. Didn't they?
Everybody in a place like this loves Dennis. Everybody else is scared of rocking the boat too much, doesn't understand the trouble they are in, and does not appreciate how much ground America has lost since we anoited a B-movie actor president almost 30 years ago.
Dennis and BERNIE that;s the ticket;
Hey, I'd vote Dem for that.
Bring America Back !!!!.......!!!!...Yes, Abby, nice addition to the current debates. Kucinich could very well include our Citizen US losses on the so called Sham 'War on Drugs'===America lost that one long ago--about the time when the first dirty cop took his payoff envelope from the Big Dealers !!!!
****Gov Howard Dean, Dem Party Chairman has stated He would welcome a re-election challenge to Obama, if the healthcare reform failed. When last week Dean screamed 'Kill the Bill', it became obvious he views Team Obama as failures on US Healthcare Reform.
***As jclientele posts below: NOW is the time for
Kucinich to step up and declare himself a challenger to Obama.
======give us three years to back up Dennis and his issues, policies, and reforms for America !
=======give us three years to support Kucinich on his cry to End the Wars Now and bring home our troops !
=======give us three years to point out to America the vast differences on what our Nation could be, versus the lies, false promises, and cave-in political rhetoric of Team Obama.
======do NOT be like a Nader, who loves his last minute tirades, the bad boy spoiler role, another failed sham run for the gold medal==and most of all,
his next book on how we consumers are taken again!
KUCINICH FOR PRESIDENT===DO IT NOW====JUST DO IT !!! And in the final analysis, it could very well be our last strong Hope against, the Neocon Revivalists and
turning the country back over to the likes of a Romney/Palin or a Romney/Jebby
bid against the one trick Obama pony.
"Yes, everybody loves Dennis. But everybody voted for Clinton and Obama. Didn't they?"
I wrote in Kucinich.
Everyone hoping for a Kucinich/Paul ticket in 2012 should remember last year when NBC invited Dennis, then went to court to take away the Nevada debate invitation from him. While at the same time Ron Paul was kicking ass in the Washington State caucus and starting to get headlines and traction, and the GOP stopped counting the results at 83% of votes counted. WTF!!
Ooooh NO! NOT Ron Paul. Nuh-uh.
Now Dennis Kucinich/Adolph Reed would be awesome.