Do You Agree with the President?
Today the first few paragraphs from a very interesting article found in Rolling Stone magazine:
The nation is still recovering from a crushing recession that sent unemployment hovering above nine percent for two straight years. The president, mindful of soaring deficits, is pushing bold action to shore up the nation's balance sheet. Cloaking himself in the language of class warfare, he calls on a hostile Congress to end wasteful tax breaks for the rich. "We're going to close the unproductive tax loopholes that allow some of the truly wealthy to avoid paying their fair share," he thunders to a crowd in Georgia. Such tax loopholes, he adds, "sometimes made it possible for millionaires to pay nothing, while a bus driver was paying 10 percent of his salary – and that's crazy."
Preacherlike, the president draws the crowd into a call-and-response. "Do you think the millionaire ought to pay more in taxes than the bus driver," he demands, "or less?"
The crowd, sounding every bit like the protesters from Occupy Wall Street, roars back: "MORE!"
The year was 1985. The president was Ronald Reagan.
Read the full article here: If you are a Republican you are required to read it; for everyone else it is merely informative and at times fun.For those who sympathize but don't understand why someone would volunteer to be arrested, read this account of one woman's experience at Occupy Oakland. Then pull out an old blanket or two and take them down to your local Occupy encampment, winter is coming.
[Private/Public note to one of my very best friends on the planet - stop skipping over the links I post here, you need to read them.]
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art and primary article from Rolling Stone Magazine
Occupy Rant - 11/16
Dutifully we walk our newly awakened friend through the Occupy saga. If they are a conservative acquaintance this comes with a big dose of dispelling the rumors and lies they have gleaned from Fox News or Ann Coultier. If you get your information via Rush Limbaugh, I simply ask you to lose my email address and crawl back in your cave, some people really are too stupid to live.
Yes, I am a bit annoyed today.
I saw Tom Brokaw on Charlie Rose last week and when he was asked about Occupy Wall Street he said all the right things but ended with "what is their end game?" There it is. A seasoned and rational news anchor with over 40 years experience, too damn lazy to take an hour to figure out a grassroots movement that is transforming the entire Middle East and is now prepared to change America and most of the Western world.
Take some responsibility. Educate yourself!
First step, you're already here, I have been writing about Occupy for over six weeks - Read My Blog! Then send the link to a friend.
Next, get yourself a twitter account, it takes two minutes to set up. Follow the posts from #Occupy #OccupyWallStreet and #Occupy_Together plus your local Occupy protest group, they are simple to find. Fresh new articles and reports will be linked in the twitter posts and you will have plenty to read to answer your burning question: What is this all about?
But wait! Why can't I just tell you? Well, it's complicated. This is a big country and an even bigger world. It's all tied together in a even more complex economic system. But you want the short, dirty, nasty version - here goes:
You are a victim. You are a victim of an economic system that has been rigged for you to fail. The unchecked greed of a small segment of our country has conspired with the government to hoard so much of the nation's wealth that they nearly collapsed the entire world's economy a couple of years ago. We, all of us, bailed their butts out and now they are preparing to do it again. "Our government" has been so corrupted by corporate money and the lobbies of big business that it will not regulate them to prevent another crisis. Europe is on the verge of an economic collapse which will be followed by civil unrest and riots. The rule of law will break down and the entire planet could well be plunged into a depression that will last for decades. Indeed, there will not be a full recovery within any of our lifetimes.
Think this is paranoia. You need to pay attention. The U.S. Congress is about to miss it's own mandated "Super Committee" budget cutting deadline and yet they will do nothing about the federal deficit for another year and a half. The Republicans are intentionally doing nothing to support economic recovery because they can use the bad news to defeat Obama. On the other side, Obama is a talking head with sweet words and no clue how to actually do anything to control the vicious greed of Wall Street. The suits on Wall Street and the CEOs in the corporate boardrooms continue to drain money and jobs from our economy yet Congress will not pass any regulations to prevent what happened just three years ago from happening again.
The Occupy Movement wants to force the government to respond to the extreme prejudice the American economy gives to corporations and the super wealthy. The word is "force" not "ask" not even "demand." For now the Occupy Movement is attempting to use non-violent tactics to force the government to act. How long that will hold is anyone's guess.
Once again, the whole world is watching. This time they are also hoping and praying that the United States of American gets it right because if we don't, if this economy collapses, there will be no place on earth that will not follow us down the black hole.
That's what Occupy is about - Care to join us?
Us vs. Them
Even using non-violent tactics against the establishment does not mean that thoughtful, liberal politicians will not respond with violence. Mayor Quan of Oakland admitted in an interview with the BBC that she had participated in "a conference call with 18 other cities" on how to end the Occupy encampments.
If you think these local city mayors are not taking orders from higher up the political machine chain, you just don't follow American politics closely enough. But here's the point - all these attacks do is give fuel to those small number in the protests who want to be violent. Throw one of us to the lions and three more step forward and one of those is not a non-violence player.
This is going to get more and more ugly. More arrests, more injuries and eventually there will be deaths. The police will resort to murder in defense of America's parks. But, of course, this has nothing to do with tents or parks or any physical aspect of Occupy. "They" are afraid we might succeed and their rape of the American and World economies will be stopped. It is all about money, power and greed. Those with all the stolen riches are scared and they are sending their minions to stop us.
They will not.
Today's Read
"Those who think that the cold weather will end the protests should think again. A new generation of leaders is just getting started. The new progressive age has begun."
Yes, today's must read comes from the New York Times, so my conservative readers will know it must be left wing propaganda. But give it a read anyway, you might find as others have that we share a lot more in common these days than ever before in our lifetimes. The article has a historical bent about how we got into economic troubles in the past and how we dug ourselves out.
The article is called The New Progressive Movement
Remember I read all of the articles you send me, so you owe yourself this one.
Questions for a Conservative Friend
Dear Alex,
Please help me understand your position, I really do want to understand. I enjoy our back and forth politically charged emails. But if you don't mind, I would like to get serious for a moment and ask you to explain to me why you still hold the economic beliefs you do.
Four years ago when you activated your retirement plan you bought that great place in Arizona and put your St. Paul house on the market. I know that had been your retirement plan since early in the 90s when you refinanced the Minnesota home, consolidated your debt and started your business. I understand that was a 15 plan you had that was both well thought out and financially viable. You didn't take some crazy negative amortization refinance loan, you got a solid 30 yr. fixed rate and took the extra cash out of your house to start your business. The plan was to sell that house and put the equity into the Arizona place so you could retire without a mortgage.
Now, however, you have two houses, two mortgages and thankfully a long-term tenant in the St. Paul place. But both properties are underwater, even that beautiful St. Paul house is worth less than the mortgage you refinanced nearly 18 years ago. You didn't take a loan you weren't qualified for, you always paid on time and I know you would never walk away from either property. As you have said many times - a mortgage is a contract and you honor your debts.
Someone(s) clearly screwed with the real estate market.
Then there is your retirement. You sold your business for a nice chunk of cash and a ten year payout based on the profitability of the business. But the economic collapse means that business has done poorly under new ownership. I know you have been advising the young guy who bought it and I know he is working his butt off to stay in business, but as a consequence of the double down economy your retirement nest egg is producing almost no income for you. You started taking social security even though your well thought out retirement plan was to wait to do that until you were 70.
Someone(s), perhaps the same someone(s), screwed with the economy.
So here are my questions. You worked hard, made a solid financial plan and the bottom fell out. But you are a smart guy, you know why this happened, you know who got rich, yet you still support them.
Alex, you are not one of the 0.1% who got richer in the financial collapse. You aren't one of the 1% or even the 10%; you are a middle class guy who did everything right and then got screwed by a system rigged to make other people rich at your expense. So why do you still support them?
Why do you oppose taxing the uber-wealthy? You aren't one of them and never will be. You know they stole your retirement and everything you worked years for. You have kids, you know how they are suffering because of the greed of Wall Street, yet you still act like corporate America is honest, straight forward and has your best interest at heart. You are too damn smart to actually believe that, so why not start acting and thinking in your own best interest?
To get your retirement plan, your life plan, back on track the financial corporations, banks and yes, Wall Street have to be brought under control. The unregulated free market screwed you and you are not the type of guy to just take something like that lying down. So, yes your dyed in the wool republican ethic got you where you were three or four years ago, but those ideas no longer serve you. So my question is:
Why not change?
Vote Obama? Hell no! That's just a different sleeping pill.
Support Occupy. Join the millions of Americans who have been screwed over my a non-responsive government that has clearly been bought and paid for my corporate America. Get this country and your retirement plan back on track. Stand Up! Speak Up! Don't let the olde right vs. left noize get in your way. Keeping us quiet is what the rich need. Making those Occupy camps go away is exactly what the rich want and they are paying their politicians to do exactly that. So I ask again:
Why not change? Why not act in your own self interest? You worked for your piece of the American Dream, why aren't you pissed at the people who stole it?
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