Time to quit pissing around and cut right to the shit.

[SmileyRose]

I don't care if this is a dupe. This needs to be seen and re-seen and seen again by everyone in America.

The media and the politicians try their damndest to make us fight over homesexuals, Mexicans, guns, where a mosque should be built, gas prices, Obama's preacher, Bill Clinton's weener, Nancy Reagan's astrologer, and Hillary's wide butt.

Shame on the little fuckers for not forcing us to pay attention to this.

83 percent of all U.S. stocks are in the hands of 1 percent of the people.
So the mantra about the super low capital gains taxes primarily benefiting all the geezers is now proven bullshit
And OMG we have to spend gazillions to save wall street in order to save mainstreet is also now proven bullshit
Because the vast majority of job are created by small business and they don't own much of the stocks either.

66 percent of the income growth between 2001 and 2007 went to the top 1% of all Americans.
THEN THEY HAD ONE BAD YEAR AND DEMANDED A FUCKING BAILOUT FROM THE OTHER 99%

Only the top 5 percent of U.S. households have earned enough additional income to match the rise in housing costs since 1975.
So 95% of Americans are just too fucking lazy and just need to work harder??? Say what???
Equal opportunity my ass.

In 1950, the ratio of the average executive's paycheck to the average worker's paycheck was about 30 to 1. Since the year 2000, that ratio has exploded to between 300 to 500 to one.



Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/22-statistics-that-prove-the-middle-class-is-being-systematically-wiped-out-of-existence-in-america-2010-7#in-1950-the-ratio-of-the-average-executives-paycheck-to-the-average-workers-paycheck-was-about-30-to-1-since-the-year-2000-that-ratio-has-exploded-to-between-300-to-500-to-one-10#ixzz0ude6I0OS


"The reality is that no matter how smart, how strong, how educated or how hard working American workers are, they just cannot compete with people who are desperate to put in 10 to 12 hour days at less than a dollar an hour on the other side of the world."




Posted ad nauseum on the DU I'm sure. But IMHO this can't be posted enough all over the web, all over email, all over everywhere. I'm printing out 100 copies of this and leaving them all over the place. In the church pew, on top the washer at the laundry, hand it off every damn person I can think of.

I'm pissed. And you better fucking believe this is CLASS WARFARE!!!!

[The Magistrate]

1. Hear Hear, Ma'am!

"Focus, people...."

[Number23]

192. "Focus, people...."

Exactly. I rec'd but I forgot to kick so here it is! :)

:kick:

[breadandwine]

219. SmileyRose, this information can't be emphasized by the national Democratic leadership.

It might offend the GOP.

And Glenn Beck.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

2. warware? KnR btw

[SmileyRose]

5. Corrected - thanks

I can't type worth a hoot when I'm that kind of mad..........

[Tuesday Afternoon]

6. yw

;) :thumbsup:

[woo me with science]

227. THIS is the thread that should never die. nt

[EFerrari]

3. K&R

[nightrain]

4. pleased to knr. yes, it is class warfare. Only Obama's in the upper class and

isn't looking out for regular people.

[SammyWinstonJack]

176. That's exactly right!

[SammyWinstonJack]

177. dupe.

[Blue_In_AK]

7. Righteous rant,

and I agree 100 percent.

[Oregone]

8. But if any of those elite illustrate inequality with a wedding or a mansion, shut the fuck up

Seems to be the theme.

[awoke_in_2003]

31. +1. nt

[The Green Manalishi]

131. +1

Now get back to work, you peon, doncha know that our betters have EARNED their mansions and fancy weddings doing good works to save us from, well, the type of wealthy elite that has jets and mansions and fancy weddings!


:sarcasm:

[SammyWinstonJack]

178. heheheh

:evilgrin:

[Silent3]

9. Mostly agree but...

None of that proves the bailout was the wrong thing to do. The 17% of stock owned by the other 99% of the people is still a lot of money, especially by the standards of the non-super-wealth 99%. My 401(k) is still hurting a lot, but it could have been almost wiped out without a bailout, and that goes for many ordinary Americans.

Regardless of the very lopsided distribution of wealth, we all depend economically on the flow of money, even if a lot of it is flowing mostly among the bank accounts and stock portfolios of rich people. The big scary potential back when the stock market was plummeting was that the whole system would come apart and the money would stop flowing almost entirely. No matter how satisfying in might be to think of all of the rich bastards losing everything, a good number of them would still have been way better off than the rest of us who could very well have been living out a remake of The Great Depression, if not worse.

[SmileyRose]

13. The few Americans who have savings, most have less than $10,000

I have less than $3000 in savings and it took me over 30 years to save it.

They told me if I don't sacrifice $60,000 in my home's value (70%), $1500 (half of what I'd saved), $4000 a year in lost income (40% paycut to keep my salary job, put in more hours and now make under minimum wage per hour) AND pretend not to notice my small business owner employer is pretending to be a victim like me with his $1 Million Atlanta house plus $4 Million Sea Island GA house plus $2 Million N GA Mountain lake house -- ((and he's a victim because the bankers make him prove his worth every 3 months)

You know what - I did the math. I'd actually be better off losing my job and all savings - unhooking from the grid and living in my PAID FOR HOUSE that's not worth much, and making a living below the poverty level in my own little community with my own wits free of all the various taxes etc. I'd come out ahead!!!!

[Silent3]

15. It's not just a matter of losing all of that stuff...

If the economy had collapsed, no one would be paying the truckers to deliver food from farms. No one at the grocery stores would get paid. No one would be tending power lines and water system and sewage systems.

You're suffering from a complete lack of imagination beyond your own personal circumstances and not seeing the big picture of an economic meltdown at all. There are huge complicated webs of transactions that are necessary to provide the basics of survival, and we're even more dependent on these things today than people were back in the 1930s.

[earcandle]

67. True Dat!

[JDPriestly]

79. You are wrong.

Instead of bailing out the banks directly, they could have indirectly bailed them out to by bailing out homeowners' mortgages.

The banks would have lost some of the money they gambled on certain derivatives, but the money would have kept flowing for everyone, not just for the wealthy.

You just don't realize, Silent3, how much you have lost. As Cenk pointed out, the banks still have their bad investments, their bad loans, on their books.

And the derivatives market and computerized cheating of small investors on the markets continues unchecked.

You are not paying attention, Silent3. You will regret it one day.

[Silent3]

96. That's still a bailout

I haven't read any analyses of doing a bailout the way you suggest, but I'd be quite willing to consider that could have worked, and worked better too. I wasn't arguing about HOW the bailout was done, but IF a bailout of ANY type at all was done.

I don't know if you were hanging around here in 2007 when the market first crashed and a bailout was being considered, but there were a whole lot of people here advocating exactly what most Republicans at the time were advocating... doing nothing at all. (It was Bush, most Democrats, and a handful of Republicans who either weren't running for office again or felt they had very safe seats who got the bailout put through.)

People here were actually saying things like "Let it burn! Let it all burn down!", so very eager to see the wealthy get taken down a few pegs that they did not give a damn who else got hurt or how badly in the process -- if they weren't just having a complete failure of imagination about how bad things could have gotten.

[laughingliberal]

116. I remember reading at the time some economists who favored an approach like that.

It would have helped the economy more for the government to pay off the bad loans and take them over. FDR did that and was able to have people's mortgages restructured. Many people were able to keep their homes and, in the end, the government made a profit. This would also have served more to stabilize the housing market and some people in the trades might be back to work by now.

Instead, we handed over the money with no strings attached and the banks still have tons of bad mortgages on the books which are still a looming threat to the economy. Many were made homeless. Unemployment among tradesmen and construction workers is still astronomical.

The bailout was done in a way which guaranteed maximum benefit at the top and minimum benefit for everyone else. The best we can say is things would have been worse without it. But we can't say that average Americans have seen much improvement over the 2 years and many have seen their circumstances deteriorate in that time.

Now the wealthy are the only ones with any money to spend and they're throwing a tantrum over financial reform, the rollback on * tax cuts, and fear of the double dip coming our way. Many are refusing to spend or invest unless they see more policies favorable to them. IOW, they are holding us hostage and the people who orchestrated this bailout have only themselves to blame. If they had done it in a way that put some money in the hands of average people, the wealthy would not be able to blackmail us by hoarding all the money, now.

Many people got badly hurt by this and are still hurting. Those who did the bailout in such a way as to benefit only the wealthy did not give a damn who got hurt. And Wall Street is predicting a record year for bonuses. Lovely.

[Billmelater]

142. impossible solution

Even if you unplug and drop out, they will stiill get you with property taxes, service fees, garbage collection fees, homeland security levies etc....

[RaleighNCDUer]

230. As would many of us. The only thing that keeps me plugged into

the system is my need for health insurance which, in this wonderful system of ours, is only available to those pledged to a life of indentured servitude.

[jtuck004]

17. The bailout was the wrong thing to do. It not only propped up

the reckless and greedy behavior of the finance industry that has caused so much pain to this country, it brought
us into the zone of the "moral hazard". Taxpayer money was used to pay back banks who were "illiquid" - their bad
business decisions had put them in jeapordy. By propping them up we have insured that such problem will occur again
and will very likely be worse than they were this time. Assuming we ever crawl out of this one.

We were sold a bill of goods - that the flow of credit would resume (which is what these funds depended on), yet when
they banks got the money they sat on it, used it to pay bonuses, profits, and salaries. That worthless debt sits on the
books of the Federal Reserve today, walled off from the taxpayers who are being forced to absorb it with Treasuries backed
by the hard work of people who lost their jobs in the process. We paid 100 cents on the dollar for assets that were worth
much less, and that was brought about by government employees in the Treasury and the Federal Reserve who either worked for
or had much too intimate realtionships with Government Goldman Sachs and others who operated shadow banking systems that were, and still are, responsible to no one.

We set aside $15 trillion to prop these clowns up, money that is still flowing to them today, and they are using it to continue
the same bad practices - their profits are up 600% in the area of commercial complex mortgage derivatives - that is, Credit Default Swaps (ring a bell?).

Had Bernenke cared more about the people on Main Street instead of giving props to the dissertation he wrote blaming the Fed for the Great Depression he could have purchased and re-structured every single bad mortgage in the United States for less than $13 trillion. We could have used the balance to expand demand and help manufacturing restructure so 30 million people didn't wind up unemployed or under-employed, and let the thieves and villians on Wall Street flop in the breeze. There would have been some problems as we moved to other institutions who would then be operating with a valuable lesson on what bad business practices lead to, but no. And now they are laughing at us. Because the wealthy depend FAR more on the flow of money than others. And the pension funds and retirement of the aged and money market funds are still broken and bleeding. but not Wall Street.

And despite the intervention, the portion of the population that makes less than $25,000 a year IS living out the Great Depression with 30% unemployment. As a nation, we are likely to have unemployment in the double digits past 2015. And for millions of Americans, they have already been laid off from the last job they will ever have in their lifetime.

[Silent3]

20. The big problem with doing something politically unpopular...

...in order to avert a catastrophe is that when the catastrophe doesn't happen (and things could be much, much worse than they are now) anyone who was against whatever it was that was done to avert the catastrophe can claim the catastrophe wouldn't have happened anyway.

[bvar22]

22. The BIG problem with your thesis...

...is that the TARP funds were NOT used for the purpose they were demanded....
1)To "rescue troubled assets"
and
2)to "Free Up Credit".
...so that "catastrophe" would be averted.

The catastrophe you detail from Paulson's Extortion Demand was the "Boogie Man" in the Scam used to scare the Mark into forking over the money quickly without too many questions.

[Silent3]

33. I think the situation was taken advantage of, no doubt about that...

...and that in haste the bailout wasn't done as effectively or as justly as possible.

Not being an economist myself, but also not being a Big Conspiracy nut, when someone like Paul Krugman and a lot of other liberal economists think that the bailout was necessary, talks about us being on the edge of a precipice and staring into an abyss, when you saw Republican votes to support the bailout -- but just barely enough, and mostly only from Republicans with very safe seats or who weren't going to be running again -- I'm pretty sure Congress was scared, and scared for good reason.

Think of how scary things would have to have been for Republicans to do stop paying politics, at least for a moment, to do even the minimum necessary opposite their usual playing to their base.

Of course, if you live in a world where every single bit of data that doesn't fit your opinion MUST be a product of The Conspiracy, where everything is a puppet show, then there isn't a thing I can possibly say to change your mind.

I do know just enough about economics, and complex dynamic systems with intricate webs of positive and negative feedback, to understand that such things can easily spin wildly out of control under enough duress, that painful economic collapses are very realistically possible events.

[JDPriestly]

81. Silent3, as Cenk said, the banks are still insolvent.

And the financial industry continues to gamble, continues bad practices that hurt the country. They do it in order to scam the public and take huge paychecks.

You just aren't watching what is going on.

We are still at the precipice. The bail-outs have fooled everyone into thinking that we have stepped away from the brink. But no -- and next time the bail-out will hurt more.

Politically, the bail-outs were a disaster. And now, the announcement from Feinberg that he is letting the bankers and gamblers on Wall Street keep their bonuses is a huge political mistake for Obama.

Just a few days ago, Obama was telling his base to get out the vote in November. Does he seriously think that decisions like Feinberg's are going to encourage his base to work for Democrats this Fall. If so, he needs to think again.

Obama is a good human being, but he needs to replace his economic advisers. They are not serving him well. And Feinberg should not be allowed anywhere near the money for the compensation to people in the Gulf of Mexico. Feinberg is not a friend to ordinary Americans.

[Silent3]

100. See my other reply to you

Again, you're confusing HOW a bailout could have been done differently with what I was talking about -- if no bailout of any type at all were done, the mess that would likely have resulted.

This is the second time you've told me I'm not watching what's going on... well, you aren't reading what I writing that well either. I didn't say a thing about the politics of this other than admitting that I knew the bailout was unpopular. If the more recent issue of bankers keeping their bonuses had come up, I'd have said that's both unpopular and unnecessary for economic recovery -- I certainly have no illusions that any of the asshole bankers is so very important to the functioning of the economy that we have to pamper them or else.

While I'd dearly love to see Obama getting better economic advice, that doesn't even apply to the original bailout -- Bush was still President at that time. We can't let Republicans have their way by helping to lead the public into thinking about it as Obama's bailout rather than Bush's bailout.

[laughingliberal]

117. I don't think anyone is arguing that nothing should have been done.

WHAT was done is the problem. This is like saying it's good we did this because if we hadn't done anything, you'd have died of a heart attack and now you're only going to die of liver failure going to die more slowly of liver failure.

We should have treated the underlying problem and not just propped up the top. The top still have all the money (our money) and they're still poisoning the well for everyone else.

[JDPriestly]

160. What happened to the talk about clawing back some of the

AIG bail-out money, some of the Fed money (under the Constitution, Congress has the power to print our money) that was and still is being "fed" into the banks while their CEOs give themselves and their top employees huge bonuses. The point is that the banks are still really close to broke or broke. They are evicting people from their homes, bankrupting the victims of the mortgage fraud -- and taking their reward in huge paychecks from the bonus money.

Yes, the bail-outs were done during the Bush administration. The task of prosecuting the fraud that led to the need for bail-outs was the responsibility of the Obama administration. Obama has not fulfilled his responsibility in this regard. That is why he is rightfully partly held responsible for the bail-outs. He has ratified the wrongs that were done in those bail-outs.

Besides, as I call, Obama went to the White House shortly before he was elected and ratified the bail-outs in no uncertain terms shortly after that. So, Obama is partly responsible and he needs to punish the criminals that took risks with other people's money including money in checking accounts and retirement accounts which was, at least in part, insured by the U.S. government.

[earth mom]

153. So you're saying that they all hoodwinked Obama. C'mon now. NOBODY in DC is that naive. nt

[Kalun D]

200. Corporate TV Blinders

Obama is a big fat myth. Propagated by the wholly owned corporate Television

""Obama is a good human being, but he needs to replace his economic advisers. They are not serving him well.""

I'm quite sure Obama's entire administration is serving him exactly as he wants them to.

If Obama pushing the bush initiated $700 billion crooked banker bailout wasn't enough to get people to wake up then the felony criminal perpatrators of the nation's largest environmental disaster EVER being allowed to run the clean up of their crime scene should have sealed the deal.

WAKE UP PEOPLE

[Kalun D]

199. BULLSHIP AGAIN

sounding like something a banking shill might say

""I'm pretty sure Congress was scared, and scared for good reason.""

YEAH, THEY GAVE THEM A PHONY THREAT OF MARTIAL LAW

""that painful economic collapses are very realistically possible events.""

Yeah, the $700 Billion didn't go for jack crap to stabilize the economy, so where is your phony fabricated collapse?

[uberllama42]

208. You look very silly when you type the word "bullship"

especially with your caps lock on.

I have a couple of issues I'd like to raise.

1. You said:

THEY GAVE THEM A PHONY THREAT OF MARTIAL LAW

Who is the "they" in your sentence? How and when did they make this "threat of martial law"?

2. What does it mean to "stabilize the economy"? I can think of a few different things that that might mean. What precisely was the bailout in question billed as doing that it never needed to do? What do you have to say about the point that Silent3 made elsewhere, regarding the fact that once a disaster has been averted, anyone can say that there was no risk of disaster at all? Many competent economists explained why some bailout was necessary. Can you explain whey they were wrong? Don't be afraid to get technical--I was an econ major.

[Kalun D]

223. You Look Silly

trying to defend the felony criminal bankers. The biggest heist in the history of the planet, and you're arguing on their behalf.

""How and when did they make this "threat of martial law"?""

did you just crawl out of under a rock or something? If you've ever heard of Google try "bailout"+"martial law" and take your pick of any of the hits. The very first one, a vid, is a good one.

""2. What does it mean to "stabilize the economy"?""

I'm not an econ major and am speaking in general terms so everyone will understand. After all it's those who obfuscate that are trying to bamboozle the general public that a $700 Billion giveaway for crooked bankers, that intentionally caused the so called "problem" in the first place, was necessary.

""What precisely was the bailout in question billed as doing that it never needed to do?""

It was never needed at all so your question is moot. But what it was billed as doing, making money available for loans, it did not do, instead the felony criminal greedpig sh*tstain bankers (that you're defending) used the money to buy up smaller banks. Cuz God knows this country needs more virtual monopoly corporate consolidation. After all it's good for "democracy".

""What do you have to say about the point that Silent3 made elsewhere, regarding the fact that once a disaster has been averted, anyone can say that there was no risk of disaster at all? Many competent economists explained why some bailout was necessary. Can you explain whey they were wrong?"

It's all a big fat scam, a flim flam sham. Wall street and the banks have lobbied away all the rules that were holding this country together and they are raping and pillaging as fast as they can before the victim dies from the lack of blood that they sucked.

[uberllama42]

231. You know what?

I'm really fucking weary of people telling me what I believe. I'm done.

Have a nice day.

[jtuck004]

59. I realize it is much easier than thinking to simply accept what you are told

(those people ARE on our side, right? That they were in another administration and on someone else's side just a few years ago makes no difference. Right? The fact that some were employed by the very firm that is getting hundreds of billions in taxpayer money must simply be a coincidence. Right...). But, sadly, I have never been one to be led around like a patsy. It's an unfortunate side effect of reading too damn much, and actually believeing that my education meant I should ask questions. And get my own answers.

So, lest one thinks I am making this stuff up under my tinfoil tent, let's look at some facts...

Here, btw, are links to the $15 trillion that is currently set aside to make sure and pay for worthless assets and bonuses, salaries, and captial gains (taxed only at 15%, btw). And it even has references at the bottom.
Bailout and Subsidization Type Report: Total Industry Subsidization: $7,238,007,000,000 (At Bottom)
http://nomiprins.squarespace.com/storage/reports/subs072010.pdf">Type Report here...
Bailout Tally Report: TOTAL POTENTIAL SUPPORT INCLUDING IMPLIED GUARANTEES: $15,860,507,000,000 (Page 5)
Tally report here...

TARP is included among these.

Among some really good books on these detailing the going's on between the Federal Reserve, the Treasury, and several Wall Street firms are Crisis Economics by Nouriel Roubini, The Quants by Scott Patterson, and the one I will reference here, It Takes a Pillage by Nomi Prins. There are others, but these give you a pretty good background in the history of economics and crisis, and the response to them. Prins book is a fairly detailed overview of the current crisis and where the money has gone.

Nomi Prins ran the European analytics group for Bear Stearns in London, and later was a managing director at Goldman Sachs. Her book lays out the map of the revolving door between Wall Street and our former and current administrations, and details the transfer of taxpayer dollars from your pocket to Wall Street.

It shouldn't come as a surprise that former Goldman Sachs employees reside in key positions making policy decisions that have provided a windfall for Goldman Sachs as well as other banks. Goldman "spent more than $43 million dollars on lobbying and campaign contributions to cultivate friends and buy influence in Washington, D.C. since 1989" and their "bankers have been the country's top political campaign contributors this year" here. This is important because people who came from these firms made, and continue to make, policy decisions that funneled trillions of your dollars into their coffers. "Robert Rubin, an ex-Goldman co-chairman and a Treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, promoted Timothy F. Geithner, former president of the New York Federal Reserve, now current Secretary of the U.S. Treasury. Geithner was preceded as Treasury Secretary by Henry Paulson Jr, a former Chairman and CEO of Goldman Sachs. There are so many former employees of the firm it has been called "Government Sachs" more here... Mr. Geithner is known for "unusually close relationships with executives of Wall Street’s giant financial institutions".

The blame for our current financial crisis is often laid at the feet of people who were unable to pay the mortgages they signed up for. But taking advantage of changes in underwriting requirements mortgage bankers wrote billions of dollars in loans to people that would never have qualified otherwise, while Goldman Sachs and other firms capitalized on this by creating new investment vehicles that were sold to pensions and governments, leveraging a small amount of the $13 trillion in the U.S. mortgage market into over $140 trillion in Collateralized Debt Obligations (CDO), Structured Investment Vehicles (SIV), and Asset-Backed Securities (ABS). But look beyond the guy with the $200K mortgage and not enough income...

When all is forgotten and we've moved on to our next financial crisis, there will be certain fingers frozen in time pointing at the sub prime loans as the cause of the calamity. Big Finance would prefer that. But the truth is that sub prime loan tragedy was merely the catalyst that exposed the mega-tiered securitizations of securitizations, the massive leverage chain derivatives attached to nothing concrete, and the ineffective regulatory restraints. All of which led us down the rabbit hole of the Second Great Bank Depression"

While most people are familiar with TARP and its $700 billion figure, few seem to really grasp what the taxpayer has paid out or is responsible for. In a time when we watch well-paid people in congress debate extending unemployment benefits. They are arguing over $33 billion. For perspective, consider the following totals of money that would take dump trucks to move to the investment banks...

By summer of 2009, the price tag for the federal government's bailout of the banks (including all federal loans, capital injections, and government loan guarantees) stood at approximately $13.3 Trillion, roughly divided into $7.6 Trillion from the Fed, $2.5 trillion form the Treasury (not including additional interest payments), $1.5 trillion for the FDIC (including a $1.4 trillion Temporary Liquidity Guarantee program initiated in October 2008 to help banks continue to provide lending to consumers), a $1.4 trillion joint effort and a $300 billion housing bill...

With only $13 trillion in mortgage debt, the government could have simply purchased the outstanding troubled mortgages and reworked the troubled ones. But this wouldn't have sent boatloads of money to Wall Street, eh?. This didn't make things better. The amount of delinquent or defaulting loans increased throughout 2008 and 2009.

So during a time when banks couldn't give away their nonperforming (bank talk for "toxic" assets) at any price, the Fed inhaled trillions of dollars worth of them and in return issued them debt at interest rates that no normal American would ever get...

And with those funds the banks paid billions...yes, with a b...in bonuses. $36 trillion in 2008. And the bonuses increased by 17% in 2009.

We now have 30 million people unemployed or underemployed. We set a record last year for the number of homes foreclosed, and at a projected 1.5 mill may set a new record this year. 2 million more notices have gone out. Whole cities are filing for bankruptcy, and thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of older Americans have been left with far less in their retirement accounts or money market accounts than they would have had. It is being used for bonuses on Wall Street. And millions of people no longer have the equity in their homes because of the actions of the shadow banks on Wall Street. And our Federal Reserve rewarded them for that behavior.

Among those who profited by the government's bailout of Wall Street instead of Main Street was Devid Tepper of Appaloosa Mgmt LLC, a hedge fund. Tepper bet that the government wouldn't let the poor banks fail and be replaced by other, more responsible businesses, adn he was right. Known for keeping a pair of brass testicles in his office and rubbing them for luck, as well as browbeating employees, Tepper's fund picked up a nice profit of $7 billion dollars in taxpayer money, money that people had worked hard for, because the government covered his bets. More here.... And he was only one of a number of very wealthy people who thought that the government should not disrupt the "flow" of money, and scored billions from the pieces of taxpayer paychecks given to them by the people above.

Do I hold that against him for making a "good business decision". No. But I will never forget the people that allowed these people to profit from the situtaion, both in our current administration and the last one.

In 1932, comedian Eddie Cantor, the Jay Leno of the time, was one of forty-two thousand investors who lost a fortune in the Goldman Sachs Trading Corporation. He sued Goldman for $100 million and made Goldman Sachs a national joke to ease the pain: "They told me to buy the stock for my old age...and it worked perfectly. Within six months, I felt like a very old man!"

There is more, but if it is more comforting to believe people whose egos ride on this, or whose good friends and business aquaintances profited handsomely, this is a waste of time anyway.

[Silent3]

64. None of that gets at the point

There are plenty of things that suck about the bailout. I've got that. There are plenty of scumbags benefiting from the bailout. I've got that too. There are a lot of things that are bad now that we could have hoped to be a lot better, specifically unemployment and availability of credit. Check.

None of that addresses what would have happened if there had been no bailout at all.

[jtuck004]

66. And none of what the guys from Government Sachs or the Federal Reserve or the

Treasury says "might" happen if they are not allowed to make their friends richer is proveable either. They say there would have been unimaginable panic, that credit would have frozen that people would have lost their homes, millions would have been unemployed...

As opposed to what we have now? Monetary policy hit a liquidty trap. Normally they would have been able to create money, it would have gone into the accounts at the banks, and been used to for loans, multiplying the money and pulling the economy back into health. So they started giving away money and buying worthless paper at 100 cents on the dollar from banks and investment companies that they had very close relationships with. Perhaps too close. And told us that it would free everything up.

Instead, because the banks didn't want to lose money by loaning it out at really low interest rates they took the money, let their friends profit from it, quit making loans, quit giving letters of credit, watched things fail - except for the really wealthy people who they reimbursed at full value, screwing the pensions, municpal investors, and homeowners in the process.

And unemployment is very likely to still be in double digits in 3 years, 3 million more people will be evicted from their homes, and we will still have a trade deficit brought about partly by their actions in keeping the dollar strong, and thus imports cheap. Which benefits the wealthy.

What is proveable is that these institutions and their traders profited handily from the situation. There's plenty of evidence there if one wants to read about it. Instead people want to make up fantasic scenarios about how we avoided people eating each other in the streets by making sure the rich got richer and little old ladies paid the tab from their pensions.

And while people are making excuses for them, their profits in commercial complex mortgages, the same stuff that got us here, are up 600% this year. And what did the head of the Federal Reserve say about measures to increase their regulation and protect consumers and pensions by re-instituting Glass-Stegall? "It would not be constructive".

Well, as long as you know who your friends are.

[DeSwiss]

80. +1

The way I see it, it has collapsed. Its all smoke and mirrors. What's holding it up? We are. If we go, everyone goes.

[jtuck004]

83. That's what is really scary. The FASB changed the rules

last year(?) to allow banks to keep assets on their books at what they "think" assets is worth, not it's real market value. Keeps everything from falling down around our ears.

There is a chart floating around which shows a purported actual real estate value in the country at about 6 ish trillion, and the mortgage load on them at around 10 ish trillion. Consumers actually paid this debt down by a lot, but the mortgage load is still 4 trillion higher than the actual worth. Typically it should be around .8 or so, cause mortgages typically loan on 80% of the value - instead we have about 160% of the value in mortgages.

Nobody is going to pay that off. Ever.

It's not clear that the 6 million is even a good representation of the actual value of the homes or a "mark-to-myth accounting as is being done at the banks. Might be worse than 160%.

In addition, the Fed traded 100% on the dollar for worthless paper, and is holding those on their books, not open to public view. I invite anyone to guess whether the banks or the taxpayers hard-earned dollars are going to make those good.

And lo and behold - here we go again. The shadow banks, the ones that leveraged up the market in CDO's that fell apart and gave us this financial crisis is being ramped up again - courtesy of the Fed. More here...

And with information like this out there, we still have smart people, who really ought to know better, insisting that everything is just peachy.

Smoke and mirrors indeed.

thanks

[JDPriestly]

82. As I explained above, they could have bailed out homeowners,

school districts, cities, the investors who lost money. That would have been money well spent. But rewarding the people who caused the crisis by paying off their gambling losses -- should not have been done.

Moral hazard. Moral hazard. Moral hazard. If anyone doesn't know what that means:

(economics) the lack of any incentive to guard against a risk when you are protected against it (as by insurance); "insurance companies are exposed to a moral hazard if the insured party is not honest"
wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn
Moral hazard occurs when a party insulated from risk may behave differently than it would behave if it were fully exposed to the risk. In insurance, moral hazard that occurs without conscious or malicious action is called morale hazard.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_hazard

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&source=hp&q=define:+moral+hazard&aq=0&aqi=l1g10&aql=&oq=moral+hazard+&gs_rfai=CavUfrOdLTP7ZDIq2iwO9i_zFDQAAAKoEBU_QyuNv&pbx=1

[Silent3]

104. For the third time I've had to say this to you...

...I was talking about the problems of NO BAILOUT OF ANY KIND AT ALL. Proposing bailing out homeowners, school districts, cities, etc. is NOT CONTRARY to the point I was making.

Sheeesh.

[JDPriestly]

157. Do you agree that the bail-outs should have been of the little

guys and not of Wall Street? That is crucial to me. What people are angry about is that the cheats and criminals on Wall Street (who are supposed to be more sophisticated about financial matters than the rest of us were bailed out while we suckers on Main Street were evicted or put out of business.

It isn't bail-outs per se that are wrong. It's the way they were done, who benefits from them and who pays for them. Main Street (that's me) paid. Wall Street benefited. That's wrong.

[Silent3]

185. I'd certainly have preferred a bailout more aimed at consumers, yes.

What the perfect answer would have been, I'm not sure. The fact that it had to be done quickly meant it probably wouldn't be optimal no matter what, and it was even worse because powerful people took advantage of the situation to benefit themselves and their friends.

Given the political realities of the situation at the time, with Bush still being President, I doubt we could have gotten better. I just don't let my anger over the obvious injustices of the bailout blind me the fact that between the choices of crappy bailout and no bailout at all, the crappy bailout was better than nothing at all.

[JDPriestly]

224. Better than nothing at all -- for whom?

Certainly not for the people who lost their jobs and homes, especially if they have families.

[The Green Manalishi]

135. Well, I'll say it.

It would have been better if there had been no bailout.
It was a complete scam from the beginning; you, and I, and everyone not in a very elite group, are just like the 'mark' in 'The Sting'. Set up like a bowling pin.
There was never a chance that TARP or anything that would have come out in its place would EVER do anything other than transfer even more wealth to the wealthiest. Yes, a few scraps fall to the floor allowing a peon here or there to keep a house or business, and I'm glad that it helped you,

I don't have to make the case that it would have been better with no bailout because the case was never made FOR the bailout as far as I am concerned. It was rammed down our throats without our input. It cost a hell of a lot and did very little good. I'm sure if I tossed a couple of million dollars in bills on a street corner filled with gang bangers and drug dealers, bikers or other low-lifes that a few dollars would end up helping out a sweet little old lady or some other worthy, but the vast majority would go those equipped and ready to grab as much as possible.

There are plenty of scumbags benefiting from the bailout. I've got that too" I respectfully think we disagree on the emphasis and proportionality. It was almost entirely scumbags who benefitted, at our expense. Any benefit to wage slaves was entirely incidental and accidental. It was by, for, and of, the scumbags, now you are telling me to be happy with the scraps.

[Silent3]

187. Scraps are better than complete economic chaos

And if you think complete chaos is what we have now, you're just not thinking hard enough about how bad things can get.

It's like all you see if the first level of distribution of money but are blind to the flow of money, the complicated interconnected machinery of a complex economy, and how deeply dependent we've become on that economy for the basics of life. The Great Depression was bad enough, and that was during a far simpler time.

In 1929 when the Great Depression began, there were still plenty of small family farms, for example. A lot of the food that people at came from local farms. Plenty of people went hungry, but not many outright starved to death -- we could still keep food distribution going without the complex computerized chains of transactions between farm and dinner plate that we're dependent upon today.

Any benefit to wage slaves was entirely incidental and accidental.

The principal benefit to the average person is that unemployment didn't go to 50% or higher. Again, if you think things are bad now -- and they are -- you're still not fully appreciating how bad things could have been. There are a lot of bad guys playing this game, but I'm not so paranoid that I think every single liberal economist who said we were on the brink of an abyss was bought and paid for by The Conspiracy.

[The Green Manalishi]

190. Respectfully,

You have no evidence, only speculation without any proof that economic chaos would have ensued.

I do not think the case is made that had there been no bailout that things would result in The End Of The World As We Know It; nothing to indicate that anything approaching 50 percent inflation would even be a remote possibility and you have no idea of how bad I can conceive of things becoming, the scenarios by which they might get that way nor would 'every liberal (or conservative) economist need to be paid off', as most of them are sheep- scared of being wrong and even more scared of pontificating anything countervailing to the bleating of the flock.

The people calling for the bailout were, and are the same people who worked for, advised, and will work again for many of the entities that caused the whole mess.

[Silent3]

191. You have no evidence either...

...just a lot of anger and paranoia that colors all of your judgments.

You have no evidence that "most of them are sheep" when it comes to economists.

I don't know where your comment about 50% inflation came from... I said 50% unemployment.

Given the choice between believing, say, Paul Krugman, and believing some guy on the internet who rants about everyone who disagrees with him/her being either sheep or "in on it", I'll go with economists like Paul Krugman. He's not perfect, no economist is, but I'm pretty sure he knows quite a bit more than you.

[uberllama42]

210. I would add that 50% inflation is much less serious

than 50% unemployment. I don't have the figures in front of me, but I remember that Venezuela posted 50% inflation during a few years in the 1990's. Venezuela, you'll notice, is doing guardedly well. Fifty percent unemployment would put you in the same boat as Zimbabwe, which is a much more dire situation.

[The Green Manalishi]

216. My error, I meant that no one had, or has any evidence that

50 percent unemployment was any sort of a possibility. "The Sky Is Falling" - no matter how many times people scream it, nor the letters after their names, it doesn't mean it's going to happen.
Most of the time I like Krugman. But some give him the same credence that others give to faith healers or former governors of Alaska. Many economists can analyze what happened, yet to find one who can predict what *WILL* happen.

I've read a fair bit of the information, in places such as The Economist and The Atlantic. Please provide any links that you think make a better case than that. I remain quite unconvinced by any information I've seen, and I feel that the people who made a case did so poorly, with a sense of panic and you have the same over referential respect for 'experts' that got us into Iraq and Vietnam; the mantra "well, they've got Ph D's so they must be right".

All it did was let fat cats get fatter, put us further in debt and people are STILL losing their homes and businesses.

[uberllama42]

209. I doubt you have read any of the economic literature dealing with the financial issues

that motivated the bailout. Is it your assertion that no one has evidence that a bailout was necessary (that's how I read it), or merely that Silent3 hasn't put forward that evidence? If someone wants to make a claim about the evidence employed by economists as a whole on a certain matter, it would behoove that person to be moderately if not profoundly familiar with the published literature on that matter.

It's one thing for a layman to rationalize a reason as to why a bunch of Ph.D.'s are wrong about a question in their field. It's quite another to look at the same evidence those thinkers have examined, read the arguments they make in peer-reviewed literature, and come to an informed conclusion that most of the people in the field are wrong. It doesn't do to just wave your hand and say that all those academics are sheep unwilling to rock the boat.

[socialist_n_TN]

36. Good post. I would also add that these are the people

who are now fanning "deficit hysteria" when the deficit was MAINLY a result of BAILING THEIR ASSES OUT AND TRYING TO REBUILD WHAT THEY DESTROYED.

Fuckin' hypocrits. But DANGEROUS hypocrits.

[jtuck004]

61. And they get additional power from their apologists

up and down the political spectrum. Most people really don't see the difference bewteen economics at the level of the country, and the level of their own budget, so people who profess to be on the side of the working person make excuses for people like this. If they would stop and read, and think about whose side those people are really on, I think they would take a step back and question a bit more. Instead they add to the power these people get from their own side. Wrong, in so many ways...

Just gotta keep organizing and educatin' ;)

[dotymed]

120. And

"They" will make sure the taxes for the wealthy remain low....

[TBF]

102. What if it were to stop? You are worrying about yourself losing a

401K, when most in the world don't have bank accounts.

The exploitation that occurs to keep those few on top is really not fair to all those who suffer. Why not stop the madness?

[Silent3]

103. Stop the madness by introducing a new kind of madness?

Just to make it clear, since someone else had this confusion, I'm talking about the alternative between a bailout of any type at all (the other guy suggested we could have supported individual mortgage holders rather than bailing out banks directly) and no bailout having been done at all.

With no bailout of any type at all, I think the collapse could have gotten very ugly -- mass starvation, disease, third-world style breakdown of infrastructure components like the electrical power grid and water supplies, etc. We live in a much more complicated world than we had back in the 1930s, where fewer people are capable of a self-sufficient existence. The Great Depression wasn't the first big economic upheaval -- there had been many wild boom and bust cycles in the economy before that. What made the difference in the Great Depression is that there were far fewer people living directly off the land than at any time in previous history, and now were a lot further away from self-sufficiency than people were during the 1930s.

Even if you're ready to blithely dismiss all of that potential suffering, there's absolutely no guarantee that a more equitable system would have arisen from the ashes of that chaos.

[TBF]

110. You think those things aren't already happening -

please google: tent cities, fracking, etc...

I get what you're saying but Capitalism is killing us all - look at the Gulf for your premier example this summer. Honestly, how much more of this can we take?

[Silent3]

115. It's a failure of imagination...

...if you can't look around you at the world as it is and not see how very much worse it could be. We are absolutely nowhere near the levels of breakdown possible by a major economic collapse.

Do you realize how much worse the ecological disasters would be if most economic activity ground to a halt? Thousands of undersea oil rigs left unattended, with no response at all when they burst open -- and many eventually would. Abandoned tanker trucks full of chlorine gas, unattended nuclear waste, the list goes on and on.

[TBF]

129. It eventually will kill us all anyway if we keep to the status quo.

Are you prepared to let that happen to your grandchildren? Because that's what we are doing by keeping the status quo and passing the problems along to the next generation.

[Silent3]

139. Bailout (of any kind, not just the one that happened) vs. no bailout...

...isn't a choice between status quo and non status quo.

Given the choice between trying to prop up the status quo, with a chance for deliberate, considerate change from the status quo to something else, and the alternative of letting every crash down and hoping that after all the pain and suffering something better, not worse, arises from the ashes, I'll take the cautious approach, thank you very much.

The more time we have before a big crash, the better the chance for thoughtful solution to avoid a big crash altogether. Whatever post-status-quo utopia you imagine, even if it were fully established tomorrow, there are never any guarantees that any human-created system won't ever fail for some future generation anyway. Since no matter what we do means taking chances with what happens to our grandchildren, I'd rather provide them with a somewhat stable base to work from rather than collapse everything now and give them that mess as a starting point.

[stevenleser]

173. Boy do I admire your patience. I get the feeling that those responding to you are not reading your

posts but are scanning them quickly and responding to what they are imagining you are saying. Or, they are disregarding what you are saying completely in order to get their stock talking points out there.

I advocated a bailout of the consumer and that is on record and researchable. While I am disappointed in what was actually done, a bailout of some sort was necessary right away to avert total chaos and mass deaths and starvation IMNSHO. In that, I think you are completely and 100% right. But we're still left with various issues that would have been resolved by a consumer bailout.

I also think that while my critics were decrying the costs of what I proposed at the time, we ended up spending much more and getting much less.

[caseymoz]

149. First, the 401k is a boondoggle.

You're going to be lucky if you get any of that when you retire. What it does is put your retirement money into the market where it will be stolen. Otherwise, it's a way for the wealthy to manipulate you into doing what you're doing now: defending their interests. You're defending the casino so you could play . . . and lose your money.

While it may be true that the bailout might have preserved the system, in the end I predict it's going to be far worse. What we essentially did was, to echo the analogy, bribe the casino owners so we could continue to play till we are truly destitute. It should be clear, this economy is not viable. It's not viable for the wealthy to take a disproportionate amount of wealth.

What we possibly did, or allowed our government also to do: make sure that this didn't happen with a crisis that would have pushed us into radical reform, but made sure the process of our impoverishment is both gradual and institutionalized, so that there will be no reform. Or at least, that's the plan.

[blindpig]

229. Well said.

They would have us invest in our own enslavement.

And you're quite correct, this is far from over, there is too much capital and not enough investment. Capitalism is a victim of it's own success, it is inevitably unstable. Which is OK for those sitting on top the heap, their lives are hardly affected by a downturn, but for the rest of us it varies from hardship to calamity.

[liberation]

161. Here comes the house negro argument

But if we get rid of the massahs and run away from our quarters in the plantation, where will we sleep at night? Where will we get the crumbs we get for dinner from? But more importantly, what will we do to fill our days with, toiling from sunrise to sundown is what humans are supposed to do... massah told us that idle hands are the playground of the devil!

[Kalun D]

194. BULLSHIP

""None of that proves the bailout was the wrong thing to do.""

$700 BILLION for the crooked banking sector, that was spent buying other banks instead of investing in the country like it was supposed to be spent, doesn't have much to do with the overall stock market.

Besides anyone that has money in stocks gets what they get, after all it's only a manipulated legalized pyramid scheme.

the bankers are just ripping off, how is paying for that ripping off going to help the working class? All the bailout did was add to the working class debt and contribute to more corporate consolidation, like we need more of that.

""The big scary potential back when the stock market was plummeting was that the whole system would come apart""

all by design, and about as likely as WMD's in Iraq, fabricated economic "terror".

[creon]

215. necessity

Thare had to be a bailout. One can disgaree about the details and thrust of it, but some sort of bailout had to take place. Thses financial institutions were < and largely remain> insolvent. If nothing were done, we would have gone into a deflationary cycle. With calamity as a consequence.

[blindpig]

228. Not at all true

The government could have taken those institutions over.

[creon]

233. that was not going to occur

[blindpig]

236. True enough

given the orientation of this Administration, but it's what ought to have happened.

[AllyCat]

10. Just tonight at work I have had to remind colleauges who say "we get paid a lot"

that we are SMALL POTATOES compared to the corporate schemers. That there is nothing wrong with us making a wage that allows us to pay our bills and maybe take a vacation once a year. This while most of our husbands are out of work or under-employed. There is NOTHING wrong with us making the money we make and MORE people should. Heck, most people should!! It is insane how much these people make for contributing less value to the economy than the media (and the corporations themselves) would lead us to believe. We are the ones who make the money for them. The wage earners need to stop saying things like 'well, we have to accept more cuts' and believe that more should happen. Rise up!

[druidity33]

41. are you Union?

what industry do you work in?

just curious...

:)

:hi:

[AllyCat]

76. Yes. Registered Nurse. SEIU

I get tired of the union bashing that even our union MEMBERS do. They believe all the lies from management about cutting costs and that means us. We are told we are paid too much. And people believe it. I am wasting no opportunity to point out this crap to people anymore. And I'm finding once I speak up, few disagree with me and others frequently come to champion the cause. Somehow, people have to see how much management is in this to make money and how bad things would be if there was no union. They really don't care about anything else.

[Enthusiast]

89. +1 on the unions, AllyCat.

The anti-union propaganda has really benefited the corporations. I frequent a wide variety of net message boards and every time there is the mere mention of unions a flame war erupts. A huge majority of the participants simply hate unions and don't appreciate their value at all.

[pattmarty]

122. I agree. And, you know the really unfortunate thing about people...........

..............hatinig unions? A good percentage of them make under 30K per year. That is propagandizing on a fucking MASSIVE scale. Talk about being "against your own interests", the RW making unions out to be greedy "union bosses" (they always show a big burly "mafia" looking motherfucker too) taking Union dues and giving them to family & friends. Did you hear what they say when EFCA is discussed? They discuss it as taking away your "freedoms" which is fucking ludicrous. Even having "some" unionization brings UP wages in similar non-union jobs.

[Enthusiast]

128. The media butchers

any attempt by the left to cast unions in a positive light. Just as they butchered our positions on this morning's political talk shows. What a massacre. Why should we have to be treated so unfairly in the 'liberal media'?

[pattmarty]

130. Yep, and Eric Alterman wrote about it earlier in this decade in..............

..........."What Liberal Media?" Our media IS NOT liberal, that is one reason there is a CNN and a CNNI huge difference between the two.

[Enthusiast]

134. This has become especially

bad as of late. It has become so one sided that the American people would no longer even recognize reality.

[pattmarty]

167. Yes. I don't know how old you are, but I am 63 and started getting.......

...........interested in socio/political affairs around 1966 or so. Back then you ONLY had 3 major networks (PBS wasn't even around then, nor CSPAN) and say what you want about the "news" back then, but the networks did a pretty good job of world and domestic coverage. The just put out the facts and if there were photos they had, put them out there too and you saw, heard and really did make up your own mind. Fuck whatever the right says, there WAS NEVER a liberal media, truthful and factful yes(is that a word?), but not leaning a certain way. Now I don't know how our media at that time stacked up against the rest of the world, but I would guess we were not the most unbiased, even back then.

[Enthusiast]

206. I can remember

when our TV news did a report on Vietnam War protests the anchorman always displayed a clear look of disgust on his face. Subtle propaganda, but it was there. And that was when a huge majority of the public were against the war.

[AllyCat]

137. When I was looking for work as a graduate nurse, I had 3 job offers in less than 24 hours

Two were non-union hospitals and one was union in a slightly different geographical market (50 miles away). $5/hr difference in pay. The other places thought it was just great that I got a 25 cent raise each year. If I had taken those jobs, I would be working my a$$ off and putting my license (and job) on the line every day for a couple dollars more an hour than where I started.

In a union hospital, we are winning awards left and right for our care. We, as union nurses, are able to advocate strongly for our patients without having to worry about repercussions from management. We advocate for safe practice environments and working as a team without assigning blame. That is what nursing is supposed to do. But we have the union to back us up. Nurses at non-union hospitals have the research and their oath that say how they should practice, but I would imagine have to walk a tight line with management.

Maybe a non-union nurse can chime in here, because I have never known anything different. With the union hospitals in our market, we automatically get pay raises for the non-union facilities by default. Unions help EVERYONE!! Anti-union attitudes are a defeat against workers as a whole, not just union members.

[laughingliberal]

204. +1000 Non-union nursing is hell. nm

[druidity33]

109. keep on...

opening eyes and shining truth! My dad (teacher) and grandpa (GE) were Union folk and as a result i grew up in a solidly Middle Class family. I pray someday i'll be able to get a Union job...

Good Luck to you!


:hi:

[SmileyRose]

138. +1

People in Georgia bitched about union salaries so the Governor got his mandate to union bust.

We gave up 5000 good paying UAW jobs that averaged $23 an hour and replaced them with 1500 non union auto jobs at a new Kia plant that averages $12 an hour. So basically we took $Millions upon $Millions out of the Georgia economy because unions are supposedly evil.

Dumbasses.

[jtuck004]

11. k&r - a big one n/t

[gateley]

12. K&R -- and I'm passing the info along. Infuriating and frightening. nt

[Billy Burnett]

14. We are under multinational corporate attack. We need to stop those who aid and abet their activity.

End of story.

[dogday]

16. A most righteous rant indeed

:applause:

[Stuart G]

18. Outstanding Post... K and R.

[FormerDittoHead]

19. Post it every day. I'll K&R for ya. n/t

[Stinky The Clown]

21. You post it, I'll kick it.

[Ignis]

26. And I'll get it to the back of the net.

:kick:

[Ignis]

27. loop-de-dupe

deleted

[Initech]

23. Outsourcing is killing our economy. I hate this shit.

[TBF]

99. Outsourcing is only a symptom, it is Capitalism killing the country. nt

[Initech]

196. Correction: it is de-regulated capitalism that is killing our country.

[snagglepuss]

24. K & R. nt

[Lorien]

25. It is class warfare. The Elites have been waging it against the rest of us. nt

[66 dmhlt]

111. Like Warren Buffett said ...

“There’s class warfare, all right. But it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war ... and we’re winning.”

Source for graph:
http://lanekenworthy.net/2010/07/20/the-best-inequality-graph-updated/

[laughingliberal]

203. +1000 nt

[Ignis]

28. K&R

It's dismaying that the Left can't even agree on the existence of the Class War, let alone how to win it. Let's get it together, people!

This post is a great step in the right direction. :patriot: Thanks for posting it!

[socialist_n_TN]

35. Oh, the Left KNOWS it's a class war............

If you don't know this basic 150 year old FACT of political life, you ain't Left.

A lot of people who CLAIM to be left (especially when they're among people who ARE leftists) and a lot of people who might THINK that they're leftist, might not think the class war exists, but they're wrong. As I said it's a BASIC fact of leftist politics for decades. Some folks are duped and some are deliberately obtuse and some have they're own motives for denying it, but it DOES exist.

[Ignis]

37. Careful, that's a lot of truth all at once!

:hurts: You might hurt someone's feelings regarding the American Dream!

But I can't disagree. :fistbump: It's the same struggle, just with a different cast every decade or two.

[pattmarty]

124. I agree. Can you say "centrist"? A lot who may call themselves..........

.........leftist when with actual leftists, are actually centrist in their political thinking. I won't spend time typing out 400 words what I consider to be leftist (or as I STILL refer to myself, liberal) but those that is, knows.

[socialist_n_TN]

212. "....but those that is, knows."

EXCELLENT summation. I come from a VERY traditional leftist perspective, not a relativistic one. Read some history of the communist, socialist, and labor union movement of the early part of the last century for where I'm coming from. It's just as relavent today as it was then.

[pattmarty]

214. I am not formally educated, but I have read quite a lot of shit relating......

.......to the depression years, early fascism etc. I consider my self a old line working class union supporter and definitely a FDR LIBERAL.

[bluethruandthru]

29. Its about time what's left of the middle class woke up and

realized that their elected officials are selling them down the river for campaign contributions.

[awoke_in_2003]

30. hear, hear....

EVERYTHING in DC is nothing but a sideshow to keep us distracted from the main act- the upward redistribution of wealth. Politicians of both parties are guilty of allowing this to occur.

[rhett o rick]

32. We know we are in a class war. What we need is a leader and a strategy. nm

[Ignis]

34. Do we, really?

I think the wind has shifted, and "kids these days" (if you'll pardon my get-off-my-lawnism) are embarrassed by phrases like the following:

"Power to the people!"
"class warfare"
"organized labor"
"Damn the man!"
"Fight the power!"

:tinfoilhat:

The RW has insidiously made these phrases the object of scorn for every Libertarian-Light Hero of Gen Y+.

Rand just wrote the clumsy blueprint. You don't think the RW has picked up a few tricks in the last 50 years?

[socialist_n_TN]

38. So we come up with new slogans...........

although "class warfare and organized labor" would still work. Some suggestions:

"I'm on the side of the average American. Who's side are YOU on?"
"FUCK the rich. Take their money and FUCK them!"
"Who's going to fight for you? Nobody, but you!"

[Ignis]

39. "I'm on the side of the average American. Who's side are YOU on?"

Yes! :patriot: I think this message has always worked, and I'm surprised I don't see it repeated more often.

[socialist_n_TN]

48. I just wrote a song about this...........

copyright 2010! :)

Edited to correct spelling. It's been a LONG two days.

[pattmarty]

125. I disagree. The young ALWAYS have led any movements whether.......

.............rock and roll or even Civil rights. Just come up with new "slogans" of their own. The big problem is to get them motivated. If they ever get motivated, maybe we can have another "New Deal" (or whatever "they" name it).

[rhett o rick]

127. I said we need a leader and strategy not mickey mouse slogans. nm

[FooshIt]

40. What we need is a global maximum and minimum income

nothing over 250K, nothing under 25K. Everyone is happy healthy and well fed but the yacht industry will suffer.

[WillyT]

42. Tell It, SmileyRose... Tell It !!! - K & R !!!

:yourock:

:hi:

[tinkerbell41]

43. I thought I was middle class.

But I am not. I lived better in 1998, 1999 than I do now. Nothing has changed,except my earnings. Yes I'm one of those Union workers who get the bad rap for EVERYTHING. Strangely I've made less each year even though my hourly has gone up. But my contractors are doing really well.
I look around me and realize I am among the working poor. Vacation?? 1 week 4 yrs ago stayed with my dad, cost me airfare and meals. Car?? 10 yrs old last legs, puking this week because it's either 1900.00 because I snapped timing belt and bent valves, or a "new" car. Clothes? Old Navy clearance rack. 5.00 T-shirts make up my wardrobe.
But now I'm supposed to go back to school and find a new career making about 25 an hour less because my industry is dead.

[keep_it_real]

44. That Americans are powerless to stop this

Is the really sad part.

Makes you wonder is this a conspiracy?

[mreilly]

45. To be fair, I HAVE seen this discussed

I've seen it brought up elsewhere on other internet forums, and the gist of it is always the same. Right-wingers come trotting in and start shrieking about socialism. If you dare to bring up the fact that, as you said, 83% of all U.S. stocks are held by 1% of the people, invariably it's the same. They start genuflecting and kowtowing to those 1%. Those are the real Americans. They create the jobs. We owe them our lives. They should be pampered, petted, and protected. They're precious and wonderful. Everyone needs to kiss their asses and realize that these overlords are our masters, and you had better like it, or get the hell out. It's great to be kicked around and pissed on and treated like crap by that 1%, because they own us. Bend over and let them put a tattoo on your ass. Better yet, a brand with a hot poker.

And on and on and on. You get the point. This is what the right-wing turds have been programmed to believe, thanks to talk radio. That they need to lie down and let the rich do whatever, whenever, and then say "Thanks for raping me, sir. Can you please do it again?"

I really and truly believe that without the talk radio it might be possible to get through to these people. I've been following politics since 1988 and it seems like in the early 90's Republicans went from being people with somewhat different views to evil rabid fucking psychopaths ready to get in your face, spewing spittle and venom at you for not believing that big corporations and the rich should get the world handed to them on a silver platter and fuck you for caring about individual rights or anything else. This, from people driving old clunkers with dragging mufflers and living in ramshackle houses. Because they've been tuned into the noxious anal emissions spewing straight from Rush Limbaugh and Co. (the rest of the talk radio assholes are just clones of this hellbound piece of shit) who capitalize upon the hate, desperation and bitterness to be found in these small-minded types.

Read "Whats the Matter with Kansas?" by Thomas Frank. It tells how the anti-establishment populism of Kansas was redirected away from the aggressor (big business, heartless banks, manipulative and soulless corporations, etc) right at the victim, such that the result was the sheep demanding MORE abuse from their tormentors. How? Psychological manipulation, which boils down to the same thing: Talk radio. Everywhere you go it's the same thing.

When people are up in arms over abortion but couldn't care less that their jobs are going overseas, we can thank talk radio.

When people insist their taxes have gone UP due to Obama, even though the facts indicate the reverse, we can thank talk radio.

When people proclaim "government doesn't work" and the answer is to just kill education, health care, social programs and other essential servers, we can thank talk radio.

When people whine that unemployment benefits just encourage lazy indolents not to work (the same people who would be angrily demanding assistance if, God forbid, they were ever in the unemployment line), we can thank ralk radio.

When people rant and scream about government spending under a black President whereas they thought it was all just perfectly fine under a white Republican president, we can thank talk radio.

Talk radio, talk radio, talk radio. If we could turn this shit off for 2 months I would bet we would see some minds start to come out of their stupor and look around. Even down in the Gulf now, in the aftermath of the BP oil spill, now that thousands of red-staters are losing their livelihoods thanks to an oil company that fought against regulation and sane initiatives the Republicans have battled for ages, I have to wonder: "Will they continue to support the same party that destroyed their way of life?" Sadly, if they have their radios on tuned to the same stinking garbage, I would have to guess "Yes, they will race out in droves to vote in more Republicans to really ensure that places like Louisiana are completely fucking destroyed next time."

[Enthusiast]

90. +1, mreilly.

Great post. The suggestion that RW hate radio and propaganda has had no measurable effect is simply ridiculous.

[Wednesdays]

148. Not limited to talk radio; the propaganda is in print and on TV as well

How about FOX News? My local rag is nothing but a cheerleader for the teabaggers. Even the so-called "middle of the road" media stations and publications sneak in subtle support for wingnuts, and jabs at liberals.
:puke:

[Enthusiast]

205. Our local print media

is much as your's. One paper even carries the occasional Anne Coulter column.

[snake in the grass]

46. This needs to be said at every opportunity.

At some point it will sink in.

[Greyhound]

47. Another K&R.

[paparush]

49. The Financial Elites are determined to re-create the serf class.

This pesky, well-educated middle class, people with enough wealth to have real influence, is being strangled into extinction. They don't want us educated. They don't want us to have enough resources to be independent. I'm convinced they don't want us to travel to other countries.

An educated, financially independent middle classed forced changes like ending the Vietnam War, helped drive Civil Rights, helped drive Women's Rights, demanded government oversight of the environment, demanded Worker's Rights.

No more. We are being beaten into a serf class too tired, too poor, too frightened to rock the boat, all while being fed a nonstop stream of lies and distortions.

It sickens m

[bvar22]

140. The Top 1% lived very well in the Gilded Age.

Some people aren't happy being RICH unless they are walking on the backs of everyone else.

[ProgressOnTheMove]

50. Hartmann call it out everyday, best place to direct them is his site where folks can hear it...

again and again till it clicks. Sure we know it but not everyone and that's how we get to destination progress. The debate is everything and we have to take it to all conservative facebook pages, most times out of 10 it's not they're bad they're just unaware. Been led to believe they can only trust one news source.

[Enthusiast]

91. Tom Hartmann is a gem. nt

[ErikJ]

156. Thom Hartmann 2012!!

Hartmann is the absolutely ONLY one out there calling for a REPEAL of the REAGAN TAX CUTS!

That Reagan turd cut them from 70% to 28% on the millionaires and billionaires. Now they are still only 35% and they are havving trouble raising them back up a measly 4%?!!
HELL, EVEN HOOVER had the good sense to raise them back up to 63% in 1932 after they got whittled down to 20% by the 3 Republican Presidents in the 1920's which led to the Crash of 1929. By 1932 the rich were the only ones making any money so he was forced to. They didnt spend and borrow in those days.

[PufPuf23]

51. Elite Class Entitlement Welfare War

and most Americans (and the common people of the world) are losing badly and being scapegoated for a stage-managed mess.

[jah the baptist]

52. +10000 nt

[Jakes Progress]

53. Not only is it class warfare,

but most of their soldiers are the idiot poor and middle class who vote republican.

[Politicub]

54. self delete

The American people are truly screwed by the rich.

[varelse]

55. K&R

Because this cannot be said often enough - and it does need to be brought to a wider audience... like, NOW.

[scentopine]

56. Two parties - each fighting for the rich, steam rolling everyone else, time to rise up! - nt

[pattmarty]

126. Yep, that's why I refer to BOTH of them as "bad & worse".

[ismnotwasm]

57. Right on

That almost Smells like trickle down economics is making a sly come back, or never actually went away.

Only like we used to say, what's trickling down feels warm and doesn't smell so good. It smells, well, like shit.

[BzaDem]

58. "And OMG we have to spend gazillions to save wall street in order to save mainstreet is also now

"proven bullshit, because the vast majority of job are created by small business and they don't own much of the stocks either."

That was never the argument. The bailout was not passed to prop up stock values. As you said, most jobs are created by small businesses. These are the very businesses that often fund payroll out of loans, which they could not get if there were no credit and no banks. These are the businesses that would have laid off everyone and likely closed had the credit freeze not been dealt with.

The bailout was to prevent real unemployment (not u-6) from approaching the levels of the Depression (a third). It had nothing to do with propping up stock prices. It didn't even claim to prop up stock prices (Citibank, a huge receiver of bailout money, lost 95% at its low point and even now is still down 80%.)

[SmileyRose]

77. the credit freeze was extortion

and is still being used to scare us into submission. At some point we have to tell them to go fuck themselves.

[EFerrari]

84. Not only to scare but to grab assets. People who can't refinance

their ARM loans are losing their property. It's a huge land grab.

[defendandprotect]

60. Great post -- keep on keepin' on -- !!

[Oldtimeralso]

62. K & R, You Go Girl n/t

[Anakin Skywalker]

63. The Rightwing Corporate Propaganda Machine

is great at distracting some of working class people with moral issue outrages .

Hey, Fox News exists for a very good reason.

[Enthusiast]

92. So right you are.

It is the very reason for their existence.

[Gold Metal Flake]

65. K&R

If the had a liberal bias, this would be the topic of a weekly 1 hour documentary series.

[handmade34]

68. K&R ...we live in a CORPORATIST society

and if we don't like it, we are the only ones that are going to do anything about it!!!!!!! :kick:

http://www.scottlondon.com/interviews/saul.html
"...very simple. One of them is simply that if we are a democracy, how is it that we've highly structured our lives so that every free minute of our day is accounted for working, holidays, breaks, etc. and that the only time left over is the time to go home and have dinner with our families, go to bed, make love, get up, go to the bathroom, and go back to work — go back to the structured system. We have to sit back and say, "Wait a minute, we live in a democracy." We have structured everything in there — sick leave, pregnancy leave — but we haven't structured one minute in for citizen participation. The only way a citizen can participate is voluntarily, which means giving up going to the bathroom, give up making love, give up sleep, give up eating dinner with your family. In other words, we have structured citizen participation out of our society. For me, this is the simplest and most complete proof that we don't live in a democracy — that we live in a corporatist society."

http://www.dhushara.com/book/multinet/saul.htm
THE MOST POWERFUL FORCE possessed by the individual citizen is her own government. Or governments, because a multiplicity of levels means a multiplicity of strengths.

"The individual has no other large organized mechanism that he can call his own. There are other mechanisms, but they reduce the citizen to the status of a subject. Government is the only organized mechanism that makes possible that level of shared disinterest known as the public good. Without this greater interest the individual is reduced to a lesser, narrower being limited to immediate needs. He will then be subject to other, larger forces, which will necessarily come forward to fill the void left by the withering of the public good. Those forces will fill it with some other directing interest that will serve their purposes, not the larger purposes of the citizen. It would be naive to blame them for occupying abandoned territory. There are those who talk about individualism as if it were a replacement for government. There are others who see it as the enemy of government. Let me begin from the self-evident. We are more than one. We are more than a family We are more than several families. We are many tens of millions. We exist, therefore, in societies. It has been several millennia since those of us in the West have been able to live outside society, except in odd, temporary cases. The opening of the American West, for example, was, for better or worse, a short-term exception available to a small number of people. In Canada the West was opened without the larger social structures falling away There are a few people today who can live virtually alone in the Arctic on research stations and the like. They constitute a few hundred of us out of millions. The individual therefore lives in society That is the primary characteristic of individualism. The only question is what form that society will take. As I have already pointed out, the form of society tums upon where legitimacy lies. There are four options a god, a king, groups or the individual citizenry acting as a whole."

[asdjrocky]

69. The rich have stood too long on our shoulders.

It's time they come down.

[handmade34]

72. that's the irony

the rich would be nothing and have nothing without the labor of everyday people and additionally without the acquiescing of those same hard laborers... we have power, we just don't use it

[Wednesdays]

150. Check out my signature.

nt

[earcandle]

70. Paradoxes abound... the ability to deal with paradox is a sign of mental health.

Hold on folks,, and WIDEN... broaden your scope. See both poles and pay no mind to terms like "Bi-Polar"

This is yours.

[donheld]

71. k & R

[LatteLibertine]

73. One of my personal

favorite sites related to this issue below.

http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html

Until poor and middle class people stand together we are going to be screwed.

[TBF]

98. Middle Class?

You can read those charts and think there is still a middle class?

[ChiciB1]

106. But WE Aren't Standing Together, Or At Least Only On The Internet For The

most part. I got up this morning and realized that what I've been feeling for 6 months to a year isn't anything but downright DEPRESSION! I can't seem to get motivated to DO ANYTHING at all! Where once I would gather myself up and go work outside in my yard, join in other activities going on around me, of just take my dogs for a walk, I have made "friends" with TV hosts like Maddow & Olberman!

Even they do nothing for me anymore because I KNOW nothing is going to happen to change anything! As we sit at our PC's & complain, I realize that it's ALL WE DO!! I used to come here for a way to rant and direct my pent up stress somewhere, but found myself getting attacked for my more LIBERAL views!

I KNOW I headed for serious trouble if I don't get motivated by SOMETHING, but everywhere I look I see DEPRESSION in others too! I'm still hanging on financially, but just had to put a roof on our home and our money is dwindling! I realize there are people who REALLY care and are living much worse than I, but I ALSO realize how HELPLESS "we the people" have become!!

We just sit back and complain and really DO NOTHING! I'm told marching makes no sense, REVOLUTION is off the table and I only have QUESTIONS & COMPLAINTS!

FORGIVE ME for being such a "downer" but that's how I'm feeling. I've seen a doctor and I have been given MEDS, but "been there, done that" and HATE what THOSE meds do to me! THEY only mask the problem I know that is bothering me because as a very long time activist I simply feel beaten down and don't know where to turn!

We have no real MOVEMENT to be a part of, and my local Democratic Party is SO DLC and LAME beyond comprehension! While they NEVER were more than DLC types, they also don't have ANY modus operandi either! Just meetings and grumblings, so THEY depress me too1 I live in a VERY RED county, and one with many rich people around me! Many celebrities come here to vacation and/or have homes here too. So many of my friends are like me, just making it and I don't know how much longer it will be before I might hear that someone just "checks" out!

I KNOW I need to get motivated to do something else, for my OWN health, but the malaise hangs with me no matter WHAT I do! It's overwhelmingly HOT down here in Florida, I've worried myself sick about the OIL, and I've had to almost STOP even listening to what ANY MEDIA is spewing! I rarely blog anymore because of what WE HERE are NOW saying is WRONG! We KNOW it's wrong, but we ARE HELPLESS in so many ways!

What to do?? I really don't know, so I try very hard to ignore the worst... AND IT AIN'T WORKING!!

BTW, I do know 3 people that my husband knew who have actually "checked out" for whatever reasons. I know one did so because of a divorce, but the other 2 I don't really know. Didn't know them that well, only acquaintances through my husband, but so sad no matter how you look at it!

Economically, we ARE pretty much in a DEPRESSION, but THEY are trying to put lipstick on a pig as far as I'm concerned! IT IS BAD, and I can't find a smiley face to put on! I worry so much about the homeless and those suffering because they have lost so much, and haven't anywhere to turn!

Sorry again, just had to write something down... now I think I need my morning coffee and am thinking I "might" try doing some exercises to perk me up. I'm not overweight, actually lost about 10 lbs. without thinking about it. And yes, I AM sane enough to know that I MUST get my act together, IF for no other reason than for my family and especially my newest grandson who is now 18 months old! THANKFULLY, he lives very close and I get to watch him almost every week! A RAY of sunshine, but I WORRY about what it will be like for him!!

ENOUGH... and going for the coffee NOW!

[TBF]

145. Revolution is only off the table on DU,

and if we aren't careful the revolution that comes is going to be led by teabaggers and we sure aren't going to like that one.

[ChiciB1]

162. You Know TBF, I Think You ARE Correct... But HOW To Get Something Organized Is

something I have NO IDEA how to do, and as we sit by and WATCH, I too feel we WILL be following BEHIND the Tea-Baggers!!

I couldn't get 20 Democrats right here in my own community to organize for an uprising so I haven't got a clue WHERE TO START! Would I join in with those that can get something off the ground??? IN A NANNO SECOND!!!

Just not happening and all I feel I can do is sit and watch it all fall to pieces! So, as I said, here I sit and without answers or much hope at all!

[TBF]

207. We keep making noise here - and that is how we find each other.

The rest will follow.

[leftstreet]

74. K&R

[undergroundpanther]

75. I got 21 bucks

worth of groceries today,4 boxes of frozen greens(mustard,collard, kale and turnip) a box of strawberries on sale,and a loaf of bread and peanut butter.I have about three bucks left,for 5 days. Grocery prices have gone astronomical.And on SSI I have to make every cent count,I don't want junk,but I try every week to get at least 1 decent good food in me.But if food costs get much higher I will be eating only crap because that is what I can afford anymore and it really pisses me off.I get depressed because of my health issues and finding food that I can eat is a chore(can't eat certain foods like beans allergic),and yeah I hate the rich.Life for me and others who barely can make it should not have to be like this for so many of us so the rich piggy few never have to do without anything.

[JDPriestly]

78. Class warfare, but the class being attacked doesn't want to believe

it.

Some years ago, I worked with some really sinister Republican guys. They had much higher rank than I did and earned a lot of money. They went on and on about how American is a "meritocracy" and tried to convert me to their Ayn Rand view of the world.

I was not at all impressed. I thought they were just trying to convince themselves that they deserved the good fortune they had. What clowns.

[Enthusiast]

93. Clowns is right. nt

[Joe Fields]

85. Thank you. I've known this, but you cut right through to the bone.

K&R

[Scruffy1]

86. Should be posted ad nauseum

[Bonobo]

87. This posts show why "this" post is so filled with self-deception.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=8810574&mesg_id=8810574

[Enthusiast]

88. K&R

And I fully subscribe to the arguments by jtuck004. IMO these best explain the nature and reasons for our dire situation. No point in sugar coating it. Now, what do we do about it?

[geckosfeet]

94. The other side of the story. For all those people on the other side of the world who

who are desperate to work 10 or 12 hours a day for a dollar an hour - is that their governments let major international corporations exploit the people because they are getting serious kickbacks.

Oh.

Wait.

[Solly Mack]

95. K&R

[TBF]

97. Best OP on DU this week, and needs to be stated repeatedly. nt

[theFrankFactor]

101. K&R

[tiredtoo]

105. In total agreement with what you say here.

I cut and pasted this and took out the f-bombs. Plan on making copies and distributing to others. This message must get out to everyone.

[pleah]

107. K&R

[NJmaverick]

108. We have real problems to solve, we don't have time to go after windmills

[asdjrocky]

118. You are so sensible.

And a world class apologist.

[earth mom]

154. Just wait until this shit hits you personally. You won't be spewing your ridiculous drivel then

now will ya? :eyes: :puke:

[Dawgs]

112. Disagree on one point...

"THEN THEY HAD ONE BAD YEAR AND DEMANDED A FUCKING BAILOUT FROM THE OTHER 99%"

This statement is wrong, IMO.

The economy demanded that these bastards get bailed out; which is by itself wrong.

I've gotten kind of tired of people being upset about the banks getting bailed out. Yes, it was there fault, and yes they didn't deserve it, but without bailing them out the rest of us would be in much worse shape.

The wealth gap that we are all so pissed about would be much worse.

[laughingliberal]

121. They did the bailout in a way to provide maximum benefit at the top

All they can say to the rest of us is, 'It could have been so much worse.' Well, it is still getting worse for a lot of us and the bailout could have been done in a way to benefit the rest of us. If it had been, a lot more people (real people who work and vote) would have been helped and we would be skating to increased majorities in both Houses of Congress.

[usaf-vet]

113. You are on the right message.

I read a dozen or so blogs each days including hundreds of posts each day. My email usually has 4 or 5 requests for donations for this national ad or that national action.

More and more I believe that money... my money would be better spent locally. Spent paying for a local ad in local media. An ad that express accurate facts like this original thread Time to quit pissing around and cut right to the shit..

Our region like most has a weekly "Shopper" that is read by 4 or 5 thousand their advertising rates are cheap and their editorial policy is basically "it's your nickel". The local corporate newspaper has a policy to only allow an individual to submit once or twice on any given topic.

I would much rather change the mind of one or two of my neighbors than waste my limited dollars fighting against a corporate supported multi-million dollar national ad.

But to do this I / you would need accurate facts to support the sad truth that the middle class is being dismantled one piece at a time.

That is their goal.

What if the expertise of DUers were brought together to prepare a bulleted list like SmileyRose has started. A list/ad that anyone could use in their local media? A list that is cited to reliable references?

Is it just me or do others feel this way? Are other Duers frustrated and discouraged at the lack of fight that liberals in Washington display?

[lonestarnot]

114. Good to see someone else kicking in on the cause!

[Greybnk48]

119. If 90% of Americans are being fucked over by 10%

guess who's Army is going to win when everyone wakes up?

[Wednesdays]

152. The one with the paid professional soldiers in it, right?

...and the state-of-the-art equipment, tanks, supersonic jet aircraft, and on and on.

And nukes...if it comes to that. :scared:

[Greybnk48]

166. I wonder how long police and military would take orders

instructing them to hurt their own people? The paid mercenaries are another story.

[wickerwoman]

202. It wouldn't be their own people...

it would be "dirty hippies", "libruls" and "commies", "community organizers" and "troublemakers".

At Tiananmen Square the Chinese government brought in army units from the provinces to crush what was largely an urban, student-led rebellion. It's SOP for dictatorships to pit different areas and classes against each other so they can always find "enforcers".

Kent State anyone?

Or check out the history of the struggle for labor rights in the US.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pullman_Strike
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memorial_Day_massacre_of_1937
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludlow_Massacre
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbine_Mine_massacre
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reading_Railroad_Massacre
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanapepe_massacre
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lattimer_massacre
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bay_View_Massacre

[laughingliberal]

123. K & R nt

[The Green Manalishi]

132. They only call it 'Class Warfare' when we fight back.

[TBF]

143. Exactly right,

most of the time it is euphamistically referred to as "American Dream". Nightmare would be more apt.

[Lucian]

133. Oh, but if it's a Democrat, it's okay if they spend $2 million on frivolous shit.

:eyes:

[Uncle Joe]

136. Kicked and recommended, you nailed the essence of it.

Thanks for the thread, Smiley Rose.:thumbsup:

[bvar22]

141. Bill Moyers NAILED IT in 2002.

"The vast inequality of this new Gilded Age didn't just happen.

Nature didn't ordain it, the market didn't require it, and Adam Smith's invisible hand doesn't sustain it.

What happened is the rich declared class war and spent what it took to win.

Not exactly a new story, of course, but the extraordinary new concentration of wealth and power created a juggernaut that makes it harder and harder for democracy to work for all.

The rich buy the laws and loopholes they want from Congress, and from the White House, they buy executive protection of their privileges.

So government winds up promoting the extremes instead of moderating them.

Look at the bill the House of Representatives recently passed to reform accounting and financial disclosure in the wake of Enron.

Despite everything we learned about the gang from Houston, the bill does not close the revolving door between accountants and their clients, nor will it prohibit accounting firms from making millions by selling consulting services to the same companies they audit.

Critics now call it the "Ken Lay Protection Act." And what happened the other day when the Senate voted on regulating energy derivatives, those mischievous devices Enron used to manipulate prices and gouge customers?

Why, Senator Phil Gramm of Texas, that old and faithful friend of Enron, managed to scuttle it.

Then there's the new farm bill that will give more than $50 billion in new subsidies to the richest and largest farms in America.

And the new energy bill that takes your tax dollars and transfers them to the richest energy companies in the country.

Remember our recent story about how Enron used stock options to avoid paying taxes in four out of the last five years?

Well, even as we talk, the White House and business lobbies, with Democratic Senator Joe Lieberman as their point man, are working to block reform of stock options.

Yes, the rich declared class war and won.

All that's left is for politics to divide up the spoils."

http://www.pbs.org/now/commentary/moyers7.html

The RICH won.
What we are watching now is the Politicians (Democrats & Republicans) splitting up the loot.

"There are forces within the Democratic Party who want us to sound like kinder, gentler Republicans."
---Paul Wellstone

[havocmom]

144. The top tier has always relied on keeping the rest of us at each other's throats

When we stop fighting and notice who has stolen the earth, the top tier is doomed. So they hire a lot of middle managers world leaders to keep us focused on killing each other and they live happily ever after... for generations.

[Bosso 63]

146. A parasite is dependent on it's host to survive, but

if it extracts to much energy from it's host, then the host will die.

I don't know about the rest of you, but I haven't been feeling so well lately.

[ooglymoogly]

147. Yes we are in a class war

and O and Holder are not holding accountable, abject thieves, treasonous bastards and leeches, criminal pugthug money hoarders; Parasitic megalomaniacs all, still on crooked government's dole; Even though we have to beg and borrow to mollify their insatiable greed to own everything including us.

Not held accountable for vast crimes and crippling treasons leading to debilitating and criminal wars;

Crimes so heinous to defy description; Cynically aimed against the interests of this country and its people and its standing in the world for a fist full of dollars, while cowardly cracking down on "we the People" with an ever increasingly militarized jackbooted police force, armed with hair trigger deadly force in the hands of the unstable;

Callously destroying families and far too many peoples lives; Putting youngsters in prison by the truckload, for victimless "crimes" against corporate drug cartels; To bolster the incomes of these same drug corporations and private prisons that belong to these same criminal thugs;

Putting our safety nets(bought and paid for by U and me) into question and up for grabs on the fixed game stock market, where theft of it is guaranteed; The same that stole our 401 K's and pension funds and will do it again when and if they are once again ripe.

There is not much else, left in this country to pillage and plunder, but the trillions in our insurance programs; Our money, protected by law, now covered only by IOU's to keep these thugs rolling in "our" governments, way too easy, forgive and forget policies that are criminal in their own right; Obscene gifts handed meekly over to the richest 5%, without our consent; But with the dumbfounding platitude, "we are looking forward" as an excuse for not prosecuting these same megalomaniacs for the theft and treasons they have so clearly committed to the near collapse of this country.

Are a majority of us really that stupid that we cannot see beyond this propagandist proclamation and lame cover for dangerous and crippling lawlessness for the criminal rich, made rich by the theft of our government? "We are only looking forward", as far as these crimes are concerned. Laughable if not cryable.

Yes we are in class warfare all right and "We are only looking forward" should be our battle cry; And all we have are pitchforks, torches and axes while they have O and Holder to keep us down with pretend legislation and platitudes while getting pug legislation through that ever Herr "*" could not dream of getting through; With a few meatless bones thrown at us, but in the fine print of those bones; Only if we pay through the nose for them plus the exorbitant and unlimited profits for the insurance cartels for providing tha highly trumpeted "largess".


But what we do have; Are vast numbers that they have successfully divided into bickering groups of the uneducated v the educated for the most ignorant misunderstandings and for that very same reason; Lack of education; Education, the enemy of the rich when it applies to those they rob.

But hey, those just may erode as things become more and more untenable and dire for We The People, and then pugthugs beware. Tampering with our sacred Social Security, as O is now doing in secret back room deals; When folks are starving and many cannot feed their families and are facing foreclosures at ever increasing numbers; Are or about to become homeless;

Just may be the straw that broke the camels back and kick folks off their stun gunned and propagandized butts, to get real and into the streets all together, understanding their hurt and damage is far greater than their petty differences of prejudice and shout for, all together, and with frightening anger, justice and the lost "American way".

[Kalun D]

195. GOOD POST

[earth mom]

151. Glad you posted this-but people should know this by now. Especially

since the crooked, rip off of the century, bankster bailout! :grr:

[RoccoR5955]

155. I've been saying that this has been going on for quite some time.

So have friends of mine, like Noam Chomsky!

[femrap]

158. You know something....

I hadn't heard a fucking thing about HRC's W I D E butt and I certainly didn't know anyone was fighting over it. And I could have gone the rest of my life not hearing about it.

You could have kept that off of your list, oinker. You could have just said 'ass' and left the fucking
W I D E part alone.

Why didn't you say 'crooked' weener for Bill? Or short?

Go take a fucking look in your 'oh, thankfully the dudes make $1.00 for every 77 cents for every wide-ass woman (oh, you'd said 'girl') mirror.

You wanna talk class warfare....talk to me about the dude who can't read or write but can lift 50 pounds and as result makes $14/hour at Target and yet the woman who have to deal w/ the front-line customers get only $8.00? Let's talk about THAT CLASS WARFARE!

[liberation]

163. You read that OP and the first thing that came to you was to turn it into a question of misogyny?

How dare you refer to Hillary's backside as "ass?" Are you claiming she is a stubborn farm animal? See, it's easy to play that game, wink wink.

Now, should I assume that you trying to infuse a tangential nonexistent argument of misogyny means that you disagree with the accusations of class warfare put forth in the OP for this thread?

The OP has legitimate issues regarding class warfare, and you have (if you being honest about your concern) legitimate issues with gender equality. Tackling them as if somehow were either/or propositions is not only counter productive, but it plays down perfectly with the whole meme of "divide and conquer" that has put us in this situation.

Your allies may be flawed, but they are much better than your declared enemies. Remember that.

[femrap]

172. It's sexism, you dumb ASS.

You can be a sexist and not hate women. You are aware of that, aren't you?

Go work for 77 cents on the dollar then get back to me.

Now let's look at what Blacks make compared to whites....then you gonna call me a what???

Wake up. Look around you....you've already accepted the 'divide and conquer,' butch. You got yours and fuck the women for not going along with the dudes. Right? Just like the '60's when the liberal dudes told us to make copies and get coffee.

I'm sick of it. Sexism is the last 'ism.' It permeates our culture. Your mind is closed and I don't have the time or inclination to explain it to you.

You're like all the oinkers irl. Too bad I don't have an Ignore button for them as well.

[liberation]

182. OK, so you just wanted to disrupt, Got it.

Given your virulent ad hominems, and plenty of accusations ebb my way with little in the way of evidence for you to make those extrapolations, I take back the benefit of the doubt I gave you regarding the honesty of your concern.

Have a wonderful life, cheers.

[femrap]

186. Listen, dude.

Sexism is alive and well and I fight it daily. If you call that a lie, you have terrible judgment.

I want to open the eyes of so-called liberals and democrats to their sexist thinking. Ever heard of Shirley Chisholm?

You just have to have it YOUR way.

[stevenleser]

183. Can it be possible that you and the OP and LostinVA below all have blinders on?

You all have good points and you all have a right to be upset about the issue most important to you (Class warfare for the OP, Sexism for you, lack of equality for the LGBT community for LostinVA) but you all make it out as if YOUR issue is the most important one and the only one on which we should really be concentrating.

Could the OP be a sexist and bigot? Maybe. But I dont think his awkward and unfortunately worded first paragraph is enough to say that.

[femrap]

188. Steve,

we live in a patriarchy. You have all the rules on your side. You are self-entitled.

Women are OVER half the population and get a rotten deal. Gee, if the dudes had been fighting with us for higher wages and let us join the unions, maybe things wouldn't be as bad as they are today.

'wide butt.' When is the last time you had your ass discussed? Or your complexion? Or your clothing? Or your hair? Or any other minute body part or piece of clothing? When's the last time you were told to take it off?

Go ahead, side with the rich white boyz....after all they got all the money and therefore make the rules. Enjoy.

Yes, we're just stupid women who love working for 77 cents on the dollar for every man....and we have blinders on????? Are you fucking kidding? We are the MAJORITY. We bring you assholes into the world....and get nothing but crap for it.

Go away.

[stevenleser]

201. You missed my point, invented one for me that I didnt make, you made bigoted statements against men

, insulted me, us and went from there.

I realize I am wasting my time attempting to dialogue with someone who does the kinds of things you just did but there is the possibility, however remote, that you might try to read what I actually am writing this time and some of it may sink in.

For your information, my appearance gets discussed quite frequently in one of the job related things I do. All of the above, clothing, hair, ass, stomach, facial features, etc. That happens when you are on TV regardless of sex.

I am neither rich, nor white, nor am I remotely attempting to take sides with either.

Yes, you have blinders on. If you understand what blinders are, it is obvious that you have them. Blinders are put on horses so that they look only in one direction, straight ahead and dont see what is on either side of them. That is what you, the OP and LostinVA have in common, even though the OP is male and an activist for the poor/middle class, you are a woman and an activist for feminism and LostinVA is a member of the LGBT community and an activist for them. You all only see your issue. You see all others as less important and all other disadvantaged and discriminated against classes as less discriminated against than yours and thus less deserving of our attention.

It just so happens that I contribute to groups for and work for the improvement of the situation for all of the above. I'm a member of PFLAG, I contribute to NOW and Planned Parenthood. I advocate for a living wage and unions.

The joke is that you call me entitled. You feel entitled to insult and rage at people for no reason and discount everyone elses issues and contributions. It really didnt matter what I wrote back to you, you were going to rage at me and write the same things as long as I didnt kowtow to you and say, "oh, yes, we shouldnt be spending time on any other issue, womens issues are the only ones that deserve any effort."

And to make matters worse, you lump all men into a single category and make totally prejudiced and bigoted statements. Here you are supposedly advocating for equality and against sexism and you are acting totally sexist. Do you not see how pathetically hypocritical you look?

[femrap]

217. You are sexist....

you are male living in a patriarchy. Come on, didn't you get the memo? Just by being male, you have certain entitlements. I thought all the boyz knew this on some level.

Open your eyes. There are just degrees of sexism. Maybe you're low on the sexist scale...maybe you actually tell the dude to STFU after relating a rape joke. I don't know.

It's true. The Educational System in this country has dumbed down everyone. Sexism used to be discussed and people thought about it...their thoughts, their actions, the way the world works as it does by rewarding some and ignoring others.

Now it's all about DEFENDING one's little world. There is no Critical Thinking anymore. And if you think boyz are physically judged on the same level as girls, you really have a deep-rooted problem of blindness.

Truly, if you are interested in knowing something about Patriarchy and how it forms its people...go read a book on the topic. Read some old Feminism. Just remember, once you open your mind to this, there is no turning back. The Truth will smack you in the face. The world will look different.

Good bye.

[LostinVA]

174. And I noticed "homosexuals," and recognized the insult, because it is an insult

The other poster is right. And, these are things that should eb fought every single day.

I also don't know why Bill Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinsky was brought up, either.

[liberation]

181. "I also don't know why Bill Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinsky was brought up, either. "

Because apparently it is the OP's fault that you missed his or her point completely?

So "homosexuals" is an insult now, good grief.

[SmileyRose]

169. I rest my case

[femrap]

175. I see....

sexism is good. Women can keep their jobs because we work for less. And that's just fine with you, right? It seems you have your own 'divide and conquer.' If the girls don't go along, we're uppity, mouthy, bitchy, and simply deserve to be derided and ridiculed.

Nice.

Just like the '60's. Been there. Done that.

oink, oink. Go defend your boyz and maybe they'll protect and care for you some day. buh bye.

[SmileyRose]

179. Your words your battle

Whatever is it that has upset you, it has nothing to do with anything I have said.

I have no fight with you. I refuse to have a fight with you. I only have enough to me for one fight. Stand with me or not, I don't care.

[femrap]

189. Then stop

contributing to the 'wide butt' crap that we deal with everyday IRL. And then remind me that I make 77 cents on the dollar for every man. (But I'm not being nice to mention that....bad girl, BAD.)

You don't know how sick I am of people judging and ridiculing women's bodies. And I'm sick of my lack of even a pathetic paycheck.

And then tell me I have proven your fucking case.

I wish I didn't care. I wish I weren't here.

[liberation]

159. Divide and Conquer... not just for Romans ;-)

Class warfare implies two sides duking it out, all I see is attacks from the upper classes without much of a counter response by the middle and lower classes. I would not call "warfare" in the same sense that The Holocaust was not a battle but an extermination operation.

[yurbud]

165. yep. rich know they're committing class warfare, the rest of us think we're getting a free shower

and don't notice people exiting in wheelbarrows.

[yurbud]

164. to cut the shit further: are Democrats working to change this or not?

[w4rma]

170. DLCers are working against changing this. Replace them. (nt)

[SmileyRose]

180. Democrat vs Republican is just another distraction.

[Imagevision]

168. This is the way of the USA...

[datasuspect]

171. WHAT in the LIVING FUCK does ANY of this have to do with kim kardashian or 9-11?

really?

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

184. shush!

[Kalun D]

193. Since Time Immemorial

It's always been class warfare. The repugs and dems, the liberal and conservative, it's all largely a false dichotomy. The real war is between the rich and the poor.

the disparity vacillates in about a 50 year cycle, with maximum disparity peak in 2006 and on a plateau now. The disparity also closely follows the upper income tax rates which are very low right now.

[GaltFreeDiet]

197. Damn! I missed the rec window. +396

nt :-)

[Kalun D]

198. Who Is the REAL Enemy Of The Working Class?

Paul Kangas said it best, he was going to write a book when they had him killed.

The Origins of the Overclass

By Steve Kangas

The wealthy have always used many methods to accumulate wealth, but it was not until the mid-1970s that these methods coalesced into a superbly organized, cohesive and efficient machine. After 1975, it became greater than the sum of its parts, a smooth flowing organization of advocacy groups, lobbyists, think tanks, conservative foundations, and PR firms that hurtled the richest 1 percent into the stratosphere.

The origins of this machine, interestingly enough, can be traced back to the CIA. This is not to say the machine is a formal CIA operation, complete with code name and signed documents. (Although such evidence may yet surface — and previously unthinkable domestic operations such as MK-ULTRA, CHAOS and MOCKINGBIRD show this to be a distinct possibility.) But what we do know already indicts the CIA strongly enough. Its principle creators were Irving Kristol, Paul Weyrich, William Simon, Richard Mellon Scaife, Frank Shakespeare, William F. Buckley, Jr., the Rockefeller family, and more. Almost all the machine's creators had CIA backgrounds.

During the 1970s, these men would take the propaganda and operational techniques they had learned in the Cold War and apply them to the Class War...

....The most obvious criticism of the New Overclass is that their political machine is undemocratic. Using subversive techniques once aimed at communists, and with all the money they ever need to succeed, the Overclass undemocratically controls our government, our media, and even a growing part of academia. These institutions in turn allow the Overclass to control the supposedly "free" market. It doesn't win all the time, of course — witness Bill Clinton's impeachment trial — but it does score an endless string of other victories elsewhere, all to the detriment of workers, consumers, women, minorities and the poor. We need to fight it with everything we've got.

[KansDem]

211. Kicking...

...for an important article.

[cliffordu]

213. Kicked.....

I'd rec it if I wasn't too late.

[katty]

218. just like 1929 - only worse

[defendandprotect]

220. kick

[blindpig]

221. The Economic is superior to and drives the Political.

And when we look at the economic power in this country, who has it and who doesn't, our situation makes perfect sense. It is our economic system which mandates the concentration of wealth and the political power that comes with it. It is the delusion of popular political perception that economic and political power are separate but you can believe that the players know better and behave accordingly.

Kill Capitalism

[Just-plain-Kathy]

222. "Error: you can only recommend threads which were started in the past 24 hours"

[lib_wit_it]

225. Too late to R, but here's another kick.

[woo me with science]

226. THIS is the thread that should never die. NT

[maryf]

232. kick nt

[woo me with science]

234. Kick. nt

[maryf]

237. kick nt.

[sendero]

235. It is class warfare...

.. and what the winners don't seem to realize is that by winning they lose. This concentration of wealth makes the functioning of the economy almost impossible.

A person can only consume so much. And the idea that the money the rich have left over is "invested" for the benefit of all is also bullshit, since no investment is useful when there is no demand (willingness and ability to pay for goods and services).

We live in interesting times.