Subscribe to Common Dreams News Updates
Most Popular This Week
Popular content
Today's Top News
The Super Rich Get Richer, Everyone Else Gets Poorer, and the Democrats Punt
The super-rich got even wealthier this year, and yet most of them are paying even fewer taxes to support the eduction, job training, and job creation of the rest of us. According to Forbes magazine's annual survey, just released, the combined net worth of the 400 richest Americans climbed 8% this year, to $1.37 trillion. Wealth rose for 217 members of the list, while 85 saw a decline.
For example, Charles and David Koch, the energy magnates who are pouring vast sums of money into Republican coffers and sponsoring tea partiers all over America, each gained $5.5 billion of wealth over the past year. Each is now worth $21.5 billion.
Wall Street continued to dominate the list; 109 of the richest 400 are in finance or investments.
From another survey we learn that the 25 top hedge-fund managers got an average of $1 billion each, but paid an average of 17 percent in taxes (because so much of their income is considered capital gains, taxed at 15 percent thanks to the Bush tax cuts).
The rest of America got poorer, of course. The number in poverty rose to a post-war high. The median wage continues to deteriorate. And some 20 million Americans don't have work.
Only twice before in American history has so much been held by so few, and the gap between them and the great majority been a chasm - the late 1920s, and the era of the robber barons in the 1880s.
And yet the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003, which conferred almost all their benefits on the rich, continue.
Democrats have decided to delay voting on whether to extend them for the top 2 percent of Americans or for the bottom 98 percent until after the mid-term elections.
Democrats have thereby given up a defining issue that could have enabled them to show the big story of the last three decades - the accumulation of almost all the gain from economic growth at the top - and to make a start at reversing it.
When will they ever learn?
Robert Reich, one of the nation’s leading experts on work and the economy, is Chancellor’s Professor of Public Policy at the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley. He has served in three national administrations, most recently as secretary of labor under President Bill Clinton. Time Magazine has named him one of the ten most effective cabinet secretaries of the last century. He has written thirteen books, including his latest best-seller, Aftershock: The Next Economy and America’s Future; The Work of Nations; Locked in the Cabinet; Supercapitalism; and his newest, an e-book, Beyond Outrage. His syndicated columns, television appearances, and public radio commentaries reach millions of people each week. He is also a founding editor of the American Prospect magazine, and Chairman of the citizen’s group Common Cause. His widely-read blog can be found at www.robertreich.org.
70 Comments so far
Show AllWhat kind of legislation can anyone expect from a congress full of millionaires who remain in office thanks to funding from billionairs.
Actions speak louder than votes. Take your money out of national banks, stop paying your health ins. premiums, move close to your work, walk or bike whenever possible, buy local, make your own toys, talk to your neighbor, blow up your TV.
Beautiful.
will someone tell the demoocrats to awaken from defeat
How can a party allow such a horrid party to get re-elected
Clinton left Bush Heaven On Earth
Bush left Obama Hell on Earth
Clinton left Bush an 1800B Budget and four balanced budgets
Bush Left Obama 3600B Budget
Clinton left Bush a 5700B of Debt
Bush left Obama 11,800B of Debt
Clinton left Bush a 237,00 new net jobs created per month
Bush left Obama a 31,000 lowest since Hoover.
Clinton left Bush Peace on Earth
Bush left Obama Hell on Earth Two disastrous wars
Clinton left Bush a President most highly rated of any peacetime President in Asia, Africa, Europe.
Bush left Obama the most hated President in history
Bush left Obama an Housing Tsunami and Financial Volcano
Bush left Obama, in 2008, an 8500B Bail out commitment
Bush left Obama his Takeover of Fannie/Freddie , AIG, and first bailout of Chrysler
How can any honest informed person vote to re-continue such horrid actions and results?
clarence swinney
political historian
lifeaholics of america
author-Lifeaholic--Life story of workaholic failure to lifeaholic success
University President- "Every college student should have this book"
You left out that Clinton left us all with NAFTA.
Where were the dems while all these things were happening?
I'll tell you, voting right along side the others.
Where were they these last two years with both congressional houses and the big white one?
This time you tell me.
Nafta was a BushI bill.
Nafta was a Republican Congress bill.
Nafta was an early success where exports exceeded imports until PESO Tanked.
Clinton signed it not create it.
Imports from Mexico??
#1 is OIL. Number 2 in our Oil providers
Clinton was a Globalist and is today.
He sincerely feels the Richer nations should aid the "Least Amongst Thee"
Wonder who said that first??
Truly you have suggested the only personal alternatives that have any reasonable chance for changing the corporate power structure. I might add that as collective possibilities, any organized disruptions of "business as usual" such as strategically targeted mass boycotts of goods and services, tax resistance and other such refusals to comply might start bending ears towards the interests of the "little people" These could be accomplished with an imaginative spirit, good wits and good humor.
Party politics are a dead end and a waste of energy, time and money. Noncompliance is the key.
How very true. They are hoarding all those supplies. The money may be going towards their own military buildup for when we revolt. Don't forget all those EO thst were written. Do a search. Forced labor camps, work details, consfiscating food stocks are not just CTs. Look at them. Also do a search for the depopulation program on rense. com. Thru vacs and meds. The gates foundation and the big banks want to bring down the population. Really. Do a search on these things. When climate change wipes out enough people, these bastards will be fst, happy, rich and protected. With money they stole for us. I have written about this here many times and have yet to see a reply. Anyone?
miggy, I think that this is a fantasy scenario, which, when you use more sophisticated reasoning, does not pan out. It actually reduces the rate of survival of the paranoid, viciously greedy rich that you are talking about. So unless they are completely dumb, which is good for us since the masses have millions of smart people, they are not going to last long as the more sensible among the rich realize that 400 billionaires cannot survive when 300 million people are pissed off no end.
To put some meat on my skeleton assertion, consider a billionaire who has, say, $20 billion that he wants to stash away in his lavish bunker, say in the Rocky Mountains. The bunker is large enough to hold 10 years of food and energy supplies and all the goodies of life. It cost the fellow a cool $1 billion to construct 2000 feet into the mountain site with secret entries and exits and enough room for him and his family, some sycophants and concubines and gigolos, numbering in all say 50 people who are his closest.
Now unless you have the authority and power of an Egyptian Pharoah, the construction of the mega complex in say 2-3 years would have required an enginneering and work crew, plus security crew to hide the location etc that at peak construction would have totaled about 500 people or more and huge earth and stone moving and drilling equipment. Smart people in those crews would have noted down the precise geopgraphic coordinates of the place and its exits, and they could blackmail the billionaire. If the bill. is smart, he would have anticipated this problem and tried to buy silence like the Pharoahs did by killing the builders, or in real life today, by buying their silence. Suppose 100 of the 500 workers are smart. The minimum they would demand given the size of his trove as well as their own security and luxury abode in Costa Rica or elsewhere for the rest of their lives would be $10 million. So that would eat up another $1 billion.
Next come some of these smart blackmailers who may want to milk the cow not once but many times. So they would corrupt the security guards officers with $ 1 million and a promise to share in the loot from further blackmail. Whilst all this is going on, some senior security guard commander (the billionaire world need a private army of about 1,000 to feel "protected"), who is an ex-military double agent or smart officer, having read the history of the Roman Empire, would say to himself, why on earth am I protecting Caligulla (the billionaire). I and my boys and gals are the only thing that keeps the wolves away from him. Meanwhile he and his idle-rich family and friend bastards are living high off the hog while we are slaving away here for about $50 grand on average. We can have it all since the fellow has virtually disappeared from all public records on him for 10 years to ride out the chaos he and his other billionaire cronies have inflicted on people who are starving and dying in the millions.
Like the proverbial Roman Generals during the Fall of the Roman Empire, this Centurion of the billionaire's guard would collect his best team members, create an esprit de corps, and wait for the opportune moment to seize the billionaire, wives and children, hold them hostage and torture them. He would kill off most of the sex toys and sycophants to make the billionaire depressed and lonely to make the hostage holding effective and efficient with minimum costs. Guard Commander would continue this until the billionaire coughs up his ill-gotten loot. So within 4-5 years, the rich billionaires plan to live lavishly in a bunker, hidden from taxes, government and people goes up in smoke. He becomes a pauper or dead or mutilated beyond recognition and without any money wandering the Rocky Mountains until the cougars and bears get him. Nobody comes to search for him as he is completely off the grid.
So miggy, if this visualiztion seems reasonable to you, then why do you think a billionaire's life in a bunker where he depends on skilled labour of others and the brute force of mercenaries have a rosy problem free nirvana type of life?
The only way a money stashing billionaire can survive the social and other major French Revolution type upheavals that will occur in both poor and currently rich countries in the next 10-20 years, is to try to become a tyrant spending money lavishly on a Praetorian guard of 5,000 people who would be providing him a permament cordon away from the guns and knives and IED's the smart but pissed off 100 million of the masses in America would be throwing his and his family's way. It will be Afghanistan, 100 times worse as there will be many war veterans among the masses. That tyrant won't last more than six months, and his guard would be mowed down into shreds, which implies they would desert him within a month.
Nah! Sensible rich people have always realized that the greatest security for them and their families comes from circulating money, and enabling prosperity to be widely available through investments and credit provided by their capital. Bunker billionaires have always perished in short order. If you want to know what is going to happen, listen to sensible billionaires like Warren Buffet and Bill Gates, Soros and many others including Bloomberg over the last 2 years.
Lemme make a prediction: The Dems delayed voting on the tax cut issue so they can vote to continue the cuts without impunity just after the election. The crap will fly, but as usual the voting public will have a 30-second memory.
You heard it here first, folks.
Indulge me just this once in not calling for organizing, expressing indignation, or re-framing the author's intent into something more relevant, because it's my birthday; and even though my family is OK, my kids did all their homework this week, the weather is beautiful and we all played outdoors, I'm cancer-free, I'm about to go out with my wife to see a friend's band play in The Bronx where I was born, and I got almost enough rest last night, I'm a bit down. This article wasn't the pick-me-up I needed.
It is 2010 and we're in the late innings of another federal campaign season. For nine years we are at war, and domestically and internationally insecure in every measurable and even spiritual way. We have poverty at rates that equal those before the "war on poverty," but with no will -- or money -- this time to attack it and avoid its long-term consequences. The environment is suffering degradation and industrial assault at rates we haven't seen since before the publication of Silent Spring. Our food supply is suffering degradation and industrial assault at rates we haven't seen since The Jungle. Much of this is the consequence of 30 years of uninterrupted monopolization and concentration of wealth in ways we haven't seen -- and had been largely illegal -- since the 1890's. We have only two parties from which to choose, and both of them have been nearly equally complicit in the 30 unbroken years of political evolution that has brought us to this point. One of them is motivating voters by stimulating rage (a realistic approach, since it skips over discussion of the utter absence of a program for improvement). The other is motivating voters by stimulating fear of the other party rather than expectation of positive outcomes (a realistic approach, since they know nobody's buying "hope and change" rhetoric this time, and probably never again). Here we are, in the state we're in, all Americans impotently forced to choose between rage and fear in terms of our personal calculus in selecting our next round of representatives. In other words, democracy in America has now reached its ultimate nadir, where our only choice is to vote out of fear and anger at each other as people, rather than out of a logical expectation of an improved state of personal and national affairs stemming from how we vote. And I'm not hopeful We The People will get bailed out and given good, secure, decent-paying jobs in environmentally and economically sustainable industries by the corporations that steered our government towards helping them get us all here. That's not where the money is, and the law requires they follow the money.
Regardless of what happens in November, looking at the macro side of this, does anyone feel a bit tense about where all this is heading? Are there any historical examples of powerful nations that have reached this point and emerged free of war, economic, social, and cultural impoverishment, and domestic violence? Shouldn't we be initiating some planning for how we will participate in, or at least cope with, the inevitable? Maybe not a major focus, but at least start thinking about it, so we're not all caught in a state of utter unpreparedness and end up like Russia in the 1990's?
Great Britain, over the last century, is a good example of a soft landing for empire. Great Britain didn't collapse, they pulled back, AND maintained somewhat of a safety net—health care, for example. I think we could still do that, instead of a Soviet-style collapse. Of course the period from now to, say, 2050, is not 1940 to 1980. For one, there is no successor to empire. Neither India, nor China, nor the EU wants the job. So the stage is set for law versus force. The US public is with progressives on that goal of law over force.
Because of anti-democratic features in our Constitution, progressives will have to think our way out of our absurd and wimpish fetish of proceduralism regarding constitutional changes.
Turkey just approved 26 amendments to their constitution via a national referendum. Seventy-eight percent voted and 58 percent approved.
Only when most American progressives grok that we Americans—the democratic majority—have the same right to alter our government as Turks and New Zealanders and the Swiss (as the Preamble suggests, along with Amendments 1, 9 and 10, and of course, the Declaration of Independence) will we alter our government with structural solutions to our structural problems. THAT would require a peaceful revolution of political consciousness—an awakening from our herd-like trance of subservience to constitutional and governmental rule.
In short, we need a democratic coup to take over the totalitarian, corporate, militarist plutocratic state. Turkey just made such a move two weeks ago. New Zealand did it in 1993-1996, creating a true multi-party system from their two-party system.
Until then, our trajectory towards plutocracy, national collapse and global ecocide will continue unaltered.
Wow, great comment. "an awakening from our herd-like trance of subservience to constitutional and governmental rule," it is possible. The truth will set us free- perhaps we will soon see the day when the people put aside their fear and anger, in favor of the realization that we share a collective destiny.
Thanks CommonSenseParty.
I agree about sharing a collective destiny. And to operationalize that idea, for Americans—that is, to convert collective destiny to collective will-to-act—is to understand a number of things: that Americans are one people; that we have rights and duties as one people to fashion our government our benefit; and that the Constitution has flaws which undermine the will of the American people.
At this point there is NO relevant discussion among progressive activists or progressive politicians about the structural flaws in the Constitution, and therefore, the structural flaws in our government. Prime among these are the flaws in the processes of altering our government. Article 5 with its four pathways to propose and ratify amendments, is absurd in its requirement of supermajorities. Two-thirds of the House and Senate or the States for proposing amendments, and 38 states for ratification. This means that 13 small states representing about five percent of the US population (the size of the LA area) can veto any amendment to modify or restructure the government.
Of course, this ridiculous, undemocratic process is nowhere stated in the Constitution as THE ONLY means of altering our government.
Americans have inalienable rights to alter our government by majority decision via a national assembly (Amendment 1) and national referendum. But as long as progressives believe the absurd procedure in Article 5 is presumed as THE ONLY means of altering our government, the nation will continue to proceed on its trajectory towards totalitarian plutocracy.
Once we get over this mental hurdle, we can, like other democratic peoples, alter our government by referendum, like Turkey did earlier this month. American states do this routinely, having had 233 state constitutional conventions, 150 new constitutions, and 1200+ amendments since the second and current Constitution was established in 1790.
Doing that would mean creating a modern democracy: money banned as speech; public funding of elections; proportional representation in legislatures; rights of recalling officials; initiative and referendum for making revisions to constitutions; and many other elements of a modern democratic republic like New Zealand or Sweden, Finland or Germany.
Collective destiny only manifests with modern political processes. Eighteenth century mechanisms and designs are not sufficient, nor the inhibited, ignorant mind-sets that go along with them.
How it is possible for the entire progressive community to forget or ignore this idea of the basic, collective sovereignty of the democratic majority of the people is beyond me, although deep trance through national hypnosis, ala Tolstoy, comes to mind.
From the Declaration of Independence:
". . . whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness . . . when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security."
That. Means. Majority. Rule.
Steve,
I couldn't have hoped to say it better. I didn't know you had it in you. I bet that felt good to get that off your chest. Only when we begin to ground our collective decision-making in the knowledge that these are visions of what may come will we have the courage to put aside all that we have known to set a course for the unknown.
What you wrote above should be read in newspapers across the nation. At the very least you could post it on a blog or something if you happen to have one so we could post a link to it.
The vision that Earthian proposes may yet come to pass, but I fear that "we" are still holding on to an outdated understanding of how the world works. We will not abandon this way of knowing until we are forced by questions of survival (spiritually, socially, and literally) to face the truth. This understanding will spread organically as those of us who see, guide the search of those groping for the truth.
Reality however unpleasant in many respects is preferable to illusion. Life is still in many other ways large and small filled with beauty and wonder- sources of joy can be found wherever we may choose to seek them. But we must accept Reality as it is now as the foundation, before we can begin to build a new and better world. We all have a role to play, I hope we all can find the courage to serve the cause of a more human world in the best ways we know how.
All the best to you and yours, and happy birthday,
Matt Rawlings,
Weaverville, NC
Thank you, and thank you for having a name and a town. I have a follow up I'll post above. I'll check into creating a web posting.
Steve Greenfield
New Paltz, NY
Steve,
Great observations and questions. However, similar ones are being made, and asked, throughout the country.
History is not on our side, as far as a continuation of the status quo goes. And, it also doesn't hold out a lot of hope for a soft landing.
That the status quo should end is undeniable. However, the severity of the end of this is not guaranteed. The only problem is that we have backed ourselves into a corner, mostly by such utter reliance on sophistication and technology. Now, I am not a Luddite (he avers as he types into his computer), but I do realize that we have become reliant on a very thin thread of just-in-time technology.
I would suggest that we get together with people. Form community. Rely on each other. Don't buy a gun - plant a garden and share the bounty with neighbors. Re-skill yourselves in some basics. Learn about permaculture and transition towns (meetup.com). For God's sake, don't wait for the pols or the government - they have no interest.
History repeats itself, and we seem to be on the verge of another repetition. It really, truly, is up to us to get ready.
This will continue as long as there is corporate "personhood."
Do you have any idea how large a guillotine we'd have to order, or make, in order to use the ‘extreme prejudice’ option against a corporation?
Mr. Reich inquires, "When will they ever learn"? In all probability that is an unlikely possibility. I will attempt to provide an example to illustrate that point. As I was backing my car into a parking spot at the post office today I noticed a jeep a few spots away that had an Obama/ Biden sticker. The person who drove the vehicle, a burly gentleman, about 60 years old and with a beard, approached me as I was heading inside the building. I asked him how he felt now about Obama. He gave me the rather startling response that while he acknowledged that Obama was a warmonger he was still [somehow] the lesser of the two evils. I told him that Obama and the Democrats did not even consider universal health care as an option. The driver of the jeep politely said that that was true but having Obama in office would still be preferable to John McCain being president.
To somewhat paraphrase Peter O'Toole's character Eli Cross in the wonderful cult classic film The Stunt Man, one has to think that if even sweet Jesus Christ himself were to somehow run against the Democrats and the Republicans in an election, most Americans would abstain from voting for JC on the grounds that voting for a third party candidate like JC would be the wrong thing to do because it would cost the Democrats the election and thus [supposedly] rob the American people of all the hope that they had placed in those wonderful Democrats.
Well, hmm. I take your point, Erroll, but you can't deny that JC has a reputation for being fiscally irresponsible, and NOBODY wants an Unsound Elected Misrepresentative taking care of the people's bidness.
Of course, if He agreed to create a Special Advisory Position for Elizabeth Warren to regulate the moneychangers in the Temple, that might make Him more "electable".
It would be an interesting campaign, though-- if only because there would be a strident contingent of "realists" in CD threads haranguing the rest of us with priceless denunciations like, "Well, OK-- but if you REALLY intend to Throw Your Vote Away on Jesus Christ, the blood of innocent Afghans, Yemenis, Pakistanians, etc. will be ON YOUR HANDS!"
O.S.
I think your comment is both hilarious as well as being all too plausible as that would very likely be how so many Americans, such as the driver of that jeep that I had encountered at the post office, would rationalize their not voting for JC.
A friend the other day asked the question...WWJVF...who would Jesus vote for?
Assuming Jesus would political support these ideas, I pointed out that anyone who supports peace, clean energy, healthy foods and economic models that fairly benefits all under the fair system, that choice is not being offered by ether of the two major parties. They agreed and then stated the classic mantra of modern "liberal/progressive" Democrats of voting for the "lesser of two evils". I agreed that is how many "liberal/progressive" Democrats make a choice but that I couldn't see Jesus voting for evil of any degree! LOL!
Mr. Reich basic premise is wrong in that he still sees a meaningful political difference between Democrats and Republicans! They are the same when both parties are financially supported by the same corporations that also underwrite the whole election system.
At the age of 56 its very difficult to realize the game...the rules... the goals of American democracy have radically changed by way of a peaceful coup by multi-national interest of our politics, capped/finished this past January when the Supreme Court gave the US election system to those who have the most money.
Robert,
There is nothing for the democrats to learn. They are acting with intent and precision. Their benefactors are quite pleased!
"We’re creating … an ownership society in this country, where more Americans than ever will be able to open up their door where they live and say, welcome to my house, welcome to my piece of property." – President George W. Bush, October 2004
During the campaign, President Bush and Vice President Cheney coined a new phrase to describe the economic promise of a second term. They said they would create an “ownership society”, one that would lower taxes and shift more of government’s burden to individuals. If they succeeded in building anything, it was this; Years of excess demand consumed resources that were supposed to provide for our future growth. In an obscure way, we ate those resources two generations ahead of time.
In the early 1980’s we saw for the first time in the history of capitalism aggregate demand being stimulated by issuing new currency. To maintain elevated economic activity that prevents the credit cycle from turning over, we have had to inflate even larger debt bubbles. A quarter century of households receiving these funds later, we are seeing powerful industries built around this growing demand disappear. Our debt level has grown so oppressively huge we have turned to government stimulus replacing growth formerly provided by private enterprise. Financial stimulus has added to our debt and any short term benefits will be diluted by higher interest rates, taxes or inflation later on. Past stimuli have amounted to capital consumption and not new sources of investment or wealth production.
Today, former President Bush can look out over a landscape of busted banks, foreclosed homes and rising unemployment and wonder if those tax cuts worked. His signature policies of regulatory capture eliminated reasonable financial oversight and spawned an institutional collapse of mega proportion. Mostly, he looked the other way while our manufacturing base was bankrupted to lavishly subsidize financial speculation. The real fraud of his credit expansion is an ownership society left with cash flows inadequate to service its debt.
We are left as owners of homes marked by apparent ill will. Home ownership remains battered public policy, and men who know that things are going quite wrong continue saying things are fundamentally sound, albeit in a less reassuring tone. They have abandoned getting out of this mess with their obvious intentions of going further in. The end result then becomes breaking our habit of being governed by a conspiracy against our common good.
Good comment.
Interesting Bush quote. Bush was in on the scam from the beginning!
"Ownership society" Was that from Rove's warped brain straight to Bush's mouth? In any case, I never had any doubt who's ownership they were talking about. Despite some residual unpleasant feelings over the 2000 'election', I actually started Bush out with respect and support, a feeling that peaked just after 9-11. Then, in 2002 and 2003, two things happened that cemented my feeling that he had to be the worst President ever. The first was the tax cuts, which had all the fiscal responsibility of a time bomb. The second was the Iraq invasion, which will go down as the most tragically clueless Presidential decision ever. Yet even then I had no idea how innocently pure his attachment to free, unregulated markets ran, and what horrors WallStreet would build upon that ignorance.
i am so very sick of one writer after another bemoaning democrats failure. Dont you get it? either stop expecting anything from them, or realize that its the other side of the same coin. This is so boring. Do we need another writer to say the same thing over and over... choose anarchy!
So, you want Reich to trumpet:
Democrats Determined to hold vote on rescinding Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy until after the election so they won't be seen in cahoots with Republicans to shaft majority of populace. It's high time we admit the obvious: The Public has no political party supporting its interests while the Rich and Wall Street have both the Democrats and Republicans providing their every wish.
Okay I admit it.
In addition to the lack of a representative party, there are precious few organizations of any stripe that represent working class interests, and they are mostly weak.
Several decades ago, someone observed that the primary problem affecting the USA politically was the abllity of the elite to get the middle class to side with it against the working class. That alliance is what allowed the elite to now destroy the middle class as the two classes that should have combined to check the elite did not. Propaganda and Indoctrination have convinced most in the middle class that the working class is undignified and unworthy and would pull it down if it could; so, any alliance with the working class is disdained. Times and the prevailing economic dynamic have changed and the middle class finds itself under attack from the very class it emulated and thought was its friend; yet, it still maintans its antipathies toward the working class, the only group available to stem the middle class's demise. We both know how difficult it is to admit you were wrong, to appologize to those we've wronged, and to ask forgiveness. Unless a reproachment is realized and a counterattck launched, the elite will win even more than they've already won.
How about the ability of the elite to get educated and professional working class people to think that they are not working class, but rather are some mythical thing called "middle class," distinct and separate from the working class? How about the ability of the elite to get those educated and professional working class people to tirelessly advance the interests of the elite?
Thanks for pointing this out.
But, but, but we all have to decide how we are going to cast our one personal vote! Nothing is more important.
When will they ever learn?
Why doesn't Obama get it?
When will the Dems finally wake up?
-----------------
Isn't this more appropriate for Huffington Post?
The Democrats have learned all to well. At election time, lack of campaign money will lead to defeat regardless of a candidate's stand on the popular issues.
The money comes as reward for advancing an elite agenda that is in direct opposition to the needs and desirs ofthe masses.
And with the recent reactionary campaign finance ruling from the Supremes, this is more true than ever.
Also the cushy jobs go to the ex-reps that carried the water for the corporations, banks and arms dealers.
Despite being "unrealistic" & "unprgamatic," a third party is the only electoral solution. even then the party will have to be allied with a strong social movement to restrict corporate plunder and re-distribute the wealth.
The Democrats did not punt. The Democrats did not give up "a defining issue that could have enabled them to show the big story of the last three decades - the accumulation of almost all the gain from economic growth at the top - and to make a start at reversing it." They are carrying the corporate ball over the goal line to keep getting bribed to stay in office. Their goal is to maintain the "economic growth at the top" not to reverse it.
nobody mentions that if the republirats get back either house in november they will be in the position to "force" the pres to accept a tax deal that keeps unchanged the taxes of the trillionaires.
it's pretty obvious that blue-rat and other by-bribe-only demoblicreeps are not really into forcing a show down on the selective tax cut right now, because by procrastinating they protect their trillionaire patrons and get the chance of feigning publicly that they would like so much to change things right away.
also, nobody is pressuring the pres to propose legislation to raise capital-gains taxes (that which allows hedge-fund managers to pay lower taxes than their secretaries). this *normalization* would also raise a lot of extra revenue but is off the table. why ? think rodent, think bribed blue-rat creep.
When is a majority not really a majority? When enough of "our side" is willing to sell out because of fear of electoral consequences. And they'll probably lose the election anyway! Venal and stupid!
Perhaps the progressives in Congress (yes, there are some still) could play a little hardball themselves and not vote to extend any tax cuts unless the rich get cut out as Obama has proposed. The Bush tax cuts will sunset, after all, unless affirmatively extended. Then they could move to funnel the "extra" money to the states to help out with that continuing fiscal crisis. Of course, that would make too much sense, so it's probably doomed. More likely, as pointed out above by several commenters, after the election all the tax cuts will be extended, with the wealthy, once again, benefiting the most. Meanwhile, the country loses.
Perhaps it's time for PDA, DSA, Move-On, and other progressives to reconsider working inside/outside and take to the streets.
Americans are either the dumbest bunch of fools on this planet or the most trusting.
The latter is true. Though some might argue the point.
Reagan crushed union power, started free trade, Bush SR. And Bill Clinton brought Nafta and Deregulation of the financial markets, Bush Jr. Brought huge tax cuts for the rich and mighty all just in time for the worst catastrophic attack on American soil since Pearl Harbor.
Then 8 years of war and the complete hijacking of American civil rights with the rape of American savings and earning power.
And to make matters worse the fear and paranoia has created 72 fusion centers and 5 million or more stazi spys.
There are tens of thousands of Americans listed in Data bases from watching porn,visiting web sites the government deems subversive to acts of potential violence for road rage.
Only, you just don't know about it yet.
But , the rich with their private armys and good old boy network are well protected and untouchable.
What better reason to lock down the country with marshall law then 90 million out of work desperate Americans with guns.
What a plan, we are all blind.
That'd be martial law, pardner, but I get your drift.
Once you've co-opted, bought, or infiltrated (or combinations!) nearly all centers of mass social and economic power, you can get a little over-confident, dare I say cocky.
And the giants do stumble. It's archetypal!
Babble Babble Babble
Far as the guns go, how you gonna stop a modern day J. Gould from hiring one half of the working class to kill the other?
But revolt is in the air. The American elite's budget is getting a bit cracked, Not throwing nearly enough crumbs to keep the dawgs happy.
But at least we regular Americans are still United here in the new nationwide prison! And don't mouth off scumbag or five oh will drone your lame ass.
They listenin
The Democratic Party is a wholly owned subsidiary of these filthy super rich. How could it be different?
If that were true, there wouldn't be zillions of lobbyists.
The corporate elite wouldn't hire countless lobbyists to convert people who were already converted.
They rent them. Payments are made periodically.
Politics is not about anyone being "converted."
When is Bobby going to get it? Reich went out of his way to support the regressive Obama Healthcare Deform Bill. And by the way, the Democrats do get it. If you take $750 million to run for the President of the United States, and all the other millions to run for Senator and Congress, you have to keep those corporate sponsors happy lest you find yourself out of a job. As long as they have a cubicle on Capitol Hill they don't care who calls the shots. (At least prostitutes admit they are prostitutes.)
redwriteman,,,
Its being played out right now, right wing Christians community watch organized vigilante stalking.
Its a form of spying, and torture through organized stalking on steroids ,being controlled and managed by fusion center activity. And there is a fortune in tax payer money being funneled into it nationwide.And the Bush faith based networks and good old boy network has been making fortunes.
They have been told to watch for threats in their community's.The terrorist watch is a joke , there are far more Americans that need watching,and thats how they are growing the ranks of the self righteous and holy glorified super hero mentality.
The stazi are after the liberal left establishment based on a pile of lies from the elite.
Its the liberal left that wants the constitution honored and protected, the close minded right wing religious stazi are taught that the left are non believers and will morally corrupt America and allow Muslim terrorists to take over.
Dont come crying to the left for help when they shut down your churches, we on the left would leave you and your churches alone, if you would keep your beliefs in your churches.
But the stazi is here, everywhere, many different groups and names , Free masons, Mega Churches, Infragard, Citizen corps, Americorps, the list goes on and on.
The supreme court, department of justice, and the entire legal profession are aware of this activity , and condone it.
How do I know, because no one is trying to repeal the Patriots Acts, or shutdown the warrant less surveillance, data mining and fusion center stazi stalking activity's.
So much for electing a constitutional lawyer as President of United States of America.
Thanks to Common Sense and Earthian for the informed, enlightened, and sane discussion below. I awoke this morning from my late birthday night out to find some commentary in my in-box from an old college buddy. Quite the rational intellectual he is, not as excitable as I. He was contemplating the visible deficiencies in the most recent Krugman piece (which will undoubtedly be posted by Common Dreams soon), and wondering what the members of the moderately-to-very-rich political ruling class have in common with the uber-rich economic ruling class that appoints, pays, and supervises them, and that neither the politicians nor the uber-wealthy were so utterly incompetent as to not be able to run the tape to the end. I wrote this to him in response:
I think the actions of those politicians who are not part of the uber-wealthy are doing it because it makes them part of the very wealthy (books, speaking fees, inside investments, high-paying lobbying and corporate directorships when they lose elections), they get on TV a lot, and compliance also puts them in regular contact with The Gods, which makes them feel special, like a priestly caste. I think the character of Mustapha Mond in Brave New World (who may as well be Newt Gingrich) explained it well. As far as the motive of the uber-rich, yes, they know the math as expressed to the public doesn't work beyond manufacturing consent, and that debt will increase, and yes, they reap huge benefits by buying the debt with their surplus. I wrote about that years ago, and thought until just now that I was the only person who knew it -- all these "deficit hawks" profit tremendously from deficit increases -- so thanks for breaking my sense of isolation. But it does not take total incompetence for it all to break down, and to break down horribly. It just takes the right blend of touches of incompetence littered throughout the decision-making class according to the natural bell curve, combined with a tendency to strike imperfect balances between short-term and long-term visioning -- the gold you can see dazzles much brighter than the gold that may or may not be over the horizon. There have been many cases in history of an economic ruling class appointing a political ruling class either with or without the public's superficial consent. In some of those cases, the political class came to recognize that its physical power exceeded that of its puppeteers (via control of police and military), started to believe its own hype and craved making its own decisions, and were much worse at math than the puppeteers who'd hired them primarily for their skills as spokespersons, not strategists. Or sometimes it happens simply because a variable in the equation used by both ruling classes in tandem was unknown and left out. Either way, that's when it all comes crashing down.
Using a fire analogy (which I now like even more than my beloved bowling analogies), the United States is in the middle to late smoldering stage (incipient was the Reagan election, early smoldering/development was Bush 2). We're nearing the end of the time when extinguishment is simple (and I would be remiss to not point out here that the people we thought were the fire department, AKA the Democrats, are a combination of not up to, and not interested in, that job). It's possible that this election and the Tea Parties are the forces that are about to break a window and allow in a substantial air supply that will fan the reaching of flashover either very soon or on Jan. 20th, 2013. Since we as potential firefighters clearly have insufficient extinguishment equipment and water supply, a fully developed fire, like in every instance in history, will only end when it consumes its full fuel supply.
So what I'm still waiting for is when opionators with access, like Krugman, are going to stop telling us how it's happening, and start telling us to worry and prepare to do something before it's not doable. Bob Herbert does it, but he's alone, and he only does the first part -- telling us to worry but stopping short of suggesting we plan and start doing things. That has to change. The media, including the tiny liberal and left media, is full of play-by-play announcers and color commentators. Nobody is telling people to hurry up and join the volunteer fire department.
Very thoughtful comment, as always from Greenfield, and I like especially the reference to Mustapha Mond in Brave New World. I've always remembered that sinister character and can't think of anyone today who better channels him than Gingrich. Nice linkage.
And I think you get it exactly right that what little there are of left commentators in MSM, Olbermann, Maddow, Ratigan (who I've only watched a few times but who seems far more radical than the other two), do a good job of raising alarums over the frightening prospect of another Republican takeover, egged on by Tea Party Know-Nothings, but they have literally nothing in the way of how to put out the metaphorical fires you describe. Beyond voting for Democrats, that is. As we know, that's no solution at all. Ed Shultz, a great loather of the right wing, is really just a spokesman for the Democratic Party and maybe Obama's biggest media booster. All the left really has is Democracy Now!, not even on cable, only available on satellite and the web. It reaches very few, and then it's probably 98% of the already converted. And even then, Amy Goodman doesn't exactly abound in strategies for fixing this hideous mess, from a left perspective. Also, as soon as the discussion begins, it immediately disintegrates into a bickering, stereotyping, name-calling smackdown that leads us right back to nowhere. That's where the left is today--nowhere.
This perspective is among reasons that I fear for Elizabeth Warren, and have asked her X times publicly on the Internet to take her stakes off the political table AND RUN FOR IT. Stop saying to yourself: "I think I can, I think I can, I think I can" --which your mom read to you from a Little Golden Book.
Trylon
"And so castles made of sand, melt into the sea...
eventually."
Once again the Democrats are poised to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
If they lose seats to the Repuglican'ts in November, it will be because they don't have the balls to stand up and do what is right for the American people.