TODAY'S TOPICS: Income Inequality, Obama v. FDR, Molly Ivins!, Rick Perry Extremism, Colbert

Income Inequality and the Daily Show

This is probably the Daily Shows best, and most important segments they’ve ever done because it tackles the most important indicator that we are in the midst of a death spiral here than any other: the extreme inequality in the U.S. We are now on par with African dictatorships…yet when you ask Americans how big that disparity is they are TOTALLY ignorant (this is a product of our media and propaganda Matrix…particularly the right) of it…and when also asked what kind of economy they’d prefer, without knowing it, they want something more akin to Sweden!!!

I write about this inequality ALL THE TIME here…so it should be very familiar to you, but before I get to the OUTSTANDING Daily show clip…here’s some more data on just what a Banana Republic we now live in: 

The Annie E. Casey Foundation found that children have been among those hardest hit by the current economic crisis. The number of children living below the child poverty rate increased 18% nationally between 2000 and 2009, and in California 20% of children are currently living in poverty.  Also in California, 13% of children live in households with at least one unemployed parent and 7% have been affected by foreclosure since 2007. 

In fact, in a new documentary called Making Sense (see clip here), they found that out of 7,000 people distributed around the U.S., with different levels of income, education, wealth, political opinions, 92 percent of the Americans picked Sweden over the U.S. when asked what kind of income distribution they would like to see here…when they broke it by Democrats and Republicans, Democrat, it was 93 percent, Republican, it was 90.5 percent. Again...this is the MATRIX AT WORK.

A few more fun facts, ones I don’t normally use here before you watch the clip…

From 1990 – 2010 costs of living have increased 67%, while wages have stagnated and declined. As the national debt has reached a record $14.6 trillion, total personal debt is now over $16 trillion. Consumer debt is $2.5 trillion. Credit card debt is $805 billion and student debt now exceeds $1 trillion.

Over 250 million Americans, another record-breaking number, are currently living paycheck-to-paycheck struggling to make ends meet.

From David Degraw (notice how we are TRICKED into thinking things aren’t what they ARE!!!): When reporting on inflation, the Bureau of Labor Statistics has twice, since 1980, revised its methodology to mask the severity of inflation, similar to how it masks the severity of unemployment. In its Consumer Price Index (CPI), which measures inflation, it has heavily discounted the measurement weight of energy, food and education – three of the most significant costs for most American households.

To understand the significance of its revised methodology, current “official” CPI is at a 3.6 percent annual rate. However, if calculated the way it was before former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan altered it in 1980, it would be 11.1 percent, three times worse than officially stated.

So while the government and the Federal Reserve claim that inflation is low, at 3.6 percent over the past year, food prices have increased 39 percent and US gas prices have increased 34 percent over the same time frame.

The increase in gas cost over the past year masks the severity of total gas price inflation, which is currently 125 percent more expensive since December 2008, increasing from $1.67 per gallon to $3.75.

As 90 percent of Americans experience income declines, and the value of the dollar declines, the price of necessities are rising, while the one major asset many Americans have, a house, is also declining in value. Already, thanks to declining home values, 28 percent of US homeowners owe more on their mortgages than their home is currently worth. With 10.4 million American families having lost their homes to foreclosure since 2007, Amherst Securities, a leading broker/dealer focused on mortgage-related investments, estimates that another 10.8 million homes are at risk of default over the next six years. This will obviously continue downward pressure on home values.

The dramatic increase in economic inequality and poverty, along with the unprecedented rise in wealth within the top one-tenth of one percent of the population has not happened by mistake. It is the designed result of deliberate governmental and economic policy. It is the result of the richest people in the world, and the “too big to fail” banks, using the campaign finance and lobbying system to buy off politicians who implement policies designed to exploit 99.9 percent of the population for their financial gain. To call what is happening a “financial terrorist attack” on the United States is not using hyperbole; it is the technical term for what is currently occurring.

Now watch the clip entitled “World of Class Warfare - Warren Buffett vs. Wealthy Conservatives"

Sorry...I put in embed code for the videos and it totally messed up all my formatting....so, I posted both videos on the California Progress Report...go there, and its in two parts, and you can maximize the tiny screen. Otherwise, I'm just not going to go back and do it all again today...so the post will look different...but watch these videos!

http://www.californiaprogressreport.com/site/

Rick Perry Extremism… 

I’m not sure I have witnessed as frightening a candidate as Rick Perry come along that actually has a chance to win in my lifetime. In fact, his entire candidacy will serve as a benchmark for our country

As we have seen already, in the past few days Perry has denied evolution, climate change (while claiming a global scientific conspiracy to manipulate data), threatened the Fed Chair with violence (clearly that’s what it was) and treason (granted, Bernanke is a CONSERVATIVE douche…but seriously?), questioned Obama’s “love for America” (back to the birther shit) and made a slew of misstatements.

Of course, this is the same guy that has threatened secession, executed retarded inmates (and vetoed a bill to ban that practice…something EVEN our nut job Supreme Court recommended he sign), covered up his execution of an innocent man (even when the evidence was clear BEFORE he killed the guy), signed a bill that will require women seeking an abortion to have a sonogram beforehand (and force them to look at the baby in the pic), and essentially turned Texas into a corporate free for all with the highest, or near the highest in categories such as toxic releases, pollution, child poverty, poverty in general, minimum wage jobs, lack of health insurance, worst educated, greatest income disparity, and the list goes on and on (see article from my last post for whole list).

Can America actually go back to an intellectually challenged, fundamentalist Christian who thinks God is calling him to run, sociopathic Texas fascist in just 4 years time? We shall see. My gut tells me even our country isn’t that far gone yet…and his record, and all his past statements and transgressions, will do him in…but wow…just to be having this conversation is astonishing.

The GREAT Molly Ivins on Rick Perry

Bush was replaced by his exceedingly Lite Guv Rick Perry, who has really good hair. Governor Goodhair, or the Ken Doll (see, all Texans use nicknames—it's not that odd), is not the sharpest knife in the drawer. But the chair of a major House committee says, "Goodhair is much more engaged as governor than Bush was." As the refrain of the country song goes, "O Please, Dear God, Not Another One."

- Molly Ivins

This, in turn, brings up the interesting role of coincidence in the life of Gov. Goodhair. Last summer, the Guv appointed an Enron executive to the state's Public Utilities Commission and, the next day, Perry got a check for $25,000 from Ken Lay. He explained this, to everyone's satisfaction, as being "totally coincidental."

- Molly Ivins

“The governor of Texas is despicable. Of all the crass pandering, of all the gross political kowtowing to ignorance, we haven't seen anything this rank from Gov. Goodhair since…gee, last fall. Then he was trying to draw attention away from his spectacular failure on public schools by convincing Texans that gay marriage was a horrible threat to us all. Now he's trying to disguise the fact that the schools are in free-fall by proposing that we teach creationism in biology classes.”

-- Molly Ivins

Understanding Obama v. FDR

Now, I realize that the fights on the left over Obama, and what he has and hasn’t done and why, can become counterproductive. Similarly, I want to be clear, and I have written about this many times, that just as I am critical, I’m also KEENLY aware of the nearly impossible situation he was placed in: worst economy since the Great depression, big deficits, the most extreme, obstructionist GOP in history, a right wing media machine hell bent on destroying him, and a corporate media addicted to false equivalencies and horse race, inside the beltway narratives.

I don’t want to be mistaken for someone that ONLY attacks the President and never points out his accomplishments or the incredible challenges he faces. I think I’ve avoided that as much as possible. I am however concerned by what many are calling the “Obamabots,” who, as is an unfortunate human trait, dedicated to the “dear leader”, no matter what he does. Now, for those that argue that by criticizing the President we only help the GOP…I would say one, granted, if this blog was read by millions, I would focus a little less on him, and use less powerful language in attacking him…but this blog isn’t. Also, if we can’t stop the one party out of the two viable parties that's at least partly on the side of the people from totally and completely succumbing to the dark side, where are we left? 

My goal, in part, by continuing to expose him, and make comparisons to past Presidents like FDR, is to demonstrate the slow and steady move rightward in our politics, and why that must be our first priority to stop…not just electing Democrats and/or supporting them. 

But let me just say that CLEARLY the most important focus we must have, or time spent, isn’t on blaming or attacking Obama. Blame for the mess we’re in lies squarely at the feet of a host of other factors from Reagan/Bush to deregulation to Wall street to the democratic party’s corporate shift right to wars to tax cuts to public ignorance to the media and on down the line. As such, these are the focuses we must have, and more importantly, the focus must be on building grassroots movements, electing real progressives and increasing the level of activism and, eventually, civil disobedience. 

But, it is important to provide a counter weight to the media and right wing in defining him (i.e. he’s NO LIBERAL), as well as learn not to make the same mistakes, or choose such candidates, again (not as in voting GOP of course). With that, I want to delve a little deeper into this today…but be sure, I’ll be focusing much more of time and attention on movement politics and policy…than on Obama in coming posts…I think by now, I know exactly what he’s going to do, and why, and wishing or pleading for something different at this point is almost pointless.

The Middle-Middle Man

As I have said, Obama is the diametrical opposite to FDR, who welcomed the hatred of his, and the country’s adversaries, as demonstrated in his second inauguration speech when he said “Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me — and I welcome their hatred.”

Obama on the other hand seems to be dedicated to seeking the praise and acceptance of his (and our) enemies (or captors...kind of like the Stockholm syndrome)…which actually results in being nothing to anyone…and frankly, irrelevant (as he has become).

Consider: He’s for austerity and for public spending, he wants to protect social security from the GOP but also thinks it needs to be cut, he says he’s a fighter but says that compromise is the most important component of leadership, he says he’s pro union but freezes public employee salaries and thinks they need to sacrifice more (while refusing to even bring up the employee free choice act, Wisconsin, Ohio, etc.), he says he cares about climate change but wants more deep sea oil drilling and coal mining, he’s an environmentalist but wants more nuclear power, he wants to protect Medicare and Medicaid yet is seeking to drastically cut them, he wants immigration reform that’s compassionate yet has deported and jailed more Hispanics than any President in history, he’s a constitutional scholar yet has supported the Patriot Act, torture, indefinite detention, warrantless wiretapping, illegal wars, and rendition (among others), he ran on “transformational change” yet always seeks “centrist” solutions with bipartisan support (which do nothing), and the list goes on…and I’m getting nauseous…and confused.

Case and point…just today we find that in Obama’s big September job creation speech, according to the Washington Post, “will also lay out a plan to trim far more from the federal debt than the $1.5 trillion target of a congressional ‘supercommittee.'" Jesus man…you can’t write shit like this…it’s like he has multiple personalities.

Do you think it’s by accident that any one man can simultaneously be considered a socialist (erroneously) AND a corporatist (correctly)? I have NO IDEA what he stands for or what anything he says means anymore…because before he’s even finished making one argument he makes the opposite one right after it. Bill Clinton did this too…but not even he rivals this jellyfish.

On that, in a recent New York Times op-ed, Drew Westen REALLY nails it:

When Barack Obama stepped into the Oval Office, he stepped into a cycle of American history, best exemplified by F.D.R. and his distant cousin, Teddy. After a great technological revolution or a major economic transition, as when America changed from a nation of farmers to an urban industrial one, there is often a period of great concentration of wealth, and with it, a concentration of power in the wealthy. That’s what we saw in 1928, and that’s what we see today. At some point that power is exercised so injudiciously, and the lives of so many become so unbearable, that a period of reform ensues — and a charismatic reformer emerges to lead that renewal. In that sense, Teddy Roosevelt started the cycle of reform his cousin picked up 30 years later, as he began efforts to bust the trusts and regulate the railroads, exercise federal power over the banks and the nation’s food supply, and protect America’s land and wildlife, creating the modern environmental movement. 

Those were the shoes — that was the historic role — that Americans elected Barack Obama to fill. The president is fond of referring to “the arc of history,” paraphrasing the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous statement that “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” But with his deep-seated aversion to conflict and his profound failure to understand bully dynamics — in which conciliation is always the wrong course of action, because bullies perceive it as weakness and just punch harder the next time — he has broken that arc and has likely bent it backward for at least a generation. 

When Dr. King spoke of the great arc bending toward justice, he did not mean that we should wait for it to bend. He exhorted others to put their full weight behind it, and he gave his life speaking with a voice that cut through the blistering force of water cannons and the gnashing teeth of police dogs. He preached the gospel of nonviolence, but he knew that whether a bully hid behind a club or a poll tax, the only effective response was to face the bully down, and to make the bully show his true and repugnant face in public.

IN contrast, when faced with the greatest economic crisis, the greatest levels of economic inequality, and the greatest levels of corporate influence on politics since the Depression, Barack Obama stared into the eyes of history and chose to avert his gaze. Instead of indicting the people whose recklessness wrecked the economy, he put them in charge of it. He never explained that decision to the public — a failure in storytelling as extraordinary as the failure in judgment behind it. Had the president chosen to bend the arc of history, he would have told the public the story of the destruction wrought by the dismantling of the New Deal regulations that had protected them for more than half a century. He would have offered them a counternarrative of how to fix the problem other than the politics of appeasement, one that emphasized creating economic demand and consumer confidence by putting consumers back to work. He would have had to stare down those who had wrecked the economy, and he would have had to tolerate their hatred if not welcome it. But the arc of his temperament just didn’t bend that far. 

The sheer irony that Obama used to talk about the arc of history bending towards justice and the “fierce urgency of now” is nothing less of breathtaking.

Drew Westen sums this dynamic up perfectly, “But the arc of history does not bend toward justice through capitulation cast as compromise. It does not bend when 400 people control more of the wealth than 150 million of their fellow Americans. It does not bend when the average middle-class family has seen its income stagnate over the last 30 years while the richest 1 percent has seen its income rise astronomically. It does not bend when we cut the fixed incomes of our parents and grandparents so hedge fund managers can keep their 15 percent tax rates. It does not bend when only one side in negotiations between workers and their bosses is allowed representation. And it does not bend when, as political scientists have shown, it is not public opinion but the opinions of the wealthy that predict the votes of the Senate. The arc of history can bend only so far before it breaks.”

You can read the whole article here.

Again, I realize how hard it is to accomplish anything in this current environment…I also realize that words alone aren’t enough to change minds immediately, or get the votes necessary. What I’m talking about is the longterm battle in changing hearts and minds…as Reagan and the right understood, and has waged, for three decades now. You don’t think that there constant messaging and efforts aren’t directly responsible for creating this crisis we’re in? Hasn’t deeply infected the minds of the public?

VIDEO SECTION

Bernie Sanders speaks at the United Steelworkers convention!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wXYNbhl1DjU&feature=uploademail

Daily Show on Rick Perry’s already long list of controversial (and idiotic) comments since joining the race:

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/scarce/daily-show-rick-perry-america-has-petty-mou

This could get good…Murdoch hacking scandal keeps moving up the ladder…

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/new-explosive-evidence-news-world-scandal

New Study…Teabaggers are just GOP Christian extremists…DUH!!!! How long have we been saying this on the left??? They also tend to be white, racist, anti-immigrant, and as I said, RELIGIOUS! Yet, the media has continued to talk about them as if they’re fucking non-partisan and grassroots!!! Joan Walsh: It's the GOP's white conservative base in silly costumes. Why couldn't the media figure that out sooner? Scholar Robert Putnam, best known for his study of American atomization in "Bowling Alone," has produced new data on the Tea Party and it's being billed as a shocker. Sit down before you read this: They are older, white conservative Christians "who were highly partisan Republicans long before the Tea Party was born." 

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/chris-matthews-finally-admits-tea-pary-just

From Democracy Now -- Ex-Evangelical Denounces Michele Bachmann & Calls Christian Reconstructionist Politics "Anti-American":

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/frank-schaeffer-denounces-michele-bachmann

Colbert Satirizes 'Money as Speech' with a Word Cloud

http://crooksandliars.com/tina-dupuy/colberts-satirizes-money-speech-word-cl

ARTICLE SECTION

Governor Supercuts" for President?, By Jim Hightower

A FEW CLIPS:

If the fawning reporters had any real journalistic curiosity about what kind of national "leader" this guy would be, they could have slipped away on that same day to the city's convention center. There, 100,000 Houstonians gathered in bleak testimony to his gubernatorial leadership. They were some of Houston's many low-income children and parents who're struggling to make ends meet in Perry's hard-scrabble Texas economy.


These needy families had come to a citywide, back-to-school event where backpacks, school supplies, uniforms, haircut vouchers, immunizations and bags of food were being provided by the school district. Officials expected 25,000 to show up, but four times that number came. Some families camped out for hours before the doors opened, and many were turned away as supplies were exhausted by 10 a.m. "It shows the need," observed a solemn school spokesman.

SNIP

With Perry, you get the two basic political strains of today's Republican Party in one suit. On the one hand, he has carefully posed himself in the past couple of years as the farthest out of Tea Party Republican's far-out right-wingers. Think Michele Bachman with better hair: Perry called the BP oil disaster an "act of God." His response to the drought that's devastating Texas was to pray for rain (God did not oblige). He's a "tenther" who angrily asserted state's rights to nullify Obama's "socialist" schemes

http://www.truth-out.org/governor-supercuts-president/1313601078

The Biggest Little Hypocrite in Texas, by Robert Scheer

A FEW CLIPS:

To begin with, Texas is not and never will be a model for the nation unless the other states discover similarly rich deposits of oil and natural gas that account for one-third of jobs and supply 40 percent of tax revenues within those states. If Texas energy receipts and jobs helped float Gov. Bush’s reputation, they have been nothing short of miraculous for Perry’s tenure. The price of oil rose from $25 a barrel when Lt. Gov. Perry replaced the newly elected President Bush to $147 in 2008 and has stayed at more than $80 a barrel since, to the dismay of anyone who has to buy gasoline.

In addition, thanks to breakthroughs in oil field technology that Perry had nothing to do with, there have been controversial new drilling techniques that have vastly expanded the exploitation of gas and oil reserves, producing many of the new jobs that the Texas governor claims. For a relatively ineffectual governor, in a state in which the part-time Legislature holds the power, to take credit for this job boom is as ludicrous as a Saudi prince bragging of his entrepreneurial skills as the source of royal wealth.

SNIP

There is, however, something very important in the Texas experience that could serve as a model for the nation, and that is the state’s success in avoiding the worst effects of the housing crash. Texas has not suffered anything like the crushing foreclosure crisis that is the main source of joblessness in states from Florida to California. But Perry surely will not dwell on the reasons for Texas having escaped that fate, because his mantra of less government regulation doesn’t work in this instance. If lax environmental and zoning codes were the secret, neighboring Arizona and Nevada would not be the housing basket cases that they are. The difference for Texas is one that most free-market conservatives ignore: It was precisely the tight government regulation of the housing market that spared Texas a similar fate.

From the first days of statehood in 1845, Texas has maintained the strictest laws on home mortgages in the nation. The Texas constitution’s blanket ban on home equity loans, born of outrage over previous land grabs by banks, has been eased substantially over the years, but a firm commitment that the total amount in loans on a house not exceed 80 percent of appraised value, and other consumer-friendly restrictions on mortgage lenders, saved Texas from the home mortgage disaster visited upon many other states.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/08/17