David Seaton | 7 Sept 2012 | my.firedoglake.com
The European middle class was created as a bulwark of social
stability, basically to prevent the masses from taking the “winter
palace” and stringing up the super rich. The American middle class as we
know it really came into being when Henry Ford decided to pay his
workers enough to buy the cars they made. It made Ford rich and led to
turning America into a land of mass prosperity.
The American middle class is perhaps the United States’ greatest
social achievement, an enormous mass of prosperous, educated and healthy
citizens which has been the envy of all the world for nearly a hundred
years, and the not so secret weapon that destroyed the Soviet Union and
reoriented China.
Simplifying to the extreme you could say that the modern, American
middle class was created by Henry Ford and literally saved from
extinction, (the first time) by Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The whole
story is in that reductio ad absurdum.
What most Americans, except for the one-percent perhaps, don’t seem
to understand is that the American middle class is in reality a totally
artificial construction, which if not carefully nurtured will dry up and
die like an un-watered house plant. The super-rich are quite
comfortable with its disappearance, as they think that they no longer
depend on its prosperity for their own prosperity or even for their own
physical safety.
I would argue that if the middle class is devastated then all the
problems it was created to solve, all the dangers that it was meant to
allay would reappear, just like uncut grass grows on the lawn of a
foreclosed house.
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Saturday, September 08, 2012
Thursday, September 06, 2012
Bill Clinton DNC Speech COMPLETE: "We're in this together" vs. "You're on your own"
Published 5 Sept 2012 by ABCNews
Former U.S. president offers a strong endorsement of Barack Obama, Democratic economic policies.
Tuesday, September 04, 2012
Five Reasons why Romney/Ryan must be defeated in 2012 - and why conservatives should hope they are
Kurt Eichenwald | kurteichenwald.com
2 Sept 2012
The GOP must be stopped in 2012. The future of America’s ideals of democracy – and of the Republican Party itself – could well be at stake.
Contrary to how it might seem, I am not a partisan bomb thrower. Throughout most of my adulthood, I have been just as likely to vote for a Republican as for a Democrat – in local, state and national contests. I have cast my ballot in presidential races for both Republicans and Democrats. But in the last four years, the GOP has transmogrified into something ugly and vicious and, more important, something wedded to the politics of fantasy and ignorance. It has rushed so far from its moorings that I cannot conceive of voting for members of this party until, hopefully, they pull themselves back from the precipice of self-destruction, paranoia and delusion.
Today, for Republicans, up is down and front is back. Lying has become so ingrained into the conservatives’ national dialogue that they are now dangerously demagogic or, worse, severely unhinged. Blind rage at the election of Barack Obama has wrecked a once great political party. Its leaders have made so many deals with the devil in their almost pathological obsession with unseating Obama that they have pushed the GOP into its own version of political hell – unable to speak truths to their now-rabid and conspiracy-addled base and unable to right the party back onto a path of responsibility.
Only through the disinfectant of defeat can the Republicans, and the two party system, be preserved. And so, the campaign of Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan must be consigned to the ash heap of history. Defeat must not only be decisive, it must be crippling. Here are five reasons why:
Read it here:
2 Sept 2012
The GOP must be stopped in 2012. The future of America’s ideals of democracy – and of the Republican Party itself – could well be at stake.
Contrary to how it might seem, I am not a partisan bomb thrower. Throughout most of my adulthood, I have been just as likely to vote for a Republican as for a Democrat – in local, state and national contests. I have cast my ballot in presidential races for both Republicans and Democrats. But in the last four years, the GOP has transmogrified into something ugly and vicious and, more important, something wedded to the politics of fantasy and ignorance. It has rushed so far from its moorings that I cannot conceive of voting for members of this party until, hopefully, they pull themselves back from the precipice of self-destruction, paranoia and delusion.
Today, for Republicans, up is down and front is back. Lying has become so ingrained into the conservatives’ national dialogue that they are now dangerously demagogic or, worse, severely unhinged. Blind rage at the election of Barack Obama has wrecked a once great political party. Its leaders have made so many deals with the devil in their almost pathological obsession with unseating Obama that they have pushed the GOP into its own version of political hell – unable to speak truths to their now-rabid and conspiracy-addled base and unable to right the party back onto a path of responsibility.
Only through the disinfectant of defeat can the Republicans, and the two party system, be preserved. And so, the campaign of Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan must be consigned to the ash heap of history. Defeat must not only be decisive, it must be crippling. Here are five reasons why:
Read it here:
Friday, August 31, 2012
Chris Hedges: Hear the 99% roar
Chris Hedges on what he sees as the consequences of an uneven distribution of wealth: destruction, violence and revolt. He tells Piya Chattopadhyay what the Occupy movement should be about and how best to deal with these socioeconomic issues in the public discourse.
Wednesday, August 29, 2012
Greed and Debt: The true story of Mitt Romney and Bain Capital | Rolling Stone
August 29, 2012
Four years ago, the Mitt Romneys of the world nearly destroyed the global economy with their greed, shortsightedness and – most notably – wildly irresponsible use of debt in pursuit of personal profit. The sight was so disgusting that people everywhere were ready to drop an H-bomb on Lower Manhattan and bayonet the survivors. But today that same insane greed ethos, that same belief in the lunatic pursuit of instant borrowed millions – it's dusted itself off, it's had a shave and a shoeshine, and it's back out there running for president.
Mitt Romney – a man whose own father built cars and nurtured communities, and was one of the old-school industrial anachronisms pushed aside by the new generation's wealth grab – has emerged now to sell this make-nothing, take-everything, screw-everyone ethos to the world. He's Gordon Gekko, but a new and improved version, with better PR – and a bigger goal. A takeover artist all his life, Romney is now trying to take over America itself. And if his own history is any guide, we'll all end up paying for the acquisition.
Tuesday, August 28, 2012
Mexico achieves Universal Health Coverage in less than a decade
banderasnews.com
August 17, 2012
Mexico City, Mexico - Despite periods of economic downturns and crisis, Mexico recently achieved a significant milestone – enrolling 52.6 million previously uninsured Mexicans in public medical insurance programs and thereby achieving universal health coverage in less than a decade.
This effort began in 2003 and occurred in a country of approximately 100 million people.
Read it all:
August 17, 2012
Mexico City, Mexico - Despite periods of economic downturns and crisis, Mexico recently achieved a significant milestone – enrolling 52.6 million previously uninsured Mexicans in public medical insurance programs and thereby achieving universal health coverage in less than a decade.
This effort began in 2003 and occurred in a country of approximately 100 million people.
Read it all:
Thursday, August 23, 2012
Thomas Frank: Obama’s squandered hope
In a dramatic essay, Thomas Frank blames Obama's conciliatory nature for a first term that looked like Bush's third
By David Daley | salon.com
22 August 2012
This is the point in a presidential election when people begin talking about the lesser of two evils, when the weaknesses in one’s own candidate pale in comparison to the reality of the other side taking over. But in a remarkable essay in the new issue of Harper’s magazine, the political thinker Thomas Frank levels President Obama’s first term as a dramatic failure compared to the rhetoric that landed him in office, and the potential he had to truly transform the country.
Frank, whose books include “What’s the Matter With Kansas” and “Pity the Billionaire,” makes the case that Obama’s conciliatory nature has been a tragic flaw, one exploited by conservatives in Congress again and again. But he also argues that Obama has “enthusiastically adopted” the ideas of the right when it comes to deficit spending, Wall Street regulation, torture policies, healthcare and more. And his reward for reaching for compromise and grand bargains, “for bowing to their household gods,” has been to be depicted as a socialist and a radical leftist.
The end result? Frank writes that “What Barack Obama has saved is a bankrupt elite that by all means should have met its end back in 2009. He came to the White House amid circumstances similar to 1933, but proceeded to rule like Herbert Hoover.”
Read it here:
By David Daley | salon.com
22 August 2012
This is the point in a presidential election when people begin talking about the lesser of two evils, when the weaknesses in one’s own candidate pale in comparison to the reality of the other side taking over. But in a remarkable essay in the new issue of Harper’s magazine, the political thinker Thomas Frank levels President Obama’s first term as a dramatic failure compared to the rhetoric that landed him in office, and the potential he had to truly transform the country.
Frank, whose books include “What’s the Matter With Kansas” and “Pity the Billionaire,” makes the case that Obama’s conciliatory nature has been a tragic flaw, one exploited by conservatives in Congress again and again. But he also argues that Obama has “enthusiastically adopted” the ideas of the right when it comes to deficit spending, Wall Street regulation, torture policies, healthcare and more. And his reward for reaching for compromise and grand bargains, “for bowing to their household gods,” has been to be depicted as a socialist and a radical leftist.
The end result? Frank writes that “What Barack Obama has saved is a bankrupt elite that by all means should have met its end back in 2009. He came to the White House amid circumstances similar to 1933, but proceeded to rule like Herbert Hoover.”
Read it here:
Saturday, August 11, 2012
Rmoney falls for granny hater Ryan
"So it makes sense, on the surface anyway, that Rmoney would fall for teabagger boner fuel like Ryan. The thing is, as Matt Taibbi (and anyone else actually paying attention to these dimbulbs) correctly sussed a couple years ago, while your average teabagger talks a great game about cutting spending and reducing government, blah blah blah, a great many of them were rather obvious recipients of tha...
t eeevil gubmint aid themselves. They're hypocrites -- they just don't like gubmint money that isn't thrown at them, pure and simple. How many of those Rascal-riding geezers down at the (tax-funded) public park didja see burning their Medicare or Social Security cards in protest? Yep, me neither." - Heywood J @ Hammer of The Blogs
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Friday, August 03, 2012
Stephen Colbert interviews MSNBC's Chris Hayes, author of the new book 'Twilight of the Elites'
The host of MSNBC’s “Up with Chris Hayes” explains America’s housing bubble, elitism and the difference between educational opportunities and outcomes.
Wednesday, August 01, 2012
Sunday, July 22, 2012
Tuesday, July 17, 2012
Tuesday, July 10, 2012
Monday, July 09, 2012
Sunday, July 08, 2012
The Last Days of the President | The Atlantic | 1973
Johnson had decidedly mixed emotions about his successor. He was puzzled by Nixon's cold style ("Imagine not inviting one member of Congress to Tricia's wedding. If you don't respect them, they won't respect you") and aghast at some of Nixon's domestic policies. Shortly after leaving the White House, he remarked to a Texas businessman: "When I took over the presidency, Jack Kennedy had left me a stock market of 711. When I left the White House, it was over 900. Now look at it. That's what happens when the Republicans take over—not only Nixon, but any of them. They simply don't know how to manage the economy. They're so busy operating the trickle-down theory, giving the richest corporations the biggest break, that the whole thing goes to hell in a handbasket."
Wednesday, June 27, 2012
Paul Krugman: Prisons, Privatization, Patronage
Paul Krugman: "So let’s see: Privatized prisons save money by employing fewer guards and other workers, and by paying them badly. And then we get horror stories about how these prisons are run. What a surprise! So what’s really behind the drive to privatize prisons, and just about everything else? One answer is that privatization can serve as a stealth form of government borrowing, in which governments avoid recording upfront expenses (or even raise money by selling existing facilities) while raising their long-run costs in ways taxpayers can’t see."
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