Who are these corporations and who bears the burden of the taxes on them? The common stock of these big, bad corporations is owned by individuals to some degree, but also by state and union pension funds, insurance companies, mutual funds and other aggregations of wealth contributed by company employees, school teachers, fire fighters, union workers and others whose stakes are too small for them to invest individually.

So is a a tax on corporations progressive or regressive? Depends on the corporation perhaps, but it's surely less progressive than the current federal income tax.

And what happens when they are taxed? They tend to set their prices at levels that reflect recoupment of all their expenses, including tax, and a return on investment to the shareholders, i.e., individuals, but also by state and union pension funds, insurance companies, mutual funds and other aggregations of wealth contributed by school teachers, fire fighters, union workers and others whose stakes are too small for them to invest individually. With what result? Wealthy people spend less of their incomes on goods and services and save more than the not-so-wealthy and indeed the poor, who all tend to live hand to mouth and to spend all or most of their disposable income on goods and services sold to them by the corporations that pay the corporate tax.

The republicans have already won in case you missed it. They have the majority of Americans with them thanks to Obama and Pelosi.

ALL: Presuming you're a female, you're Shawn Berry's soul-mate and I suggest you start dating.

As for your 70% ratio/hope remedy... I'm afraid it would take several generations. By then, global warming and/or the end of oil will have succeeded in destabilizing this nation entirely, and utterly.

Either you're paid to misinform or you're entirely deluded. Obama has gone along with all the things you say will alter IF Democrats obtain power. Many of us were prepared to give Obama the benefit of the doubt. Many fell for the ruse that "Sarah" or "McCain" would have been much worse. No one in their "right" mind believed with our nation heading over a moral-fiscal-spiritual cliff, that a "change" in leadership would result in the sickening hubris of keeping it on that same deadly course.

"No problem can be solved at the level of thinking that brought it about." (Albert Einstein)

Democrats and Republicans largely see-saw back and forth on the same ideological axis. They represent NO way out of the mad-house. In short, within their ranks cannot be found that shift in thinking that will solve the array of inordinately painful problems facing the nation.

It is TIME for a Paradigm Shift.

Hey allirish, what part of I won't vote for cancer don't you understand? Obama is cancer. He wants to privatize schools and social security! Are you fucking blind? It's all cancer and I will not vote for it. Fuck them.

P.S. I earned my right to free speech serving in the Navy. So don't get your sensitivities up. Fuck them is for fucking emphasis! Don't get back to me with some lost puppy bullshit either! If you want to commit political suicide then do it, just don't count me in on it.

I'm with you, All Irish!
(Though I'm German and a smidgeon French.)

EPHRAIM: Most-excellent post. Your third paragraph is particularly on the mark. It is precisely this willingness to look at the hard truths of our time without having to pretend they are other than what they are, that is the enemy to all the "happiness studies," as well as the drug merchants who realize it's much easier to chemically alter people's moods (i.e. THE mass mood), than to remedy the circumstances that give rise so naturally to so much "earned" depression, political angst, and despair.

Thank you for speaking truth with eyes open wide and an intellect broad enough to relate what it observes.

Well said.

I think you are right about that.

Saying they will take away Social Security is just fear tactics.

What can the tea party pass in Congress that a president can't veto?

Even If they tried it would insure a Dem blitz in 2012.

The next Congress will be more deadlocked than the one we have now.

Before we can effectively demand (organize) for peace, it must be self evident to the majority that we need it now... our time is coming, We are just not poor enough for peace yet.

PHRRHON: You raise a valid point. I would add the media to your list of right-wing powerhouses. Without control of THE conversation, the capacity to anoint so-called respected intellectuals (straight out of right wing think tanks) to the rotation of TV talk shows, they'd fail to so easily manufacture consent. Then these bastions of dark power and their nefarious agendas might be exposed for what they are. And we all know that light/sunshine functions as the ultimate disinfectant.

MORDECHAI: I wonder if Colbert or Jon Stewart might not hold up a chart of Newt's previous "Contract with America" and where it took the nation, and then speculate on where this latest "contract" from Republicans will lead?

Perhaps if Feingold loses his seat, he can become a ligtning rod attracting the millions of disillusioned voters to a new party & platform. Maybe Kucinich and Alan Grayson will join later? If Glenn Greenwald, Nader, and others got behind this... maybe a genuine political groundswell could form like a tsunami big enough to topple the culture of corruption that is the natural byproduct of a wedding between Mammon (big $) and (Washington) DC.

MINI TRUE: You're right. That means the "recruiting" tool should speak to all those who feel (with good reason) disenfranchised. That group would include, but hardly be limited to the following:

* Are you an environmentalist who feels the Democrats sold out your interests by allowing deep sea oil drilling to continue?
* Are you an advocate of Universal Health Care (sans insurance) who feels the Democrats sold out your interests by pushing an agenda favorable to big insurance?
* Are you a teacher, parent, or advocate of a solid public education who feels the Democrats (in their race to the bottom) have sold out the children of our land?
* Are you committed to peaceful initiatives, and found that the Democrats in their funding of war in Afghanistan (along with new nuclear weapons programs) have sold out your interests?
* Are you a struggling homeowner or small business person who felt that the bank bailout sponsored by the Democrats sold out your long-term financial security?
* Are you unemployed and aware that policies like NAFTA (which sent jobs overseas) have further compromised your job options?
* Are you concerned about climate change/global warming and appalled to see that Democrats are doing nothing to reduce our nation's carbon footprint, or invest in Green Technologies?

ETC.

A flyer would be a good way to relate all this. It could become cumbersome in a newspaper advertisement. And it's also plausible that a mainstream publication would not even ALLOW the ad to be published!

So many feel sold-out, even if their quintessential claim to said status doesn't match that of their neighbor.

The Tea Bag group reminds me of a skit I viewed on "Candid Camera" when I was a child. A group of people were badgered into participating in a protest in which the signs (of protest) were all blank! The idea was that people could be cajoled into participating in something they didn't understand, because it HAD no meaning.

In the case of the Tea Bag types, they know something is wrong; but they're being manipulated to protest the evil government, which is the ONLY tool a society can collectively use to counter-act the equally empowered evils of powerful financial elites. The Tea Baggers are essentially carrying the wood that will be used to burn or hang them! That makes about as much sense as those blank protest signs.

Makes one understand why the Greeks used complementary masks of comedy and tragedy to depict the human fate.

ALL IRISH: Are you the book's author? If so, bravo! I must tell you that my concept of spirituality takes in Christ as one of several Masters. I do not believe that ANY religion owns a monopoly on Truth. What has been done (by the "holy" church) in Christ's name would make Satan beam, were Satan an actual entity.

In any case, I don't think human beings can live without hope. Have you noticed the way most of us look towards the future, a time of intended greater fulfillment? Then, like the mountain top which appears dramatically pointed when viewed from a distance, but proves rather flat once one actually steps onto its small plateau, time has a way of flattening out those anticipated mountain peaks.

Often I find myself looking back now, at phases that offered more fulfillment, or a different species of fulfillment than do present times.

Without writing, as a therapeutic form of release, I would find it far more difficult to negotiate what passes for sanity (or norms) in the very injured land in which we reside.

Thanks for sharing. And "Write On!" With the sun setting earlier, it's time for me to go biking. This outlet is my practice of Zen.

If the Republicans nominated a pig for congress, 20% of Americans would vote for it, most of whom would not be aware they were voting for a pig.

ALL IRISH: Maybe we can trade a book for a book? I have turned 2 of my 6 movie scripts into novels, and am at work on a third revision now. If you google my name you can locate my email. If interested, we'll take it from there. Good luck to you in your writing. It's tough getting the message out there unless you become a favorite of the media circus, or have a really well-connected ally. Self-publishing is very economical these days thanks to Internet technology.

PHRRHON: I was told many years ago that I was intended to do spiritual work, although while in college I entertained political aspirations. I've spent far more time studying the mystics and Magi, than political strategy. Sometimes I think I make up for that gap by reading the astute posts of several "CD regulars."

Bill Gates is too committed to capitalism to support a 3rd party, and I'll never forget the sickening feeling that came over me when The St. Petersburg (Florida) Times carried a front page photo of Oprah kissing Bush, The Lesser, on his cheek when he was making a run for the president. I see Oprah as the living symbol for a new myth, one that engorges itself on consumerism. She is a cornucopia of STUFF, therefore an unwitting advocate of naked capitalism, and no friend of Mother Nature, nor anything truly spiritual. She and Obama are probably soul-mates.

I like Ted Turner; but he may see himself as over the hill. It would be great if Hollywood could assemble its own cast... a few really do give a damn like Sean Penn and Susan Sarandon.

As you know, the key way to draw a crowd is with a loud megaphone. Since media essentially IS that megaphone, and it's in the hands of those who do not want the crowd to learn of "other," we--who wish to found "The Eleventh Hour Party"--face something equivalent to a Zen Koan in HOW to get the thing launched.

Anyway, I'll keep brainstorming about how to potentially get this idea out there. I really think the answer may have to come from OUTSIDE the U.S. I love what has been begun in South America... through leadership that cares about citizens, and also via The World Social Forum.