continues.

Add climate change to this, and only the chosen people serving the 1% will survive.

I've been at the bottom for years and managed to keep just ahead of the rising waters...how many people weren't as lucky as me?

They have been feeding us cake too long. Their time is coming soon.

Things are bubbling up all over. Wealthy politicians making decisions for an enormous group of people with whom they have no contact, and with whom they are completely out of touch. It's not just the USA. The wealthiest 300 people in the world control the same amount of wealth as the poorest 3billion.

I think things are going to get nasty in the next 10 years or so... they'll get a lot worse before they get better.

night. It's unforgivable in a nation that is spending trillions on weapons to kill people with, supposedly for our 'security'. I know, without mincing words, that this is NOT for anyone's security, it is all about money.

These people who are hoarding all this money, have some serious problems. And we allowed these hugely disturbed people to take over this country.

happen until poor people start voting and vote for their economic interests.

What policies are being offered by politicians that would address their 'economic interests?'

worse. And Obama has the audacity to appoint Penny Pritzker.

I used to believe that too.

It's a lie. The only candidates we are allowed to "vote" for are liars. If it weren't so, this Nation would have turned around 4 years ago, instead, we are still circling the bowl.

They got theirs, and they don't give a shit about the rest of us. Period.

Its 10x better to signal affirmatively that the establishment cannot claim democratic legitimacy... this is especially the case when politicians try to implement economic warfare and police state tactics against most of their so-called "constituents".

I didn't say not to vote, I simply meant that it's foolhardy to expect change from it. It's almost impossible to find an honest politician, ESPECIALLY on the red and blue teams. They lie like fish swim and the ones that don't, are stifled by the power brokers that really pull their strings.

I had huge hope in 2008. Now? Don't get me started.

So yes, I will likely either vote 3rd party or write in next go around, because I have zero hope that EITHER major party will have an decent, honest, non-corporate candidate to choose from. Instead, it will be just another smooth talking corporate fraud, pretending to be "of the people" from the Dems, and another complete asshole from the Repubs. None for me, thanks.

My take is: Exposing the illegitimacy of the system may be the first step to changing it.

Most downtrodden people don't consider strategies like this, however. I hate to say it, but until this year most preferred to devote their minds to entertainment; Hollywood is in the business of hypnotizing sheep with superhero stories and computer graphics.

In my op scan voting precinct.

Maybe write-in anyway (the vote isn't necessarily supposed to have any immediate electoral impact; but enough 'improper' write-ins would show up as a protest at least).

Nobody sees those ballots. Just an op scan machine. Nobody cares what you might write. Seems a pretty ineffective way to make a statement.

...and vote tallies. There's also a decent chance it will show up in exit polling.

disenfranchised by one trick or three, key elections are stolen. Often the choice is between two corporate choices like Clinton and Christie. Dont blame the poor people.

nt

slightest, but do you have a source for the claim that '1 in six US children go to bed hungry every night'? That's far more severe than the statistic I've heard most recently, which is that 1 in 5 U.S. children experiences at least one episode of food insecurity per month. I do not have a source readilly at hand for my claim either, but it is less severe than what you claim.

I'm not saying you're wrong, more like I may not be fully up to speed on how severe the problem truly is.

maintain decent lives on. If society continues on the bimodal track of 15% of the population doing well, with the top of the group doing well beyond reason, one day that 15% will fear for their lives with no recourse but to give up all they own to stay alive. The dynamic of wealth distribution is not only happening in the USA, but all industrialized countries except in countries that are social-democracies.

Yeah, just keep worshipping laissez-fail Economics as gospel. Maybe we just need to give it more time . . let's continue this great experiment until we see tangible benefits. Sure.

The owners are dead wrong. We all know perfectly well how this "system" works . .. and who it works FOR.

"Just in Time" scheduling saves money for big retailers and fast food joints.

Workers have to be available all hours, but may only be called into work for 2 hours one day, or 9 hours, or no hours, without any regular schedule. This makes it impossible to get multiple jobs. But hey - it saves money for these giant corporations, so they can give more profits to their CEOs.

Google "Home Depot Values" and you'll find their Eight Core Values. Number five is Creating Shareholder Value. It should be number one because in any decision, if you can benefit either the shareholder or someone else, the shareholder comes first.

Most Fortune 500 companies feel the same way.

They admonish the working poor & tell them to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. This is what you're supposed to do, get multiple jobs so every waking hour is spent serving some corporation's bottom line. Bush chortled that working three jobs was 'uniquely American,' then they do this.

Yeah, it's THAT bad.

and telling them how rosy your view is.

Life is grand when you can approve trillions for war, surveillance, torture and send kids to bed hungry at night. Or when you can redecorate your house from top to bottom while the bank steals working-class Jack's home and pension.

Rec'd for your wonderful, conscientious post.

This is the most shameless of all. Companies used to compete with other companies for the benefits of higher pay and profits for CEOs and employees. Now, companies are cannibals. The CEOs compete with the ordinary employee to get what they think they are entitled to. The increase in CEO pay comes out of the pockets of employees, not from competition in the marketplace.

Which is to say their concept of "free market competition" is all bullshit.

"The "poverty line" as currently determined is out of date and woefully underestimates poverty."

...link is to a 2006 article. Still, the data is the same data used to make the claim I was addressing.

Also, from the second link you provided:

If someone has to work 3 jobs just to pay basic bills, then they are in poverty.

The Federal 'poverty line' is woefully unrealistic.

..... are really doing well,
and have a bright future if they just keep voting for MORE "Free Trade", "Free Markets", and Market Based "Private" For Profit Big Business solutions.
They have "facts" to prove it from [font color=blue]Whitehouse.gov[/font]

The Pundits, Party Spokesmen, Talking Heads, Chamber of Commerce, and Centrist Big Business Democrats tell me that there is a NEW God,
but I can't see him because he is a Giant, All Powerful, Invisible Hand,
and when the private market makes a mistake,
this Giant Invisible Hand reaches down from the heavens,
[font size=3]and CORRECTS the Market ALL BY HIMSELF!!![/font]
There is No NEED for Regulations or Government Intervention to Keep things Fair.
In fact, THAT only makes things WORSE.
The Invisible Hand Knows ALL, and works BEST all by himself,
so we have to be careful NOT to interfere,
or it will Piss Him Off.

Thats WHY our Leadership is working on another BIG "Free Trade" Deal,
[font size=1]but Shhhhhh! He wants to keep it a SECRET so everybody will be surprised,
and the Invisible Hand will be happy!!!
So don't tell anyone.[/font]

Does that sound "funny" to you?
I have a lot of trouble with this Invisible Hand thing.
We've been doing that for 30 years now,
Democrat & Republican,
and it doesn't seem to be getting any better.


Anyway, here is a picture of the altar in this New Church where all of our Political Leaders, Democrat & Republican, all go to worship.

[font size=4]The Graven Image on the altar
of the Church of the Invisible Hand.[/font]

The whole notion that the 'recovery' has been good for any class beyond the top 10% is laughable.

The capitalist classes have bamboozled and stole their way to the top and in order to stay there they have to take more and more.
They are parasites on society. The world needs a good regimen of decon to clear them up.

They would work you like a dog until you fell over and died, if they could get away with it so you have to remember, there is POWER in a Union.

I freelance for a publishing company and I got an e-mail saying that it is outsourcing its composition services to a consulting group, with "future business changes" coming. (Words that do NOT warm the cockles of my heart.) The work had pretty much dried up and I've gotten virtual radio silence from my contact person there. Now I know why. But the ironic thing is, just yesterday someone not with the company told me that they had let most of their editors go.

I count on the freelance gig to tide me over for when I'm on hiatus from my temporary full-time job, that just ended yesterday. I won't go back to that until October.

I honestly don't know what the fuck it is going to take for people to wake up and see what's happening. Anywhere else, and people would be taking to the streets to protest this continual rape of the middle and lower classes.

Meanwhile, I'm .

many people suffering and no one is helping them.

We started there at about the same time; I left to freelance because of family considerations.

I so much want to drop him an e-mail, but a part of me is so afraid it will bounce back, or I'll get a robo-response of some kind telling me he's no longer there.

He is also older than me (I'll be 53 in a few days) so you tell me what he's going to do now if indeed he did get laid off.

But I am extremely pissed at the company for not giving any kind of heads-up about the shape it's in. I only found out about this by chance earlier this week when someone (outside the company) said she heard they had let most of their editorial staff go. This was news to me, although I had been finding it odd that I had not heard from anyone. I later found a story on another website from March that detailed how they were restructuring and that their losses were substantial. Then, the e-mail, that confirmed all of the above. I wish I had known all this about three months ago. The utter disrespect that companies show employees of every kind is just as infuriating as the poor treatment we get.

Here's some more on the topic:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023334013


http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/17774-how-low-can-your-salary-go-117-alec-bills-in-2013-fuel-race-to-the-bottom#.UfBb4dRdNBI.email



At least 117 bills introduced in 2013 fuel a "race to the bottom" in wages, benefits, and worker rights and resemble "model" bills from the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), according to a new analysis by the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD), publishers of ALECexposed.org

As working Americans speak out for higher wages, better benefits, and respect in the workplace, a coordinated, nationwide campaign to silence them is mounting -- and ALEC is at the heart of it. ALEC corporations, right-wing think tanks, and monied interests like the Koch brothers are pushing legislation throughout the country designed to drive down wages; limit health care, pensions, and other benefits; and cripple working families' participation in the political and legislative process.

ALEC has pushed an anti-worker agenda since at least 1979, when it began striking out against "forced unionism" and for a "right to work," says a 1998 ALEC document. This "right to work" agenda does not create jobs or job security, but it does tilt the playing field against workers to give corporations more profits -- and CEOs more power -- in the workplace and in the political arena.




Harold Schaitberger, General President of the International Association of Fire Fighters, put it best when he told CMD, "The sole purpose of ALEC has been to develop the most anti-middle class, pro-corporation policies, legislation, and agenda in history. They've been waiting for just the right moment to reverse the progress of the American middle class and drive everyone to the bottom, to the lowest wages, the weakest benefits, no job security, and no retirement to speak of. We may not have the billions of dollars of the Koch brothers. But we have each other and we must stick together and fight ALEC's cynical and un-American agenda."



At the bottom of the link is a list of "workers rights" bills on a state by state basis. Why don't we try this: Let's post the below links to our state group (here on DU) to try to raise awareness and get some momentum behind getting rid of ALEC on a state by state basis.

Here's a list of worker rights, education, and tort reform bills being pushed by ALEC in each state.

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_2013_Bills


Here is The Center for Media and Democracy's "ALEC Exposed" site.

http://www.alecexposed.org/wiki/ALEC_Exposed


Let's try to raise awareness about who we need to fight against in our home states.

(Disclaimer: I live in a "right to work" state.)

I have pursued teacher certification over the past four + years, and have been un- or under-employed for most of that time. I now have a low wage job in an unrelated field (with ethical and trustworthy people!), and could do significant volunteer work as a math tutor.

Not a single, solitary school district will take me up on my offer!!!

WTF!?! Is this truly the kind of nation we want for our children?!?

'Nuff said.

Expendable income gets invested, with returns increasing based on keeping costs down. Hence, an even greater divide.

for this post. It can't be repeated enough!



-p

That would be a futile gesture.
Who are you going to shoot?

We HAVE the answer.
Our neighbors in Latin America have goven us a successful Blue Print for "CHANGE". They have successfully wrested THEIR governments from the hands of their 1% in near bloodless Ballot Box Revolutions.
They had one advantage we do NOT have in the USA.
They had Transparent, Verifiable, Elections,
so we will have to do something about our "private" "secret" Black Box Voting Machines.


When our Working Class & Poor realize WE have MORE in common with each other
than we have in common with the 1% Ruling Class Elite and their Mouth Pieces
in Washington,
THEN we can have "change" too.
As long as "they" can keep us fighting each other,
then the Status Quo will prevail.

Spread the Word.
VIVA Democracy!!!
We outnumber then.

The Ted Ralls of the world seem to think that unless mass executions take place, there is no progress. He castigated the Egyptians for not being violent enough.

Nonviolence as an absolute may not be effective, but if Violence made the world a better place, well,the world would BE a lot better place. Action of the masses alone works, and pistols going off can scare people as well as unite them, especially since they know they can be next.

that is the best, immediate step that should be taken.

Corporations are desperately trying to make the minimum wage the standard wage. Unless Congress is willing to make the minimum wage competitive with union wages, let's say $18 or $19 an hour the minimum wage will never fix the problem. We need Congress to adopt a living wage, not a minimum wage. $11 an hour will not pay for the skyrocketing cost of rent, groceries, gas, electricity, clothes, education and every other cost of living that far outpaces income raises.

but that is what it would be had it kept up with inflation since I was born in 1968, so it is a number I picked. also, I live in Texas - a right to work (for shit) state with no state minimum wage and raising it to 11 bucks here would be a significant increase for a lot of people. but shit yeah, 18 -19 bucks is even better. and businesses could afford it, they just don't want to pay it.

This is a very true statement. It does not matter if the minimum wage is 25$/hour. Everyone except executives and upper echelon will be minimum wage. Inflation will skyrocket to adjust everyone to pay-check to pay-check living standards.

I don't think it was much & I don't know how far it would go in that time, but can you believe it? A republican?

I think government should provide the following for everyone:

3 hots & a cot
health care
education through college
child care/elder care
public transportation everywhere

We could do this. We are not broke, contrary to what they tell us. We have many untapped revenue streams, but until we actually start to value people over money, nothing will change.

Nothing will change.

All the increases in income will amount to nothing if businesses (mainly apartment owners) just jack up their rates. I'd also put price controls on health-care and college education, two areas where they are raking in profits because of people fearful of saying no - those sectors of the economy are anything but a "free market."

workers and be ahead of the game since they not only save on wages, they also save on benefits.

Thanks for posting.

for your continued activism.

(Hope your garden is producing lots of good stuff!)

It wasn't like this 50 years ago. It was the trickle down economics that got us here. It didn't seem that hard to implement. Why is it so damn hard to get rid of?

Thanks.

nt

poor and middle class Social Security recipients with Chained CPI.

Keep the Greatest page great.